* * *
It was well after midday by the time I reached Blackburn. The truck body factory I was visiting for Jason lay outside the town in a modern industrial estate flanked by low green hills. An array of gleaming trucks and trailers stood in the yard awaiting admiration, and flags fluttered in the sun.
The guests were mostly truck operators – confident middle-aged men with goodwill in their words and a look behind their eyes that said “prove it”. Our hosts had little time for the press, and I seemed to be the only journalist present. I had to work hard to win their time and assemble anything like a story.
Over a buffet lunch I found myself chatting to the head of a haulage company from Wigan. On a whim I asked if he’d ever come across Janni Noble.
“You mean that guy who used to run Allied Northern, over in Oldham?”
“Yes, him and his brother Tommy.”
“They got caught up in some kind of smuggling mess, didn’t they? I always thought that was a shame. He was a very straight guy, Janni. Whatever he said, that’s what he would do. Pity there aren’t more like him in this business.”
“He’s running an outfit called Ray Noble Rental now, down in Manchester.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s him, is it? I’ve seen his vans around. Well, good luck to him.”
So now I’d met yet another Janni Noble fan – this time the head of a company. In a way, his comments were more or less what I was expecting. The likelihood that Janni was behind the break-ins and the kidnapping seemed increasingly remote.
It meant a subtle change in the task I’d set myself today. I’d thought originally that if I made Janni aware that those photographs were no threat to him, it might get him off my back. It now seemed that he might not have been on my back in the first place.
If so, it seemed my mission might be to do him a favour.
Chapter 29
I reached Trafford Park around half past three. I’d checked by phone to make sure Janni was there, but decided not to ask for an appointment. I walked in unannounced and crossed an immaculate reception area to a white and blue desk, where a uniformed woman in her forties with blond curls was tapping something into a laptop computer.
“Could I see Mr Noble please?”
She looked up brightly. “Is he expecting you?”
“No, but perhaps you could tell him it’s Mike Stanhope.”
She reached for her phone, frowned briefly as she spoke, then pointed to a white door behind her. “Through there, last door on the left.”
Janni’s office was long and thin, and his desk was positioned right at the end of it. The long walk over to it seemed calculated to intimidate. Behind him was a picture window partly overlooking the yard. The brick walls were painted plain white, and the overall effect was one of almost clinical austerity. I made my way to the single hard chair in front of his desk, feeling I was shrinking with every step.
He was sitting squarely behind his desk with his hands folded in front of him, wearing a white open-neck shirt and no jacket. He didn’t invite me to sit so I remained standing. He said, “Mr Stanhope, an unexpected pleasure.” His look belied his words. He glanced at his watch. “I can give you five minutes.”
I sat down gingerly and cleared my throat. “I won’t waste your time, Mr Noble. I might be in a position to do you a favour. I might have something you want.”
He stared at me. “I do not understand.”
His gaze was intimidating. His staff might have loved him, but I wouldn’t have wanted to find myself on the wrong side of him.
I swallowed. “Your brother …”
“What has my brother to do with this? He does not work for this company.”
“I know, I know. Can I please explain?”
He frowned.
“I wrote an article about illegal immigrants and their impact on the haulage industry, and your firm was the one I was investigating.”
At this Janni glanced warily about the office, checking perhaps that the door was closed. Then he turned back to me, glowering. “This is old information. I do not wish to discuss this matter. I would like you to leave now please.” He adopted his most penetrating stare.
I forced myself not to feel intimidated. He’d expressed no surprise at my mention of the article, which seemed to confirm that he already knew about it. I felt this was to my benefit.
“Would you please hear me out? This won’t take a minute.”
He stared at me for a moment, assessing, then made a tetching sound. “I read your article. It was filled with ignorant half-truths and speculation. It was sensationalist rubbish. It was written with no heart.”
I looked at him with some surprise. Was he actually defending what he’d done? I found myself saying, “What did you expect? I could hardly have asked for an interview to get your side of the story.” I swallowed. “People smuggling is illegal. I just reported what I was told. It was my job.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “So what makes you think I knew anything of this?”
“Because it was your brother who told me about your involvement.”
He showed no reaction to this, and I hesitated. “But you know that already.”
“How do I know this?”
“Because you were there when I talked to your brother. I have the pictures to prove it.”
“Pictures?”
“The pictures I took of your brother in Luton. You must have seen me take them. You were there, watching.”
He was now looking at me with curiosity. “What makes you say this?”
“Because you are in the pictures yourself.”
My words hung in that white space for a moment. Janni said nothing.
Finally I said, “Surely you must have seen them?”
“I have seen no pictures.”
“I thought perhaps your brother had showed you them.”
“He has not.” He seemed to reflect for a moment. “But I think I understand something now.” He nodded to himself. “He told me he had evidence of some kind.”
