by Rose Edmunds
Which would without question have been the outcome, had Kevin not intervened.
‘It might be easier to hear her out, don’t you think?’
‘But who can say what rubbish she might come out with—she’s been diagnosed with psychosis, you know.’
Quite how JJ had discovered this was a mystery to me.
‘We’re intelligent people,’ said Kevin. ‘If she’s talking rubbish then we’ll all recognise it as such, won’t we, Ms Robinson?’
I could have hugged him. In retrospect, I feel he suspected something was amiss.
‘As you’re all aware,’ I began, ‘there’s been some discussion on the availability of tax losses in the slate mine division, culminating in our conceding them to HMRC. You need to understand why.’
‘Pearson Malone got it wrong,’ said JJ triumphantly.
‘Did you ever consider why the Megabuilders tax due diligence team didn’t pick up on the issue?’ I asked Kevin.
‘I’m told it was highly technical—easily missed.’
‘Maybe so,’ I agreed. ‘But there is another reason they didn’t spot it.’
I paused for dramatic effect.
‘What?’
‘There was no mistake. At first I suspected that the JJ finance department had screwed up in implementing the reorganisation but I checked that out too. Those losses were available.’
‘What rot,’ said JJ, with total conviction.
‘I can prove it.’
‘But what would be the point of disclaiming usable tax losses?’ asked Kevin, his brow furrowed.
Blimey, if I’d written the script for this guy I couldn’t have done better myself.
‘That is a very pertinent question—one I asked myself. And shall I tell you what I found?’
Greg and JJ exchanged agonised glances, and Goodchild looked none too comfortable either.
‘Can we please take a break for five minutes,’ said Greg. ‘I need to have a private word with Amy.’
‘Not a chance—there’ll be no private word. Everyone in the room should hear what I have to say.’
‘Before she kills you,’ added Little Amy.
‘But she’s in no state of mind to…’ JJ blustered.
‘No—let her speak,’ Kevin cut in. Whether or not he thought me crazy, I had his full attention.
‘What I found was strong indications of a fraud, which would be quickly exposed if the HMRC enquiries were allowed to run their course. Once the losses were disclaimed, the questions no longer needed to be asked.’
They stared at me as if I’d peed on the lawn at Wimbledon. I studied their faces intently. JJ was squaring up for a big shouting match, the power of his voice being his preferred weapon in any dispute. Goodchild tried hard to suppress his squirming, but didn’t succeed. He glanced anxiously at JJ and Greg, as though hoping one of them would salvage the situation. Greg tried his damnedest to stay in control. And Lisa, absentmindedly shredding a paper napkin, peered nervously at the others.
JJ broke the silence.
‘How ridiculous,’ he said. ‘These are serious allegations. How dare you bring this nonsense up at this late stage in the proceedings?’
‘I’m afraid Ms Robinson is, as we warned everyone, ill,’ added Greg. ‘I think it would be appropriate if you left the meeting, Amy.’
‘No—she should stay,’ said Kevin.
‘That’s not your decision,’ said JJ.
‘OK, but I’m left worrying about what you guys have got to hide.’
‘Well let me tell you,’ I chipped in. ‘JJ Slate has been raising bogus invoices to artificially inflate the company’s share price.’
Now everyone listened intently. While these might be the ravings of a madwoman, they indisputably livened up the meeting.
‘Now this is some lunatic idea Amy’s raised before,’ said Greg, at his most patronising. ‘And I can confirm that the debtors she’s referring to were all paid post year end.’
‘But on Friday you agreed with me.’
‘Hardly. We never discussed the matter—you were far too agitated to have any kind of rational conversation. You must have imagined it, along with all the rest of your delusions,’ he lied.
The Megabuilders team viewed him with suspicion. The cracks had begun to show.
‘You might ask where the money to repay the debts came from,’ I went on.
‘Where?’ asked Kevin.
‘Incredible as it sounds, there’s a cannabis farm in a disused shaft of the slate mine. The drug money was funding the fraud.’
