Blood Money

by J M Dalgliesh

  Stumbling to his feet, clutching his side and using a wall to brace himself, Caslin winced as he stood. The shouts had come from intoxicated passers-by, eyeing the combat and seeking yet more entertainment. They slowed their approach as the realisation dawned on them that it was all over. Still, they mocked and jeered at the man who’d come off second best.

  For his part, Caslin mouthed an expletive in their direction, which only encouraged them more and set off for home. Little more than a two-minute walk, the remainder of the journey back to his flat felt like it took far longer. Being no stranger to taking a kicking it had however, been a while since his last and every step saw him wince with pain.

  Reaching the entrance to Kleiser’s Court, Caslin ensured he was alone when he unlocked the door to the communal passage and passed through. Locking it behind him, he leant against the wall and took a moment to catch his breath, appreciating the feeling of security. Thoughts raced through his mind. Questions he had no answers to. There was no doubt that someone was taking a keen interest in his investigation but who and to what end, he had no clue.

  Taking a deep breath caused him to grimace, such was the pain in his side. The stairs were taken slowly, each step sending a shot of pain throughout his body. Entering his flat, he pushed the door closed with the back of his heel, hearing the reassuring click of the latch as he walked into the living room. Letting out a groan as he dropped his shoulder and slipped off his coat.

  Caslin passed over to the sideboard and overturned a glass. He took the stopper out of a bottle of Macallan with his teeth and poured himself a large scotch. Picking up the glass, he turned and went back to the hall and on into the bathroom, one hand supporting his left side at all times. First taking a mouthful of scotch, he put the glass down alongside the basin and, flicking on the vanity light, assessed himself in the mirror.

  Turning his face sideways, the area around his left eye was reddening and already closing as a result of the swelling. It stung as he reached up, probing gently with his fingertips. Another mouthful of scotch followed before he felt prepared enough to remove both his jumper and shirt. Inspecting his ribcage, he found it was incredibly tender to the touch and he knew the bruising would be substantial. There was also a strong likelihood that he’d cracked several ribs but he hoped not. The notion that he should go to the hospital to get checked out came and went in an instant. If he had indeed cracked any ribs, they’d do little with them. He’d spend most of the night waiting to be seen and then be sent home and told to take it easy.

  Running the cold-water tap, Caslin cupped his hands beneath the stream. With difficulty, he bent over and doused his face. The sensation was refreshing although punctuated by intense shots of pain. Picking up a flannel, he soaked it in the cold water and gently touched it to the side of his face before doing the same to his abdomen. The latter caused him to wince once again and he let out a deep sigh.

  Finishing his scotch, he turned off the tap and left the bathroom with every intention of revisiting the bottle of Macallan. Something caught his attention in the corner of his eye. Standing in the hallway, he reached up and flicked on the light.

  On the mat, in front of the entrance door, lay a brown C4 envelope. Not absolutely certain that it wasn’t there when he’d arrived, Caslin crossed over to it. With difficulty, he crouched down and picked it up. The weight was significant. There was no addressee on the front, stamp or identifying mark to indicate where it had come from. Caslin tucked it under his arm and listened intently for any movement beyond the door. There wasn’t any. Unlocking the door, he eased it open and glanced out onto the landing. Nothing moved and the security light, running off a two-minute timer, was no longer lit. Whoever left the envelope had long since departed.

  Closing the door, Caslin locked it and made his way back through to the living room. Tearing open the envelope, he tipped the contents, a wedge of paper documents, out onto the coffee table and then retrieved the bottle of Macallan. Gently lowering himself into his chair, he placed the glass on the table next to the paperwork and poured himself another drink. Reaching up, he clicked on the lamp, bathing him in a soft light.

  “Let me have a look at you,” Caslin said to himself, picking up the first clutch of paper.

  Chapter 18

  The envelope contained photocopies of official government documentation. Putting aside his immediate scepticism, a brief scan through the batch of papers revealed letters, reports and memos, all written on headed paper from their respective arm of the civil service. Caslin found himself looking at communiques from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the UK Treasury and the Home Office to name but a few. In every piece, he saw redacted sections, often heavily, concealing names, addresses or in many cases entire paragraphs. All of which, Caslin found to be frustrating as understanding what was being discussed would be tiresomely difficult.

  A casual inspection revealed a lack of commonality to bring them all together. Sifting through, he put aside those that were heavy on figures and short on detail, turning his attention to a transparent sleeve holding papers stamped ‘Eyes Only’. Sipping at his scotch, Caslin unhooked the string that bound the folder shut and opened it, withdrawing the contents. The first he laid eyes on was a one-page summary of a man, by the name of Valery Fedorin. Casting an eye over the photograph at the top of the page, he noted a serious looking man, angular of face with a dark complexion, particularly around his eyes. Across the image was an official stamp to signify Fedorin was deceased.

  Flicking through the remaining pages, Caslin counted six in total and all were similar dossiers on individuals with each recorded as having passed away. A sense of unease swept over him. The papers appeared authentic but never trusting what was fed to him was one of the first things he’d ever learnt in this job.

