Hard Place (28 page)

“Aye, unless he’s worried about clues Tare may have left behind.”

“Hard to back off now. Firstly,” Ratso lifted each finger in turn, “because Nomora has sailed. Secondly, we’re not dealing with some lowlife like Jerry Hogan who left school at sixteen and couldn’t read. If Adrian Fenwick is our man, this guy has a degree from Oxford. He’s a qualified solicitor.

“Aye, these Fenwick brothers must be smart, careful. Had to be to run this operation under our noses for years.”

“I agree, Jock. They’ll believe Tare was squeaky clean with no convenient address-book. This lot have survived because of minimal contact and all traces and arses covered.”

“So his Varsity brain will tell him to follow the old wartime motto: keep calm and carry on.”

Jock offered round chocolate in Father Christmas wrappers. Tosh grabbed two before he dashed from the room.

Ratso nodded toward the departing figure. “Santa didn’t bring Tosh a new bladder then!” He ran a hand through his hair as he turned serious and then leaned on the table, his hands cupped under his chin. “Way I see it, Jock, nobody could run an operation like this without leaving a paper trail of some kind—credit cards, receipts, tickets, something.”

“Pity the Osman law lost us the chance to have Tare followed. But if ye ask me, boss—Zandro’s committed. Tirana Queen sailed to the Turkish port of Alanya. That’s an easy crossing from Kyrenia.” He stood up and turned to rinse out his mug. “Afghanistan to Iran to Turkey—that’s a major heroin supply route. I’ll bet ye a wee dram that Zandro met Shirafi in Alanya and paid for the smack using Hawala. But I’m telling ye, Shirafi was not on board when the yacht returned to Northern Cyprus. We photo’d everyone.”

“No surprise.” Ratso sighed. “Shirafi rarely shifts his fat arse from his palace in Kabul but he might have reached Turkey for such a big deal. You saw no sign Zandro had picked up any gear?”

“Nothing. Zandro, the crew and some camp-followers came ashore carrying zilch. If he picked it up in Alanya, it must still be on board.”

Ratso was thinking aloud. “Unless he transferred it at sea?” He discarded the thought. “Nah! Zandro would never get that close to drugs.” He watched Jock bite the head from a chocolate Santa. “I reckon he had no choice but to attend a tough meeting with Shirafi …”

“Because of the delays,” Jock finished the thought, nodding in agreement.

Ratso’s eyelids lowered as he sat in quiet thought. “If you want to shift hot money, big money or pay for drugs, you’re right—Hawala’s a great way to do it.” He handed over his mug for washing. “And I reckon Nomora will head for Turkey. For Zandro to spend a million on a refit, he’ll sweat the asset.”

“You mean Micky Quigley will first pick up some of Colombia’s finest?”

“Yup! Somewhere round the Caribbean. Those ultra-fast speedboats often bring cocaine into the small islands.”

“Aye, right enough. Or it gets dropped to Nomora by parachute from a small plane.”

“Turkey was so out of character for Zandro, it just had to be important.” Ratso rose, winced slightly and moved stiffly across the kitchen to grab a tea towel.

“And as for the Fenwicks, however clever they may be, they canna rewrite history—the companies Terry formed, the money trail to Gibraltar.”

Ratso chipped in. “And the transfers from the Gibraltar bank to pay for the vessel and the shipyard.”

Tosh returned looking less like a man in agony and offered round jam doughnuts. Jock accepted but after the cake, Ratso found it easy to decline. Tosh chewed enthusiastically and a gave a grunt of pleasure as he reached the jammy middle. “Okay, boss, what next?”

Ratso thought for a moment. “We monitor Nomora. We watch Adrian Fenwick. We get there ports from the lab boys on Rudi Tare’s laptop and phones. But I’m not expecting to strike gold. Trace every phone number used by Tare—follow up all numbers, any names found on scraps of paper around the place.”

“Dinna hold yer breath, boss. Rudi Tare seemed to destroy everything. There are shredders everywhere and the word here is that neither Tare not the minder are singing.”

