by Mistry, Liz
Gogs swallowed and scratched his groin in agitation. ‘Fuck man, this is crap. Fucking crap.’
Gus nodded, arms splayed before him, his expression sympathetic. ‘I know. It stinks doesn’t it? But it doesn’t have to be like that. Just tell me what you know about the bloke that paid you to jib Clegg and I’ll make it all go away.’
Gogs rested his forehead on his arms and then, abruptly his head jerked up and he looked straight at Gus. ‘Ok, ok. I found a note under my pillow one day telling me what I had to do and how much I’d get paid for doing it. If I was up for it, I had to drop my dinner on the floor that night and someone would contact me with more instructions.’
‘How did you get paid, Gogs?’
‘Fifty grand up front and fifty on completion. I reckoned it was worth a year on my sentence.’
A hundred grand to the likes of Gogs Redwood must have felt like winning the lottery. No wonder he’d done it.
‘Well, at that point I didn’t know the target was going to be Cleggie. I didn’t mind him really, even if he was a nonce, you know?’
Gus wondered what went through Gog’s mind to allow him to label James Clegg a nonce, but to absolve himself of the same title. Perhaps it was best he didn’t know. Feeling slightly nauseous with the whole business, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. ‘Hurry up, Gogs. I’ve limited time at my disposal.’
Gogs sighed. ‘Well, I dropped my dinner that night, but nothing happened. I thought it was someone taking the piss. Then about two weeks later another note appeared under my pillow. This time it told me to get my wife to check our account. I phoned her the next day and when she checked there was fifty grand in our account. So I was committed.’ He sucked air through his teeth. ‘Anyway another few days passed and then I got another note under my pillow. My instructions were clear. Stab repeatedly, lower belly. Enough to get him into a proper hospital away from here, but not enough to kill him. Still didn’t say who, though. It was like the fucking tooth fairy, you get me?’
‘I only ever got 10p from the tooth fairy, Gogs, not fifty grand.’
Gogs snorted with laughter, phlegm rattling in the back of his throat. ‘Me too. Till now. Anyway, the next night I got a shiv. The note just said the name and ‘Tomorrow’.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘So, I did it.’
‘So who was your mystery tooth fairy?’
‘You what?’ Gogs looked startled.
‘Who was leaving you the notes?’
He shrugged. ‘Dunno. Could’ve been anybody. Another prisoner, a warden, anybody.’
Gus leaned in closer, his tone conversational. ‘But who do you think it was?’
Gogs glanced away, nervous now. ‘Reckon it must’ve been one of the guards. Who else could it have been? None of the prisoners could get the notes to me. No way.’
Gus nodded and stood up. ‘We’ll need access to your account Gogs, and you better be prepared to testify to this in court.’
Gogs looked alarmed. ‘But, I thought you were going to pull strings… get me off?’
Rapping his knuckles on the door Gus turned. ‘You testify in court and we’ll see, ok?’
In the corridor outside Gus stretched. He wasn’t looking forward to telling Governor McCulloch that she now had a major investigation of corruption amongst her guards to conduct.
Chapter 73
Thursday 5:30pm, London
The Starbucks in King’s Cross concourse was busy with commuters, tourists and the few homeless people who had, somehow, evaded the various police patrols that roamed the area to evict buskers, beggars and the like. Gus bagged himself one of the comfy seats in a corner near the window overlooking the concourse and sat with his cappuccino and pesto chicken Panini.
He felt vaguely nauseous and put it down to a desperate need for carbs to counteract the fatigue of his early start and the intensity of the various interviews he’d conducted. He took a deep bite of the Panini and savoured its rich flavour as he waited for his contact from witness protection, Angelica Battacharya, to turn up. He’d asked her to meet him here because he’d managed to book a seat on the next train back to Bradford at 19:05.
