The Property

by Catriona King

  The words made Andy curious. “If Mister Mooney was so unreliable back then, why did you hire him?” He peered at the wall chart and then rose to tap his finger against a name. “In fact, he’s still in your employ, isn’t he?”

  The hard man knew when he’d been caught. He nodded reluctantly and sighed.

  “Fair enough. The reason I’ve put up with so much from him is he’s my brother-in-law, an’ I didn’t want to give ye his address because he lives with me an’ the wife. Jimmy’s a good lad really. Even when he was drunk he was never nasty. Just sloppy, an’ he sang a lot too. The singin’ drunk we used to call him. Anyway, he was pissed every day back then, so ye won’t get anythin’ from him.”

  Aidan shook his head. “We need to judge that for ourselves.”

  McCallion sighed and rose to his feet reluctantly. “OK, then, let’s get this over. He’s nat workin’ till tonight so he’ll be asleep at my place. It’s only ten minutes up the road.”

  Fifteen minutes later a surprisingly, from his brother-in-law’s description of him anyway, fit and healthy looking Jimmy Mooney was awake, courtesy of several extra-strong coffees, and perching on the sofa in the McCallions’ modern front room. Aidan was still irritated with their host, so he left the more laidback Andy to take the lead.

  “Mister Mooney, your brother-in-law has told us about your problems with alcohol in the past, but we really need you to try to remember a job that you worked as a night-guard in two-thousand-and-seven. At the site of what became The Howard Tower Hotel. Can you recall that period at all?”

  To everyone surprise the security-guard nodded without hesitation.

  “I remember it. I was drinking hard then, but my brain was still pretty sharp.”

  “Excellent. OK, we’ll tell you what we know and ask you questions on each point. You won’t be getting anyone else in trouble. They know we’re likely to speak to you. OK?”

  Mooney nodded again, clearly a far more accommodating man than his boss.

  “First, we know that the day-time security-guard was using the cellar of the DoE building for the growth of a Class B drug, cannabis, and that he sometimes gave you money to turn a blind eye to his activities. Correct?”

  The security-guard gave a guilty shrug, but McCallion’s outrage was noisy.

  “That scrote Tanner was dealin’ drugs? Why didn’t ye tell me?”

  They’d just shopped Brian Tanner inadvertently to someone who might have given him future work!

  Andy wanted to kick himself; how could they have forgotten that McCallion supplied day-guards as well? Craig would kill them.

  Jimmy Mooney shook his head, ashamed. “Sorry, Gerry, I couldn’t. He didn’t tell on me when I fell asleep on-duty, and he gave me cash to spend on booze.”

  Andy saw a domestic about to kick off so he broke in with another question.

  “But only a small amount of cash, Mister Mooney, wasn’t it? You refused to join the drug enterprise even though he offered, didn’t you?”

  Mooney’s narrow face contorted in disgust. “No way I’d get involved with that shit! The kids start with weed and move on to harder stuff. I’ve heard it at my addiction meetings time and again.”

  McCallion’s anger turned quickly to approval. “Ye really only took a few quid from him?”

  “Aye, that’s all. But, look, I know I should have reported him. I know that-”

  Seeing that the discussion was about to turn into a family therapy session Aidan cut in with a change of topic.

  “There were several break-ins, thefts and episodes of squatting on the vacated site while you were a night-guard there. Can you explain those?”

  Mooney frowned, trying to recall. “The guard-room was at the back of the building and I used to go in there to sleep.”

  “That doesn’t explain how they accessed the building. There was high hoarding all around the site, and the padlocked door in it only opened with a key. You had one of those keys, Mister Mooney, so I need to ask, did you let Mister Tanner and other people in?”

  His answer was Mooney giving his brother-in-law another apology.

  “I’m sorry, Gerry, but they had nowhere to sleep and I knew some of them. They were boozers like me.”

  Andy wanted to be clear on what the guard was saying. “So you deliberately let people onto the site so that they could sleep in the Department of Energy building?”

