RUNNING INTO TROUBLE

DI Angus Henderson

Book 14

IAIN CAMERON

Copyright © 2026 Iain Cameron

This edition 2026 published by Vinci Books

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

To the surgeons, nurses, and staff at Eastbourne General who looked after me with such dedication and care before, during, and after my treatment for prostate cancer. I owe you my deepest gratitude.

Chapter One

Jeff Delaney stood at the back door of his house in Kirdford and assessed the weather. It was Friday, six-thirty on a clear October morning, and with the temperature around seven degrees and a gentle breeze blowing, perfect conditions for running.

He hadn’t been into sport at school, instead loved drama and music. While working for LBS Finance, a large asset management company in London, he hadn’t hit the in-house gym first thing as many of his colleagues had, but arrived at his desk an hour or so before they did. This, he believed, was the reason why he’d been made a manager ahead of them.

When he’d first set out on his own as an independent financial investor to the rich and influential, he’d found himself hunched over a laptop ten hours a day, and realised he needed to do something or his body would atrophy into an unsightly, unhealthy mess. In fact, it was his fiancé, Mia Barraclough, who had got him into running, being a keen parkrunner and having completed over one hundred and fifty of the things.

He now ran three times a week without fail, although he drew the line at torrential rain or heavy ice and snow. Some would say it had almost reached the compulsion level, as he would feel crap if he missed a run. If it was a compulsion, it was a good one to have as it had significantly improved his physical and mental health, and even some of his clients had noticed.

He set off. There were several decent runs around this part of West Sussex, but once a week, including today, he liked to undertake a longer one. His route would take him into the neighbouring village of Wisborough Green, where he would pick up the disused Wey and Arun canal, cross the A272, head north towards Newpound, and travel back to Kirdford along a combination of fields and roads. All in all, about twenty kilometres, a sharp jump from his usual ten or twelve.

Heading through Wisborough Green he nodded ‘Good Morning’ to the small number of people he came across that early: a woman filling a bird feeder, a dog walker, and the landlord of the Three Crowns pub putting out his A-boards.

He skirted the A272 for about two hundred metres before crossing the road and joining a farm track. He relaxed, away from the noise and danger of cars, and focussed on the sights and smells of the countryside as it started to wake: cows milling in the field, crows cawing as they settled in a nearby tree, and the shrill shriek of a hawk in the distance, as it scanned the ground below for food.

Running over a small stone bridge, he veered left and continued alongside the disused canal. The path was dry as it hadn’t rained for a couple of days, but nettles and brambles had proliferated during the summer and draped fronds over the track.

As he passed through a small wooded section, a large man stepped into his path about ten metres ahead. He was snappily dressed in a smart yellow jumper and dark trousers, incongruous for a walk in the countryside and more reminiscent of an eccentric banker he once knew.

‘Can you tell me,’ he called, in a shrill voice at variance with his heavy bulk, ‘how I get to Wisborough Green?’

Delaney paused the music in his headphones and came to a halt. He turned and pointed behind him. ‘Go that way until you reach–’

The sudden blow to the side of his head knocked him down. He tried to get up but strong hands gripped his shoulders and dragged him towards the undergrowth.

‘What are you doing? Who the fuck are you?’ he asked in a slurred voice.

‘Shut up.’

The big guy pulled him into a clearing, shielded from the path, where another smaller guy with a thin, angular face was waiting, sitting on a log.

‘Well, if it isn’t Jeff Delaney as I live and breathe.’

‘Who are you?’ What do you want?’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘No questions Jeff.’ The little guy nodded to his mate.

The big guy reached down and started to remove the phone from the holder on Delaney’s arm. He resisted but received an elbow in the face for his trouble. The freed phone was handed to his companion.

‘Nice phone, Jeff. What’s the password?’

‘Fuck off, I’m not telling you anything.’

‘No need to be so rude. Do your thing, big fella.’

A hand grabbed Delaney’s arm and twisted it up his back. He howled in pain, the sound blocked by another hand over his mouth. Beads of sweat gathered on his brow in spite of the cool air and shade afforded by the trees.

‘C’mon Jeff, cooperate, it’ll save any unpleasantness.’

The arm edged higher.

Shaking the hand from his mouth, Delaney said, ‘It’s 230587.’

His arm was released as the small guy snapped his fingers. ‘Damn, I should have guessed. Your birthday, 23rd May. Am I right?’

‘How do you know that?’

Unlocking the phone, he scrolled for a moment before exclaiming, ‘Ah, this is what I’m looking for: a password app. Now what’s the password? Perhaps it’s 230587.’ He tapped the screen again. ‘Eureka! I’m in.’

‘Well done,’ a shrill voice close to Delaney’s ear said.

‘Find his keys,’ the little guy said.

The big guy rummaged through the pockets of Delaney’s shorts, with no resistance from him as he cradled his aching arm, and pulled out his house keys and handed them to his companion.

‘Good. I think we’re finished here. Thank you, Jeff, and thank you, my big friend.’

The big guy reached for him again. Jeff turned to keep his injured arm out of the way, expecting more of the same. Instead, he felt something loop around his neck.

Jeff’s hands shot to his throat, trying to loosen the tightening cord, but he couldn’t get his fingers underneath. He kicked his legs, trying to gain some purchase to push backwards, but it was no use. The trees grew darker, as if night had fallen, until slowly they faded from view.

Chapter Two

At six on Saturday morning, Detective Inspector Angus Henderson got out of bed, and after first walking into the bathroom, headed downstairs and into the lounge. He couldn’t have lain in bed any longer as his head was buzzing with a jumble of thoughts.

It wasn’t the pressure of work bothering him. The trial of Greg Wilkinson, the last murder investigation his team had worked on, was to be heard at the Old Bailey in a month’s time. Nor was it any strange noises emanating from the new house he and Kelly had recently moved into.

It was the call he had received the previous night from Mia Barraclough. If he was being pedantic, it was Kelly who’d received the call. Mia was one of Kelly’s mature students on the Criminal Psychology course she ran at the University of Sussex, but Kelly had passed the phone to Henderson as Mia wanted to speak to him, knowing he was a detective with Sussex Police.

Mia, and her soon-to-be-husband, Jeff Delaney, had gone out to a restaurant in Brighton with Henderson and Kelly about a month before. Kelly often lunched with Mia at the university, so even though it had only been the second time Henderson had met them, he knew a fair amount about the couple.

Mia was a former lawyer who’d traded rich business lunches, affidavits and torts, for limp university food and sterile lectures on criminal psychology and recidivism. She hadn’t left the corporate world entirely behind, as she still worked part-time for a bank. Jeff was from a financial services background, but several years back had set himself up as an independent financial investor, managing the funds of wealthy individuals, and poaching many top clients from the firm where he had once worked.

Mia had phoned Jeff several times the previous day on some domestic matter, but had been unable to speak to him; his phone appeared to be off. This was a red flag in itself as he and Mia talked most days. It was also an anathema to a self-employed IFI like Jeff, as many of his clients were influential and demanding. Due to time differences between the places where they lived, or had moored their yacht, he could be called at any hour of the day or night. If he and Mia were at home with friends, out at a restaurant, lying in bed, it didn’t matter: he would feel compelled to answer.

Henderson and Jeff were both keen runners, so on the two occasions when they’d met, they’d had a long discussion about the subject. Mia said, once a week Jeff would undertake a 20k run, along the disused Wey and Arun Canal near Wisborough Green, a village a couple of miles from the house where he lived in Kirdford. She was worried in case he had fallen into the canal or had tripped and broken something. She knew Henderson also liked to run and asked him about the likelihood of anything untoward happening.

Henderson was concerned. Jeff was an experienced runner, more dedicated than he was, and often ran familiar routes so he knew what to expect with few surprises. He was, in addition, level-headed and diplomatic so it was unlikely he had got into a violent altercation with a farmer about scaring a herd of cows, or a group of cyclists over rights of way.

Henderson preferred to run off-road and was aware that on a more rural route a runner could twist an ankle, pull a hamstring, or break a leg, and it could be hours before someone would come along to help. With mild temperatures the previous few nights, he reassured Mia that if Jeff was incapacitated, he would not have frozen to death. And it was unlikely he would have tumbled into the canal.

The DI had decided rather than trying to reassure Mia with platitudes like, Don’t worry he’ll turn up soon, he’s probably got drunk with a mate, or suggest sending a copper around to his house, he would run the same route as Jeff early this morning. After consulting Google Maps, he would focus on the rural aspects of Jeff’s route, places more likely for a fall or a headlong dash into water, and cover the road section between Wisborough Green and Kirdford by car.

Henderson said goodbye to Kelly and set off. Their new house, their first together, was in Cheltenham Place in Brighton’s North Laines. It boasted a rarity in that busy part of town: off-street parking. It was a must for him as he could be called out at all hours, saving time and hassle looking for a parking place at night, and it reduced the number of bodywork dinks and broken mirrors suffered by other cars left in the road.

The journey would take about an hour which would allow the cool October morning to warm up a few degrees. It was too early to call DS Walters and tell her what he was planning to do. He would do it later.

He travelled north on the A23, and at Bolney veered left and joined the A272. Navigation was more or less straight-forward, the road went all the way to Wisborough Green, but it was single carriageway with many sharp corners and numerous villages to negotiate, requiring constant concentration. Another time, with less on his mind, it would have been an enjoyable journey, but not today. He wanted to get out there and see if he could find Jeff.

Arriving in Wisborough Green he did as Mia had suggested and parked beside the village green. He had never been to the village before and thought it a pleasant place with a village shop, cafe, large church on the hill, and two pubs within walking distance of one another.

The air had indeed warmed up. Before switching off the engine, the car’s temperature gauge registered ten degrees, good enough for him. He set off and ran past the Three Crowns Pub, then skirted the slope beneath the church. Crossing the A272, getting busier by the minute, he headed down a narrow access road where he passed a series of allotments and a large scout hut.

