Bold Lies

by Bold Lies (retail) (epub)

  Chapter 49

  Back at Eden House, Kelly read through documents downloaded and sent to her from Miranda Cooper’s computer. The folder with the Montague-Roland crest as its icon contained fifty-three separate files, dating back six years. She shook her head: she’d need an army of staff to read the stuff. At Hendon, five officers were able to work on the same documents, taking ten each. Still, she had to start somewhere.

  She opened a file titled ‘The value of alcohol’. It was dated 2012 and detailed the revenue from alcohol sales in the UK and the cost of treating alcohol-related illnesses on the NHS. The figures were staggering. The government made £10 billion a year from alcohol tax revenue, but only paid an estimated £3 billion in medical care. Kelly had no idea how the figures were calculated, but there was a breakdown of costs relating to kidney failure, heart disease, various cancers and liver disease.

  Next she looked at a document titled ‘Drug industry value by country’. Scanning down, she read that a conservative estimate of the value of the global illegal drug industry was around $360 billion, half of that generated in South America, with cocaine coming in at $130 billion alone, and heroin at $110 billion. In the 2000s, ninety per cent of the cocaine coming into the US was from Mexico. It was calculated that $64 billion worth of illegal drugs went from Mexico to the US annually. Kelly noted with dismay that Afghanistan had supplied a staggering ninety-three per cent of the world’s heroin in 2014.

  Next she read about the GDPs of the major drug-producing countries and realised that the global illicit drug trade kept economies afloat. Somewhere in her memory she already knew that, but now it seemed important.

  A World Health Organisation report from 2015 drew a bleak and depressing picture of the face of global addiction and what the richest countries on earth were doing about it. She stopped reading. Of course a pharmaceutical giant such as Ravensword would be interested in all of this. She felt foolish. Her shoulders hurt and she had a feeling she was going around in circles, but she read on. This morning Matt had given her twelve hours to find something tying the Montague Club men together. So far she’d found nothing.

  She opened another file. It was another WHO document, this time from 2016, but she noticed that it was addressed to DEFRA and the Department of Health. She looked up the names of the relevant secretaries of state and their senior civil servants and jotted them down. A series of diagrams stared back at her and she considered closing the file without further investigation, but the way they were set out, as well as the handwriting accompanying them, made her stop. She’d seen the formulas before: yesterday, when Rob had been updating her on the USB found in George’s car. She poked her head around the door of the incident room and asked him to bring up the scientific calculations they’d sent off to be examined. They matched. She had something linking Tooting to George, but then he was his employer, so it still proved nothing.

  She went back to her screen and found herself staring at a remittance payment. It was from a private Ravensword expense account, signed by Tooting, paying an outstanding mortgage with the Halifax. Kelly squinted. She was sure it must be an anomaly. She checked again: it was definitely a residential mortgage for £375,000 on an address in Wiltshire, in the name of Benjamin Dansford. Butterflies vibrated in her stomach.

  Next she brought up an expense account for the Montague Club and found further evidence that the relationship between the men was more than casual. Tooting regularly entertained at the club, and kept details of expenditure; a quick check confirmed that he was reimbursed for his efforts through a private member’s account: Sebastian’s. She also noticed that there was a record of his guests, with dates.

  She needed Rob, and called him into her office. She showed him what she’d found and he whistled. Philip Tooting had entertained the permanent under-secretaries of both DEFRA and the Department of Health at the Montague Club.

  ‘And look at this,’ Kelly said. He leaned over her desk and she pointed to the screen: it was a list of Ravensword shareholders, and Dame Charlotte Cross, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Department of Health, was on it.

  Her phone rang. It was a secretary at the firm of solicitors in London that Rob had been dealing with. When Kelly ended the call, she looked at Rob, puzzled.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘The solicitors who were making our life a misery over Lord Allerdale’s will: they’re sending it over now.’

  ‘Really? Change of heart?’

  ‘Or finally realising that legally they have to?’ They both shrugged.

  She opened her inbox; the will had already been sent. She clicked on it and read the opening page. ‘“Last will and testament of Alan Montague-Roland… settled under terms of absolute secrecy.” Is that a thing?’ she asked Rob, who shrugged again.

  ‘I suppose you can get anything made legal if a solicitor signs it.’

  They returned to the computer screen.

  ‘No way.’

  They both stared at the page.

  Chapter 50

  Kelly called DS Umshaw and requested that she bring DCI Carter straight back to Eden House. Meanwhile she collated information from the officers tasked in Hendon and fed it into a cross-referencing model created by Rob. He’d asked her why she didn’t want to feed it through HOLMES, and she’d told him the truth: she thought that someone on the inside was feeding information to whoever was behind the murders.

  Matt strode into the office with Kate Umshaw rolling her eyes behind him.

  ‘Why doesn’t anyone lock doors around here? It’s virtually asking for trouble.’

  Kelly ignored his dripping condescension and retorted with the possibility that in this case it might actually have been deliberate. Sebastian Montague-Roland might not have been there when his grandfather’s friend was murdered, but he knew about it and might actually have ordered it.

  ‘George was the trustee of Alan Montague-Roland’s will,’ she told him.

