by John Barlow
It was true. John wanted money. And the reason was walking towards him now, as he strained to listen to what Joe was telling him. Tall and athletic, she was as blonde as a Nordic goddess, with a knowing smile that never quite gave anything away. They’d been seeing each other most of the year, nothing too serious, but more than casual. And now, with finals over, she was heading back home to New Zealand. Her parents had a spare flat in Christchurch, and John was welcome to join her. They could hang out there for a year, travel. Whatever.
“Come on!” she said, an ivory satin gown hugging her figure, her skin soft and faintly freckled, and with that gorgeous bloom of freshness that seems to be the genetic preserve of Kiwis. “You’re missing it.”
He nodded like an obedient puppy. She laughed, amused to see that he was still mesmerised by her dress, which he’d helped her into ten minutes ago.
“I’ll ring you back,” he shouted into the phone.
Slipping his hands around her waist he pulled her to him.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said. “Y’know what, I think I am coming to the other side of the world with you after all.”
They were delirious in each other’s company, right through the night, knowing they had their lives ahead of them, and that the future was inconceivably bright. Cambridge had come to an end almost without them noticing, three years at what had seemed like a big posh boarding school, neither of them ever feeling completely at home there, but a dream nonetheless, a fantasyland so refined and complete that, like all the best fantasies, you soon forget that it’s make-believe. And now, after a final dose of champagne and Brideshead, they were ready to walk away from it.
They danced and drank as an array of bands filed on and off the main stage. There was so much food and drink on offer that even John had to stop eating somewhere around three in the morning. On and on it went, carousel rides and punts on the river, drinking, smoking, loving and laughing, a night of bliss.
And as the sun came up, they stood in the shadows of Kings College Chapel, which glowed a strange burnished yellow in the dawn sunlight. Along with a couple of hundred fellow revellers who’d made it to the end of the ball without collapsing, they posed for the survivors’ photo. People hung chaotically onto each other, a special kind of drunken camaraderie in the air, a secret, almost. Because after three years couped up in one of the most privileged institutions on earth, they had acquired a kind of nonchalance that was simply unavailable elsewhere; they were, undeniably and inescapably, part of an elite.
But for those two, swaying on the grass and staring up at the camera, it was more than that. The money from Joe would set them up. Surfing? Trekking in Taz? Or up to Sydney? Who knew? From New Zealand the tiger economies of South East Asia were within easy reach, and America’s west coast was just a flight away. Hong Kong, Singapore, LA? They hardly dared think about the possibilities.
All he had to do was a favour for his brother, and the five grand would take him to the other side of the world, no need to go cap in hand to his dad, no need to borrow cash from anybody. It was Joe’s graduation present to John, timed to perfection. Good old Joe! they said all evening, raising innumerable toasts to him, and to themselves, to their future together.
He’d finally rung Joe back a couple of hours after the ball began, begging the use of the phone in the Main Lodge, where the porters on duty were all merry, a little coterie of them, rosy-cheeked like Toby jugs, trying not to look pissed. He scribbled down the details and returned to the ball, puffing on a Monte Cristo in his brother’s honour, and knowing that at last he was about to escape his own surname; no longer the unwilling scion of a family of conmen and counterfeiters, he was now a member of a far bigger and prosperous elite, one whose influence extended around the world.
The same morning, without having gone to bed, he was on a train north.
Joe had a booze run on the go. It was as simple as that. A Transit van full of the stuff coming over from Belgium. He did one every few months, apparently. Not cheap stuff either. Good wines, single malts, top of the range and no tax to pay on it. An easy way to double your money.
But they needed a new face for each run, someone that wouldn’t catch the eye of customs if they were stopped. If the van was pulled over, there was a back-up story: Mr Joe Ray was getting married. The booze was for the engagement party. Five hundred guests. They had the place booked, catering, disco, the lot; there was even a ‘fiancée’ who knew exactly what to say if Customs and Excise gave her a call. The documents were all in the van. They just needed a new face to drive it.
