DEAD MONEY

by TERESA HUNTER

  “If Ken didn’t kill his family, then who did?”

  “And who killed Livingstone?” the inspector added.

  “Nothing to say they were killed by the same murderer, of course.”

  “There’s nothing to say categorically they were murdered.”

  “We always come back to the beginning of the circle.” I sighed. “What about the suicide note? Did the forensics man know anything about that?”

  “Zilch. De nada. I’ve told you before, there was no note.”

  “All we do is go round and round in circles.”

  “Be patient, Hornblower. Softly, softly, we catchy- this-monkey.”

  Chapter 45

  11.30pm Sunday, November 25,

  Southwark

  I decided I wouldn’t wait for Black to call, but would telephone him first thing Monday morning, and try and see him the same day. If he had any information to unlock this puzzle, we needed it urgently. All day Sunday, I could hardly think of anything else, sensing I was on the verge of a major breakthrough. I felt it in my bones.

  I was getting into bed on Sunday evening, when the phone rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone to call, but I got up to answer it, anyway. My blood froze when I heard a digital voice at the other end reciting an eerie computer- generated message.

  Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit?

  I slammed the phone down, and stood shaking in shock. It rang again, and on impulse, I stupidly picked up.

  Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit? the sick mantra repeated.

  I slammed the phoned down. Almost immediately, it rang again. This time I didn’t pick up, but the poisonous loop rang out from my answer machine.

  Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit? Dead men tell no tales, geddit.

  I lifted the receiver and slammed it down, to shut it up. But it rang again straight away.

  “Julia, pick up, pick up.” It was Pitcher.

  “Julia. Black is dead.”

  I couldn’t understand him.

  “Black?”

  “The banker, Kane’s man.”

  “He can’t be dead, I’m seeing him tomorrow.”

  “He’s dead alright.”

  “How? What happened?”

  “Shot dead.”

  “By whom?”

  “We don’t know, a lone gunman.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I know, I know,” even Pitcher was starting to sound rattled.

  “Where are you now?”

  “In the car, on my way. It’s a good drive from Glasgow. His house is in a remote spot in Perthshire. Apparently, the family were watching TV. Door bell rang. He went to open it and bang bang he’s dead.”

  “Black lives in Farnham. It can’t be him.”

  “His wife is Scottish. They have a second home up North.”

  “Jesus.”

  In that instance, I saw it all. His house in Perthshire; the wife coming to the door, her hands flying to her head as she began to scream hysterically. I saw the children running out behind her, to see their father lying blood-splattered on the hall carpet.

  “He told me, what did he say,” I paused, “something about a jigsaw and the pieces coming together. Is it possible he was on to something? The reward, you said it would flush something out. What if Black was behind it?”

  “And what if he was screwing the post mistress, and an angry boyfriend lost his rag. There’s no evidence any of this is connected with the Kellys.”

  I told him about the threatening calls.

  “I see,” his voice was grim. “It’ll be on an automatic timer, probably trying to get through now. I’ll get it checked out. Unplug the phone when I hang up. They’ll only run it for a short time to avoid being traced.”

  “That poor family,” I said.

  “Indeed... and I’ll see them soon,”

  “Heaven help you. Dear God, what have we got ourselves involved with?”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I get some concrete news. Be careful. Don’t answer the door to anyone and make sure you...”

  “Lock the doors and windows, I know.” Pitcher shut down the line, and I unplugged the phone, as he instructed.

  Sleep was now out of the question. Flicking on News 24, I caught the first reports of a shooting coming in from Perthshire. Details were sketchy. The news crews didn’t know he was a banker, nor would they until much later the next day. They had no theories to offer about precisely who had been killed or why. I checked my watch. I could just make the next morning’s last edition. I called the office and was told to file a few brief paragraphs. I didn’t add much to the news broadcasts, other than the name and profession, but it meant we had a bit of a scoop.

  Finally, I climbed into bed, where I lay tossing and turning. I had been so sure that seeing David Black would provide the break-through I had longed for. Now it was another dead end. Literally.

  Chapter 46

  11am Monday, November 26,

  Whitechapel

  I couldn’t bear the thought of being cooped up in the flat the next day, so went to the office as usual, and spent much of it glued to the television coverage of David Black’s murder, as if hypnotised by mug shots of his face. It had been a kindly face. I remembered how I had thought at the Mansion House dinner, he had the sort of face I normally warmed to.

  His wife gave a short interview to the cameras. I bit my lip so hard watching her quiet dignity, it started to bleed.

  Sandy called and I could tell he was shaken.

  “They say a gunman came to the door, shot him at blank range. No motive...no reason.”

  “He’d been investigating the Kellys.”

  “Julia, we all knew Kane was Kelly’s banker. Nothing explains this. It’s insane.”

  “It has to be connected, Sandy.”

  “I can’t believe it...” he paused, then added nervously, “d’you think maybe you should go abroad for a while? A holiday. Just until things blow over.”

  “I’ll go, if you’ll come with me,” I replied, with a hint of tease.

