Hyatt smiled and considered the pattern in the carpet. He nodded and pursed his lips as if making a decision, and it was obvious he’d had time to think about Riley’s visit.
“Okay. Two things, Miss Gavin. You’re assuming it was their past that has a bearing on their deaths. It wasn’t — at least, not in the sense you mean. These men had no past because they had never fully left it behind. All they had was what they had done last. Oh, they might not have been as fully active as they used to be — they were old men, after all — but that didn't mean they were no longer involved.”
“They were still running things, then?”
“To an extent. It doesn’t take muscle to own shares, Miss Gavin. All the front work is undoubtedly being carried out by professional managers. From what I could determine, Cage, at least, still had revenue coming in from a variety of enterprises, channelled through a network of holding companies. McKee would have been the same.” He smiled crookedly. “I tried to join the same golf club as McKee once. When I told my wife what the membership fee was, she threatened to divorce me.”
“Do you know who these holding companies are?”
“Well, I could get the names for you, but unless you’re a corporate or tax expert it won’t do you much good. Most of them are perfectly respectable. It’s not like it was back in the fifties and sixties, you know, when criminals acted as if they were untouchable. A few of them — the Cages and the McKees of this world — learned to take their business seriously and moved with the times.”
Riley looked doubtful. “Well, if their deaths are anything to go by, someone seems to have stuck with tradition.”
Hyatt shrugged apologetically and glanced at his watch as a volley of applause leaked out from the direction of the conference hall. “I’m sorry, Miss Gavin, that sounds like my spot coming up.” He reached into his pocket and took out a slip of paper. “Donald vouches for you, so I’m willing to go with him. This is the hotel where the Willis couple are staying. It’s just down the road from here. They’re booked in under the name of Watson. I can’t guarantee they’ll give you much, but they have agreed to talk.”
“I appreciate that.”
He leaned forward suddenly. “Also, I don’t know how much longer they’ll be there before someone else finds them.”
“What do you mean?” Riley felt a shiver at the sudden change in his tone.
Hyatt looked cautious. “It might be nothing. I had a call first thing this morning from someone claiming to be from one of the broadsheets wanting background on Willis. Address, phone number, stuff like that.”
“And?”
“It didn’t sound right. I know most of the personnel. The dailies have gathered all the local background colour they want — and they certainly know where Willis lives. This one didn't want to give his name so I gave him the brush-off and called head office. They haven’t got anyone else down here other than their normal man, so why they would need to send another body doesn’t make sense.”
Riley found she was holding her breath. If the mystery caller was the killer, and he had managed to find where Willis was hiding, there was little hope of reaching the chauffeur in time. One thing she had learned about these people was that they didn’t waste time.
“Thank you for warning me. Does Peter Willis know?”
“I called him immediately.” He gave her a stern look. “Please be kind to them. They’re not really a part of this — I’d put money on it.”
Riley followed Hyatt’s directions to a neat, anonymous hotel just off the A34 south of Crawley. She went inside and asked to speak to Mr Watson. After a brief call, the receptionist gave her the room number and directed her to the first floor.
A man answered the door, opening it a small way and peering past her shoulder down the corridor. “Can I see some identity?” he murmured quietly, sliding his hand out through the gap.
Riley handed over her passport. He took it and studied it carefully before standing back to let her in. Seeing him properly, she recognised him from the photo in the newspaper library, although he now looked thinner and somehow smaller. He wore a dark blazer and highly polished shoes, and looked ready to go out. Just inside the door were two suitcases.
“Mr Hyatt said you’d be round,” he said, closing the door softly behind her. He sounded nervous, and clamped his lips shut, snapping off the words as if trying to hold in a growing sense of panic. In spite of that, his tone was polite, and Riley felt a momentary surprise. She had expected a degree of annoyance or aggression after what they must have been through.
