by Bill Kitson
‘What sort of plot?’ Barry asked.
‘A fraud of gigantic proportions. If it had been discovered they would both have got long prison sentences. Set against that, the fraud must have earned them millions over the years. The small family business, which was called Corps Building Corporation, grew and prospered. It took on larger, more valuable contracts and began to tender for public works. As it got bigger, the company name was changed to Coningsby Developments. The managing director, Julian Corps, became a well-known and respected figure in the industry.
‘Eventually Corps was approached to stand for parliament. He was offered the candidature of a safe seat that was coming up at a by-election.’ Marshall paused. ‘I gleaned the next bit of information when I was picking up at a shoot last month. Apparently, Corps has made such a good impression within his party that he’s already being talked of as a future leader.
‘All very laudable: except for one thing. What no one knew was that Corps hadn’t succeeded on his own merits. He succeeded because his company tendered for, and got, contracts due to influence exerted by the chairman of the local planning committee. Councillor Bob Jeffries. Who was, I have no doubt, well rewarded for his services.’
Marshall paused, ‘I remember Corps from my own time in the construction industry. He was a nonentity without much business ability. I actually convinced myself I’d got the wrong man. Either I’d got the name wrong or it was another bloke called Corps.’
‘So Corps wasn’t the leading light in the fraud?’ Lisa asked. ‘Shame about that, I was going to make a feeble joke about Corps producing corpses, but maybe I’d better not.’
Marshall groaned. ‘Definitely better not. In fact Corps was a non-starter compared to the man I’d worked for. Harry Rourke had more business acumen in his little finger than Corps had in his whole body. It just didn’t make sense that he could compete successfully with Rourke.
‘When I realized Corps was indeed the same man, my first thought was, how did he manage to find out which contracts were up for grabs? Let alone win them against such stiff opposition. Now I know the full story, winning them was easy. Councillor Jeffries saw to that. Finding them was just as easy, because Corps didn’t find them. He simply stole them. Or to be precise, his secret partner did. That alone wouldn’t have been enough. Corps needed somebody behind him, because he couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag, not in a business sense that is. So there had to be another figure guiding him, a sleeping partner. But one who would have been ruined if his identity became known.
‘The need for secrecy was essential, but Corps’s benefactor also needed security. He needed paperwork that would ensure he could claim his just deserts. However, that agreement also had to be kept totally secret.’
Marshall stood up and began pacing round the room. ‘So they approached Stuart Moran, a junior partner in Hobbs and Hirst, and asked him to draw up an agreement to satisfy both needs. Moran came up with a deal that would ensure the eventual sale of Corps Building Corporation, later known as Coningsby Developments to a further company, Leconfield Holdings. Leconfield had two shareholders, each with a fifty per cent stake in the company. Because of the need for secrecy, Leconfield had to remain a dormant company until the time was right. That way the shareholders’ names never appeared. It didn’t have to file accounts. It just lay on the shelf gathering dust.’
Marshall’s pacing, Lisa noticed had become somewhat more agitated and she thought she knew why.
‘Unfortunately, Moran’s security wasn’t as tight as it should have been. Somehow, Anna got to know of the conspiracy and the name of the man behind it.’ Marshall paused again. ‘You’ll understand, I’m speculating here. Anna was a no-nonsense and confrontational sort of person. She also had a strict code of ethics. If I hadn’t been fed a load of lies about her, I might have guessed she would never have countenanced such wrongdoing.’
Marshall paused in his walking tour and rested his hands on the chair back. He leaned forward. ‘The irony is, that if anyone else in Hobbs and Hirst had seen that name it would have meant nothing to them, but because Anna was married to me she recognized it immediately. My bet is, she told Moran that unless the scam was finished and the agreement torn up, she’d tell me. They couldn’t risk that, and they certainly weren’t prepared to drop their lucrative scheme.’
