Mendoccini

by Laurence Todd

  His conclusion, that the money this group made was being used to wage war against the weak and innocent, and that the financial institution he was referring to had blood all over its supposedly good (but unmentioned) name, was incendiary stuff. If he had been able to prove this, someone inside the bank would have been very worried indeed.

  Hemsley had told me his belief about a certain firm his bank did business with having made deals which were scams at best and fraudulent at worst. Bryant was alluding to these in print. Small wonder the Observer refused to publish this article.

  My mobile phone ringing disturbed my musing.

  “Rob, you heard the news?” Richard Clements leapt straight in, sounding concerned.

  “Only the headlines. Why, have I missed something?”

  “God, yeah. I’ve just heard. Nigel Hemsley’s been found dead.”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “What happened?” I stood up.

  “He was found in his car earlier this morning. Car was full of carbon monoxide. He’d committed suicide, apparently.”

  “Where’d you hear this?” I was stunned at the news.

  “On Capital radio just now. They ran a story about some City banker found dead in a car, and they gave the name Nigel Hemsley. They reported police claims about it appearing to have been suicide.”

  I was silent for a couple of moments. I’d only spoken to him last evening and, whilst he was nervous about the knock-on effects of his allegations of money laundering, I’d not suspected he was bordering on suicidal.

  “Who found him?”

  “One of his neighbours. They both park around the Barbican, and the neighbour went to get her car around seven and saw a car nearby with clouded-up windows. She heard the engine and saw smoke. She thought there was someone in the car but the door was locked, so she called the police. They found Hemsley inside, dead. Been dead a few hours.”

  I took a few deep breaths.

  “What about his wife?”

  “She identified the body. Don’t know about anything else.”

  We were quiet for a couple of moments.

  “You really think this is suicide?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll look into this and get back to you.” I wasn’t going to speculate at this stage.

  “Keep in touch.” We both rang off.

  Hemsley dead? I couldn’t claim to know him or know what kind of pressure he might have been under, either at work or anywhere else. I’d spoken to him briefly two days ago under a pretext, and twice yesterday, and had formed no strong opinion as to his state of mind, though it was clear he was in a state of high anxiety because of his suspicions of what was happening under his nose and I’d little doubt his bosses gave him a hard time at work.

  But Clements was correct about one thing; I wasn’t certain this was a suicide. Or was it? Had Hemsley been silenced to prevent money laundering being made known? Or had he simply cracked under the pressure of doing what he thought was the right thing but being perceived as the bad guy? Had he thought he was in line to meet the same fate as Josh Bryant?

  I contacted a friend at Bishopsgate police station by phone. Carole Huttley had been a DI in Special Branch when I’d joined and had been in line for promotion to a higher rank but, to my consternation, she’d decided to take the promotion and relocate to City of London police instead. She’d been a formidable officer with a very impressive arrest record and, whilst I’d only served in her team for slightly less than a year, she’d made her mark on me. I’d been sorry to see her take what I condescendingly thought was only a lateral promotion.

  After a little small talk, and congratulating her on becoming a DCI and thus much closer to God, I asked what she knew about the discovery of Nigel Hemsley. She said she’d been involved in checking it out.

  “We got a call from a neighbour thinking there was a body inside a smoke-filled car over by the Barbican, so I went there with two others. The car door was locked, so we broke the window and switched the engine off. That’s where we found the body, dead. The woman who’d raised the alarm recognised him as Nigel Hemsley, one of her neighbours. He lived in the same block as her, so, after we’d called for an ambulance, another officer and I went to break the news to his wife. She was distraught initially and upset, but she calmed down sufficiently to come down and make a formal ID of her husband.”

  I’d had to break bad news to the families of people who’d died unnatural deaths and, if there’s any worse job for a police officer, I don’t want to know what it is. It’s a gut-wrenching experience having to tell a parent their child has died. It’s one thing if it was an accident, which is hard enough, but to tell parents their child has died from stab wounds is the worst thing imaginable.

