by Sibel Hodge
‘Let’s cut the crap, shall we?’ I smiled back. ‘I’m pretty sure that your clients, or the press, wouldn’t be too happy to find out about this, so humour me.’
His smile faded into oblivion and he sat, coolly appraising me with tight lips. Any tighter and they’d be Superglued together. His voice, when it came, sounded subdued. ‘OK.’
‘I guess it’s been going well for the past fifteen years, hasn’t it? You’ve been getting tip-offs from Vinnie Dawson and his cronies and using your investors’ money to amass a small personal fortune in real estate.’
He held a finger in the air. ‘Ah, but you’re forgetting one very important thing. All my investors care about is making money.’ He let out a smooth chuckle. ‘They don’t care how I do it. And believe me, I’ve made them a lot of money as well over the years. All I care about is what’s best for the bank.’
It was my turn to chuckle. Greed did funny things to people. Edward’s only loyalty was to himself. ‘OK, so maybe you gave them a good return by doing something illegal, but did they know you were using their money to fund your own fortune at the same time? Why risk your money when you can risk theirs, right?’
He didn’t answer the question. He didn’t have to. ‘Well, good luck proving anything,’ he said. ‘The police have already been through our systems after the robbery and they didn’t find a shred of evidence to prove a thing, so how could you?’
‘I don’t need luck. I have the best technical whizz-kid this side of Silicon Valley.’
His face turned pale at that, and I detected a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Nothing. I’m not a cop. I’m not interested in what you’re doing with the bank’s money.’ I gave him my most sincere smile. ‘All I want to know is what connection Levi Carter has to all of this.’ That was a big fat whopper on my part. As soon as I knew exactly what was going on, all Hacker’s info was going straight to Romeo to build a case against Edward.
‘He doesn’t have any connection to the bank. I’ve never even met him before.’ He pulled a face that said the possibility of a banker and a boxer hitting it off was like a lion and a gazelle hitting it off at the nearest watering hole.
‘Do you think Levi arranged for the safety box robbery here?’ I took another sip from the cup and rested it in the saucer I held in my hand.
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
‘Well Carl certainly knew something about Levi.’ I tried to probe him further, replaying the boxing match scene in my head again where Carl was shouting at Levi. I know what you...There had to be some connection between Levi and what happened at the bank. And whatever it was, Carl had found out about it. OK, so Levi had been at a health farm during the robbery, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t got other people to carry out the robbery on his behalf to get to what was in Vinnie’s safety box.
Edward shrugged. ‘Then I’m afraid whatever Carl knew died with him.’
‘Did Carl suddenly discover what was going on with the betting? Is that why you had him killed?’ I studied his face. Even though Edward was at a bankers’ dinner on Saturday night until 5 a.m., it didn’t mean that he couldn’t have arranged for Vinnie or one of his cronies to kill Carl if he’d discovered what Edward was doing with the clients’ funds.
He showed a flash of outrage. Not guilt. It was definitely outrage.
‘I did not have Carl killed.’ He raised his voice. ‘He was my friend.’
And the weird thing is, I believed he was actually telling the truth. ‘OK, who did then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Was Carl in on this betting scheme with you from the start? Is that why he had five million stashed in a South African bank account?’
‘No wonder Deborah was after his assets if he had that kind of money.’ He raised his eyebrows.
Here he goes again, trying to steer the suspicion onto Deborah.
I was just setting the cup and saucer down on the coffee table in front of me when I accidentally clipped the edge of the saucer against it, knocking the cup flying.
It clattered to the floor, splattering Edward’s shoes and the ankles of his trousers with tea.
Oh, crap! Why am I so clumsy sometimes?
‘I’m so sorry.’ I leaped out of my chair.
Edward gasped, looking down. ‘Can you help me? I can’t clean it up myself. There are tissues over there.’ He pointed towards his desk with a shaky finger.
‘Of course.’ I grabbed a wodge of tissues and knelt down in front of Edward, wiping off the lower part of his trousers and shoes. Since some of it had splashed on the soles, I cleaned the surface of those as well.
