To Die Alone (19 page)

‘And the other one?’ asked Harris bleakly.

‘Died a few days after getting there.’

The inspector bit his lip but said nothing.

‘After the second one died,’ continued Garratt, ‘we got word that the Saudi had sent a couple of heavies to find us. Wanted his money back. Who can blame him – damaged goods, weren’t they? Meredith got frightened and fled the country. He always had a yellow streak.’

‘And you?’

‘Laid low till it was all over. Africa is a big continent, Chief Inspector, easy for a man to disappear in. I only went back to Zaire a few years later. Trouble is, I got involved in an unfortunate incident.’

‘Unfortunate for Donald Rylance, you mean,’ said Harris. ‘Apparently, you put a bullet in his skull.’

‘Yeah, a miscalculation. I reckoned everything would have long blown over but the daft old bastard confronted me about the gorillas – said he was going to tell the police. I went round to remonstrate and things got out of hand. You know the rest. I didn’t mean to shoot him, just turned out that way. It was an accident.’

‘You seem to have a lot of accidents,’ said Harris. ‘But if you are telling the truth and you did not mean to kill him, why did you not turn yourself in and explain it to the local police?’

‘You ever been in a Congolese prison, Mr Harris?’ said Garratt.

Harris shook his head.

‘If you had,’ said Garratt, ‘you would understand why I left Africa after Rylance died. Travelled round a bit, then a year ago I came back here, hooked up with Meredith and we started off again.’

‘Doing what? The same thing?’

‘Yeah, all sorts. Rare birds, caymans, exotic insects for the pet trade. Meredith’s brother runs a pet shop in Blackpool, he helped us make some good contacts. Like I said, Inspector, money always talks. We did bigger stuff for private collectors as well. Brought a couple of cheetah cubs in for a bloke in Birmingham last month. He’s keeping them in his back garden.’

‘I find this difficult to believe,’ said Harris with a shake of the head. ‘I mean, you are clearly as crooked as they come …’

‘So kind,’ murmured Garratt.

‘… but everything we have heard suggests that Trevor Meredith had put all that behind him. Taken up with a nice young girl, getting married, a decent job.’

‘Do you know much that dog place pays him?’ asked Garratt.

‘Not much, I imagine.’

‘Exactly, and him with a wedding to pay for. Jasmine had already said she wanted the reception at Ings Hall.’

‘Jeez,’ said Gallagher, ‘that’s the most expensive hotel around. When me and Julie decided to get married, we checked the place out and it would have cost us the thick end of seven grand. Jasmine Riley clearly has expensive tastes.’

‘Indeed she has,’ nodded Garratt. ‘Trevor told her it was too much but she was adamant, trotted out the “biggest day of her life” nonsense and turned on the waterworks so they booked it. Put simply, Trevor Meredith was short of cash and a man who’s short of cash….’

He did not finish the sentence, everyone knew what he meant.

‘Did Jasmine not wonder where the money was coming from?’ asked Harris.

‘He told her that an uncle had died. To be honest, he could have told her that aliens had deposited it in his bank account and she would have believed it. All she wanted was her dream wedding day. Of course, once he realized that no one would doubt where his money came from, he realized that he could keep on trading in the animals without anyone asking much in the way of questions.’

‘And Thornycroft,’ asked Gallagher, ‘I take it that he was involved in your little scam as well?’

‘That was Meredith’s doing,’ nodded Garratt. ‘They had always been friends. Meredith reckoned that since we were moving into larger animals, we needed a tame vet. He knew that Thornycroft’s business was in trouble down in Bolton so he fixed it for him to buy the one up here. He knew the old duffer who ran the place had drunk the profits so it was fairly easy to buy him out and Thornycroft was desperate to get out of Bolton. Of course, once Thornycroft realized the extent of the business’s problems, he was only too eager to help us. Like I said, gentlemen, when money talks, everyone listens eventually.’

‘And you came up here to be close to them both?’ said Gallagher.

