The Careless Word (#8 - The Craig Crime Series) (17 page)

Carmen waited until he’d finished and then cast a look through the glass. Craig had stopped looking exasperated and was giving Trimble what for. She knew Craig was asking about links between Trimble’s two clients; UKUF and SNI. She wanted to turn on the microphone and listen but Jack continued with his third category.

“Now category number three is the one that Mr Trimble falls in.”

Carmen dragged her eyes from Craig and asked the question that she knew she was supposed to ask. “And that is?”

“Ah well, now. Mr Trimble is what you’d call a player.” He caught Carmen’s narrowing eyes and clarified hurriedly. “I mean player in the legal sense, not in any other way.”

The coldness of her gaze gave Jack more information. Carmen wasn’t just homesick, she’d been hurt by a man, perhaps by more than one. A ‘player’ who’d messed her about. He’d tell Nicky later; it might affect her match-making plans.

Carmen’s interest was piqued now and she listened with only the occasional glance at Craig. He was lounging back in his chair and James Trimble was leaning forward across the desk, gesticulating and mouthing some words that she couldn’t hear. She didn’t need to hear; it was clear that Trimble was feeling defensive. Whatever Craig had hit him with had worked. She turned to Jack.

“What do you mean?”

“OK. Take Mr Trimble for instance. He only takes certain clients; criminals. Not ordinary folk who find themselves being treated like criminals for a while, until it’s clear that they are or not, but career criminals. Some of them wear tattoos signposting it and some of them wear nice suits, but their stench is still the same.”

Carmen interrupted. “So he never has an innocent client?”

Jack shrugged. “They might be innocent of the odd thing, but not of most. Trimble knows that going in and he doesn’t care. His job is to get them off and he’s good at it. Either he’ll find a procedural error that some rookie P.C. has made, or he’ll cite misconduct by the custody staff, cruelty or some other tripe. You know the sort of stuff.”

Carmen nodded. She’d seen a bit of it in Scotland, but the legal system there was as tight as a drum.

“I’d say he gets about twenty percent off on that. Then he’ll turn to the Human Rights and Equality stuff.”

“Does he know his law?”

Jack smiled tightly. “Oh, yes. He knows it even better than some of the crusaders. Make no mistake about it; Trimble’s a bright boy. The difference between him and the other bunch is that he doesn’t give a monkey’s about Human Rights, he just uses the words to spring the crooks.”

He stared through the glass and smiled as Craig leaned forward, nose-to-nose now with his foe. Sweat was pouring through Trimble’s Egyptian cotton shirt and droplets of it rolled off his thick top lip. Jack gestured towards the two men.

“Trimble tried tactics A and B and they failed, so he tried C, and now that’s tanked as well.”

Carmen’s eyes widened and eagerness tinged her voice. Jack smiled inwardly; so the girl had some enthusiasm left after all.

“What’s tactic C?”

“Do you remember when the Super looked exasperated earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was him pretending that C was working. C’s a tactic that players use to exasperate the police. Stonewall every question and refuse to answer. Not a word. The gifted ones can keep it up for hours, just saying nothing or ‘no comment’. They gaze around the room, look bored, lounge back in their seats, fold their arms…”

Carmen grinned, thinking of her older brother’s behaviour when they were kids. “You mean they behave like a teenager?”

Jack laughed loudly, thanking goodness that the microphone was off. Craig had Trimble on the ropes and he wouldn’t thank him for breaking his flow.

“That’s exactly what they do, but you’d be surprised how effective it is. They can stonewall for hours until a police officer makes a mistake and says or does something that they shouldn’t.” He gestured through the glass. “Or until they meet their match and come up against someone who can play as hard as them.”

As Jack said the words Craig smiled, as if he’d heard their conversation. He closed the file in front of him and rose to his feet. They watched as James Trimble glanced away in disgust and then reached for his mobile phone. Craig didn’t stop him using it; there was no need, he’d obviously won. One minute later Craig was beside them in the viewing room, watching Trimble’s perspiration soak through more of his shirt.

Jack turned to the younger man and smiled. “Quite the performance.”