The ferry set sail that evening. John was dog tired and perhaps still a bit drunk. A booze run for Joe? Not a bad way to earn five thousand quid, and to start a new life on the other side of the world. There was a nice symmetry to it, as well, one of Joe’s schemes paying for him to walk away from the family for good. Nobody in New Zealand had ever heard of Tony Ray or the Old Bailey trial. Knock-off perfume and leather jackets… blokes turning up at home in the middle of the night, his dad making calls, giving orders, disappearing without a word… What a way to grow up that had been! Now it was all over.
He couldn’t help laughing as he looked around the car park at the ferry terminal and saw Joe leaning against a dark blue van. How many of his fellow students at Cambridge could boast a family like his? He’d played on it when he first arrived at college. No choice, really. He was the college curiosity, a northerner (which was bad enough) from a criminal family. Most people there had never met a criminal, but they knew who Tony Ray was. It soon got annoying, and after the fiftieth toff asked him if he knew how to get hold of cocaine, John’d had enough.
Then, at the end of his second year, he’d met someone who genuinely didn’t give a shit about the Old Bailey trial. She saw England for what it was, a nation in love with a ridiculous, sepia-tinted image of itself, from its ancient universities to its jaunty crims. And now John was going to travel to the furthest point on the globe to be with her.
“You look pleased with yourself,” Joe said, noticing that John was in jeans and a leather jacket, but underneath it was a crumpled, wine-stained dress shirt, complete with cufflinks.
“Oh, I’m bloody great!” he said, giving his brother a hug, then jumping up into the van. “Just tell me where!”
The bloke who was supposed to be driving the van had let them down at the last minute. They needed a replacement quick, and they were willing to pay over the odds. A couple of days’ work and five grand in his pocket. Joe gave him the tickets, told him what to do when he got to Belgium.
The overnight crossing was a lively one, the boat lurching sideways as well as up and down, doors slamming, people hanging onto the rails in the corridors as they edged towards the toilets. John sat at the bar and drank whisky, chasing away the hangover that threatened to dampen his excitement.
There was live cabaret. But it wasn’t James Taylor, and there were no young waitresses moving silently around with silver trays of devils on horseback and pink champagne. This was the real world, Status Quo’s greatest hits and get your own lager from the bar. He necked a bag of peanuts, ordered another double whisky, and went back to his reclining seat to doze away the crossing in fitful, jubilant sleep. The real world? What did that even mean? He had no idea. But he was about to fly to the other side of the world to find out.
At six o’clock the next morning he drove off the ferry, cold and sweaty in his crumpled shirt. It turned out that delay tactics don’t work with hangovers: you buy yourself time, but there’s only so much time to buy. It didn’t matter. It was all irrelevant now.
An hour’s drive to the wholesalers, stop off for breakfast on the way. A little after eight and he was watching them load the van from a stack of crates out behind the warehouse. He made a half-hearted attempt to check-off the cargo as it went in, everything listed and itemised, ready for inspection at Customs. Champagne first, two dozen bright orange crates of Veuve Clicquot, then various high-end single malts, followed by wine. Lots of
it. The Transit’s suspension was holding up well, four wheels on the back axel, the tyres nice and hard, a real smuggler’s drive. In went crate after crate of Château Margot and Chambertin Grand Cru. Three years in the Cambridge University Wine Society had taught him a thing or two, and as the last of it was loaded, he did a rough calculation: he was about to drive away with close to sixty thousand quid’s worth of booze.
“Gonna be a great party!” he said as a tall, wiry bloke in a leather jacket appeared and grabbed the cargo list. He jumped into the van, humping crates out of his way, right to the back, and stooped down over the orange crates of Vueve.
A minute later he was out again, tapping the keypad of a bulky mobile phone as he walked away, not a word to John.
“I guess not everyone’s about to start a new life,” John told himself, shrugging as he lit a fag, wallowing in it all now, the ball, the five grand, New Zealand, the whole damn splendour of his charmed life.