So far, so normal. Over the next kilometre or so, he ran past a row of houses, perhaps the homes of former farm workers many years ago before the large fields on both sides were cultivated with automated machinery. About a month before, he imagined the fields would have been full of tall plants such as barley, corn or wheat, but were now shorn and bare, as if in receipt of a prison haircut. A half-kilometre or so ahead and over a stone bridge, he took a sharp left and joined the track bordering the disused canal.

It was hard to know the canal was there as it was choked with undergrowth, and difficult to see how Jeff could fall in unless being chased by a large dog or an attacker. In any case, Henderson doubted the water would be deep enough for anyone to drown as it looked as though the channel hadn’t been maintained for years.

His pace slowed as not only was the ground rutted, narrow and uneven, but when he passed through a small copse of trees it was littered with exposed tree roots and fallen branches. He also reduced his pace so he could look left and right for any sign of Jeff, as it looked a more likely place for him to have had an accident than the previous open areas.

Up ahead was another small crop of trees. Similar to his drive along the A272, this route would have been interesting if he wasn’t here on a search mission, as it was full of variety and he imagined it would change from week to week due to weather and the changing seasons. He was following the meandering track through the trees when he caught a glimpse of a bright orange patch among the plethora of greens and browns.

Henderson was sure if just walking or running, his focus would have been on the next corner, not on something in the bushes over to his left. From where he was, a mass of brambles, bushes and tree branches blocked his way. Keeping his eye on the area where he thought the colour patch was, he walked along the path looking for a way in.

The path led into a clear area of scrubland, but rather than continue along it, he stepped left, over tufts of rough grass. Approaching a small knot of trees, he ducked under a bough and in a few steps found himself in a clearing, sheltered by overhanging branches.

From here, the path wasn’t visible and if he sat down on the small tree trunk lying in the clearing he doubted if any walkers or runners on the track could see him, despite his bright blue top. He made his way over to where he had seen the strange orange colour, expecting it to be a discarded can of Fanta, or a lost beanie hat.

In a patch of nettles and brambles he discovered what the orange patch was: the running top of Jeff Delaney with his lifeless body inside.

Chapter Three

Mia Barraclough sat at the kitchen table sipping her third coffee of the day, and it wasn’t yet ten o’clock. She’d slept fitfully, as her tired mind tried to juggle several balls in the air: the assignment she needed to write – Cultural Causes of Recidivism; the economic reports she’d received from the bank where she worked two days a week, and now the fact that Jeff wasn’t answering his phone.

She was a pragmatic person, a characteristic drilled into her by an unflappable and supremely organised mother, so Jeff wasn’t missing and hadn’t disappeared, he simply wasn’t answering his phone. However, volumes could be read into this non-responsive act. Ordinary people, including some of her friends, would ignore a call, turn their phone off, or put the device into airplane mode when they didn’t want to be disturbed.

Jeff did none of those things. The only time he couldn’t be contacted was when he was on a plane: his phone could ring in the theatre, restaurant, a meeting, or in the middle of the night, and he would always answer it. The handset was upgraded every eighteen months, not so much to acquire the latest features but to benefit from the incremental improvements phone manufacturers made to battery life and mobile services.

This was the reason behind her decision to speak to Kelly’s partner, Angus, on Friday evening, despite Jeff only being out of touch for less than twenty-four hours. She knew enough from her criminality course to understand they wouldn’t treat him as a missing person, especially someone as fit and self-reliant as Jeff, until he had been out of contact for at least three days.

To her relief, Angus had shared her concern and didn’t patronise her by advising her to wait a little longer, or enquire if he had been seeing another woman. She hadn’t expected him to offer to run the same route, but as he was planning to go out for a run the following morning anyway, he’d said it wasn’t a great inconvenience for him to drive over to Wisborough Green.

She had considered running the route herself, although it was a longer distance than her weekly parkrun, but felt uncomfortable running rural routes. She was blonde, mid-thirties, and with a good figure – ‘bumps in all the right places,’ according to her mother. She could handle the occasional wolf whistle and lewd comment from white van men, but the thought of being accosted in a quiet spot, however innocently, by another runner, cyclist, or dog walker, filled her with anxiety.

She emptied her coffee cup and walked to the dishwasher. Putting it in, she vowed not to drink any more. She snapped the dishwasher door closed and leaned her hands on the worktop. What the hell was Jeff playing at? They were heading to Spain in less than a month, to a grand hotel owned by one of his clients, and there, in front of sixty family members and close friends, they were to be married. Some arrangements had still to be finalised so she still needed his input.

Her continued digging inside this dark mental hole was interrupted when her phone rang. She ran over and grabbed it, but felt disappointed to see it was her friend Sofia Goodman, and not Jeff or Angus.

‘Hello Sofia, how are you?’ she said as brightly as she could.

‘Hi Mia. I hate to land my troubles on you, but I’m in a bad way.’

‘Why?’

‘I opened my laptop this morning and you wouldn’t believe the abusive emails I’ve received, accusing Taylor of being a thief and calling him all sorts of horrible names. They must have got my details from LinkedIn; my business is on there.’ She started crying. ‘How could they be so cruel to someone that everyone, except me, believes is dead?’

Try as she may, Mia couldn’t get any sense out of Sofia. She made a decision: hang the dissertation, the economic reports, and for a short period at least, Jeff’s absence. She told Sofia she would come over.

She closed the door of her house in Hova Villas in Hove, jumped into her car and headed to Henfield. Jeff and Sofia’s husband, Taylor Goodman, were friends, having both worked at the same finance firm many years ago. Taylor had been the first to set up in business on his own, and Jeff, spurred-on by Taylor’s success, had followed six months later.

Just over a month before, whilst out cycling near the River Adur, to the north of Henfield, his abandoned bike was discovered on the riverbank. The police believed he’d crashed and fallen into the river. He had suffered from depression in the past, and when this was revealed, the media ran a story about how he had committed suicide, and so the investigation slowly lost momentum. His body had never been found, leaving Sofia yearning for his safe return, and vowing to continue to live in the house they had shared.

Mia arrived at the large detached house in West End Lane in Henfield. She shut the car door and looked up to see a tearful Sofia standing at the front door of the house, her arms folded. Normally a vivacious and beautiful woman, with thick waves of dark hair and dusky skin betraying the Spanish roots of her mother, she had been reduced to a sad wreck by the absence and assumed death of her husband.

Mia walked over and held Sofia in a tight embrace. ‘C’mon, let’s go inside and I’ll make us a nice cup of coffee.’

Mia led Sofia into the kitchen and told her to sit while she attended to the drinks: a normal coffee for Sofia, the decaffeinated version for herself. When they were settled, Mia asked her to explain what had happened.

‘Since Taylor disappeared, I refused to touch his stuff,’ Sofia explained. ‘The police, Taylor’s family, his friends, were all telling me he’s dead and I needed to move on. If I believed them, I might have been tempted to donate his clothes and things to a charity shop or something, but as I don’t, I’ve left everything as it was.’

‘A sensible approach.’

‘When I saw the article in The Times last week, the one I told you about…’

Mia nodded. A financial journalist had been contacted by some of Taylor’s clients as there had been rumblings of disquiet surrounding the details of his disappearance. Some were convinced that as the on-line system they used to monitor the performance of their investments was no longer available, fraud was suspected.

‘I went through his things but I couldn’t find his laptop. I was shocked it wasn’t there, as he had his life on it. He ran his business from there; kept his large collection of albums and CDs on it, as well as the cycling routes he liked to ride and his connections with other cyclists; everything.’

‘He didn’t always work from home, though, did he?’ Mia asked. ‘I remember him telling me he sometimes went into London for a change of scenery and worked at Soho House, or the Institute of Directors.’

‘Yes, you’re right, he did.’

‘Maybe he did that the day before he disappeared, and left his laptop there.’

Sofia’s features brightened. ‘Perhaps he did, although why would he when, as I said, his whole life was on it?’ A shadow passed across her face.

‘What is it?’

‘Maybe he didn’t care where he left it as he’d already emptied all his client accounts and was planning to jet off somewhere.’

‘Don’t think that way, Sofia. Call Soho House and the IOD today and put your mind at rest.’

‘Good idea. I will.’

‘Do you know if he had a spare laptop?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘If it contained as much important information as you say, he’d definitely have backed it up to a remote device. You know the sort of thing, a dedicated back-up unit or a USB stick?’

‘I don’t know, but if he had one, what would I do with it?’

‘If it’s up to date, you can plug it into your laptop and see what he’d been working on.’

‘Great! Can you help me look for it, and connect it to my laptop? You know I’m rubbish with computers.’

‘Of course I can. When would you like to do it?’

‘Can we make a start now?’ Sofia said, rising from the chair. ‘The more emails I receive from people suggesting Taylor has absconded with their money, the more I’m coming around to their way of thinking.’

‘You don’t believe…?’

‘I don’t know…but maybe I’m starting to see it from their perspective. The police think he fell in the river, but if he did, where is his body? What if he had staged the whole thing to make it look like an accident, and in the meantime, he’s jetted off into the sunset with over one hundred million in his pocket?’

Chapter Four

For once DI Henderson had arrived at a murder scene before Grafton Rawlings, the pathologist, but this didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, DS Walters had also arrived before Rawlings. She had been working in the office when Henderson called, and had brought him the North Face jacket he kept on a hanger at work for emergency call-outs in bad weather.

‘I’ll explain what I was doing in the office on a Saturday morning after you tell me what’s going on here,’ Walters said, as they drank the welcome takeaway coffee she had managed to procure from the small café in Wisborough Green.

Henderson’s explanation complete, he listened while Walters told him about the urgent lawyer questions she’d had to answer concerning an earlier murder case. They turned and examined the body and murder scene.

‘It’s clear to me,’ the DI said, ‘without the wisdom of Grafton, our victim’s been strangled with a ligature.’

Walters bent down to look at the body as Henderson had done earlier. ‘The neck marks look thin, suggesting something like a strong, synthetic rope,’ she said. ‘In which case, we can rule out a fight with someone else over the use of the path. I mean, who walks around with such a thing in their pocket?’