‘Yeah, I reckoned it was out of the way and I was pretty sure that even Harris here would not work out what we were doing so long as we kept our noses clean. We’d got a nice life actually, nights at the pub, bit of poker, walks on the moors, that sort of thing. Could quite get used to this country life. Then, of course, I find out about Trevor’s attack of conscience.’ Garratt shook his head. ‘Crazy, absolutely crazy.’

‘Conscience over what?’ asked Harris. ‘The dog fighting?’

‘Yeah. See, Trevor was perfectly happy to ship animals halfway round the world but he had always had this thing about dogs. Hated to see them suffering. When we were in Africa, he was always adopting mangy, flea-ridden mutts off the street. God knows where he found them, Anyway, a few nights ago, he tells me that he has been trying to stop Radford running the fights. That he’s infiltrated his organization, is stringing him along and feeding the information to the RSPCA.’ Garratt shook his head again. ‘I was horrified, told him that he was inviting trouble.’

‘And he said?’

‘Said not to worry, that Radford didn’t know what he was doing. Said he had even supplied him with a dog – Meredith had agonized about that for days, but reckoned it was the only way to get real credibility with Radford. Trouble is, he told Thornycroft about it as well – and what does Thornycroft do? Goes running to Radford, of course.’

‘Why?’

‘Said Meredith had become a liability, that he would take us all down. Thornycroft was terrified of going to prison, would have done anything to escape it. Don’t forget that he had been treating injured dogs for Radford. I think he hoped that Radford would persuade Meredith to shut his mouth.’

‘I take it you knew who Radford was, what he is capable of doing?’

‘Oh, aye,’ chuckled Garratt, ‘I know Gerry Radford. That’s where you come into it, Chief Inspector. See, in return for a favour or two from your lot, I might just be able to do you one in return. Give you Radford.’

He gave a slight smile.

‘Repay that debt to society, as it were.’

Half an hour later, Jack Harris was sitting in his office, sipping tea as he mulled over the interview, when there was a knock on the door. Looking up, he saw Butterfield, the young constable hardly able to conceal her excitement.

‘They’ve found the dog,’ she announced.

An hour later, the inspector was standing on the hillside, about a mile from where Trevor Meredith’s body had been found, staring at the mangled remains of the bull terrier, lying among thick bracken. The inspector crouched down and gently ran a hand over its bloodstained and scored flank, up to its grizzled head with its numerous bite marks, torn and ripped muzzle and remains of the missing ear.

‘Poor old chap,’ said the inspector and turned to look at Gallagher, who was standing behind him. ‘You were right, Matty lad, Robbie did fight like a tiger.’

‘They do,’ nodded the sergeant.

The DCI’s attention was caught by something which he had not initially noticed, something which had been concealed beneath the congealed blood. Harris leaned over and pushed the blood-streaked fur aside.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said quietly. ‘It would seem to have been a somewhat unfair fight.’

‘Why is that?’ asked Gallagher, leaning over to look closer.

‘Because this,’ said Jack Harris softly, ‘is a bullet hole.’

Early the following afternoon, Jack Harris was sitting in his office at Levton Bridge Police Station, trying in vain to concentrate on the report he had been trying to read for the best part of an hour. From time to time, he would glance up impatiently at the clock.

‘Where is he?’ muttered Harris, looking down at Scoot, who was curled up in his usual spot by the radiator. ‘Where the hell is he, boy? I mean, Roxham is hardly the other end of the bloody universe.’

Scoot gave his master a look and settled back to sleep again. There was a knock on the door and the inspector looked up quickly as Gallagher walked into the room, holding a brown envelope. The sergeant’s eyes gleamed.

‘That it then?’ asked Harris eagerly.

‘See for yourself,’ beamed Gallagher, sitting down and sliding the envelope across the desk. ‘It’s all there. She’s been playing us for fools. Good job we started looking closer.’

‘Thank Paul Garratt for that.’

‘Ironic really,’ said Gallagher, watching as Harris opened the envelope and carefully extracted the document.