I reached into my inside pocket and wordlessly handed him an envelope. He opened it and tipped out the colour prints I’d prepared. He pored over them for a full minute.
“So. You know I was there on that day. Very well.” He looked up at me. “I knew my brother’s little game. I wanted to see how far he would go with his interference.” He looked back down at the pictures. “And now he thinks he can hold these pictures against me. I see what he is doing.”
“But if you knew he was talking to me back then, why didn’t you stop him?”
He shrugged. “I wanted to let him show me his true colours. It was already finished for us. Our work was done. Also your police were getting too interested in us. It was time to quit. After your visit, there was no more of this.”
“But my article didn’t actually stop the trade?”
I now saw anger in his eyes. “Trade? You think we do this kind of thing in exchange for money?” He held the pictures up and rapped them with the back of his hand. “You think we are immoral men like those bastard people traffickers in southern Europe and Africa with their economic migrants and their exploitation? Is that it?”
“I don’t know why you do it. You tell me.”
He slapped them down on the desk. “Why should I tell you anything?”
Chapter 30
I looked cautiously at Janni. Despite his bluster, I had a sense that there had been a subtle power shift in this conversation. He wasn’t apparently threatening me after all, but maybe he thought I was threatening him.
He seemed to consider for a moment, then sat back, raised his arms and interlaced his fingers behind his head. “We are not speaking on the record here. Is this agreed? This is not for an article in the press. You will never report this. Do I have your word on this?”
“You do.”
“Very well.” He considered for a moment. “You British like to think democracy changed things in the east. The truth is that it did not. In m
any countries there is still corruption, persecution and suffering. Good men are hounded out of their livelihoods, put in prison, even executed. For them life is hard.”
He lowered his hands again. “We ran haulage trucks to Turkey, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan – other places too. It gave us easy passage to those countries where there are men who wish to leave, but cannot.” He let the implications hang in the air.
“What’s wrong with the proper channels?”
He tetched contemptuously. “You can try that if you like.”
I said nothing for a moment, then, “Your brother …”
“My brother is a fool. In your article you made him out to be an honest man, trying to put an end to an illegal trade. You were wrong. He thought that by threatening me he could claim a greater share of my business.” He paused. “My business, not his. But it did not turn out as he hoped.”
“So what happened?”
He suddenly laughed explosively. “You know what happened, Mr Stanhope. A police investigation, arrests, interference. In the end we lost our company. That’s how much good his treachery did him.”
“But you don’t blame my article for that?”
He frowned at me. “So you wish for my absolution, is that it?”
I shrugged. “I just wondered what you thought.”
He looked at me, considering. “Your article did no favours to our cause, but it said nothing that the rest of your country was not saying by then. Our time was already running out.” He looked back at me. “Is this what you wish to hear?”
I shrugged again and sat silent for a moment, then said, “And now …?”
He sat up straighter, suddenly businesslike. “Now we have Ray Noble Rental. It is a new beginning. I have finished with these things. I tried my best.”
Abruptly he leaned forward. “But my foolish brother wants to threaten all this. Is that why are you here, Mr Stanhope? You wish to support him?”
“No! On the contrary, I thought I could help you. I told you that when I came in.”
He waited, and for a moment neither of us spoke. Then I reached forward and pushed the photographs towards him. “You might as well keep these. No one is interested in them.”
He raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised. “How do you know this?”
I shrugged. “I have connections. I’ve been told that no action will result from these pictures. They have no value.” I hesitated. “You might want to tell your brother.”
He glanced down at them. “But there are copies, digital versions. What of those?”
“Same thing. No one cares about them.”
He looked me in the eye. “So this is an act of generosity?”
“If you like.”
He nodded slightly, and I said, “I have to ask. When I saw you in that restaurant in Amsterdam …”
“What? You are determined to make an enemy of me?”
“No, no, not at all. I just wondered if you had any comment about it.”
He was glaring again now, but I could see his mind whirring. “You think this is some illegal trade? Perhaps I am dealing in drugs now, or uncut diamonds? In a public place? How foolish do you think I am?”
“Not foolish at all.”
“No I am not.” He reflected for a moment. “I am not obliged to explain this to you, but I will do so anyway. That man owed me a lot of money for work I did for him many years ago – legitimate transport work. He is an honourable man, and now he can pay me. But he does not want his money to go through his country’s tax regime, through official channels – and nor do I.”
“I see.”
He stared at me. “Yes, it is not correct procedure. It comes with risk. So go and report me if you wish to be small-minded – and if you think anyone will take any notice of you. Or act like an adult person and put it out of your mind.”
I looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Fair enough.”
He continued to look at me, then said, “Very well, we have established our positions now.” He paused. “But I think you had some other agenda in your mind when you decided to come here to see me.”