‘It certainly doesn’t look like it was made by a dog lead, although it could be one of those extendable types, and I can’t think cyclists or runners would have a need to carry anything like it.’

‘There’s nothing in his pockets, and he’s wearing one of those natty arm phone carriers, but with no phone inside.’

She stood and they moved out of the clearing onto the rough grass.

‘At first,’ Henderson said, ‘I thought he was one of those runners who came out carrying as little as possible, no phone and house keys under a plant pot, but the presence of earbuds and the empty phone carrier suggests the phone at least was taken by his killer.’

‘It feels extreme for a phone theft, but I suspect it’s not the whole story. Did he live alone?’

He nodded. ‘Getting married next month.’

‘That’s a bummer for the partner who has to carry on without him.’

‘It is. No house key suggests we’ll either find his house turned over, or the key in its hiding place.’

They heard a noise on the path, the unmistakable clatter of numerous pairs of big boots, and not those of a hiking variety. He walked to the path and directed the small Sussex Police posse: several constables, crime scene manager, photographer, and pathologist, towards the clearing.

Grafton Rawlings was a city boy and the short hike through the fields and a trek along a muddy path was about all he could take, his face reflecting his annoyance. He would have to steel himself for the trip back. While the constables set up a perimeter with crime tape, Grafton bent down to examine the body.

‘Hello Angus,’ he said when Henderson approached. ‘You look dressed for a run. Did you find the body?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘That’s a first. It could make a feature in the Police Gazette.’

‘It wouldn’t make for a heart-warming story and, before you ask, I wouldn’t want to do it again.’

‘I was hoping this was going to be something complicated, something to keep me here for a while before I have to make that bloody trek back. My new shoes are covered in grass and mud. As it is, this one looks straightforward. He died by strangulation, a thin ligature by the look of it and, going by the lack of fibres, a synthetic one. I estimate he’s been dead for no more than twenty-four hours. The one complication I do see is there is nothing in his pockets to identify him. I hope for your sake his prints are on the system.’

‘That’s not a problem this time.’

‘Why, do you know who he is?’

He nodded. ‘He’s the partner of one of Kelly’s friends.’

‘Oh, is he? I’m so sorry to hear that, Angus. Will you be taken off the case?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. I’ve only met them both twice and, if anything, I know more about his partner, Mia, than I do about Jeff.’

‘That’s good. It wouldn’t do your reputation any good with a new man at the helm to find his DI is sidelined five minutes after he starts.’

‘You’re right.’

‘What’s he like, this new DCI?’

‘He’s bright, good with computers and the psychology of criminals, but don’t expect him to turn up at places like this. He’s a bit of a desk jockey, hot on costs and resources and, according to my sources at Surrey, suffers from bad asthma and uses an inhaler.’

‘Oh.’

‘He has hay fever too. All this rampant greenery wouldn’t do him any good.’

‘I agree.’

Henderson noticed the recent arrival of several members of the murder team, now being briefed by DS Walters.

‘I’d better go and get this investigation underway. Thanks Grafton. See you later.’

‘Bye Angus. I’ll see you when I’ve got this poor soul laid out on a mortuary slab.’

Henderson walked down to the path where a small gaggle of cyclists and dog walkers were rubbernecking behind the crime tape, trying to see what all the fuss was about. He joined the small group of detectives: Walters, and Sergeants Vicky Neal and the newly-promoted DS Phil Bentley.

‘Has Carol brought you both up to speed?’

They nodded.

‘Good. Vicky, organise an information gathering team. First off, get a couple of boards down at the start of this path up at the bridge, and another further along in the opposite direction, asking if anyone has seen our victim.’

‘Right.’

‘Also, organise door-to-door at any houses he might have passed on his way here in Wisborough Green. I want an accurate time, and if any locals noticed an odd character or characters hanging around the village or on this path.’

‘Will do. I think we should also put a board up in the village.’

‘Good idea. Do it. Anything else?’

‘Not for the moment.’

‘Phil, coordinate the forensic team when they arrive, although you might need all your people managing skills as they won’t be able to get their van down here. They might be a bit grumpy having to hump their gear along the path by hand. They won’t have a lot to go on, but the perp or perps might have dropped or left something. I’m forever catching myself on overhanging brambles and branches.’

‘Will do, gov.’

‘This case bothers me, not because I knew the victim, but because I don’t think we’ll get any help from the crime scene. There are no cameras, neighbours or witnesses that we know of. The killer has chosen this spot well, but we still don’t know for sure if this was a chance meeting or a planned attack. Either way, we will have our work cut out. Carol and I will now talk to the victim’s partner and let her know we’ve found him. I’ll see you both for an update at six.’

Chapter Five

The drive from Wisborough Green to Hove where Mia Barraclough lived was subdued. For one, there wasn’t a lot of evidence to talk about. To kick off the murder inquiry, they would only have whatever nuggets Grafton could glean from the post-mortem, and the results, if any, of the forensic search, both of which Henderson believed would yield little.

Another reason for being so quiet: they were to be the bearers of bad news. Mia was too young to be in receipt of such terrible information about the man she loved and was about to marry. Jeff had been married before, and had two children with his first wife, but this was the first time for Mia.

She lived in a white-painted, semi-detached villa in one of the smarter streets. Similar houses in the area had been converted into flats, but Mia’s hadn’t, the large accommodation the reward for a woman who had burned the midnight oil at a top law firm for over a decade and had been compensated commensurately.

He parked the car and the detectives walked towards her house. The sun was shining but it felt chilly due to the wind funnelling up the street from the seafront. Henderson had first gone home to change, so at least he was now wearing clothes more appropriate for the weather, not to mention talking to the partner of a murder victim.

‘What did Jeff do?’ Walters asked.

‘He was a self-employed independent financial investor.’

‘What does that involve?’

‘If you have a lot of money, rather than put it in a bank and earn a paltry rate of interest, you might want to invest it somewhere offering a better return, such as stocks and shares, bonds, or precious metals.’

‘You’re well clued-up.’

‘I listened when he talked to me about it. You can do this by investing on your own, but if you don’t have the expertise or the time, a bank or financial institution will do it for you. Jeff used to work for one, but about eight years back, decided to go out on his own.’

‘I admire people who can make a success of striking out on their own, making or doing something that wasn’t there before.’

‘He was pretty good at it by all accounts.’

Henderson could see Mia’s car in front of the house so there was a good chance she was at home. Although, living so close to the shops and coffee bars of Hove, she could equally have walked out. He rang the bell and heard movement inside. Moments later the door swung open.

‘Angus! It’s great to see you. Do come in.’

He introduced DS Walters as she closed the door and ushered them into the lounge.

‘Did you run this morning, as you thought you would, or have you changed your mind?’

‘I went out this morning. Please take a seat Mia.’

The room was tastefully decorated in pastel colours and with furniture complementing the shape of the large, airy room, the light provided by the big bay window. Without looking too hard, it was obvious it had received a woman’s touch.

‘I started at Wisborough Green as you suggested.’

‘Ah, that’s good.’

‘I found Jeff–’

‘You did? Brilliant! How is he? Is he all right?’

‘I’m sorry to tell you, Mia, Jeff is dead.’

‘What? He can’t be, not Jeff?’ Tears welled in her eyes and her face crumpled. ‘What happened? How did he die?’

‘He’d been strangled.’

‘No! No! No!’ Mia got up from the chair and fled from the room. They sat for a moment. It was not unusual for a recipient of bad news to want to leave the room; few people wanted to display raw grief in front of two relative strangers.

‘I’d better make some tea,’ Walters said. ‘For the shock.’

‘Aye, good idea.’

While Walters busied herself in the kitchen, Henderson rose from his seat and examined the photographs dotted around the room. Most were of Mia, as she’d had a life before meeting Jeff. Kelly had told him she’d travelled the world, and met many powerful and influential individuals, including company chief executives, country leaders, and numerous media personalities.

He would need Mia to put names to most of the faces but some were familiar. The pictures of Jeff were more recent, and he recognised several locations, as they had talked about their travels when he and Kelly had dined with them. There was no clue here of the terrible event that was about to befall them.

Walters made heavily sweetened tea for Mia and went off to find her.

The DS reappeared a few minutes later.

‘Poor Mia’s in a terrible state, as you would expect. I asked her to give me the name of a friend and I’ve phoned her. She’ll be here in about ten minutes.’

‘Good. We’ll wait until she arrives. There’s nothing more we can do here.’

‘The victim’s name is Jeff Delaney,’ Henderson said, tapping the whiteboard behind him. They had sectioned off a large part of the Detectives’ Area to accommodate the investigation team and positioned two whiteboards, although with the paucity of information available so far, Henderson reckoned one would be enough.

There followed a bout of clapping after the DI explained how the body was discovered. For a Saturday afternoon there was a good turnout: a mix of Serious Crime team detectives, associated officers, like the CSM and HOLMES Indexer, and a small group of uniformed officers.

‘Jeff was thirty-nine, a self-employed independent financial investor, and worked from his house in Kirdford. He handled the investments for a portfolio of clients where I gather the minimum investment is two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand.’

‘No disgruntled employees to interview, this time,’ Neal said.

‘No there aren’t, but there could be annoyed clients. The place where he was found, along the disused Wey and Arun Canal, is a quiet, rural, walking, cycling, and running route, so there are no cameras, no houses nearby, and quite likely no witnesses.’

‘Bloody hell,’ DC Seb Young said, ‘where do we start?’

‘We’ll come back to that in a minute. Phil, how did the forensics team get on?’

‘The team searched the area where the body was found, the little clearing beside it, and down to the path, but while they’ve collected numerous bits of debris, nothing looks as though it belonged to the killer. It’s a safe assumption that Delaney was killed there or close by, as it wouldn’t be practical to transport a body along the path to the crime scene.’

‘I agree,’ the DI concurred.

‘In which case, I think they’ve done all they can.’

Henderson thought for a moment. ‘Okay. Thanks Phil. Vicky, has the door-to-door come up with anything?’

