The Rules

by Laurence Todd

  Blatchford looked at Jaser, who took over.

  “Very rarely. Pam, Jamal’s assistant, the lady over there talking to the young woman,” Jaser said. I turned to follow his gaze, and saw Pam Lovett talking to the Evening Standard’s Sally Taylor. “She’s here virtually all the time. She rarely goes out campaigning. She organises things here in the office. Someone’s supposed to be here the whole time in case the press call.”

  “But she wasn’t here late yesterday morning,” I stated.

  “No, she wasn’t. She’d stepped out the office for a while, gone down to the printer’s, not far away from here. She wasn’t even out that long either,” Jaser said in a sad tone.

  “How long?”

  “Probably between fifteen and twenty minutes, I’d say.” “She tell anyone she was going out?”

  “She’d have told Jamal. He’d know she wouldn’t be out long.”

  I considered what I’d heard for several seconds. “What about his private life? Anything there you can think of which might indicate someone having a grudge against him?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so.” Jaser shook his head slowly. “Jamal didn’t really go out much. His friends and mine are the same people.”

  I took a deep breath. “You know what this says to me? Either someone knew exactly when Jamal Khoudri was going to be alone, or whoever did it was watching this place, waiting for an opening. It’s highly unlikely someone just happened to turn up on the off-chance. That’s why I asked if Khoudri had any enemies.”

  Both men nodded thoughtfully at my comment.

  “As I mentioned yesterday,” I said, looking at Qais Jaser, “I think this is a professional hit. One shot straight to the heart, no forced entry, no traces left behind and nothing in the office disturbed. Disappears immediately afterwards without being seen. I also think Khoudri knew whoever it was because, as I said, he was shot up close. There’s no indication he was attempting to get away. He was facing the shooter, because he was hit dead centre.” I touched my own chest to emphasise the point. “If he’s got no enemies, this suggests his death must be connected to something he was or had been working on.”

  “But he’s working on my campaign. Why kill him for that?” Blatchford chimed in.

  “He’s a banker out there in the world, isn’t he?” I nodded towards the windows. “What was he working on at the bank? Could that have had some bearing on this?”

  Blatchford looked at Jaser, who shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” Jaser said quietly.

  Blatchford nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought so.”

  “Well, it looks like we’re dealing with a top-notch assassin, and I don’t believe they just happened to breeze in here and shoot the first available person,” I said. “People like that kill for a reason. They don’t kill randomly.”

  “This is no time for levity, Detective.” Blatchford looked dismayed at my comment. “One of my friends was killed in this very room yesterday, and he was killed whilst working for me. It isn’t funny.” His voice sounded strained.

  “Yeah, that’s probably a tad insensitive on my part,” I agreed. “Apologies for that remark.”

  Both men seemed satisfied with my apology.

  “You both say he has no enemies,” I continued, “and neither of you knows what he’s working on away from this campaign, but the fact remains: someone came here yesterday and shot him. I’ve rarely come across any motiveless shootings, particularly ones which look very much like assassinations. Someone had a reason to kill him.” I stared directly at both men as I spoke.

  Blatchford and Jaser looked at each other for a moment, but neither man spoke.

  “So, if either of you knows anything about Khoudri’s death, anything at all which’ll help us look for a motive or who might be involved, now would be a good time to tell me. If I find out later either of you had vital evidence, or anything police could use to help nail his killer, and you withheld it . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence. I paused to let the implications sink in for a moment.

  They both remained silent.

  “Anything else either of you wants to say about this?”

  “Yes.” Blatchford pulled his shoulders back and attempted to look statesmanlike. “We’re going to continue with my campaign, in honour of Jamal. That’s what he’d want us to do. We’re going to go out there and win this race and dedicate it to Jamal’s memory. We’re not going to let these people beat us or deflect us from our path.”

