Clean Break (31 page)

“It ain't over till it's over,” I said grimly, picking up the phone and calling Talking Pages. I asked for portrait photographers in Liverpool. The second number she gave me matched the number on the sheet of paper. DJH Portraits. I didn't think Ladbrokes would be offering me odds on those initials not standing for Desmond J. Halloran.

I shut myself back in my office and rang Paul Kingsley, a commercial photographer who occasionally does jobs for us when Bill and I are overstretched or we need pictures taking in conditions that neither of us feels competent to handle. Paul's always delighted to hear from us. I suspect he read too many Batman comics when he was a lad. I got him on his mobile. “I need your help,” I told him.

“Great,” he said enthusiastically. “What's the job?”

“I want to check out a photographer in Liverpool. I need to know how his business is doing. Is he making money? Is he on the skids? That kind of thing. Do you know anybody who could color in the picture?”

“That's all you want?” He sounded disappointed. It was worrying. This is man whose assignments for us have included spending a Saturday night in an industrial rubbish bin, and standing for three days in the rain in the middle of a shrubbery. In his shoes, I'd have been delirious with joy at the news that his latest task for Mortensen and Brannigan involved nothing more hazardous to the health than picking up a phone.

“That's all I want,” I confirmed. “Only I want it yesterday. DJH Portraits, that's the firm.”

“Consider it done,” he said.

My next call was to Alexis. “All right?” she greeted me. “Has dickhead turned up?” I told her about Shelley's encounter with
Richard. “That doesn't sound like goodbye to me,” she said. “You want my advice, give your insurance man a bell. Show Richard you're not sitting around waiting for him to decide it's time to come home.”

“Strangely enough, I'm seeing him for dinner,” I told her.

“Nice one. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

“That doesn't give me a lot of scope on a date with a fella, does it?”

“Exactly. Now, what was it you wanted?”

“You still got your contact in Telecom accounts?” I asked her.

“You bet. Like the song says, once you have found her, never let her go. What are you after?”

“I want the itemized bills for the last six months on three numbers,” I said. “One Manchester, two Liverpool. How much is that going to rush me?”

“It's usually fifty quid a throw. I'll ask her if she'll give you the three for a hundred and twenty. You want to give me the numbers, I'll pass them on?”

I read the three numbers over to her. “Soon as poss,” I said.

“If I catch her now, she'll fax them to you when she gets home tonight. That do you?”

“It'll have to.”

“Is this something I should know about, KB? I mean, I'm the woman you were pumping last night about mysterious deaths in Manchester and Liverpool.”

I chuckled. “If I said it was a completely unrelated matter, would you believe me?”

“Girl, if the Pope himself told me it was a completely unrelated matter, I wouldn't believe him. You've got no chance. You want to share this with me?”

“Do your own investigations,” I told her.

“I'll catch up with you later. Have fun with the insurance man. I'll expect a full report tomorrow.”

“Only paying clients get full reports,” I laughed. I replaced the receiver and swung my feet up on to the desk. A vague shape was forming in my mind, but there were still too many questions that needed answering. Not least of them was the one Gail Morton
herself had raised. If someone had been targeting Joey Morton specifically, how could they be sure he would be the person to open the fatal container?

I was still worrying at that point when Paul called back. “DJH Portraits,” he said. “Desmond Halloran. One-man band. He used to work with another guy, doing the usual weddings, babies and pets. But he fancied himself as a bit of an artist, so he set up on his own, doing specialist portrait work. I'm told his stuff is really good, but the problem is that using the kind of processes he does is very labor intensive, as well as costing a fair bit on the chemicals. He was keeping his head above water to begin with, but the way the recession's been biting, nobody's got the cash to spare for fancy photographs that come in at five hundred quid a throw. My contact says he reckons he must be running at a loss these days. That what you wanted to hear?”

“Smack on the button,” I said.