  ‘Go on,’ Matt said. Quiet now.

  ‘I think what Graeme Millar told me might have been true: old Lord Allerdale was a raging homophobe. He was disgusted with his grandson, who is gay, and cut him out of his will. The whole lot was to be controlled by George – which explains how he was able to keep funding his lab – until Sebastian married and had children. Heirs. Which will never happen.’

  ‘But the payments to the lab stopped.’

  ‘Because there was provision in the will. George no longer needed bank transfers. Lord Allerdale gifted him three million in cash. It must be in a separate account.’

  ‘I thought you said Sebastian didn’t contest the will?’

  ‘No, it was the solicitors who instructed it: the same ones who represent both the Montague Club and Philip Tooting. Lord Allerdale made him executor three years ago.’

  ‘And they won?’

  ‘It’s still being contested, though they originally said it was settled – that was off the record, and they’ve got amnesia over that bit now. They obviously smudged the timeline so that potential investors that Sebastian was lining up didn’t get cold feet and pull out once they learned he was broke.’

  Matt allowed the information to sink in. ‘Great work, DI Porter. Can we have a word?’

  Kelly looked at her team and they took it as a sign to get back to work. ‘Once we’ve secured arrest warrants, we can call it a day. I want you to go home and get some rest. I’m afraid I might need some of you tomorrow as planned. I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Kelly took Matt into her office. Before he could speak, she asked him if he’d looked into a leak at Hendon.

  He nodded. ‘I’ve got someone I trust completely having a nose around staff sheets, job uptake and log-on hits on the PNC. He did call me when I was on the train and I intended to check it out this afternoon.’

  ‘It’s this afternoon now, Matt.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s difficult to swallow?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Have
you got a name?’

  He nodded again. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I told the DI who’s doing the digging to look into his background. He’s a young sergeant who was overlooked for the detective route. I told him he needed more experience. He’s logged on to the PNC way more than he should be for his grade. He’s been in the office every day, and… You know you asked me to put the DEFRA surveillance on HOLMES?’

  She nodded.

  ‘It worked, apparently. He’s not been in since. I’ll call Hendon now and see if they’ve traced his desk phone calls.’

  ‘Thanks, Matt.’

  ‘He’s throwing a good career away; he’ll get hammered if it’s true.’

  ‘Is it too soon to question him?’

  ‘Probably not, but I’ll get his phone log back first. My DI has tried to make contact.’

  ‘I hope your journey wasn’t wasted. It looks like you’ll be better off in London after all. I can clear up here.’

  Matt looked at her. ‘It’s never a waste to see a crime scene. It is beautiful up here. I can see why you like it. Is Umshaw a handful?’

  ‘Erm, no, not at all, she’s an asset.’

  ‘I found her uncompliant and stand-offish.’

  ‘Matt, that’s how you find most people. We don’t kowtow up here. It’s all quite informal.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘We get the job done.’

  ‘I can see that. Let’s have a look at those documents. I want to see something that an interviewer can use before I order the arrest warrants. I can’t go waltzing into the Department of Health getting it wrong. For that, I’ll need the commissioner’s approval as well, and it’s Saturday, he’s probably on the golf course.’

  ‘Surely you have emergency access?’

  ‘It can be arranged. The important thing is that we’re right.’

  ‘OK, look. This is Dame Charlotte Cross, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Department of Health, KCMG.’

  Matt raised his eyebrows.

  ‘She has an illustrious past, once holding the position of Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.’

  ‘Jesus, Kell.’

  She let it go.

  ‘That’s only the beginning. There are pages and pages of dossiers and articles about the value of illegal and legal drugs to governments, especially the UK and US. Dame Charlotte authorised a study into the collapse of the Afghan economy when the US destroyed the poppy fields in the early 2000s, and the subsequent investment in the country that led to a revival of farming and a resumption of the opiate trade. It now accounts for something like ninety per cent of their GDP. The same is true in Mexico and Colombia, parts of Central America and the Golden Triangle between Laos and Vietnam.’

  Matt watched her.

  ‘Now look. There’s a projected timeline for the analysis, testing and production of a drug that is referred to over and over again as Compound P. That’s what Tilly Knight told me about, but she didn’t know what it was.’ She opened a new file. ‘This is Dame Charlotte’s correspondence with Christopher Slater, who, after the colantropine affair, took on several grey roles in large companies before finding himself an adviser to a board working for the UN on the impact of the opium trade in Afghanistan. After that, he got a position in a US pharmaceutical company and then turned up on the staff of Permanent Under-Secretary Robyn Hastings at DEFRA. By the way, Robyn Hastings and Dame Charlotte Cross have both been to the Montague Club recently, and wrote on government-headed paper to thank the man who invited them, Philip Tooting. Philip has been nothing if not thorough in keeping records, should he need them.’

  ‘Why would he be so stupid?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you’ve got to keep this lot somewhere, and he wouldn’t want his wife finding it. Tooting’s secretary said that Professor Cooper set up a private computer in his office. She remembers it well because it was not a standard Ravensword model.’

  ‘So why sack her? That’s asking for trouble, given what she knew.’

