Palmer thought for a moment.
‘Hmm, but who did the cleaning? Plant, before he did a disappearing act? Maybe he didn’t want any trace to be left that could lead to him? Or was it the people or person who killed him cleaning up afterwards, which would point to a professional job? No shop CCTV in place I assume? Jewellers usually have that at least.’
‘No, nothing listed here.’
‘That’s a pity. If I recall the Brinks Mat job they could trace the gold by analyzing it chemically. Better get our lads to take a few scrapings off the inside of the smelter crucible and some sweepings from the shed floor with a soft brush – I don’t want a bin bag full of stuff, just a small amount. Get it sent to Reg for analysis and we will see what he can come up with.’
‘You think all this could be linked in some way to laundering stolen gold, don’t you sir.’
‘Not a hundred percent Sergeant, no; but with Robson’s possible, if not probable, involvement, it’s a distinct possibility.’
‘Brinks Mat gold?’
‘Could be – but up to now any of the villains involved in that job who have put their head above the parapet have met with an early death.’
‘Eighty percent,’ Claire said incredulously.
‘What is eighty percent?’ Palmer asked.
She pointed to her PC screen.
‘On Wikipedia it says that in the decade after the Brinks Mat robbery, they estimated that over eighty percent of all gold jewellery sold in the UK was made from the gold stolen in that one robbery.’
She looked at her engagement ring.
‘I could be wearing some,’ she laughed. ‘Could I be charged with receiving stolen property?’
‘Not unless you’ve a bar or two of it under the bed.’
Palmer smiled and crossed to the progress board and wrote ‘gold’ under Plant’s name.
‘Follow the money, and now follow the gold.’
Chapter 11
Mrs Fenn didn’t look much like a grieving widow when Gheeta called the next afternoon, with a clear picture of Finlay Robson that the ‘snapper’ had taken that morning and sent down the Wi Fi to the team room computer. Copies had duly been printed off for the team members and the progress board.
Gheeta thought Mrs Fenn again looked and acted quite bouncy and happy for a recently bereaved wife. But then Gheeta didn’t know what sort of relationship the Fenns may have had; perhaps love hadn’t been the major ingredient.
‘Yes, that’s him. That’s definitely him.’
Mrs Fenn was sure that the photo was of the Mr Finlay her husband had brought home a couple of times.
‘Who is he?’
‘We are still working on that, Mrs Fenn. He may have nothing to do with the murder and just be a genuine business acquaintance of your late husband, but if we get any further information we’ll let you know. Have you any idea what sort of business your husband may have had with the gentleman?’
‘No, we didn’t talk much about business. Sidney used to say he talked business all day and didn’t want the same all evening, so I can’t help you there. He was probably a vendor, I know he had a few good vendors who put in a fair amount of quality items every sale. He said that you need that in the auction business – can’t rely on what comes through the door.’
What came through the door at Sylvia Fenn’s house was Finlay Robson; but he came through the rear kitchen door, and not until darkness had fallen. They embraced in the kitchen.
‘Has Palmer been back yet?’
Sylvia Fenn nodded.
‘No, but his sergeant has and with your photo – quite a good one too, and recent.’
‘Shit! He must have put a snapper onto me. What did she say?’
‘Questions mainly – did I know you? No. Did I recognise the picture? No… That was about it.’
‘Uncle Harry’s getting a bit panicky. He knows Palmer from way back and reckons he’s good, so Mooney and Hilton are out of the picture.’
‘They’re what?’
‘Gone, like your old man. Gone and never to return. Don’t ask. They really cocked up with your old man’s body; they might just as well have left it on the steps of the local nick.’
‘I’m having to play the grieving widow. I had a bloody WPC here for a day trying to get me to contact victim support. So, what do we do now?’
‘We sit tight. Let Palmer make the next move, and when he does it will give us some idea of what he knows – or what he thinks he knows. If only your old man and Plant hadn’t got greedy, eh?’
‘What about the Leytons? We need to keep the money rolling, or they’ll start getting worried.’
‘They’ll be alright. They can’t really do anything, can they? One thing Leyton doesn’t want is Mr Plod asking questions about his gold.’
Chapter 12
‘You have got to be kidding me, Reg.’
Palmer could hardly believe it.
‘Absolutely no question about it, Justin.’
Palmer looked open-mouthed at Gheeta and shook his head in amazement as Reg Frome continued.
‘The scraping samples your lads got from Plant’s crucible and the dustings from the floor have been analysed to one hundred percent certainty: Nazi gold, from the Merker mine in Germany.’
Gheeta laughed nervously.
‘Why does the word ‘Nazi’ still make me shudder?’
Frome nodded.
‘Me too. That gold we tested, however small, could have come from… well, I don’t really want to think about it.’
Palmer sat in his chair and pushed it back into the wall groove, swinging his feet onto the desk.
‘This does put a different slant on the case doesn’t it, eh? I was pretty sure we were on the track of some Brinks Mat stuff coming up for air – not Nazi gold. What’s this Merker mine got to do with it?’
‘I’ll explain.’
Frome took a spare chair and sat down.
