The Mephisto Threat

by E. V. Seymour

  ‘Your information’s out of date. Wayne Jennings is in Featherstone,’ Oxslade said, cool eyes meeting Tallis’s. ‘Alrick Hughes was found dead after a drugs overdose last summer. I suspect Stu was your source regarding myself.’

  Shit, Tallis thought. ‘Don’t blame Stu. It was a chance remark.’

  ‘Which you took and ran with,’ Oxslade said, cold. ‘The other bloke you mentioned skipped the country, used to work for Johnny Kennedy, lately resident of Her Majesty’s Prison Birmingham.’

  The name was hauntingly familiar to Tallis. Maybe he was simply getting it confused with a long-deceased American President. ‘Is Kennedy still in the game?’

  Oxslade’s face broke into a thin smile. ‘Nice try. Sorry to disappoint, but he’s gone straight.’

  Tallis hiked a dark, disbelieving eyebrow. ‘You think?’ These men were genetically primed for criminal activity. ‘What did he serve time for?’

  ‘Money-laundering.’

  ‘That the full extent of his operation?’

  ‘Not really but it was the only thing we could nail him for.’

  Like Al Capone, Tallis thought. He’d been done for tax evasion, not murder or extortion. Forensic accounting had also been responsible for tripping up a number of Mafia dons.

  Oxslade was continuing to speak, presumably because Kennedy was old news and he felt he could. ‘He used to be involved in the construction business, property development. I gather since he got out of prison he runs an online company supplying building materials to trade.’

  ‘And he’s legit?’

  ‘Absolutely. It is possible for men to reform,’ Oxslade said with a small, reproving smile.

  Tallis nodded, giving the impression he was conceding the point. In his experience, small-time crooks indeed saw the light either because a significant other was breathing down their necks, begging them to go straight, or because life outside was preferable to the grinding boredom of prison. The big boys, the real hard men, rarely found the road to Damascus.

  ‘When was Kennedy banged up?’

  Oxslade shrugged. ‘Four years ago.’

  Probably arrested before the birth of the Assets Recovery Agency, Tallis thought, an organisation set up to claw back funds from organised crime. It had been a disaster, its powers dissolved and responsibility handed to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. No wonder SOCA was groaning under the strain. Kennedy was, Tallis wagered, most likely still in the money. Oxslade seemed to read Tallis’s thoughts.

  ‘We put a restraining order in place as soon as we kicked off with a criminal investigation so that Kennedy couldn’t shift any assets abroad,’ Oxslade said. ‘Problem was he already had stuff in Spain.’

  ‘Not known for being entirely co-operative.’ In fact, as far as extradition proceedings between the two countries went, there was a good level of co-operation. Lots of villains who’d thought they could flee to Costa whatever had come in for a nasty surprise. Money and assets, however, were a different matter.

  ‘Can say that again.’

  The Dutch, by contrast, Tallis remembered, were brilliant. But interesting though this was, they weren’t really cutting to the chase. ‘Working backwards, I’m assuming that Kennedy’s sentence was around the eight-year mark.’ Usual deal: out in half the time.

  ‘Longer, actually.’

  Tallis raised an eyebrow. Kennedy must have been a very good boy in prison, or perhaps he simply had an effective brief. ‘How big was his criminal empire before he got caught?’

  ‘Hard to put an exact figure on it. As I said, like a lot of these guys, he was involved in the construction industry.’

  ‘As a front?’

  ‘For real. He was highly successful and well respected in business circles. There’s a lot of major buildings in Birmingham that have the Kennedy stamp on them.’

  ‘So his criminal enterprise was a hobby?’ Tallis smiled.

  ‘Hardly. Any illicit racket and Kennedy’s name would pop into the mix.’

  ‘But nothing strong enough to finger him with?’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘All the usual culprits? Drugs, prostitution, guns?’

  ‘I don’t think the bloke could help himself, to be honest,’ Oxslade said. ‘He didn’t need the money. He was into it for kicks, for the adrenalin rush.’

  Yes, Tallis thought, and as any fool knows addictions are hard to kick. He decided to adopt a different tack.

  ‘What’s your bust rate like?’