He straightened up and began to wander again. ‘Killing Anna wasn’t enough. They needed to frame me for her murder, for two reasons. One was to get me out of the way so I wouldn’t ask awkward questions. Also, if the police were satisfied I’d killed her, they wouldn’t look for anyone else. From that moment the ground rules were laid. If anyone got in their way, they were disposed of. Originally, they were doing quite nicely stealing contracts from Broadwood, but that wasn’t enough. They weren’t getting the success their greed demanded. So they got Brown to organize a road accident involving the chairman of the planning committee. Once he was out of the way, they waited to see who was elected in his place. Step forward, Councillor Robert ‘Call me Bob’ Jeffries, long-time political hack, well and truly on their payroll. Once they had the chairman of the planning committee in their pocket, Coningsby Developments never looked back.
‘You might think they’d be satisfied with that, but their ambition was growing all the time, or was it their greed? They wanted the lot. The only way was to get rid of the opposition. That meant buying out Broadwood Construction. The only problem was that Broadwood is a very wealthy company. Going by what I’ve been reading in the press recently, my guess is they arranged a series of very expensive accidents to equipment they knew would be uninsured. The result was to reduce the value of Broadwood. Again I’m guessing, but I reckon that was only the first phase of their final push to get control.’
Marshall ceased his walkabout and sat down at the table. He took a mouthful of fresh coffee. ‘The vandalism was working well, but they needed more to push Rourke into selling. They launched a bid based on a ridiculously low offer price. A copy of the offer document is in the Coningsby Developments file at Hobbs and Hirst and I’d love to have heard Harry Rourke’s language when it landed on his desk.’ Marshall held the photocopied document up. ‘They wanted to push Harry into a position where he’d be forced to sell, even at their price. They were certain he’d reject the bid unless they could put him into a position where he’d no alternative.
‘The whole focus of the bid was based on an old tactic; one that had worked well before. They would remove Rourke by having him framed for murder. They had some murders to commit, they had Brown to commit them and they had the means to set Harry up for the role of fall guy. If you were able to trace the money back from Brown’s bank accounts my bet is you would find Brown was paid by Valley Services, a subsidiary of Coningsby, and by all appearances a company which has no obvious raison d’être. My guess is that Valley Services invoiced Broadwood Construction for the amount of Brown’s fee. Their next step would have been to blow the whistle on Brown. When he was arrested, he’d tell everything he knew. As we’ve heard, that someone called Harry from Broadwood Construction had paid him to commit the murders. Harry Rourke would be arrested, Broadwood Construction would collapse and Coningsby Developments would buy it at their own price.’
‘If they decided to frame Rourke for the murders, why involve you?’ Shirley asked.
‘That was quite clever. They thought they could pin Moran’s murder on me. Make it look like revenge. Then have me killed and make it look like suicide. I might have saved them the trouble if I’d caught up with Moran before Lisa stopped me. Once Brown had served his purpose they’d throw him to the wolves. They were sure he’d confess and implicate Harry.
‘As I say, they already had a precedent to work from, it was the same as they used on me. Once Harry was out of the way they’d have a clear field, with a power base to tender for national contracts the like of which they’d only dreamed of. They’d be able to rely on influence from Westminster too; Julian Corps, MP, would see to that.’
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br /> ‘But why kill Moran and Jeffries?’ Shirley asked.
‘Difficult to be sure, but I can guess. Moran had already had twinges of conscience. He funded my appeal. My guess would be that Councillor Jeffries was getting too greedy.’
‘I asked you if Harry was behind all this. I take it that isn’t true?’ Lisa asked.
‘Oh yes it is. Perfectly true.’ Marshall lifted some papers from out of the file. ‘This is an agreement for the purchase of Coningsby Developments and all its subsidiaries by Leconfield Holdings.’ Marshall pointed to one of the documents. ‘And these, are the Memorandum and Articles of Association of Leconfield Holdings.