His wife was a different problem. She stood by the window, hands clasped in front of her in a manner that was plainly hostile. She was plump and homely and wearing a print dress and summer sandals, but there was no warmth in her expression. Riley felt a faint stirring of guilt; she was hardly helping matters by turning up here.
“You know why I’m here?” said Riley quickly, glancing at the suitcases. “Do you have time to talk?”
“No.” Mrs Willis answered immediately, throwing her husband a defiant look. Plainly, this meeting had not been unanimous.
But Willis nodded, trying to smile reassuringly back at his wife. “It’s okay. Mr Hyatt explained. We’ve decided to take a short break,” he said, intercepting Riley’s look at the luggage. “Get a little sun after all this… business.” He indicated a club chair by the television and sat on the double bed, neat in his blazer and shiny shoes, while his wife stood her ground by the window. “Actually, our flight’s been delayed. Overbooking or something. They said they’d call, but it could be quite a while.”
“I still think we’d be better waiting at the airport.” Mrs Willis bit out the words, meaning the airport would be an effective barrier against having to talk to people like Riley.
“How can we help?” Peter Willis said quietly.
Riley asked him if he had known Cook and Page. He looked blankly back at her, shaking his head. “In that case,” she continued, “do you know anything about a third man who used to be an associate of Bertrand Cage years ago — probably in the clubs.”
Willis chewed his lip for a moment, then shrugged. “I didn’t know anything about Mr Cage’s business. I only worked for him after he retired. The previous chap died and Mr Cage needed a chauffeur. He couldn’t get around easily, you see; he had bad arthritis and some other problems. I got the job through an agency. What he did before was none of my business.”
“But you know what he was — what business he was in?”
Willis looked defensive, jutting his chin forward. “I know what he used to be. But he was always good to me.”
“Did you meet any of the others?”
“McKee, mostly,” Willis said shortly, with a look of distaste. “I didn’t rate him. No finesse. Mr Cage couldn’t stand him, either. Not that he ever said as much. They were more like associates than friends.”
“Did they meet often?”
Willis shrugged. “Fairly regular — maybe every three months. But always at the house. They argued sometimes.”
“Violently?” She watched Willis’s eyes for reaction, but he looked back at her without any sign of concern.
“Not worth killing over. The police asked the same question.”
Riley nodded. “Do you have any idea who might have killed him?”
“I wish I did.” Willis said emphatically. “At first I thought it might have been McKee, but couldn’t have been, could it?”
While Peter Willis had been speaking, Riley had been aware of his wife, shuffling her feet in the background, her mouth opening and closing as if about to say something. Riley took it as an opening and turned to the older woman.
“How about you, Mrs Willis? Any ideas?”
Mrs Willis looked surprised to be consulted, wavering for a moment as if regretting drawing attention to herself. Then she drew herself up with a forceful shrug of her shoulders as if determination had won the debate. “Peter lost his job over this,” she said in a fierce rush. “Th
ere wasn’t a pension, although Mr Cage did see us right.” She glanced at her husband. “Peter’s too… loyal to say what he really thinks, so I’ll have to say it for him.” She lifted her shoulders before continuing. “I used to clean at Mr Cage’s house a long time ago. I didn’t know him any better than Peter did, and I only heard him argue with someone the once. He was a very quiet man, you see… not given to raising his voice. Then, about five years ago, I suppose, I heard him arguing. I was in the kitchen. It was a real blazing row and the language was… well, not what you’d call nice, if you see what I mean. Mr Cage was almost shouting — which was very unusual.”
“Was this face to face or over the phone?”
“Face to face,” Mrs Willis confirmed. “The other man had come to the house and demanded to see him. Peter had let him in, but only after Mr Cage said it was all right.” She glanced at her husband. “It was Peter’s job to look after him, you see.”
Riley looked at Willis, who was smiling at his wife. “You were his minder?”
Willis nodded. “It came with the job. I used to be Regimental Provost when I was in the army; that’s how I got on an agency list. Good line of work when I was younger.” His expression mourned the passing of youth and its associated work.
