Gunrunner

by Graham Ison

‘What?’ Williams looked completely baffled by Dave’s throwaway remark.

  ‘Because getting information out of you is like pulling teeth, old son.’ Dave took a pace closer, invading the bouncer’s personal space. ‘Where is he, Elliott?’

  Williams moved so that his back was against the wall. ‘I don’t know, guv’nor, really I don’t.’

  ‘Who’s running this place in Mr Rodriguez’ absence, then?’ I asked.

  ‘That’d be Fernando, the bar manager, sir. He’s, like, the maître d’, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Good, now we’re getting somewhere,’ said Dave. ‘Is he here, then?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Elliot. There was a pause. ‘Well, I think so. I’ll get Carmel to show you the way.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Dave. ‘We know where he hides himself.’

  We entered the main area of the club and were immediately approached by the man himself.

  ‘Good evening, señors. A table for two?’

  ‘No thanks, Fred,’ said Dave. ‘Just a word in your shell-like.’

  ‘Oh blimey, it’s you,’ said Goddard, alias Fernando, as he recognized us. He looked decidedly put out by our arrival.

  ‘Yes, it’s us,’ I said. ‘Where’s Mike Roberts, otherwise known to the punters as Miguel Rodriguez?’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest. I haven’t seen him since last Friday.’

  That was interesting. Last Friday was the day we called at the Spanish Fly and discovered, courtesy of Goddard himself, that Roberts had been absent from the club on the night Kerry Hammond was murdered. Despite Roberts claiming that he had been there.

  ‘Didn’t he say where he was going?’

  ‘No, not as such. He had a go at me for telling you he’d been adrift on Christmas Eve. He said that I’d got it wrong, and that I’d landed him in bother with the Old Bill.’

  ‘How did he know what you’d said?’

  ‘Well, he came down here after you’d gone, and asked me what I’d said. So I told him that he’d told you he wasn’t here, and that I’d agreed with you. Then he just took off. He said something about having some business to attend to.’

  ‘Have you got a phone number for him?’ asked Dave. ‘A mobile, for instance?’

  ‘No, but he never lets on what he’s up to. I dunno why I bother. Half the time I’m running this place by myself.’

  ‘It must be a hard life,’ commented Dave.

  ‘When he shows up, tell him I want to see him. And tell him I don’t want to come round here with a warrant.’ I tucked one of my cards into Goddard’s top pocket. ‘Because there’s no telling what I might find, is there, Fernando?’

  We left a very despondent maître d’ mulling over the consequences of a police raid on the Spanish Fly.

  ‘I reckon Señor Fernando is thinking about a change of occupation, guv,’ said Dave, as we regained the comparatively fresh environment of the Mayfair streets.

  ‘I wonder why Roberts did a runner,’ I said.

  ‘It’s got to be down to him,’ said Dave.

  ‘Not necessarily, Dave. I reckon that Señor Rodriguez has his fingers in some other pies. Put him on the PNC when we get back to the factory.’

  All in all, it had been an unproductive day. First we had Bryce Marlow spinning us a yarn about being taken advantage of by his boss, a tale I didn’t altogether believe, and then we found that Mike Roberts had done a runner. Just as Gary Dixon had done.

  On Saturday morning, we returned yet again to Kerry Trucking’s Chiswick haulage yard. An odour of diesel fuel hung in the cold, crisp air.

  ‘Oh, so you’re here again.’ Bernard Bligh was standing on the loading platform with his hands in the pockets of a heavy parka jacket, and greeted us with a barely concealed expression of annoyance. ‘What is it this time?’ His eyes were everywhere, watching and checking. At a previous interview, he’d told us that he’d once been a heavy-goods driver himself, and I didn’t doubt that he knew all the tricks and all the scams that a driver could pull. Like fiddling the tachograph; like filling up the fuel tank of his own car and using the company credit card to pay for it; like picking up and delivering private loads and pocketing the cash, and a dozen others. I was convinced that not very much would get past Bernard Bligh, and he was keeping a careful watch to make sure it didn’t.

  ‘Mrs Hammond’s bank statements,’ I said. ‘Her husband told me that she kept copies here.’ I didn’t mention that we’d already obtained a set from Nicholas Hammond, and I was working on the possibility that she kept a different set in her office.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to have a warrant for that sort of thing?’ said Bligh, at last turning to face me.

