Blind Fury (36 page)

“If she charged ten or twenty quid for a blow job, that’s a hell of a lot of johns for that amount of money. She’s not likely to have saved it all up, is she?”

“We don’t know. She could have, and this is all a waste of time,” Anna said, glancing at her ring. She would have to get it made to size, as the bandage was sticky.

“So who’s the lucky bloke?” Mike asked, staring at the screen.

“You don’t know him.”

“So he’s not one of us, then?”

“No, he’s not.”

“That was what the family commitment was on the weekend?”

She grinned. They were all the same, so nosy. She got up and stretched and then turned back to Mike. “What if John Smiley was also doing a bit of moonlighting? We are pretty certain he got paid by Emerald Turk to put up a blind in her flat: what if this was a regular thing? He could be making cash in hand that way.”

“He could, but right now he denied ever being at Emerald Turk’s.” Mike was still scrolling through sheets of bank statements.

“Who’ve you got tracing dog handlers connected to Cameron Welsh?” Anna asked.

“Barolli. You think it’s worth another visit to Barfield?”

“Welsh has gone a bit gaga, acting up badly; they’ve had to sedate him.”

“Checking up on him, were you?” Mike asked.

“Yes. Listen, this doesn’t take two of us. I’ll go and get some coffee.”

Mike nodded and then asked her to go back to the two previous employees from Swell Blinds to see if there was any moonlighting going on. He also wanted to get the expenses paid out to Smiley. But somehow he was doubtful they would find that Smiley had withdrawn money for blackmail payouts.

“Thanks for this,” Barolli said sarcastically to Anna as she returned to her desk with her coffee. He held up his phone. “I’ve been hanging on for up to fifteen minutes. I keep getting cut off. I’ve been put through to so many different departments . . .” He returned to his caller. Despite all the effort, he had not been able to make any connection between security guards and Cameron Welsh. To go back so many years, when a number of the companies had folded, and having to battle with the red tape attached to the security protocol was frustrating and time-consuming. Obtaining the details of Cameron Welsh’s escorts to and from the court at his trial was almost impossible.

“Cameron Welsh. Five years ago, he was on trial for murder and held at Brixton Prison . . . No, dog handlers—we need the names of the security guards that . . . No, only Cameron Welsh.” He sighed.

Barbara received an abrupt call from Arnold Rodgers with regard to her request for John Smiley’s expenses. She was told that there was no specific account; the employees brought in receipts for meals and any extra expenditures. John Smiley had never abused this system.

There was also little useful feedback from the two ex-workers of Swell Blinds. Apparently, Mr. Rodgers was strict about any kind of cash deals, as most of the blinds were made to order, so there was not much left in the warehouse to be sold off at a cut price.

Anna sighed. Flicking through her notebook, she found her notes on the last interview with Smiley. Contrary to what the two men claimed, he had said there were often windows wrongly measured for blinds, which, when they were delivered, proved unusable. Smiley had suggested to Anna and Langton that it could have been any number of men employed by Swell Blinds who went to Emerald Turk’s flat.

Anna sat tapping her teeth with her pen. If they found no cash taken out from Smiley’s bank account around the time he might have paid off Margaret Potts, then he must have gotten it somewhere else.

She tossed the pen back on her desk. She was beginning to feel as frustrated as Barolli, who was having a lengthy conversation with a security company. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Was it possible they were wrong and had been for weeks and that John Smiley was innocent? She was sick to death of hearing about Swell Blinds. She then smiled. When she married Ken, there would not be a blind in a single solitary window.

“Paul,” she called over to Barolli.

He was replacing the phone.

“The blinds we took from Emerald Turk’s flat—are they over at forensics?”

“Yeah, they’re checking out the cords, and like everything else, it’s a bloody—” His phone rang, and he snatched it up. Anna yawned and then put in a call to Pete Jenkins.

“You calling to arrange dinner?” he joked.

“Nope, this is a really long shot. You know the pelmet that’s fixed to the top of the slatted blinds?”

“Yeah, we’ve got that in here as well.”

“I know they were up for a few years, but can you do me a favor and dust for prints? They’re fiddly to hang, aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I wasn’t asked to dust for prints, just check out the cord.”

