East of the City (16 page)

Dad told him to lay off Peg Leg and the others. In the New Year, Dad said, Fielding could have the film footage.

Fielding went to the door, telling us that he didn’t negotiate with scum. But at the door he turned and looked me straight in the eye. He said, If that film doesn’t make it to me on the first of January, I’ll be looking for it. And don’t get clever and make copies or I’ll be looking for you. Son, he said to me, one day I’m going to take your fucking head off.

Now as we got into the lift, Bill said, ‘What happened?'

'He paid up.'

'What happened to the film?’

‘My old man mailed it to Fielding on the first of January.'

‘No copies?’

‘Nope.’ My old man never reneged on a deal in his life.

The lift doors closed; we started down.

‘And did Fielding ever do like he threatened? Take your head off?’

‘I started here at Lloyd’s a few months later. He never got the chance.’

After a moment’s thought, Bill shook his head. ‘Some cop.’

Yeah, I thought, some cop. Folding my arms, I leant back against the lift wall, while under my feet the floor trembled gently. Fielding - Detective Sergeant Fielding - was back in my life.

'Y
ou first,’ Lee Chan said, taking a bite from her apple. She’d rung me at home to let me know she might have something for me. I’d walked up to the corner and met her taxi, I don’t know why. Maybe thoughts of her leaving soon had been bubbling away at the back of my mind. Maybe I just needed the air.‘You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been hearing at work,’ she said now. ‘People running around with guns, the full bit.’

‘What have you got on Mehmet?’

She shook her head, still chewing, and pointed a finger at me from her apple. ‘You first,’ she repeated.

So as we walked the few hundred yards to my apartment block I gave her the edited highlights. Every now and again she interrupted to get more details, and sometimes she laughed; she was pretty surprised at how I’d been sucked into the whole thing. But mostly what she did was listen. When I finished she was quiet for a second or two. Finally she said, ‘So all that kidnap stuff?'

‘Complete bollocks. Ward died in the fire.'

‘I still don’t get why they wanted you to be courier.'

‘Who would you rather deal with, Lee? Me, or half a dozen guys trained to kill you with their bare hands?'

She held her apple core out, looking for a bin. The paved wasteland stretched away on all sides, a few leafless saplings planted here and there. No other signs of life, and no bins. She handed me her briefcase, dug around in her coat pockets and found a clear plastic bag. She put the apple core in there, then dropped the bag in her pocket.

‘You still trying for the underwriter’s job?’ she asked, taking back her briefcase. ‘Top man on the box?’

‘Who said I was?’

‘You did.’ We kept walking, almost at the door to my apartment block now, her eyes fixed straight ahead. ‘Remember?’ she said.

And now I did remember. It was in one of those weak moments, pillow-talk after a heady romp from the lounge room, through the shower and on into bed. Probably the last time I slept with Lee Chan. Which would make it the last time I slept with anyone.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I do. And yes, I still am, but that’s not for general broadcast, Lee.’

She ran a finger over her lips, like she was sealing them tight.

Upstairs, Katy was watching TV. She said hello to Lee when we went in, but it was a little awkward all round. They’d only met the one time, not long before Mum and Dad died, when Katy was up paying me a visit from college. Back when Lee and me were still going strong.

Now Katy said, ‘I’ve put another lasagne in the oven.’

 I nodded to Lee's briefcase, saying we could look at what she’d brought over, then if she was hungry, we could eat. Giving me a look, Lee went into my study. As I followed Lee in,  Katy grinned at me like an idiot, wrapped her arms around herself, and smooched the air. Raising a finger in warning, I closed the door.

My study wasn’t that big, just enough for a couple of chairs, a desk, a filing cabinet and a bookcase. The window looked out over the paved wasteland we’d crossed from the station, the lights were glowing in the early evening. Lee opened her briefcase and dumped a pile of papers on the desk.

‘Mr Mehmet,’ she said, ‘has a surprising history. Look at this.’ 

I pulled up a chair and studied the pages. The first few were printouts from the CHORUS files at Companies House, the general details of Ottoman Air. Board members, no names I knew apart from Mehmet’s, profits for the past few years, balance sheets, the usual blah. ‘We know all this.’

‘Keep going,’ Lee told me.

