Never Dead

by Wonny Lea

  Before Matt could say any more Lizzie interrupted. ‘Look, Inspector, what you say doesn’t make any sense. It’s true my father has the type of car you describe but it’s not been left at any train station – it’s here, in one of our garages, I saw it less than ten minutes ago!’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely, and there are another two people here who can confirm the fact.’

  ‘I’m not disputing what you say, but I can’t make sense of it because we know for certain that the Jaguar parked in Treorchy is registered to your father. When you say he’s not there at the moment what exactly do you mean? Do you know where he is?’

  Lizzie was starting to feel more anxious and vented her feelings on Matt.

  ‘No, I don’t know exactly where he is. My mother told me earlier that she thinks he was here yesterday morning but I don’t live here so I don’t know.’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry to push you on this, but if you could describe your father it could help.’

  ‘He’s tall, six feet or just about, and is slightly built with grey hair and dark blue eyes.’

  ‘Does he own a gold and steel Cartier Santos watch?’ asked Matt.

  There was no reply.

  ‘We do believe that the gentleman I told you about could be your father. Is someone there with you? I don’t like the thought of putting you through this on your own. Is your mother around?’

  ‘I’m not on my own, Inspector. I’m a big girl and haven’t needed my mother for years, but, anyway, you’ve definitely got your wires crossed. There is no reason on earth why my father would end up on a train in Cardiff Central station – either dead or alive.’

  Hearing movement in the kitchen below, Lizzie put her hand over the receiver and called down to Della and Basil.

  ‘Come up here, will you? I may need you to confirm that my father’s car is in the garage.’

  Returning to the phone, she gave Matt some more details about her father.

  ‘Once again, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But neither can I ignore the fact that your description absolutely fits ours. If you add that to the fact that your father has not been seen since yesterday –’

  ‘I’m coming to Cardiff to see for myself,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘I’m sure you’re wrong, Inspector, but I’m not comfortable with the feeling I’ve had ever since my mother told me she hadn’t seen my father since yesterday. Just tell me where to come and I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  Matt gave Lizzie the details but warned her about driving in her obvious state of anxiety.

  ‘Don’t worry, Inspector, I have someone who will drive me. And please don’t stop trying to identify the body, because in a couple of hours I’m going to prove you wrong – it’s not my father.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘Don’t you bloody well tell me what I can and cannot do! You well and truly owed me that one, and it’s not as if it was the first time you’ve sorted out a problem. I know the identity of at least two more British citizens who are no longer of any concern to those who paid you to get rid of them. And there are the numerous nameless, faceless wretches that didn’t quite make it to the wondrous new life we enticed them with …’

  What Catherine Ferguson lacked in physical size, she more than made up for in volume. She cared little for the fact that the three men in the hotel room with her were all of substantial build and, as in the view of her daughter, ‘looked like thugs’. She was acutely aware that the men she addressed would have no qualms about putting a bullet in her and so she constantly told them about her insurance policy.

  ‘Let me remind you, once again, that should anything happen to me, the relevant authorities would immediately be made aware of the truth behind this particular charity – the truth behind your precious Somali SOS. I have made a detailed account of everything I know and it’s in a very safe place. Naturally, I wouldn’t want it discovered while I’m alive, as it doesn’t only implicate you – it certainly strips me of all the glory the British people have been stupid enough to shower me with.’

  She laughed. ‘My one regret is that, all being well, I will never see the looks on the faces of some of the people we’ve conned. Some very senior politicians have publicly spoken up in favour of my work and there are well-known businessmen who have poured thousands and thousands of pounds into helping our poor refugees. It’s been a pleasure to take their money! And if some dear old pensioners really want to give some of their paltry income to add to our national appeals, who am I to deprive them of that warm glow?’

  Two of the men in the room were seen by the British establishment as caring businessmen who were pulling out all the stops to help the people of Somalia, their homeland, cope with natural and man-made disasters. They had been entertained by the great and the good in business and in politics, and Catherine was one of just a handful of people who knew about the dark side of their operation.

  Although most of the people, both at grass roots level and higher up the chain, were dedicated to Somali SOS and did good work in Somalia, there were a hundred different ways to make dirty money from the charity – and Samatar Rahim and Omar Hanad knew them all. It never failed to amaze Catherine that so little was done to follow up the money that was donated. She had been part of the setup for nearly fourteen years and her role had been mainly a public relations one. As well as the charity’s work in Somalia, some refugees were helped in their quests to obtain residency or reunite with family members in the UK, and they were often the ones that were used to promote Somali SOS.

  They could be relied upon to smile sweetly at the camera and, with their limited English language skills, express their gratitude at the charity’s assistance in freeing them from oppression, poverty, or torture. The words were supplied for them and the public never knew the price they had paid for their ‘freedom’. There was a heavy financial cost in being chosen, despite there being a specific large fund just for that purpose. Often families sold everything so a relative could have the opportunity of a better life. These were the publicised success stories, but the real money was in the illegal transport of people.