“Yes, I know, but can you do me a favor?”

“Okay, done and dusted, ha ha. Now what about that meal?”

Anna couldn’t help smiling as she told him that she was engaged and maybe one night she’d bring her fiancé for dinner.

“That’s a kick in the teeth. Never mind, I did but try.”

Barolli was on yet another lengthy call, so Anna went over to Barbara.

“You know that little woman, ex-receptionist for Swell Blinds . . .”

“Wendy Dunn?”

“Yes. Can you put in a call and ask her what happened to those blinds that came back from a customer because they didn’t fit?”

“What? That’s it?”

“Yep. Ask how many there were, and see if any of the workers used them to do a bit of moonlighting.”

“She’s on my way home, so as usual, I can call in and have a chat with her.”

It was yet another day with no result. In the past, Anna would have stayed on, determined to uncover something, but tonight she couldn’t wait to get home. She stopped off at a newsagent and bought
Brides, Tatler
, and
Vogue
to look for ideas for her wedding dress. She wanted a full white gown and all the trimmings, and she had saved enough to also have an expensive but not too large reception. With no father to give her away, she wondered if it would be acceptable to ask Roy Hudson.

She sat in bed munching Ryvita and cheese slices, planning a strict diet. She kept on cutting out articles and putting them to one side. Ken called quite late, as he had only just gotten off duty. He said he had told his parents, and they were over the moon. When she asked if it would be all right for his father to give her away, he said it would make his day.

“I’m not putting too much pressure on you, am I?” she said anxiously. “It’s just I suddenly thought I didn’t have anyone that I’d really want.”

“You know what we should start doing is looking for a place.”

“We could always live here at my flat.”

“No, I want us to have our own place. Next weekend off, we’ll start checking with estate agents and think about which area we’ll want to move to. It might depend on where I get work.”

Anna said she could put her flat on the market and join her finances with his savings. They needed to be realistic in working out how long it might take for her to sell and how much longer he had to work at the prison before he could find a job in London and apply to start his training. They arrived at a possible wedding date in a year’s time.

“Do you want an exotic honeymoon?” Ken asked.

“Yes.”

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do? Hire a gulet in Turkey and sail round the coast. We’d have a crew and chef on board and nobody else. You fancy that?”

Anna did. She wanted whatever made him happy.

“Right—I’ll bring brochures with me when I’m next down, and it might be this weekend. Okay?”

“Yes.” She snuggled down with her glossy magazine, and when the phone rang again, she thought it was Ken calling back.

“It’s me,” Langton said.

“Hello,” Anna replied cautiously.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. I’m in bed, though.”

“I’ve just been told.”

She wasn’t sure what to say, and sitting up, she felt really nervous.

“So when did all this go down?”

Was he talking about her engagement? She couldn’t be sure, so she said nothing.

“You going to tell me who it is? Anna?”

“You met him. It’s Ken Hudson.”

“What? Are you serious? The big blond fella?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t let the grass grow under your feet, did you?”

“I guess I didn’t.”

“Don’t go jumping into anything, will you? You should take your time. It’s been how long?”

“That’s immaterial. I love him.”

“Take it slowly, is my advice. Live with him first, and don’t go making a big commitment.”

“That is exactly what we both want to do.” She would have liked to add that just because he had found it impossible when they were together to make a serious commitment, it didn’t mean everyone was like that.

“If you’re happy, there’s nothing more to say.”

“I want to have children.”

He laughed and then apologized. He didn’t mean it as an insult, just that it was all quite a shock to him.

“I’m glad you’ve found someone, Anna, so congratulations. I wish I could also offer some for the case, but it’s running on empty again.”

“Seems so, but maybe we’ll get a breakthrough.” She wanted him to get off the phone; she didn’t want to think about the investigation or anything connected to it.

“Good night, then, and I’m sorry if I sounded like I wasn’t overly thrilled. Maybe because you didn’t tell me yourself.”

“He’s everything I want. I’ve never been so happy.”

There was a long pause, and then his voice sounded gruff. “That’s good. I don’t think I ever made you feel that way. Good night, then, sweetheart.”

“Good night.”