Craig grinned. “Trimble’s a player, Jack, you know that. So we just played the game until he gave up.” He turned to Carmen. “You probably heard but he’s admitted he’s the solicitor for both UKUF and SNI, although he’s still denying any links between the two.”

“Is UKUF proscribed under the 2000 Terrorism Act?”

Craig shook his head. “Sadly not, if it was then we’d have more leverage. But I’ve put a shot across Mr Trimble’s bow. If he’s benefiting from the proceeds of crime and we can prove it then his own possessions could be forfeit.”

“It would be hell to prove.”

Craig nodded at Jack. “It would, but it was enough to get him worried. He doesn’t want to lose his nice house. He’s probably transferring his assets to his wife as we speak.”

Jack gave a loud laugh and just then an even louder man entered the room. Jack saw Liam first.

“Ach, it’s the boul Liam. What are you doing here?”

Craig turned to see his deputy squeezing himself through the door. “Yes, what are you doing here, Liam?”

“Lovely to see you too, boss.”

Liam caught Carmen’s eye and nodded curtly and she felt a moment’s embarrassment about how badly their acquaintance had begun. Liam waved in the direction of reception.

“It was getting a bit crowded at UKUF central so I’ve brought Zac Greer in for a chat. Well, actually a chat and to tell him about his Mum. He definitely doesn’t know, boss.”

Craig swore under his breath. John had spoken to the Robinson, Delaney and McGovern families but he hadn’t got round to Sharon Greer’s.

“Damn. That’s my fault, Liam. I’ll tell him.”

Liam shook his head. “Never worry yourself, I’ll do it. The lad and I have formed a rapport.”

Craig looked sceptical but Liam obviously had his own reasons for wanting to do the deed. Liam nodded through the two-way glass.

“I see Trimble’s still here. That’s handy. Zac just gave him a call.” He turned to Craig. “Did you get anything from him? Anything useful that is. You’re bound to have got a headache.”

Craig nodded. “I’ll update you at the briefing. When you’ve had your chat with the boy, take him to the mortuary if he wants to go. There’s nothing left to see of his Mum but he might want to ask John something.”

Craig suddenly noticed how crammed the room was and ushered Liam into the corridor. The others followed and they headed for the staff-room and five minutes of coffee and chat.

“Jack, I’m going to leave Liam and Carmen in your capable hands.” He gestured at Liam. “And if he gets out of line you deal with him.”

“Aye, you and whose army, Harris?”

As Carmen went to the sink to wash her cup Liam shot Craig a pleading look and attempted a whisper. “Do you not think it would be better if she went back to the ranch with you, boss?”

Craig shook his head firmly. Carmen was prickly but not half as much as Liam implied; it was six of one as far as he could see. He dropped his voice to match Liam’s and Jack leaned in conspiratorially. “Suck it up and deal with her, Liam. It’s one of the joys of rank.”

Craig leaned back and raised his voice again. “Captain Smith has joined us, so we’ll have a full team at the briefing except for Jake.”

Jack gave Craig a puzzled look.

“He’s army liaison. The case started with a bomb.”

“Not more of that rubbish. I had enough of that for thirty years.”

Jack had been station sergeant at High Street all through the Troubles in Belfast. If he hadn’t seen it then it probably hadn’t occurred.

“Different reason for the bomb this time.”

Just then the staff-room door opened hesitantly and the smiling face of Constable Sandi Masters appeared. “Sorry to disturb you, Sarge, but that wee lad in reception is making an awful lot of noise.”

Liam sighed heavily, drained his mug and grabbed a handful of Rich Tea before he rose to his feet. He beckoned Carmen to join him.

“It’s time to watch the youth of today in action and Jimmy Trimble doing his Rottweiler impersonation.”

Craig stifled a smile. “I’ll see both of you back at Pilot Street, no later than four o’clock. We’re starting on time.”

With a wave Liam and Carmen disappeared and Jack put on the kettle for another pot of tea.

Chapter Sixteen

Annette parked her small saloon on Linenhall Street and glanced up at the building that was marked on her map. It looked normal enough; seven stories of concrete façade, periodically interrupted by glass. Why couldn’t architects come up with something more original? That particular look had been around since the sixties, not that she was old enough to recall.