‘Ironic why?’

‘You proving Radford innocent.’

‘Only of this,’ said Harris, ‘only of this.’

He scanned the contents of the document with satisfaction.

‘As far as we can ascertain, it’s the only copy,’ said Gallagher. ‘Which explains why it never turned up in any of our searches. The bank manager was not particularly happy at being brought in on a Saturday morning to open the safety deposit box but a few choice words persuaded him.’

‘I’ll not ask what they were,’ said Harris, reaching the bottom of the page and giving a low whistle. ‘Well, well, Matty lad, what do they say in a murder inquiry – always look close to home?’

‘Indeed.’

‘She still missing, I assume?’

‘Yeah, checked on my way back.’

There was another knock on the door and Butterfield walked in.

‘You got a minute?’ she asked.

Harris nodded.

‘I have just come off the phone from Jane Porter,’ she said. ‘You remember her, the sour-faced woman at the sanctuary?’

‘I remember,’ said Harris.

‘Well, it turns out that your mate Barry Ramsden—’

‘No mate of mine,’ said the inspector.

‘Well you’ll like this then. Seems he turned up at the sanctuary half an hour ago, getting all aeriated and demanding to know why we were there this morning.’

‘Yeah,’ said Harris, glancing down at a scrap of paper on his desk. ‘He’s rung here seven times now, demanding to talk to me as well. Even rang Curtis at home but he was out playing golf. The pressures of life at the top, Constable.’

Butterfield grinned.

‘But,’ said Harris, standing up and reaching his jacket down from a peg on the wall, ‘I suppose he is right and that it is time to talk to the good burgher. Somehow I think I am going to enjoy this.’

Ten minutes later, Harris and Gallagher strode up the front drive of a semi-detached house on the edge of Levton Bridge. Harris rang the bell and the detectives stood on the front step and listened to the sound of barking dogs from the sanctuary, which stood at the end of the estate, beyond a row of recently planted trees. After a few moments, the parish council chairman opened the door.

‘Jack,’ he said, ‘where the hell have you been. I have been ringing the pol—’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. Can we come in?’ said Harris and the detectives walked into the hallway without waiting to hear the answer.

Ramsden followed them in, his face betraying his anger at their behaviour.

‘I really must object to the way you have ignored my calls,’ he said. ‘And don’t tell me that you weren’t in because the desk sergeant told me—’

‘Nice house,’ said Harris, glancing approvingly along the hallway. ‘Will you be moving into one of the new ones?’

Ramsden stared at him.

‘Well?’ said Harris. ‘Will you?’

‘It’s not what you think,’ said Ramsden quietly, his bluster dissipating in the face of the detectives’ solemn looks. ‘We had the best interests of the dogs at heart when we decided to….’

‘I wonder how many people will agree with that when they hear that you are going to pocket all that money?’

‘We’re going to build a new sanctuary,’ protested Ramsden. ‘We will make sure that the dogs are OK. That’s why we didn’t want word to get out until everything was sorted. People would only jump to the wrong conclusion.’

‘I am sure they would. I mean, I can see that people might easily misunderstand about the bit being creamed off the top. What do you think, Sergeant?’

‘Oh, aye,’ nodded Gallagher. ‘People just would not understand that.’

Ramsden stared at them in horror.

‘Particularly,’ said Harris, ‘when they find out that it cost Trevor Meredith his life.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Ramsden, going pale and leaning against the wall. ‘Oh dear God.’

‘So is your chap right?’ asked Annie Gorman.

‘I hope so,’ said Harris. ‘I can think of better ways of spending my Saturday nights.’

‘You hope so,’ said Gorman, giving him a sly look. ‘Besides, as I recall, spending a Saturday night with me was one of your more pleasant pastimes.’

It was shortly before midnight and they were sitting in the darkness of an empty first-floor office on the fringes of a small business park in Manchester. They had been there for two hours, binoculars trained on an industrial unit on the other side of the road. Because it was a warm summer’s night, both wore jeans, T-shirts and light jackets. Jack Harris was acutely conscious of Gorman’s perfume. The building in which they were sitting had been empty for the best part of a year but, although the air was thick and musty with damp and neglect, all he could smell was Annie Gorman. Memories stirred for him.