“This wouldn't have something to do with the fact that his wife has just popped her clogs, would it?” he asked eagerly, ever the boy detective.

“Now, Paul, you know I never divulge confidential client information.”

“I know. Only, my mate, he says Desmond only kept afloat because his wife's business was a raging success and she subsidized him. He was wondering how Desmond's going to go on now.”

Another piece of the jigsaw fell into place. “Thank you, Paul,” I said. “Send me an invoice.” It was a long shot, but if Desmond Halloran was having an affair with Gail Morton and they wanted to ditch their partners and run off together, they'd need something to live on. Quite a big something, if my impressions of Gail were accurate. But if Desmond divorced Mary, she'd doubtless hang on to the kids and to her business, leaving Desmond potless. And I suspected that Desmond potless was a lot less attractive to Gail than Desmond loaded.

Before I could do anything more, the door to my office opened and Della walked in. She looked at me, eyes reproachful, and gently shook her head. “Running out on Cliff Jackson I could
understand,” she said. “But running out on a promise you made to me? Kate, you checked your brains in with your bags at Milan and forgot to pick them up at the other end.”

She didn't need to say any more. I could beat myself up. She was right. When I start letting my friends down, I know my life's starting to spin out of control. I got to my feet. “I'm sorry,” I said inadequately. “You're right. You deserve better.”

“Shall we go?”

I nodded. On the way out, Shelley said, “Sorry, Kate. I can lie to most people, but not to the rest of the team.”

“No need to apologize,” I said. “I'm the one in the wrong. You better phone Ruth and tell her to meet me at … where, Della?”

“Bootle Street,” Della said.

“Oh, and Shelley? I think I might be a while. Better ring Michael Haroun at Fortissimus and tell him I need a rain check tonight.”

I followed Della out to the waiting police car. I knew I was damn lucky not to be under arrest. I just didn't feel like I could risk walking under ladders.

It seemed to take longer to recount Richard and Kate's excellent adventure than it had taken to experience it. Asking the questions were Inspector Mellor from the Art Squad, who remembered me from our earlier encounter at Henry's, and Geoff Turnbull from the Drugs Squad, who thankfully owed me one on account of information received in a previous investigation that had provided him with a substantial feather in his cap. Della sat in on the interview, probably to make sure my brief didn't change my mind and persuade me to opt for the Trappist approach.

Even so, by the time I'd answered everyone's questions, it was past midnight. I'd come clean about all of my nefarious activities, on the advice of Ruth Hunter, my nonpareil criminal solicitor and, incidentally, one of the tightknit group of my female friends which Richard refers to as the Coven-ment—witches who run the world. “After all,” she pointed out drily, “all your law-breaking took place outside their jurisdiction, and I rather think the Italian police are going to have enough to worry about without bothering you with such trivial charges as assault, kidnap, false imprisonment, burglary, data theft, concealing a body, and failing to report a murder.”

Ruth, Della and I ended up eating steak in one of the city's half-dozen casinos. The great advantage with them is that they stay open late and the food's cheap. It's supposed to act as an incentive to make people gamble. I don't know how effective it is; most of the gamblers that night were Chinese, and none of them looked like a juicy steak was on their agenda. Not as long as the roulette wheels were still spinning. “Cliff Jackson's still going to want to talk to you,” Della pointed out after we ordered.

“I know. His goons were sitting on my doorstep this morning.”

Ruth groaned. “What now, Kate? Haven't you broken enough laws for one week?”

“That's not why Cliff Jackson's after me,” I said stiffly. “It's just that I've been doing his job for him, and now I've tracked down his saboteurs, he probably wants to know who the real murderer is.”

Della and Ruth both choked on their drinks. “Oh ye of little faith,” I complained. “Anyway, I want to stay out of his way until I've got the whole thing done and dusted. If I leave the job half done, he'll only mess it up and arrest the wrong person. He's got form for it.”

