Hard Place (12 page)

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Kirsty-Ann Webber kissed beaming Leon goodbye and gave her mom a loving hug, promising to be back as soon as she could this evening. She had suffered a sleepless night, not because of Leon but because of the events of the previous day. After a last lingering look at Leon’s chubby face and laughing eyes, she was gone, leaving behind the cosiness of her private life for the harsh reality of being a detective in the FLPD.

Every day was different. The day before, she had gotten involved in what the radio shock-jocks and local media were calling a chase, when in fact it had been nothing of the kind. She had followed a Buick sedan through the toughest part of town after stumbling on a gang confrontation. The Buick left the road and crashed into a wall, leaving the driver dead. Webber said she had played it by the book. She reminded herself for the umpteenth time that from her unmarked car, she had seen the guy, known locally as Muscles Mitch, shoot dead a father and son, both known drug dealers. By chance, she had witnessed every moment of the slaying—cold, brutal, clinical murders. Muscles had been well known to FLPD and had a short life expectancy anyway, being an unemployed drug user and dealer. After killing two guys from a rival gang, it would have been even shorter.

She doubted Muscles even knew he was being followed, let alone chased. High off the buzz of the murders and cocaine, he had driven as if he were invincible and had paid the price. But after any incident like this, there was always a full investigation—looking for lessons to be learned and verifying the officer hadn’t behaved inappropriately. Left-wing activists had packed the airwaves, calling for her head on the block. Right-wingers applauded her courage, when she knew she had done nothing brave at all.

Short of letting the guy disappear without getting his car registration number, Kirsty-Ann was sure she had played it proper. She’d radioed for support but for a vital seventy-five seconds she was alone—just her, the killer, his Buick and a concrete wall at a sharp bend. Good riddance had been her reaction on seeing his very dead body slumped across the front seat. He looked similar to the young thug who had shot her beloved Andy. But being a professional, she’d still checked the body to see if she could do anything.

It was a twenty-minute drive to HQ through the morning traffic. She was nearly there when the radio squawked and the chief’s voice came on the line. “Morning, K-A. How ya doing?”

Kirsty-Ann tried to sound positive. “Hi, Chief! As you would expect.”

“Rough night, I’ll bet. But relax. Yesterday we got rid of three guys who were going to give us grief for the rest of their lives.”

“Thank you. Listening to the radio phone-ins …”

“Ignore them. The investigation will be brief and conclusive. Got it? Anyway, I’m not calling about that. I’ve heard from DC.” He cleared his throat noisily. “Your report was well received. You can continue enquiries with the cruise ships, the casino trips to nowhere and the airlines.”

“Still playing it cool?”

“If you can but the story has broken in Washington. The media know nothing except that Ruthven flew down here and stayed at the Hilton. I’ve already called the hotel and they’re going to release a brief statement that he was there but did not check out. Period.”

“Understood. But Ruthven—who is he? It’s been odd, investigating the disappearance of someone I know nothing about.”

“Well, I was never told either. But if you believe the Washington Post, he worked in Iraq and more recently Afghanistan.”

“So he could be a political target?”

“In theory. But based on your report, I’m not convinced. You want to capture, kill, interrogate a guy like Ruthven, hell, it’s not that hard. The guy’s got no twenty-four-seven protection. He’s a government servant. Could be picked off any time in Washington.”

“Reckon he worked for the CIA?”

“We’ll never be told if he had another role working undercover.” Bucky Buchanan laughed. “A spokesman for the State Department put out a statement expressing mild concern but emphasising that there were no security implications.”

“Which means there were?”

The chief laughed. “Keep an open mind. Ain’t nobody has a better ear to the ground here than you. What they know in DC and ain’t telling us, hell, we can’t work on that.” He paused. “You coming in?”

“Sure, I’m nearly there. I’ll grab the file and eliminate the possibilities one by one.”

“Good! It’ll keep your mind off yesterday.”

Clapham, South London

Ratso opened the pack of M&S sandwiches. Today he had prawn salad on brown with a mango smoothie. He enjoyed a quiet lunch at his desk. It gave him time to think, or, if Test Match Special was on, to get lost in that for half an hour—as lost as you could get with a constant flow of texts, calls and emails coming through. Anything was better lunchtimes than swilling down a pint or two in the Nags Head while watching Tosh and the rest devour soggy chips and burger baps as if they might never eat again.