  Mooney nodded. “The place had heat and light right up till they did the handover, and I couldn’t see people sleepin’ on the street.”

  “And what about the thefts of computers, TVs and the rest? Did you tell them to do that?”

  The security-guard’s eyes opened wide. “NO! No, no way. I knew nothing about all that till the cops came asking questions. Some of them must have let their mates in to thieve, maybe to make some cash for booze.” He shook his head regretfully. “People will do anything for money when they need a hit.”

  Andy wasn’t unsympathetic. He had friends who drank heavily, and although they held down good careers some of them were on the verge of becoming alcoholics, he was sure of it, no matter how much they argued that they were just social drinkers, or how high-functioning they were right now.

  Aidan pressed Mooney again. “So you opened the hoarding door to let them in and left it open?”

  “Not deliberately, but it’s possible that I forgot to lock it behind them sometimes.”

  “And Brian Tanner? Did you let him in every night?”

  Mooney shook his head glumly. “No. He didn’t need me to. Tanner lifted my keys one night when I was out of it and cut himself a set.”

  The D.C.I.s nodded, satisfied. The thefts had been down to the night-guard’s trusting carelessness and other people’s need for cash. Mooney might have been naïve, but apart from omitting to report Brian Tanner’s drug operation he hadn’t committed any crime. Aidan picked it up again.

  “OK, I want to move on to the early hours of the third of July that year.”

  The night-watchman’s eyes widened. “I’m crap with dates even now I’m sober, so you’ve no hope back then!”

  “I’ve got something that might jog your memory. It was the night that the wet cement appeared.”

  Mooney’s immediate look of realisation said that the clue had worked.

  “That was the night Tanner filled in the cellar! The trap-door hole. When I went off duty that night the trap-door was still there, but there was wet cement over it the next evening when I came to work. Someone had put a wee fence around it to stop me treading in it.”

  Aidan nodded eagerly. “Yes, good, that’s exactly the time I’m talking about-”

  Andy cut in. “Just to be clear. What do you mean when you went off duty that night? Weren’t you supposed to stay until the morning?”

  Mooney glanced sheepishly at his brother-in-law. “Aye well, I usually worked nine to nine, but that night Brian paid me to take a hike. Just that night. Just the once, like.”

  Aidan moved on quickly with his questioning before McCallion blew.

  “Now, this next question is very important, Mister Mooney, so please think hard. Who else could have known about the wet cement? Who else?”

  They watched as Jimmy Mooney closed his eyes, the look of concentration on his face saying that he was trying to recall and his occasional frown telling them that it was a struggle. Finally he re-opened his eyes and nodded.

  “OK, so I came on every night at nine, but Brian Tanner paid me to go home that night around midnight, which I did and got pissed. But I remember him phoning me the next morning to tell me to watch the wet cement. I wondered what the hell he was talking about till I saw it. So, anyway, it wasn’t that night but the following one that I heard a phone ring at the site-”

  Andy cut in. “This would be the night of the fourth of July?”

  Mooney shrugged. “If you say so. It wasn’t the first night I saw the cement down but the second, whatever date that was.”

  The fourth, definitely.

 
“To be clear. Was it your mobile or a landline ringing?”

  “Landline, definitely. I remember because I was surprised there was still one working then.”

  “Where was it? The phone.”

  “In the old DoE building.”

  Andy prepared to ask a fourth and a fifth question, knowing that he was pushing his luck but ignoring his fellow D.C.I.’s scowl; he knew that Aidan thought Mooney’s memory was fragile and didn’t want him knocked off his stride, but he had more faith in the guard.

  “Final two questions, I promise. What time did the ringing happen, and where exactly in the DoE building was the phone? Close to the cemented area or where?”