Ratso’s face showed no surprise. “Tosh, I want the links from Lime Street to Gibraltar proved tighter than a duck’s arse. Jock, check out that Turkish port—Alanya, was it? See if it has a history of heroin exporting. That may be the route Zandro’s used before. I’m going to concentrate on the London clubs.” He rapped the glass table top with his knuckle. “Remember, we have one goal: bringing down Zandro himself. Anything less is failure.”

Clapham, South London

Ratso was seated in Detective Chief Inspector Tennant’s office. There was a strong smell of embrocation. “Done your back in gardening, boss?” Ratso gave no hint that he was being sarcastic. Everyone knew Arthur Tennant had his eye on an apparent workplace injury leading to early retirement with a truckload of compensation.

Tennant groaned theatrically. “Bad fall this morning round the back. The lazy sods hadn’t treated the ice in the carpark. The pain’s getting worse.”

“And you just back from your holiday, too! I hope you had some good witnesses.” Ratso managed to sound sympathetic. “But you really shouldn’t be here. Typical of you, guv! Soldiering on.”

Tennant faltered, then answered with glib assurance, his eyes as shifty as a lying defendant in the box. “I’ve a doctor’s appointment—and yes. DC Mason found me on the ground and I made a report at once.”

“See you fall, did he?”

“No but I showed him the ice and he helped me up. I couldn’t move.” He emitted a loud groan, his face screwed up with apparent pain.

I bet you just lay down by the ice and waited for a witness, you lying toad. “Home run, then.”

“Coming on top of last year’s injury to my spine, not good. Remember I wrestled that yobbo to the ground?” He shook his head in resignation.

Ratso remembered that so-called incident. The yobbo had denied resisting arrest and there had been no witness. “Straw that broke the camel’s back, eh, boss?”

Tennant opened the drawer where he kept his annual poppy and removed a couple of Ibuprofen from a container. “I fear the worst, Ratso. This could finish me.” He swilled down the pills with a swig of tea.

“Tragic, sir. Not the end to a great career you would have wanted, is it? No more golf either, if you’re crippled. You’ll just have to spend your retirement counting your compensation. But on the bright side, you’d get to see more of your place in Majorca!”

Tennant shifted uncomfortably in his seat, whether in pain or because the image of him counting damages was a tad too close to the truth, Ratso was unsure. He noticed there was no grimace or groan this time. “Anyway,” Tennant continued, “I’ve read the reports. What a joke! Protecting Rudi Tare!” He snorted. “Any fallout?”

“Hard to tell. Both Fenwicks are under observation. Remember we had the Crawley connection tip but it led to nothing?”

“Go on.”

“Adrian Julian Fenwick commutes from Copthorne, just a mile or two outside Crawley.”

“Something and nothing. Lifestyle?”

“Like his brother, except he’s a bachelor. Seventeenth-century cottage. Two beds. Bit of land. S-Type Jag, under two years old. A small sailing boat kept at Brighton Marina.”

“The third partner in the firm? What about her? She must know what’s going on.”

“Lynda Dorwood? Good thought, sir but she only does conveyancing. She’s never filed a single document at Companies House. She’s been with the firm only four years and came from Birmingham. Her father was a president of the Law Society.”

“How could she not know?”

“Because the brothers do nothing obviously unlawful from the office. If I’m right, Terry meets Zandro by chance at a club.”

“The brother?”

“Lives barely thirty minutes from Brighton. He could have been meeting Rudi Tare by chance in pubs all over Sussex. My good mate Assistant Chief Constable Rick Longman was a tad embarrassed—said Tare had never come up on their radar at all.”

“You can prove they meet?” The tone was sharp.

“We will, guv, we will.” Ratso spread his fingers wide on the table. “This is my theory. After picking up orders from Zandro, Terry sets up whatever companies will be needed and fixes the money. He briefs his brother. Julian call-me-Adrian is the doer, closer to the real action, gets his hands dirty. Julian uses—well, used—Rudi Tare as his main South Coast distributor.”

“There’s another?”

“We found a couple of phone numbers in the minder’s room and an address in Wellington Street, Leeds but no street number. Could be in an apartment block. That’s being checked out.”

“Where’s the gear been coming into the UK? Julian Fenwick’s yacht?”