Consulting her notebook, Neal nodded. ‘We do have one witness in Durbans Road in Wisborough Green, who saw a runner coming past her house on Friday morning. She noticed him as she had gone out to fill the bird seed tray in the front garden, just as the pips were sounding for seven o’ clock on Radio 4. The runner wished her good morning and she noted he was wearing a bright orange top. It sounds like our man.’

‘It does.’

‘I showed her the victim’s picture, and she was sure it’s the same person.’

‘Right, we have Jeff out for a run from his house in Kirdford about six-thirty on Friday morning. He passes our witness at seven, and somewhere around 7:30am is accosted by the killer and strangled. I think we can all agree: his death doesn’t look like the result of an altercation with another path user.’

‘For sure,’ Neal said. ‘For one, it was early with few people about, and if involved in a fight, would be exhibiting cuts, bruises, and other defence wounds.’

‘Not to mention the method of dispatch,’ Sally Graham said. ‘Why would another walker or runner be carrying such a rope? If a serious fight developed, it’s more likely Jeff would be hit with a lump of wood or strangled by hand.’

‘Did anyone report seeing a strange man or men heading down the path around the time Jeff would have been there,’ Henderson asked, ‘or notice an unfamiliar car parked near the allotments?’

She shook her head. ‘We’ve heard nothing yet. We’ll keep asking, but it’s a long shot. The boards will go up later today.’

‘I agree, it is a long shot. If the perp parked in the small road at the side of the allotments and scout hall, it’s away from the village and main road so I think it unlikely anyone would have noticed it.’

He thought for a moment. ‘We need to talk to Mia, Jeff’s fiancé, as soon as she’s had a chance to digest the bad news, and his ex-wife, too. Find out about his social life and who he hung around with. I know he played saxophone with a jazz band, but I don’t know who or where. We also need to get a handle on the work he did. I’m thinking here about his rich clients, some of whom may shortly be asking some uncomfortable questions, particularly if we don’t apprehend the perpetrator soon.’

Chapter Six

‘It’s funny that Jeff Delaney’s ex-wife works in Hove while the woman he was about to marry lives only a few streets away,’ DC Sally Graham said.

‘There’s probably not much chance of them meeting,’ DS Vicky Neal said. ‘Mia commutes to London a couple of days a week and is out at the university on other days. Unless of course, Amanda Storey works on Saturdays.’

Neal found a space on Grand Avenue, quiet for a Monday morning, and parked the pool car. ‘It feels easier finding a parking space in Hove these days,’ the DS said, as they walked towards Church Road.

‘Maybe people working from home has something to do with it.’

‘You think so? I would have thought it was the opposite; cars parked here all day rather than lying at the station or in a company car park.’

‘True, but some people I know have got rid of their cars and use public transport on the one or two days they’re required to go into the office.’

‘Makes sense, I suppose.’

They walked into the offices of FindIt Estate Agents. The air of the agency was trendy: – not the proficiency and serenity of an agency selling large country properties, but the bright colours and touch-screens of a business designed to appeal to upwardly mobile young apartment buyers and renters.

They had little trouble spotting Amanda Storey, former wife of Jeff Delaney. She was the only woman matching the age and general description, which ruled out the two younger female negotiators, and the rest of the staff who were men. Not to mention, they had some help from a prominent sign at the front of her desk with her name printed on it.

The detectives browsed the pictures of glossy apartments and houses on the numerous display boards while Amanda dealt with a young couple.

When she’d finally walked the couple to the door and waved them goodbye, she turned to the two detectives. ‘Sussex Police, I assume?’

‘Are we that obvious?’ Neal replied.

‘No, as you fit the profile of our customers, but I was expecting you.’

‘Is there anywhere we can talk in private?’

‘I’d rather not do it here. Let me get my bag, there’s a decent coffee shop close by.’

They walked along the road to Colombo’s, a place Neal had been in before. The walls were covered in photographs of famous television and film detectives: Frank Columbo, Theo Kojak, Remington Steele, Jim Rockford. Neal did the honours while the other two found a table at the back and away from other customers.

Neal brought over the drinks, dished them out, then took a seat.

‘I understand,’ the DS said, ‘you’ve already been informed about what happened to Jeff?’

‘Yes, you’re quite right. A police constable came to the house yesterday and told me.’

‘We’re sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you. We’ve been divorced for two and a bit years, and I can say, hand on heart, I’m over him, but I was very sad to hear of his death. For him to have died at the hand of some low-life criminal makes it worse, but doesn’t change the basic fact of him dying well before he should have.’

Amanda, having reverted to her maiden name following the divorce, had shoulder-length, dark brown hair, and an unblemished, pretty face, leaving her looking many years younger than her actual age.

‘How did the two of you meet?’ Neal asked.

‘We were both in the asset management business working for one of the largest firms in the country; Jeff focussing on retail, me on healthcare. We worked hard and played hard, with many boozy nights at clubs, pubs and restaurants, so our paths frequently crossed.’

‘How did you feel when he decided to go out on his own?’

‘At the time, I told him he was being foolhardy and irresponsible. Oscar was only two and I’d recently given birth to Stephanie, so I was still on mat leave with no intention of going back. We were looking at being down to one salary.’

‘How did it play out?’

‘When I saw how determined he was to go solo, I relented and supported him as much as I could. We had money in the bank to tide us over for a number of months, but in the end we didn’t need it as many of his top clients moved over to him. He was in profit after only three months.’

‘Even so, there must have been some difficult times.’

‘Only when he went off with other women.’

Neal hoped her face didn’t betray the shock she felt as she wasn’t expecting that. ‘Really?’

‘You sound surprised. Most of my friends felt the same. Why would he? We had a nice house, two lovely kids, and we could afford to go to exotic places for our holidays, so what else was he missing? I blame his father as he was no different: a philanderer, never content with what he had.’

‘From the way Jeff was killed, we believe his death wasn’t the result of a chance encounter with an angry runner or an irate farmer.’

‘Are you saying Jeff was targeted?’

‘It looks that way. If correct, would you know if he had any enemies?’

‘I must admit, when I first heard someone had killed him, I went through in my head a list of all the people he knew who might have had a grudge against him. It might come as a surprise, based on what I just told you, but I believe you can discount an attack by an angry husband or the boyfriend of one of the women he’d had an affair with. He said he had been careful to target only those on the brink of separation or in fact, already separated.’

‘How did you find out he was playing away?’ Graham asked.

‘One of his well-meaning friends thought I should know.’

‘What about enemies from the work he was involved in?’ Neal asked.

‘You know what field he worked in?’

‘Investing the funds of rich clients,’ Neal confirmed.

‘Most are rich, but some are seriously wealthy, politically connected and influential. At any one time, on paper at least, there could be over a hundred million invested.’

‘Whoa. That’s a huge amount of money,’ Graham said.

‘It is, and I can see how something of this magnitude might interest you. But don’t think there’s large piles of cash lying around the house, or enormous sums stashed in his business bank account.’

‘No?’

‘The majority of clients, at least when I was with him, gave him a sum of money to invest, but others were invited to invest when he spotted an opportunity, an undervalued company stock, for example. If interested, they’d transfer the money which he would use to buy shares or gilts or whatever looked like providing a solid return.’

‘You don’t think someone would target him with the specific aim of trying to get their hands on those investments?’

Amanda considered this. ‘I don’t think so. It doesn’t really work like that. You see, we’re not talking here about hard, instant cash. Someone would need passwords to access Jeff’s system, and the services of a broker to sell the financial instruments through the stock market, all of which would take time and require a certain level of expertise.’

‘Could one of his clients be behind it?’ Graham asked.

Amanda shook her head. ‘I can’t see why. Jeff had a canny knack of beating the market, especially in turbulent times, but his death won’t inconvenience them too much. They might bitch about Jeff no longer managing their portfolios, but in a matter of days, I imagine their money will be moved elsewhere.’

‘The king is dead…’ Neal observed.

‘Quite. Although, now I think about it, one of his American clients was a bit of a bruiser.’

‘Which one?’ Graham asked.

‘I suppose there’s no harm talking about him now Jeff’s not around; his name is Brandon Lewis.’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ Graham said. ‘Ultra conservative leading light of the Republican Party, and owner of Prado Foods, among others.’

‘Yes, that’s him. He’s a big supporter of gun ownership, anti-abortion, against women in the workplace, and a racist to boot. I didn’t want Jeff dealing with him, but he was too rich for him to ignore.’

‘He’s recently been given a post in the U.S. administration,’ Graham added. ‘Head of Health and Human Services, I believe.’

‘Some time back, Jeff posted some stuff on social media about immigration which Lewis took exception to, and when he heard we were about to be divorced, sent Jeff articles, copies of speeches he’d written, and long nasty emails about the disintegration of modern family life and Jeff’s contribution to it. He’s a nutjob, all right, but do I think he would be crazy enough to send someone to kill Jeff?’ She took a sip of her drink, and considered. ‘You know, I would say I wouldn’t put it past him.’

Chapter Seven

Monday evening, Henderson stopped the car outside the closed gates of his new house and got out. He lifted the little latch, pushed both sides of the gates open, and drove inside. At some point, he would research the options for automating them, which would be handy for those days when it was blowing a gale or teeming with rain.

Of course, with any new house, this issue would be added to a list consisting of a large number of items. Some, like the dripping tap in the downstairs loo, and the lack of shelving in the lounge, would be done soon, while others, like the gates and the marks on the wall, would be undertaken when they had the time and money.

He opened the front door, hung his jacket on the hall peg and headed into the kitchen. A pot was bubbling on the stove, emanating aromas of Mediterranean spices.

‘I’m in the lounge,’ Kelly called. ‘Don’t you be reaching for the biscuit tin, Angus. Dinner will be in about fifteen minutes.’ He walked into the lounge and found her reading a thick report. He saw the words criminality and offender as he leaned over to kiss her.

‘Hello, love,’ she said. ‘Good to see you back at a reasonable time for a change.’

‘Is the paper in your hand one for your Psychology of the Young Offender symposium?’

Kelly nodded. ‘There’s now over two hundred people coming. I’ve had to order more coffee and food.’