She held the receiver in her hand and heard him click off before she slowly replaced it. It was hard for her to believe that after all the years she had been so besotted with Langton, she would feel depressed by his call. She had felt the undercurrent of sarcasm from him and didn’t like it. It didn’t occur to her that Langton had been hurt because he was the last to know, and that he still harbored deep feelings for her that he refused to allow to ever surface.

Chapter Fifteen

A
nna was in no hurry to get to work the following morning, as she first went to find a jeweler to resize the engagement ring. She had to leave it at the shop and hated not having it on her finger. As soon as she arrived at the station, she could feel the change in atmosphere in the incident room. It came in waves. First Barbara had been to see Wendy Dunn again, and contrary to what they had been told, the older woman was adamant that often and usually at the end of the month, there would be a certain quantity of blinds that were rejected due to the measurements being incorrectly noted. Arnold Rodgers, a stickler for perfection in his company, had ordered the faulty blinds to be either unthreaded and stacked for possible use, or destroyed.

“She said it was common knowledge that they would be taken out, sometimes for the workers’ personal use, and Mr. Rodgers had even on occasion allowed that to occur.”

“Get to the point, Barbara.” Anna was impatient.

“Because John Smiley was their main fitter, he would fix them up for the work teams, but she said he was always the first there to check over the unwanted blinds, and because he had the delivery van, they were out of the factory and in the back of it before Mr. Rodgers noticed.”

“Did she say he moonlighted—did extra work outside the company?”

“Yes. He was even paid by her to put some up at her place.”

As Anna was about to take on board how difficult it would be to trace the private customers Smiley had worked for, Barolli let out a yell for her attention.

“During the trial of Cameron Welsh, they used the security company attached to Brixton Prison, but when he was transferred to Barfield Prison after he was sentenced, they used a private company.”

Anna was becoming as impatient with Barolli as she had felt with Barbara. “Come on,” she growled. “Have we got a new suspect or not, for God’s sake?”

Barolli gave an expansive bravado gesture.

“No, but I’ve got four names. Two are dog handlers, but the company admitted that on long-haul drives from London to Barfield, they often used standby guards—that means ones not on a permanent payroll.”

“For heaven’s sake, what’s the connection?”

“One of them is an ex-Para, works doors at nightclubs, mostly, but he stood in for their regular guy, and he brought in a buddy because they needed two wagons. Apparently, there’s a Mafia bloke in the secure unit at Barfield who was sentenced at the same time as Welsh, and they were concerned about a possible attempt to escape, so that’s why they had the dogs.”

Anna felt like screaming. Barolli held up his hand for her to stay quiet.

“You have no idea how long this has taken to piece together, but John Smiley was in the Paras, right? Now, because these two guys were not regulars, they were paid in cash on delivery; they had to sign a chitty.”

Anna pinched the bridge of her nose. Barolli had the full attention of the entire room.

“Don’t tell me—one was signed by John Smiley?” Anna asked.

“That would be asking too much—and it was how many bloody years ago?—so no. What I
do
have is the name and contact for the ex-Para, and it turns out he was in the same unit at Aldershot with John Smiley.”

“So have you questioned him?”

“Not yet. He’s working at some boot camp in Devon, but he’s contactable this afternoon.”

Anna sat back and closed her eyes. It was not as firmed up as the information from Wendy Dunn, and it was possibly not connected, so they might get nothing from either development. However, the third item that generated a lot of excitement came from the forensic lab.

Pete Jenkins had found numerous sets of fingerprints on the wooden pull from the slatted blinds themselves, these, he said, were clearly childrens. However, the sets from beneath the pelmet where it had been screwed into the wall were faint but, due to the size, probably male. With a few hours’ further chemical treatment, he hoped to raise an identifiable print.

Mike Lewis was sweating. This was the biggest breakthrough yet, and it would mean bringing John Smiley back in for his prints. If they matched, they had him trapped by his own lies.

Langton arrived with perfect timing to be told the update, and was well pleased. He stood in front of the team beaming and ordered his usual toasted chicken sandwich with no tomatoes.

He sat with them as they sifted through everything they had so far, and he suggested they forgo another session with Cameron Welsh; if Welsh had known about the security-guard connection, then Langton hoped he would be segregated to the mental wing for not telling them. “If it pans out, we don’t need to see him again.”