The tension snapped and everyone roared with laughter, although I fancied the merriment to be somewhat artificial in the case of Greg and Jupp. Goodchild laughed too, in amazement. Judging from the expression on his face, unless he was an Oscar-winning actor, he’d known nothing of any dope growing before now. The professionals relaxed—the deal was safe—I was after all a crazy woman spouting off her stuff.
So what—I hadn’t expected them to believe me.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Greg, ignoring the presence of Lisa and two other women. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to listen to this arrant nonsense. Amy, regretfully I must ask you to leave. You’re plainly unwell.’
‘Top man,’ said JJ. ‘Never heard such gibberish in the whole of my life.’
‘Yes, this woman is insane,’ agreed Goodchild.
I didn’t care anymore. Crazy bought me the freedom to say and do what I liked. Hell, I might be wrong about all this but it didn’t matter. At last I’d been released from the tyranny of passing as normal.
‘I shall be complaining in the strongest possible terms to Eric Bailey,’ JJ blustered on.
‘Don’t worry,’ I told them, as I observed Greg dialling for security. ‘I’m leaving in a moment. But I haven’t finished yet.’
‘No—you are done!’ cried JJ.
‘I’m not done by a long chalk. Finally, I want you to know that this man Greg Kelly is a murderer. You see, I wasn’t the first to notice the anomalies in the slate mine accounts. Isabelle Edwards got there first and now she’s dead. An innocent man committed suicide in prison while his brother, the real killer, went free. And all because he didn’t have the guts to come forward when he discovered the scam—because he was determined to save his own career.’
Greg shrugged off the comment—he’d recovered his composure now everyone had decided not to take me seriously.
‘Well your career is over, I shall make sure of it,’ said JJ. ‘I’ve never seen such disgraceful, unprofessional behaviour in all my years in business. You won’t work in the City again.’
‘So what?’ I said. ‘I don’t give a shit.’
‘Now—do it now.’
The moment had come.
I reached for my bag, and stopped myself. A harsh realisation brought me up short. Something about being egged on to kill by a figment jarred. In its own way, the idea was just as nuts as hoarding up a house with junk and blinding yourself to your kid’s discomfort. They’d allowed me out of hospital because I recognised I had issues, not to embark on a nihilistic orgy of destruction.
‘Now—now! The bastard deserves to die. And you’ll get off anyway, because you’re crazy.’
I reached into my bag. My hand gripped the handle of the knife…
45
It hadn’t been plain sailing. The CCTV data showed no sign of Greg’s Ferrari and it was only at the last moment that Carmody had realised why. Of course—Greg had used his wife’s car, a Ford Fiesta—far less conspicuous than the Ferrari. After re-checking, Carmody was now armed with enough evidence to arrest Greg Kelly.
His boss hadn’t been overly enthusiastic, though.
‘Shame you didn’t think of this before,’ he’d said, leaving Carmody fearful his promotion might be in jeopardy.
So be it.
Out of courtesy, he’d informed NCA of his plans, in view of the potential link to their operation. They’d freaked when he told them—they weren’t ready to pounce on JJ and his son
quite yet—hoped to suck some others into the web. But pragmatism had won the day.
They’d also been more forthcoming with information than before. They’d had the warehouse at East Grinstead under surveillance for a while, in addition to infiltrating the slate mine. Their sham company Impex was the jewel in the crown of their ambitious operation, set up to offer money laundering services to drug barons while gathering information for their prosecution. Darren had been working undercover, posing as a company director.
Carmody questioned the legality of it all—perhaps that’s why NCA had been so coy. After all, where do you draw the line between crime detection and using illegal entrapment? He felt relieved he didn’t have to answer that question.
Amy’s antics had been most impressive though. Effectively, she’d single-handedly exposed a covert operation which had fooled an army of sophisticated criminals. They’d only latched onto her for two simple reasons. Firstly, Amy’s car registration had been logged down by the van driver who’d picked her up in East Grinstead—one of their surveillance team. Secondly, her searches on Impex and its directors had generated an alert.