  “How long had he been dead when you found him?”

  “Best guess? Probably two, three hours or so. Haven’t got a better estimate yet.”

  “You think it was suicide?”

  “Certainly looks like one. We checked the scene. Nothing at all to indicate foul play; no bruising, nothing to suggest he’d put up a struggle before the event. The exhaust had been connected easily and the doors were locked so whoever was inside the car would lose consciousness quickly and choke to death by asphyxiation. In evidential terms there’s nothing at all suggesting anything other than what it was,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It’s almost a textbook suicide.”

  “Have you managed to get anything from his wife?”

  “Only a couple of things. She said he’d been depressed recently about his situation at work and having to do stuff he was too well qualified for. He wasn’t getting on with a couple of his work colleagues. She didn’t think he was suicidal, though, and it’s shaken her up quite a bit.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “She said he got up about four and said he was just going to the car to get something he needed. She then dozes off again and, next thing she knows, police are knocking on her door. She also said he had a visitor last night. Whoever it was didn’t announce himself, but Hemsley knew the person and talked to him for a while. She doesn’t know who it was; apparently he said it was something to do with work. We’ve asked for the CCTV footage from the area to see if we can get her to identify the person who called round. Whoever it was might be able to tell us a bit more.”

  “I’ll save you the trouble of looking. It was me,” I said after a few seconds.

  “You? Why were you there?”

  I gave her the condensed version of Hemsley reporting his suspicions of money laundering inside his bank and the murder of a reporter he’d talked to about it. Hemsley had been under suspicion at work and unsure of his next move. I explained I’d been to visit the night before as I was checking something relating to a set of accounts I’d seen. “He appeared morose but I wouldn’t have pegged him as being about to commit suicide.”

  “Well, he’s done it and, unless something different comes along and makes itself known, we’re booking it as suicide. We’re not planning on looking for anyone in connection with this. There’s nothing we’ve seen to make us suspicious at this stage.”

  On the evidence she had before her, it made sense. But I asked her to keep it under wraps for the moment that I had been almost the last person to see him before he killed himself. If his suicide was connected to how he felt about his situation at work, and if how he felt and the fact that he’d spoken to police became known at work, this might put Darren Ritchie in a dangerous position. She agreed she’d hold off on that. I thanked her and hung up.

  I wondered what would be the reaction of Hemsley’s immediate superiors at Karris and Millers. If Hemsley was correct in his assumption about them being involved in and covering up money laundering, the reaction would probably be one of relief, maybe even delight.

  I got back to Clements. I explained the police view to him that everything about Hemsley’s actions was consistent with a suicide and this was the line police were following.

  “So, what are you planning t
o do about it?” he asked.

  “You remember the advice given to Woodward and Bernstein by Deep Throat?”

  “Oh, yeah. Follow the money. Wasn’t that it?”

  “Something like that. That’s what I’m gonna do. Follow the money.”

  I tried to contact Darren Ritchie at Karris and Millers but was told he was away for a long weekend with his family, had left the previous evening, he’d told nobody where he was going and wouldn’t be back in the office until Tuesday morning. This would mean he might not know about Hemsley taking his own life until then, which would be a surprise I suspected he could do without. I made a mental note to look him up and apprehend him before he returned to work.

  E I G H T

  Sunday

  I was returning from a late-afternoon run around a nearby park. The nature of my job means it’s almost impossible to commit to training with and playing for a weekend football team with any degree of regularity, which I really missed, so the alternative to becoming a candidate for an early coronary through stress and lack of physical activity was regular training in the gym, either on my own or with Mickey Corsley, and some solitary jogging around the park.