“Convenient but no. Far too small. It’s just a dinghy.” Ratso checked his pad. “In Tare’s bedroom, behind his dressing table, we found a receipt for fitting a new exhaust pipe to a Ford Iveco van in Dover. We’re checking that out, tracing the van. Dover’s interesting. The date of repair coincided with that rumoured delivery last August. That might point to the van having met a bigger truck coming in from Europe.”

“Clutching at straws, aren’t we?” Another wince and groan accompanied the comment.

You negative, time-serving shitbag. “Every little helps, boss.” Ratso fixed Tennant with a sympathetic stare. “You’re not looking too good at all,” he lied. “You must be badly shaken, guv. Don’t miss that doctor’s appointment.”

Outside Tennant’s room, Ratso let go of his frustration by kicking the skirting-board. He felt better for it. He glared back at Tennant’s office and thought of the poor sods in Stoke Mandeville who really did have a back injury. “Shitbag,” he muttered as he made a mental note to put in for tickets for Longman and Uden to join him on the next outings. Longman had been keen to help out at the cricket and Graham Uden wanted to treat the patients to burgers at the Eight Bells when they came to watch Fulham.

Making light of his own body-under-repair, Ratso bounded down two flights of stairs, delighted to get away from Tennant as quickly as possible. The Cauldron was almost empty but the stuffy smell of stale sweat and a curry takeaway lingered. After being with Tennant, it was like a breath of fresh air to be with Tosh and the perky Nancy Petrie. They were standing by the whiteboard and writing up the latest position of Nomora.

“Definitely heading for Europe,” Tosh volunteered. He led Ratso to his cluttered desk and showed the position on his screen. “No way is she going to Nigeria to pick up a load of gear. She’s one-eighty miles north of Madeira now.”

Ratso leaned forward to study the screen more closely. “Europe, yes—but north or south? If she’s going to the UK or Spain, she’d be taking a more northerly route.”

“Unless there were sea conditions that kept her south?”

“Check out the reports for the past week. But to me, she’s going to enter the Med at Gibraltar.”

“Heading for Turkey?”

“I hope so.”

Nancy twisted to face Ratso. “But, boss, she’s come from the cocaine belt. She must have gear on board. We know it never stopped at Nigeria. It hasn’t stopped since leaving Freeport. You reckon she’s come all this way empty?”

“I’m with you but if she never stopped, how in hell did the gear get aboard?”

Petrie was dogged as usual. “If she picked up gear from a fishingboat or it was dropped from a small plane, we wouldn’t know that.”

“No more HMS Manchester patrolling down there.”

Tosh looked surprised. “Stopped patrols, have they?”

“February 2011. Government cutbacks. Just another sign Britain’s going to the dogs. Bust, buggered and bankrupt.” Ratso scowled as he warmed to his theme. “We’re fighting a war against guys with unlimited cash and Britain can’t even afford a naval vessel to stop the drugs from reaching the UK anymore. HMS Manchester did a great job. Besides our government licking the hairy arse of the bastard in Kabul.”

“The world’s mad,” volunteered Petrie, flicking her head in an act of defiance.

“Subprime mortgages in the USA. That’s what started it,” suggested Tosh as he reached for a crumbly Danish pastry.

“Greedy bankers,” added Nancy.

“Damn fool politicians,” Ratso snapped. “What chance do kids of decent folk have?” He grabbed a chair. “So,” he sighed, rant over, “we are where we are. Nomora could have picked up a load at sea unmonitored.”

“The only other place would be in Grand Bahama.”

“The boys had her under visual from the moment she left drydock till she was about ten miles offshore. Nothing happened.” Even as he spoke, a new idea flashed through his mind. That’s why he loved these little chats; just sometimes, something new emerged. “The shipyard. She could have taken drugs on board during the works.”

Tosh grinned. “You always said there was something hooky about the refit.”

Nancy Petrie chipped in. “The cost could have been a huge bung to the yard for a load of gear being taken aboard, disguised as oceanographic equipment.”

“Or for work done not on the schedule. Or a bit of both.” Ratso gave Nancy a nod of approval. “For now, we assume that vessel is hot with cocaine. My snout only knew this was going to be a mega delivery of drugs—undefined. It was me who assumed it was all coming from Shirafi. Maybe Nomora will carry both. If she shows the slightest sign of heading north for Spain and the UK, I want to know instantly. We’ll need to alert the Spanish boys.”