When I’d wiped off as much as I could, I ran the tissues over the floor, clearing up the remains of any tea spillages. Depositing the soiled tissues in the bin, I picked up the cup and saucer and put them in the middle of the table, where I wouldn’t be able to accidentally knock them over again.
‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ I stood over his fragile frame and felt bad for him. Here he was, with stacks of money and real estate, probably everything we all dream of, and yet he’d never be able to feel the sand beneath his feet. He’d never be able to climb a hill, swim in the ocean, or run a marathon. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up in a wheelchair?’
He sighed. ‘It was a skiing accident.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He waved a hand. ‘Don’t be. It was a long time ago. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a very important meeting that I must attend.’ He held his hand out to shake mine. ‘Thank you for your discretion in this matter.’
Edward’s secretary was typing on a laptop when I let myself out of his office. I hovered at her desk.
‘Can I help you?’ She looked up at me over the top of her reading glasses.
‘What’s it like working for Edward Kinghorn?’ I asked her.
‘I love working here. Edward’s a very good employer.’ She smiled. ‘And a very good banker.’
Well, that was debatable, seeing as he was using the bank’s money for illegal things.
Then her eyes moistened. ‘It won’t be the same without Carl here, though. He was a lovely man, too. It’s absolutely unbelievable that he’ll never be coming back.’ She pulled a hanky from her bag and dabbed at her eyes. ‘It’s so sad.’
I waited silently. An old interview technique I’d learned as a cop was that people hated silences. They tended to fill them with chatter.
‘Edward lives for the bank, you know,’ she added. ‘He’ll miss Carl terribly. They were very good friends, and since the car accident, Edward hasn’t had much of a social life outside of work.
‘What car accident?’ I asked.
‘Well, that’s why he’s in a wheelchair, poor man. It’s such a tragedy. First Edward being injured, and now Carl being killed.’ She sniffed and blew her nose discreetly.
Car accident? Ooh, Edward, another little lie.
‘When did it happen?’ I asked.
The phone rang on her desk and she took another little sniff. ‘Sorry, I have to answer this.’ Her hand reached for the phone. ‘It happened about four years ago.’ She shook her head to herself. ‘A terrible shame.’ And then she picked up the phone.
I mouthed “goodbye” and let myself out.
So why did Edward just lie about something so simple? Unless it wasn’t simple at all.
Chapter 11
‘Yo,’ Hacker said when I called him.
‘Yo back. Can you find out how Edward Kinghorn ended up in a wheelchair?’
‘Do you think it’s relevant to the case?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘There’s only one way to find out. He lied to me about it, and there must be a reason why. Apparently, it happened four years ago in a car accident. Maybe Levi was involved in the accident somehow. Maybe that’s Levi’s connection to Edward and Carl and the bank.’
‘I’m on it. Oh, and by the way, someone’s been
using Craig Hanson’s bank account today.’
That got my attention pretty quick. ‘Really? What’s been going on?’
‘There’s been a payment out of his account via his debit card to Poker King. I managed to get into the Poker King website and someone is using Craig’s account to gamble right now. I’ve traced the IP address they’re using, and I’ve got hold of a house address for the computer.’
‘Cool. It’s got to be Craig. Fire away with the address.’
‘It’s one of those new riverside apartments.’
‘Expensive.’
‘Very. Number eighty-five. The penthouse.’
‘Even more expensive,’ I said, wondering what Craig was up to.
‘Hey, Foxy,’ Brad came on the line. ‘I’ll meet you outside Craig’s place. I don’t particularly want you going there alone. If it is him at that address, he might not be too happy about seeing you again.’
The fairytale Rapunzel part of me felt quite flattered that Brad didn’t want anything to happen to me, but the shit-hot investigator part of me was less than flattered that Brad thought I couldn’t handle it on my own. I’d broken a few bones and kicked a few butts in my time on the police force. I knew how to bring someone down. OK, so it might be true that Craig did still have a bit of a knife obsession, and if I interrupted his poker game, I might end up like his mate that he’d stabbed, but I still thought I’d be able to handle him on my own. Knife versus SIG – no contest. Somehow, I figured I’d be wasting my breath if I tried to protest, though. Brad had a determined streak to rival my own.