‘Missed your chance, Jacky boy,’ she said.

He gave a rueful smile.

‘Yeah, I heard you got married.’

‘And happily.’ She chuckled. ‘So keep your lecherous thoughts to yourself.’

Harris grinned and resumed his vigil out of the window. The building had been chosen because of its proximity to the flat-roofed red-brick workshop standing on the other side of the only road through the estate. Both officers had been watching for signs of movement but it had remained deserted and in darkness.

‘I’m still not sure about this, you know,’ said Gorman.

‘Relax.’

‘You can’t relax with Gerry Radford. You of all people know that.’

Harris nodded, his mind going back to the scene outside a Manchester warehouse, no more than three miles from where he sat now.

Suddenly consumed by fury, and with the shrieks of the dogs still ringing in his ears, the inspector jumped to his feet and, spotting a familiar face among the group of arrested men being taken out to the police vans, he strode rapidly outside.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said to one of the uniformed officers, pointing at a burly dark-haired man in his late thirties. ‘I want to talk to this one.’

Harris walked up to the man until their faces were but inches apart.

‘Gerry Radford,’ he said in a soft voice laced with menace, ‘I am going to make sure you wish you were never born.’

‘In your fucking dreams, Harris,’ said Radford with a mocking smile.

The DI’s fist caught him full in the face and, for a few moments, Radford swayed, his eyes registering his shock, then he slowly, elegantly, slid to the floor. Watched in stunned silence by the other officers, Jack Harris turned on his heel and walked back into the warehouse.

‘Radford’s complaint could have gone either way,’ said Gorman. ‘Your suspension could have been permanent. Why do you think I have had to fight long and hard to get you along tonight? Some people around here have long memories. Balls this up, Hawk, and….’

Her radio crackled and she reached down to pick it up off the floor, flicking dust off it with her manicured fingers before putting the device to her ear.

‘Gorman,’ she said.

‘Still no show,’ said a man’s voice. ‘The service station is pretty quiet.’

‘OK, stay there a bit longer.’ Gorman put the radio down and glanced at the inspector. ‘Maybe you’re right after all. Maybe the drugs drop is a blind.’

Harris nodded and peered along the road as it ran further into the estate, where he knew several unmarked cars were parked behind one of the other workshops. Sitting in them were a mix of police officers and Customs investigators. Harris let his gaze slide to the small factory unit next to the target workshop: Gallagher and two Manchester detectives had been sitting in a parked vehicle behind the building for the best part of two hours. Glancing back towards the main road, Harris saw a stationary box van, its paintwork rusting, the windows grimy. He knew that Alison Butterfield was sitting in the back of the vehicle with several armed officers: he also knew that the young constable would be loving this.

‘Your man Gallagher,’ said Gorman suddenly, breaking into the inspector’s reverie.

Harris gave her a sharp look.

‘OK, OK,’ said Gorman, holding up a hand, ‘I know I’m out of order, but I’m hearing good things about him.’

‘He is good,’ said Harris, looking at her fiercely, ‘but good and mine so you can keep your hands off him, Annie.’

‘Don’t worry. Besides, even if I did offer him a job, there’s no way he would come and work for me.’

‘Yeah, he’s got his eye on a transfer to Roxham,’ said Harris gloomily.

‘Actually, he’s got his eyes on you, Jacky my boy. I had a long talk with him earlier. Back at the nick. Yeah, OK, I was poaching,
mea culpa
, but, like I said, you have nothing to worry about: Matty Gallagher says you are the most infuriating senior officer he has ever worked with.’

‘Doesn’t exactly put my mind at rest.’

‘Ah, but it should, because he loves working for you, you curmudgeonly old bastard. God knows why. There’s no way I could prise him away even if I wanted to.’ Gorman looked at him gently. ‘And I don’t want to, Hawk. Losing me and a damned good sergeant in one night would be too much for any man to bear.’