The next pages were more CHORUS printouts, but these were for two other companies, Vector Computing and Black Sea Traders. Barin Mehmet had been on the board of both. With Vector Computing until three years earlier, and Black Sea Traders until just twelve months before. I flicked through the pages, then I looked up at Lee. So Mehmet was once a director of two obscure private companies turning over less than ten million a year. So what?

Lee pushed that first lot of papers aside, clearing a space. Then she dropped a pair of stapled sheets in front of me, saying, ‘Read these.’

This time it wasn’t information from Companies House; the top of the first sheet had the ILU letterhead. The ILU, the Institute of London Underwriters, a competitor insurance market to Lloyd’s. The two papers were a general internal memorandum relating to Vector Computing, and it sure as hell wasn’t a letter of recommendation. It was what Angela would call a DNT a Do Not Touch. The Institute was indicating to its members that Vector might have scammed one of the general insurers. The general insurer couldn’t prove it, so the wording was diplomatic, non-libellous, but the intention of the memo was clear. It was a flashing red light. Don’t touch these guys if you value your profits, it said. Not with a bargepole.

I asked Lee where the papers had come from.

‘A friend.'

I looked at her, and she stared straight back. I wasn’t going to get a name. Then she reached across me and replaced that pair of stapled sheets with a wedge of papers. ‘This one’s the humdinger. Black Sea.’

‘You’ve really worked on this, haven’t you.’

‘No, Ian. I just sat on my butt and it all fell out of the sky.’

‘Is this the ILU?’ I flipped the page. ‘There’s no letterhead.'

‘That one’s us,’ she said. ‘Lloyd’s. The LCO.’

This lot wasn’t any kind of memorandum, it was a series of letters and faxes, correspondence between the LCO, the insuring Lloyd’s syndicate, the policy broker and Black Sea Trading. They were photocopies. The syndicate number, and the Managing Agent’s name, wherever it occurred, had been whited out. I mentioned that to Lee.

She said, ‘I did that. Basically, because it’s none of your business.’

 And she was right too. Reading through the correspondence now I saw that the syndicate number was irrelevant, what really mattered was what had happened. Black Sea had been leasing ships, running freight round the Mediterranean and insuring the freight with a syndicate at Lloyd’s. Black Sea had reported that a leased ship had sailed into a bad storm; the freight, several hundred new mopeds, had shifted and been badly damaged. Black Sea had tried to claim two hundred thousand pounds on its freight insurance policy, the difference between the new price of the mopeds and the knock-down price at which they said the damaged goods were finally sold.

The loss adjustor’s recommendation was that the claim shouldn’t be paid. He’d flown out to Athens where the mopeds had been offloaded, and after digging around for a week he’d discovered that the initial damage assessment had been made by the brother of the biggest motorcycle distributor in Greece. And — big surprise — the brother’s motorcycle shops appeared to be well stocked with undamaged new mopeds, none of them carrying a manufacturer’s guarantee.

Lee Chan said, ‘What do you think?’

I held up a hand, still reading.

After the loss adjustor’s report the correspondence became heated. Black Sea threatened legal action, the syndicate threatened a counter-suit for fraud, and the broker tried hard to be helpful without actually committing itself to either side. Then came another letter from the loss adjustor. This time he’d found conclusive proof that the mopeds hadn’t been damaged, a statement from a disgruntled officer aboard who’d overseen the unloading of the mopeds at Piraeus. After this the syndicate simply drew up the shutters, inviting Black Sea to sue and see what happened. Black Sea blustered, the broker recommended they withdraw their claim, and finally the correspondence petered out. The broker was WardSure.

Leaning back, I said, ‘It never got to court?’

‘Not even a writ.’

I folded my arms, considering the pile of paperwork. It sure raised a few alarming questions, Mehmet being on those boards. I wondered what Allen would make of it when I told him. And the fact that WardSure had been the broker on the Black Sea business, that bothered me too. They’d clearly known about Mehmet’s background: it was exactly the kind of thing they should have told us about when they brought us the Ottoman slip.

‘I’d like to revise my opinion,' Lee said. She tapped the paperwork. ‘I’m not so sure anymore that security’s the real issue with Ottoman Air. Not with this Mehmet running the show. "Villain", you said. Maybe you werre right.’ 

