“I think your Gran suspects it. Brendan slept with Siobhan regularly, and she knows that. One other person knew, too, but she wasn’t saying until two years ago.”
Ben was curious now. “Who else could know? It was thirty years ago.”
“Patricia Grierson. She suspected Brendan was sleeping with Siobhan, but she could never be certain. Dennis had her convinced that she was the reason they had no kids, but when she left me and Den, to go to the US, she got pregnant almost immediately. When the first baby was born to her and Brendan, the little girl looked just like me. Pat says she was devastated. She was now certain that she had given up Brendan’s first child for adoption because she believed I was Grierson’s child.”
“Bloody hell!” was all Ben could think of to say.
“I know. The Flats were a cesspit then, and they are a cesspit now. I despise the place and everyone who lives there.” There was a disturbing violence underpinning her words. “Pat Grayson met me in New York last year when I was there on business, and she brought a vial of blood and Brendan’s medical records with her. After a tearful reunion, we went to a clinic, where they carried out some DNA tests, promising us the results in a week or two. When the results came back four weeks later, Pat sobbed down the phone and pleaded for my forgiveness before asking me if she could tell Brendan.”
“What did you say?” Ben was intrigued.
“I said she could tell him if she wanted to, and a week later I received a call from the man himself. He recalled Siobhan’s twins and he hoped that we had thrived, but he said he had no idea we were his kids. He had believed the Grierson story, like everyone else. He wants to meet us both.”
“You’ve known this for almost two years!” Ben was angry. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Never,” Ashley answered quietly. “I knew who you were as soon as I saw your first All Blacks photo; I followed your career and saw the pride in your new dad’s face as you placed that rugby ball in his hands after your first international try. I couldn’t destroy all of that. What good would it have done for you to know that Grierson wasn’t your real father? You had a new life eleven thousand miles away. As far as I knew, you didn’t give a damn about where you came from.”
Ben and Ashley sat in silence for a while.
“I understand,” Ben said eventually, “but how did you get involved with Grierson again when you had every reason to wipe him out of your life?”
“That’s a long story, and I’m tired now.” Ashley reached for Ben’s hand and squeezed it gently. “It involves Lawrence, and I can’t believe he’s gone just yet. Give me some time.”
Ashley teared up. Ben regretted not being brave enough to tell his new found sister that her father and husband were dead, and so he had left the awful task to the doctor earlier in the day. To the doctor’s surprise Ashley already knew. She had recalled seeing Lawrence’s dead body through the bathroom door, although she appeared to remember little else. Ben felt Ashley’s hand relax in his as she slipped into a deep sleep.
Chapter 24
Guy’s Hospital, Great Maze Pond, London.
Wednesday 17th August 2011; 6pm.
Ashley seemed much brighter than she had been during the morning, and DCI Coombes and DS Scott had been sitting at her bedside for over an hour now. For the last sixty minutes they had been gently interrogating her about the events leading up to the Blackheath Rectory murders. Ashley had been unable to furnish them with much detail, explaining that the last thing she remembered before passing out was preparing for dinner. Ashley had a vague recollection of someone trying to drown her in the bathtub of the en-suite bathroom, but she admitted that her recollection seemed more like a dream than a true memory.
During the entire interrogation Ashley held on to Ben's hand, squeezing it occasionally when a sensitive question elicited an emotional response. At one point, when she rebuked herself for being too vague, DS Scott noted that, considering the fact that she had lost her husband in the carnage the night before, Ashley had remained remarkably calm and coherent.
DCI Coombes knew it would be up to him to ask the hardest question of all, but once he had asked it he realised that he was not alone in wondering how Ashley had allowed the psychotic Grierson back into her life, having escaped from his clutches many years before. Ashley’s long explanation surprised the policemen, as well as her twin brother. She spoke softly as she recalled events.