And she’d been right about Greg Kelly too—eventually.
He didn’t believe for a moment that Amy planned to spend a quiet afternoon watching the television. As a woman of action, it wasn’t her style. So they’d put a tail on her, and sure enough, she was headed to the Pearson Malone offices, probably to confront Greg.
Anyway, whatever she planned to do, they wouldn’t be far behind.
46
Carmody burst into the meeting room, accompanied by an entourage of other officers and two security guards. That moment of vacillation had cost me dear.
I couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d caught up with me so quickly, but I was resigned to my fate.
‘Ah, well done, Chief Inspector,’ Greg said smoothly. ‘Ten out of ten for anticipation.’ Relief was etched deep into his face.
‘Ms Robinson,’ Carmody said. ‘Would you kindly allow me to pass?’
I stood, stunned and cowering as the party advanced past me and towards Greg. He froze, horrified—no surely not.
‘Greg Kelly, I’m arresting you for the murder of Isabelle Edwards. You have the right to remain silent, but anything you do say may be taken down in evidence and used against you.’
‘There,’ he said softly to me as Greg was led out by his subordinates. ‘I knew you’d want to see me do it. Although I wish to God you’d stayed watching the telly like you promised.’
The remaining participants in the meeting stayed rooted to their seats, mesmerised by the unfolding drama. Even JJ’s blustering spluttered to a halt as the inevitable consequences of Greg’s arrest began to dawn on him. Goodchild sat, rigid and ashen. And Lisa, shaken to the core, quietly sobbed into her handkerchief.
And me—I silently thanked whatever deity had intervened to save me from myself.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ I said, smiling sweetly. ‘This meeting is now concluded.’ And I hobbled out, without looking back.
47
I hailed a taxi from the rank outside the office and switched off my phone before it began buzzing. I had zero desire to speak to Smithies, Lisa, Bailey, HR, Potter, Carmody, the psychiatrist, the press, or any other bugger who believed they had a claim on my soul. Sod them all—I was the only person who mattered now.
The cab driver waited as I nipped into Sainsbury for the essentials of life – pizza, gin and cigarettes. On finally arriving home I deadlocked the front door behind me and unplugged the landline.
Despite the dire warnings, the meds combined with the gin quite nicely as the pizza cooked. The analytical part of my brain switched off and an eerie calm descended over the rest.
The outcome of the day had evidently disappointed Little Amy, but I knew now that she wouldn’t be happy until I’d destroyed myself.
‘You fucked that up,’ she scolded.
OK—time to take a firm line with her.
‘Politely—will you please piss off? You must realise I don’t need you anymore.’
‘But you do—see how I’ve helped you.’
‘Helped me—because of you I nearly killed a man.’
‘Don’t you think he deserved it?’
‘No—actually I don’t, and I can’t believe I was ever so brutal as you.’
‘Well you were.’
‘I don’t care—I want you gone—now.’
Somehow this was different from all the times I’d dismissed her before. She pouted, but she’d got the message alright.
‘Don’t forget, I’m always with you, even if you can’t see me.’
But she’d already faded and her voice was dying away as she said it. And I knew for sure she wouldn’t be back.
After dinner, I smoked eight cigarettes, one after the other. Why had I ever given them up? You can die anytime, whether you smoke and drink or exercise like a demon and eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. And my body felt marvellous, as did my fucked-up bombed-out crater of a mind.
I passed out on the sofa and woke at eleven in the morning, with a euphoric sense of freedom.
***
Like so many of my recent experiences, the freedom was illusory. Consequences had to be faced, apologies made and bridges rebuilt. That was reality.
The doorbell rang. I ignored it. It rang again, repeatedly and more insistently.
I dragged myself up and hobbled to the door, trying to ignore the crippling, almost overwhelming, physical pain. I scooped up the post from the mat and reluctantly, I opened the door a crack, on the chain, as I had the fateful night when Ryan had called.
