Claire turned to Palmer.
‘Why change the tanker’s position?’
‘Probably so the camera couldn’t see what was happening at the back of it,’ said Palmer.
‘Like a body in a red plastic bag being tipped in the hole,’ added Gheeta.
‘Yes, I’d lay money on it. Scroll back to the tanker sideways on, Claire.’
She did so and froze the screen.
‘What’s the company name on the side of it?’ asked Palmer, peering closely at the screen. ‘I can’t make it out.’
Gheeta strained her eyes at the dim image.
‘It looks like City Concrete. Hang on and I’ll Google it.’
She tapped the keyboard of her computer and a few seconds later had a match.
‘They’re listed: City Concrete and Demolition, for all your major structural support systems and area clearance. UK Government and Local Authority Contractors. Looks like a big concern, guv.’
She pointed to a picture of a large yard with twenty or so tankers and a similar number of hoppers.
‘Based at Finsbury Park.’
Palmer stood and stretched.
‘Right, I think we might pop along and get a statement from the driver and his mate tomorrow, eh? Should be interesting. Well noticed, Claire’
Chapter 7
City Concrete’s offices were two Portakabins welded together. The door had RECEPTION stencilled in large letters across it, and opened into a surprisingly plush and tidy area, considering what it was housed in.
A middle-aged smart lady with strikingly deep red-coloured hair sat behind a long counter working on a computer. She stopped, turned, and gave Palmer a smile as he walked in. The smile left her face for a brief moment when Sergeant Singh in her uniform followed him.
‘Can I help you?’ she said, regaining her smile.
Palmer returned the smile and held his ID card towards her.
‘Chief Superintendent Palmer to see Mr Finlay.’
It was a gamble that had paid off in the past. This time it didn’t.
‘Mr Finlay?’ Red Hair shook her head. ‘We don’t have a Mr Finlay working here – ’
She referred to his ID.
‘Chief Superintendent.’
Palmer gave her one of his reassuring smiles.
‘I must have got the name wrong. We are looking for the driver and his mate who delivered concrete in one of your company tankers to the Baker Street Cross Rail site three days ago at eleven at night.’
Red Hair was out of her comfort zone.
‘I think I’d better get Mr Robson to see you. Please take a seat.’
She pointed to a round table with a half-circle sofa behind it.
‘I’ll give him a call.’
‘And Mr Robson is…?’ Palmer asked as he and Gheeta took a seat.
‘Mr Robson is the owner.’
Red Hair pressed a button and spoke into a microphone. The site loudspeakers outside could be heard relaying her words.
‘Would Mr Robson please come to Reception, thank you.’
She turned back to them.
‘Tea or coffee?’
‘No I’m fine, thank you.’
Gheeta shook her head.
Red Hair sat back in her seat, looking at the door expectantly.
‘He shouldn’t be long. He’s somewhere on the site; he’d have said if he was going out anywhere.’
Palmer looked at the various building trade magazines strewn on the table in front of them. Being a person who was not DIY motivated in any way, and who needed expert help to even get a flat pack furniture item out of its box, he decided to sit back and just wait for Mr Robson, rather than pretend some false interest in a magazine that might as well be written in Chinese and upside down.
He didn’t have to wait long. Mr Robson came into the Portakabin dressed in a dark blue one-piece builder’s overall, wellington boots and goggles, which he removed. He was middle sixties, with greying hair and clean-shaven. Palmer looked at him. Robson looked at Palmer. Recognition bloomed on both faces.
‘Mr Palmer!’
‘Harry Robson.’
Palmer stood and took the outstretched hand and shook it.
‘I thought you’d be retired on a big fat police pension by now.’
‘And I thought you’d be banged up on a life sentence, or in an unmarked grave in the middle of a forest somewhere.’
They both laughed.
‘No, not me Mr Palmer; you must be thinking of a different Harry Robson. I’m a legit business man now. Any small misdemeanours in my past are long, long gone.’
Palmer turned to Sergeant Singh.