‘The perils of success.’

‘How was your day?’

‘The opposite. The depths of despair at the lack of progress.’

‘I’d like to hear about it, but let’s get the meal on the table first.’

Henderson assisted where he could, but in truth, Kelly had prepared most of the meal already. He had arrived home later than intended, not in a deliberate ploy to avoid his share of domestic chores, but following a long meeting with his new boss, DCI Robert White, to bring him up to speed with the latest case.

White had worked at Surrey Police for over twenty years and had spent time in Sussex, so he wasn’t a complete rookie, but he not only required to be briefed about current and past cases, he also wanted to find out about people and the politics of the organisation. He wasn’t spitting feathers about the Jeff Delaney case yet, but Henderson could tell the lack of clear evidence and progress was bothering him. It was the DCI’s first Sussex murder case and Henderson couldn’t afford to put a foot wrong.

‘This is good,’ he said, after taking a bite of food. ‘Do I thank you, or should I email Jamie Oliver?’

‘It’s my variation on one of his Lebanese dishes.’

‘If you ever decide to give up university lecturing and become a chef, I’ll be right behind you.’

‘I’ll remind you of that the next time I’ve had a bad day. Tell me about the case.’

‘You know I can’t tell you much, especially with you and Mia being so close.’

‘I’m careful with what I say to her, as I know things about your work you don’t want her hearing. Although, as you can imagine, she hasn’t been around the university much these last few days.’

‘In reality, there’s not a lot to tell as Jeff’s body was discovered in such a rural spot with no houses or people nearby.’

‘I can see how that would cause problems.’

‘The only things we’ve completed so far is deploying forensics at the crime scene to see if the attacker left any traces behind, and we’re now starting to dig through Jeff’s background looking for someone who would do him harm.’

‘Does anyone stand out?’

‘Vicky’s been talking to his ex who mentioned one of his clients, the American businessman, Brandon Lewis.’

‘Oh, him. The gun-toting woman hater.’

‘She said Lewis became upset when he discovered Jeff and Amanda were about to be divorced, calling him a number of uncharitable names and threatening God’s vengeance.’

‘At times he sounds more like a medieval witch hunter than a successful businessman.’

‘That’s about the sum of it. Not much of a suspects list, is it?’

‘No, it isn’t. Have I ever talked to you about a woman called Sofia Goodman?’

‘Kelly, you talk to me about a lot of people: a selection of the dozens of students and lecturers you come into contact with every day. Some I remember and some I don’t. Is she a student?’

‘She’s a friend of Mia’s.’

‘Right.’

‘I think they met through Jeff, as he and Sofia’s husband, Taylor Goodman, used to work together many years ago. The two men were friends.’

‘Why do I recognise the name?’

‘He’ll be on your books, listed as a missing person, believed dead.’

‘Oh yeah, I remember. He went out for a ride on his bike near the River Adur and fell in. Despite a large team sweeping both sides of the river for a week or more, and sending in divers, his body has never been found.’

‘There were some grumblings at the time of it being an elaborate Lord Lucan-style con,’ Kelly said. ‘That instead of falling in the river, he’d absconded with all his clients’ money and is now living in luxury in Mexico, Columbia, or Dubai, depending on which newspaper you read.’

‘You’re forgetting one important piece of information.’

‘What?’

‘Taylor suffered from depression.’

‘He’d got over it, according to Sofia.’

‘Do you ever?’

‘True, and you can never know what’s going on in people’s heads, but Sofia told Mia he’d never been suicidal.’

‘Why do I feel you’re trying to tell me something? Why don’t you come right out and tell me what it is?’

‘I don’t want to be the one who says there’s a link between Jeff and Taylor’s deaths, but you have to admit…’

‘What?’

‘It feels to me like they’re connected.’

‘Why, because they both loved the great outdoors, they once worked together at the same firm, and they were friends? Or because they were both self-employed independent financial investors working in the same area?’

‘The last one.’

‘I admit it’s fairly short odds for the two guys to be undertaking the same line of work–’

‘It’s more than short odds, Angus. What if they were footballers and both men lived in Sussex? Let’s say one played for Brighton and Hove Albion and the other for Crawley Town. If both were murdered or had disappeared, would you still think the incidents were unrelated?

Chapter Eight

Brandon Lewis paced the plush office on the top floor of Prado Foods, his polished leather shoes making temporary indents in the pale, thick carpet. The large panes of bullet-proof glass offered extensive views over Earth City in St Louis. It was a grey, industrial and uninspiring vista, which usually appealed to the industrialist inside him, but today he took little notice.

In any case, he wouldn’t be around to look at it for much longer. A true Republican now occupied the hot seat in the White House, not a left-wing firebrand seeking a speaking platform, or a lily-livered apologist, pandering to liberal sensibilities, but a firm believer in the conservative cause.

President Jack Hamilton had appointed Lewis, his hunting, fishing, and camping friend of over thirty years, to oversee the HHS, Health and Human Services Department, which included the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. With a large staff, trillion-dollar budget, and an office in Washington, it would be a full-time job. With this in mind, his deputy had been groomed to take his place at Prado Foods.

In truth, he didn’t anticipate being away for long, and told his deputy not to settle too comfortably into his chair. Jack Hamilton had not proved a popular president, even with Republicans. His radical approach to the handling of the economy ushered in rising inflation, his penchant for confrontation had unsettled relations with many of the US’s long-term trading partners, and he had botched the government’s attempts at stemming an e-coli outbreak which had impacted millions and killed hundreds.

In some respects, the HHS role was a poisoned chalice. Lewis had sought bigger and better platforms to air his conservative views on racial segregation, abortion, immigration, and the sanctity of family life, and now he was about to stand on one of the biggest platforms of all. However, with Hamilton’s days numbered, he would be in there only a couple of months before the rug would be pulled out from under his feet, and he would be sent back to Earth City, chastened and disappointed.

On the other hand, if he was in-post long enough, he was capable of garnering support from like-minded folks on Capitol Hill and maybe, just maybe, it would be sufficient for him to run on his own ticket. With this goal in mind, he couldn’t have anything lurking in his past for journalists to drag up and sully his nomination. This included getting his own back on a goddam thief who had stolen his investments.

He turned at the loud rap on the closed office door. It wasn’t Kyla Cairns, his secretary, as he didn’t hear the scratchy, scraping sound of her long nails on the wood before the door would be flung open.

‘Come!’ he hollered.

In strolled Don Powell, a man whose confidence in his own abilities knew no bounds.

‘Don, good to see you. Thanks for coming.’

‘You called, Brandon, so here I am.’

Lewis walked over and they shook hands.

He had known Don for years, a man who could be relied upon to solve problems that Lewis couldn’t. When he’d first inherited the Prado business on the death of his father, it was plagued with strikes and worker unrest.

He believed this continual disruption was at the root of his father’s early demise, and therefore had no space in his heart to forgive Rod Nagel, the union official at the centre of it. When Nagel was paralysed from the waist down in a drive-by shooting, engineered by Powell, he still didn’t have a good word to say about the man.

‘Coffee?’ Lewis asked.

‘You know me, Brandon, I never say no to one.’

‘Give me a moment.’

Lewis picked up the phone and called Kyla.

‘So, how are Tammy and the boys?’ Lewis asked after replacing the handset.

‘Still getting the better of kids twice her size.’

‘She’s a tough cookie, your woman. I wish she had taught me, maybe I would have paid more attention in science.’

‘Brandon, you don’t need to know any of that. You’ve got all the scientists you need right here.’

‘I know I have, but sometimes when they talk about a new way of browning a biscuit or making a muffin softer, I think they give me the layman’s version. I would like to understand, you know, the science behind it, so I could take them on if I don’t like the result.’

‘I would say take a course in college but you haven’t the time.’

‘Maybe I should, because I know when I go into meetings with the scientists at the HHS, you bet, they’ll try to bamboozle me.’

‘And if they do, the answer is?’

‘Sack ’em all!’ they both said together.

‘Right on!’ Powell said, laughing.

The door opened and in walked Kyla with two mugs of coffee on a tray, alongside a plated selection of Prado biscuits, a prerequisite for any visitor to the plant.

‘How are you today, Mr Powell?’ she asked, as she placed the tray down on the low table between the two leather sofas where Lewis and Powell were sitting.

‘I’m great, Kyla, how are you doing? How’s Billy, has he recovered from that bad fall he had three or four weeks ago?’

‘His collarbone has healed, but his pride hasn’t. It’s gonna be some time before he climbs another tree with a chainsaw.’

‘I’ve an old Red Oak that needs trimming, so when he feels better ask him to give me a call.’

‘Sure thing, Mr Powell, I’ll tell him. Enjoy your coffee.’ She walked out and closed the door.

‘What a girl,’ Powell said. ‘I don’t know how she does it, putting up with a man like Billy. She’s the bubbly sort, full of life, but you’re lucky if you get two words out of the guy. He’s a good worker but talking ain’t his thing.’

‘If there’s one quality a long-lasting relationship needs, it’s good conversation.’

‘You could use that line in one of your speeches.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be making one of those for a while. For the foreseeable future, all I’ll be talking about is additives, ingredients, and shelf life.’

Powell laughed.

‘Don, what I wanted to talk to you about was the death of my British investment guy.’

‘Yeah, I remember you mentioning him: Jeff Delaney.’

‘Right. I liked Jeff, although we fell out after his divorce from Amanda, but I forgave him as he could always outperform the markets.’

‘Yeah, he was good at what he did.’

‘The thing is, I used to have access to an app on my phone, one Jeff developed, giving me a summary of my investments and their current value.’

‘I understand.’

‘I could look at the app any time I wanted, but now it’s not working. Can you talk to the people connected to him: his partner, a neighbour, and find out what’s going on?’

‘I can see what’s coming. You don’t want me calling?’

‘Nope.’

‘You want me to go over there and talk to anyone who knows him, piece together what’s happened?’

‘Right. First up, I need you to confirm Jeff is indeed dead, and hasn’t run off with my money.’

‘Okay.’