Annette made a face, remembering just how long she had been around. She would be forty-five on her next birthday, time to start counting backwards. One of her friends had perfected the use of some ancient calendar, telling everyone her age by that; thirty-one. And people actually believed her! Not only because she looked considerably younger than her years, aided by her thin, blond looks, but also because no-one wanted to show their ignorance of ancient counting techniques, so they nodded as if they understood. Annette stared in the mirror and pulled a face, counting the wrinkles beneath her eyes. She got to five and gave up. At least she could do something with her hair. She’d worn the same brown bob since she was seventeen and she badly needed a restyle.

She glanced at the clock and climbed out of the car, crossing the street sensibly at the lights. In less than a minute she was in Regis House, being shown to a fifth floor waiting room. As Annette waited she gazed around her, taking in the expensive beige carpet and the elegant beige and white logo of SNI. Her interior design review was interrupted by an impossibly slim woman entering the room, impossible not just by Annette’s standards but by anyone’s who had ever eaten a meal. The woman was around forty years old and so blond and pale that she almost blended into the décor. She smiled and when she did so her skin stretched tightly across her face.

“Inspector McElroy?”

A thin hand touched Annette’s own for a second then the woman turned, leading the way into an office. Annette walked behind her wishing that she was slim, not as slim as this woman, she would blow away in a breeze, but much slimmer than her hefty ten stone. Her determination to have a makeover grew stronger until her reverie was broken by the woman’s next words.

“Tea or coffee?”

“Tea please.”

After some whispered words into an intercom the drinks miraculously appeared. In a moment Annette was ready to begin.

“Mrs…?”

It was Mrs, if the woman’s heavily decorated ring finger was anything to go by.

“Stenson. Hilary Stenson.”

“Well Mrs Stenson, as I told your secretary on the phone, your company’s name has come up in our enquiries so I need to ask you a few routine questions.” Annette was sincerely hoping that the answers would be anything but routine, but it never did to reveal your dreams.

Hilary Stenson smiled gracefully and Annette imagined that she did everything that way. It must make cleaning the oven a real performance.

“First of all, your company name; SNI. Could you tell me what that stands for?”

Hilary Stenson looked shocked and glanced at the business cards beside her as if she was surprised by what was written there. It would soon become obvious that shocked was her default expression.

“Oh, I am sorry, Inspector. Of course. SNI stands for Saudi Northern Ireland.”

It was Annette’s turn to be shocked. She wasn’t even aware that Northern Ireland had a Saudi population.

“Are there many Saudi people here?”

Hilary Stenson looked shocked again and then she laughed; a tinkling melody of a laugh that rose and fell for far too long. When she’d finished her song she explained.

“The Saudis don’t live here, they invest here. Let me explain. The Saudis have owned property in England, principally London, for many years, but they wish to expand to other areas of the UK. Northern Ireland is one of those areas.”

“So they’re here to develop?”

Stenson smiled beatifically. Annette wanted to wipe the smile off her face for no other reason than that it irritated her, so she parked her planned questions about Belfast developments in general and went straight in for the kill.

“Why do they wish to develop in Smithfield? It’s hardly the most elegant area of Belfast.”

Stenson’s default shocked expression reappeared but this time Annette saw something real behind it. Anxiety? No, the emotion in her eyes was too strong. It was fear. Fear of what? She watched as Stenson scrambled frantically for words to hide behind and decided not to give her the time.

“Why Smithfield, Mrs Stenson?”

“Well… because… well… it’s up and coming.”

Annette raised an eyebrow, remembering her mother’s, a Maghera farmer’s wife, verdict on the area; ‘It might be up and coming but it’s still too low for my daughter’.

“What were you going to build there? What was the development?”

Annette continued with a rat-a-tat-tat of questions as Hilary Stenson opened and shut her mouth like a fish. Finally when Stenson was stressed in the way Annette wanted her, she paused and sipped her tea, waiting for the fading debutante to answer.

“It… it was, is, a condominium. Apartments, but very high end. Swimming pool, gymnasium…”

Exactly as Sadie Robinson had said.