‘This is Detective Sergeant Singh, my second in command.’
He addressed Gheeta, who nodded to Robson.
‘Way back in the bad old days Sergeant, when I was a young detective, this gentleman – and I use the word loosely – was the scourge of our lives. He had fingers in all the wrong pies and was running with the Richardson brothers’ little empire in South London.’
Robson hung his head in false shame.
‘I blame my parents; they should have kept me away from such people.’
He smiled as he said it.
‘Harry’s parents ran an unregulated bookies and a group of so called massage parlours, which we won’t go into now.’
Robson put his arm round Palmer’s shoulders.
‘This copper got me put down for seven years.’
‘If all the charges had stuck Harry you’d still be inside now, and you know it.’
He extricated himself from Robson’s friendly arm.
‘I’ll just check my wallet and wristwatch are still there.’
‘Well, well, well…’
Robson shook his head in a resigned way.
‘I shouldn’t say it’s good to see you Mr Palmer… but I will. How’s the Princess – still together are you? I’ll bet you are.’
Princess was Palmer’s name for Mrs P. ‘Princess’ had been the daughter of a well-known family of small-time career criminals, and their romance had blossomed strictly due to the number of times that young Detective Palmer had knocked on her door with warrants for the arrest of her father, one of her siblings, or to search the place for stolen property. Sadly she was the only one left now, as all her three brothers had been much older than her and departed to the unknown – amazingly, as Palmer had often remarked, of natural causes.
‘Yes, we are still together Harry. But we haven’t come here to chew over old times.’
‘I didn’t think you had, Mr Palmer; I’ve never known a copper make a social call. Do I need a brief? ’
‘Not unless you’ve been up to something that you shouldn’t have.’
He threw a questioning look at Robson, who pursed his lips in a thoughtful way.
‘No, not me; all strictly legit.’
‘Good.’
Palmer sat back down, as did Robson on a handy chair. He turned to Red Hair, who was sitting open-mouthed at the revelations she had just heard about her boss.
‘Don’t worry Cherry, it was all a very long time ago. And it won’t go any further than these four walls, will it.’
It was a statement; an order.
‘No, no,’ Cherry said, turning back to her screen to continue whatever it was she was doing. ‘No, of course not.’
Gheeta thought Cherry might be a nickname, because of her hair colour. Palmer continued in serious mode.
‘Harry, your company – this company – made a delivery of cement to the Cross Rail excavation off Baker Street at eleven p.m. on Monday.’
Gheeta pulled a printout from the CCTV footage, showing the tanker sideways on at the site, and passed it to Robson. Palmer gave him a second and continued.
‘That is your tanker, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s one of ours. What have they done, delivered short and sold some off on the side? I’ll kill the buggers if they have. That contract is one of our top ones.’
‘No, nothing
like that. But we’d like to take statements from the driver and his mate.’
‘Why, have they been nicking stuff from the site? All our people are CRB tested.’
Palmer smiled.
‘Really? How come you got a job here then?’
Robson saw the funny side of that.
‘I know the boss.’
‘Being serious Harry, there was a body found on the Cross Rail site the next day and we just want to ask if they saw anything out of the usual in or around the site when they were delivering.’
‘A body?’
‘Yes, on top of the cement they poured in.’
‘Must have been after they’d left then. Some poor chap jump in? Suicide?’
‘Possibly. I didn’t say it was a man, Harry.’
Robson smiled at Palmer.
‘Same old Palmer, same old tricks.’
He turned to Cherry.
‘Cherry love, have a look and see who was doing the night shift on Monday and took out the Cross Rail delivery.’
He turned back to Palmer.
‘They’ll probably not be in ‘til around seven tonight; our night shifts go Monday to Friday. You’ll have to come back later or go round to their homes.’
Cherry shouted across: ‘Mooney and Hilton, they’re on all week.’
Gheeta made a note in her book.
‘First names?’
She smiled across to Cherry, who returned her gaze to the PC screen.