“So who was this other man?”
“Gross by name, gross by nature,” Mrs Willis muttered bitterly. She nodded, glancing for confirmation at her husband. “Now there was a man could kill someone without blinking.”
Chapter 18
In the silence that followed, Riley felt a tingle in her shoulders. “Gross?” she asked carefully. “That was his name?”
“Grossman.” Peter Willis stirred and looked at Riley. “Ray Grossman. This was years ago. Grossman could be dead by now. He wasn’t well, even then. Big man, he was. Overweight and soft looking. Like he’d been a couch potato all his life.”
“Where did he come from?”
“The Smoke, I think. I only met him that one time.” His expression made it clear that once had been enough.
Riley nodded. She’d ask Donald Brask to delve into his files. “I suppose there wouldn’t be anything at the house, would there — information about this Grossman?”
Willis gave her a flinty look and she dismissed that as an avenue to explore. There were obviously limits on the amount of help he was prepared to give.
“The police will have cleaned it out already if they’re doing their job right,” he said stiffly. When he stood up, Riley took the hint. The interview was over.
“Thanks for your help. I’m sorry I descended on you so abruptly. Are you going anywhere nice?”
“All over, really,” Willis replied vaguely, walking her to the door. “Nowhere for long. We like driving… moving around.” He opened the door and briefly checked the corridor, then stood back to let her pass. She turned to shake hands, but he was already closing the door firmly behind her.
“So we have a name.” It was three hours later and Frank Palmer was behind his desk, fiddling with a retractable ruler. He’d listened in silence to Riley’s account of her meetings with Hyatt and the Willises, occasionally making a note on a small pad at his elbow, but seemed to have something else on his mind.
“It’s a start,” Riley replied. “I gave Grossman’s name to Donald. He said he’d have a trawl through his files to see if it means anything. How about you and your army friend? Any luck?”
Palmer gave Riley a strange look and stood up. He walked over to the kettle on the floor and plugged it in, then busied himself spooning coffee into mugs with agonising deliberation. When he showed no signs of replying, she went across and glared at his back. “Did I just speak in Swahili or something?”
“Sorry,” he said, pouring water and handing her a mug. “Brain’s in overdrive at the moment.” He wandered to the window and stared out, blowing on his coffee. Almost as an aside he asked: “Apart from that, how did your evening out go?”
“My evening?” Riley was surprised by the sudden change of direction. “It went very well, thank you. But what’s that got to do with this — or you?”
“Did he tell you how he managed to get your phone number?” He smiled to soften the question. “Just concerned, that’s all.”
“Yes, he did,” Riley replied. She realised she was being unfair after her concerns the previous day and owed him an explanation. “He said he had friends in the security industry who could access that sort of thing. It seemed reasonable, and it would have been — I don’t know — churlish to object if all he wanted was to go out with me.” She described the events of the evening, finishing with the large man she had seen twice near the restaurant, although she wasn’t sure why she remembered that.
Palmer looked round, suddenly interested. “Can you describe him?”
“Big — maybe six-four. Forty-ish, thinning brown hair. Looked like an ex-boxer. Or a heavy. Why are you asking? You still haven’t told me what you got up to in the last couple of days. You were going to see if you could identify the two men who smashed up your office.”
Palmer puffed out his lips and took a sheet of paper from under a folder on his desk. “My mate in Whitehall,” he said, “works in a section of the Ministry of Defence that deals with military personnel records. They have a database down there that houses the name of every person who has served or is serving in the forces. It only goes back to about 1960 at the moment.” He flapped the paper in the air. “But he managed to come up with a few names.” He explained Charlie’s findings after feeding in the name of Howie, and the possibility of him being Malcolm Howard, late of the Royal Marines.
“God, Palmer, that’s a stretch,” Riley pointed out. “Howie could be a nickname for all sorts of reasons. This Malcolm Howard could be an anorexic weakling with a pot-belly and flat feet — too feeble to even lift a baseball bat.”