“And you needed the land cleared of local businesses so you offered to buy them out.”

Stenson nodded so hard that she almost dislodged her hair-sprayed bob. “It’s all quite legal. We offered them a lot of money to move.”

Annette set down her cup with a bang and lurched forward, closing the gap between them.

“But some of them didn’t want to sell, did they, Mrs Stenson? Some of them were preventing you from getting what you wanted.” Stenson’s eyes widened and she reached for the phone. Annette continued relentlessly. “Did you employ people to put pressure on them, Mrs Stenson? The same people who had been running protection in the area? Did they go too far without your permission, or did you tell them to do whatever had to be done?” Her voice rose for the most important question. “Did SNI cause the explosion in Gresham Street last week?”

Annette paused for breath, watching as a faint flush tinged the woman’s porcelain cheeks. She was enjoying working alone, even though she knew that she would get told off by Craig. He’d told her specifically not to go unaccompanied but when she’d tried to get Liam to come he’d said she would have to wait until after five. Besides, if Liam had been there he’d have asked the questions, and if she’d had Jake in tow she would have had to be more polite.

Hilary Stenson’s shocked expression became one of full-blown fear. She let the phone fall back into its cradle and stared at Annette. Then, to Annette’s complete surprise, she started to cry. It was the last thing she’d expected from the prim exec, and if she’d thought about it she’d have expected a ladylike sob, but Hilary Stenson’s tears were like a banshee’s howl.

“I told them not to have anything to do with those thugs, but they wouldn’t listen. They said they had too much invested in surveys and costs already to let two small shops stand in their way.”

Annett jumped in. “What were the shops’ names?”

Stenson shook her head vaguely. “I don’t know. All I know is that they were at either end of a terrace and they wouldn’t budge. They were holding up the builders and costing the company money, so they brought those common thugs in.”

“UKUF?”

Stenson nodded and howled again. “I think that was their name. They ran protection in the area, some woman called Greer. They already knew the shopkeepers so they were asked to pressure them to leave.”

“For a big payment?”

“Yes.” Stenson sniffed and quietened for long enough to lift a handkerchief from her bag and give her nose an elegant blow. “SNI offered them ninety thousand pounds to pressure the last two shops to close. One of the shops agreed to take our settlement figure quickly after that.” She gazed at Annette, pleading to be understood. “They were generous offers, honestly. The shopkeepers got one hundred and fifty thousand pounds each.” She shook her head, remembering something. “But the last shop’s…the bookshop’s owner still refused to leave. We raised the offer to two hundred thousand but the old man still wouldn’t take it; he said that the shop was like his child, so…”

“So you told UKUF to go ahead and do their worst.”

“The company Board did. But they only meant to rough him up; intimidate him a bit until he would sell. They didn’t mean to blow the place up!”

Hilary Stenson’s look of horror said that she was telling the truth. Annette sat back and softened her voice.

“When did you hear about the explosion?”

“On Thursday’s six o’clock news. I couldn’t believe that UKUF had gone that far. They must have known that the Board wouldn’t sanction it and they’d never get paid.”

Annette’s ears pricked up. “The company hadn’t already paid UKUF the ninety thousand?”

“They got thirty in advance and thirty when each shop owner agreed to sell.”

Annette shook her head; it didn’t make any sense. Why would UKUF blow the shop up when they knew it would prevent them getting their last thirty thousand? But then why blow it up at all with Sharon Greer inside? Annette nodded to herself as Hilary Stenson watched, wondering what sort of trouble she was in. But Annette wasn’t nodding because UKUF and SNI were responsible for the explosion; she was nodding because it was becoming clearer that they weren’t.

Annette straightened up. “You realise that intimidation is a crime, Mrs Stenson?”

Stenson nodded.

“I need to know exactly who in SNI sanctioned such a tactic.”

Annette watched as Stenson considered obfuscation and then thought better of it. Her shoulders slumped and her voice fell to such a low whisper that Annette could barely hear. She made out one word. “Board.”

“The whole Board sanctioned the intimidation of the shopkeepers?”

“Yes.”

