‘Listen,’ said Godden, leaning in. ‘It might not be the worst idea to arrange some drinks in the Royal Oak tonight – for the whole station. Been a while since we all had a blow out together.’
‘Interesting,’ she said conspiratorially.
‘Isn’t it?’ he replied with a wink, and began to walk on. He stopped again suddenly.
‘By the way, you haven’t seen Jimmy Farmer today, have you?’
‘No, why?’
‘Been no sign of him – probably laid up at home with that new bird of his, wailing about man flu.’ He gave an exaggerated eye-roll and headed off.
That should help sell it, Godden thought. Jaunty and friendly; his usual self, in other words. If anyone asked questions later, people would say he’d been relaxed and normal. These situations were all about the marginal gains, you never knew how important they might become later. As he walked down the corridor he could see Warrender on the phone in his office. Godden could tell straight away something was wrong. The DI looked ashen, with none of the usual histrionics. He braced himself, and focused his thoughts quickly. It might be nothing, but if he was right about what was coming, he’d need to be word perfect. Warrender saw him looking over and immediately beckoned him in.
‘Mike, there you are – I’ve been looking for you,’ said Warrender. He looked shell-shocked and Godden pulled a concerned face.
‘Something up, guv?’
‘It’s Jimmy.’
‘What about him?’
‘I’ve just had a call from a DS in Welwyn. There’s a landfill site on their patch that’s gone into administration. One of the people from the accountancy firm handling the job drove out there this morning, and found the body of a man in his late twenties. They called 999 and the uniforms who attended found Jimmy’s ID on it.’
‘What?’ said Godden with a rehearsed mixture of shock and horror.
‘He took a picture at the scene.’ Warrender tapped on his phone and passed the handset over to Godden who slowly looked down at the image. It showed Farmer’s head slumped to one side, his hooded eyelids shut as if simply dozing. Dried blood mingled with clay-coloured dust caked his face. The expression was exactly as it’d been when Godden left him the previous day. Not that there was any reason it could or would have altered, but it so closely matched the last image in his mind’s eye it shook him momentarily.
‘Jesus . . .’
‘There’s a full crime scene in place, I’m just about to head out there.’
‘What are SOCO saying?’
‘Early signs are that it was an accident. Looks like he went there for a nose around, then fell down a slope. I can’t quite believe it, to be honest.’
‘How long ago?’ said Godden, still affecting shock.
‘I’ve just been talking to his girlfriend. They don’t live together so she doesn’t know whether he came home last night. She texted him early this morning, but he didn’t reply. She wasn’t too worried because he doesn’t always answer immediately. I haven’t told her about the body yet, that should wait until there’s been a formal ID. Mike – I hate to ask, but you may just have been the last person to have seen him alive. You went out on a job together yesterday, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, we were following a lead on Whitlock’s network. The guy we wanted wasn’t there, so Jimmy volunteered to try and track him down. I dropped him off just outside Hatfield.’
‘Do you think that’s why he might have gone to that landfill site? He’d found something?’
‘Possibly . . .’
‘How did he get there if he didn’t have a car? I don’t understand.’
Godden shrugged, affecting total bemusement.
‘Okay. I’ve ordered a cell site analysis of his phone – hopefully it’ll give us an idea of where he went after you dropped him off, then we can start to construct a timeline.’
Godden was anticipating this too. He’d looked at the map earlier and identified the place he’d claim to have left Farmer. It was en route to the landfill site, but far enough away to match the version of events he’d just given Warrender. It would also tally with the results of any cell site analysis. It wasn’t watertight but would have to do.
‘I’ve got to say I can’t remember a landfill business coming up with any of the people we’d been looking into. What else do we know about it?’ he asked Warrender.
‘Very little at this point, but there is something which might give us a clue. The main office is a Portakabin with a mounted CCTV camera. The administrators have been maintaining it because the place has become a magnet for fly-tippers.’