  Returning to the first of the six, Caslin read through Valery Fedorin’s recorded history. He had been a local official in Troitsk when he died as a result of a heart attack. It was a place Caslin had never heard of, so he looked it up, finding it to be a small district roughly forty kilometres south-west of Moscow. Fedorin’s demise struck him as untimely and a little surprising bearing in mind he was only thirty-six at the time of his death. He was married and had two children, a son and a daughter. His birthplace, Rostov-on-Don, was listed as was his entire educational and employment history. The latter appeared largely related to local government, albeit at a low level. Nothing stood out to signify he should be of interest to UK law enforcement, let alone the Secret Service.

  Turning to the next, Caslin found this one to be closer to home. He was a UK national, fifty-four years old, by the name of Dean Strauss. Strauss worked as a planning consultant, specialising in commercial infrastructure according to his summary. Having been born and raised in Chorley, Lancashire, he grew up and attended Balliol College, Oxford. No mean feat in itself, let alone for a working-class boy from the north of England.

  Scanning to the bottom, Caslin sought out his cause of death. Strauss had died in what was recorded as a botched mugging in Berlin, four years previously. No one was listed as having been arrested, let alone convicted of the assault. Cross referencing Fedorin’s details, Caslin sought to link the two but nothing obvious was forthcoming. Putting them aside, he moved quickly to the next with an expectation that clarity would come about soon enough.

  The third detailed the life of a French solicitor who died in a car accident in Marseille barely six months ago. By all accounts, it was a hit-and-run in an unpopulated area on a rural road. No witnesses were recorded as having been present at the scene. Moving to the next, Caslin found a suicide of an Israeli financier who had thrown himself to his death from the roof of an apartment block in Tel Aviv.

  The next dossier had apparently been forwarded to the UK agencies from the FBI. Another businessman, a naturalised UK citizen of Ukrainian descent, who had been found dead in his Floridian holiday home. The cause of death was recorded as resulting from an overdose of barbiturates. Immediately, Caslin found tha
t interesting. He hadn’t seen a death from barbiturates in a long time and this incident had been recent, only two years prior.

  No stranger to sedatives, anti-depressants and illegal highs, Caslin knew the market for these synthetic drugs, used to slow the central nervous system, had been more or less eradicated. Their prescription use was almost entirely superseded by benzodiazepines, with far fewer side effects and a much lower risk of accidental overdose. There were no details as to why or who had passed the file on to UK intelligence.

  The remaining summary was that of a German man who had succumbed to complications following a stroke. He was listed as an employee of the BMF, the German Federal Ministry of Finance, although on secondment to the EU’s Fiscalis 2020 programme at the time of his death. Caslin took out his phone and did an internet search for the latter as he had no idea what it was. Within minutes, he found it to be a six-year programme facilitating the exchange of expertise and information between European Tax administrations. Returning to the dossier, there were seemingly no suspicions raised regarding the death either at the time nor subsequently at home in Germany.

  Re-examining each death, he double-checked for any links that might tie all, or any, of them together. Drawing air through clenched teeth in frustration, Caslin tossed the summaries aside. On the face of it there were no geographical, professional or causes of death that suggested the cases were related. Somehow though, they were closely associated enough to draw the attention of the Intelligence Agencies of both the UK and the United States. If these files were genuine, they’d also found their way into the public domain. That did not happen without significant effort on someone’s part.

  Turning his attention to the other paperwork, Caslin first poured himself another scotch. His attention was drawn to an export licence, issued from the DTI, the Department for Trade and Industry. The licence was granted late August, the year before last and issued to a company by the name of Henderson Holdings Limited. The terms and conditions along with what the licence sought to facilitate the export of, as well as the associated values, were redacted as was the name of the person receiving the warrant. The reference at the top of the letter however, was not. The licence referred to Project Obmen.

  Caslin sat back, sipping at his drink and wondered what the title referred to. Picking up his phone, he reconnected to the internet and typed the name into the search box. Initially, the search engine queried whether he had typed the name in error but below that were multiple hits against websites.

  The first two related to German-Russian exchanges of academic expertise within the fields of culture and education. The next, highlighted regional educational-exchange programmes between Norway and Bulgaria. Beyond that, the hits proved to be ever more unlikely, linking to a low budget made-for-television film of a similar name.

  Caslin closed down the search, acknowledging the decreasing relevance the further down the page he read. Following the brief inquiry, he was left none the wiser as to what Project Obmen could be referring to.

  Finding a clutch of email transcripts, Caslin began to read through them. Many of the names, both senders and recipients, were redacted but their sources were not. They were internal emails sent across the UK government’s servers. He found threads originating in the Foreign Office passing through the House of Commons and even the occasional link to the governing party’s central headquarters. Frustratingly, almost the entire content of each thread had been redacted. Often, the surviving text were merely the conjunctions or transitional words. There was no way Caslin could even begin to understand the context or subject matter being discussed, only that they had been passed back and forth over a period of weeks and, in some cases, months.

