Raucous (22 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

Roach drove down the driveway and out onto the street.  He didn’t indicate or look for oncoming traffic.  The wheels screeched as he accelerated as he turned.  Charlotte held onto the dashboard with both hands.

“We need to be honest,” she said.  “About us.”

Roach kept driving, looking straight.  The wipers were working on the lowest setting.  The car in front was throwing up spray from the road as drizzle fell.  The streets were full of commuters going home at a leisurely speed.  Lights were on as dusk fell.  The windscreen alternated between blurred dazzle and clear screen.

“I know you are no nurse,” Roach said.  “I did my background check, just like Balfour just tried on us.  I know what you are.  Know what you are capable of.  I wouldn’t want to come up against you.”

“You won’t have to.”

“Reassuring.”

They fell back into their silence as traffic slowed and rain fell.

“So what’s Fairbank?”  Charlotte asked.

Roach had stopped as the cars in front had also.  Looking ahead there was the blurred red of a temporary traffic light.  Roach inhaled slowly, an attempt by an ex-smoker to enact an old habit.

“A prolonged investigation that finished with nothing in 2005.”

“Same year you took early retirement.”

“Same year I quit.  No point starting up something new that would only have the same end as everything from the previous year.”

Charlotte turned around and looked through the back window. “We are being followed.”

“We always are,” Roach said. “A minute after we left Belfour. The red Fiesta.”

“Who it is?”

“No idea.”

“So Fairbank?”

Roach turned his head to Charlotte sharply.  He looked surprised but angry.  “Where did you get that word from?”

“You say it sometimes when you mumble to yourself.  What is it? Or where is it?”

“It’s one of those random words police give to investigations.  There should be no connection.  Probably the place a guy went on honeymoon.  But it was an Investigation.  A long a deep one, into Pedophile rings, high up.  Police, politicians.  Important people.”

Charlotte had read articles in papers, the witch hunts and the evil people that tried to feign innocence.  But she had never heard Fairbank.

“And you found nothing?” she asked.

Roach pushed his back against his seat with a lot of strength from his legs.  He let his head fall back and he took a deep breath through his nose.

“We found everything.  And I mean everything.  We had videos, photos, confessions.  We had everything.  All of them.  All dead and gone.  We had them all.”

“I don’t remember it being news.”

“The media knows, the information passes to them very quickly.  They pay for it, and we’re happy to pass it over.  It is not a secret what we had.  You just can’t publish it.”

The traffic started moving again, Roach slipped unsteadily from first to second to third.  The engine revving too high for each one.  They arrived at the next red light, and Roach put the car in neutral and lifted the handbrake.   

“We only had the evidence for two days.,” Roach said. “Some big hitters came in, Chamberlain and Belfour at the front.  People from my old department tried to stand up, and we got hit with the Official Secrets act. And Belfour and Chamberlain walked away with it all.  We got shut down.  Again.  So I quit.”

Charlotte noticed that the anger had gone from his voice, he was quieter, resigned, like he had thought through a million times and come as close to peace with a failure that he could.

“You should have stayed on,” Charlotte said. “They are bringing everyone in.”

Roach snorted and shook his head.  He banged the heel of his right hand on the steering wheel and the horn sounded.  “Who’s the biggest name they have brought down?”

“The DJ?” Charlotte said, trying to keep her voice low and soothing.

“Yeah, a DJ.  And some other mildly talentless perverts who worked in the industry.  Comedians, entertainers, all nobodies in the scheme of things.  I was Westminster, Ranking police, we filmed two of their parties.  We had the lot.  Not pleasant viewing.  I interviewed the big fat one.  I interviewed his victims.”

“They got him eventually.  Everyone knows.”

Roach tried to put the car into first, but he mistimed or forgot to dip the clutch and the gears ground together.  Roach forced the gear stick forward and pressed down with his foot, they crunched into place and the car jerked forward.

“When?  When did they get him?”  Roach asked. “After he died.  They let him live out his entire fat life, and then when he was unable to speak, unable to name names, he suddenly gets outed.  Everyone they have brought down so far, and will bring down officially, are a group of low-intelligence perverts who were excluded from the real scene because they were not to be trusted.”

“The DJ had important friends.”

The traffic slowed to a stop, Roach eased the car into neutral and let it glide.  The car slowed and the breaks whistled.