“And whose idea was it to blow up the shop and kill the people inside?”

Annette already knew that SNI hadn’t but she wanted to shake the tree and see what fell out. Stenson flew to her company’s defence.

“No-one’s! No-one ever agreed to that. It must have been those thugs’ own idea.”

Annette stood up. “I’m going to read you your rights and call for back-up now, Mrs Stenson. Then you’re going to give me the names of SNI’s Board members and Chair. You’ll all be brought in for questioning.”

Thirty minutes later Annette was on her way back to Docklands and Hilary Stenson was on her way to meet James Trimble at High Street. Annette called Jack Harris on the car-phone.

“Jack. You’re getting a new prisoner; Hilary Stenson. If Trimble wants to arrange bail, let him. She’s cooperating and she’s not a flight risk. I’ll interview her tomorrow at some point.”

“Same case as the Super’s?”

“Yes, another branch of it. The uniforms have sealed off her office and I have a C.S.I heading over there to secure the papers. We’ll deal with the rest centrally.”

Jack smiled at her efficiency. “Grand. I’ll see you tomorrow around two, if that suits?”

“Put the kettle on.”

***

Banque de Paris, Rue des Lilas d'Espagne. La Défense district, Paris. 4 p.m. local time

Alain Berger waited while the bank manager made a show of opening the basement security vault and then another show of checking his fingerprints and the number he’d given him for the fifth time, glancing suspiciously at him between each check. Berger shrugged. His faded windcheater and tatty attaché case weren’t what they normally saw in a place like this. He gazed around the high-ceilinged, marble-floored vault and then at the gleaming wall of safes, and smiled as he imagined what was in each one. Precious jewels and family heirlooms, and stolen treasures belonging to other, less fortunate families, long dead at the hands of their conquerors in the last world war.

The safes were larger than the security boxes beloved by writers of crime, inevitably used to hold fresh passports, currency or guns. But the principle was the same; absolute discretion for an obscenely high price. It was why everyone came there.

When the manager thought that he’d checked the number often enough he lifted his hands wide in a Gallic gesture of defeat. It wasn’t his problem if someone owned something that they shouldn’t or even if they’d liberated it from another theft. Berger had the verification required to open the safe so he could take what was inside, or climb into it himself for all he cared; he had done his job.

With a final glance at Berger’s scruffy appearance that Berger knew was subtitled ‘mon Dieu!’ the manager turned on his heel and left the vault, closing the security grille. He gestured at a telephone on the wall.

“Call when you wish to leave. Just press zero.”

Then he was gone. A pinstriped ghost who wandered the vaults then faded back into his own dull world. When Berger heard the man’s footsteps enter the lift he turned swiftly to his task. He rotated the dial on the safe’s steel door nine times this way and that, until, with a final fall of levers, a satisfying click said the safe was ready to reveal whatever lay inside.

Berger pulled the heavy grey door towards him and stared at the object. It was small, barely occupying one thousandth of the safe’s large space, but it was heavy, so heavy that he struggled to carry it by himself. Whether it was heavy or not he had to see it again so he hefted it slowly from its box and set it on a steel trolley nearby, then he stood back to marvel. Its colours were sombre, aged with years of sun and sweat, making the once-bright leather rigid and its gold lettering fade. Berger smiled. No matter how it looked now, it had been a thing of beauty in medieval times. No wonder it had been hidden away, look what happened when such things became known.

He marvelled for a moment longer then he closed the safe quickly, spinning the tumblers to lock it tight. Once the buyers were content with the paperwork and transferred his money, he would tell them where to collect their prize. Until then it would sleep undisturbed.

***

Docklands. 4 p.m.

“OK, settle down everyone. John and Des are joining us and they’ll be here in a moment, so meantime grab a coffee and one of the cakes that Nicky has so generously supplied.”

Everyone knew that Nicky had purchased them on Craig’s orders but it seemed redundant to point it out and detract from his compliment to his P.A. Craig set his chair against a desk at the front of the squad and the others formed a loose arc on either side. As the last two helped themselves to cakes the doors slid open and the familiar shapes of John Winter and Des Marsham crossed the floor.