Godden felt like he’d just been punched in the solar plexus. Once he’d made the decision he might have to kill Farmer there’d been very little time to plan anything, so he’d improvised. The landfill site seemed the perfect choice because it was secluded and neglected. It’s not like he was born yesterday either. He’d looked out for cameras when they’d arrived and hadn’t seen any. He’d clearly missed one and it was his ridiculous luck it was actually still working. Over the years he’d dealt with many thriving businesses who’d been hopeless at maintaining their security, let alone a firm which went bust months ago. His mind was racing. His carefully constructed cover story was now in tatters.
He thought it through logically. The footage was probably being transported back to some nick in Hatfield for a DC to go through. It would clearly show him entering the Portakabin with Farmer. It would also show the pair of them exiting, with Godden in handcuffs. There was no lie which would get him out of that. One careless oversight and his house of cards was crashing down. There were only two options now. Either confess to murdering a fellow officer and admit to being on the payroll of one of the most wanted men in the country – or go on the run. It was a no-brainer. Experience told him running was probably doomed to fail, but at least he’d have the glimmer of a chance. He didn’t possess a fraction of the resources Spinney did. There was no network of contacts who could protect him, no carefully planned strategy to get him out of this. He’d improvised and improvised, and now he was all out of ideas. There was a vicious irony to it. He’d done all of this for his daughter; for Franny. Now either way, he’d probably never see her again.
‘Mike?’ said Warrender.
Godden snapped back into the room and saw the concern on his DI’s face. He felt like plunging a steak knife into the middle of it.
‘Sorry, it’s so hard to take all this in.’
‘I know, mate, tell me about it. Do you want to come out there with me? I know how close you two were.’
‘It’s alright, guv. Someone needs to manage things here; this is going to come as a massive shock for the whole place, and then there’s the Handyman. We need to stay on top of that; we can’t drop the ball, whatever else is going on. We owe it to Jimmy to see the job through. Do you know when the raid in Kent’s going ahead?’
‘Not yet, but imminently.’
Warrender sympathetically patted his arm.
‘I’ve got some calls to make, and then I’ll head out. Stay in touch, let me know of any developments.’ He shook his head. ‘What a business, eh? Poor Jimmy . . .’
Godden nodded gravely and waited for Warrender to go, then grabbed his jacket. He estimated he’d just enough time to go home, grab his passport and get to the airport. After that, he did not have a clue.
Chapter 48
The timing was awful, but Finn didn’t really have much choice. The crime scene was still very much live at Phil Maddox’s flat, while the operation to arrest Ray Spinney could proceed at any second. It was hardly the time to be going AWOL, but some things – some moments – were simply too important to let pass. He’d experienced an epiphany about one of his problems and there was only a small window of opportunity to act. He was once again stood in the car park of Cedar House, staring down into the boot of his car at the object wrapped in carrier bags. He unwrapped it, and held up the urn containing Karin’s ashes. This was important and he didn’t want to reg
ret it later. He looked at it closely just to be sure in his own mind, then wrapped it back up. He checked his watch and committed to the decision. With luck he’d be back within a couple of hours.
A short time later he parked up outside a small hotel in South Kensington. He walked past the reception desk and scanned the lobby until his eyes settled on a table at the far end. Sat, surrounded by luggage and sharing a pot of tea were Otto and Olga Bergmann, their pensive faces breaking into warm smiles of recognition as they saw him.
‘Alex. We didn’t think we’d see you again before we left?’ said Otto with his heavy German accent.
‘Nor did I, if I’m honest,’ Finn replied.
‘We were surprised to hear that you’d gone back to work. It’s so soon,’ said Olga. She noticed the bruising on his face and the stitches on his scalp and her expression turned to one of concern. ‘You’re hurt . . .’
‘It’s nothing, really. Just work.’
Olga and Otto exchanged a look.
‘What brings you here?’ said Olga.