  Oxslade broke into a satisfied smile. ‘We’re hot. Recently, we pulled in a white gang for twenty million. There are two other smaller gangs subject to ongoing investigations, one Asian, one West Indian. Added to that, we’ve just crossed the i’s and dotted the t’s on paperwork to take down a bloke in Holland.’

  ‘Sounds impressive. To what do you owe your success, do you reckon?’

  ‘Teamwork and first-rate intelligence.’

  ‘Any of these guys involved in terrorist activities?’

  Oxslade looked shocked. ‘Not on our patch.’

  Would he know? Tallis wondered. He was beginning to feel like he needed to talk to someone higher up the food chain. Then an outlandish thought crossed his mind. Had Garry stumbled across Johnny Kennedy? Oxslade was still speaking.

  ‘Although I’ve heard rumours that certain gangs in London have connections. But that’s all it is—rumour. No hard evidence.’

  ‘See, I’ve got a bit of a theory,’ Tallis said. ‘What with all this terrorist stuff, I reckon too many of us are focused in one direction.’

  ‘There’s certainly an enormous amount of resources going into counter-terrorism,’ Oxslade said, his expression earnest. ‘It’s considered to be the main threat to national security. The public are far more worried about being caught up in a random terrorist attack than of becoming the victim of organised crime. Yet chances are that, during their lifetime, they will be. Comes down to perception, see. The public feel removed from it.’

  ‘You mean,’ Tallis said, ‘they read about criminality in the newspapers but it has nothing to do with them. Gangsters inhabit a different world. Joe Public doesn’t understand that every time he accepts a pirate tape, receives knock-off goods or visits a prostitute who might have been trafficked from Eastern Europe, he’s part of the problem.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Oxslade agreed.

  And on that final note of accord, Tallis thanked Oxslade for his time and walked out of the pub.

  On his return, Stu, his old firearms mate, was waiting for him. By the way he was half-sprawled on the doorstep, Tallis could tell he was hammered. He looked around for Stu’s car, a horrible piss-coloured Peugeot. Stu hotly insisted he’d had it spray-painted champagne. Thankfully, champagne or piss, it wasn’t there. Stu must have got a cab, or bus. He wasn’t sober enough to have walked.

  ‘Paul, you old bastard.’ Stu beamed, staggering unsteadily to his feet and clapping him on the back.

  Christ, Tallis thought, a naked flame within fifty metres of him and he’d ignite like an Apollo spaceship. ‘Thought you were on the wagon.’

  ‘I fell off,’ Stu said proudly. He was jutting his chin out the way he always did when he’d had a few. Tallis reckoned it was Stu’s way of checking his teeth hadn’t melted.

  ‘You’d best come in,’ Tallis said, steering Stu out of the way so he could get his key in the lock.

  Bundling Stu into the sitting room and onto a sofa, he went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. ‘Where’s the pisser?’ Stu called out, his Glaswegian accent thick as tar.

  ‘Bathroom’s through there,’ Tallis said, grabbing Stu’s elbow, hoiking him up and pointing him in the right direction. Tallis had dismal visions of urine splashed all over the tiles and shower unit. While Stu was carrying out his ablutions, Tallis made coffee, adding an extra heaped spoonful to Stu’s mug. He wondered what the hell had sparked Stu’s decision to reach for the bottle. By the time the kettle boiled, Stu was back on the sofa.

  ‘Yo
ur flies are undone,’ Tallis said, placing a mug in front of his friend.

  ‘Fuck me, so they are,’ Stu said, zipping up his trousers.

  Tallis gave him a long hard look.

  ‘What?’ Stu said. ‘Not seen a cock before?’

  ‘Do me a favour,’ Tallis said, edge to his voice. ‘How the fuck do you think you’ll ever go back into firearms the state you’re in?’

  Stu jutted his jaw out. ‘Doesn’t make any difference, dry or tight as a tick. They don’t want me back.’

