“So, presumably, a shell company could be used for exactly the same thing. The company still exists, doesn’t it? You buy up this company and you channel your dodgy funds through it and it all looks legit.”
“You’re catching on, mate.” He smiled and patted my arm. “Dodgy funds could indeed be routed through such a company fairly easily. Auditors are only concerned with whether the sums coming in and going out match each other, and if there’s valid invoices saying so, the auditor’s happy. The veracity of this is what the FCA examines if it believes there’s chicanery involved in the process.”
I was pondering what I’d heard. I wondered whether Bryant had discovered evidence of something like this: that some moneys had dubious origins from suspicious firms.
“It also helps if you’re placing your money with a bank or other institution which turns over hundreds of millions on a regular basis. You can then place relatively small sums, only a few million or so, and they don’t stand out as suspicious.” He paused. “If you don’t do it too often. As I just said, with careful planning and foresight, you can operate a quite successful scam like this. These are simple methods. It can get really complicated, involving bouncing money all over the world, moving it simultaneously between several accounts in different jurisdictions to cover your tracks, but that’s usually only done if you’re hiding funds for those people governments would most definitely disapprove of.”
“Terrorist organisations.”
“Exactly,” he said affirmatively. “You’re moving funds for someone like Al-Qaeda or HAMAS, for example. You’d have to go to very considerable lengths to hide the origins of this money or where you’re funnelling it to, otherwise you’d have the US authorities, the CIA, DEA and so on, all over you looking for where it comes from. That’s why tax havens are God’s gift to crooks; they have very strict secrecy laws when it comes to revealing where money comes from. They don’t tell anyone anything, especially not governments.”
I mused over this.
“Money laundering’s notoriously difficult to uncover and prove, especially if it’s done properly and the right procedures have been put in place,” he continued. “HSBC only got caught out because it was careless. If the paper trail stands up, you can have all the suspicion in the world but proving it’s a nightmare.”
Was this what Josh Bryant had been doing? Was this why there was yellow highlighting all over the accounts in the magazine? Had he died because he’d found evidence of what Hemsley had claimed?
I left the café after swearing Paul to secrecy about what I’d been asking him, and with my head drowning in figures. I’d asked him if he’d had time to read the article in New Focus. He said he’d glanced at it but couldn’t take it seriously because it was the usual crap to be expected from lefties who despised a capitalist society. Why wasn’t Clements here listening to this? Watching these two go head-to-head would have been amusing.
He did say, though, the article had alluded to financial dealings suggesting that a merchant bank was supposedly engaged in supporting good causes but was in fact helping to arm terrorists, and this was being done with the connivance of senior officials inside that bank. He concluded by stating that, if the writer could prove his allegations, he’d be in possession of a sensational story.
S I X
Thursday
I was in the processing area at Belmarsh Prison waiting for a prison officer to escort me through the main block. I’d spoken to Smitherman yesterday afternoon after talking to Dorrius-Lyle and said I wanted to talk to Simon Addley again concerning his previous activities inside Red Heaven, as I’d come across information relating to other persons suspected of involvement in the group and I wanted to know what Addley knew about this. I’d told Smitherman about the suspicion a source had about the possibility of money being laundered inside a merchant bank for what he believed to be reasons other than tax dodging, and that one of the persons suspected of involvement was the son of a Government minister, though I stressed the father wasn’t suspected of involvement as of yet. I’d refrained from naming names but Smitherman could have found out easily. How many Government ministers had sons working in the City?
I’d mentioned I’d been looking into the claims made and had spoken to a couple of persons concerning this. I’d told him the claims had been gleaned from a source I trusted, but I hadn’t told him the source was his son-in-law, as he’d have had me holding a lollipop pole on a zebra crossing outside a primary school in a heartbeat if he knew I’d mined him for information. I’d explained about Paolo Poletti and Mendoccini being in the UK earlier in the year and my belief Addley could enlighten me about what they were doing. I’d said I’d discovered Addley knew Poletti and maybe he had something we could use against Poletti next time he appeared in this country.
Smitherman had sounded out the right people and permission had been obtained from the appropriate authority to visit Belmarsh to interview Simon Addley remarkably quickly.
As I’d been preparing to leave, Smitherman had caught my eye.
“You looked shaken yesterday when Colonel Stimpson told you about your friend Mendoccini,” he began softly, almost like a parent about to break bad news.
“One way to put it.”
“You really didn’t know about his involvement in Red Heaven, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.” I shook my head. “When I met up with him last Saturday, I’d not seen him for around fourteen years, and he didn’t seem any different, you know? Good-looking woman with him, dressed smartly, out having fun with some people? That’s the Mike I remember. I just can’t get my head around his being tied up with a terrorist group, and especially not his old dad.”