“Yes, he did, and another that got to live out his life.  All the way to the end, untouched.  His legacy is tarnished, but what would he care?  And I don’t believe in there being a hell, so there’s no comfort for me in thinking he’s being Heronomous Bosched for eternity.”

“So why are you helping me?”

“Because I know about Sir Alex Chamberlain.”

“You had proof on him?”

“Nothing.  He’s the smartest of the lot.  Involved but distant.  But the situation has changed.  The public has changed.  Now I can get to him.  I can bring him down before he dies and posthumously his life is ripped apart.”

“And Rollin?”

“Rollin isn’t one of them, not in that sense.  He has no contact whatsoever.  He’s clean.  He likes women.  Not even young ones.  He just likes women.  Twenties if he can, thirties, hell forties if they are holding up well.”

Roach pulled over into a lay-by.  He switched off the engine.  The windscreen became a blur of speckled water.  The rain was heavier and it beat on the roof.  He watched a red blur drive slowly by. 

“I’m after Rollin,” Charlotte said.

“They are not mutually exclusive.”

“Rollin is the key for me.”

“Rollin has influence, and as you know that influence takes the shape of Chamberlain.  Contracts others should have won, he gained.  No bribes, no muscle or threats, nothing of the classic nature.  He and Chamberlain have had an exchange of mutually economically beneficial deals for a number of years.  And once you start, and have the backing of a man of Chamberlain’s influence, then you have to be very bad at your work to falter.  And Rollin is not a bad businessman.”

“He’s hardly on the rich list.”

“I don’t believe he wants to be.  He is comfortable.  He said as much, and he is backed up with the most in-depth financial investigation.  He has little liquidity.  If he were of the inclination to pack up tomorrow he would need to sell all of his property before being truly rich.  He has a few hundred thousand cash.  And millions in property.  He’s richly comfortable, and that’s how he likes it.”

“Chamberlain?”

“Different story.  The man thrives on influence.  He is one of them, but it isn’t his sole goal in life.  He is untouchable.  If he spoke and gave names, and presented the evidence I believe he undoubtedly has, then two generations of highly influential people will fall.”

“He has done that much?”

“He’s a facilitator.  With his own side benefits.”

Charlotte reached for the glove compartment, opened it and pulled out a revolver.  Military issue Beretta, she clicked the magazine from the handle, checked its contents.  It had a full load of bullets as she knew it did.  She slid clip back into the slot and placed the gun on her lap.

The window on the passenger’s side was wrapped by knuckles.  Charlotte pressed a button on the panel and the window slid down, her hand clenched the gun, her finger on the trigger, the barrel pointed to shoot through the door.

Michael’s medium length black hair was wet through and stuck to his forehead. His blue grey suit had become several shades darker due to rain.

“Mr. Balfour would like to ask you to return to his residence.  He forgot to add some information.  And now he knows who you are, he’d like to speak more openly.”

Michael noticed the gun.

“You’ll have to leave that in the car, and if you follow me, I’m in the red ford you know that’s been following you since this morning."

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

Raucous moved slowly and quietly.

Stealth through a natural reaction to a dark building and the insecurity of someone who was sure the place was empty but did not want to be caught.  But it was too late in the day for anyone to be around and question him.  Entry had been easy.  The key procured by the simplest channel.  It was traceable back to him if each of the three people in turn were asked.  But if someone wanted to know, then it meant his plan had failed. 

              Raucous had the protection of position now.  The Turk had gone and Raucous had moved in.  Raucous was the acting top man.  He knew there were those who would chase him down, some who would not accept.  And that would come to be, but too late.  Raucous protected himself, and for a brief period, a month at most, Raucous would be the man.  

It couldn't last.  Raucous had the Turk's office but none of his networks.  Raucous was alone, each branch of the Turk's previous business, plotting and devising and hoping for freedom, independence, more money and a name.

Someone would take over; it was too big a business for it to be held together by one person.  Turk had influence, which meant he had help. Raucous would receive none.  He knew that, and he was too stuck in his ways to change now.  He did not have the skills or ability to sit in an office and hold together a multi-layered business of confusing legality.  His plan was something else. 

The set-up would fracture, had already started to splinter, and would fight and reform many times over like kids growing up in high school, a fluid confusing, incomprehensible fluctuation of groups and friendships and alliances.  But before it came to the start, Raucous would take what he needed and slip away. 