  Despite everything, he laughed, and I knew he was smiling at the other end of the line.

  “That’s an invitation I plan to accept very soon,” he said, his voice thickening slightly, before becoming serious again. “There’s nothing more I’d love than to get away now, but it’s not possible.”

  Pitcher was as good as his word and kept in regular touch.

  “It was a professional job alright. Arrived, bang, and disappeared without trace, probably caught a boat to the continent within an hour.”

  “That’d be an achievement from Perthshire.” I said.

  “They’ve long gone, without a trace,” he continued, “deep country all around. Black’s home is in the middle of the hills. No witnesses. No one saw anything.”

  “Interpol?”

  “Of course. We’re talking to everyone who knew him. We have to find a motive.”

  “Pitcher, we’ve got the motive, haven’t we? He must’ve been on to something.”

  “If he was, there’s no evidence of it here in his home. No papers, no files. Nothing.”

  “Have you spoken to the bank?”

  “Briefly, they’re in a state of shock.”

  After he hung up, I went back over, again and again, everything that had happened since Ken Strachan and his family were murdered on October 3. They were killed by a gun, which had been wiped clean. He had been investigating a pension scandal and had befriended a girl who had disappeared. His diary hinted at secrets and talked of ‘killing both birds with one stone’.

  Sandy calculated the pension fund was the best part of £2 billion short, and believed around £1 billion had been channelled directly into Kelly coffers. He could prove monthly withdrawals of £15 million had begun five years
ago, but had no evidence of where the money went.

  One of the actuaries involved was in a high security mental institution, and another had been fished out of the Clyde.

  David Black was Kelly’s banker and had launched his own investigation for KNS. He may have been behind the big reward and maybe it had bought him information. But now he was dead.

  So many fragments, yet nothing fitted. It was dark outside, when I left the office. An early winter night had fallen, the sort which snuffs out the day suddenly and unexpectedly. I used to love the dark. But not anymore.

  I caught a bus along the embankment and crossed the river on foot. A mist was rising, so the glitter of the lights running along the banks and bridges were faint and fragile.

  Even these dimmed, as I cut through deserted back streets. The air was damp, the sort that chilled right through to the bones, and my breath blew cobweb rings. I shivered as I approached a tunnel I had to cross to reach my flat. I thought of Bonfire Night with Sandy. It was in the same dark tunnel, where we had both let our guards down for the first time and finally got close.

  It was an old railway bridge. Normally I passed through without a second thought. But I hesitated and looked around, to make sure I was safe. I was completely alone.

  My feet clattered on the cobbles, as I walked on faster, the noise amplified yet distorted by the echo in the tunnel. Half-way down I froze. A figure stepped out, blocking my exit. In the shadow of a single street light, a male figure, cigarette in hand, glistening like fresh blood, was waiting for me. My mind flashed back to my ordeal in the brewery. I thought of David Black and of Livingstone. Fear stabbed at my not yet healed bruises.

  Adrenaline started to pump through my veins. I was trapped. I heard a rustle to the side, as a rat rushed along the tunnel wall. Turn and run, a voice whispered in my ear. Turn and run. You out-ran them before, you can do it again.

  I started to turn, to make my escape, when a voice boomed towards me. “Don’t be afraid.” The tunnel acted as a megaphone. My heart raced even faster at his words. I recognised the voice immediately. The man blocking my exit was Victor Kane.

  “Don’t be afraid, Ms Lighthorn.” He held out his hand. “We need to talk.”

  The shadow lifted from his face gradually as I got nearer. He looked pale, and frailer than when I had seen him before.

  “Is there somewhere we could be alone to talk?” He was carrying a box file under his arm.

  “About Black?”

  He nodded, letting the cigarette stub fall to the ground. I could see the lights of Southwark Cathedral a few yards away. There would be no one there at this time. Evensong congregation would be long gone.

  “The cathedral?” I pointed to the building ahead. He nodded and we walked towards it in silence. He didn’t stop to stamp out the stub, but left it burning on the kerb.

  The church was dimly-lit and empty, so we took a pew in front of the Shakespeare memorial. This was the writers’ church, a short walk from the Globe.

  Kane took off his round glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief, before replacing them on his nose. Next, he screwed up his brown eyes to look at me. I looked into his face again. He looked sad, but he didn’t speak, so I began.

  “You dropped the libel case,” it was meant to be an icebreaker.

  “That’s not what I want to talk about. That’s history. A sideshow. Over.”

  “A sideshow? You ruined my career, and made my life a misery.”

  “You underestimate yourself, my dear,” his tone was almost affectionate. “I hadn’t thought to bring all that up, but now, that you have… what was it you called me?”

  My cheeks started to tingle, but I didn’t respond.

  “Killer Kane,” he reminded me. “An archetype among city assassins. Kane but not able – hardly original.” His eyes were smiling, as though he had finally got the joke.

  A side-door opened and an elderly woman entered, moving to the front of the church to pray. I wondered what on earth she was doing out on such a miserable night.