  ‘We can get one, if you insist,’ said Dave, and glanced searchingly around the yard, now busy with vehicles being loaded and unloaded. On the far side a crane was lowering a huge bulk container on to an articulated flatbed lorry, accompanied by shouted instructions to the crane driver. ‘Mind you, the warrant would have to be for a search of the entire premises, and that would mean closing down the business for a few hours.’

  ‘You’d better come into Kerry’s office,’ said Bligh churlishly, admitting defeat. ‘If they’re anywhere, they’ll be in her safe.’

  Kerry Hammond’s enormous office, the only one in the building to have Venetian blinds and curtains, was considerably better appointed than Bligh’s own. Carpeted from wall to wall, it featured a huge desk placed strategically across one corner. On the desk were a state of the art computer and a telephone so complicated that I wouldn’t have known how to answer it, let alone make a call. Behind the desk was a high-backed, leather executive chair. A conference table with six chairs, and two club armchairs completed the picture of the successful businesswoman’s seat of power.

  ‘This is some office,’ I observed, looking around in admiration. It was far superior even to that enjoyed by our beloved commander.

  ‘Cost a bloody packet,’ muttered Bligh, as he began twirling the dial on a large security cabinet. ‘But that was Kerry; no expense spared when it came to her own comfort.’

  ‘Kerry gave you the combination to her safe, did she?’ Dave asked.

  ‘No, but she was foolish enough to use her date of birth for it,’ said Bligh, as he opened the door. ‘I like to keep my finger on the pulse, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I imagine that Nick Hammond will be moving in here soon, then.’ Dave’s suggestion was deliberately meant to provoke Bligh, and it worked.

  ‘Don’t bloody talk to me about that waster,’ said Bligh, almost spitting the words. He continued to rummage about in the security cabinet, but eventually turned to me empty handed. ‘I can’t find any bank statements in here, Mr Brock. I don’t know why Hammond should’ve thought she kept them here. Perhaps she kept them on her computer at home.’

  That was possibly true, but we’d already obtained a hard copy of the last two years’ statements from Hammond. There was clearly something a bit underhand going on.

  ‘What’ll happen to Bryce Marlow now?’ I asked. ‘He was Mrs Hammond’s secretary, I believe.’

  ‘Her toy boy more like,’ said Bligh dismissively. ‘He’ll be out on his ear as soon as I can get around to it. Between you and me, I can’t stand that poncey little twit.’

  ‘He told us he was hoping to become one of your drivers,’ I said. ‘Once he’d got his HGV licence.’

  ‘In his dreams,’ scoffed Bligh. ‘I wouldn’t even let him ride one of the firm’s box tricycles,’ he added derisively. ‘If we had any.’

  ‘I understand that he accompanied Mrs Hammond to Paris on one occasion, Mr Bligh.’

  ‘Yes, he did, and I know what that was all about. A business trip to Paris my arse! A few days’ jolly at the firm’s expense, and she and Marlow have been at it like alley cats ever since. And he wasn’t the only one.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Dixon was another.’ Bligh sat down behind Kerry’s desk, and invited us to seat ourselves in the club armchairs. ‘
She decided to go on what she called a fact-finding trip across France in Dixon’s truck.’

  ‘And did she find out any facts?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Only the facts of life,’ said Bligh, with a grim smile. ‘But I reckon she knew more than enough about those already.’

  ‘Was there anyone else that she knew rather well?’ I asked.

  ‘I suppose you mean that she slept with?’ Bligh laughed. ‘No, but I wouldn’t mind betting there were a few.’

  That made three paramours that we knew about so far: the missing Rodriguez, alias Roberts, owner of the aptly-named Spanish Fly; Bryce Marlow; and the absent Gary Dixon, whose affair with Kerry had been confirmed by Nicholas Hammond. A picture of a voracious sexual adventuress had emerged, and if there were even more lovers, our investigation would become increasingly widespread. And a damned sight more complicated.

  TEN

  Back at the office, I gave Charlie Flynn, the ex-Fraud Squad sergeant, the task of examining Kerry Hammond’s bank statements.