  ‘Who said? Surely—’

  ‘It’s official, Paul. Had it from the top.’ A look of intense pain entered his red-rimmed eyes. His shoulders sagged. He looked utterly defeated. His voice when he spoke was low and reproachful. ‘Anyway, what’s the point? Seen the new guidelines? We’re all supposed to be clobbered up with Tasers. Great if you want to frighten the pants off a minor offender, useless against an armed psycho.’ Tallis flashed back to his recent skirmish in Turkey. He’d found the prospect of being stunned into paralysis by thousands of volts not a particularly attractive one. Oddly enough, several pilot schemes to arm ordinary coppers with the damn things were already under way. He didn’t think that was a very good idea either.

  Stu continued to complain. ‘Bullets are being replaced by peace pamphlets. Only people we’re gonna piss off are Greenpeace.’

  ‘And what about you? What about self-respect and discipline, all those values you hold so dear?’

  Stu blinked, opened his mouth to speak then rubbed his face with both hands. They were trembling. Jesus! As Tallis looked at Stu he saw a vision of what might have been. Christ, he’d been lucky. ‘Look,’ he said more gently. ‘You want to stay in the service, don’t you?’

  ‘What for?’ Stu said, belligerent.

  ‘There must be other avenues, for God’s sake.’ For the life of him, none immediately sprang to mind. He pressed on. ‘Don’t throw everything away over this. You’ve done brilliantly up to now. This is just a blip. Stay here tonight and sober up. You can kip on the sofa. But for Chrissakes, Stu, you’re going to have to get your life sorted.’

  He expected a barrage of foul-mouthed abuse. It didn’t happen. Stu hung his head, took a snatch of coffee. Neither of them said anything for a while. ‘Spoken to Oxslade?’ Stu said finally.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get what you want?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  Stu nodded. ‘He mention Napier?’

  ‘In passing.’ Oxslade’s very words, Tallis remembered.

  ‘Did he tell you he was at Headquarters this afternoon?’

  ‘Napier?’

  ‘Four o’clock, according to my source.’ Oxslade wouldn’t have seen him. He had been at the FSS, Tallis remembered. ‘Any idea who he was meeting?’

  Stu shook his head. ‘Looks like SOCA are on the swoop again,’ he said, leaning back into the sofa and closing his eyes.

  11

  * * *

  STU was gone by the time Tallis got up the next morning. He found a scrawled note left on the coffee table conveying thanks and expressing apologies. Tallis picked it up, briefly thought about his friend, walked through to the kitchen and looked out of the window. Two blackbirds were hopping around the garden on the lookout for worms. He reckoned they were husband and wife. The bigger of the two was yanking up poor unsuspecting invertebrates and shoving them into the mouth of his mate, presumably for her to take home to the kids.

  The phone rang, jettisoning Tallis out of his feathered reverie. It was Crow. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

  ‘You owe me.’ Crow sounded incredibly pleased with herself.

  ‘I seem to remember you concluding our last telephone conversation in a similar vein.’

  ‘That was before I knew what I know now,’ she said, resplendent.

  ‘Which is?’

  Crow let out a raspy laugh. ‘How about we meet for a drink?’

  ‘I live one hundred and twenty miles away, in case you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Only take you two and a half hours by car.’

  ‘You haven’t seen the car.’

  ‘Last time you were poncing about in a Z8.’

  ‘Borrowed.’

  ‘Well, borrow it again. The place I had in mind is full of filthy rich.’

  ‘You’re not making this proposition sound any more attractive.’

  ‘Come on, where’s your sense of adventure? I knock off at noon.’

  Tallis looked at his watch. It was doable. Just. ‘This better be good.’

  ‘When have I ever disappointed you?’ she said, a grotesquely flirty note in her voice. ‘Meet me at the Swag and Tails, Fairholt Street, Knightsbridge, one o’clock.’ Then she clicked off.

  Tallis took the train then tubed it. It took him two attempts to find the street due to the pub’s tucked-away location. Surrounded by charming terraces, festooned with hanging baskets and planters, it was as pretty as any high-class country pub you’d find in the Cotswolds. The clientele had much in common—extreme wealth, talk of big deals and country-house pursuits.