"Two years ago, when I found out that Dennis Grierson was not my real father, I experienced conflicting emotions. I knew that I should have been happy that I wasn't the offspring of a vicious criminal, but at the same time I realised that I had spent twenty-nine years cutting the wrong father out of my life. I’m ashamed to say that there were two or three dark weeks where I was so depressed that I sought treatment from my doctor, who prescribed beta-blockers for my anxiety attacks. As you might expect, Lawrence was very concerned about my health, and one evening he encouraged me to explain how I felt about having a father who was rich and famous but with whom I'd had no relationship. Lawrence listened but it soon became clear that he had a morbid fascination in Dennis Grierson. You see, Lawrence had been brought up in a privileged environment and would never have encountered criminals like Grierson before. Over the next few days, and on more than one occasion, I caught Lawrence reading old press reports about my erstwhile father and his sordid life.
One night after dinner, when I was feeling a little tipsy from the red wine, Lawrence quizzed me about Dennis Grierson and his income. I knew that the gang had salted away hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years, but I didn't realise at the time that Lawrence was sizing Dennis Grierson up as a potential investor in his failing property company. Unbeknown to me and to his father, Lawrence was in financial difficulties. Despite his heritage and his position, Lawrence had never been a great entrepreneur, and the only reason he headed up Garner-Brinkman was because he had been raised to be his father's successor as managing director. The reality was that Harry, Lawrence’s dad, knew very well that his son was ill equipped to run the company, and so he headhunted me. In reality, whilst Lawrence was the de facto managing director, I was responsible for the day-to-day running of the company. After a short while we began dating, and a year later we were married. Harry Garner was ecstatic, as he now had genuine succession management in place and the business would remain in the family.
Lawrence wasn’t as happy about it as his father, though. You have to understand that Lol – sorry, Lawrence - had been raised and supported financially by his parents through school, university and even his early career with Price Waterhouse Coopers. The truth of the matter was that he was entirely dependent on funding from his father, who disapproved of his profligate lifestyle and his uncontrolled spending. So when he joined Garner -Brinkman, Harry paid him a generous salary but refused to subsidise his uncontrolled spending. Lawrence ended up on a tight financial rein and he was unhappy about it. He was also unhappy at work because, whilst Lawrence appeared on the letterhead as the managing director, there was no doubt that he felt emasculated by the fact that I was running the company and everyone that mattered to him knew it.
Given his temperament it was inevitable he would try to break free of his father’s control, and so to provide the funds he yearned for he established his own property development company without his father's knowledge. The single purpose limited company was called Blackheath-Voss, because it had been established solely to purchase and develop the semi derelict rectory on Blackheath Green. The Voss brothers from the Netherlands contributed half a million pounds towards the purchase of the rectory, and Lawrence borrowed the other half a million himself. The idea was that the rectory would be converted into four luxury apartments, the selling price of which would be around half a million pounds each, and so the return on investment would be around one hundred per cent, which was an attractive proposition for any property investor. Unfortunately, the property crash of 2008 coincided with the work reaching completion, and the lend
er insisted that a chartered surveyor value the property before they would lend the money necessary to complete the fixtures and fittings. The chartered surveyor valued the completed building at just over three quarters of a million, and so the lender was unprepared to make a further loan. Lawrence was obliged to use the remaining inheritance from his mother's estate to complete the works, but now Blackheath-Voss had spent almost one point three million on a property that had a market value of less than a million pounds. The Voss brothers were angry but resigned to their loss, and they asked Lawrence to find someone to buy the property so that they could split the revenue fifty-fifty with Lawrence. Unfortunately for Lawrence, a sale would have left him with a debt of around three hundred thousand pounds, with no security, knowing that the lender would demand repayment on completion of the sale.”
Ashley paused, then reached over to the bedside cabinet and picked up a glass of tepid water. She took a drink and continued.
