“And how did this ruin your life?”
Ridpath took a deep breath and a long swig of beer.
“I was investigating him. Once. This was two years ago. I wasn’t always doing my current job. I was head of International Liaison. That was the capacity in which I met him.”
“You met him?”
“I interviewed him. As far as I know I’m the only UK officer to have done so, maybe the only European one. He visited London for a weekend in spring 2007 and I was told to pay a discreet visit. We met at a hotel. It was an interview of sorts, one I’ll never forget, though I’m not sure who was interviewing who. Nothing came of it. Then, two months later, I was suddenly tasked with coordinating his arrest on tax evasion and theft charges. He was flying into City Airport on a private jet and I had forty men in place. That took a fortnight of planning. Devereux landed at Biggin Hill instead. He sent a decoy to City Airport—a team of gymnasts. The charges were dropped a week later. I don’t know why, but I have a few guesses and most of them have zeros on the end. Subsequent to that episode, I was moved from the department. Sideways they call it. There’s no such thing as sideways. I got a card from Devereux saying good luck in your new job.”
“What was he like?”
“Apart from a bastard? The most oddly charming person you’ll ever meet. I remember that he spoke in an incredibly measured way, never raising his voice—and he’d meet your eyes and appear interested in all you had to say in turn. Because he was interested, you see. He thought he could profit out of everyone he met. But he revealed nothing of himself. You only realised this afterwards. It felt as if you might not have really met him at all.” The inspector paused, as if still wondering. “Then, two weeks ago, I heard he was here again. I wanted to know what was going on.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing. So I knew he’d arrived.”
Belsey saw the inspector more clearly now. All detectives know that you can fall into an investigation and get stuck. Sometimes, out of nowhere, a case you didn’t even think you were that invested in starts spreading its tendrils—into your home, your bed, your dreams. At police training college, before every exercise, one of the instructors liked to say: When you’ve finished, stop. It was his only joke, and the best advice Belsey received.
“Ever thought of getting your revenge?” Belsey asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Cutting his throat, maybe?”
Ridpath levelled a stare. “Are you suggesting I’m involved in Mr. Devereux’s death?”
“I haven’t. But I could, I suppose.”
“I’m a police officer.” Belsey laughed. Ridpath said under his breath: “I’m not like you.”
“What’s that meant to mean?”
“What would you call it? Bold?”
“We see bad people get away. That’s frustrating.”
“If they get away it’s because we haven’t built our cases properly.” Ridpath sat up straight. “He lost me my job. I’m not going to have him lose me my freedom and my dignity. That’s not my idea of justice.”
“Got an alibi?”
“Look—”
“Relax. I’m not serious.”
But the inspector was fired up now. A red flush spread from his throat to his cheeks.
“What were you doing there? What the hell were you doing in his house, Detective Constable? On the floor. With vodka. Explain that.”
“Maybe I’m on an investigation of my own,” Belsey said. Ridpath snorted. Belsey persevered. “What was Devereux up to in London?”
“I never got the chance to find out.”
“This wasn’t just exile,” Belsey said. “He came over with a plan.”
“He always said he loved England, the English countryside.”
“Sure, the sense of humour.”
“The sense of humour, the political freedom.”
“He wasn’t here for the sense of humour. He’s just over, moved in, barely back from IKEA when he’s hustling. He’s been cosying up with the Corporation of London who seem to like the idea of a new billionaire friend. He came to London for a reason. I think he might have come to Hampstead for a reason.”
Belsey saw a reluctant admission of curiosity in Ridpath’s eyes. Now they were doing business.
“I think you’re right,” Ridpath said.
“How slippery was Devereux?”
“He was clever. But he was a man of his word.” Ridpath conceded this reluctantly.
“That’s what they all say.”
“He told me he was a man of his word and that was why he used so few of them. He had a personal code of conduct. That’s what set him apart from the rest.”
“Devereux met a man called Pierce Buckingham at a club called Les Ambassadeurs the week before last,” Belsey said. “It was Buckingham’s haunt but Devereux gets membership. In fact he’s there with a couple of girls, one of whom he passes on to Buckingham while they celebrate a new business opportunity. Over the next few days Buckingham raises a lot of money for Devereux. Buckingham’s a middleman, he runs between investors with bad names and investments with good margins.”
“Devereux had certain principles. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t sharp. He didn’t let opportunities slip.”
“It looks to me as if he might have made them up himself.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t mean in an entrepreneurial way. I mean pluck them out of thin air. I mean persuade people to invest in projects that weren’t as solid as they sounded.”
Ridpath considered this, before shrugging noncommittally.
“That’s not the Alexei Devereux I knew. You seem to have got an idea into your head. OK, you’re not the first to come up with theories about Alexei Devereux.”
“Pierce Buckingham’s on a slab now. So is one of the girls there that night, Devereux’s one. She’s called Jessica Holden. You’ve heard of her.”
“The Starbucks girl.”
“That’s what they’re putting on the headstone. Know of a firm called PS Security?”
“I knew Chris Starr when he was in Flying Squad.”