  ‘She might not have known the extent of it, but went looking after she was sacked.’

  ‘Clever woman.’

  ‘But she paid with her life.’

  ‘It looks that way. We still haven’t found the driver of the Ravensword lorry, so it will be difficult to prove.’

  ‘I think we’ve got more than enough to bring in Tooting.’

  ‘I agree, but it will probably be taken off us.’

  ‘I know.’ Kelly spoke with resignation. She hoped they would be able to stay in charge of some elements of the inquiry, but something involving government departments, civil servants and MoD personnel was bound to be given to at least a superintendent.

  ‘We need to start work on our case to put it to the commissioner.’

  ‘How do we split it? This lot will take us until the small hours. What if George was willingly involved in all of it and got burned?’

  ‘Possible. Let’s find out.’

  Matt’s phone buzzed with a call from the station in Shoreditch where the three suspected accomplices of Leo Brown were being held.

  ‘We have another witness mentioning Colonel Dansford, and also an admission that they spoke to some guy who rowed up to the beach at Allerdale House.’

  ‘Corroborating what Graeme said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kelly was elated to hear any shred of evidence that Graeme might be telling the truth.

  ‘But they also said that the old man – positively ID’d as George Murphy – was not alone. He was talking to another man much younger than him. It’s enough. I’m sending units to the lot of them.’

  ‘Did they have a name?’

  ‘No, but they gave a description.’

  Chapter 51

  Colonel Dansford replaced the receiver. He knew he was intoxicated; that was how he’d existed for the last twenty-odd years. He’d begun to drink too much in the army, as a subaltern. Everybody did it: port after dinner, tequila in the officers’ mess, and all-night benders in between weeks of exercises with no sex or booze in sight. It was a slippery slope and a common one.

  He knew Leo Brown wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut for ever, even if Philip thought someone could get to him on the inside before trial. He was doomed. His career was over and his reputation would be ruined. He’d been taken for a fool while Philip, he knew, would have a Plan B. Unfortunately he’d had first-hand dealings with the dirty end of the business. That was his role: the doer, the fixer, the recruiter.

  It had always suited him. That was what he was good at: getting people to do stuff. And he knew a lot of rogues, usually stationed around army bases. Brown was fairly innocuous in the grand scheme of things. Some of the contacts he’d found were machine-like psychopaths, willing to kill anything that moved for five thousand quid.

  That was the other problem: he’d grown sloppy with money. It came and it went, and he hadn’t taken Philip or Christopher’s advice and been tidy. They were always telling him to launder his earnings and take care the dots didn’t join up, but he was an army colonel! He was useless on the outside in the world of business affairs. He was institutionalised, but he couldn’t imagine rotting away in a cell for the rest of his days without a good bottle of red.

  He cared not a jot should he sully the reputation of the club. He’d just ordered another bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin to his room, and he could barely sign the chit, his vision was so blurred. It had been a long old descent into full-blown alcoholism, until one day he woke up and reached for a glug of red before he got out of bed. Of course, it didn’t help that he had it readily available wherever he went, on tap, on chit, for a favour. He drank more of it than water or tea.

  There was a loud banging on his door and it made him drop the whole bloody bottle onto the floor. Luckily the cork was shoved in the top from his last slurp (habit) and it had bruised his toe but he hadn’t lost a drop. The banging came again. He ignored it.

  ‘Colonel Dansford.’ He recognised the voice as the porter
on duty. ‘Sir, if you’re in there, we’ve been asked to confirm your presence at the club. Somebody is trying to reach you.’

  He looked over to the door and then walked to the window. His room faced the square, but he could see nothing. He squinted and fought with the sash window, which budged a little.

  The knocking came again.

  ‘Sir, it’s the police. We don’t want a scene.’

  The Colonel stopped fighting with the window and stared blankly out of the window. It had always been a dream; a stupid Boy’s Own dream. He realised at that moment that he’d made nothing of himself; all he’d managed was to do a few people’s dirty washing. He walked to the door and hissed, ‘Good God, man, I’m half naked. Give me a minute, will you!’

  ‘Of course, sir, but we don’t want any fuss. With respect, Colonel, you need to get dressed.’

  He walked away from the door muttering to himself, close to oblivion. As he took the cork out of the bottle and swigged it back, he caught a reflection of himself in the mirror. He’d never really been vain, but one day he’d tried on an old dress uniform and hadn’t been able to fasten it. Now he looked at his gut and his shiny face and his dead eyes and it saddened him. He opened the bedside cabinet drawer and took out an old service revolver that he’d come across when he’d been in charge of logging kit back in after a tour to Iraq. It was easy to massage the figures before the age of barcodes and snotty upstarts who did everything by the book. The thing might not even still work. That would be the final insult, he thought as he opened the chamber. There were three bullets in there and he couldn’t remember for the life of him when he’d put them in. It was a weighty piece of kit. Some soldiers brought Afghan rugs back from tour, others broke marble off Saddam Hussein’s bathroom walls. He’d brought an old friend.

  He lay on the bed and took the bottle in his other hand. Outside his room, he heard footsteps and conversation: they’d come back. A loud bang resonated around the room.