I decided honesty was the best policy. I said, “People have been trying to steal something from me – breaking into my house, assaulting me. To begin with I thought it might have something to do with these pictures.”
He sat back. “Preposterous! How could you imagine I would be involved in such a thing?”
“Well, you recognised my name when I met you in London, with Rick Ashton. I wondered if Tommy had told you it, and you made the connection with the article.”
“This is true.” He was nodding thoughtfully. “But I would not have threatened you in the way that you describe. If I had wanted to, I would have contacted you directly. But I did not.”
“I can see that now, but the line between principled law-breaking and other kinds of law-breaking is thin. I couldn’t rule anything out.”
He said nothing for a moment, then, “If you write articles like yours, you upset people. You should know that. You should not be surprised if they come back to bite you. But not me.”
“I got it wrong. I know that now.”
“So why did you come here today?”
I shrugged. “It seemed like unfinished business. I felt you should know where things stand.”
He picked up the envelope again and turned it on its end, resting his hands on the desk. He let it drop on the desktop several times between his fingers, looking at me. “It seems to me that if I were searching for photographs, I would not break into your house. What would be the point?”
“How do you mean?”
“With digital photographs, you can make multiple copies. You can upload them to the cloud. You can email them to your second cousin. Trying to destroy them would be like trying to catch water in a sieve.”
I nodded. “Yes, but I thought maybe you just wanted to see them – to find out whether they were incriminating or not. Or to see if your brother was visible in some of them – to balance the score, as it were.”
“That is not how I work, Mr Stanhope.”
“As I say, I can see that now.”
We looked at each other for a long moment, then Janni said, “I think that perhaps we have both misjudged each other.”
“Maybe so.”
He stood up and pushed back his chair. He tapped the envelope one last time. “It seems I am obliged to you for these.”
I stood up in turn. “For what it’s worth, I’ve moved on too.”
He looked at me unemotionally. “I am pleased to hear this.”
Back on the motorway, I replayed the conversation with Janni in my head repeatedly, but try as I might, I couldn’t spot any flaws in what he’d said. I was certain now that he’d had nothing to do with the break-ins at my house, or the kidnap attempt.
But someone was behind them.
2011
There was defeat in her father’s eyes. Last time she’d visited Rockhampton his jobbing business had seemed to be thriving, and his comfortable single-storey house had been tidy and well-maintained. Now the pickup looked battered, the garden was neglected and the kitchen was a mess.
“I thought you said business was booming,” she said over the washing up.
He glared at her from the kitchen door. “You must know the job never paid for our lives here. I had other money too. But it ran out.”
Other money – she knew what that meant: robbery money. It was the thing never spoken of, the thing that hovered just out of sight, always present but banished from conversation. Her mother had gone to her grave without acknowledging it.
She said nothing. He said, “There should have been more, Sash – much more. I left most of it behind. I couldn’t risk it on the flight out here. It got buried under six feet of concrete.”
It was the closest by far that he’d ever come to admitting to his part in the robbery. His desperation saddened her. She looked at his bronzed features – still good looking, she thought, but haunt
ed and resentful. His eyes were reddened by too many cans of lager, too many shots of Jim Beam.
She’d never intended to reveal what she’d done with those bags. It was a secret so distant that it now seemed almost a dream. But what if they were still there, where she’d so carefully hidden them? Would he know how to turn the contents into cash? Of course he would: once a thief, always a thief.
It was stolen property, not his. He had no right to it. But contemplating his compromised life here, she felt a sudden wave of warmth towards him. She could change his life, and no one else need know.
Speaking only to herself, she said, “What if it didn’t get buried? What if it got moved?”
Chapter 31
The next morning Ashley phoned me.
“Mr Stanhope!”
“Ms Renwick.”
She laughed. “So you’re keeping safe on the mean streets?”
“Well, so far so good.” I could have elaborated on the constant stress I was experiencing, but I decided not to.
“I’m glad to hear it.” An apprehensive pause. “The thing is, do you find yourself over in Bristol very often?”
“It’s been known.”
“OK, well here’s what it is. We’ve got one of these regional logistics shows coming up in Bristol next week, and we’re taking a small stand – all very low key. So I thought if you happened to be anywhere in the area …”
I did some fast thinking. Would any of the magazines want a review of this show? It seemed a long shot. Unconvinced, I said, “I suppose I might be able to come and report on it.”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t bother. You won’t see anything you haven’t seen before. You must have reported these shows to death by now.”
I could tell she had a plan, so I said, “OK, so what did you have in mind?”
“Well, I’ll be travelling up on the Tuesday morning, and setting up the stand in the afternoon. I thought maybe if you were around, we could meet in Bristol. We could have the lunch that we missed last time.”
“Let’s do it.”
Alternative outcome Page 14