He was early and when he finished his food, he slumped back in his chair, sipped his coffee and watched the world of King’s Cross unfold before his eyes; the young couple, eyes bright, arms entwined tightly round each other’s bodies taking a fond farewell, the dumpy woman in the red raincoat held together by virtue of its wraparound belt, her bosoms spilling over the top, as she nervously glanced at the huge clock near the meeting place. Her eyes darted back and forth between the passengers exiting the barrier. And the scruffy youth, headphones jammed in ears, shoulders slumped oblivious to his surroundings engrossed in the beat that pumped into his head.
Gus finally began to relax and had soon drifted into a light doze. The sound of someone clearing their throat in an exaggerated fashion above him startled him out of his reverie. Abruptly, aware of the slaver dribbling down his cheek, Gus jerked upright to grab the napkin off the table, only to be stabbed by a piercing pain in both his shoulder and thigh simultaneously, that caused him to yelp and fall back into his chair. The tall Indian woman in her thirties standing next to him frowned, and then, quickly plucked the napkin from the table and handed it to him, before pulling out the red leather chair opposite him and sitting down.
She waited till he’d wiped his cheek and slowly struggled into a more upright position before thrusting her hand out. ‘Hi, I’m Angelica Battacharya and I sincerely hope you’re DI Angus McGuire?’ She tilted her head to one side and looked at Gus through shiny walnut-coloured eyes.
Gus returned her handshake with a frown. ‘How the hell did you know who I was? Oh, and it’s Gus, by the way. Can’t stand Angus.’
Tapping the side of her long nose with one finger, she grinned. ‘My powers of deduction know no bounds.’ Then with an infectious grin she added, ‘Actually, I googled you before I left the office.’
Gus inclined his head in a touché gesture and braced his hand on the table ready to make another attempt at standing. ‘What’ll you have to drink?’
Shaking her head, she stood up. ‘After your previous attempt to stand up, I think it’s better if I went. I’m gasping for a coffee. It’s been a hectic day. What do you want?’
Relieved not to have to risk embarrassing himself again, Gus said, ‘I’ll have an Americano and a bottle of water if you don’t mind.’ He struggled to get his wallet from his back pocket, but with a wave of her hand Angelica told him to put it away and she joined the mercifully short queue. As she waited in line, Gus tentatively swivelled his shoulder. Grimacing at the sharp pain that the manoeuvre elicited, he surreptitiously tried to massage his thigh back to life.
On her return Angelica deposited the tray with their drinks and two plates, each containing a double choc chip cookie. ‘I need a sugar rush and I thought you might, too.’ She said, gesturing to the cookies. Tilting her head to the side, her smile revealing a perfect set of even white teeth, she leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘You know, if I were you, I’d be a bit more discreet at massaging your thigh. From a distance it looks like you’re, em, well, you know?’ And she wiggled her perfectly plucked eyebrows salaciously,
Gus, who’d just lifted his coffee to his lips, jerked, spilling some of the hot liquid onto his saucer and released an explosive bark of laughter. ‘Christ, does it?’ And he glanced round nervously.
Opposite him Angelica chortled, her brown eyes sparkling with laughter, ‘Watch you! I’m only joking.’
Caught slightly off guard by the woman’s openness he studied her for a second. A slight smile hovered on her lips and her eyes sparkled with amusement. She cocked her head to one side. ‘Not what you expected, hmm? Didn’t expect someone with a slightly bawdy sense of humour?’ She pretended to cringe and then shrugged. ‘Life’s too short to be serious all the time and in my job you realise that pretty damn quick. It’s my coping mechanism and you won’t be the first person to be offe
nded.’
Gus flung his head back and laughed. He liked this woman with her down-to-earth, no airs and graces approach. ‘I was surprised, not offended, Ms Battacharya. It’s refreshing to meet someone who’s not up their own arse the entire time. You’ve certainly broken the ice, but unfortunately we need to get down to business as I’ve got a train to catch in forty minutes.’
Face serious now, she lifted her cookie and began to nibble before she spoke. Gus took the opportunity to pop his painkillers.
‘My department is not responsible for the leak, Gus.’
Gus nodded. ‘No, I don’t think you are either, but we needed to cover all the bases.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘The mother-in-law?’