  The circumference of the park was almost two miles. I usually aimed to do it in less than sixteen minutes and was chuffed to discover, today, I’d completed two laps in slightly less than thirty minutes. Maybe there was life left in me yet. After some warm-down stretches and a power walk back to my flat I decided a few celebratory beers were in order. Entering the flat I noticed the light by the phone flashing, indicating a message left whilst I was out. I showered, opened a beer, pressed the playback button on the phone and heard a voice causing me to sit down.

  “Yo, Rob, it’s me, your favourite wop getting back to you. I’m guessing you’re out on the streets keeping London safe. It was great seeing you last weekend. Are you around anytime over the next few nights? How about going for a few beers, just you and me, and having a catch-up? It’s been too long, mate, it really has. I’m staying with Angie’s family. Get back to me when you can.” He gave a number to call. I wrote it down.

  I rewound the message and played it again. It sounded exactly as it had a few moments before. The voice was one I immediately recognised and, prior to last weekend, one I’d not heard for almost fourteen years. I contacted the office, gave the number he’d left and asked who it was registered to. A few minutes later someone got back to me. The number was registered to Delucca’s, an Italian restaurant in Greek Street, Soho.

  Roberto Delucca had been listed as an associate of Paolo Poletti, and Richard Clements had said he’d talked to Simon Addley in the same restaurant, where he’d also talked to Poletti and had seen Michael Mendoccini. Police had once tried to oppose renewing Delucca’s liquor licence because they believed it was a meeting house for Italian gangsters. Did they mean Italian terrorists?

  I contacted the office and asked for family details pertaining to Roberto Delucca. Angela Marie Delucca, aged twenty-six, was Delucca’s youngest child and his only daughter. Mendoccini was playing his relationship close to home. There was nothing listed against her name.

  I sipped my beer. Since last weekend I’d come to know much more about my old friend. I’d been told he was associated with a terrorist group and I’d discovered this was almost certainly true. And yet, I couldn’t help having warm feelings towards him. The years we were close friends, almost brothers, as we became young men still cast a warm glow and I had fond memories of some of the scrapes we’d got into. I could still remember the sadness upon returning home at the end of my first term at university and discovering he was in Italy and wouldn’t be around over the Christmas break. I’d really missed his company that Christmas.

  During the week, I’d talked to my mother on the phone and told her I’d met Michael Mendoccini again the weekend before and we were going to keep in touch. My parents had been delighted as they also had warm feelings for him. They’d known him since we were both eleven-year-old lads and they’d be distraught if they knew what I knew about him now. I decided I would never tell them unless I had no choice but to do so.

  I dialled the number he’d given. A woman answered. I asked for Michael. I told her who was calling.

  “Robert, thanks for getting back. How you doing?” He sounded excited to hear me. We chatted for a couple of minutes.

  “You available for a drink or several anytime soon?” he asked.

  I said I was available whenever he was as my schedule was fairly flexible over the next few days. We arranged a meet-up for the following evening at a pub in Soho we both knew, a pub we’d use when we came to London aged sixteen and seventeen and pretended we were adults. He rang off after saying how much he was looking forward to it as he had business to attend to the next day and a drink would end the day nicely.

  At this point I decided not to tell Smitherman about meeting Mendoccini until after I’d met up with him and could talk to him, looking into his eyes as I did so, to try and get a sense of what he was all about. I knew I was probably staring at a severe reprimand for not informing Smitherman, but I wanted one unobstructed evening with an old friend.

  N I N E

  Monday

  Eight twenty: I was standing on the corner of Greek Street and Bateman Street, looking across at Delucca’s restaurant. It was closed, though there was a Fettolio’s delivery van outside and two guys were carrying boxes of groceries in through the front door. Even at this time of morning the area was bustling with cars, pedestrians and delivery vans, though the majority of the shops and businesses seemed to be closed.

  Waking early, I’d decided I was going to try and see what it was Mendoccini was up to today. What business was he engaging in? Who was he meeting and where? If he was staying at Delucca’s, did his business involve anything to do with Red Heaven? I’d checked with the office and Paolo Poletti had not accompanied Mendoccini to England, so I wondered whether this was just a visit for pleasure, a working visit for his father’s business or something far more sinister. I’d no idea what I was expecting to find. I was just hoping I’d find something.