“Everything Stimpson told you is true, Rob,” Smitherman said gently. “You’ve got to forget the Mendoccini you knew. He’s now part of a very ruthless body that’ve killed several people over the past few years, innocent people, people who’ve died quite nasty deaths. How many might have died if Kader and the Addleys had got away with what they were preparing to do? That’s what you’ve got to focus on now. Stimpson’s probably going to be using you to help snare him when he’s next in this country. It’ll probably mean you trying to manoeuvre him into a compromising position so he can be picked up and arrested. Are you going to be okay with that? Because if personal feelings are going to get in your way . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. I knew what he meant.
“They won’t.” I was firm in my resolve. “If he’s involved with blowing innocent people up, I want him out of circulation. I don’t have a problem with that.”
I’d seen the aftermath of an explosion before. During my second year as a beat officer my partner and I had been the first police on the scene after an explosion had occurred in a crowded bookmaker’s in Soho on a Friday afternoon, later discovered to have been caused by a gas leak. We’d had to help pull some badly injured people from the debris and take them out of the burning building and to safety, and to ensure the crowd outside stayed well back in case there was another explosion before the mains could be turned off. My sense of relief when more police and the emergency services arrived must have been palpable.
Miraculously, only two people had died, and mercifully there were no children caught up and only one woman, but the devastation had been horrific, with several people suffering potentially life-threatening injuries and the person who’d been standing the closest having been blown to pieces. If Mendoccini was involved in causing scenes like this through the pursuit of whatever nebulous goals he believed in, I’d happily lock him up myself and drop the key down the nearest drain.
“Well, your chance is likely to be next week sometime,” Smitherman said. “We’ve had word he’s booked on a flight to Stansted this coming Sunday, so, if he gets in touch, you’re to let me know and I’ll talk to Stimpson. He’ll likely contact you soon after.”
I wondered whether Mendoccini would get in touch. Last Sunday morning I’d have been delighted to see him again. But I
knew more about him now. How would I react when face-to-face with someone I once considered a close friend but who was now a terrorist?
Belmarsh is an imposing building, austere-looking, forbidding and most unwelcoming in appearance, located in an unremarkable part of South East London. I’d driven along the Woolwich Road towards Thamesmead and along the Western Way, which was a relatively easy journey as most of the traffic was heading west towards the centre of London. Belmarsh can be clearly seen from the main road as it’s the only large building visible from the main A2016. What must it feel like to be travelling this road under armed escort from the Old Bailey, looking across as Belmarsh draws ever nearer and knowing this is where the next years of your life are to be spent? What would have been going through Addley’s mind at that time? Despair? Helplessness? Indifference?
I’d parked in the visitors’ parking zone and left my service firearm securely locked away in the car, believing I could face Addley unarmed. The car park was filling up with visitors, with women outnumbering men at least six or seven to one. Several children were screaming and a couple were in tears. I wondered how far some women had travelled for what would be a short visit with their partners and their children’s fathers. I looked at a woman pushing a pram and wondered how old that child would be before the father was a free man.
I stated my business to the guard at the front, showed ID and was admitted to the waiting area of the main body of the prison, going through almost airport-style security procedures of emptying pockets and removing my belt before going through the security screen, though happily I didn’t have to remove my trainers. I was given a visitor’s lanyard and told to keep it visible at all times. I’d been expected, and now I was waiting for whoever was to accompany me to the room where I’d talk to Addley.
The waiting area inside the prison had been painted a creamy whitish colour which produced an almost somnambulant aura. The walls were devoid of any paintings or notices or anything with colour and they certainly exuded no sense of warmth or belonging. I watched several prison officers going about their business, escorting prisoners around in groups of two or three, depending on the category of prisoner. One prisoner was handcuffed and had an officer in front and one either side of him. He was being led out of the building and my guess was that, being smartly dressed, he was going to court for an appeal hearing. I was struck by the noise of many people talking and loud voices echoing around the foyer. The echoes were almost ghostly in that I could hear but couldn’t see where they were emanating from. How long would it take to get used to this? How would a first-time prisoner feel about this strange sensation?
I then saw a severe-looking female prison officer with a face capable of stopping traffic approaching. She was a little shorter than me and built like a front row forward. She had a chest the same shape as a beer barrel and closely cropped dark hair and was wearing a tie over a short-sleeved white shirt, revealing the kind of muscly arms usually developed only through long years working underground mining coal. She had a tattoo on her left forearm but I couldn’t make out what it was. I certainly wouldn’t fancy my chances in an arm-wrestling contest with her.
After confirming I was here to talk to Simon Addley, she abruptly told me to follow her. The sexist in me wondered, as we walked along, whether she was employed to deter the incarcerated male from spending too much time thinking about women as, from behind, the gender was hard to determine. We went along a number of identical-looking corridors, occasionally turning left or right. We ascended a flight of metal stairs and her prison-issue boots produced a tinny clanging sound as her foot hit each stair.
I’d visited prisons before but Belmarsh seemed to exude an indefinable sense of hopelessness: that once here, you should forget all chance of seeing the outside world again for a long time. Belmarsh held many exceptional-risk, grade-A prisoners: jihadists and IRA terrorists as well as the killers of Private Lee Rigby, all of whom were likely to spend the next few decades behind bars, so these thoughts could be with them for some time. The UK has no sentence of life with no possibility of parole, but several of these prisoners would serve as near to whole life sentences as made no difference.