“They were keeping an eye on Devereux. My guess is that it was on behalf of some men who were passing a lot of money in the Russian’s direction. Now the money’s gone missing and so has one of their investigators. He was on Devereux’s tail in Hampstead and took some photographs. I spoke to Chris at the agency yesterday. No sign of him or the precious photographs. Something’s gone wrong. The blood around Devereux’s body was from a dog, which makes me think the suicide was either rather elaborate or a fake. Devereux was murdered because of Project Boudicca. It would be useful for me to know what it was.”
“Why would it be useful to you?”
“That’s my business.”
Ridpath digested all this. Belsey could see the cogs turning.
“Gangsters build their reputations on murder. That’s what they are: the threat of violence. Why would they kill Devereux and then pretend it’s a suicide?”
“I don’t know.”
Neither did Ridpath, it seemed. He frowned, picked up his beer bottle without drinking, and after another minute of reverie said: “I don’t know what Project Boudicca is. But something’s still going on now. Something survives him.”
“Like what?”
“Someone’s been messing around with Devereux’s belongings. A toerag called John Cassidy was picked up last night skipping bail in a hire company Porsche Cayenne that was last signed out to a Mr. A. Devereux. I don’t think he knew anything about the car but someone did. That might be the someone who’s signing for Devereux’s plastic—in a souvenir shop in Camden, a chemist’s in East Finchley. All this might be low-level identity theft, but they’ve stolen the wrong identity. And I think they might know more than is good for them.”
This was a moment Belsey had been braced for, only he hadn’t expected it to come from so close. “What have you got on that?” he asked.
“The places thes
e cards are being used, he’ll be on one camera or another.”
“Anything else?”
“Yesterday a man called Max Kovar was still talking to people about an opportunity regarding Devereux, something he said he’d just heard about in the last twenty-four hours.”
Belsey felt a fresh injection of anxiety. But even as the new waves of misgiving rolled over him there was a quiet thrill at hearing of what he had set in motion, a morbid fascination with his predicament.
“How is that possible?” he said.
“It’s as if the idea of Devereux is too powerful to die.”
A couple joined the dance floor. Belsey checked the time. Quarter to three. When he looked up, Ridpath was staring at the fake Rolex. An unpleasant thought occurred to Belsey. Had Ridpath seen the watch on Devereux? It was an eye-catching watch. Belsey had a vision of Ridpath and Devereux—Ridpath interviewing Devereux—in an anonymous hotel room with the watch as the only standout object in the place, Devereux hypnotising him with the watch.
“Very flash,” Ridpath said, still gazing at the dials. “Do you even know what all those things do?”
“I don’t care. I like the weight. It was a present from my father.”
“Good.”
Now Ridpath turned and stared at the dance floor, at the couple, with a passing look of regret. Belsey told himself he was being paranoid about the watch.
“Do you want to dance?” Belsey said.
“I want to leave here.”
“Nowhere else is open.”
“Do you drink whisky?” Ridpath said.
“I’ve heard of it. I don’t mind giving it a try.”
“I think I have a bottle.”
“At yours?”
“I don’t live far.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Keep your enemies close, Belsey thought. Keep them drunk. Ridpath conscientiously left his Volvo on West End Lane and they walked in silence towards Kilburn. A fine rain hung in the air. Sirens passed in the darkness and the two men glanced towards the sound with the half interest of off-duties. They got slowly drenched. They didn’t trouble with small talk.
The inspector lived on the corner of a low, red-brick terrace. His hallway contained a bicycle and a basket of men’s shoes. He led Belsey into a living room and gestured feebly towards a sagging sofa. There was an old TV and a lot of papers—work papers—and books on international finance open around the place. The house smelt of old fabrics and chip fat. Ridpath crouched down to turn on a lamp that sat on the floor. Through a doorway at the end of the room Belsey could see a kitchen that hadn’t been redecorated since the 1970s, a sink crowded with crockery, more papers on the kitchen table. He took a towel from a clothes horse in the corner and dried his hair. Ridpath opened a chest of drawers and produced a bottle of Scotch, half in wrapping paper, from among a china set. He went to get glasses. Belsey picked up the bottle. Stuck to the wrapping paper was a good-luck note from Specialist Crime, Wishing you well, Philip. No such thing as sideways, Belsey thought. Ridpath came back and filled their glasses and sat in an armchair that sank as he lowered himself down.
“I spent a long time wondering what it was that Devereux had,” Ridpath began. “Then I saw it was secrecy itself. That’s what he sells. There are no photographs of him known to exist. He once attended a party in Moscow for five minutes and his minders kept all the guests back until two in the morning, going through their cameras and phones. Secrecy. That’s why you never meet him. He calls it the last resource. When all the oil’s gone we’ll still have our secrets.”
“What are we going to do with them?”
“I don’t know.”
Belsey watched Ridpath. He thought about men with too much time on their hands. The devil finds work for them, but so, it seemed, do the angels of justice. What were Ridpath’s secrets? They drank. Ridpath grimaced.
“Are you meant to have ice with this?” he asked.
“Do you have ice?”
“No.”