Tonight was a small piece, important for the whole, but more so for him.  A personal project, a benefit to the eventual outcome. 

Raucous smiled as he walked the corridor, looking into rooms, looking for places, the perfect set-up.  He had free reign right now.  He was finally the man, a boyhood dream come true, but the boy had changed and he was not going to be around to embrace an ambition. 

The secure section of the building was covered with cameras, operated from within a glass cabin, and manned at nights by a fat-man disillusioned with life as security.  He pined for a career in music, he was the drummer who never made it because he never tried and let time slip by.  Raucous knew the type, he had been the same, and held some of the traits still, the position you are in was the conclusion of circumstance, if only other things had fallen right.

But the fat man was watching empty corridors; Raucous was in the residential house.  He had checked the layout, but knew the place from childhood.  No extensions had been added, no rebuilds, very little cleaning.  It was old and musty, a long way removed from the new and clean establishment it had been when Raucous had broken in with friends as a dare when not yet out of his early teens.

Raucous placed his rucksack down on the hardwood floor.  He made little sound, even though there was no need to be quiet.  The residential wing was empty.  There had never been permanent occupants, only temporary accommodation when the need arose, a place to entertain and hold social events.

Raucous removed the hipster's electronic equipment from the bag and he set to work.  Forty minutes later he stepped outside.  Concealment was key.  They had to be unseen.

CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

Michael did not lead Charlotte and Roach to the greenhouse conservatory, they were escorted to a smaller room, with two leather armchairs, walls that were bookcases, and a table that held a modern PC.  There was a small window, one metre square covered by a cream veil. Belfour was still dressed in white, but he had managed to control his eyes.  He was smiling, rather sheepishly Charlotte thought.  Probably a nod to his over acting of an hour before.  Roach and Charlotte sat in the armchairs and waited.

“I did a background check.  I contacted my man eventually,” Belfour said.  He leaned back in his chair and ran his right hand through his thinning grey hair.  “I can understand why Charlotte here would want to speak to me to a certain degree, but you, Mr. Roach, are more of an expert on certain subjects than I.  And what I told you before is, to a large extent, true.”

“You said a lot was invented,” Charlotte said.

“Less invented and more borrowed.  Plagiarized an academic would say, but that is such a horrid word.”  Belfour linked his hands through his fingers and placed his elbows on the table.  “Have you ever read Private Eye?”  He asked.

Charlotte and Roach did not answer. 

“From your blank expressions I take that to be a no.  It is a magazine with all the information you require, if you understand the code they use to expose certain people.  Pick up some old copies and read.  And then make the leap you need to associate their heavy sarcasm and humor to the vile acts they are actually reporting.  I use much of what they write to create my own works.  As long as certain names are left out and only persons alluded to, there is no legal comeback.  If someone takes chagrin to an article in which they are not mentioned, then they are as good as admitting their guilt.  The general readership already knows the facts, so why cause a commotion that will slip into mainstream redtop nonsense?  And the real fanatics buy up what I peddle to reinforce their profound beliefs.  So, Mr. Roach, in reality you know more than me.  It is I who should be grilling you for information.  You have seen things, have seen people, have spoken to these people, and are certainly more expert than I on all such matters.  Which brings me to the question I need to ask.  Why are you here?”

Charlotte looked to Roach; she wanted to know the answer too.

“You came into public conscience through something else.  Something you seem to be avoiding,” Roach said.

“Forgive me my initial reticence.  Initially I thought you were involved with the very people we are talking about.  I had anticipated a meeting with other types of people.  A visit from men I would prefer not to be in my life.  The man Parker, for example, even at his advanced age and liver abuse, is not a man with whom I want to chat.  Hence my own man here.”

They all looked to Michael who showed no sign that he had been mentioned.  He stood and stared ahead.

“We are more interested in your earlier journalistic output,” Roach said.

Belfour looked puzzled. He sat upright as if he had just been asked by his teacher to answer the question.  His stiffness lasted seconds and he relaxed, because on second thoughts he was confident he could.

“My first book?  Excellent.  I was working as a civil servant.  The halls of that place are a constant stream of whisper and gossip.  If any of them say they have heard nothing then they are liars or so far removed from the real mechanisms of governance as not to be of importance at all.”