“I should remind you that I knew nothing of this deal, or of the financial arrangements Lawrence had made. Had I known, I would have been desperately worried because we had no equity in our own home either. Although we were both well paid by Garner-Brinkman, we tended to spend money as fast as we earned it. So, without my knowledge, Lawrence approached Dennis Grierson and asked him to invest in the Rectory development. Dennis Grierson saw this as an opportunity to launder a significant amount of his illegal savings to get something that he desperately wanted but which had been denied him - a daughter.
With money provided by Dennis Grierson, Lawrence paid the Voss brothers for their share of the limited company and they went back to the Netherlands to lick their wounds. Grierson’s conditions for lending Lawrence the money were simple. Whilst he could not himself be a director of the limited company, given his criminal past, he wanted the company memorandum to show that I was a seventy five per cent shareholder in the business and Lawrence was the holder of the remaining twenty five per cent of the business. Lawrence told me later that he was so relieved that Grierson was prepared to make the investment that he was about to accept the terms gratefully. At that point, Dennis Grierson stipulated one final caveat. Dennis Grierson was to be given full access to his daughter, and Lawrence was to ensure that I would cooperate in what Dennis saw as a long overdue reconciliation.
When Lawrence explained this to me I felt sick. I refused to become involved, explaining to Lawrence what Grierson did to the women under his control. Lawrence was devastated, and in the days that followed he became so worried and withdrawn that his father and co-workers were concerned that he might take his own life. Whilst they had no idea what was causing the sudden depression, I of course knew only too well. I knew that only I could offer a cure. Reluctantly I agreed to the plan, and Lawrence was saved the embarrassment of having to go to his father and confess that he had made yet another poor investment and had lost his mother’s inheritance.
Over the next few weeks Lawrence brightened visibly, and Dennis made few if any demands. I became optimistic that I would be expected to do little other than to visit Grierson in daughterly fashion from time to time. We were then informed that the Church of England school beside the Rectory wanted to purchase the Rectory and its grounds for a pre-school facility under the Free Schools legislation enacted by the coalition government. We were offered almost one point two million, and suddenly life seemed rosy again.
Unfortunately, it soon became clear the Dennis Grierson's grip on the Broadwater Farm estate was slipping, and that his authority was being challenged by the gangs who ran the low-level crime. Grierson knew that his days were numbered, and he was busily liquidating his assets when he informed us that he would be the next occupant of the Rectory. He intended to run his drugs wholesaling activities out of Blackheath, well away from the dealers, the pushers and their clients.
The Rectory was only just completed and furnished to Grierson’s demanding standards, which would have done justice to a Russian Oligarch, when the man himself turned up at the Rectory with an injured leg and a story of woe. He had been ousted from the Farm and his lock up had been looted. He had lost cash and goods worth tens of thousands but, worse than that, drugs with a street value of a quarter of a million pounds had vanished and his Belgian suppliers were coming over to collect their share of the money.
Grierson started making demands and, to our shame, we complied. Lawrence lured Ben to the Rectory. Grierson wanted payback for the leg and the loss of his property, which he said was Ben’s doing.”
Ashley looked at Ben and smiled wanly.
“He made me stay with him overnight at the Rectory, knowing that it would drive Lawrence to distraction wondering what kinds of abuse he was inflicting on me. The truth was that Grierson was so high on painkillers that apart from some clumsy groping he couldn’t do much else. Then the next night he told me I would be hosting a dinner for the Belgians, and he wanted me to wear a revealing dress that he had bought for one of his ‘other girls’.
As disgusted as I was, I knew I had no other choice. I had to get Ben out of there somehow. So, after I left Ben his dinner, I showered and began to get ready for the dinner. Lawrence poured me a whisky and I downed it pretty quickly. That’s the last thing I remember. I can hardly believe that my own husband spiked my drink with some date rape drug.” Ashley paused and wiped away a tear.
“I have to believe that he was protecting me. Maybe he thought I was going to be offered to the Belgians as part payment, or something, and he didn’t want me to remember. I don’t know. I don’t know any more.”