Harris was not sure what to say.

‘Look after him,’ said Gorman and looked out of the window again. ‘Still no movement. Are you sure this is not a set-up as well? Is your man reliable?’

The inspector’s mind went back to his last encounter with Paul Garratt the previous day when, after forty-eight hours of intense negotiations which had seen Harris and Curtis spending many hours in meetings and on the phone, he had been able to secure for Garratt the deal that he wanted.

Armed with the agreement, Harris walked into the interview room at Levton Bridge that final time to be greeted by a hopeful look from Garratt. His expression clouded over when he saw a man he did not recognize following the inspector into the room.

‘Who’s he?’ he asked curtly.

‘Customs,’ replied Harris.

‘Eric Stabler,’ said the Customs man, sitting down and taking off his suit jacket to reveal rolled-up shirtsleeves. ‘None of this happens without me.’

Garratt looked at Harris.

‘He’s right,’ nodded the inspector. ‘Customs investigator trumps woolly-back cop on this one.’

‘OK,’ said Garratt. ‘Do I take it you have got my deal then?’

‘Yes, but you had better deliver your side of the bargain, mind,’ said the DCI, glancing at Stabler. ‘This has gone all the way up to the Foreign Office. No one is entirely happy about this. You’re a pretty good catch yourself and no one is entirely comfortable with letting you go.’

‘Yeah,’ said Stabler, ‘so if this is a piss-take.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Garratt. ‘So what’s the deal, Harris?’

‘All charges dropped. Things smoothed over with our Congolese friends, a new identity, safe passage to the border then we stick you on a horse and you fuck off into the sunset, never to return.’

‘I’ve always fancied South America,’ nodded Garratt. ‘Too wet here. And too many sheep.’

‘So start talking then,’ said Harris. ‘Where does Gerry Radford fit into the picture? You reckon he’s moved into wildlife trafficking?’

‘Big time.’

‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ said Stabler. ‘Our information is that he is relatively small fry.’

‘Was,’ said Garratt. ‘
Was
small fry, Mr Stabler. See, Gerry Radford has got a new hobby and it’s making him huge sums of money.’

‘What is it?’

‘Caged birds,’ said Garratt. ‘Caught all over the world and shipped over here.’

‘It’s a massive racket,’ nodded Stabler, glancing at Harris.

‘It is,’ said Harris. ‘So where do they go after he brings them back here, Paul?’

‘The illegal pet trade in the UK, or moved on to the Continent – oh, and a lot go over to the US. The Americans can’t get enough of parrots and the like. Anything pretty coloured. They’ll pay top dollar, particularly for the rarer species, and with the US getting tougher on legal imports, the black market is on the up and up. It’s much less risky than trafficking drugs.’

‘But not for the birds,’ said Harris, his disgust undisguised. ‘Surely, many of them will die on the way over?’

‘Maybe they do,’ said Garratt and gave a slight smile, ‘but, as I have tried to teach you before, the fewer there are, the higher the price on the ones that survive. Don’t look at me like that, Harris. Everything is a commodity.’

Harris scowled at him.

‘We’ll need names,’ said Stabler. ‘You’re going to have to work for this.’

‘Give me a pen and a piece of paper then.’

Twenty minutes later, once he had finished writing, Garratt handed the paper over to Stabler, who scanned the list and gave a low whistle.

‘Thought you’d like it,’ said Garratt.

‘You said you could deliver Radford as well,’ said Harris as he looked at the list handed to him by Stabler. He placed it on the desk.
‘His name is not on this.’

‘And so I can. Tomorrow night, he is bringing in something that I think will interest you. Be warned, he knows that someone inside his organization is grassing him up to the police and has put the word out that a delivery of drugs is coming in at a service station. That’s a red herring to keep the cops over there tied up. The real one is coming to a workshop he uses to store stuff.’ He reached for the piece of paper and scribbled something. ‘That’s the address. Third building on the left. Look inside the truck and you will find everything you need.’