“Your early work.  Was of a different type,”  Charlotte said.

“The robbery?  A long time ago.  Made me more money than anything else, and I churn out an article or two every year or so on the anniversary.  Luckily for me it happened in the summer.  Dead months for the press, so they turn to old news to sell papers.  The robbery was big news back then.  But it has faded from collective conscience over the years.”

“We would like to hear your take.”

“Have you read anything I wrote?”

“Your original book," she said.  "And a few articles after.”

“Then you know my thoughts.”

“You change tact after a few years.  Your outrage turns to whisper and then you stopped.”

Belfour shrugged.

“The story lost importance.  Things moved on.  I made money by entering a more in-depth market.  The robbery happened, everyone involved, more or less, was eliminated.  Most of the cash and bonds returned and the gold lost. No longer news that sells.”

“Do you know what happened?”

Belfour raised his bushy eyebrows.

“No.  There are many theories.  The gold was stolen.  This is obvious but not in the manner reported.  Probably over a period of years it was shipped out and taken by someone and melted down, while the stash was replaced by tungsten.  Maybe the gold never existed, and was fake from the start.  Maybe the gold was actually in that warehouse, and maybe it has been melted and sold in the market.  Some claim that over the last 20 years the majority of those ugly gold necklaces and rings you see on the high street contain parts of the bullion from the robbery.  I doubt it.

“If I had to bet, I would say the gold had long since disappeared.  Handed out in bribes and pilfered by those in the know because the bank that stored them was a joke.  A criminal organization running at an official level.  But that robbery, what a thing.  A generation of gangsters eliminated over the course of a summer.  Tit for tat or simple executions by a single man, I don’t know.  One called Turk stayed clean.  Wasn’t involved at all, and this is strange.  A robbery of that size, using his people, in his territory and he stayed out.  Why? I never could truly figure that out."

Charlotte watched Belfour, and for all his bluster and the manner he had developed over the years, he had a passion and a mind that would not stop.  She watched him as his ideas ticked over.  He was involved in his own brainstorming session and finding new connections and silly ideas that could be spun out on the next anniversary.  Belfour came back to them as if he had taken only a split seconds pause in his speech.

“I would say that the gold claimed to be in existence on paper, no longer existed, and this rather unfortunate state of affairs needed to be hidden.  So a robbery was concocted.  The Turk knew that there was no actual gold to steal so he backed out.  His rivals for top dog took the opportunity, and luckily for the Turk, they were all eliminated.  His competition gone and he did nothing to bring it about.  Or maybe I am doing him a disservice and maybe his intellect was unrivalled and the whole plan was his to eliminate competition.  Now isn’t that a thought.  But I have heard of this Turk many times, and each time he is described as little more than a dullard.”

Again Belfour drifted away.  Charlotte looked to Michael, and she saw a concealed smirk play on his face.  Belfour clicked the mouse next to his computer glanced across the screen and opened a file.  He typed rapidly and smiled at the result.  He leaned back looking all the time at the words he had placed there.  He smiled as content as a small child who has just belched away indigestion. The realization he was in company sank in and he turned to Charlotte once more.

“The bank who owned the gold collapsed, and the Bank of England, the government run bank, bought it up for £1.  Essentially taking on the debt, which was huge.  But it was necessary.  Gold was, and occasionally continues to be, the asset on which governments are able to obtain loans.  The government by buying up the debt, and imprisoning those who had borrowed money from the bank hid the hit they took.  Gold worth around seventy five million in today’s money covered with other people’s money and we all carried on as normal.  The taxpayer covered the cost.  75 million among the billions in tax is nothing.  Prestige restored, market confidence back.  A decisive action by the government.  England proud and strong.”  Belfour clenched his fist and punched the air at the end of his speech and laughed a guttural boom.  He started to type again at his computer.

“The Italians who got caught bear that out?”  Charlotte asked.

Belfour drummed the table with the fingers on both hands, he was energized and unable to start what he wanted to start.