“Isn't it about time you went back to white-collar crime and left the police to deal with these dangerous criminal types?” Ruth demanded. “It's not that I think you're incapable of looking after yourself. It's just that you keep involving Richard, and he's really far too accident-prone to be exposed to these kinds of people.”

“I don't want to discuss Richard,” I said. “Anyway, Della, what have Mellor and Turnbull been doing for the last forty-eight hours with the info I handed them on a plate?”

“Luckily, Geoff's already had dealings with his opposite numbers in Europe about organized drug trafficking, so he was able to cut through a lot of the bureaucratic red tape. It turns out his Italian oppos have been taking a long hard look at Gruppo Leopardi and its offshoots, so the info you brought out of there has slotted in very nicely. You were right, by the way. They've been organizing art robberies all over Europe, not just in the UK, and using the art works as payment for drug shipments,” Della said. “With the data you stole, it looks like they'll be able to set up a sting that will pull in some of the big boys, for a change.”

“What about Nicholas Turner?” I asked.

Della fussed with a cigarette and her Zippo. “They found his body in the van, where you left it. A couple of the lads went over to Leeds this morning and spoke to his wife. She's denying all knowledge of anything shady, of course. She's going for the Oscar as the grieving wife of a legitimate art and antiques dealer. Grieving she may well be, but nobody believes for a minute she's as innocent as she wants us to think. Apart from anything else,
there's evidence that she's accompanied him on several of his trips to the Villa San Pietro.”

“He still didn't deserve to die,” I said.

Ruth shrugged. “You take the money, you take the risks that go with it. How many lives have been destroyed by the drugs Turner was involved in supplying? Half the people I defend owe not a little of their trouble to the drug scene. I wouldn't lose any sleep over Turner, Kate.”

I didn't.

 

Jackson's goons were on my doorstep again the following morning. I figured that by now he'd probably be staking out the office as well. I rang Shelley. “Have you got company of the piggy variety too?”

“Of course, sir. Did you want to talk to one of our operatives?”

That told me all I needed to know. “Is it Jackson himself or one of his gophers?”

“I'm afraid our principal isn't in the office at present.”

I'll say this for Shelley, nothing fazes her. “There should have been an overnight fax for me,” I said. “Can you stick it in an envelope and have it couriered round to Josh's office? I'll pick it up there.”

“That's no problem, sir. I'll have Ms. Brannigan call you when she comes back to the office. Goodbye now.”

Whoever said blondes have more fun obviously didn't garner the experience wearing a wig. I went through the disguise-forbeginners rigmarole again and made my exit through Richard's bungalow, pausing long enough to do a quick inventory of his wardrobe. If he'd been back, he hadn't taken any significant amount of clothing with him. His laptop was gone, though, which meant he was planning to be away long enough to get some work done.

I arrived at Josh's office ten minutes after the fax, and settled down at an empty desk to plow through the phone numbers. It was a long, tedious process of crosschecking, made worse by the fact that Alexis's contact had come up with a more detailed breakdown of calls than the customer receives. The fax she'd sent listed every
call from all three numbers, even the quickies that don't cost enough to make it on to the customer's account. But at the end of it, I'd established that there were calls virtually every day between Desmond Halloran's office number and the private number of the Cob and Pen. There were also a couple of long calls from the Hallorans' home number to the pub.

There was one other curious thing. A Warrington number cropped up on both bills. I checked the dates. Every Monday, a call a few minutes long was logged on one bill or another. It appeared most often on Desmond's office bill, but it was there half a dozen times on the Cob and Pen's account too. Of course, I had to ring it, didn't I?

“Warrington Motorway Motel, Janice speaking, how may I help you?” the singsong voice announced.

“I'm meeting someone at the motel today. Can you give me directions?”

“Certainly, madam. Where are you coming from?”

“Manchester.”

“Right. If you come down the M62 and take junction nine, you go left as you come off the motorway and right at the first roundabout. We're the first turning on the left, just after the bridge.”