“You’re forgetting something, boss. We’ve not the slightest evidence there’s even one gram of coke on board, let alone enough to get the Spanish navy out.”

Ratso grinned. “Tosh, if Nomora heads north, she’s not entering the Channel to test for plankton—not with Micky Quigley on board. I’m going to phone Darren Roberts in Freeport.” He checked the time. “He’ll enjoy an early morning wake-up call.”

Mayfair, Central London, W1

Could life be any better than this? Ratso wondered as he walked through the mild evening air. After the recent bitter cold that may have helped Arthur Tennant on his way to a large damages claim, the change in wind direction had made the afternoon and evening unseasonably warm. He had raced home and changed into his best gray single-breasted, a pale blue shirt, chunky cufflinks and a carefully selected sober tie in maroon and navy. Where he was going, mobile phones and other gizmos were banned in the bar and over dinner, so for a while he would be off message. Bloody marvellous!

No question—today had been pretty good. Solid progress and no sign of Adrian Fenwick panicking like Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army. So was he one cool cookie or was he innocent? The call to Darren Roberts had inched matters forward. Now, with those warm feelings already making every step a pleasure, the walk from Green Park Station up Berkeley Street was giving him time to think of his chat with Kirsty-Ann.

Earlier, he and Charlene had met up for lunch in the Rocket by Putney Bridge, the only time he’d seen her since the raid in Brighton. The trouble was, he had enjoyed her company—had laughed, felt seduced, charmed, whatever. But she had to dash back to work and the magic had gone, leaving him with her invitation for him to move in. Invitation? It was more of a plea. He had gently declined. She had made her displeasure clear in bucketfuls.

If only she could be satisfied with the occasional lunch, a night out and then giving each other a right good seeing-to. But fair enough, that wasn’t what she wanted anymore. Even though she was as horny as a rabbit on Viagra, she wanted security, two kids—one of each, she had said. “There’s nobody else I want or need,” she had volunteered sadly as they had parted. “I think I’ve been in love with you for so long. Too long with your attitude towards me.”

“If you need support, count on me. I’ll be there for you but semi-detached only,” he said as he’d picked up the bill. Plainly, that was not going to swing it. With a huge hug and a wistful smile, they had parted, probably for good.

The doorman outside the Palm Beach Casino wished Ratso a cheery good evening as if he knew him. The intrusion broke the train of thought, leaving him free to anticipate Kirsty-Ann’s arrival next month. Their occasional late-night chats, London time and the frequent text messages had filled him with anticipation. Her gift of a bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne in a presentation box had awaited his return to Clapham. Already he was planning her week in London, almost living every moment already.

And tomorrow he would know whether Nomora was heading north or into the Med. God! It had better be Turkey or Northern Cyprus. Otherwise, I’m back to first base.

Ratso loved walking in London after dark, at least in the better parts of the city. He was now in the heart of clubland, just off Berkeley Square in Mayfair. The streets were busy with taxis heading for restaurants or looking out for late shoppers. Round here there were better cars—stretch limos, Bentleys, Aston Martins and smarter-looking totty in designer outfits and coiffured with elegance unseen in his stamping grounds of Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush.

He had spoken to the secretary of the Poulsden Club the day before and had been invited for the evening, one of the occasional nights when members were allowed to bring a guest. His cover was that he worked in a senior role in the Home Office on matters linked to immigration but that was unlikely to be much of a topic because the secretary had seated him for dinner next to Bruce Sparsfield, the former England cricket captain, on one side and Don Geering, the Olympic rower, on the other. Sparsfield had captained a successful team to the West Indies but had suffered a humiliating tour of Australia, so he had been eased into resignation. Geering had captured gold and since then had delivered the fastest ever time over two kilometers when racing on Lake Bled in Slovenia last summer. If that were not good enough, the secretary, a former brigadier in the Royal Artillery, was going to give him twenty minutes before drinks to discuss Terry Fenwick.