  ‘Those are her statements for the past two years, Charlie. They were the ones we got from her husband, but she didn’t keep any in her safe at the office. See what you can make of them.’

  ‘Anything in particular, guv?’ asked Flynn.

  ‘Any large unexplained movements of funds,’ I said. ‘In fact, anything that might lead us to Kerry’s killer.’ The task I’d set him was one with wide parameters, but he knew his job.

  First thing on Monday morning, Charlie Flynn produced a breakdown of Kerry Hammond’s financial affairs, at least, those that could be deduced from the past two years’ statements. But it was enough to set us on another path.

  ‘For a start, guv’nor, we’re dealing with two separate accounts here. One set are for the household bills which Kerry paid for their Barnes property: gas, electricity, council tax, that sort of thing, so we can forget those. The second account, which is kept at a different bank from the first one, is much more revealing.

  ‘I’m beginning to think that Kerry Hammond was a devious woman, Charlie.’

  ‘It looks that way, guv,’ said Flynn. ‘On the nineteenth of October she wrote a cheque for five thousand pounds payable to Lewes Crown Court.’

  ‘So she covered Gary Dixon’s fine for bootlegging,’ I surmised.

  ‘What’s more, she paid a thousand pounds a month into his personal bank account.’

  ‘Well, there’s a surprise,’ said Dave, ‘especially as Dixon’s wife said he didn’t have a bank account.’

  ‘But now it gets really interesting,’ continued Flynn. ‘There were transfers of substantial sums at intervals over the last two years; I won’t bother you with actual amounts, guv, but I’ve prepared a breakdown of the figures so that you can look at them later. They comprised payments made to a French wine merchant called Marcel Lebrun, who appears to be based somewhere in the Marseille area. The last payment was in August of last year, five months ago. Then there were monies coming in over the last two years and occurring at intervals of about six weeks after each of the payments out. In all, those receipts totalled close to three-quarters of a million pounds and were payable to a set-up called Kerry Wine Importers. But there is no indication where that money came from.’

  ‘Did the statements show any payments of income tax, Charlie?’ asked Dave, who had a passionate interest in people who didn’t pay tax. Probably because he had no option; his tax was deducted from his pay.

  ‘Not that I could see, Dave,’ said Flynn, ‘but tax on legitimate wine importation is paid either at the excise duty point – normally when the wine is delivered for consumption – but occasional importers must pay the duty to Revenue and Customs before the wine is shifted.’

  ‘What do we know about this wine importing firm, Charlie?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing, guv. I interrogated the Companies House computer at Cardiff, and there’s no trace of it. We don’t even know if it’s an occasional importer.’

  ‘Or if it imports wine at all,’ said Dave. ‘Might be a front for something else. Perhaps Bernard Bligh can shed some light on it, guv,’ he suggested.

  ‘It’s possible he knows nothing about it,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘It looks as though Kerry was running a wine business on the side, and probably using the firm’s trucks to bring it in. And that could be why she kept all her statements at home. We know that Bligh had access to her safe.’

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ said Flynn. ‘There are no payments for use of the transport, and that would be a tax-deductible expense. And there’s no reason why she shouldn’t have set up a company in her own name. It would have nothing to do with Bligh or Kerry Trucking.’

  ‘I wonder if it was a load like that which got Dixon weighed off at Lewes Crown Court,’ said Dave. ‘The whole arrangement could’ve been illegal.’

  ‘And Bligh might just have been a part of it, Dave,’ I said, although I had to admit that we were straying into unfamiliar areas. ‘I think we’ll speak to him again. I’m pretty sure he knows more than he’s told us. But this time I think we’ll need a warrant, just in case he doesn’t feel like cooperating.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, then?’ queried Dave.

  ‘Yes, and we’ll take Tom Challis along as well,’ I said. DS Challis’s Stolen Vehicle Squad experience meant that he knew a thing or two about lorries.

  ‘I think that Kerry Wines might have been set up for money laundering, guv,’ suggested Flynn.

  ‘I’d already come to that conclusion, Charlie,’ I said.