Getting up from my chair, I did a turn round the study. I had said villain, and I wasn’t likely I’d be revising my opinion now. But it was all surface, a side-issue to Ottoman, nothing that couldn’t be shrugged off in court. I told Lee that.

‘So what do you do?’ She waved a hand over the pages. ‘Forget about this?’

I stopped by my bookcase. Ran a hand across the videos along the top shelf, the collection of fire stories I’d built up over the past several months. Clips from the news, the Waco fire in Texas, real-life and documentaries. When I’d come back from the Greenwich Tunnel I’d pulled them out and watched a few minutes of each one. It wasn’t normal, I knew that. But it didn’t seem to be something I could stop. 

‘Ian, I busted my butt to put this stuff together.’

I turned from the bookcase. I said thanks.

‘Thanks? I don’t want your thanks, I want you to use it.’

I asked her if she’d be showing the papers to the other syndicates on the Ottoman Air slip. Probably, she said.

I remembered Barin Mehmet, how he smiled. White teeth. She asked what I was thinking.

‘I’m thinking the judge'll flip if we dragged this fraud angle in now. If we can win without it, why bring it in?’

‘If you don’t bring it in, you’ll lose. And so will the following syndicates on the slip. That shouldn’t happen.’

'I think we’ll win. So do the lawyers.’

‘They haven’t seen this,’ she said, reaching into her briefcase, and then handing me another sheet. This time she sat down in a chair and swivelled while I read.

It was a handwritten note from the underwriter of one of the following syndicates on the Ottoman Air slip. This time the syndicate number wasn’t whited out. I knew the authoe of the note, a doddery old bugger who was losing his grip. He said he thought he should bring it to the attention of the LCO that the security man who’d been employed by the Mortlake Group as an expert witness in the Ottoman case might have his credibility undermined in court. He said he had it from first rate sources that Bill Tyler’s departure from the army wasn’t quite as voluntary as Bill’s CV made out.

I screwed up my face. ‘Come on, Lee, you’re not serious.’

‘If Bill Tyler gets smacked out of the ball park, what have you got left, Ian?’ She stopped swivelling. ‘You’ve got a stolen plane, and insurers that look like they’re holding out against a legitimate claim. You’ll lose.’

‘When did the old bugger come up with this?’ I flicked the note.

‘Yesterday,’ she said. ‘But he said he gave you a verbal warning already.’

I had a vague recollection of the old sod coming over to our box. He’d asked me if I thought concentrating our whole case on the security angle was wise. I hadn’t paid much attention then, but now I could see what must have been going through his head. If he didn’t tell anyone what he’d heard about Bill Tyler, then maybe Bill would sail through court untouched and win the case for us. The old bugger’s own syndicate wouldn’t take a hit. Then again, risking everything on Bill’s credibility. . . The old tosspot just hadn’t been able to make up his mind.

‘It’s too late now anyway.' I spread my hands. ‘Bill’s report’s in, he’s set to be cross-examined in two days.’

‘I thought this was important to you.’

It was, a lot more important than she knew. I might be able to survive through the K and R disaster, but if we took a hit on Ottoman, Allen wasn’t likely to sack his own daughter. The hunt would be on for a scapegoat, and I was shaping up as candidate number one.

And Barin Mehmet had been involved in both dodgy claims. Too much of a coincidence, not something we should ignore.

I asked Lee what she suggested we do. She asked me when the Ottoman court case reconvened.

Tomorrow, I told her. 10 a.m. sharp.

Her forehead creased, all eight stone of her concentrated on the problem. Finally she said, ‘If I keep digging in the LCO records I might get more on Mehmet. That’ll help, but it won’t be enough. What this really needs is someone turning Ottoman inside-out.’

'The judge won’t wait.’

‘I know.' She looked straight at me. ‘And as I’m busy, . . .’

Right then we heard a voice through the door, Katy calling us in to dinner.

When Lee was gone I helped Katy clear up the plates, and while she was loading the dishwasher she said, ‘I could’ve gone out, you know.’

‘What for?’

She looked up, rolling her eyes.

‘She’s a colleague,’ I said. ‘From work.’

‘So?’

‘And she has a fiancé in San Francisco.’

Closing the dishwasher, she hit the button. Then she stood up straight and faced me. ‘So?’

‘Isn’t it past your bedtime?'

‘She still likes you. I can tell. She really does.’