In front of him was everything on Klodian Skela—his signed statement and notes about the interview, things Ratso had not wanted to include in the statement. Ratso had always believed in mental thumbscrews. See a soft spot, go for it. On his second visit to Skela, he demanded regular updates on everything Bardici on the condition that Ratso would not say a word to Rosafa and he might not be charged. No promises, he had emphasised.

Though his tiny office was well heated, Ratso shivered. He wondered if he was sickening for a cold, or worse still, for flu. The Underground in December was a damned sneezezone, with germs flying everywhere. He sniffed as he dumped the sandwich packet in the bin and returned to his notes. Then, impulsively, he got up, deciding to visit the team.

The Cauldron was quiet. Jock Strang was still in Glasgow. Most of the detectives were out on assignments or over at the Nags Head scoffing cholesterol. After cursory exchanges with DC Venables about Chelsea’s bad away form, he went over the scribbles and pictures on the whiteboard. It was all too familiar. No roads led to Boris Zandro. His name and a photo of Wisteria Lodge were at the bottom right corner of the board but nothing pointed his way at all.

He was about to turn away when a single scribble, just two words—Land Registry—triggered a flash of light. And then he knew. Not that it was on the board—it wasn’t even mentioned. To the astonishment of Venables and Nancy Petrie, he thumped his fist into his left hand and then furiously scribbled solicitors on the board beneath Land Registry. “Yes! Got it! I’ve got it!”

Petrie muttered what’s that, charm or looks but Ratso ignored her, already heading back to his office and the remains of his sandwich. Compared to his thoughtful journey down the stairs, his return was supercharged, energy at full bore. Suddenly a whole new line of enquiry lay ahead.

One small step for man but one giant leap for truth and justice.

He munched on a prawn, anxious to get his desk clear. Arkwright, Fenwick,& Stubbs, solicitors. He had never heard of them till he discovered the firm had acted for the Gibraltar company that bought the block where Skela lived—a block full of Albanian tenants.

London had thousands of lawyers, most of them law-abiding but beneath the surface were others Ratso had learned to despise. Besides those who simply stole client money by teeming and ladling, dishonest lawyers fell into two camps. One type used every dirty trick in the book to get acquittals for villains who were guilty as hell. The other camp comprised low-profile firms who quietly got on with business, uncaring about the laws against money laundering. Only the previous week, an investigatory report had confirmed that more money was laundered through London daily than passed through the offshore islands in months, perhaps years. If the transactions were big enough, the report concluded, the City’s banks balanced risk against reward, turning a blind eye to massive dodgy transfers that would never be permitted through the tight regulatory corset in well-run financial centres like the Isle of Man or Jersey.

Was Arkwright, Fenwick, & Stubbs in that camp? He would check out the partners, check out their business. Everything. For a moment Ratso gazed out of the window at the endless gray of a wintry afternoon. He watched a bus splashing through the December rain and a woman wrestling with a broken umbrella. His hands were sweaty and his heart was racing—good signs that he was onto something. That, or he had man-flu coming on.

Boris Zandro, I’m coming to get you.

It was a rare moment of euphoria to be savored, like winning the lottery and momentarily living the dream. But just like that daydream, harsh reality was swift to return as Ratso studied his notes and pored over the research done during the Wensley Hughes investigation. Nobody had checked out these solicitors or the purchase of Wisteria Lodge. Just a few keystrokes revealed Terry Fenwick was the senior partner and that Boris Zandro’s London home was owned by an Isle of Man company called Menora Holdings Limited with a registered office in Athol Street, Douglas. Zandro must be a tenant.

Damn it! He had hoped for another Gibraltar link. But was Menora just a front for Zandro?

Ratso kept on digging, trawling through the data from the Manx Companies Registry, hoping that Terry Fenwick’s name would leap off the screen as a director of Menora. It did not. Another bloody wall. The directors were Manx chartered accountants from a reputable firm. The real owner was hidden by nominee shareholders. Ratso’s thoughts flashed back to a visit to the island on a sunny day, when Douglas Bay was a Mediterranean blue. Over a plate of delicious local Queenies on the promenade, an advocate from the attorney general’s department had explained that a nominee shareholder typically held the shares under a trust deed for the true owner. That owner’s name was not publicly recorded.