  “It wasn’t libellous. You over-reacted,” I said.

  “I have a share price to protect. Every time you published one of your sharp-tongued articles, my share price suffered. That hits the savings of ordinary people and their pensions. Did you never once stop to think about that? I have a duty to protect their interests.”

  “And your share options,” I couldn’t resist. “What are you worth now?”

  The woman in the pew got up from her knees to light a candle. I guessed it must be an anniversary of the death of someone she loved.

  “That’s a complete irrelevance. And if I may say so, in very bad taste given the circumstances.”

  His jaw quivered slightly. Black’s murder had hit him hard.

  “I will acknowledge, though Julia,” he continued, speaking softly. “May I call you Julia? That the Mainland takeover was not my finest hour. I went too far. Your comments hit home because...”

  “They were true.”

  “There was an element of truth in them. Shall we agree – on that occasion – we both went over the top?”

  We agreed a truce.

  “That’s not what’s brought me here,” he continued.

  He opened the box file on his lap, and took out three thick folders. He closed the lid and rested the folders on top.

  “The first thing I want to say is we had no knowledge of any of this. We were Kelly’s banker. That is all. I want you to believe that.”

  I nodded.

  “When the Strachan’s were killed, things started to look very wrong. I asked David to find out what was going on. I couldn’t allow the bank to be exposed to, potentially, criminal activity. He hired a private investigator.”

  “Who followed me?”

  “From the start, you were out front with all the leads. You were our best source.”

  “Did Black offer the reward?”

  “Yes, he did. And it was money well spent...” he stopped. “Well spent until...”he didn’t finish.

  I nodded, understandingly.

  “With the help of the detective agency, he compiled a dossier. He planned to hand it all over to you, with my blessing, but...”

  “He didn’t get the chance,” I finished for him.

  “Do what you will with this, but keep me and the bank out of it,” he said, handing me the first file.

  I opened it carefully. It was bank statements going back about a decade, every transaction, in and out. There were dozens of accounts.

  “Listen carefully. I’m only going to say all this once.”

  And then he began. The statements covered Kelly’s main corporate accounts, plus a dozen or so off-shore accounts and trust funds.

  “You’ll need to get a forensic accountant on to these, but you have enough here to show that the money, which came out of the pension fund, went first into a bank in Bermuda, then to another in the Cayman Islands. Then, it was transferred to an account in Singapore, before being used to fund a trust fund in Liechtenstein.”

  “All places the UK authorities have no reach,” I said, flicking through the pieces of paper. It was too much to take in.

  “Quite. It is all here. Bank details, account numbers and codes. You have bank statements from all relevant accounts, and can trace money in and money out. The sums add up. It’s not too difficult to follow.”

  He handed me a second file.

  “These are the full accounts of the pension fund. They show, as your friend Mr Ross has already told you, that Patterson authorised £15 million monthly withdrawals beginning five years ago. Thanks to Cameron valuations, £360 million was withdrawn and the company enjoyed a payment holiday.”

  “Kelly put nothing in and took everything out.”

  “Exactly. A further £540 million came out via these monthly withdrawals under Sherlock, before the scheme collapsed. Tell your Mr Ross to look at the pages documenting changes on February last year and August 1999.”

  My eye whizzed down the f
ifth page. “Crikey, in February, the scheme raised the pension age to 70.”

  “Yes.”

  I flicked back several pages. “And in August 1999 to 67. And shortly after those two dates, a further £200 million was removed. The staff, the unions, knew nothing about this. And what about the trustees...”

  “Quite. The main board was not informed either.”

  “David Black...”

  “Knew nothing, I can assure you, until much later.”

  “By increasing the retirement age, the liabilities dropped so technically further withdrawals were legal.”

  “So, it could be argued in court, if everything was conducted legally and according to the protocols.”

  “But it wasn’t was it. Ken was right all along. Kelly stole their pensions.”

  “As I say, your Mr Ross will know what to do with all this.”

  He handed me the third file.

  “This one, I think you will find the most interesting of all. It is the assets held by the Liechtenstein Trust Fund.”

  “How did you get this stuff?”

  “David was one of my best men. You will see the trust owns Tom Kelly’s nightclubs and a range of other property. With the help of the private detective, David did what he could to find out what activities were going on at these premises.”

  I flicked through the dossier. It was full of addresses, underlined as headings, with detailed briefings on each of them. Information was attributed to five different sources, the recipients of bribe money no doubt.

  One address jumped out at me, 13 Gallow Terrace, the brothel I had attended with Pitcher. Destroyed by fire was written by another, followed by a short report.

  It read:

  24 Crossglen; destroyed in a blaze on November 16 last year. The premises were a textile factory, staffed by illegal immigrants.They all disappeared. A cabin at the back was used as a heroin factory. A chemist brought in from the Ukraine refined the heroin. He was killed in the fire. The cabin was burned to the ground, and all trace of his body removed. Fire brigade and police told it was a store room for the textile factory and did not investigate further.