‘Leconfield Holdings has only got two shareholders, each with a fifty per cent stake in the company. One of the shareholders is Julian Corps and the other is his old RAF comrade, Frederick John Harrison. Harry Rourke’s trusted right hand man: Deputy managing director of Broadwood Construction. When he left the RAF and joined Broadwood he had to drop his old nickname because it was causing too much confusion: Freddie Harrison, previously known to one and all, as Harry.
‘He has to be the architect of the whole scheme. Left to his own devices Corps would have failed. He’s too lightweight. Freddie, by comparison, is the ideal candidate. A man in a privileged position able to pass tenders to Corps almost before the ink was dry. The man who is able to sign off invoices to Valley Services and probably even sign the cheques for, and on behalf of, Broadwood Construction. The man who will emerge from the shadows, as a fifty per cent shareholder in Leconfield Holdings, which would by then own both Coningsby Developments and Broadwood Construction. With Harrison running the group, and Corps using his Westminster influence, the rewards they’d previously achieved would pale into insignificance by comparison with what lies ahead.’
The silence was broken only by the ticking of the kitchen clock. Eventually Barry spoke. ‘Now you know. What will you do?’
Marshall shrugged. ‘I’m still thinking it over.’
‘Why not just take this evidence to the police?’ Barry asked. ‘Surely that’s the most sensible thing to do?’
‘It would be under normal circumstances. The problem is we don’t know how widespread the corruption is. For all we know they might have police officers on their payroll. So who do we trust?’ Marshall smiled. ‘Apart from Lisa.’
‘And DI Nash,’ Lisa reminded him.
Marshall looked at her for a second. ‘Yes, but how much would his word count for?’
‘Quite a lot I think. Why not ask him?’
‘I’ll think about it. Otherwise we’ll have to consider other ways of getting at the truth.’
Barry looked puzzled. ‘How can you be sure about Nash?’
Lisa explained, ‘Because he read something in Alan’s file, the one relating to the original conviction for murder. It was in a transcript of Alan’s first interview, just after his wife’s car had been found. During the course of questioning, Dundas accused Alan of slitting his wife’s throat and dumping her body in the North Sea.’
‘I don’t get the point, why was that significant?’
‘Because what Mike spotted, was the date of the interview. When Dundas said that, Anna’s body hadn’t been found. She was still technically no more than a missing person. So how did Dundas know her throat had been slit? How did he know she’d been dumped in the sea? The bloodstains in her car could just as easily have been there if she’d been shot, her body could have been buried. Mike checked back and found Moran had been interviewed the previous day, during which he used the very same phrase. In other words Moran knew precisely how Anna Marshall had been killed. He directed Dundas to that line of questioning.’
‘What alternatives does that leave?’
‘I’m not going to discount the police option altogether,’ Marshall said. ‘I just don’t think it’s sensible to rely on it exclusively.’
‘That doesn’t answer Barry’s question,’ Lisa pointed out.
‘About the alternatives? Well, there’s the press for one. But they’ve to be extremely careful about libel. They’d probably need stronger evidence than the police. Launching a full-scale press investigation would take weeks, if not months. We don’t have that long.’
‘No other way that springs to mind, I suppose?’
Marshall eyed Lisa suspiciously. The question had been posed innocently, a little too innocently perhaps. ‘There’s always the possibility of resolving matters ourselves.’
‘Ah yes,’ Lisa said. ‘I wondered when we’d get round to that option. But tell me something, with your background in civil engineering, you’ve been able to work out all this, but what about the third person?’
‘What third person?’ the others chorused.
‘There must be a third person involved. If a substantial number of people are receiving bribes they’d need a paymaster. Someone to act as go-between, to protect Harrison’s and Corps’s identities.’
‘Couldn’t they have done it anonymously? Like Brown’s payment?’ Barry asked.
Lisa shook her head. ‘No, there’s a world of a difference between the payments to Brown and the way the bribes would be handled. Brown’s payments were made to a criminal who’d set up an elaborate network of bank accounts to obscure the money laundering. The people getting the bribes aren’t criminals as such. They’ll appear to be perfectly respectable. Upright citizens doing normal nine-to-five jobs. The payment to them would have to be untraceable. That means cash, and Corps and Harrison would need someone to dole out the funds.’