Anna said nothing, wondering if Langton had deliberately made that decision to deprive her of another chance of going to Leeds to see Ken. She doubted that he would be so churlish, especially when he asked Barolli to check out the Mafia prisoner. If the prisoner had also been in the convoy from London, they could get something from him.

“Apparently, Welsh is climbing the walls.” Langton grunted. “So if we need to question him, we’ll do so.”

Although the team was working toward proving that John Smiley had known Margaret Potts and that his lying could cover a much more heinous event, they did not have any further evidence for the murders of their three Polish victims.

Anna noticed that Langton now wore reading glasses when he went over the files; she had never seen him wearing them. They made him look so much older.

When he’d read enough to come to a decision, the DCS stood up and told them to hold off on the arrest of John Smiley, pending the fingerprint treatment by Pete Jenkins. However, as soon as Langton gave the go-ahead, they would nab Smiley on suspicion of murder—and this time, armed with a search warrant, they were to strip his house, the company lockers, and bring in his delivery van for forensic to test. They were to liaise with the Manchester Constabulary, as they would need approval and even permission to move in on their turf.

“This time we want his prints,” Langton said.

“Why the delay?”

Langton looked at Mike and bit into his sandwich, taking time to chew and swallow before he chucked the napkin that had been wrapped around it into a bin. “Maybe we’ve got two suspects. This ex-Para guy—what’s his name?”

“Ex-Sergeant Michael Dillane.”

“I want him questioned before we move on Smiley, so hold steady—no need to jump the gun. We’ve waited long enough, so a few more hours to check out this Dillane character won’t hurt us.” He stood up and clapped his hands. “Good work all round. Let’s keep the energy up and fingers crossed.”

The team split up and went back to their desks as Lang-ton crossed to Anna. He reached for her left hand. “Where’s your ring?”

“Being made to fit properly. It was a little bit big, and I was afraid to lose it.”

“I always believed it was unlucky to take it off before the wedding.”

“Ah, don’t say that.”

“Just joking, and well done. I know this dog-and-security-guard scenario came via you, so the romance hasn’t made you lose your touch.” He glanced at his watch and then turned to Barolli. “Soon as you get Dillane sorted, let me know. In the meantime, check out his boot-camp job, and everyone get ready to pull in John Smiley.”

Barolli gave him the thumbs-up. There wasn’t one member of the team who didn’t feel the adrenaline buzz. As Langton had said, it had been a long haul up to this point.

Ex-Sergeant Michael Dillane agreed to come in for an interview. He said it was convenient, as it was his day off and he had intended drive to London. Barolli had fudged the reason for the meeting, not wishing to tip him off in case he contacted John Smiley. All he said was that it was an urgent matter and concerned an ex-Para.

At five-fifteen, Michael Dillane showed up. He was driving a beat-up white Ford Escort van, on which, by the sound of it, the exhaust was cracked. Barolli watched Dillane parking from the incident-room window.

“You are not going to believe what this guy looks like. He’s wearing camouflage gear and a mountain hat.”

Barolli hurried to the reception to bring Dillane to interview room one. Anna gathered the files, pleased that Mike Lewis had agreed she should conduct the interview with Barolli.

“Your call on him, Travis, but I’ll be next door watching it go down on the monitors.”

“I appreciate this, Mike. Thank you.”

Michael Dillane was, as Barolli had described, wearing army jungle fatigues with a wide leather belt buckled too tightly. Not that he was overweight; on the contrary, he oozed muscles and had the sloping shoulders of a weight lifter. He was about five feet ten but had a huge presence and, as they were to discover, a personality that went with it. When he removed his wide-brimmed hat, he had a shaved head and sat with his legs spread wide apart, his feet encased in heavy studded boots. His thick hands had tattoos across the knuckles, and his shirt was open almost to his waist. He refused coffee but asked for a bottle of water.

Barolli introduced himself and Anna, thanking the man for agreeing to come in and talk to them.

Dillane lifted his hand and wagged a stubby finger. “Once a Para, always a Para, and if one of my mates is in trouble, I’m here for them.” He had round button eyes, a nose that looked as if it had been broken many times, and a wide wet mouth.

“Tell us about this boot camp, Michael.”

Anna was surprised by his thick Manchester accent.

