"Did Mr. Rushton have any indication that the money was not actually yours but Anthony Collingwood's?"
"No. I told him I had inherited some, and the rest had been given to me by my partner. I wanted him to make sure that no one could get their hands on it."
"Wasn't he suspicious?"
"No—well, if he was, he didn't mention it. He was very, very clever, and always tried to explain everything to me, but to be honest, I was never really sure exactly what he was doing—-just that he had invested the bulk sums."
"Which were what?"
"Around twelve or thirteen million, to begin with."
They were reaching the point where Julia moved into the house in Wimbledon with her children, and employed the Chinese au pair, and Frank Brandon. It was now that Fagan insisted that his client have a bathroom break. Anna needed one herself. Just as she was washing her hands, Julia walked out from one of the cubicles.
"All right?" Anna asked pleasantly.
"Yes, thank you, but I want to have a few words with my lawyer before I continue."
"I'll arrange that," Anna said, but knowing that Cunningham wouldn't like it.
Julia remained by the washbasins, until the remaining engaged cubicle was vacated by a uniformed female officer. As soon as the door closed, she went back into a cubicle and opened her powder compact. She lifted a gauze from the compact; pressed flat was the cocaine.
She took out a small silver spoon and used two scoops, snorting the fine-cut coke. She then rubbed her gums, sniffed and, unlocking the door, went back to the washbasins. She checked her nostrils for any residue, reapplied her lipstick, and took a damp tissue to rub beneath her eyes, where her mascara had left black smudges from crying. She ran a comb through her hair and then shook her head so her hair fell in loose, silky strands onto her shoulders. She gave herself a look of approval, biting at her lip, as the cocaine had numbed her gums slightly; by the time she walked out, the coke had kicked in. Langton had already been into the incident room with his update on his interviews with Delroy and Silas, and the team were able to see how the jigsaw was slowly building, piece by piece. Phil turned to Anna, asking how it was going with Julia, and Anna pulled a face.Phil gave her a rueful look. "Well, we're not getting much from her financial adviser's murder. We have the CCTV footage and we have every indication that Alexander Fitzpatrick was the last man to see David Rushton alive. What we don't have, obviously, is where in God's name he is! We've also got more bloody paperwork; it's been a real argy-bargy getting the Julia Brandon files from Rushton's partners but, from what we've ascertained so far, there are about four files missing.""But you have some idea of what he was doing for her?""Yeah, but it's a maze of companies and investment banks and fucking hedge funds; we've got three guys on it. We might find out Rushton was feathering his own pockets big-time."Phil sighed, and they both looked back at the board. They now knew that Delroy and Silas were blaming each other for the shooting of Frank, but Langton was certain it was Delroy who also shot, with the same gun, the garage owner Stanley Leymore.Phil called over to Gordon, who joined them. His desk was stacked with papers from the garage. They were still trying to unearth the date that Leymore received the Mitsubishi. They had the date and time it had been stolen in Brighton, but by whom they didn't know. What they were trying to piece together was when the jeep was taken over by Frank Brandon, driven to the farm in Oxfordshire, and how Donny Petrozzo's body came to be in the back of it. They still had no time frame for when it came into Julius D'Anton's possession.Phil moved along the incident board. "The start date would be when whoever bought it from Leymore. Gordon here's been checking over the garage's farcical receipts and invoices.The turnover wasn't bad, considering it was such a shithole."Gordon pointed to the area on the board that he was writing up. "I'm going back two years, because I've found a Mercedes listed by Leymore: its reg plates were found in a stack at the back of the garage.
They match a vehicle stolen from Kingston in Surrey. This Merc, a silver four-door saloon, was the one driven by Donny Petrozzo; we've got a match on the engine number. The car Petrozzo used for his wife and her niece to drive around was on Leymore's legit books. I've also traced the BMW driven by our drug dealer from the squat back to Leymore's garage; this was stolen almost a year ago. This could be the reason Leymore's prints were found in the squat; they could have been left there before the murder went down: prints minus fingertip, right? I've got another vehicle Leymore also sold to—"
"Enough already, Gordon! We'll concentrate on the start date of whoever bought the stolen jeep from Leymore. You got anything on the Mitsubishi?" Phil asked.
"Not yet. For the hot vehicles, he had a whole lot of legitimate documents for vehicles bought from car auctions; there's a load of equipment for respraying, et cetera. I've also got a stash of receipts for paints and electrical spare parts. They were stuffed into a black bin liner."
"What about his personal bank account?"
"We've got two accounts, a savings and a current; there is really not that much in either, but..." Anna and Phil waited expectantly ... "he's got a time-share on the Costa del Sol. I'm waiting for a bloke there to get back to me with more details, but Leymore has had it for years; he could plow his cash into the villa and carry it out in a suitcase."
"So when he wasn't up to his elbows in grease, he was sunning himself in Spain?" Phil said, swearing under his breath.
"Hang on, Gordon," Anna said suddenly. "The Mitsubishi that was stolen: had it had a respray?"
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