‘Patrick Mooney and Mark Hilton’
‘Thank you. Do you have their employment record on file?’
‘Employment record?’
‘Details of their shifts, days and hours worked and where they delivered to?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘May we have a copy?’
Cherry looked at Robson. He shrugged.
‘Take a bit of time to print it off.’
Gheeta stood and crossed to behind the counter and stood beside Cherry.
‘Is it on a spreadsheet?’
Cherry nodded yes.
‘Good, that’s easy. Would you bring that file up and open it?’
Cherry did so. Gheeta took a USB she’d quietly taken from her shoulder bag and pushed it into the side port on the PC. A menu box came up, and quick as lightning Gheeta leant over Cherry and using the mouse brought the cursor to ‘download’ and hit ‘go’.
‘It shouldn’t take a minute.’
She smiled at Cherry who looked at Robson, who shrugged.
‘We’ve nothing to hide, feel free. Mind you, you probably should have had a warrant to do that.’
He smiled at Palmer,
‘But for old time’s sake I’ll let it pass.’
The download finished and Gheeta removed the USB and pocketed it.
‘That’s it all done, thank you.’
‘Right then.’
Palmer rose and put on his trilby.
‘Harry, I’d appreciate it if you kept this quiet – just between us for the present. Probably nothing to it, but better that Mooney and Hilton weren’t told until we take a statement. People tend to fret and think they saw things they didn’t if they get too much thinking time.’
‘Fine, I’ve no problem with that Mr Palmer.’
They shook hands.
‘One day when we both retire I’ll let you buy me a pint, and we’ll have a laugh at the old times, eh?’
‘I’ll hold you to that, Harry. As long as I’m sitting with my back against the wall and can see the door.’
They both laughed as Palmer and Gheeta made for the door, which suddenly opened sharply inwards as they reached it, causing Palmer to hurriedly retreat backwards into Gheeta who steadied him.
‘Oops, beg your pardon,’ said the smart suited gent who entered. ‘I didn’t know there was anybody in here. Are you okay?’
Palmer nodded and gave a reassuring smile.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
Robson laughed.
‘You wouldn’t have met this lad before, Mr Palmer. The missus always kept him away from the… you know, the family business. Detective Chief Superintendent Palmer, meet my nephew, Finlay Robson.’
Chapter 8
‘Well, well, well. That was an opportune time to be at City Concrete, eh?’
They were in the plain squad car sitting outside City Concrete.
‘I think we now know the identity of Mrs Fenn’s Finlay bloke. We’ve got quite a little pattern beginning to form.’
Palmer rubbed his thigh and winced.
‘Ruddy fool coming through that door like a whirlwind nearly had me over. Set my sciatica off.’
Gheeta turned to face him from the front passenger seat.
‘Did you notice a neat pile of red plastic sacks outside that cabin, sir?’
‘Were there really? No, I missed them. Well, that ties in nicely as well, doesn’t it?’
‘How about filling me in on this Robson chap, guv? You obviously knew him of old.’
‘Harry Robson,’ Palmer said, his mood darkening. ‘Yes, we all knew Harry Robson – not a very nice chap. I first got to know about him in the 70’s, when he was a part of the notorious Richardson gang, south London’s equivalent of north London’s Krays; a nasty, violent lot with their fingers in every illegal pie going. Robson was an enforcer with them –collected the rent arrears and protection money. Anybody got out of line, the Richardsons had Harry Robson pay them a visit.’
‘You make it sound like the Mafia.’
‘It wasn’t dissimilar. The gang really rose into prominence when the Krays tried to go south of the Thames, and the Richardsons weren’t having any of it; a bit like the Corleone family in Sicily when the big boys from the mainland tried to move onto their island. They saw them off.’
‘Corleone? I thought that family was fictional in the Godfather films, guv.’
Palmer laughed.
‘They weren’t fiction – the Godfather films were based on the real Corleone mafia family Sergeant, and they were real enough.’