“It’s a private company, partly subsidized by the government. We take on real hardline kids that basically everyone else has given up on. We get junkies from wealthy families, gang members—you name it. We get the dross of humanity that’s between fifteen to twenty, and we kick them into shape—not literally, of course, but we get them into shape physically, and then the shrinks take over.” He smiled. “I do the physical. Nothing works better than exercise and routine.” He flexed his muscles. “So who’s the reason I’m here?”

“We’ll get to that in a moment,” Barolli said, and then asked Dillane to go back to a period when he worked security.

“I’ve done a lot. How far do you want me to go back?”

“Maybe five years. You’ve worked for numerous companies?”

“That’s true. You ever seen how many security companies are listed nowadays? Thousands of them, and mostly bloody amateurs, but I’m done with that. They don’t pay on time—real aggravation—so this job is working out well for me. It’s been two years now.”

“Can you recall a period when you escorted prisoners, specifically to Barfield Prison?”

“Yeah, I done that quite a bit. It was a long time ago, though, at least five or six years now.”

“Do you recall driving a prisoner called Cameron Welsh?”

He shook his head.

“Went down for a double murder. Cocky bloke, well educated?” Barolli reminded him.

“I dunno. To be honest, I never gave them much thought when I was working.”

Barolli set down the mug shots of Cameron Welsh. Dillane picked them up and sucked in his breath.

“He was driven to Barfield Prison with a Mafia guy,” Barolli said.

“Right, yeah, it’s coming back to me . . .”

“So you remember Cameron Welsh?”

“More the Italian geezer. I remember him.”

“Tell us what you remember.”

“It was a right farce. The prison authorities were panic-stricken that the Mafia guy might be sprung, know what I mean? That he might have connections. He looked more like a weedy little bloke to me than some kind of godfather.” He frowned, cracking his knuckles. “Hang on—yeah. Now I think about it, that guy Welsh was in the first wagon, too; we were tailing them in the second with the dogs.”

“You were a dog handler?”

“That’s right. Nimrod, he was mine for nearly eighteen months. Fantastic animal and really intelligent. He could bring down an elephant, no problem.”

“Your dog?”

“That’s right. When I moved on, I was gonna take him with me, but he sort of belonged to the company. I mean, I had him at home with me when I was working for them, but when I left and went on to doing the doors, they kept him.”

“So you had the dog for how long?”

“I just said I had Nimrod for about eighteen months, and I tell you, when I walked away from the kennels, it broke my heart. He had this look on his face I’ll never forget—looking at me as if to say, ‘What’s going on? How come I’m not going with you?’ Broke me up.”

“When you did the convoy to Barfield—”

“Done quite a few runs there,” Dillane interrupted.

“Can we concentrate on the occasion you drove to Barfield with the two prisoners Cameron Welsh and—”

“He’s still there, isn’t he, this Mafia geezer?”

“So is Cameron Welsh,” Anna said quietly.

Dillane turned toward her. This was the first time she’d spoken. Up until this moment, he had directed his entire conversation toward Barolli.

“Has this got something to do with him?” the big man asked. He looked from one to the other, his wide, flat face registering confusion. “What’s going on?”

“Did you at any time have any conversation with Welsh?”

“No, he was in the wagon up front.”

“So you never spoke to him?”

“No. When we got to the prison, we were out with the dogs as the two guys were led in, like, and he did come up to me. In fact, he was not really talking to
me,
he was interested in Nimrod, and I had to warn him to stay back. He was leashed—the dog, not the bloke!” He gave a loud chortle and then lifted a hand, gripping it into a fist. “Hadda hold on to him tight, like, almost as if he knew the bloke was a bad ’un.”

“Cameron Welsh?”

“Yeah, and he straightened up and stepped away, scared-like, you know? And that was about it.”

“So you had no other interaction with Mr. Welsh?”

“Nope, we were concentrating on the Italian, as he was terrified of the dogs. In some ways, it’s a bit of a performance, you know. They can snarl and growl almost on cue, and they were also ragged after a long drive ’cause we didn’t stop off or anything—we drove straight to the nick.”

“The company you worked for has said that they were shorthanded on this occasion and that you brought in another dog handler to do the journey.”