  Many of the threads originated from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It was one of the emails from this department where Caslin found a name, F. Michaelson. Scanning through the remaining emails, he found only one more reference to Michaelson. Within the thread, he appeared to be querying an inconsistency regarding a register. Although, any ability to further scrutinise the matter was severely hampered by an overuse of thick, black lines.

  Caslin drew breath. The only register he knew of that might be of interest to a civil servant would be the Register of Members’ Interests. This related to the personal affairs of parliamentarians in their wider lives. Every sitting member of the Commons had to respect a code of conduct with declarations of any financial interests that could potentially influence them. This ranged from financial reimbursements to company directorships, investments or familial connections.

  Exhaling deeply, Caslin pondered whether Michaelson’s query was significant or not.

  Glancing at the time, it was well into the early hours. Sitting forward in his seat, Caslin placed his glass down and drummed his index and forefinger against the table, piecing it together. Picking up his phone, he scrolled down the contacts list, hovering over the name when he found it. Hesitation was not something he was ever accused of and he dialled the number, closing his eyes as the call connected. It rang for an inordinately long time before a male voice answered. It was a gruff acknowledgement. Caslin had certainly woken him.

  “You do know what time it is, don’t you, Nathaniel?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t feel it could wait.”

  “What do you need?” Kyle Broadfoot asked. Caslin’s former boss, now Assistant Chief Constable and head of the North Yorkshire Crime Directorate, didn’t seem fazed by the lateness of the call. He knew his former charge only too well.

  “Your connections, sir,” Caslin replied, sweeping his eyes across the papers in front of him, “your connections.”

  * * *

  Leaning against one of the four giant, Doric columns of the Neo-Classical Yorkshire Museum, Caslin waited. Sipping at the coffee he’d purchased on the short walk from his flat in Kleiser’s Court, his other hand was firmly planted in his coat pocket. With very little wind, the clear skies overnight had left a silver sheen across the manicured grounds sweeping out in front of him. The tree line, a little over a hundred-yards away, masked his proximity to the city centre. In the distance to his left was the Minster, towering above the old town. Beyond the trees, the museum gardens continued on down to the banks of the River Ouse with York’s central train station on the far side. The hum of the traffic, as commuters set about their day, carried to him on the breeze.

  His thoughts drifted to Karen. Having not spoken to her since being warned off by her partner, Caslin felt a pang of guilt. Undoubtedly, he was certain she would want him to keep his distance. After all, she chose to share what happened between them and must have been aware of the potential consequences in doing so. It would have been easy to keep it concealed. At least, as easy as it ever is to keep a dark secret from those with the closest emotional ties. A matter of conscience perhaps?

  His guilt arose from the situation with Sean. As parents, they needed to come together to support him and ease the boy through the damaged place he’d wandered into. As things stood, Caslin couldn’t see how they’d be able to achieve that under the circumstances. Movement to his left caught his eye and Caslin turned to see the approach of Kyle Broadfoot. His face was pale and he bore a pained expression as he took Caslin’s offered hand.

  “Good morning, sir,” Caslin said. Broadfoot nodded, in a return greeting inclining his head slightly.

  “What on earth have you been up to?” Broadfoot asked, pointing at the side of Caslin’s face.

  “Oh… that… I fell down the stairs.”

  “They can be slippery, can’t they?” he replied, obviously unconvinced. “Shall we?” he said, with an open palm, indicating for them to take a walk. “I don’t fancy standing still for too long. Not on a morning like this.”

  Caslin agreed and they took the path that wound alongside the ruins of the medieval St Mary’s Abbey and headed deeper into the gardens. Glancing over his shoulder, Caslin noted someone hovering in the colonnade at the entrance to the museum. He was unashamedly watching them.
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  Broadfoot noticed, “My driver. He’ll wait there.” Caslin thought no more about it.

  “What did you find out?” Caslin asked, cutting to the chase.

  “Direct as always, Nathaniel,” Broadfoot said, with a smile.

  “Well, you know me, sir. I’m not one for the formalities.”

  “True enough. I’m surprised you came to me with this. Tell me first why you’re not using your own resources? I know you have them and, in the past, they’ve often proved far more useful than mine.” Caslin thought on that for a moment. It was true, he had connections of his own but they were strained these days.

  “It’s difficult to explain,” Caslin said truthfully. “To do so would be a little… I don’t know… rude? For want of a better word.”

  Broadfoot laughed, shaking his head, “Nate Caslin is worried about causing offence? I’d better make a note in my diary. A day to remember for the memoirs.” Caslin smiled, glancing away and squinting in the bright morning sunshine. “Anyway. You served me quite a task to be delivered in such a short time.”

  “I have the feeling time is of the essence with this case,” Caslin countered. “Besides, you have access to significant resources. Enough to get me a result, anyway.”

  “You seem very confident of that.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?” Caslin said with an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, finishing the last of his coffee and depositing the cup in a waste bin as they passed.

  “The name you are after is Finlay Michaelson. He was a member of the civil service working in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,” Broadfoot offered.