“Unlikely,” said Palmer, “if he was in the Marines. Same with Duggan, the other one. I’d lay good money they were the two who trashed my office. They have the right background: military training, accustomed to giving orders and not frightened to chuck their weight around. On the other hand, clever enough to know when beating the crap out of me wasn’t necessary.”
Riley felt sceptical but had to concede the point. She held out her hand. “Can I see?”
Palmer looked up. “Pardon?”
“You said he came up with a few names. Can I see them?”
Palmer hesitated, then pushed the sheet of paper across the desk. “You’re really not going to like it, though. ”
Chapter 19
John Mitcheson spent the short drive from Malaga airport to Almeria in the back seat with his eyes closed, trying to quell a looming headache. He’d already seen this stretch of coast road more than once, and with the way he was feeling, the sun was far too bright. At least the cream Mercedes had air-conditioning and floated along with barely a shudder. After being stranded at Barcelona for two hours due to air traffic problems, he knew he was in for a hard time for being late.
Gary, neat as a pin as usual, was at the wheel. He occasionally glanced at his passenger in the mirror, but apart from that spent most of the journey with his eyes on the road.
“Who’s at the villa?” asked Mitcheson. The call to his mobile the previous evening had instructed him to get on a flight to Malaga the following morning without fail. Gary would be there to meet him.
“Not sure, boss,” Gary replied. “Doug and Howie, of course… they’ve been dealing with the other bunch, getting them out of the picture.”
“Any problems?”
Gary gave a sharp grin. “Not much. Bignell tried to show some muscle by pulling in hired help from Malaga, but they didn’t amount to much. Pity, really — I was looking forward to some action.”
Mitcheson knew what he meant. After years of active service, the sudden inactivity after leaving the army was a problem many men had difficulty adjusting to. It wasn’t hard for him, but he knew men like Gary, Doug and Howie still hankered after the release of actio
n. It was why they had been taken on: Mitcheson to do the organising and them to be the blunt face of the hammer. When that skill wasn’t used, they became restless.
Unfortunately, what had seemed a straightforward exercise in a show of strength was turning into something darker. They had all been prepared to do whatever was asked of them — disposing of McKee, Cage and the others — although Mitcheson doubted the last two had been necessary. But Lottie Grossman’s emergence as psychotic queen bee and her instructions for Bignell's disposal had changed the nature of the game.
The car slowed and turned up a side road, the surface becoming uneven as they headed inland. After two hundred yards, they passed through some orange groves and turned through an imposing gateway. A gravel drive led through a parade of trees and ended before a long, ranch-style, single-storey villa gleaming white in the morning sun. Two other vehicles, a Land Cruiser and another Mercedes, stood in the shade of some trees to one side.
As Mitcheson emerged from the car he heard a low growl and a Rottweiler padded out from the porch. It must have weighed as much as a man and he wondered how you trained such a beast not to eat your friends instead of your enemies.
“Fuck off, Bonzo,” he muttered, and stepped past the quivering animal into the front entrance. He was the only one who could get away with it, and was amazed Doug and Howie, not renowned for their tolerance, hadn’t put a bullet in the dog’s pea-sized brain by now.
The smell of air-freshener and soap assailed his senses. The aroma reminded him of a couple of military hospitals he’d stayed in. He crossed the large tiled hallway and noted a large vase of what he thought vaguely might be dahlias. He wondered if they’d been brought over from England, a touch of home garden for ex-pats. He entered the living room.
There were five men present. He knew four of them.
Doug and Howie were lounging on a settee near the window, looking tanned and fit. They nodded, Doug flicking his eyes towards the towering figure of McManus, who was standing behind a slim, swarthy individual sprawled in an armchair. This man, in his early fifties, was flashily dressed, with a heavy gold chain on one wrist. He was staring into space and blowing smoke-rings from a large cigar as if he hadn’t a care in the world, yet there was something about his manner that was entirely false.
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