  Crow was already seated, her ample frame caught in a blast of afternoon sunshine pouring in through the windows. She’d obviously gone to some trouble. Her hair was washed, her clothes ironed. Nothing, however, could relieve the crumpled appearance of Crow’s skin, or the thread veins in full cry across her cheekbones. As Tallis approached, she looked up and grinned. Same bloody awful smile, he thought, finding it curiously endearing. Perhaps it was the simple familiarity that struck a chord. He looked at her glass. It was three-quarters empty. Some things never changed. ‘V&T?’

  She winked. ‘Make it a double.’

  Tallis went to the bar, all bleached blonde wood, and pushed his way through a scrum of blokes downing champagne. No sign of a downturn in the economy here. He ordered a pint of Adnams Bitter for himself and took a sip while the barman was sorting out Crow’s drinks. Tallis ordered two large V&T’s to save himself the bother of having to break away at an inopportune moment.

  ‘Very thoughtful of you,’ Crow said, looking like a chemistry teacher as she mixed a lethal quantity of vodka with tonic. She took a taste, shivered slightly and surveyed him admiringly. ‘Nice tan.’

  ‘I brown easily.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘This is all very nice, Micky, and delighted as I am to be in your company, I’m keen to know what you’ve managed to turn up.’

  Crow grinned, enjoying her brief moment of power over him. ‘Our two piss-taking poets,’ she began, ‘were found dead three days ago in a disused warehouse in Southall. They’d been beaten to death with iron bars. Word is they were in debt to the Turkish Mafia. The killing bears all the hallmarks. They go in for that kind of thing, apparently,’ she said, as though exchanging gossip about someone’s sexual proclivities.

  So much in debt they’d risk going to Istanbul to kill one of their own countrymen? ‘You sure they’re the same guys?’

  ‘According to the set of forged passports found at the bedsit they shared in Acton. DNA confirmed their real identities: Mitchell Reid and Nathan Brass.’

  And, educated guess, that same DNA would tie them to the hit in Turkey. He studied Crow with something approaching admiration. No looker, but she was bloody good at her job. And sharp. ‘Previous form?’ Tallis said, quietly filing the information away.

  ‘Reid, twenty-seven years of age, originally from Manchester, lived in London for the past year. Before that, resided in Birmingham. Started out with petty thieving, nicking cars, escalating to drug running then taxing.’

  Ripping off drug dealers, Tallis remembered. There’d been quite a vogue for it in the naughty ’90s. The best plans were the simplest and it didn’t get much simpler. There’d usually be at least two thieves who, by paying attention to the local grapevine, would discover a stash of drugs and often large quantities of money in the flat or premises of another more serious player. Either by stealth or brute force, they’d enter the building, put a gun to the head of
the said dealer then steal his stash. The whole incident was usually accompanied by a fair amount of violence. Clearly, the ‘victim’ was in no position to go to the police. It could, however, have serious consequences for the thieves if they were caught. ‘Dangerous occupation,’ he chipped in.

  ‘Not kidding. Brass, also known as Spider on account of a tattoo on his hand, was a real hard case, thirty years of age, early history of assault, threats to kill, supplying arms. Born in Tipton, West Midlands, Brass and his mate Reid hooked up there and finally bunked off to the smoke together. Talking of which, I’m desperate for a fag.’ To compensate, she took a deep slug of her drink, her eyes narrowed.

  ‘What are we talking, big league or small time?’ Tallis said.

  ‘Depends on your point of view. Small in London, big in Birmingham. They’d originally worked for a bloke called Kennedy.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Tallis said, sounding as disinterested as possible.

  ‘Not heard the name before?’ Crow said, razor-sharp.

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘Got sent down for a stretch so Reid and Brass decided to try their luck in the capital.’

  ‘Looks like their luck ran out. What exactly did they do for Kennedy?’

  ‘Bottom-rung stuff. Extortion. Dirty work when it needed doing.’ Crow eyed him, making him feel like a piece of meat on a rack. ‘What’s your interest?’

  ‘Personal. The journalist I told you about was a friend.’

  ‘Morello?’

  ‘You knew him?’

  Crow shook her head. ‘Heard about the killing on the grapevine. After your call I followed it up.’ She took another healthy slug of vodka. ‘Strange, this Turkish-Birmingham connection. Reckon the motive was revenge?’

  ‘How do you work that out?’