As he entered the club, up a wide sweep of steps and through revolving doors, he felt curiously like a fish out of water. He had never been in an elite members’ club where to be admitted was proof of a status to which he could never aspire. Inside the carpeted entrance, beyond the porters’ glory hole, was a cavernous, vaulted room filled with deep leather chairs, flowers, statues in marble or bronze and what Ratso assumed were valuable objets d’art. Portraits of men famous in their time but now long forgotten hung round the pastel blue of the walls and spotlights picked out the rich colors of the oil paint. At one end, with pleasure, Ratso saw a portrait he recognised from school days as being the Duke of Wellington. I bet club members would recognise them all. Different upbringing.

At his local Comprehensive, Ratso had learned how to survive in an urban jungle and not much more. History had been Henry having six wives and Alfred burning some damned cakes. Oh yes and a spider in a cave. His eyes were drawn to a marble staircase that dominated everything. It rose straight ahead and then divided left and right to a balconied area. Everything oozed class, wealth, stability—a throwback to days when the British Empire ruled the world. Now it couldn’t afford just one vessel to fight a drug war, let alone protect the Falklands again.

The hall porter took Ratso down a side corridor and ushered him into a wood-panelled room with a desk straddling one corner. The carpet was old, thick and yet in good repair, an Axminster, its colors matching Ratso’s tie. Behind the mahogany desk was a crinkly haired figure with a broad smile and what proved to be a fierce handshake. He was aged about fifty-eight and introduced himself as Roger Herbison. He did not return to his desk but instead ushered Ratso to a pair of chairs positioned by a low table on which lay a decanter of sherry and two glasses. “Whisky, if you prefer?”

“Sherry will be excellent.” Ratso recalled he had last drunk sherry when still at school, over twenty years back. Also on the table was a printout of what Herbison had been working on. “Shall we get straight down to what I have established?” Herbison’s voice was mellow, slow and reassuring.

“One question first, if I may? I know the history of the club—becoming a member is harder than getting a straight answer from a politician. So how did Terry Fenwick get admitted? From what I know, he is an undistinguished solicitor and being a member of a profession is not enough anyway. You require excellence like a rowing gold medal or a knighthood or being one of Her Majesty’s judges.”

“High Court and above only. Circuit Court judges would not qualify.” Herbison ran his fingers through his pepper-and-salt hair and his eyes twinkled. “But Terry Fenwick got in because his father, a property developer from Birmingham, bought out our short-term lease and donated us one for 999 years on the condition that his two sons could join if they applied and would by right be entitled to be on our committee.”

“And the father?”

“Tragically, he died a pauper. A property crash revealed he was over too highly geared and he went, shall we say, bellyup.” He topped up both glasses with pale, dry sherry from the crystal decanter. “Terry did join. The other son never showed any interest.” Ratso noted that there was no third son.

“I bet some of the old-time members huffed and puffed about admitting an upstart.”

“Very perceptive of you. All hell broke loose. Terry Fenwick would have been blackballed by the majority, if not unanimously. But a pressing rent demand concentrated minds. Of course, the old man had us by the short and curlies. Acquiring a virtual freehold in Mayfair is gold dust. The club would have folded like many others if we had to pay market rents.”

“So everyone held their noses and voted yes.”

Herbison laughed. “Bang on!” Then he turned serious. “Is the Poulsden going to be mentioned in dispatches, Mr Holtom?”

“Do call me Todd, if you wish.” Ratso did not want to scare the horses. “That depends on many things that are at present … unpredictable. But if a member has been a naughty boy, then he will have to come down to the headmaster’s study.”

“I see.” Herbison smiled ruefully and let out a resigned sigh. “I feared you might say that.” He sipped thoughtfully. “But there is a bright side. Some of the older members will be able to say we told you so.”

“Boris Zandro?”

“Not a member. He has never applied.” Ratso reckoned that unsaid was a message that perhaps he too would be blackballed. “He is an occasional guest, sometimes even of a former Labour prime minister. Mr Zandro is a flash money cove, something the chaps don’t much care for.” He reached forward and handed a lengthy printout to Ratso. “You will not miss the salient point, I am sure.”

Ratso glanced at the list of dates going back eleven years. “Is this when records started?”

“No. That is when we got computerised. The older records are available in ledgers if you need them.”