I was led into what appeared to be an admin area, with several women working on laptop computers at desks, and along a short corridor where a guard was standing outside a room. My escort nodded to him and he opened the door. I followed her into the room.
The room was about fourteen foot square, at a guess. The only furniture was a metal table in the middle, bolted to the floor, with a heavily scratched fawn-coloured Formica top, and a chair one side and two on the other side, again both firmly bolted down. I was dismayed the single chair was also metal. I glanced around. The walls were the regulation off-white, there were no windows and, whilst I couldn’t see it, I’d no doubt there was CCTV somewhere recording everything said and done in here. The lighting was two bright fluorescent strips ten feet above the table. Everything about the room pointed to an austere environment.
“He’s on his way,” she grunted. She indicated the table as my invitation to sit, then turned around and left without another word. She’d clearly missed her vocation as someone’s PR. I sat down on what turned out to be a very uncomfortable metal chair and waited.
Two minutes later the door opened and Simon Addley was escorted inside by two big prison officers. His long hair hadn’t been cut; he was unshaven and wearing his own clothes rather than prison-issue uniform and, in a dark blue sweatshirt and tracksuit trousers, he looked like he was coming from the gym. His eyes lit up when he saw who was waiting for him. He broke out into a smile and shook his head slowly, as though the situation were completely unreal.
Addley sat opposite me and one guard left the room whilst the other took up a position by the metal door. I told him to wait outside as I didn’t want him in the room. After I’d assured him I was okay with a prisoner on his own and if I was in any danger I’d scream, he gave me a dirty look and reluctantly went outside to join his colleague.
“When they told me I was getting a visitor, I just knew it’d be you. God knows how I knew that; I just did,” Addley began. He was still smiling. “I was hoping it’d be Chrissie but I don’t suppose there’s any chance I’ll ever see her again, is there?”
I agreed with him. There was no chance. She’d rather have teeth pulled than spend another minute with him.
I’d seen Addley in court recently but the last time I’d spoken to him was at Paddington Green soon after his arrest, and I thought he’d been crying back then. It had been a disastrous night for him; his whole world had collapsed in one evening and he’d shown signs of feeling the effects of it. He’d been morose and deflated, and I’d later learned he’d been placed on seventy-two-hour suicide watch. But he looked and sounded positively chipper now.
I certainly didn’t like him very much but there was no denying he was a bright guy. He’d been a student at Westminster University but had dropped out after his first year and begun following the path that had led him to this room. A few weeks ago he’d been sentenced to twelve years in prison and I wondered whether the reality of such a long stretch had sunk in, because the pallor of prison had yet to attach itself to him. Some people had been in prison so long and so often they almost stank of prison, with pale white faces devoid of all hope of release and content to continue being institutionalised, but this hadn’t happened to Addley yet. I wondered whether he’d do all his prison time in Belmarsh or be transferred someplace else at a time to be determined. Then I thought: had he and others not been apprehended, several people, possibly even dozens, including women and children, would have either died or been seriously injured. Thus, I didn’t care where he spent the next years of his life, so long as they were behind either steel bars or electrified fences, well away from society.
“I see you met the bull dyke.” He grinned and jutted his chin towards the door. “I passed her on the way in. If I have to stay in prison any length of time, even someone shaped like her will st
art to look attractive, honest to God she will. Can you imagine having an erotic fantasy about her?” He looked disbelieving. “It’s hard to believe she’s even female. I actually think she’s completely gender neutral.” He smirked. “She’s a lesbian. Can you imagine what her partner must look like? The story in here is she had to undergo a sex test to determine the gender when she applied for the job.”
I didn’t particularly have anything to say in response, so I said nothing. I was tapping my pen against the edge of the table.
“Have you seen Chrissie lately?” he asked softly, eyes raised in expectation. “Now there’s a woman worth fantasising about.”
I silently agreed with him.
“Not since you last did. Our paths don’t cross,” I lied. The fact he liked her a lot was the only thing he and I had in common. Because I did as well. It riled me he’d been intimate with her, albeit in her role as an MI5 agent operating undercover, gathering information and getting closer to finding out what Red Heaven had been planning.
“I was wondering if you people had finished with me, but evidently not, eh?” he said in a neutral voice. “I had MI5 all over me just after you left last time and they’ve been back since, but I didn’t tell them anything. I just let them ask their questions, didn’t say anything.”
“What were they after?”
“Asking about Kader, mainly. When did I first meet him? Where did I meet him? How did he act? What did he do? How did I know he was security service? Did he say where he got the explosives from? Who killed Dennis Reagan? Stuff like that. Not much I could tell them, really. And I didn’t. As a matter of interest, who did kill Reagan?”
“No one’s been arrested. We don’t know.” I didn’t bother telling him I was absolutely certain who’d killed Reagan but had no evidence for that belief.
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