‘How have the last few days been?’ he asked huskily, ignoring her question.
‘We stayed to see London one last time. It’s the city Karin made her home. And we are old, our travelling days are probably behind us now. We wanted to say goodbye, if you understand me,’ replied Otto. Finn nodded. ‘So please – what is so urgent you dashed here right before our flight?’
Finn pulled the urn out from the bags that swaddled it, and placed it carefully on the table. There was a long pause as the couple took it in.
‘We can’t take this,’ said Olga. ‘She should be with you.’
‘No. It just upsets me,’ said Finn. ‘It’s not her, not to me, anyway. I just can’t connect with that object.’
Otto picked up the urn and turned it between his hands.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
Finn smiled sadly, then tapped the side of his head.
‘She’s in here. Everything that matters . . . please, take her home – scatter her somewhere special. I’d like that. I think she would too.’
Olga picked up the urn; her turn to look at it, to try and make sense of it. Then she unzipped her bag and carefully put it inside.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
He waited with them until their taxi arrived, helped them with their luggage, then said his goodbyes. After they’d gone, he returned to his car, and it was then the tears came. This time there was a flood, not just a passing shower; huge heaving sobs which left him gasping for air. Somewhere inside he felt a strange detachment, an awareness he urgently needed to return to the incident room. But he let the tears flow because even in his grief he understood they were necessary. When they finally subsided, he took a half-drunk bottle of water from the passenger seat and splashed some over his face. This was it, he thought, the final goodbye. She was on her way home now and she literally did not exist any more beyond the memories. And that bloody riddle, he remembered. The dog in the forest. He was starting to carry it around like a comfort blanket now, not actually trying to solve it. Not for the first time an unexpected smile forced its way through the sadness. He jumped suddenly at the sound of his phone ringing, snapping him out of the moment. A split second to regain a semblance of composure, and he answered.
‘Finn, it’s Warrender. You should know – one of my DCs, Jim Farmer, died overnight. I’m at the scene now.’
‘Shit – what happened?’
‘He went out on a job yesterday with DS Mike Godden, my right-hand man . . .’ He faltered, and Finn could hear heavy emotion in his voice now. Grief just seemed all pervading at the moment. Was it always there? Had it taken Karin’s death for him to notice how ever-present it actually always was?
‘. . . it looks like Godden was involved somehow. We have CCTV of him with Farmer at the scene after he told me he hadn’t been there. Looks like Jimmy nicked him for some reason. He was wearing handcuffs. Now he’s gone missing. We’ve got a manhunt underway.’
‘Why would Godden have killed Farmer?’
‘It’s early days obviously, so none of this makes much sense. Digital forensics are going through his computer as we speak. My guess is Jimmy must have got a sniff of something. They were investigating Whitlock’s money laundering network.’ Warrender paused. ‘If Godden was working for Spinney, then everything we’ve done would have been going straight back to him. For years.’
There was a long silence as the implication sank in for Finn. An awful lot of things were starting to fall into place.
‘That’s what your thinking is? That Godden was in his pocket?’ He asked it as carefully as he could. The whole world knew the rumours that the robbers were being helped by an insider. Finn remembered the attempt to intimidate Paulsen’s partner, and the call Karin’s old colleagues received. Was Godden the leak?
‘Of course he was fucking bent,’ said Warrender. ‘You asked me earlier if I thought it was coincidence we got a tip-off about Spinney the same week we get a smell Erik Whitlock might be alive. I think we now know which tree all of that shit’s been falling from.’
Finn wondered how many conversations Warrender was now rewinding in his head. He could only imagine the feeling; the stupidity, the betrayal and now the great cost.
‘You get the tip-off the morning after Farmer’s killed? You think that came from Godden?’
‘Why this morning – of all mornings?’ rasped Warrender.
‘Why does Godden give him up then – as a distraction?’
