by James Green
‘It could be. It would depend on when a suitable flight was available.’
Jimmy decided to pack it in. This wasn’t getting him anywhere.
‘How long would it take to get to the airport?’
‘Which one?’
‘Oh, Christ. How many are there?’
‘Two. Charles de Gaulle and Orly.’
‘Which would be better for Santander?’
The shrug came again, he was SNCF, not Air France.
‘Which is closer if I go by taxi?’
The young man had to think.
‘I’m not sure, but by taxi, maybe Orly.’
‘Thanks. Where are the taxis?’
The young man pointed and Jimmy saw the sign. He left the window and headed for the taxi rank. Getting to Santander by train sounded too slow. George had a start on him now. But he thought Jimmy was headed for Gibraltar and taking his time so maybe he wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry. Jimmy had to beat him to the punch which meant taking a chance on the airport. He came to the taxis and got in the first one.
‘Orly airport. I’m in a hurry’
The driver nodded and seemed to understand. The taxi pulled away. The Paris traffic was busy but the driver was either mad, or clever, or both and they made good time clearing the city.
Just under thirty minutes later the taxi pulled up at the drop-off area, Jimmy paid it off and went in. He went to the nearest departure board. There was nothing anywhere near Santander. It was mostly French destinations. The Terminal building, what he had noticed of it, was not so very big by international airport standards and it began to look to him as if he had chosen the wrong airport. He looked at his watch, just after eleven. He looked at the board again. There was an Iberia flight to Madrid due off in six minutes. Sod it. From Madrid he could have got to Santander or Bilbao. As he looked down the list of destinations the Madrid flight disappeared from the screen. The remaining departures times went as far as 13.16 but there was nothing that might help him so he found a seat and sat down and watched the departure board.
Flights disappeared from the board and flights got added but nothing came that was any good to him. He waited. Then another Iberia flight to Madrid appeared at the bottom of the list. 14.45. Jimmy got up and walked along the Concourse until he found the Iberia ticket desk.
‘Do you speak English?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want to go to Santander. If I catch the 14.45 to Madrid and get a connection what time would I get in?’
‘The young woman consulted her screen.
‘There is a connection at Madrid for Santander which will get you there by 18.45.’
‘I’ll take it.’
Jimmy pulled out his wallet and the young woman began processing his ticket. When it was sorted he went through the security check and into the Departures lounge. He looked at his watch again. If his flight left on time it would go in just over two hours. Maybe he would have done better at Charles de Gaulle but even going through Madrid he would probably still get to Santander faster than if he had gone by train. Had he made the right decision? Then he let it drop. Right or wrong, he’d made his decision and he was going by plane. He went to one of the bars and bought himself a beer, found a table, sat down, and began his wait. He should eat, he knew he should get some food inside him but he wasn’t hungry so he settled for beer. How quickly would George get going? Jimmy took a drink. Was he still ahead or was he back to being the one playing catch-up? It was an interesting question but one there’d be no answer to until he got to Santander. So he drank his beer and waited.
Chapter Thirty
It was half-past ten and the pub was empty except for a girl behind the bar getting everything ready for opening time. George was sitting at his table by the Staff Only door, opposite him was Rosa. She put down her tea and looked at him.
‘You’re a mess, you know that?’
George knew it. His nose, what wasn’t covered by a plaster, was red; his right eye had taken on a shade of deep purple and there was a plaster stretched over it. The right side of his bottom lip was swollen, giving his mouth a sulky look.
‘Never mind what I look like.’ George took a careful sip of his tea. ‘It’s you we’re talking about. I had you alongside Costello to see where he’d to go with this thing. Somehow you fucked up and that set him running.’ Rosa didn’t bother to disagree. George wasn’t in the mood for a debate. ‘But I’m still ahead of the bastard. He’s after the last bit, the property firm in Gibraltar, and when he gets that he’ll have pretty much all of the Spanish end. But that’s all he’s got and most important, he hasn’t got me. He thinks I’m here dealing for him so he’s taking his time which means I can clean up here before anybody comes looking.’
‘What happens when he gets the Gibraltar information?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think you get closed down and your wallet takes a beating.’
‘Maybe. But I haven’t set all this up for some ex-copper to walk in and blow it away.’
‘You said it was this Harry bloke in Spain Jimmy wanted taken down. Why not let him do that? It’s not a bad idea, the one he came up with. Lose Mercer and Henderson and let the police think it’s all over, then put in someone new and start again somewhere else. Jimmy was right, with Jarvis dead Mercer’s lost his cover as a writer. With no books you don’t need any publisher so you don’t really need Henderson. Any half-decent accountant could run the money end once you’d set up another company.’