“Then I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Ridpath swallowed another few mouthfuls, braced for the burn this time. “Do you know what a great explorer once said? To be having an adventure is a sign of incompetence.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Devereux would never have started this violence. Violence is the failure of crime, that’s what he said to me. Murder is the sign of absolute failure.”
“That’s what he said?”
“It was a maxim of his. He was different.”
They finished their drinks and sat for a while. There was plenty of bottle to go. But Ridpath wasn’t relaxed. Belsey watched him grip the glass. He thought of what the investigator had said and compared this Devereux, the Devereux of Ridpath’s account, to the one whose life he had become acquainted with over the last couple of days.
“I think he’d become a fraudster,” Belsey said. “He was conning people. Something had gone wrong and he wasn’t owning up. That’s how he met his end.”
Belsey felt a vague guilt at puncturing Ridpath’s fantasy of the man. When someone’s ruined your life it’s important to respect them, to feel that whatever’s destroyed you is worthwhile.
“I’m not sure,” Ridpath said.
“I think the whole London thing was a set-up.”
“Why?”
“Did you see all the catalogues at the house?”
“Yes.”
“What do you make of them?”
Ridpath made a show of considering this, although he was too good a detective not to know the answer.
“Someone setting up a front, trying to create the illusion that the house is occupied.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“But it was him.”
“So he’d changed styles.”
Ridpath nodded, already onto the next thought.
“You know what the strangest thing is?”
“What?” Belsey asked.
“The girl.”
“Jessica?”
“Yes.” Just thinking about it gave Ridpath a look of bewilderment. “A relationship. That’s the real change of MO. Falling for her.”
“Even billionaires do that sometimes, I’m told.”
“I guess they must do.” Ridpath leaned back in his chair. Belsey refilled their glasses. Ridpath sniffed his drink and stared into the glass. “I just ask myself: Why that girl?” he said. “Out of all the women he could have had.”
“Because she was no one,” Belsey said. “A teenage escort. She was a blank slate. Maybe he could pretend he was young again. Maybe he felt he was. No one ever denied that fucking an eighteen-year-old could do you wonders.” Ridpath looked up from his glass. “Maybe he even believed she loved him,” Belsey said.
“You don’t think they loved each other?”
“I’ve no idea if they loved each other. That’s not my business. I’m saying that if they did it wasn’t by coincidence.” The inspector considered this. “She’d have been after rich men, a bit of glamour,” Belsey elaborated. “Maybe she thought that would give her more of something, more life, whatever. She probably thought she deserved whatever he had to offer. Maybe she was right.”
They were silent for a long time.
“You belittle people,” Ridpath said.
“I haven’t belittled anyone. I saw her. She seemed a nice girl.”
“You saw her?”
“I was there, nearby, when the shooting happened,” Belsey said carefully.
Ridpath looked at him. Belsey hoped it wasn’t with suspicion.
“Did she say anything?”
“Latte with vanilla. Not to me.”
“And you make it a professional job?”
“Forty-eight hours on and no one makes it anything. You don’t get that without being professional. Letting off guns in central London, twice now. I think we’re dealing with someone international, maybe not worked the UK before, but costs. Someone paid handsomely to get back at Devere
ux for something, employed by men who keep their fat, manicured hands clean, and give him the resources and intelligence product to perform.” Ridpath nodded. Belsey wasn’t sure if he was talking to his friend or his enemy or both, but he felt that talking to the inspector was getting him closer to understanding Devereux. Ridpath was very good at letting you do the talking, though. Belsey imagined he could be ruthless in an interview room. “Are you chasing the credit cards?” he said.
“I’ve got contacts in Card Fraud. I’ve requested CCTV footage.”
“When are they going to move on it?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?” Belsey said.
“Soon as I can convince them that this is serious. We’re meant to be speaking to people first thing tomorrow about getting hold of the tapes: councils, shop owners. There are certain parties who are beginning to realise the significance of someone using Alexei Devereux’s identity.”
Belsey stood up and felt his heart flutter.
Bravo, Echo, Lima, Sierra, Echo, Yankee.
India, Sierra.
Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, Kilo, Echo, Delta.
A familiar, ominous dismay returned. The tension reached his muscles. He paced, looking along the shelves, thinking hard. Tucked under the old legal volumes were notifications of awards: Association of Police Authorities Award, Queen’s Police Commendation. They were incredibly sought-after pieces of card, and usually framed in an office. Ridpath had not got around to framing them.
“You said someone called Kovar was under the impression that Devereux’s still in business,” Belsey said.
“That’s right.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Max Kovar? He crosses our radar often enough.”
“He has access to a lot of money, right?”
“Kovar is shady. If I was a businessman like Alexei Devereux I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. I’m not sure Devereux ever did.”
“What do you think Kovar would offer in return for a bite of this London project?”
“To grease the wheels? I don’t know. Why?” Ridpath gave a curious smile. “Whatever he wanted, I imagine. Kovar and Alexei Devereux? Money is not an issue there.” He stood up and pointed a remote control at the TV set. News came on. “City Shooting” with footage of the busy chaos that had descended upon the St. Clement’s Court crime scene. “Met and City on Gun Alert,” they said. Then a picture of Northwood last Christmas, raising a glass with the Home Secretary, then footage of families criticising the police.
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