  It was possible that we might need to examine personal and financial records at Kerry Trucking. This, of course, complicated matters; the law dictated that I was obliged to apply for the warrant before a circuit judge. Having spent most of Tuesday morning preparing my ‘information’ and taking it to the Crown Court in Newington Causeway, it was almost one o’clock by the time I eventually obtained my search warrant.

  ‘We’ll grab a bite to eat,’ I said, glancing at Dave and Tom Challis, ‘and then we’ll hit Kerry Trucking.’

  We adjourned to a nearby Costas coffee shop. Dave bought three cups of latte and I gathered up a few snacks that would have to do for lunch. We found a table in the crowded seating area and settled down.

  ‘It’s going to take us a while to search a haulage yard, guv,’ said Tom Challis.

  ‘That depends, Tom. If Bligh is cooperative, we might find what we’re looking for straight away.’

  ‘What are we looking for, guv?’

  ‘We haven’t the vaguest idea, Charlie,’ said Dave.

  Bernard Bligh looked extremely apprehensive when the three of us confronted him on the loading bay.

  ‘I have a warrant to search these premises, Mr Bligh,’ I said, ‘but it’ll be quicker if we have your cooperation.’

  ‘What the hell’s this all about?’ demanded Bligh aggressively.

  ‘It’s about a firm called Kerry Wine Importers,’ I said, thinking that that would do for a start.

  ‘Never heard of them. What do they do, then?’

  ‘Import wine, presumably,’ suggested Dave, with a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘Well, I don’t know anything about that. It must’ve been one of Kerry’s sidelines.’

  ‘Did she have many sidelines?’ I asked.

  ‘None that I know of.’ Bligh looked furtive, and I doubted that he was telling the truth. On the other hand, it was a common enough reaction to the arrival of police armed with a search warrant, even on the part of those who were completely blameless. ‘But there was no telling with Kerry.’

  ‘Does the name Marcel Lebrun mean anything to you?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Sounds like a Frenchman.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt he is,’ I said, ‘given that he appears to be a wine merchant based in the Marseille area.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,’ said Bligh.

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘we’re going to have a look round. Tell me, Mr Bligh, do any of your trucks make a regular run to Marseill
e?’

  ‘That one over there,’ said Bligh, pointing to a Scania articulated box lorry parked on the opposite side of the yard. ‘Why? What’s so special about Marseille?’

  ‘Because, Mr Bligh, Marseille is where Marcel Lebrun carries on business as a vintner.’ I was uncertain whether Bligh was dense or just pretending to be. On balance, I thought he was pretending to be. ‘Do any of your drivers usually do that run?’

  ‘A new guy called Sharpe, Billy Sharpe. Well, he’s comparatively new.’

  ‘How new?’

  ‘Sharpe’s been with us for about three months now. Kerry took him on after I sacked Dixon.’

  ‘And before that, did Dixon usually do the Marseille run, Mr Bligh?’

  ‘Yes, he did. Look, what is all this?’ Bligh was beginning to get tetchy at our persistent probing.

  Ignoring Bligh’s question, I turned to DS Challis. ‘Give that vehicle the once-over, Tom, and see if there’s anything in it that attracts your interest.’

  ‘If there is, I want to know about it,’ put in Bligh. ‘If Sharpe’s up to something, he’ll be out on his ear.’

  Challis took a pair of navy blue overalls from his holdall and slipped them on.

  ‘What are you hoping to find?’ asked Bligh nervously. ‘All our trucks are legit. I told you that I’d sacked Dixon when he was done for bootlegging booze through Dover.’

  ‘So you did,’ I said, choosing not to tell him that Kerry Hammond was almost certain to have paid Dixon’s fine.

  Descending from the loading bay, Tom Challis crossed to the Scania that Bligh had pointed out. He crawled under the box trailer and spent a few minutes examining it. Then he opened the rear doors and climbed inside the cargo area.

  Standing beside the two of us, Bligh fidgeted with his ballpoint pen, clicking it repeatedly. He was clearly worrying about something.

  A couple of minutes later, Challis reappeared on the tailboard. ‘Looks to be all right, guv,’ he shouted, ‘but perhaps you’d like to give it the once-over.’

  I suspected that Challis had discovered something interesting that he didn’t want Bligh to know about. Dave and I crossed the yard and clambered aboard the trailer.