“I imagine the Italians were handed the gold in faith.  The serial numbers coincide with the real codes from the original bars.  One of the robbers pocketed some of the gold is the most plausible answer.  A genuine belief that it was real.  They didn't know it was fake, and tried to sell it on.  They were not overly smart.  Which is another question.  Were they set up to provide evidence that the gold was fake or were they genuinely oblivious to the nature of the bars?  Impossible to ask them as they lasted seven days in prison before, rather surprisingly, killing themselves.”  Belfour paused.  He shook his head.  "This is all plausible and brilliant,” he said.

Belfour rose and walked to the door; he indicated that they should follow. He was walking them to the open front door.  He stopped just before the threshold and indicated they should leave with a sweeping motion of his left arm.

But he stopped Roach by touching his left shoulder to make him turn around.

“I spent a lot of time with Chamberlain.  A lot of speculation about his sexual preferences.  I can assure you, he is essentially asexual.  He has no interest at all.  The man is strange.  He cannot be turned on, but many things turn him off.”

“And nothing is done,” Roach said.

"The DJ, comedians did stand-up routines in the 80s about the man, a book was written by a Scottish writer in which a famous celebrity was employed in a morgue and enjoyed his time with the dead.  This was not thinly veiled.  Every media outlet had information on the man, employees in the industry were in full knowledge of his heinous activities.  So what did they do?  They gave him a kid’s TV show.  Rather sick, don’t you think?”

“Chamberlain is one of the untouchables."

"Mr. Roach, you know more about these things than me.  You investigated.  And as such I have to ask you a question.  What did you find on me?

“Nothing.  Your name never came up.”

“And yet I live with regular innuendo in my professional life.  Why do you think that is?”

“Regular smear tactics, and when there is a little scandal and a prominent man, as you were, steps down and finishes a promising career early, people put two and two together,”

“And in my case, end up spelling Pedophile, very badly.”

“Are you not?”  Charlotte asked.

“No, I am not, Charlotte, I believe is what you are calling yourself nowadays.”

“Now, Roach here is much more of an expert than me.  Twenty years dedicated to your job, and I really should have recognized you from our meetings.”

“Only twice, and they were hardly meetings.”

“Confiscations.”

“What happened to them?”

“Officially destroyed, almost certainly stored in a private wing of some building somewhere to act as leverage against some very influential people.”

“Why did you take them?”

“I believed in many things back then, the idea that intelligent people should run the country, should make decisions for the less intelligent.  And yes, I mean the Oxbridge crews were the brains, and anyone else was not able to make rational decisions.  I was lied to as well, but worst of all I lied to myself.  Arrogance of the privileged is the correct thought.”

“But you are not one of them now, you are an outsider.”

“I’m sure they would like to paint me as some type of mad figure, a man who has lost his mind.  A conspiracy theorist who gets to write his insane ideas for money in a Sunday paper.  But I’m not.  I would like to tell you that I made the choice to escape, of my own free and morally superior will, but I genuinely thought I could change things from the inside.  Others had different ideas.”

“You quit.”

“No, I resigned.  Different ideology, see.   My son and daughter were of an age at the time when travelling and enjoying life were paramount.  My daughter was mugged and beaten badly, the day after the same thing happened to my son.  Coincidence I thought.  Then when I didn’t shut my mouth, we had a burglary.  I was tied to a chair, my wife was stripped naked in front of me.  I wasn’t told anything, not asked for cash, nothing stolen, my wife was untouched.  The man, who I didn’t see and couldn’t ever finger as Detective Parker, although I would bet my fortune it was him.  Simply said, your family is passing through a moment of turmoil.  For it to stop you need to resign.  So I did.  And I became a journalist. 

“They are untouchable, Mr. Roach.  They run everything.  They ran me, and through me they ran you.  Official secrets act is a catch-all law that makes your objective impossible.  But, if you simply want the man, and you have some of your old detectives tendencies, then following Charlotte here and her quest for familiar justice, would increase the possibility from the current zero it stands on.  Rollin is an interesting man, with an interesting past.”

“Would you care to elaborate,” Roach asked.

“Now where would be the fun in that?”

Belfour looked at his watch.

“Supper,” he said. “It will be a lovely spread, but you’re not invited.  And you are also asked never to come back.  It’s been fun, and I actually just wanted to apologize to you, former detective Roach.  You did well, and had them all.  Perfect work really.  And then Mr. Bumbling bureaucratic me turned up with his posh goon squad and messed it all up.  You made no mistakes, had no fault, important people just didn’t like to be arrested.  And they do not now.”