‘Next, try and uncover what’s going on with his investment portfolio. If it’s something like a computer glitch, that’s one thing, but if someone is dipping their paws into my honey jar, you know how to deal with them.’

‘I sure do.’

Chapter Nine

Following the Wednesday morning update, Henderson and his three sergeants walked over to the staff restaurant. While they went off to find a quiet corner away from eavesdroppers, the DI filled a tray with drinks and snacks and carried them over to the table.

‘I think this morning’s meeting,’ he said, ‘was the worst I’ve ever attended for the sheer lack of information.’ He put the tray down and handed out the items before taking a seat.

‘I’ve never known a case to throw up so little,’ Vicky Neal said. ‘The perp couldn’t find a better site to commit a murder.’

‘I think we need to turn our focus into trying to understand why anyone would want to kill him. If we can find a realistic motive for his murder, a potential killer may fall out.’

‘There’s the work he did as an IFI,’ Carol Walters said, ‘and his personal life; a lot of chasing after women, according to his ex-wife.’

‘Before we get on to them, what about other aspects of his home life; I’m thinking here about hobbies, sport, pastimes?’

‘We’ve contacted members of the jazz band he played in,’ Phil Bentley said, ‘and as you might expect, they got on well together.’

‘I imagine it’s difficult to make good music if you detest one of your fellow bandmates,’ Neal said, ‘and given as they did it for fun, if someone in the band is giving you grief, there’s nothing to stop you upping-sticks and going elsewhere. It’s not like they’re tied to a professional recording contract.’

‘What sport did he do other than running?’ Henderson asked.

‘He played football once a week,’ Bentley said.

‘Serious?’

He shook his head. ‘They’re not in any recognised league. The guy I spoke to said they do it for a bit of exercise and the drink afterwards.’

‘Follow up with a couple more team members, Phil, see if they think the same. Check also there isn’t animosity between them and another team.’

‘Will do.’

‘That leaves his extracurricular activities with other women, and his job.’

‘His ex-wife said he was careful about the women he chased,’ Neal said, ‘only going after those separated or in an unhappy relationship.’

‘Nevertheless, jealousy can be a powerful motive. Did Ms Storey give you any indication of how many affairs she uncovered?’

‘No, she didn’t.’

‘Let’s say, if it’s over ten, run their names through the PNC and arrange interviews with any with convictions for violence. If under ten, run the names through the PNC and talk to them all, either by telephone, or in person if you can.’

‘I’ll call Amanda and find out what she remembers.’

To be told Jeff had been a ladies man didn’t shock Henderson as much as it should have. He was a handsome guy with a close-shaven face, tidy hair and stylish clothes, but also, a bubbly and sociable personality. Despite the solitary nature of his job, he could imagine Jeff would have no trouble approaching a stranger at a party and starting a conversation.

‘Moving on to his job, we know he was responsible for handling large sums of his clients’ money. Vicky’s report following her meeting with Ms Storey made clear the difficulties of turning anything stolen into cash. It’s not the same as raiding a bank vault and finding piles of banknotes inside, or breaking into his house and finding a thick wad of share certificates and bars of gold.’

‘Nevertheless, presumably it can be done with the right level of expertise,’ Walters said.

‘We have assumed from the start that Jeff was targeted, and the perpetrator knew what they were doing. In which case, I think it’s safe to assume that the perp, or an accomplice or friend, could have that required level of expertise.’

‘I agree. That suggests two or more people are involved,’ Neal said. ‘I know financial people can be cold-blooded, but even still, I can’t see a desk-jockey having the wherewithal to kill Delaney so up close and personal. If the killer’s motive is financial, I think one person killed him, and another cashed in his portfolio.’

‘Can we find out if someone has sold his investments?’ Henderson asked.

‘As I understand it from Amanda,’ Neal said, ‘Jeff developed an investment app to allow each of his clients to keep track of their portfolios, updated in real time.’

‘A system like that would be on his laptop or phone, I imagine?’

‘I can’t see it being anywhere else.’

‘Right. If there are no other issues we need to discuss?’ They shook their heads. ‘Carol, you and I will head over to Kirdford, and see what the forensic team have found.’

Jeff Delaney’s large detached house in Kirdford was close to Wisborough Green, and a few miles further on from the larger town of Billingshurst. The house had a small front garden laid to lawn, and a larger rear garden dominated by a conservatory and a sizeable patio.

‘It’s a big place for a single man,’ Walters said as they approached.

‘It is, and they say divorce makes you poor.’

‘Not when you work in financial services.’

The forensic team had been at it since the weekend, and now Wednesday morning, they were close to finishing, down to a couple of people with all the evidence bagged and piled in the hall, waiting to be shipped out. Henderson decided he would have a root through the bags once he’d taken a look around the house.

‘What a nice kitchen,’ Walters said, the sound of admiration in her voice.

Henderson remembered Jeff telling him the house had been built in the 1970s, but hadn’t been updated by the elderly woman he’d bought it from. Jeff had the kitchen and bathrooms ripped out and remodelled, and all the rooms redecorated and rewired with plenty of electrical sockets and a variety of lighting.

The kitchen was indeed impressive, as if transposed from the pages of Ideal Homes magazine. With only a single guy living in the house, he hadn’t done too much over the two years since the renovation to sully it too much. It was bright, thanks to the large door and window at one end which overlooked the garden, and a mixture of off-white and chrome fittings.

The lounge was a long and wide room, with a giant television, a corner log burner, and a huge L-shaped settee. No centre light here. A bank of switches on the wall controlled numerous LED lights in the ceiling and various lamps dotted around on side units.

‘Impressive,’ Walters said. ‘It’s so rare to find a guy with both money and taste.’

‘As a glance into any footballer’s house will testify.’

They soon found the study. On the wall, framed posters of jazz festivals featuring the likes of Miles Davis and Charlie Mingus from various venues many years back.

‘This is where the action takes place,’ Walters said.

‘Indeed.’

On the desk lay one end of a USB cable, the other leading to a printer, and one end of an Ethernet cable, the hidden end plugged into a Wi-Fi router.

‘What’s this used for?’ Walters asked, picking up the Ethernet cable.

‘Uninterrupted connection between a computer and the router, to prevent drop-offs.’

‘Then, where’s the said computer for this bit to plug into?’

‘I imagine it’s in one of the bags in the hall. Let’s go take a look.’

The bags were marked with the names of the rooms where the items had been found. They soon found the Study bag, but it contained no laptop or desktop.

Henderson pulled out his phone and called Geoff Thomas, head of the forensic team.

‘Hi Geoff, it’s Angus Henderson. I’m over at Kirdford.’

‘I’ve only just returned to Lewes myself.’

‘A big thank you to you and your team for all the work you’ve done here.’

‘Thanks, Angus; appreciate it.’

‘During your search, do you recall if the team found any computer equipment?’

‘I supervised the search of the study as I knew the victim worked from home. We came across an iPad and bagged it, but that’s it. A couple of untethered cables on the desk indicated something had once been connected to them, but we didn’t find anything else.’

Chapter Ten

Mia had been looking forward to this presentation, a talk by a Deputy Commissioner from the Metropolitan Police. The subject? How Targeting Low-Level Crime Can Have a Big Impact on Serious Crime. Trouble was, it was only five days on from finding out the man she was going to marry was dead, and she couldn’t concentrate on what the large man at the lectern was saying.

She had utilised all her tried and tested techniques: sipping from a can of Red Bull, two mugs of strong coffee already consumed, writing copious notes, and formulating questions to ask at the end, but nothing seemed to work.

She wasn’t a teenage bride, marrying the boy she had always fancied from 5B, so it would be wrong for anyone to suggest she was head-over-heels in love with Jeff. They were in their thirties, each with a certain amount of baggage in their backpacks. In addition, she had her career, he had his, and they both owned a house, so any union between them would involve a certain level of compromise.

Nevertheless, he was the first man she had wanted to marry. She’d had several lovers in the past, but after going out with them for only a couple of months, she knew the relationship would not go any further. Jeff was different. He treated her as an equal, not as an appendage or a walking cheque book, as some of her previous boyfriends did, and he loved her for who she was, not as someone he wanted her to be.

The rousing applause broke her reverie and she joined in, although her movements were more mechanical than any gesture of appreciation she felt. When the large class was quiet, the Deputy Commissioner invited questions. Mia had several written down, but as she had only been listening to about ten percent of his talk, she couldn’t ask them in case they had previously been answered.

When the question session ended, her tutor, Frederika Briar, stood, walked over and shook the big man’s hand. She then asked the class to once again show their gratitude. A few minutes later the class filed out.

Usually on leaving a lecture or class, a fellow student would often walk alongside and engage in conversation. This didn’t happen today, and she was sure it had nothing to do with the talk they had just attended, but the fact Mia was grieving. Beyond expressing their condolences, people were frightened – but of what? A depressing bout of self-absorption, a long diatribe about a man they had never met, silence from someone who didn’t want to talk?

‘Miss Barraclough.’

She turned. A tall man was behind her, not a student or lecturer judging by the style of dress, which she took to be retro-Americana, the sort of stuff she’d once seen on a girls’ trip to Budapest.

He walked alongside. ‘Hi, my name is Don Powell. I represent Mr Brandon Lewis. Is there anywhere we could talk?’

She was about to say she wanted nothing to do with anyone who came within ten miles of Brandon Lewis, as she considered him to be an odious man, before remembering he was also one of Jeff’s clients.

‘We can have a chat in the refectory.’

‘The what?’

‘The place where students eat.’

‘Okay.’

It was mid-morning, the first Thursday in October, and the place was empty. She’d ceased trying to determine how busy it would be; when she expected it to be quiet, it was packed, and vice versa. Undergraduate students, in her opinion, ate when they felt like it and not at pre-ordained meal times like anyone over thirty.

She did the honours as it was a cashless till and Powell didn’t have the requisite pre-charged refectory card. She directed him to a table beside the window, put the mugs down and took a seat.

‘So, Mr Powell, what did you want to talk to me about?’

‘Hey, the coffee here’s not bad. I was led to believe you Brits were crap at making coffee.’