The van’s doors were slammed shut.
“Okay,” he said. “What do I sign?”
But the men doing the loading were already walking away.
So there he stood, pulling hard on a Marlboro, and taking stock of his life: between him and paradise lay nothing more than a choppy stretch of the North Sea.
By the time he was back on the ferry he’d requisitioned a nice bottle of Château Margot from the van (retail fifty quid) to go with some paté, cheese, and a stick of bread. Afternoon crossing this time, but it passed quickly enough, the Margot from a plastic cup, the paté spread on the bread with his fingers.
They didn’t even pull him over at Customs. He was off the ferry and through Hull within minutes, five thousand pounds to the good. As they’d agreed, he met Joe on a lay-by outside the city on the M62. It was close to midnight and there was a dampness in the air that made him yearn for sun.
“Here,” his brother said, handing him a fat envelope and a set of car keys. “Take mine. Go and see Dad. You haven’t been home for a while. He was asking about you.” Joe looked out onto the traffic, a steady stream of lorries and cars, most of them from the ferry. “Let’s keep quiet about this, right?”
There was a burger van further up the lay-by, a few blokes at the counter, even at this time of night.
“Fancy something to eat?” John said, pangs of hunger in his stomach as he smelled the frying onions.
“Nah, you get off,” Joe said, still looking out onto the road.
John didn’t mind. He’d never had much in common with Joe, and three years at Cambridge hadn’t brought them any closer. Black sheep, white sheep; their roles were pretty well established by now.
So this was sort of a farewell, he thought, standing there watching the traffic, knowing that it would be the last time he’d see Joe for a while, and that it was perhaps for the best; they’d chosen different paths, the criminal and the college boy.
He’d go and say his goodbyes to Dad, then he’d be away. Finally, he’d left the family. He was no longer Tony Ray’s boy.
They shook hands.
“I’m off to New Zealand,” he said.
Joe looked surprised. “When?”
“Day or two. Soon as I get a ticket,” he said, patting the pocket where he’d crammed the envelope.
Joe nodded. “Brilliant. Wish I were comin’, mate. Have a good one.”
And that was it. Joe, never one for many words, went over to the Transit to check the load. John got behind the wheel of his brother’s BMW and pulled away, shaking his head at how easy it had all been, and now just a little disappointed that this final act of leaving the family had been as a smuggler.
It started to rain. He took it steady, watching in his mirror as three men from the burger van joined Joe in the Transit. No surprise there. You don’t want to get hijacked on your own with a load like that.
“What do I care?” he asked himself, easing the Beemer up to eighty and seeing the sign for Leeds. “I’m done.”
Chapter Forty-six
Even the Super’s come out to see this one. She stands there, listening to the thud of music from the flat next door, and looks with disgust at the body of their main suspect as the pathologist finishes his initial inspection.
“Someone tell them to turn that off,” she says.
As she waits for the music to stop she inhales long and hard: damp carpets and the tang of fried food. As soon as she stepped into the building it was in her nostrils, the smell of low-rent living, of just-tolerable squalor, exactly the stink that greets you at half the crime scenes in the city.
Dennis Reid no doubt chose the place deliberately, somewhere nice and anonymous, no CCTV. A cheap room in a run-down house off the Kirkstall Road, rows of Victorian terraces full of hard-up students and immigrants, drug-skags and DHSS. He didn’t choose well enough, though. Someone followed him here, got into his room, and put four bullets into him. Precision stuff, shots in the lower legs and the forearms. Then they did this.
She sighs at the stomach-churning intrigue of it. It’s vile, but it’s good. A champagne bottle has been pushed neck-first down his throat, then forced in until it cracked. She hates intrigue. It turns a case into a puzzle, leaving no room for manoeuvre; either you get the answer or you’ve got nothing. Bottles, bullets, three victims in a row… What kind of riddle is it?