George ignored her, he’d been wrestling with the problem of finding the best way to deal with the situation ever since he’d left Ebbsfleet. Rosa’s suggestion that he fall in with Jimmy’s plan made sense to her because she knew a lot about the Spanish operation, she had to, but that was all she knew about. George knew the whole picture. He wasn’t so worried about one poxy little porn operation. What concerned him was the Gibraltar company. It was linked to other companies and a lot more than porn money went through it, not only for George but for a lot of his business associates. Let Costello give Iberian Holdings to the police and too many things might start to unravel. Jimmy’s idea was good enough in its own way, but only if he had time to separate out what he wanted to keep from Iberian Holdings and what he’d have to let go to satisfy the Spanish police. That would take some time and it wouldn’t be straightforward. Could he isolate everything connected with Mercer and Henderson in the Gibraltar company quickly enough and leave no loose ends? He had no problem with letting the police have Harry. Harry had made a mess of things. He was getting too old and sloppy. For God’s sake, he’d even managed to kill a woman police inspector when he’d been told to try for Costello himself, which meant the Spanish police wouldn’t cut a deal, not with someone who’d put two bullets into one of their own. That was a nuisance. If Harry was sure he was going down he might give them George as the man who ordered the shooting and try for a reduction in sentence. It wasn’t a big problem, Harry couldn’t give them anything that would nail him, but he needed to be free of police interest while he sorted out Iberian Holdings. The company was in Harry’s and Henderson’s names but Harry didn’t know that. When business required it, George had all the necessary documents to prove that he was Harold Reginald Mercer.
Rosa pushed her teacup away. It was finished.
‘What about the property firm? Does it give Costello what he wants to clinch everything?’ George nodded. ‘Is it in Mercer and Henderson’s names?’
An idea was forming in George’s head.
‘Just Henderson’s.’
‘You know, I think it was a mistake.’
‘What was?’
‘You shouldn’t have sent Mercer after Costello.’
‘Never mind that.’ George had made up his mind. There wasn’t enough time to sort out the company. Costello had to be stopped. ‘The point is we’re ahead of him.’
‘So, what happens now? You send a couple of goons to Gibraltar to wait for him and then do the job?’
> George looked at her. She hadn’t looked like a reporter when he’d first met her and she didn’t look like a killer now, but she’d done an OK job until she’d screwed up. But that was probably more down to Jimmy being clever rather than her being stupid. Maybe she could make up for it by doing another little errand. He thought about it. He didn’t have a whole lot of choices.
‘No. There’s too many people involved already. Jimmy has to be taken care of, but there’s another person I need seeing to before I get round to him and I want it done in-house, so to speak.’
Rosa knew what he was saying and she didn’t like it.
‘Fuck that. I told you I don’t –’
But George still wasn’t in a mood to have a debate about anything.
‘Shut it. You came to me, girl, I didn’t come to you. I asked for talent, and someone whose judgement I respect recommended you.’ George sat back and gave her the best he could manage of a smile. ‘You want to be up there don’t you, in among the fast money, in among the real action, among the real movers and shakers? A fancy degree and all the ambition in the fucking world but you don’t have any patience. You want it all and you want it now. Fine, I can respect that. You’ve got brains,’ the smile went and George lent forward, ‘but have you got bottle? Without bottle you’re just another wishful thinker waiting to be a fucking casualty, someone who wanted it all but couldn’t get it up when the blood started to flow.’ He could see he’d made his point. ‘If I say I need someone fucking dead all I want to hear from you is who, where, and when? You know quite a bit about me now and you know what’s going on. That means you’re in and the only way out is somebody finding your body one day and trying to identify what’s left by your DNA or your fucking dental work. You know I can make it happen.’ George sat back and tried the smile again. ‘It’s your choice, girly; you dead, or the one I want dead, dead. Take your time.’
Rosa looked at her empty tea cup. She wished she drank. She felt she needed something stronger than tea.
‘Get me a drink, not tea.’
George made a gesture to the bar and the girl came over to their table and waited.
‘What do you want?’
‘You decide. You’re the big thinker this morning.’
George turned to the girl.
‘A double Scotch, nothing in it.’
The girl left.
Rosa sat and waited for her drink but there was nothing really to think about. George was right, she wanted it and she had to take it all or not at all, there was no middle way. She’d paid her way in her first year at Cambridge by doing small-time dealing in cannabis, and she’d worked her way up to Class A drugs by the time she graduated. She found she had a talent for it and had become that rare thing, a student who came out of university considerably better off than when she went in. After graduation she made up her mind to join the bad guys and use her talents where they gave her the biggest returns in the shortest time. That meant either working in the City or working with the friends who’d supplied the drugs. Her friends won.
‘I suppose there has to be a first time for everything, doesn’t there?’
George’s face began to split into a grin but stopped quickly. His fingers went to his swollen lip. He might get away with a smile but it was too soon for anything more.
‘Sensible girl. I want you to go to Santander.’
The whisky arrived. Rosa picked it up and took a sip. It burned her throat but she liked it. It was something powerful. She took another sip. If she was in she might as well be in all the way. What other way was there?
‘And who do I kill there, Henderson?’
George nodded.