  The guard gave an unimpressed grunt. “If only. It wasn’t long after I came on that it started ringing, so probably between nine and ten o’clock, and I couldn’t find it at first, so I just followed in the general direction. It cut out a few times, just for a second, and then it started ringing again. It was like someone was desperate to get through, so I thought I’d better find it. It turned out it was right at the far corner and front of the building, and it was a bloody big place, I can tell you. It took me a good fifteen minutes to find it and get back to my room again, and the sod of it was when I picked it up whoever was on the other end hung up! Gits.”

  Andy broke his promise. “And your guard-room was how close to the cement?”

  “A couple of hundred yards. No more. My room and the cement were both at the back of the building on the Upper Queen Street side.”

  The D.C.I.s exchanged a look. Whoever had made the phone-call had wanted to lure Mooney away from the cemented area, and they’d chosen a phone as far away from it as possible. Fifteen minutes would have been plenty long enough to dump the women’s bones. But even if Mooney hadn’t gone to answer the call; the chances were that the killers had been well enough informed about the guard to know that he would soon have been asleep in his room from booze anyway.

  Aidan returned to his original question. “Mister Mooney, did you tell anyone about the cement? Who else could have known?”

  Mooney shook his greying head. “Me? No. Who would I have told?”

  “And did you see anyone on the site on any of those nights we’ve just discussed?”

  “Well, I saw Tanner like, that night he paid me and then every night after at nine, when he did the handover like. And the foreman Kelly was there too, the first night I noticed the hole was filled, around nine-ish, just when I came on duty. He was showing some suit around.”

  Andy excused himself quickly and went out into the garden, phoning the office for Dean Kelly’s number and then calling the man himself.

  “Mister Kelly, D.C.I. Angel here from the Murder Squad. I need to ask you something. The evening after the cellar was filled in with cement at three a.m., so that was the evening of the third of July, who was the man in the suit that you were showing around the site?”

  Kelly’s first thought was that he couldn’t remember, his second was should he be talking without a brief, and he said as much.

  Andy tutted.

  “I’m not trying to trick you! We’re just trying to find out who might have known about the wet cement.”

  Content that he wouldn’t be incriminating himself Kelly reconsidered, and after an excruciating few seconds delay he replied.

  “I didn’t tell anyone about the cement, and I don’t imagine Tanner would have or he’d have drawn attention to why he was filling the hole, so that just leaves the night-guard and Dalir Barr.”

  Andy struggled to hide his excitement. “You told The Barr Group? The new owners?”

  Although quite why Kelly would have bothered them with something as trivial as a hole being filled with cement he couldn’t imagine, and it turned out that the D.C.I. was right.

  The builder laughed sharply. “No, I didn’t tell the bloody Barr Group! Why would they have been interested in a hole in the ground? Dalir Barr only found out because he wanted to see round the place he’d just exchanged contracts on and I was asked to give him the tour that night.”

  Andy steadied his nerves again. “Who exactly asked you to show him around?”

  “Leonards Contractors. They got a call requesting it. It’s not unusual. New owners often want to look at what they’ve just purchased.”

  “So, you took Dalir Barr on a guided tour that first evening after the cement was poured.”

  “I did.”

  “And did you point out that it was still soft?”

  “Actually, I remember now. He asked me all about it. Seemed fascinated with how long it took to dry, although heaven knows why.”

  Andy’s sudden silence gave him his answer and the foreman gasped.

  “You think he buried the women in it? Oh God!”

  The D.C.I.’s tone became stern. “I didn’t say that, and you won’t repeat it, Mister Kelly. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, but…”

  Not convinced that his words had sunk in, Andy decided to hit the foreman where it hurt; in his pocket.

  “Speculation like that could get you sued, and the Barrs are a powerful family. Do you have a million pounds lying around?”

  A gulp told him that he’d hit his mark.

  “Point taken. I’ll say nothing.”