  Hadn’t I read this in the papers earlier? He said this as though he were on autopilot. It sounded too practised, too precise, too insincere, too much like he was saying what he thought his audience wanted to hear. I could believe he was hurting at the loss of a friend, but he’d made his response sound glib.

  “Which people do you mean?” I asked.

  “Sorry. Figure of speech. I meant whoever it was who killed Jamal.”

  “Well, thanks for your time. Keep what I’ve just told you to yourselves, okay? You think of anything, call me.”

  I turned to leave. I was halfway towards the door when an insistent female voice called out to me.

  “Detective Sergeant McGraw.”

  I stopped and saw Sally Taylor walking quickly across the hall. I watched her for the few moments it took her to reach me. Her gorgeous mop of hair was brushed back into a bun and, today, she was wearing glasses and casually dressed, wearing dark jeans and a white blouse under a beige jacket. Something about her immediately resonated with me, though I couldn’t explain what it was.

  “Detective, you have a moment?”

  I could see Blatchford and Jaser looking apprehensive at her approach, as though I were one of the campaign team about to spill secrets.

  She had an expensive-looking Louis Vuitton bag dangling from her left shoulder, and from it she attempted to withdraw a small tape recorder. I put my hand on top of it and shook my head. She saw I was serious, so she replaced the tape recorder in her bag, looking disappointed.

  “Can I ask you a couple of questions?” She lapsed into journalist mode, producing a notebook from her bag.

  “Let’s talk outside.” I nodded towards the door. She turned around.

  Over her shoulder I could see Blatchford and Jaser, still fixing me with stares I was finding hard to read. Jaser raised his eyebrows at Blatchford and jerked his head slightly in our direction, as if to ask what’s going on there? I followed Taylor outside.

  We walked into the car park, which was now beginning to fill up. The scene-of-crime blue and white tape across the door had been removed and, on the surface, everything looked normal. Nobody would guess a senior campaign official had been shot and killed here less than twenty-four hours previously.

  I glanced around. From the back of the hall, whoever’d killed Khoudri would’ve had a choice of directions to disappear in. The main road nearby was busy, so even if the killer had walked away, it’d be easy for them to lose themselves in the crowds. There was also the grimy-looking industrial estate across the way where it’d be easy enough to get lost. The police canvass of the area had so far turned up no leads. I wasn’t surprised. Any pro could make himself anonymous here very quickly.

  Looking around, I realised I’d found Bernie Rayes, Bernie the Buck, close by here when I’d been looking for him a few months back. I hoped he was enjoying the view from his cell, because he had several more years to do so.

  “First off, how’d you know my name?” I asked Taylor.

  “I asked.” She smiled. “That’s also how I knew you were Special Branch when I spoke to you yesterday.”

  “Fair enough. So why’d you need to talk to me?” I asked, trying not to sound too formal.

  Perhaps it was my overactive imagination, or the male ego, but I formed the distinct impression the smile on her face wasn’t just connected to her job as a journalist.

  “Do you really think Jamal Khoudri was assassinated?” she asked.

  I was surprised. She beamed a broad smile at me. Before I
could respond, she continued.

  “One of the skills all journos eventually acquire is eavesdropping. You know, the ability to talk to one person and, whilst appearing to be interested in what that person’s saying, listen to what’s being said nearby and take it all in.” She said this as though it were obvious and made perfect sense. “Soon as I saw you come in, I was listening to what you were saying. I heard you say you thought Khoudri’s death was a professional kill. That interested me. You also said you thought it could be connected to what Khoudri might be doing away from the campaign. Could you elaborate on these points for me?”

  “You planning on printing this?”

  All police officers today undergo training in media relations. There’s no longer any automatic societal deference towards the police, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but if the police get things wrong, whereas at one time the media would either have hushed it up or, if not possible, spun it in the police’s favour, this situation no longer applies. Even those papers usually uncritically supportive of police efforts are now happy to dump on us if we get it wrong, as events like Hillsborough have proved.