‘When the Nazis looted all the private gold and jewellery and stuff as they marched across Europe, it was sent to the Merker’s salt mine near Buchenwald POW camp in Germany – together with the bullion they had taken from the country’s banks – and all heaped together and melted down into ingots; one hundred and fifty million dollars worth of the stuff at 1945 prices. In melting it down and mixing it all together, a chemical footprint was made of the gold; that means the different types of gold and purity were combined in the smelter and produced a distinctive, recognisable type – bit like a unique DNA in humans. We have samples of the Merkers gold bars from the US Federal Reserve, as that was where it was officially moved to. But, as in most times of war, a few bars disappeared on the journey without being noticed. Let’s face it, there were no accountants counting it up, no paper trail – just soldiers heaping it onto lorries by the ton. A lot of American soldiers came home from war very, very rich, I can tell you.’
He laughed.
‘Nothing ever proved and nobody ever charged, but… could you resist it?’
He glanced from Gheeta to Palmer. Neither flinched.
‘You like to think you would,’ Palmer said. ‘But after six years of being shot at in muddy fields you might feel you deserved some little bonus, eh?’
Gheeta shot him a surprised glance.
‘Not that I personally of course would have even contemplated such a deed,’ added Palmer, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
‘Of course not, sir. I didn’t think for one moment that you would have.’
‘I bloody would have,’ Frome said more bluntly. ‘Anyway, that’s it. Your man Plant was melting down Nazi gold.’
‘You’re sure it wasn’t Brinks Mat?’
‘Absolutely sure – Brinks has a totally different footprint. We see quite a lot of Brinks, but very little Nazi. In the USA it’s the opposite – lots of Nazi and hardly any Brinks.’
Palmer shifted his feet off the desk, brought the chair back to ground level and stood up.
‘You live and learn, eh? Thanks Re
g, and thanks for the use of your accountant chap for the bank statements warrant. I have a meeting with him later. Well, well, well, Harry Robson is becoming a real Goldfinger, isn’t he? First Brinks and now the Nazi gold – this is getting to be a very unusual case.’
‘And a very interesting one for me, Justin. Keep me in the loop.’
He stood and nearly knocked over Assistant Commissioner Bateman, who was coming in as he went to leave. Bateman gave him a perfunctory nod.
‘Morning, Frome.’
Frome gave one back and left quickly.
‘Mr Bateman, always a pleasure when the gods from on high descend to visit us lower mortals, sir. To what do we owe the pleasure?’
Palmer affected his false smile. Bateman ignored him and turned to Gheeta.
‘Would you give us a few minutes please, Sergeant?’
‘Of course, sir.’
Gheeta gathered her files and left for the team room. Bateman took over the chair vacated by Frome.
‘Sit down, Palmer. You know why I’m here.’
‘I do, sir?’ said Palmer innocently, taking his seat.
‘Yes, you do. Why was a request for bank warrants on your current case sent through Forensics and not you?’
‘Well, I thought that as Forensics would be studying the statements it would quicken up the process sir, and keep the case moving forward.’
Although Palmer didn’t like Bateman, he always made a point of using ‘Sir’ when addressing him so no charge of insubordination could be levelled at him.
‘Seemed the quickest way to proceed, sir.’
Bateman exhaled a long ‘I’m fed up with you’ type breath.
‘No Palmer, you just didn’t want to call my attention to how this case was going on, did you. I have had no daily reports from you on the case at all, absolutely no information or updates. As usual you think you don’t have to follow the rules and do the paperwork that every other team does quite easily. I think we both know that neither of us is on the other’s Christmas card list Palmer, but this continual ignoring of basic reports and updates will end today. I have made a note on your record of the fact that you have been warned before about ignoring case procedures, and if it happens again it will bring on a disciplinary hearing. Do you understand?’
‘Did you glance through my record when you made the note, sir?’
‘I don’t need to Palmer, I know your record.’
‘So you know the bit about my team’s one hundred percent case clear-up sir, and the bit about me turning down a job on the top floor pen-pushing to stay as a copper catching criminals?’
‘Palmer, I am aware that you are a very good and very senior detective, respected by just about everyone in the Met. But that doesn’t give you leave to ignore basic procedures. These reports and paperwork are very important records. Should anything go wrong in a case, they can be used as evidence against any malicious charges brought against you or the force; and in today’s political climate, lawyers are only too happy to bring you down, good record or not. I expect today’s report on this case on my desk in the morning, and daily reports from then on. No more warnings, Palmer.’
Palmer nodded. Bateman rose to leave and then remembered something.
‘By the way, I looked in your team room earlier and saw the progress board. Harry Robson has surfaced again in this case, has he?
‘He has sir, yes.’
‘Bearing in mind that he made a serious threat to kill you the last time you put him away, and you had firearms protection for a while when he came out, do you not think it might be better to pass this case over to another team?’
‘No I do not, sir. And there isn’t another Serial Murder Team.’
‘I’m sure I could form one in this instance.’
That was as good as telling Palmer he wasn’t indispensable. And it hurt.
‘I’m sure you could, sir. But I’m quite confident Robson’s threat isn’t current.’