Reid’s arms and legs had been fixed to the bedposts with huge amounts of gaffer tape. God knows how they did it. Bullets first? Must have been. But someone like Reid would still be reeling, thrashing about, fighting for his life. The noise? The neighbours?
His head too. There are big loops of tape under his chin and up behind the headboard. In the cold light of day it looks faintly comical. At the time it must have been revolting to watch. Intriguing, though.
“Heart attack,” says Michael Coultard, straightening up and removing his blue latex gloves. “Possibly shock-induced, although he may have been drowning on his own blood at the time as well.”
“A toss-up, then?”
“I’ll know for sure when we get him on the slab.”
“It’ll make no difference to Mr Reid. Or to us, for that matter.”
“Whereas for me,” he says as the second glove snaps off, “it will be the source of professional satisfaction. I don’t know what we’ve got here,” he adds, stuffing the gloves into his jacket pocket and exuding a jovial, almost callous good humour, his only means of getting through jobs like this, “but it must count as one of the most horrendous corpses I’ve ever seen. Of the fresh ones, at least. Anyway, I’ll let you know. One thing, though: he was alive at the time of the bottling. Is that the term?”
Shaking his head, he takes one final look at the deceased and turns to go. Then he stops:
“How on earth do you crack a champagne bottle like that?” he says. “It’s almost impossible.”
“More’s the point, why?”
“That, Deputy Superintendent, is absolutely none of my business.”
A minute later they listen to the solid clunk of the Volvo’s door and the sound of Coultard driving off.
Baron has hardly said a word. He’s standing behind the Super, out of the way of the crime scene officers, who are busy combing the room. He looks at Reid’s body, legs and arms out to the four corners of the bed, a big man reduced to the figure of a rag doll. His lower face is a mess of blood, and his eyes are bloodshot and bulging grotesquely. His jaws have been forced wide apart and the flesh at both sides of the mouth has split where the bottle was rammed in, its thick girth cracked.
One of the SOCOs gets up from his knees, an electric iron in his hand.
“Could have been this, Gov,” he says. “Ma’am, I mean. Some funny scratches on it, recent by the looks of them.”
Kirk nods, makes her way carefully out of the room. Baron follows.
Outside, Steele is coordinating the door-to-doors.
“Anything?” Baron asks.
“Not much. Rooms on both sides were out till late last night. Still pissed now, good as; heard
nothing this morning. Bloke downstairs thinks someone was ringing bells this morning, two or three of ’em, y’know, one after the other, trying to get in. But he can’t be sure. Apart from that, nothing.” He checks his notebook. “Letting people say Reid paid cash up front, a month, said he was visiting family. Gave his name as David Brown.”
“It’s not torture, though, is it?” Kirk says, wagging her finger as if the corpse on the other side of the wall is trying to trick her. She may resent a puzzle, but now that she’s in the game she has to admit that it’s a fascinating one. “You don’t torture someone by ramming a bottle down their throat, do you Sergeant?”
“Not if you’re looking for information,” Steele says.
“Roberto Swales,” Baron says. “He might have been tortured for information. He was definitely kept alive for some reason. Here,” he gestures towards the open door, “it’s more revenge. Symbolism. Whatever.”
“So whatever Reid knew, the killer knew as well,” Kirk adds, as if she has just handed Baron and his team a prize clue. “Millgarth in twenty, Steve.”
With that she leaves, phone already pressed to her ear.
“And Jeanette Cormac?” Steele says, after the Super’s gone.
Baron rubs his index fingers into his brow.
“I haven’t the faintest idea, Sergeant.”
“Cormac wasn’t tortured,” Steele says, cocky as hell, loves the big cases. “But she’d pissed herself. Happen they didn’t need to torture her?”
“So what was it she knew? Names?”
Steele shrugs a semi-affirmative, knowing he’s onto something, but smart enough not to lord it over his boss.
“Anything from that laptop yet?”
“Only that she never used names. Then there’s the thing up at the golf club.”
Baron has already read the surveillance report. Jeanette Cormac came out of the club looking shaken. Sped off before they could get after her.