‘I’m glad you like it.’

‘Mia, firstly I would like to express my condolences.’

She nodded her thanks.

‘The reason I’m here is because my client, Brandon Lewis, had one point six million pounds invested with Jeff. I’m sorry to do this so soon after his death, but my client would like to know what has happened to his money. Also, I don’t expect this information to go any further…?’

She nodded. ‘I’m not in the habit of gossiping.’

‘Good to know. You see, my client has designs on the White House, and his ticket will be based on conservative values: taking responsibility for your actions, doing the best for your family, supporting your local church, etcetera.’

‘I understand.’

‘Any whiff of impropriety, no matter how ill-judged or small, will be dragged up by journalists, of this you should have no doubt. If Mr Lewis has lost a couple of million bucks through incompetence, theft, or fraud, this would be like manna from heaven for those hyenas.’

Mia had been wondering where all this was leading; now she knew.

‘What are you getting at, Mr Powell? Jeff was murdered, he didn’t run off with Brandon Lewis’ money.’

‘I know he didn’t, as I looked at a few Brit newspapers before coming here. Mr Lewis was worried he might have absconded with his funds, but I can see now this isn’t the case.’

‘What made him think that?’

‘He used to have access to an app, which I understand Jeff developed, allowing him to look at his investments in real time on his phone. It could pick up current stock prices straight from the markets.’

She nodded. Jeff didn’t develop the app himself, but used a software company in Hackney to do the work. He was very pleased with the results, and didn’t dissuade anyone of the notion that he had done the work himself.

‘The system is gone,’ Powell said. ‘My client’s investments have disappeared into thin air.’

Mia’s head began to spin. She knew what Jeff did, as he’d often discussed work issues with her. She’d plenty of opportunity to think about his business, but not once since his death had she considered what had happened to his clients’ funds. She’d more or less assumed the investors had the power to remove their investments and put them wherever they wanted. Was she being naïve?

‘The thing is Mia,’ Powell said, leaning over the table towards her, ‘we now know Jeff didn’t take the money. But did you?’

Chapter Eleven

Henderson arrived at the office early on Friday morning. Since moving house, this had become his routine. It wasn’t because he lived closer to Malling House in Lewes than before, as the drive to Lewes took about the same time.

It allowed him the space to rid his head of all domestic problems associated with buying and moving into a new house. Not only did this include the alterations he and Kelly wanted to make, but also their dealings with utilities and telcos who had a knack of making big issues out of the simplest of requests.

He scanned reports, looked at and deleted many emails, opened letters and read through internal mail items. During a murder investigation it was easy to forget about all this, but life went on in the rest of the Sussex force and outside, with changes being made to the organisation, admin procedures updated, and visitors to Malling House, all of which he had to be aware of.

At eight, he picked up the Delaney file and headed over to the section of the Detectives’ Area where the two whiteboards were starting to fill with information, and a large coterie of detectives and uniformed officers had gathered.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ he said, bringing all private conversations to a halt. He opened the file in front of him and turned to the whiteboards behind him, looking for any changes. It took seconds to realise there was nothing new.

‘We are almost a week on from finding the body of Jeff Delaney. Where are we with all the searches? Vicky, bring us up to date with the local search.’

‘We’ve had nothing more from the boards at the crime scene,’ DS Vicky Neal replied. ‘I think this was due to Jeff being up too early in the morning, before any dog walkers or hikers were about.’

‘That’s a pity. How did you get on with his ex-wife trying to recall the names of the women he’d had affairs with?’

‘Amanda has a good memory and told me about four. She suspected there might have been one or two more, but couldn’t provide any details. She felt four was sufficient grounds for a divorce.’

‘Hear, hear,’ a few female voices called.

‘I put the names through the PNC, but none pinged.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘I put their names through social media,’ DC Lisa Newman said, ‘and one, Damien Proctor, stood out. He’s a big supporter of the current American President, and contributed to his campaign fund. Many of his views are controversial over here, and there’s a lot of hate directed at him for being racist and a misogynist.’

‘I can imagine,’ the DI said. ‘Vicky, have you spoken to any of the men?’

‘All of them. None raised any alarms. Yeah, they’re bitter as all four marriages failed, but as Amanda had said, Jeff targeted women whose relationships were already on the rocks. Only Proctor had any residual bitterness against Jeff.’

‘How did he express this anger?’

‘On social media,’ Newman said, ‘but not enough to suggest he’s our man. Yes, he blames Jeff and believes his death is some sort of weird karma, but he gave me the impression he’s moved on. He’s now remarried.’

‘Interesting. Don’t dismiss him yet, we’ll keep him as a person of interest. Lisa, see what else you can dig up about him on social media, see if he ever mentioned any beef with Jeff. Contact the intelligence services and see if he’s on their radar.’

‘Will do,’ Newman said.

‘Phil, anything to add from your conversations with his football teammates?’

‘Nothing gov, they’re all on friendly terms, with no bust-ups or big arguments between them. There is also no residual anger from any of the teams they’ve played.’

‘It sounds like a dead end. When Carol and I visited Jeff’s house in Kirdford, computer cables lying on his study desk implied a desktop or laptop had once been there, but the forensic team are certain they never bagged one. What can we conclude?’

‘The killer must have taken it,’ DC Sally Graham said.

‘Or he may have been working off-site and left his laptop behind,’ Bentley said.

‘Like where?’

‘He could have rented office space like Regus, or sat in a coffee bar or pub. Some clubs and organisations allow you to work in them.’

‘Right, but as he runs his business from it, why would he leave his laptop?’

‘Got drunk and forgot it?’ Neal suggested, ‘although neither Mia nor Amanda mentioned anything about a drink problem.’

‘Carol, pull his bank and credit card statements. Look back at least a year and determine if he’s renting office space or is a member of a club.’

‘Will do.’

‘If we assume the killer took the computer, the story fits. Jeff, as he lived alone, would either have taken the house key with him when he went running, or put it under a plant pot. His shorts had zipped pockets where he could store a key, but we know they were empty.’

‘It does fit,’ Walters said. ‘We agree it was a targeted killing so the killer must have known where he lived. We also believe the killer took his phone which might have been the place where he stored his passwords, I know I do, allowing them to gain access to the laptop.’

‘The only reason I can think they would want his laptop,’ Henderson said, ‘is to get their hands on the investments made on behalf of his clients.’

‘And we know that whilst it would be difficult to turn those investments into cash, it’s not impossible,’ Neal reminded them.

‘This brings me around to the case of Taylor Goodman. This is Taylor,’ Henderson said, pasting his picture up on the board. ‘He’s an independent financial investor like Jeff, and in fact, both men were friends, having worked together in the past. He went missing when cycling along the banks of the River Adur near Henfield, believed drowned.’

‘I remember the incident,’ Graham said. ‘There was talk at the time of his disappearance being nothing more than an elaborate scam, suggesting he had buggered off with his clients’ money.’

‘I think when the embezzlement story gained traction, it curtailed the search for his body. Phil, talk to Fraud and see if they’ve followed this up.’

‘Will do.’

‘If Goodman didn’t abscond and his body is lying somewhere out there, don’t you think the similarity between his and Jeff’s killing becomes a little too hard to ignore?’

Chapter Twelve

On Friday afternoon Henderson took a seat in DCI Robert White’s office. He looked around while the man in question was talking on the phone. It was neater than when Sean Houghton had been in the chair, making him wonder if White was quicker at dealing with admin, or someone who couldn’t be bothered with it and filed most of it in the bin instead.

The DI had to admit, it was a difficult case for White to start his tenure. The usual hallmarks of a murder investigation: witness interviews, CCTV reviews, fingerprints and DNA, and using ANPR to trace cars and people, were all missing from this one.

‘Right Angus,’ DCI White said, as he replaced the receiver, ‘where are we on the Delaney investigation?’

Henderson brought him up to date with the interviews they’d done so far.

‘He was a bit of a ladies man, was he?’ White said, after hearing Henderson’s summary. ‘I would have thought a good suspect would have come out from there. Jealousy, has been for time immemorial such a classic murder motive.’

‘You would think so, but it seems the bitterness of their husbands didn’t reach a high enough level to merit retribution.’

‘Okay. What about his other interests: the football team, the jazz band he played in?’

Henderson shook his head. ‘Nope, nothing stands out there.’

‘With no motive and no suspect, it doesn’t look as though we have much to go on. I have to say, this doesn’t–’

‘Hold on, sir,’ Henderson said. ‘We believe Delaney may have been murdered so his killer could get their hands on the investments the victim had made on behalf of his clients.’

‘Explain the process to me. If I’m a low-life tea-leaf, how do I turn all those numbers on a computer screen into cash so I can spend it down my local bookies and boozer?’

‘We don’t think this is the work of one person, but a pair, maybe more. One person carries out the murder while the other gets hold of the victim’s phone and laptop, giving them access to all the victim’s investments.’

‘I’m with you so far, but what proof do you have of this happening?’

‘None, other than the victim’s phone was stolen from his body, and his laptop taken from his house.’

‘That doesn’t sound like evidence.’

‘It isn’t, but think of the situation like this. At the murder scene, the killer takes the victim’s phone and house key. He enters the house and takes the laptop. We think the phone will give him access to the laptop. In our forensic review of his house in Kirdford, nothing else is missing but the laptop, even credit cards and cash were left behind.’

‘Do you have anything to suggest the killer entered the house?’

‘No, but we’re checking the victim’s bank account to see if he’s a member of any club, or any other sort of institution where he might have left the laptop. I realise this scenario excludes pubs and coffee bars, but given the laptop is so important to his business life, he would need to have been hellishly stupid or careless to leave it in one of them.’

‘I agree.’

White pushed his chair back and walked to the window. Henderson knew he wasn’t heading there to enjoy the view as it was over the back of the building: blank rooftops, large industrial bins, and a car park.

‘I see where you’re coming from, Angus. There isn’t a lot of evidence, but what we have has to be sieved for whatever nuggets it contains.’

‘Quite.’