****
‘It’s the poker police!’ I banged on Craig’s penthouse door. ‘Open up!’ I glanced at Brad, who stood next to me as back-up, arms folded, looking pretty hard. If I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t want to mess with him.
I heard a shuffling sound coming from inside before Craig “The Knife” Hanson pulled open the door.
He glanced between Brad and me with a sneer on his face. ‘Yeah? Who are you? There’s no such thing as poker police.’
Craig’s life of crime looked like it was catching up with him. When I’d put him away for the First National Bank robbery, he’d been young and baby-faced with a hint of a fluffy moustache on his lips that resembled a blob of stuck-on candyfloss.
The moustache was bigger and bushier now. It had transformed into what looked like a giant hairy caterpillar. His once sparkly eyes were sunken and dead looking, and his puppy-fat cheeks were hollow. The sheer size of his moustache made his face look even thinner.
I gave him my biggest smile. ‘Hello, Craig. Long time no see. Do you remember me?’
He squinted at me, trying to place my face, then he said, ‘You!’ He pointed his finger at me rather rudely, waggling around for emphasis.
Drama queen!
‘Yes, it’s me.’ I nodded, ignoring the finger. ‘What’s up, Craig? You never call, you never write! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a teensy weensy bit annoyed with me.’
Craig narrowed his eyes at me, then he did the same to Brad.
Brad stared back at him with an amused smile. It was quite a scary smile, actually. It was the kind of smile that sent out Warning! Danger! signals. If Brad had been a cobra, it would be the equivalent of him puffing out his neck and hissing.
Craig interpreted Brad’s signals correctly and gave him a challenging glare. ‘You’ve got a bloody cheek coming round here,’ he said to me, keeping a firm eye on Brad.
‘So you don’t want to come out and play then?’ I said with mock surprise.
‘What do you want?’ Craig puffed out his chest and narrowed his eyes at me.
‘What do you know about the safety box robbery at Kinghorn Thomas Bank?’ I said.
‘And why should I tell you anything?’ He did something that was a cross between a snort and a disbelieving laugh.
‘Unless you want to end up eating your food through a straw, I’d suggest you just answer the question,’ Brad said in a smooth, calm voice. His tone spoke volumes. It was a tone that told Craig in an unspoken threat that he could kill him in a second and not even break a sweat.
Craig studied Brad for a minute, weighing him up. He seemed to realize he wasn’t a match for Brad and he dropped the sneer quicker than you could say scaredy cat.
‘Oh, and also, if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll tell your wife where you are.’ I grinned at him. ‘She didn’t seem too happy that you’d walked out and left her without a word.’
Craig’s face turned from scaredy cat to positively shitting himself. ‘For fuck’s sake! Don’t tell that bitch where I am. I even had to leave my job so she wouldn’t find me. This is the first decent night’s sleep I’ve had for ages without her moaning about how useless I am. That woman is a friggin’ nightmare. All she does is moan, spend my money, and nag. Nag, nag, nag. “Craig, give me some money to get my nails done. Craig, give me some money to get my hair done. Craig, why don’t you earn enough? Craig, why don’t you buy me a new apartment? Craig, why are you so useless? Craig–”’
‘OK, I think we get the picture of your life of undomestic bliss,’ I butted in. We’d be here all bloody day at this rate. ‘It’s very interesting talking about your love life.’ I turned a palm up in the air in an impatient gesture. ‘But I haven’t got all day. What do you know?’
Craig hesitated for a moment. ‘I don’t know nothing about it. I turned over a new leaf after the First National Bank job. I got a regular job and everything.’
‘How can a plumbing job pay for all your poker games and this flash apartment?’ I asked.