Boris Zandro, I’m coming to get you. But it’s bloody difficult!

He surfed the web for anything more about the firm, about Terry Fenwick. These days, most law firms used websites and press releases to cram Google with enough puff and stuff to raise profile. But not this lot. All roads led to nowhere. The solicitor had no profile; he never appeared in Law Reports, never wrote articles; his website did not boast of deals done or victories achieved. The Internet revealed only a simple web page offering the firm’s services for corporate and commercial law. One of his partners had the same name and was probably Terry’s brother or son; another was a woman. None of them had a photo beside their profile. None of them had a profile at all.

Boris Zandro ran his affairs through companies. Was Terry Fenwick his lawyer? Was Fenwick the man who used Zandro’s wealth to invest in blocks of flats, in Wisteria Lodge and God knew what else? It was possible. It was certainly worth flogging the idea.

Was Terry Fenwick a heads-down-get-on-and-service-the-clients type of solicitor, as the website implied? Ratso wondered how the hell a three-lawyer firm, tiny by City standards, could survive with the heavy overheads of Lime Street EC3. Surrounded by giant Square Mile companies with thousands of staff spread across the globe, Arkwright, Fenwick,& Stubbs apparently survived with a size and structure more suitable to London’s outer suburbia.

Don’t get ahead of yourself. The partners only need a handful of clients with large property transactions to make a good profit. Ratso doodled heavily with a thick black marker pen as he argued with himself. No. Something smells here.

While no cause for celebration, his instincts encouraged him to risk a machine coffee and a few moments later he was returning with the flimsy paper cup, its heat nearly scalding his hand. He looked again at the printout for Chewbeck Holdings Limited—Klodian Skela’s landlord. The nominee shareholder was called Beckchew Limited—obviously from the same stable and also registered in Gibraltar. His fingers flying over the keys, Ratso muttered, “Surprise me,” but the search on Beckchew Limited only produced yet another nominee shareholder. You could dig till you reached Australia but you would never find the name of the true owner, the mastermind, the real moneybags.

For a moment, Ratso’s head drooped as he let out a sigh, his eyes shut tight. He drummed the desk in frustration. The identity of the true owner, the moneybags, would be recorded on that Rock—or should be. The KYC rules meant the Gibraltar agents should have checked true ownership and that the source of money was kosher.

No easy way of knowing who or where the purchase money for the apartment block came from.

No! Wrong!

Terry Fenwick, as a London solicitor, had to know his client, had to be satisfied about the source of funds when acting for the Gibraltar company. So go and ask him. Twenty minutes and you’ll be in his Lime Street office.

Oh, sure, Ratso! Go jump in with both big feet? Risk alerting Boris Zandro that you’re sniffing around his lawyer? You don’t even know Boris Zandro’s solicitor is Terry Fenwick.

He logged onto the Law Society’s website. It offered advice to solicitors if money laundering was suspected. For thirty minutes, he read through endless pages of hair-splitting jargon. One thing was clear: if he had acted for Zandro on these property deals, Fenwick would protest he had no reason to suspect any fraud or money laundering and therefore had no duty to make a Suspicious Activity Report.

Okay, so I go and interview him. What would Fenwick say—assuming he’s bent, that is. He’d ask who’s under suspicion. So I’d say Boris Zandro. And he might say, never heard of him. Or he might adjust his pinstripe and say, yeah, I’ve acted for him or his companies but I’m under no duty to disclose anything.

So I’d say well whatever you do, not a word to Mr Zandro that Det. Inspector Todd Holtom has been making enquiries. If you do, it’s the criminal offense of tipping off. Understood? And Fenwick would nod solemnly and shake my hand, promising to keep stumm. Door slams. End of meeting. And as soon as I’ve gone, Fenwick tips off Zandro.

No, Todd. No size-tens on Fenwick’s plush carpet. Gotta link Fenwick to Boris Zandro.

Terry Fenwick = Possible Key

He drained the coffee, grimaced and decided to clear his head by popping round to Café Nero for a real cup. Sometimes he’d found a change of scene from his broom cupboard triggered an idea. But not today. By the time he finished his latte with an extra shot, his notepad was full of circled doodles but at their heart were just four words. Fenwick: Connect the Dots. In other words, Sweet FA. Or perhaps within those four words lay an opening. But how?