Ratso checked the number of occasions when both men had attended the club on the same day—twenty-three times in the last five years and the visits came in clusters. “What does the A stand for?” Ratso asked of the letter beside Fenwick’s name. It did not appear every time but was beside all twenty-three times when Zandro had been a guest.

“That means Fenwick had accommodation—stayed the night in one of our club rooms.”

“So Zandro only visited the club when Fenwick had a bed here.” Even as he spoke, both men’s eyes met as if they shared a common thought. “No, I doubt either man is gay. But could Zandro be dining with Lord Bloggs of Tully Blagnett or whatever and then slip off to the bedrooms and meet Fenwick in private?”

“My dear chap, why not? This is a members’ club. There’s no security. Mattrafact, Fenwick always asks for a ground-floor room, so for Zandro to pop along would be easy.”

“Did the two ever dine together?”

“Not to my knowledge. Never saw them speak and I’ve been here four years now. I had no idea they might even know each other.”

“You said they were not here tonight.” Ratso’s natural suspicion that this was due to a leak had nagged away at him but Herbison was reassuring.

“Quite a few members loathe nights like this when maybe thirty or forty guests, call them strangers, invade their space. They vote with their feet. I’ve checked; neither man normally attends guest nights.”

Ratso drained his glass. “That’s good to know. You’ve been very helpful and I don’t have to remind you that this is wholly confidential.”

“Mum’s the word, old boy. Your secret’s safe with me. May I ask what this is all about? Crime boss, is he, this Zandro fellow?”

Ratso put down his glass and rather hoped his next sherry would be another twenty years away. “You may well think that but I couldn’t possibly comment. Sorry.”

The secretary looked up. “Ah! That wonderful Francis Urquhart line from House of Cards. Says it all, really. Well, if there’s anything else I can do for you, old chap?”

“I may have a big favour to ask and if the answer’s no, I won’t be able to accept it. But let’s not spoil this evening thinking about that.”

“You saw Fenwick’s staying overnight next Tuesday?”

“I did and I’ll get back to you about that. One more thing. I bet you have pigeonholes here? For members to leave messages or to receive mail from mistresses and so on?”

Herbison stood up, laughing. “You may well think that but I couldn’t possibly comment. My lips are sealed on the contents but yes, members communicate via pigeonholes all the time. Mostly it’s leaving tickets for Covent Garden or Twickenham but we’re not here to question if one of our members is receiving love letters from a popsy in Barnes.”

Ratso laughed too but quickly became serious. “I want every letter, note, message left for either Zandro or Fenwick to be photographed or scanned and its arrival time and date to be scheduled, please. By you personally but without causing raised eyebrows.”

Herbison rubbed his hands nervously. “Not steaming things open, I hope? That would not be cricket.”

Ratso quickly disarmed Herbison on that one. “No. Call me at once. Just copy the envelopes, the handwriting. But don’t just pick their mail. Pick other members at random and keep the nosy hall porters from becoming suspicious. You have a camera?”

“Even better. We have a scanner, believe it or not. We do move with the times here.” Herbison chuckled.

“Thanks. I owe you a favour.”

“Drugs, is it?” Herbison enjoyed dropping the word into the silence.

“You might think that but I could not possibly comment.”

Dinner of Parma ham followed by turbot and saddle of lamb flew by in a blur of repartee and alcohol. Nevertheless, Ratso felt very aware of his lack of education seated among so many with University degrees and a talent with words. But he held his own, living the lie that he worked in the Home Office. It was easy deflecting interest by keeping his celebrated neighbours talking about cricket and the Olympics.

When the evening ended in a glorious haze of fine wines, port and brandies, Ratso was fired up, enervated by the company and the testosterone-charged atmosphere. It had made him feel like a lion on the prowl. During dessert, when the former England captain offered him a lift, saying his driver would be heading for Kingston, whole new vistas emerged of how the evening might end. With the Stilton, the magnificent vintage port had begun circling the table quicker than tassels on a stripper’s nipples. After the third glass of Taylor’s 1970, Ratso found Bruce Sparsfield’s offer irresistible. To hell with the long-term. After all, he reasoned, he genuinely liked Charlene, indeed was very fond of her. She knew where he stood, no deception. And right now, being fired up, he fancied her something rotten.