Carmody.
OK, squaring the circle with law enforcement was a reasonably sensible place to start dealing with the fallout of the past few weeks.
‘Thank God you’re OK,’ he said. ‘We were on the verge of breaking down the door.’
I didn’t see anyone with him—he was as bad as Smithies with the ‘royal we’.
‘No need for that,’ I told him brusquely, showing him in.
‘So how are you?’
With a practised sweep of the eye, he took in first my crumpled dress; followed by the pizza remnants, dirty glasses, half-empty gin bottle, and overflowing ashtray. Finally, his gaze came to rest on the charred silhouette of a cigarette on the otherwise immaculate beige carpet.
‘Pretty good, in the circumstances.’ Especially as I’d narrowly avoided being burnt alive.
‘I didn’t realise you smoked.’
‘I quit five years ago.’
‘Looks like your carpet’s ruined.’
‘Nah—must be possible to have it repaired. And if it can’t be I’ll buy a new one. Coffee?’
‘Please.’
His wandering into the kitchen after me caused me no anxiety—the pills I’d been prescribed worked like magic.
‘Fab kitchen.’
His gaze came to rest on the knife block with the carver missing—but nothing was said.
I sniffed the milk and poured it down the sink.
‘Milk’s off—you’ll have to drink it black.’
‘No worries.’
‘Why you did come here?’ I asked when we were back in the lounge.
‘Just curious about how you were doing.’
‘I wish I knew.’
‘Also I wanted to inform you that in all the circumstances we won’t be proceeding with the drunk driving charges, or pursuing your mother’s complaint.’
‘Am I supposed to be pleased?’
Frankly, I’d reached a point where I simply didn’t care.
‘You’ve been through a lot. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you earlier.’
‘What made you listen in the end?’
He told me how he’d taken my comments about using his brain to heart, his issues in dealing with NCA and the CCTV evidence which finally nailed Greg.
‘I imagine he’s weaselled his way out of it though. He’s a slippery bastard.’
Even as I said it, I pictured Greg coming up with a plausible and perfectly innocent justification for everything.
‘As a matter of fact, no—he’s confessed—seemed glad to get it off his chest. But he’s hoping to plead guilty to manslaughter. He says he went there to talk to Isabelle and play down her disquiet, but she argued with him and insisted he should file a report with the MLRO. And he lost his temper and put his hands around her neck then she went limp… He claims it was a terrible accident…’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘Perhaps. But given the way he tried to frame his brother afterwards he’ll struggle with a manslaughter plea. And Isabelle’s family will object like crazy. But to his credit he’s been helpful in filling us all in on the accounting anomalies and the drugs.’
‘But Greg told me the purpose of the invoicing scam was to increase the value of the company. He didn’t seem to know anything about the drugs.’
‘Not true—he’s given us the full story. A few years ago Jason Jupp hit on the bright idea of using his father’s slate mine to grow dope. It was a big scale operation producing around two million pounds street value every quarter. The manager and staff took a cut, but they were worried Head Office might decide to sell the mine if it wasn’t profitable enough. So they started raising fake invoices. After Megabuilders put in their bid, Greg somehow discovered the false invoicing and alerted JJ. JJ dug deeper, found out about the drugs and hit the roof with Jason. Both Greg and JJ realised they’d lose the sale if the irregularities came to light, or at best there’d be a substantial price reduction. So Greg suggested coercing Jason into putting the drug money back into the company. He’d worked out they’d get it back many times over when the deal went through.’
It was worse than I’d thought. Greg had been instrumental in perpetuating the crime, rather than merely turning a blind eye. And I now remembered the conversation I’d overheard between Jason and his father way back at my first meeting with JJ—something about taking his dirty money. If only I’d listened more intently.
‘JJ was arrested as soon as he stepped out of the meeting room, at the same time as his son and the team at JJ Slate,’ Carmody added.