‘Good girl. There’s only one real trail to follow in this and it’s the money. The money leads to Henderson and he really can finger me. Eliminate Henderson and the trail goes cold and gives me time to sort things out. First we lose Henderson and then we’ll see to Jimmy fucking Costello.’ He put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a wallet. ‘Here’s some expenses money.’ Rosa took it. ‘Go to Harry, tell him I sent you, but don’t tell him what’s going on at this end. Tell him we’re on top of everything here but say Henderson’s been in touch with me and I think he’s getting ready to blow the whistle and try to save his own neck so I’m getting rid of him. He’ll get you a gun. Tell him when and where you’ll do it so he can have a solid alibi. Knock over Henderson, ditch the gun and get back here. Finish him off and there’ll be five grand waiting for you when you get back.’
Rosa finished what was left in her glass. She felt great.
‘There’d better be.’
And she got up and left.
George watched her go. Graduate fucking villains, what was the world coming to? He hoped she was as good as she thought she was. One thing was certain: she was a slippery customer, too ambitious and too interested in other people’s business. He thought about where things stood. If she got Henderson he was pretty much clear, if she missed, well, he wasn’t getting any younger. Maybe it was time to retire and find a bit of sunshine and female company. He gently felt the plaster on the cut over his eye. He had never liked violence, and he liked it least when he was on the receiving end. Yes, he’d start mothballing things at this end so that when they came looking, if they came looking, there would be nothing that would put him in a court and get a conviction. Careful, that’s me, careful and clever. George put his hand in his pocket for his mobile. Then he remembered where it was, and what was probably on it.
‘Shit.’
Suddenly he decided that it wasn’t mothballing the company needed, it was closing down. Oh, well, nothing goes on for ever. Then he thought about Rosa. No sense in stopping her now. Get him if you can, girl, it’ll be good practice, but that’s all it will be because it looks like you’re going to be too late. I think the damage has already been done.
Chapter Thirty-one
It was almost twenty past seven in the evening and still hot when Jimmy finally walked into the police station at Santander. He had slept through most of the flight from Madrid, his mind finally giving in to the tiredness that had built up over the past days. A uniformed officer was sitting at the duty desk. He looked up from some paperwork as Jimmy came to stand in front of him.
‘I understand the police here want to talk to me.’ The officer said something in Spanish. ‘You don’t speak English do you?’ The officer shook his head. Or you do, thought Jimmy, but you’re not going to speak it to me. ‘I’m here to assist the police in their enquiries.’ Nothing. ‘It’s in connection with the death of Inspector Seraphina Suarez of the Santander police.’ That got home. ‘My name is Costello, James Costello.’
The officer picked up a phone and made a call, it was in Spanish but Jimmy heard his name in there. Then the duty officer put the phone down and stood up, all the time looking at Jimmy. Jimmy got the distinct impression he wanted to say something, something not nice, and that looking wasn’t all he wanted to do. From the way he was standing Jimmy was glad there was a desk between them. He was too tired for any rough handling.
The English-speaking officer who had conducted the interview when Suarez’s boss had brought him in came through a door.
‘Good evening, Mr Costello. We have been wanting to talk to you.’
‘You shouldn’t have told me to leave in such a hurry, then, should you?’
‘Come with me, please.’
He led Jimmy through some corridors to an interview room. They both sat down and he said something in Spanish. Then he switched back to English.
‘I am Inspector Santos. Everything we say will be recorded. You understand, Mr Costello, everything is on record?’
‘Am I being arrested? You should caution me if you’re arresting me shouldn’t you?’
‘You are not under arrest. You are assisting us in our enquiries, you are doing so at your own request.’
‘That’s right, at my own request.’
‘The autopsy on Inspector Suarez’s body revealed that she had s
exual intercourse the night before she was killed. The DNA of the man matched samples which we took from the house you had rented from Inspector Suarez’s cousin. It was your DNA, Mr Costello. Can you explain that?’
It wasn’t a time for being funny so Jimmy didn’t try.
‘No.’
Santos looked surprised.
‘Do you deny that you and Inspector Suarez had sex?’
‘No. I mean I can’t explain why we had sex. I hardly knew her.’
‘You lied to us, you said you spent the night asleep in a chair. You have deliberately hampered a murder investigation by withholding information and you have also given false information …’
‘Which leaves me open to criminal prosecution. I know, I’ve had to tell people often enough myself. But it’s not me you want, is it?’
‘Last time we spoke you told me that there was no relationship between you.’
‘I know. In a way it was true.’
‘You don’t call having sex a relationship?’
‘We had sex, but I don’t know why it happened. We were working together, we found we liked each other. Nothing should have happened. I was old enough to be her father. I never meant it to happen. I still don’t know how it did.’
‘She was willing?’
Jimmy looked at the Inspector, now it was his turn to be surprised.
‘You don’t think I raped her, do you?’
‘There were no signs of force on the body but …’
He left it hanging.
‘Look, you knew her better than I did. Look at me, how old I am and the shape I’m in. Also I have a knife wound in my side. If I had tried to take Suarez by force what would have happened?’
Santos paused. He knew Suarez so he knew what would have happened.
‘No, we never seriously considered that possibility. Do you know who killed her and why she was killed?’
‘Yes. She was killed by a local British ex-pat called Harry Mercer. He fronts as a writer of crime novels but he’s a career villain. His real business is porn, wholesale provision of hard, nasty porn. He works for or with another villain based in London.’