  The twenty-four-hour news cycle means the media are constantly looking for new stories, as well as putting new spins on old stories, and in some media quarters the police are seen as fair game. Detectives are trained in being guarded when they respond to enquiries from journalists, especially when the case raises sensitive issues, often a risk with cases involving children, or there are national security implications, as in this case. Even the smallest slip can rebound against the police, and I didn’t want anything I said to be misconstrued and land me in front of Smitherman, trying to explain why this situation had occurred. I spoke to Clements because I knew and trusted him but, other than that she worked for the Evening Standard, I knew nothing about Sally Taylor, so I was wary.

  “I’m following a story, that’s all. The police statement yesterday just said Khoudri’d been shot, so when a Special Branch detective, rather than someone from CID, comes in and uses a word like assassination, it makes my ears stick up. You really think he was assassinated?” She looked me in the eyes for a few seconds. “Pretty please?” she asked with a smile.

  For about ten seconds, I thought about whether I should talk to her about the case. I realised she’d probably put something in print irrespective of whether I did or didn’t, so I had nothing to lose. Maybe I could pick her brain. She’d been reporting on the election campaign for some while. Perhaps she knew something.

  “This is off the record, right? No names?” I was adamant. “Promise.” She gave me her broad grin again and a two-fingered Scouts salute touching her forehead. Something about her smile and the way she was looking at me, plus my gut instinct, made me think I could trust her, though believing in both had landed me in trouble before.

  “As I said in there, Khoudri’s shooting had all the hallmarks of an assassination. It was a very professional kill; everything about it points to that. There’s no suspect at present, so we’re keeping an open mind as to motive.”

  “But why would anyone want to kill Jamal?” She looked sad. “I’ve been on the campaign with Blatchford since it began, and I’ve got to know Jamal quite well. He’s had quite the rough year of it, what with work and his wife dying in that car crash a few months ago. Things haven’t been easy for him, and he’s such a sweet guy as well.”

  “What about work?” I asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  I shook my head. “No. I know he’s a banker. That’s it.”

  “Oh dear.” She looked embarrassed and bit her lower lip. “I assumed you did. I assumed that was why you and the other one, Roberts, were following the campaign, and why you were present yesterday.”

  “We went to see Jaser about an entirely unrelated matter. I didn’t even know Khoudri existed until yesterday.” I emphasised this. She sighed, realising I now expected her to continue what she’d started.

  “Look.” She glanced around briefly. “Jamal told me what I’m gonna tell you in confidence, okay? I’d be really grateful if you didn’t tell anyone who you heard it from. It’s important because I think it might have a bearing on why Jamal was killed.”

  I assured her of my discretion. I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “Let’s talk in my car,” she said.

  Her car, a nondescript midnight blue Skoda which clearly had a few miles on its clock, was parked at the far end of the car park. She pressed a button on her keyring which deactivated the car alarm. She sat in the front passenger seat, body turned at ninety degrees so she could see me. I sat behind the driver’s seat.

  The car was a mess. There were several folders stuffed with papers strewn across the back seat. The back floor of the car was covered in Styrofoam cups and newspapers, plus a few discarded sheets of scrunched-up A4 lined paper, two empty fast-food boxes, some empty crisp packets and several Cadbury chocolate wrappers. There was the unusual combination of hair spray and air freshener mingling together in the air. It looked like someone lived here. Maybe she did. She noticed me looking around.

  “Yeah, I know it’s a mess,” she acknowledged. “I seem to spend so much time in this car, sometimes I feel like I live in it.” She took her notepad from her bag. “It’s funny. It’s usually me telling a source I won’t say anything about what I’ve been told. Now I’m on the other end.”

  I returned her smile, then I adopted a serious tone. “So, what about Khoudri’s job?”

  “Okay.” She shuffled in her seat, making herself comfortable. She looked at me as if she were about to give me bad news concerning a recent medical. “This is completely confidential, right?”