Gus sipped his drink. ‘Educated guess or evidence?’
She smiled. ‘Deduction based on my extensive investigation since we were alerted to Molly’s abduction.’ She paused, placed her cup and cookie on the table, wiped her fingers on the napkin and began to count off the points on her fingers. ‘One, she was notified of the attack on her son four years ago. Two, the idiot who notified her told her which hospital he’d been taken to. He was disciplined for that error of judgement, by the way. Three, mother’s instinct: no matter that your son is one of the most reprehensible deviants around, he’s still your son. How did I do?’
Gus, lips narrowed said ‘Spot on. But you’re sure there were no other possible leaks?’
Before he’d even finished the question, she shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. Witness Protection is sacrosanct and access to information is confined to the agent in charge of that case. Documentation is coded with numerical references to each ‘client’.’
‘What about the police? What access do they have?’
Again, Angelica shook her head. ‘None. Even if the highest ranking officer in the land puts in a request for information on particular clients, both they and their request are scrutinised thoroughly by an independent body and over ninety per cent of requests are denied.’
‘What about officers involved in the original investigation?’
‘Again, they have no information about the relocation programme. They will probably know that the client has been put under witness protection but as soon as their protection is activated all contact – and I mean all contact – with their previous life ceases.’
‘But, Jessie Graham still sent and received letters from her son?’
Angelica’s mouth hardened into a straight line. ‘That decision was against normal protocol and it was opposed at various levels of the process, but unfortunately both Jessie and the daughter-in-law refused to go into protection if their wishes were not implemented. As such we took extreme precautions to preserve their new identities.’ She shrugged. ‘However one cannot plan for human frailty.’
‘What were the precautions?’
Angelica opened her laptop and accessed a file. She smiled at Gus. ‘After I open this file I have three minutes to tell you the contents before it will be deleted from my laptop, so don’t interrupt, ok?’
Impressed, Gus nodded and Angelica pressed a button. ‘The agreement was that there would be no actual visitation. Contact was limited to a monthly letter from her to him and vice versa. The rules were as follows. One, she typed her letter, omitted details of family life other than a single reassurance that ‘his daughter was fine’. No references to weather, locations or activities considered to be of regional relevance, no photos. In short, nothing very much. Two, she put her letter in three separate envelopes. The first and second envelope had no address the final one had a PO Box address which varied regularly. She was notified of changes to the address by phone call to her unregistered phone. When her letter arrived in the PO Box the initial envelope was incinerated. The letter was assessed by three separate agents to ensure she’d not inadvertently left any clues in the communication. Then another PO Box address was put on the second envelope. The same occurred on receipt of that (sometimes that PO Box was in a foreign country). The third and final envelope had James Clegg’s handwritten address added, written by a different person each time, and was posted from a different location each time.’
She glanced at Gus who gestured for her to continue. ‘James Clegg’s letters to his mother underwent a similar process in reverse and were often edited if he complained about treatment or anything emotive. In actuality, the records show that he refrained from complaining and was at great pains each time to tell his mother he was fine and sorry and, that at all costs, she must adhere to the WP protocols and to take care of his beautiful daughter.’
She snapped her laptop shut and looked at Gus ‘No leaks from our end, apart from that stupid mistake of telling his mother which hospital he was in.’
Gus shrugged. ‘That one mistake was enough, though.’
Angelica bowed her head. ‘It seems like it. I hope you find that little girl, Gus, I really do!’
Chapter 74
Thursday 6pm
Governor McCulloch opened the top drawer of her desk, took out a framed photograph and gently traced her finger over each of the three faces. She’d learned long ago not to display any personal items in her office, not just so the prisoners didn’t have a way into her inner psyche, but because her male contemporaries, in the main, seemed to view any ‘feminine’ affectations as a sign of weakness, and weak was one thing Madeline McCulloch was not.