The barrier was breached and the tears flowed freely. DS Scott and DCI Coombes looked embarrassed as they comforted Ashley, and promised that they would keep her informed about the progress of their investigation. They then left quietly, summoning Ben to the door.
“Listen, Mr Fogarty, we’re pretty sure that if Belgian criminals did this there’s a very high probability that they will be back across the North Sea by now, but just to be on the safe side Mrs Garner will be under twenty four hour protection.”
Ben nodded, and DCI Coombes continued.
“Go and get some sleep. You look dead on your feet. Come in and see us on Monday. We have more questions, and hopefully we will be able to give you some answers.”
“That’s five days away,” Ben complained.
“I know, but most of my officers have been working around the clock for a week or more. They need some time off. We’ll know more after the weekend. In the meantime, get to know your sister. She needs somebody.”
The DCI paused to look into the hospital room. “And who better to comfort her than her long lost brother?”
Chapter 25
The Scandic Grand Place Hotel, Brussels, Belgium.
Wednesday 17th August 2011; 7pm, local time.
With his News of the World expenses and final pay still sitting in his bank account in London, Max Richmond had continued to spend his savings in chasing down the North London Gang story. His last published story for the revered old paper had warned that there was a prospect of civil unrest in North London, which would be started by the gangs who would pass the baton to the excitement seekers, the social networkers and the people who no longer cared about living in a civil society. People had scorned and laughed a month ago, but they weren’t laughing now.
The publicity his prophetic story attracted when the riots began had been helpful to him as he wrote pieces on the riots for the tabloids, the broadsheets and the highbrow weekly magazines. He had also been paid handsomely for a number of radio appearances and one TV appearance. That had been on Panorama, where he sat concealed in shadow whilst an actor voiced his words. Max wasn’t rich, but he might be very soon.
Continuing to play the role he first adopted in Tottenham in March 2011, Max had travelled to Brussels to meet a drugs wholesaler who had granted him an audience, believing that Max - or John “Snake Eyes” Patterson, as he had become known - was in the market for a range of hard drugs. As Max walked along the Grande
Place in the humid hot air that accompanied a Brussels summer’s evening, he caught sight of a reflection of himself as John “Snake Eyes” Patterson in the window of a patisserie.
Max had deliberately dressed in a suit that fitted badly, the collar of which failed to conceal the tattoo of the lunging snake that stared out from beneath his hairline. Max’s natural hair colour had been replaced with bleached blonde hair closely cropped, military style. A pair of snake eyes had been expertly carved into the hair on the back of his head, forever watching all those who followed behind. John Patterson - he was in character now - straightened the tie that looked as uncomfortable as it felt around his neck, and curled his lip in a snarl. That would do, Max thought.
A minute later ‘Snake Eyes’ walked into the foyer of the unassuming white stuccoed building on the Grande Place which housed the Scandic Hotel. The flags outside the hotel were brightly coloured and varied but, he noted, they did not include the flag of the European Union.
The foyer was air-conditioned, a welcome relief after the sweltering heat of the day. Snake Eyes took a deep breath and followed the signs to the Waterloo Suite, where he was due to meet his Belgian contacts. The real John Patterson had fled London in June after a violent dispute with a North London villain called Dennis Grierson. Max had interviewed the terrified man, who was now staying with his sister in Manchester, rarely leaving the house for fear of retribution. Young Mr Snake Eyes confessed to Max that he had siphoned off almost fifty grand of gang money over five months before being caught in the act by a brute of a man called Barty, Grierson’s minder.
Hopefully, the Belgians would accept Max as John Patterson. If they didn’t - well, Max didn’t want to consider what might happen to him if they rumbled him as an undercover reporter. There was no reason why the drug lords should suspect that he was anyone other than Snake Eyes. Max and John were a close match in height, build and eye colour, and, the temporary tattoo of the snake writhing up his neck was what caught everyone’s attention.
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