‘I think so. If Jimmy was on to him then maybe it became every man for himself. If it was a distraction, then it worked perfectly. Right now he’s in the wind, and Mike Godden’s a detective with decades of experience; if there’s one man who knows every trick, it’s him. He’ll know exactly how to disappear. But I’m buggered if I’m going to let that happen, even if it costs me my career.’
Finn listened with some sympathy, unable to disagree with Warrender’s assessment. He was right about his career prospects too; what happened in the aftermath of this was likely to be ugly even if they did bring Spinney in later.
‘Listen, I’ve got to go,’ said Warrender. ‘As you can imagine, I’ve got my hands full. I’ll be in touch if there’s any news.’
The line went dead. Finn looked out of the car window trying to understand how these new developments tied in with his own investigation. This surely put paid to any notion Whitlock was still alive. Whether it came from Spinney or a bent detective, the source of the information was compromised. Finn was as certain as he could be Spinney was the man behind the murders of the fire crew. What was going on at Chapel Row, though tragic, was ultimately no more than a consequence of the net closing in. If Godden’s betrayal led to Spinney’s arrest, then some good might yet come out of this mess. So why did he feel so troubled? He watched as the hotel doorman greeted a smartly dressed businessman loaded down with bags.
‘You’re missing something,’ said Karin.
Chapter 49
In the event, Godden hadn’t gone to Stansted Airport. Instead he’d walked out of Chapel Row, found the nearest cash point and emptied out as much money as his various cards would allow. From there he’d walked into town, hired a car and driven away from his life as he knew it. He’d formed the beginnings of a plan but knew he’d have to move fast if it was to work. He calculated there was just a narrow window where he might be able to rescue something from this.
There were two ways in which Erik Whitlock laundered money. The first was the smurfing network, while the second involved smuggling cash out of the country. Whitlock’s links with a number of Romanian gangs meant Godden was confident he knew where most of the Stansted haul probably finished up. What hadn’t gone to the network was now more than likely with various less-than-rigorous financial institutions in Bucharest. It now also seemed probable a chunk of it ended up in the hands of a luckless fire crew in south London, but they were the least of his worries. Romania was now a possible escape route; somewhere the Han
dyman’s contacts might just be able to forge a new identity for him – if he could get to Spinney before the police did. The irony of that wasn’t lost on him either.
He’d decided to try and fly from Gatwick; Stansted or Luton, although closer, would have been too obvious and too risky. He was parked up on a small side road only a few miles from the M25, which would take him round and down into Sussex. Somewhere a Territorial Support Group team were almost certainly getting suited and booted, ready to bring the Handyman to justice. It was less than half an hour since he’d walked out of Chapel Row, and he was betting even Spinney’s insiders hadn’t got wind yet of what was unfolding. It wouldn’t take long though, and Godden smiled as an old saying came back to him: ‘every problem is merely an opportunity in disguise’.
He pulled out the burner phone he used for contacting Spinney. This time there wasn’t the usual delay before the familiar gravy-rich voice answered.
‘Where are you?’ asked Godden.
‘Why do you need to know?’
‘Because someone’s given you up. Warrender’s received a tip-off.’
‘From who?’
‘I don’t know; it was anonymous but you need to get moving – they’re on their way.’
‘There’s no need to be melodramatic. They won’t get here in time.’
‘You’re sure of that, are you?’
‘You think I’d leave myself that open?’
Did he already know? It scarcely seemed possible in the time frame. He wondered again if Spinney had another insider – maybe even at Chapel Row.
‘They know about me too – that I’ve been working for you. Whoever tipped them off must have known. There’s a warrant out for my arrest and I need help.’ It may have been a lie, but it wouldn’t be too far behind the truth for long.
‘What sort of help?’
‘A passport. If I try and use my own . . . well, it may already be too late. I can’t risk it; if the airports have been alerted then I’ll get picked up before a plane gets off the ground. I need a new one, and I know you can arrange it.’
The Burning Men Page 23