Ruthlessly, she’d worked her way up the ranks from warder in a women’s open prison in Stirling to one of the highest ranking prison officers in the UK. She had often demanded her family uproot themselves so she could go and do the trouble-shooting that had got her where she was today. She was fiercely protective of them, refusing to bring anything of them into her workplace. And just as ferociously she didn’t take her work place home with her in the evenings. Her one concession was the photo she now held in her hand and kept zealously hidden in her locked drawer. It worked on the whole, but today had been a bugger.
She’d spent hours with her deputy in a locked room after DI Gus McGuire had dropped his bombshell and they’d narrowed it down to the possibility that one of her three most trusted and experienced wardens had taken a bribe that led to James Clegg being shanked and hospitalised. They’d contacted and interviewed two of the three but then had been unable to get a hold of Felix Broadfoot, the most senior of the trio. He’d been on holiday and should have reported for duty on Monday, but had failed to show. He wasn’t at home and he hadn’t answered his mobile.
McCulloch had been forced to hand it all over to the prison authorities for a full internal investigation and now she nursed a sick feeling in her gut. She was almost sure that neither of the other two officers was involved and she hoped the investigation would prove that. However, her gut also told her that Felix Broadfoot was involved and now, not only had a little girl been abducted, but he had aided and abetted child traffickers.
She sighed and rested her forehead on her hand for a second. When she’d narrowed it down to Felix she’d made some discreet enquires and had discovered that he put himself up for more than the normal amount of overtime. Then her deputy had revealed that there were rumours about a gambling problem and the breakdown of Broadfoot’s marriage.
In the dim light of her desk lamp, she slipped her shoes off and wiggled her toes, before stretching her shoulders. Finally, with a sigh, she moved the mouse to activate her PC. She couldn’t put it off any longer: she had to email DI McGuire with her findings. She picked up the lists that she had prepared for McGuire and sifted through them one last time before scanning them, ready to attach to her email. Pressing send she exhaled. Who the hell had put Felix up to delivering those notes to Gogs Redwood, and, worse still, that shiv? She shuddered at the thought of the resultant uproar if the media got access to this information. As if the prison service wasn’t in enough disarray as it was.
Chapter 75
Thursday 9:30pm
The train journey had been long and the confined leg room made his thigh throb so muc
h that when the journey finally ended he hobbled from the train, each step painful. For the last forty minutes of his journey, heavy sleet had been falling and as he alighted at Frizinghall Station, the platform was slick with a slight covering of snow. His feet nearly gave under him and he slipped jolting his shoulder painfully. Hesitantly he limped down the stairs and barely managed to hobble over to the car without scrunching his face in pain. He was relieved beyond measure when he saw that he didn’t need to squash himself into Alice’s Mini for the second time on one day.
He’d barely opened the door when she spoke. ‘You look rough.’
Gus edged his leg into the car and slowly eased his bottom onto the seat. Releasing a thankful sigh, he closed his eyes, pulled the seatbelt gingerly over his shoulder and clicked it in place. ‘Not done my physio exercises since Monday and it’s caught up on me now.’ He glanced at her from the corner of his eye as she edged left on Manningham Lane to head back to The Fort. ‘I’ll get up and go for a swim tomorrow morning.’
‘Well, see that you do. We can’t do with you being immobile,’ she said in a motherly tone.
Gus smirked, turned to look out the window, and said, under his breath, ‘Nag, nag, nag, that’s all I get.’
‘If your shoulder wasn’t in that damn sling, I’d thump you for that, Detective Inspector McGuire.’
Gus grinned and turned towards her. ‘Right, what’s going on? Any word on Gogs Redwood’s account?’
Alice shrugged. ‘Don’t know why all these fucking criminals are so smart, you know. Sadia’s been on it and was getting the run around with the banks soooo…’ she held her breath and kept her gaze firmly ahead. ‘She went to her dad and got him to light a fire under their arses and we finally got some info.’
Gus released a slow breath and counted to ten before replying. ‘What possessed her to go to Hussain for God’s sake? Does Nancy know?’
Alice shook her head. ‘Nancy was uncontactable, so she used her initiative… and got the results.’