  If there was nobody in the UK waiting for a person, false papers would be provided – at an additional huge cost. The sums were crippling, but some people were desperate enough to give everything they had.

  Catherine also knew that the number of people who paid for passage from Somalia was always greater than the number who arrived in Britain, but she never wanted to know what had happened on the journey. If some of the people didn’t make it to Britain, well, then profits for her and her associates were maximised. She was happy to remain ignorant of just how those people went ‘missing’ along the way; it was a way of salving her conscience.

  The third man skulked in the background and barely heard the argument. The things he’d witnessed since he was a small child had made him immune to evil. He was now prepared to do anything in order to keep the lifestyle he had become accustomed to – and his associates knew that Ahmed Hassan provided them with the perfect way of keeping their hands clean, whilst getting unsavoury jobs done.

  Ahmed was available to anyone who would pay him for murder – he had been conditioned to consider human life expendable, even more so if linked to a cause he could be persuaded to support. He did not consider the evil of his actions. Morals had not been a part of his life since, still a boy, he had watched his mother and father shot, his nine-year-old sister repeatedly raped before being left to bleed to death …

  Ahmed believed that the two men he worked for respected him for the services he provided, but he was fooling himself. His own lifespan would be measured by how useful he was and at any moment he too would become expendable.

  The voices of the other three were suddenly louder, and his attention was caught by something he didn’t hear very often – at least not from them. An element of fear in their voices.

  ‘How do you know the case has been reopened?’ demanded Catherine.

  ‘I make it my busin
ess to know these things,’ retorted Samatar. ‘It’s not only been reopened but it’s been given a high profile, and from what I have heard, unlimited resources. There is an expectation that someone called Detective Chief Inspector Phelps will be able to find things that were invisible to the first investigation team.’

  ‘Shit! I cannot believe I’m hearing this … it’s been, what, ten, eleven years? Why now?’

  Samatar scowled. ‘I guess we all considered the episode to be well and truly buried, but clearly it’s not.’

  He looked at Omar, and then caught the eye of Ahmed. ‘We three have suddenly found that the US of A is in need of our business expertise, and so we fly out of Heathrow later today. I doubt whether the so-called unlimited resources Phelps has at his disposal will stretch to him chasing us to New York for questioning.’

  ‘You bastards! So you’re just going to piss off and let me face his questions? What am I supposed to say? I can’t remember exactly what I told the police at the time. They’ll undoubtedly have records of their investigation – what if I say something different? I can’t even remember who it was or how he died.’

  Samatar walked to a table, poured a large glass of whisky, and handed it to Catherine.

  ‘Drink this and get a grip. The only reason you and I were interviewed by the police at the time was because the post-mortem examination revealed the likelihood that dead man was Somali. It was during one of our big, nationwide campaigns to raise awareness and so they were interested in some of our projects.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but there were a few hairy moments when the numbers didn’t tally with official records. I still don’t know how we got away with that.’

  ‘In the same way we usually get away with the mismatch of documentation. There is always a corrupt official willing to doctor official lists if the price is right. ‘A greedy Home Office official was more than happy to massage the figures back then. It was good for us, but although he got a nice little back-hander it wasn’t one of his best decisions because we now have a tight hold over him, and in his now considerably elevated position he is of great benefit to us. The bloody idiot is caught like a rat in a trap, and scared senseless that someday he will be called to account for perverting the course of justice.’

  ‘Stone? Will he fall apart if he’s questioned?’ Catherine took huge gulps of the whisky and re-filled her glass.

  ‘He’s got too much to lose. As he climbs the slippery pole of success he becomes ever more dependent upon hiding the sins of his past. Paradoxically, Patrick Stone is one of the best civil servants around, and from what I can gather there are no other blots on his copybook. I can just imagine his face when he gets to know this case is to be reopened – his job, his pension, and his reputation will all be screaming at him.’

  Samatar Rahim looked as if he was deriving considerable satisfaction from the potential misery of another human being. Samatar when translated means ‘someone who does good’, and Rahim, ‘mercy’. Maybe his parents had some sort of vision about what sort of man their son would grow into. If so, they had got it drastically wrong.

  ‘You really are a bunch of bastards. Why didn’t you arrange for me to travel to the States with you? We’ve done it before – we’ve campaigned in America. It wouldn’t have been seen as strange. It’s typical of your lot to leave a woman to face the music.’ Catherine was flushed and the whisky was having the opposite effect to the anticipated calming one.

  ‘I think you are forgetting something,’ Omar taunted.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like your need to play the grieving widow,’ he smirked.

  There followed a few moments of silence and then Catherine poured herself yet another whisky and sat on a high-back chair.

  ‘Christ, I’d almost forgotten about that! His body must have been identified by now. I expected to hear from the police yesterday, and I was amazed to get away this morning without at least a phone call. My daughter turned up unexpectedly, so she’s bound to be the one to receive the news when it does come. At least her grief will be genuine.’