‘OK, I buy that,’ Marshall agreed. ‘I see your point, but I was thinking there’s someone else, a fourth man.’
‘Why?’ Barry looked even more confused.
‘There’s another part of the scheme Corps and Harrison couldn’t have carried out for themselves; the industrial sabotage.’
‘Why not?’ Shirley asked.
‘Because they wouldn’t want to risk being caught and they don’t have the practical knowledge. You’ve already heard my opinion of Corps. Harrison’s an office man, a financial expert, and wouldn’t know one end of an excavator from a camel’s backside, if it was painted yellow.’
‘If there were two others involved, that would leave Corps and Harrison vulnerable to exposure. You know, “when thieves fall out”, that sort of thing,’ Lisa suggested.
‘The difference is, these men wouldn’t be outsiders. They have to know both the industry and Broadwood’s operations. Which means Rourke has more than one viper in his nest.’
‘If you’re right, Corps and Harrison would still be vulnerable.’
‘Maybe, maybe not; perhaps they have some hold over these men that will ensure their silence. Exposure would be bad enough for Corps and Harrison, but it could be equally bad for the others. And they had the fall-back situation, where they could threaten a visit from Brown.’
‘How do you plan to find these men?’ Lisa asked.
‘I wouldn’t think that’s too difficult. Rourke always kept management as streamlined as possible. So there won’t be many to choose from. However, that isn’t the only unresolved issue.’
‘What more can there be?’ Barry asked.
‘One more death that must be connected, but for the life of me I can’t see how. Think about the murders Brown’s committed that are linked to all this. The motive’s now become clear. All except for one: Gary Watson. What was the motive for his murder?’
‘I’m lost,’ Barry confessed.
‘Gary Watson was the Broadwood employee who fell to his death from the top of a Broadwood building site,’ Lisa told him.
‘I remember now. You said his death was made to look like an accident,’ Shirley recalled.
‘Right, but we don’t know the motive for Watson’s murder.’
‘Might they have needed to silence him?’ Lisa wondered.
‘Highly unlikely, Watson was a site foreman. He wouldn’t have been in a position to find out anything damaging. As far as the running of Broadwood was concerned
he would have little or no weight.’
‘He may have accidentally seen or heard something perhaps?’ Barry persisted.
‘Very improbable. The likes of Harrison or Corps rarely find themselves in the company of site workers such as Watson. The chances of him stumbling on anything incriminating would be extremely remote. I think we have to look elsewhere for the motive behind Watson’s murder. Trouble is, I’m not sure where.’
‘I’m beginning to see what you meant when you said you need more evidence,’ Lisa agreed.
‘It might help if you had a plan,’ Barry suggested.
Lisa groaned. ‘Don’t even think it. Alan’s plans frighten me silly.’
Marshall grinned. ‘The idea of burgling Corps’ or Harrison’s house to get the evidence has crossed my mind.’ He smiled at Lisa. ‘But I don’t need to involve you if it frightens you.’
‘That’s a lousy thing to say,’ Lisa told him indignantly. ‘I went all the way to Leeds and back, risking arrest for harbouring a fugitive. I aided and abetted you whilst you broke into Hobbs and Hirst’s offices, drove the getaway car, and you have the nerve to say: “if it frightens you”. Everything you do frightens me. That doesn’t mean I’m going to back off helping.’
They were still debating the issue when Lisa’s mobile rang.
‘Hello, Mike. Yes, but we’re a bit tired.’ She listened to what Nash had to say. ‘OK, I’ll ring you back a bit later, we’ve got the information, and Alan has a germ of an idea.’ She closed her phone. ‘Nash wanted to know what progress we’ve made,’ she explained.
By late morning their plans were made. ‘I vote we grab a couple of hours’ sleep,’ Marshall suggested.
‘Whilst you two have a nap I’ll check out the information we need,’ Barry told them.