‘Okay. You see what I mean about up-to-date reports – I had to get that information from your Progress board. I should have had it a few days ago on a daily report so that, as your senior officer, I could assess the threat to you and take the appropriate action, if I felt that any was needed.’
He stood, gave a curt nod and left.
Palmer crossed the corridor into the team room, where Gheeta and Claire were inputting and cross referencing everything they could from the USB Gheeta had used to download information from the City Concrete hard drive.
‘Ruddy daily report sheets now – got to be done and kept up-to-date, never mind solving the case.’
He mimicked Bateman’s voice.
‘“Just make sure the daily report sheets are up-to-date, Palmer.”’
Sergeant Singh and Claire were quite aware of the ongoing conflict between Palmer and the fifth floor, so didn’t bother to make any comment.
‘This is interesting, guv.’
Gheeta attracted his attention.
‘City Concrete’s staff list reads like a probation office client list. Look.’
She indicated the screen.
‘I ran the staff list through the CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) computer and it seems that Mooney and Hilton have both done a few stretches.’
‘Really?’
Palmer leant forward to check the screen.
‘Petty stuff – car theft mainly. Have a check to see when they were inside; see if it coincides with Robson’s term and if it was the same prison.’
Three minutes later, Gheeta had the answer.
‘Same time and the same prison, Wandsworth’
‘Birds of a feather, eh? Give the governor a bell and see if their prison records mention anything about the friendship. Get them emailed to us.’
Chapter 13
The Prison Governor remembered Robson, Mooney and Hilton very well.
‘We had a problem with Robson. He came in with a reputation of being involved in the Brinks Mat heist. Mooney and Hilton were just a couple of big thugs, really; they were in for holding up a betting shop, small-time armed robbery types. They sort of became Robson’s minders while he was here. Some of the hard types in here thought that if they threatened and leaned on Robson he might share his gold, if he had any left. He took a couple of beatings. We offered him solitary, but he somehow persuaded Mooney and Hilton to take care of him; or perhaps they offered to do it for some remuneration. They really hammered the next gold digger and it sorted itself out from then on. The guy they hammered wouldn’t say who did it or why, but we knew who it was and why. Robson was released on parole before Mooney and Hilton, and that’s as much as I can tell you.’
Chapter14
Peter Atkins was an accountant. He’d worked for Johnson Mathey and KPMG, and despite being one of their ‘bright young things’ he’d become disillusioned with the work practices of those global firms which, in his opinion, were based on greed, greed and greed. Rather than helping their clients save money, he was ordered to run up as many hours as possible and book twice as many as were actually worked.
He did not look like an accountant is supposed to look. He sported unkempt hair, NHS glasses, well-worn jeans and scuffed trainers; not the image most people have of City of London financial sector high-flyers as spivs in expensive suits flaunting their wealth. Still young at twenty-six, he had answered an advert in Accountant Magazine for the Met. Forensic Department for Accountants with Auditing experience. He got the job and took a massive pay cut, but that was offset by knowing his work was honest, and in many cases led to catching the dishonest.
Today he sat at a table in the team room with Palmer and Sergeant Singh. Numerous papers, bank statements and cheque books were arranged meticulously in order in front of him.
‘It’s quite obvious really, when you get the figures and match up the incoming and outgoings on the account.’
He smiled to Palmer and Singh.
‘A very amateur attempt at concealing funds which are obviously money laundering. This cha
p’s auditors should have picked it up. I can’t see that they could possibly miss it. But then most auditors like their fees rather than the truth.’
He smiled again. Palmer liked this lad.
‘Okay, layman’s language – what was going on?’
Atkins became very serious, and the smile disappeared.
‘Basically, the amount of money paid in to the bank from Fenn’s auctions and then out to the Fenn auction vendors was far in excess of what was officially sold in the auctions, according to the sale results he published in the catalogues. So Fenn was banking in excess of the actual sale takings in cash, and then that money was paid out again by cheque, thereby laundering it.’
‘What amount of money was involved?’
‘Usually somewhere between eighty and one hundred and sixty thousand pounds.’
‘Each auction?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do we know where it went?’
‘Oh yes, Fenn’s accounts show the sums as just vendors’ payments, but his cheque stubbs have actual names. Two names apply to these laundering amounts: City Concrete and S. Leyton.’
‘Hang on,’ said Gheeta who was puzzled. ‘So he wasn’t actually selling anything was he, to get that amount of money coming in?’
Palmer answered.
‘No, too risky. Wherever the gold came from it was melted down or cut by Plant at Brighton, to disguise it and get rid of any identifying stamps, and make it into more saleable-size ingots and then sold on to the jewellery trade for cash. That cash was then laundered through Fenn’s auctions as cash taken at his sales, put into his bank account and hey presto! Then legal cheques were paid out of his account to City Concrete and this other S. Leyton company.’
Atkins agreed.
‘And I bet you’ll find dummy invoices for the amounts paid into City Concrete in their accounts.’
Gheeta nodded.
‘Do we know who S. Leyton is?’
Atkins nodded.
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 5