  Samatar gathered together some papers and picking up a small case indicated that the other two men should follow his example.

  ‘Catherine, I am relying on you to keep a cool head. If you have to get in touch with me use the business phone and make the call professional. If during the conversation you tell me that you are devastated by the death of your husband, I will take it as a signal that you need to talk, and we will resume contact on our untraceable phones.’

  Before Catherine could reply, she was faced with an empty room, as Ahmed slammed the door behind him.

  She’d been assured that the police would put her husband’s death down to natural causes, and nobody would have expected her to go looking for him, but what had seemed like a perfect plan suddenly seemed to be full of holes.

  Hopefully the holes were only in her imagination. There was only one way to stop those thoughts. Looking at what remained of the amber liquid, Catherine figured that the almost half-full bottle would be more than enough to send her into the oblivion she craved.

  She knew that her anxiety had nothing to do with her husband and everything to do with the reopening of the old murder case. There was nothing that would connect her to her husband’s death – and there’d be absolutely no reason for them to think outside the box of natural causes. However, if the police discovered the perpetrator of an eleven-year-old crime then there certainly would be a trail back to her.

  Catherine suddenly felt very sick and contemplated ringing Wincanton Hall and finding out if there had been any police calls. She was trying to remember if Lizzie had said how long she was staying and had a vague idea that tennis coaching had been mentioned. If she did ring and if Lizzie was already distressed by the news of her father what then? She had no idea how long it normally took the police to inform relatives of a death.

  She briefly considered ringing her son. He would put on a convincing public display of grieving for his father but Catherine knew that there was no love lost between the two of them. He was his mother’s son and had inherited her hard-nosed view of life, and both were used to pandering to Joe Public while hiding a personal agenda. If his political career to date was anything to go by, it was serving him well.

  The difference between Catherine and her son was an uncontrollable violent temper – his. Even as a child he would suddenly lash out when things weren’t going his way but his most horrific explosion was when he had heard about his sister’s pregnancy. Suffice it to say that the tennis coach responsible for her condition had not set foot on a tennis court from that day to this.

  In spite of his injuries, the coach decided to play a dangerous game, reasoning that the potential financial rewards of blackmail were worth his own possible exposure as a rapist. Money changed hands, though Lizzie Ferguson herself never knew, any more than she knew that the father of her child was rendered a cripple by her brother. She also had no idea that her tennis coach, after his third attempt to secure more money for his silence, was himself silenced, permanently. He was one of the other two British men that Catherine had spoken about earlier.

  Although there were parts of Catherine’s life that beggared belief they were extremely well hidden, and that’s how she wanted them to stay. She supposed she would have to tell her son about this bloody case being reopened and just hope that, as before, he would not be linked to any part of the investigation.

  Thinking was becoming difficult. Although it was still the middle of the day, with the last of the whisky drained Catherine drifted into a confused mix of sleep and unconsciousness.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Why have we chosen a cold, wet, and windy Saturday in November to wander aimlessly around Roath Park? Sorry, scratch that. Why have you? I love the fresh air, Martin, but there’s a cosy cottage with a warm log fire beckoning and I know where I’d rather be.’

  The strong gusts of wind made it impossible to use an umbrella and so Shelley Edwards snuggled up
to Martin and hid her face from the elements.

  ‘OK, let’s just go to the end of this stretch and then we’ll turn back.’ Martin stopped and squinted a few times to get a better look at the lake and the paths and surrounding gardens. It suddenly became obvious to Shelley that he wasn’t just attempting to admire the view and she punched him, not too lightly, in the stomach.

  ‘It’s work, isn’t it? This outing has nothing to do with “making the most of our few hours of winter daylight” and everything to do with police business. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  Martin grabbed her and kissed her. ‘You’re getting to know me far too well.’

  Shelley shook her head and her hood fell off, just as the heavens really opened and the drizzle turned into a deluge.

  ‘Run,’ shouted Martin. He grabbed her hand and made for a small path, but it didn’t lead to the main road as he thought it would. They took shelter under some trees and then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped, and a watery sun appeared.

  ‘Say what you will about our weather, but boring it never is – look, there’s a rainbow. OK, Mr Detective, I’ve rumbled you, but as we’re here now and the clouds appear to have done their bit for today, we may as well take a proper look around. In fact, I could give you a guided tour because my friend Alice lives in that house there.’

  Shelley pointed to one of the large detached houses overlooking Roath Park lake and asked Martin if there was a particular spot he needed to see. He started to tell her about the case he was looking into when she interjected.

  ‘Oh, I remember when that happened, and I could take you to the exact spot where the body was found.’

  Martin grinned. ‘I never had you down as a ghoul! We often have to beat the murder-watchers off with a stick at our crime scenes, but I wouldn’t have put you alongside them.’