Garratt sat back in his chair and stared expectantly at the chief inspector.

‘OK, Harris, I have kept my side of the bargain. When do I get to go?’

‘Now. You’ll go with Mr Stabler here,’ said Harris. ‘He’ll arrange things. I think he will want a further conversation with you before you do your disappearing act.’

Stabler nodded and Garratt stood up.

‘Oh, one thing before you do go, Paul,’ said Harris. ‘How do you know all this about Radford?’

Garratt gave a slight smile.

‘Who do you think fixed tomorrow night’s little operation for him?’ he said. ‘The birds come from a bent dealer I know in Ghana.’

‘Sit down,’ said Harris.

Garratt hesitated.

‘Sit down,’ repeated Harris, his voice harder edged this time.

Garratt sighed and took his seat again.

‘What’s this about, Jack?’ asked Stabler. ‘I don’t want you doing anything that will wreck our arrangement.’

‘There’s something I need to clear up first, though, I still have an unsolved murder,’ said Harris. ‘Paul, did Meredith know about you and Radford?’

‘I was going to tell him the night I found out what he was doing but when he told me that he was grassing up Radford, things suddenly got a whole lot more complicated. Never shit in your own nest and all that stuff.’ Garratt chuckled. ‘A nice bird analogy, I think.’

Harris scowled.

‘Come on, Inspector,’ said Garratt, ‘lighten up. You have got what you wanted out of this.’

‘Not quite. See, we have a witness who says that you were involved in Meredith’s murder and the attack on James Thornycroft. I didn’t believe that until now but now, I am thinking that you had a good reason to see him dead.’

‘I imagine we are talking about Thornycroft’s wife? The lovely Gaynor?’

‘I can’t reveal—’

‘You don’t need to. She has always hated me. Blames me and Meredith for leading her husband into bad ways. However, you can rest assured that she’s lying about me. I know for a fact that Radford sent a couple of his own heavies after Meredith and Thornycroft. Bloke called Lennie Ross, shaven-headed guy – and another chap, don’t know his name, evil-looking bastard. They’re the ones who shot at your farmers. Mind, I did hear that they are adamant that they didn’t kill Meredith.’

‘Yes, but did you?’ asked Harris. ‘I mean, you’ve got plenty of motive if you thought he was threatening to screw things up with Radford. Or maybe you were worried that he was going to grass you up. You are already wanted for the murder of Rylance, it’s not like you haven’t got a track record for this sort of thing.’

‘Not my style these days,’ said Garratt with a slight smile. ‘Jesus, I can’t ransack some old bird’s home without being caught.’

‘Yeah, what were you doing there? Weren’t you taking a bit of a risk?’

‘You are right about one thing. I had got kinda jumpy about Meredith. When he disappeared, I started to wonder if he was informing on me as well, cutting a deal. I tried to get into his home, see if he had anything on me, but you had a police guard on it. I wondered if you had taken him into protective custody. I don’t mind admitting, I was crapping myself. He knew where all the skeletons were buried.’

‘So when you found out that Jasmine had done a runner as well, you decided to see if she had
taken anything with her?’ said Harris.

‘Something like that. Once I started thinking about it, I reckoned that he wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave anything at his place so Jasmine was the obvious person to trust with it.’

‘And did you find anything at her mum’s house?’

‘No.’ Garratt gave a smile. ‘Ironic really. Honour among thieves and all that.’

‘Oh, before I forget,’ said Gorman. ‘I should thank you for the tip-off about Radford rumbling our informant.’

‘You got him out of there all right?’

‘Yeah.’

Gorman’s radio crackled.

‘There’s movement,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Truck turning into the industrial estate. And a car behind it. A Jaguar.’

The officers watched both vehicles cut their lights and drive slowly down the road, towards the detectives’ hiding place. Truck and car pulled up out outside the workshop. The back doors of the lorry were flung open and half-a-dozen men jumped out.