  Andy was grinning all over his face as he hung up. Dalir Barr had been the suit that Jimmy Mooney had seen that evening, and he’d been told exactly how long the cement would have remained wet. That only left two questions to answer: Who had been Barr’s accomplice the next night? Someone had made the phone-call that had lured Mooney away from the cemented area, and he doubted that Dalir Barr could have done it himself while he was busy burying bones. And second, had Barr asked to view the site specifically looking for somewhere on it to bury the bodies, or had he simply spotted an opportunity when he’d seen the wet cement?

  In the absence of Dalir Barr being in the country to answer the questions they would have to be asked at his brother’s interview, so Andy made another call to update Craig on everything, before informing his gunslinging colleague that they had what they needed and it was time to mosey on back to the ranch.

  ****

  London.

  As soon as the agent received the paper confirming his orders he made the call to his men, concern for one’s own skin always a galvanising force. If he couldn’t eliminate the threat from the Barrs immediately, then he could at least progress partway.

  By the time Andy and Aidan were on their way back to the office the men stationed outside Zafir Barr’s house had moved in, their surveillance telling them exactly what time the pensioner’s housekeeper left for the day. At six o’clock, they watched her Ford Fiesta pull out of the pensioner’s driveway and turn left towards her home in Shrigley. Then, confident that no-one would find the body until she returned the next morning the assassins stealthily entered the luxurious house and put two bullets in Zafir Barr’s chest and one in his head.

  Their London handler was notified as soon as the job was done, and it made the ‘gofer’ sigh with relief. One down and only one to go.

  Chapter Thirteen

  High Street Station.

  Poppy Hazzard was collected from school and transported to the C.C.U. where she became the immediate centre of attention, with each squad member who passed helping her to colour in a sketch of Liam that Andy had done especially. Whether the deputy would be impressed by seeing himself immortalised in garish crayon they would find out at some later time, but for everyone else it was harmless fun that definitely improved morale.

  The reassurance of her daughter’s safety made Lavinia Hazzard relax and improved the ambience at High Street as well, and after a lengthy discussion with her client in the interview room, which the detectives watched but couldn’t listen to, the solicitor turned towards the two-way mirror and gave a thumbs up gesture that conflicted oddly with her elegance but conveyed her message well; Kamran Barr was willing to talk.

  There was no time to be lost and a minute later Jack wa
s watching from the viewing room, the tape was running and Barr had been reminded of his rights. Liam and the solicitor rested back in their chairs on opposite sides of the table and waited for Craig’s first words. They were unambiguous.

  “Someone wants you dead, Mister Barr. Can you tell us who and why?”

  The businessman studied his platinum cufflinks for a moment and then nodded, raising his warm brown eyes to Craig’s.

  “Who might be any number of people: my brother, my father or Farshid Lund spring to mind first, but there are many other names that I won’t divulge.”

  “Around thirty by any chance?”

  One of the businessman’s eyelids twitched.

  “Because it is their money that you’ve been laundering through The Barr Group’s enterprises after all.”

  Barr greeted the words with a smile.

  “You don’t really expect me to confirm that, Mister Craig, do you? Although I will say bravo.”

  Craig edged forward. “Bravo for what? For working out that you were money-laundering or that your clients might now want you dead?”

  Barr smiled again, his only answer an affirmative, “Quite.”

  Craig gave up trying for the business mogul’s confession on fraud temporarily, and returned to the first half of his admission.

  “Leaving aside your business clients, you concede that your brother, father and Farshid Lund might all want you dead. Correct?”

  “That much I’ll confirm.”

  “Why? Specifically.”

  Barr sighed, not from sadness at his familial discord but in a way that said he thought Craig was being tedious.

  “Why do you ask me questions that you already know the answer to, Chief Superintendent?”

  Craig smiled. “Because this is a formal interview and we need your replies on tape.”

  That wasn’t the only reason; he wanted Kamran Barr to confirm what they already only thought they knew about the women’s deaths. He needed him to. No matter how well the jigsaw of their research and evidence now seemed to fit together, the businessman’s statement would provide the glue to make everything stick.