  Two hours later I was still on the corner. I’d walked up and down the road a few times and had changed my vantage point on several occasions. I’d wandered up to the corner of Manette Street and watched from there for a little while. I’d shown up wearing a reversible jacket, which I’d since turned inside out, and a baseball cap, which I’d removed. Three people had entered the restaurant: two women who looked like cleaners and the postman. I bought a coffee and strolled down to the corner of Old Compton Street and stood there for a while, looking back towards the restaurant.

  I was expecting Mendoccini to be cautious. He would know he’d be under suspicion for his activities, so he’d not be looking to do anything to draw attention to himself. Red Heaven had become largely moribund in this country but I wasn’t complacent.

  At eleven forty-nine a taxi pulled up outside Delucca’s and a man wearing a business suit emerged. I couldn’t see who it was from behind. I noted the taxi’s registration number. Instead of entering the restaurant, the man crossed over. From the side he looked familiar and it struck me he was the person I thought I’d recognised in the Chinese restaurant the previous weekend. I wanted a closer look to be sure.

  I moved slowly along the other side of the road, keeping him in sight, and watched him enter the coffee shop I’d bought my drink from. He bought a drink and sat down. I was about to cross over when Michael Mendoccini came out of the restaurant and went over the road to the coffee shop. He was dressed casually, in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans, and carrying an attaché case. I stood back against the open door of a clothes shop and watched him enter the coffee shop. The man inside stood up and they briefly embraced.

  For nearly an hour they talked whilst I walked up and down, keeping my eye on the door to the café. At one point the attaché case was opened and a discussion seemed to occur regarding its contents. I was standing by the entrance to a health food shop on the corn
er of Manette Street when they emerged, but now the other guy was holding the attaché case. They talked briefly whilst the other guy flagged down a taxi. A brief embrace and the other guy got into a taxi and it set off. I again noted the registration. As it pulled away I watched Mendoccini cross the road and re-enter the restaurant.

  I went back to the office. I requested details of the two taxis, wanting to know where they’d initially picked up and dropped this person. Whilst waiting for the answers I requested footage from the CCTV camera covering the Greek Street and Bateman Street area between eleven forty and one o’clock. The footage was downloaded to my laptop. I wound forward and watched the taxi pull up and the man emerge. I froze the picture and printed it off. I put it into the system requesting identification, and it came back as someone named Darren Ritchie. I was puzzled. Wasn’t this the name of the guy the late Nigel Hemsley had claimed was a friend at work helping him with his quest to prove money laundering was occurring at the bank? Wasn’t Ritchie also supposed to be away for a long weekend?

  A few moments later, Dispatch returned my call, stating the taxis had picked up and dropped the passenger at the same place: outside Karris and Millers, a merchant bank in Watling Street, EC4.

  I requested more details pertaining to Darren Ritchie as I was now convinced I knew him from somewhere but couldn’t place him. His record came up onscreen and at that moment I realised I knew exactly why his name was familiar.

  Darren Ritchie was the fiancé of Debbie Frost, the woman I’d discovered had hired Phil Gant to kill Louis and Paulie Phipps last year. He was ex-South African army and, after leaving the forces, had moved to the United Kingdom and gone to Oxford, and he was now working for a merchant bank. I’d encountered him when I was investigating the deaths of the Phippses and he’d taken umbrage at my description of Debbie Frost as a lying bitch and had made menacing overtures towards me, but nothing had arisen from it. I knew now it was definitely him I’d seen in the Chinese restaurant the preceding weekend, though I didn’t remember seeing his partner at the table. He’d turned away quickly when he’d seen me looking in his direction that night. Had he recognised me? If so, had he told Michael Mendoccini the man he’d just been talking to at the bar was a Special Branch detective?