He stared at the floor then, shuffling his feet. ‘Well, occasionally I do a few things on the side, and I’m bloody good at poker.’
‘What sort of things?’ I asked. ‘Things like bank jobs?’
‘I don’t touch banks anymore,’ Craig cried.
Brad and I shared a secret glance.
‘Can I kill him?’ Brad asked me.
I bit my lip to hide my smile and made a big show of thinking about it for a moment as if I was giving it serious consideration. I let out a big sigh. ‘OK, if you must.’ I said to Brad in a tone like he was a petulant child asking for a new toy, and I was reluctantly giving in to him.
Brad moved towards him.
‘No!’ Craig held his hands up in surrender mode, and his eyelids flipped open like they were spring-loaded. ‘OK, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. Look, this guy phoned me and asked me to meet him about a job. When I got there he said he wanted me to do the safety box robbery at Kinghorn Thomas,’ he said in a garbled rush.
‘Go on,’ I said, taking in Craig’s face, which had turned whiter than a Polo mint.
‘I said I wasn’t into that stuff anymore.’
‘Why did you go and meet him, then, if you weren’t interested in doing a bank job anymore?’ I tilted my head and folded my arms.
Craig glanced down at the floor and kicked it with his heel. ‘Er…well, you know, when he phoned me, I thought he meant it was a plumbing job. He didn’t go into specifics over the phone.’
‘Uh-huh.’ I shot him a disbelieving look and tried hard not to laugh out loud. ‘So what did the guy look like?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head manically and threw worried glances at Brad.
I let out an impatient sigh. ‘You have to do better than that, Craig. You met the guy, so what did he look like?’
‘Honestly! I don’t know. He rang me on my mobile and asked me to meet him in the park down the road at ten o’clock at night. He wanted me to wait on a particular double-sided bench. I sat there for like fifteen minutes or something, and I was thinking about backing out when suddenly he was sitting behind me. He told me not to turn around so I never got a look at his face. When we finished our conversation, he walked off with his back to me.’
‘So what did he say, exactly?’ Brad asked.
‘What…like the exact words?’ Craig blustered.
‘That’s
generally what exactly means.’ I gave him an eye roll.
‘I can’t remember.’
I smiled with fake sweetness. ‘Try.’
Craig frowned, thinking about it. ‘Erm…he just asked if I was interested in doing the safety box robbery.’ He pursed his lips for a moment. ‘Oh, yeah, and he said he wasn’t after the money, just what was in some of the boxes. But I told him I didn’t want to get involved. I knew Vinnie had a safety box there. Even though I don’t hang around with Lee and Vinnie anymore since I went straight – well, almost straight – there was no way I was going to do something to piss Vinnie off. He can be an evil fucker.’ He paused for a breath. ‘After I told him I wasn’t interested, he didn’t tell me anything else.’ He did the palms up in the air thing again. ‘I swear I’m telling you the truth.’ He angled his torso backwards in case Brad decided to kill him anyway. ‘Please don’t tell my wife where I am.’
‘OK, so what did his back look like?’ I asked.
‘Huh? I don’t know, it was a back. And it was really dark by then, I couldn’t see much.’ Craig shrugged uselessly.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Was he tall, short, fat, thin, muscly? Was he bald or did he have a limp? What colour was he? There must be something distinctive you can remember. What did he look like from the back?’
‘Oh, I see what you mean. Well…’ he stroked his pet caterpillar, ‘he was quite tall, about six foot three, slim build. I couldn’t really see his hair because he had a baseball cap on. He didn’t limp or anything.
‘What about an accent? Did he have a distinctive accent?’ I knew accents could easily be disguised, but it was worth asking anyway.
‘Nah. He just sounded like…normal.’
I doubted that Craig’s normal and my normal were the same. ‘What does normal mean in Craig’s little world?’
‘He didn’t have a posh accent, and it wasn’t…you know…a street accent.’ Craig did a one-shouldered shrug. ‘Just pretty normal.’
‘What do you think?’ Brad said to me. ‘Shall I kill him anyway?’