  I returned her two-fingered Scouts salute. She grinned, then began.

  “When James Blatchford first declared himself as a candidate, Jamal was working for Jacobson’s. It’s a merchant bank in the City, does all the usual run-of-the-mill boring things a merchant bank does. Anyway, Blatchford’s also a City man, another merchant banker, but something to do with running a hedge fund inside his bank. That’s where he made his pile. He and Jamal met, became friends, shared all the same Tory beliefs about the free market and all that. He tells Jamal he’s thinking of running for Mayor of London and wants him to be one of his campaign managers. Jamal’s politically savvy, so he agrees. What Blatchford doesn’t tell him, though,” she said, lowering her voice, “is his bank’s reported him to the FCA, though it’s on hold at present.”

  “About what?”

  “Some kind of financial irregularity.”

  “Like what?” I was now very interested.

  “You familiar with what hedge funds do?”

  I was tempted to be flippant and ask if it was anything to do with gardening, but I resisted and said I wasn’t fully conversant with them. Which was true; I knew nothing about them.

  “Hedge funds are investment vehicles used by the very rich to get bigger returns on their investments. They’re very risky, more so than mutual funds, but they draw huge returns if the risks pay off.”

  “What do they invest in?” I was curious.

  “Anything, really. Property, securities, currencies, anything where there’s a market where investments can be bought and sold and you can make a profit. The term ‘hedge’ means it’s a hedge against inflation, a protection against the value of your wealth declining.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” I thought I understood that much.

  “Blatchford eventually admitted to Jamal he’d made a few very risky investments just after the credit crunch when markets were still volatile, costing his firm several million in losses, running into eight figures. Jamal said the evidence suggested Blatchford had taken some extremely unwise investment decisions and had lost out. He’d doubled up, lost even more. His bank, Crattelle & Hatchman, were furious and wanted to sack him.”

  “His election blurb says he’s a merchant banker, so why didn’t they?”

  “Because Jamal said Blatchford told him he’d buried the evidenc
e. He’d wiped his computer of all details of the trades he’d made. Nothing could be traced back to him.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s easily done. Most hedge fund traders work for themselves, inside a firm. Blatchford was a free agent to make whatever deals he thought were appropriate. He told Jamal he’d taken a few iffy risks and, because he’d lost so much already, he went ahead with a few more trades to try and recover his losses, but he did so without doing due diligence.”

  “What’s that?” It was like talking to Kevin Sharone again. “Due diligence is checking on the company’s bona fides, checking they’ve got the money they claim to have, that their profit figures are genuine and not contrived, that there’re no undischarged bankrupts on their board or involved in running financial matters. Checking they’re not some skanky fly-by-night firm, that kind of thing.”

  I nodded. I’d understood, I think.

  “He took the classic gambler’s strategy: made one last huge bet and hoped the cards turned his way. They didn’t. Blatchford loses even more. It’s the City definition of reckless trading, using your investors’ money on unchecked and therefore unjustifiable risks. I mean, all investments are risks, but a trader’s supposed to be aware of what they are and run due diligence before laying off his investor’s money. In the grand scheme of things, all investments have to be acceptable risks.” She used her fingers to make quotation marks. “Ones you could justify taking to your manager or shareholders.”

  “And he wants to run this city,” I said, only semi-seriously. “So he loses his shirt,” she continued. “He gets tanked. Losses run even higher. The firm discover what he’s done, and they’re not happy. That’s when they go to the FCA, the Financial Conduct Authority. Tell them their suspicions about what Blatchford’s been doing. But this is where things get a bit sleazy.”

  “How?”

  “There was some kind of paper trail: various documents relating to certain trades Blatchford’d done, details of some of the clients the bank had done business with, things like that. I don’t know what, exactly; Jamal didn’t say. But Blatchford obtains them and locks them away in a safety deposit box somewhere in a City bank. He told Jamal he’d hidden a poison pill which’d do real harm if it came to light.”