‘I never knew that.’
‘Anyway, Harry Robson’s violent reputation was known well enough in London’s gangland that when the Richardsons told the Krays to sling their hook, they did. Robson had a reputation akin to that of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie, who was a notorious Kray enforcer. If those two went to war it would have had only one winner, and the Krays weren’t sure it would be them. So they bottled out and stayed north of the water; Robson rose through the ranks, and when drugs became the big earner he was into it in a big way. Anybody stepping onto his turf met a brick wall – him and his new best mate, Kenneth Noye.’
‘I’ve heard of him.’
‘He’s still inside, doing a life stretch for a 1996 murder; and I bet if you check his visitor list you’ll find our man Harry Robson on it. Both of them were thought to be implicated in the Brink’s-Mat gold bullion theft in ’83 along with John Palmer – no relation to me, I hasten to add – who had a smelting works in the grounds of his mansion outside Bath where they reckon most of the Brink’s-Mat gold bars were melted down. Cheeky blighter even had two guard dogs, one called Brinks and the other called Mat.’
Gheeta laughed.
‘Palmer’s dead, I read about that not so long ago. They thought he’d died of natural causes, until a post mortem uncovered bullet holes in his chest that the original doctor thought were just scars from a recent heart bypass operation. Hope he’s not my doctor.’
‘Yes, Palmer used his Brinks money to set up a massive time share scam in the Tenerife area; but he obviously trod on some big toes, and bang bang! Funny thing is, he’s dead and so are seven other villains that were involved in the Brinks-Mat hoist. They reckon there’s a curse on that gold, but I think the truth is that Noye’s and Palmer’s shares of the gold are still around buried somewhere; ten million quid’s worth in 1983 is worth a great deal more now, so well worth looking for. But no doubt Noye has his contacts, even inside; and if he still does have that gold, which we suppose he has, the
n fencing a little at a time would pay for anybody who’s getting a bit too near it to be… shall we say disappeared.’
‘In an asbestos plastic bag?’
Palmer shook his head.
‘No, going after the Brinks gold is well out of Plant and Fenn’s league. No, last I heard a couple of the young East End Romanian drug gangs were interested. If they’ve any sense they’ll stay well clear.’
‘So how does Harry Robson fit in with Plant and Fenn’s murders then?’
‘I don’t know yet Sergeant, but I’ll bet my pension he’s in here somewhere. He always denied he had anything to do with the Brinks job, but this concrete business looks to be worth quite a bit and that takes money to set up; and Harry Robson never earned a legal pound in all the years I knew him. But what he has to do with Fenn and Plant we have yet to find out. He’s a crafty bastard and his dealings will be well covered up. He’s a nasty one, too; when I put him away he swore in court he’d get even, and you didn’t take those threats lightly in those days. When he came out I had six weeks of 24-hour armed protection at home, just in case.’
He rubbed his thigh again.
‘I’ve got to get this sciatica sorted one day. Harry Robson is a very hard and very nasty piece of work Sergeant, and I bet he’s up to his ears in this gold caper somewhere along the line. But he’s also very clever as I said, and covers all the tracks.’
‘Do we need to have a good look round that site, having already seen the red bags? I bet we’d find a few interesting things if we got a search warrant.’
‘I bet we would too, but I don’t want to get Robson thinking that we are onto anything. Just want him to think it’s a straightforward interview of two of his employees who may have witnessed a crime. Keep it low level and see what happens.’
‘So what do we do about Finlay, guv?’
‘I never even knew Robson had a nephew. George Robson was an older brother who had a bookies in the Walworth Road. Didn’t know he had a son. Far as we knew at the time he was straight; probably laundered some of brother Harry’s ill gotten gains through the betting shop, but nothing was ever pinned on him. No, I think Finlay is the chap to major on now. See what Claire can turn up on him.’
LOOT & I'M WITH THE BAND: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series by B.L.Faulkner. Cases 5 & 6 (DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad cases Book 3) Page 3