‘Assuming the killer’s accomplice has now sold the investments, is there any way we can uncover who’s behind it?’

‘No, we’ve looked at this. Without the laptop or phone, we don’t have any visibility of the investments he’d made.’

‘I see the difficulty. Even if you did know, and say it included a number of international corporations with many trades per day, there would be no way of knowing who had sold the shares, especially as we don’t know the date, or the broker the killer used.’

‘That’s my understanding.’

‘So, where do we go from here?’ he said, retaking his seat.

‘There is a way, I believe, of proving the killer’s motive.’

‘How?’

Henderson explained about the case of Taylor Goodman. While he was talking, the DCI keyed Taylor’s details into the Police National Computer and brought the case up on the screen.

‘Still no body found?’ White asked.

‘No. The search concentrated on the river and its immediate surroundings, the abandoned bike leading everyone to conclude he went into the water. Which might have been a deliberate ruse by the killers to confuse us, or a fortunate piece of location selection, as they didn’t do a lot to hide the body in Jeff Delaney’s case.’

‘No, you’re quite right. Using the same logic, I take it you think the body of Taylor Goodman is to be found a little back from the river’s edge, somewhere in the bushes?’

‘If he hasn’t absconded with his clients’ money, which some salacious newspapers have suggested, and I don’t believe he did, I think there’s a strong possibility. He was an experienced cyclist. I can’t see him falling in the river.’

‘What would you do in my position?’

‘I’d authorise a new search, and concentrate on the land beside the river, not the river itself.’

‘I see. Before I decide to do anything, I’d like you to talk to Goodman’s wife and anyone else connected to the case, see if his disappearance has a clear correlation to Delaney. I assume you haven’t spoken to her already?’

‘No, we haven’t. I think it would have stirred a hornets’ nest.’

‘What you’re planning will have the same effect. The papers will be all over a new search for his body in a flash.’

‘I realise that, and if we look and don’t find him, the repercussions could get uncomfortable for some.’

‘I’ve been there before, I can tell you, and heard all the accusations about the waste of public money. Hence I’m not giving you the green light just yet.’

‘Understood.’

‘Is there anything else?’

Henderson shook his head

‘See you when you’ve spoken to the wife, Angus.’

Chapter Thirteen

Don Powell took a drag from his cigarillo and blew the smoke out of the car window. He wasn’t sure of the law in Britland, but back home he smoked in his truck all the time, and even the occasional hire car when away on business without issue.

If he wasn’t smoking, the window would have been open in any case. It was a warm day, unseasonal for October he’d heard someone say, otherwise the heat, the buzz of flying insects and the chatter of conversations as people strolled past would have him snoozing in no time.

He was parked with a clear view of Mia Barraclough’s house in the quaintly-named Hova Villas. It was an impressive place, too large for a woman living alone, as it was a family house, while all around in the streets where he had walked, most of the buildings had been converted to apartments.

He could see how her background as a corporate lawyer would have paid for it. He knew Brits weren’t paid as much as their US counterparts, but even if she received half of what the equivalent lawyers in the US were paid, she would still have been in clover.

He knew a lot about Mia Barraclough. He was an expert in his field, but in reality, she wasn’t a difficult subject to research. Her former corporate life was well documented, as what law firm didn’t want to boast about its people and the good work they did? He also knew in about five minutes she would be leaving the house, getting into her car and driving out to the University of Sussex Falmer Campus for the twice weekly seminars on her criminology course.

Although Powell had accused Barraclough of stealing the funds invested by her husband-to-be, he didn’t really believe it and was trying to provoke her. The big house and former eye-watering salary more or less confirmed she wasn’t short of a dollar or two, but why did billionaires continue to work and squirrel away money when they could retire to a cabin on their yacht, or sail in the warm waters around Hawaii? To some, the accumulation of wealth was an aphrodisiac: they could never have enough.

Also, he had learned through bitter experience never to judge a book by the cover. When working as a bail bondsman, an innocent-looking mom of three, a smile to warm a heart with hands and apron dusted in flour from the cake she was making, pulled out a pistol to try and stop him grabbing her poor excuse of a husband.

She not only brandished the weapon, but fired it twice with the express aim of killing him. One bullet missed and hit the door lintel as he made his escape, while the other made a hole in the back of his truck as he hightailed it out of there. He had never had the damage repaired, it was there to remind him every time he went out never to trust anyone. The face they showed to the world was the one they wanted you to see. His job was to find the one hidden underneath.

He had already searched Jeff Delaney’s house in Kirdford. He had got there at night when the forensic people had gone for the day, and couldn’t be sure if they had lifted his laptop, or if there hadn’t been one there to begin with. It was unfortunate, as its presence, or otherwise, would have spoken volumes. If in its place, he would have taken the device back to the States and Brandon would have set the bright young things in his Earth City IT department loose on it.

If Delaney’s laptop was missing, the next question had to be who had stolen it, and why? He was in Hove as he suspected Barraclough might have been the culprit, perhaps in a misguided attempt at safekeeping. The theory was about to be tested as the woman herself was walking down the steps outside her house. She carried a heavy shoulder bag which he assumed contained books and her laptop. If she was in possession of Delaney’s laptop, he doubted she would risk lugging it around the university.

She drove to the end of the road before speeding off to the left. He waited five minutes, plus another five in case she returned having forgotten something. This was unlikely as he had called the university and knew her seminar times.

He got out of the car and crossed the road to the same side as Barraclough’s house. He was carrying a package and his pace suggested a man with deadlines to meet. He ignored the front of the house and walked to the back. He opened the tall gate with ease, and shut it behind him. Walking to the back door, he placed the parcel on the ground and tackled the door lock.

Barraclough, like his daughters and a lot of women he knew, often left the house at the last possible minute. They might not mind being late, but they hated turning up without their hair washed, their make-up perfect, and their clothes clean and without wrinkles. They’d never fail to lock the doors, but now and again would forget to set the alarm, or not deem it necessary in daytime. He stepped into the kitchen and could not hear the tell-tale beep of the alarm going off: good.

Without knowing who lived there, he would guess it was a woman. First the smell, not the stale sweat and food odours of Delaney’s place, or indeed his own apartment, but an altogether more pleasant smell of lime and something exotic. It was also neater than Delaney’s, no discarded items of clothing, food, or magazines; everything was in its place.

He scoured the lounge and what he imagined to be her study, opening all cupboards and searching through the contents with gloved hands. It helped knowing what he was looking for, as often with Brandon he would be inside someone’s house searching for an unknown report or handwritten poster that displeased him.

He felt deflated as he reckoned the lounge or study were the most likely places she would have put Delaney’s laptop. Leaving the study, he searched the cupboard in the hall but came up with the same result. Before climbing the stairs, he looked out the small window at the side of the front door.

It was approaching lunchtime and there was much movement out in the street: apartment dwellers walking down to the cafés and sandwich shops in Church Road, and a succession of vehicles travelling up and down looking for a parking spot. One guy with a piece of paper in his hand stopped at the bottom of the exterior stairs of Barraclough’s house and looked up. Powell moved backwards, but due to light reflecting on the glass, he was sure the guy couldn’t see him.

He couldn’t tell if he was a delivery guy or someone from a local utility company, as he wasn’t wearing any insignia and carried nothing with which to identify him. The guy pulled out his phone, and after a few taps must have realised he had the wrong address and continued on his way. Powell headed upstairs.

He had no qualms about raking through a woman’s underwear drawer, as experience had told him it was often the place where they would hide things. He wasn’t interested in her passport or the jewellery lying there, only Delaney’s laptop. Although, he would also perk up if he came across a back-up device.

Don Powell left Mia Barraclough’s house ten minutes later. He locked the back door and picked up the empty parcel he’d left outside. He made his way through the back gate and headed towards his car. He was confident the distinct aroma of cigarillos that often clung to his clothing would be overpowered by the sweet smell of Ms Barraclough’s reed diffusers. He had left everything else as he had found it, why leave her that as a clue?

Chapter Fourteen

Dave Chesson ran his business from a former tannery in Bermondsey. It was an appropriate building for a man like him, as his father, and his grandfather before him, had worked there. Through back-breaking and at times, choking work, they’d turned the hides of animals fed on the pampas grasslands of Argentina and Brazil into leather for jackets, handbags, and shoes for wealthy ladies.

Chesson wasn’t a happy man, despite being rich and lording over a small empire that turned over ten million a year, and produced a fat net profit. He wasn’t best pleased, as his independent financial investor, Taylor Goodman, always affable, always helpful, had disappeared off the radar. Once a month, he would send Chesson an email summary of his investments, and because Taylor was so good at what he did, they were more often than not, on the up, and so he looked forward to receiving it.

For the last four weeks he had received zilch. To be fair, for at least three of those weeks he had been busy. He had been organising a large shipment of car parts from the Far East, and trying to dovetail it with half a million pounds worth of cocaine and heroin, which would be added when the container ship berthed for a stopover in Hamburg.

To guarantee the safe delivery of such a large shipment, he had to be present in Hamburg for several days to ensure port officials and security people were happy, compensated, and ready to do the necessary when the ship arrived.

Moving back to the UK, he had to check the correct containers were offloaded from the ship and delivered without delay to the warehouse he owned at Sittingbourne in Kent. So far, so normal for a legitimate business, but all the time he had to be on the lookout for the forces of law and order, not only uniformed cops, but Interpol, Europol, or the National Crime Agency.

With this high level of activity, he had taken his eye off the personal side of things. Since returning from Germany, he had searched the internet for news about Taylor, believing the greedy bastard had scooted off into the wild blue yonder with all of his dough. When he received the verdict of his drowning, it had calmed his anger somewhat but it left many unanswered questions as his body had never been found.

Was this incident simply a ruse to make his clients believe he was dead, while he was away in Thailand being fanned and serviced by beautiful maidens? It made his blood boil to think someone was spending his hard-earned cash, but he needed to keep a lid on things: mistakes happened when his temper flared.

If Taylor was indeed dead, he would mourn the loss of such a brilliant financial investor, but what had happened to Chesson’s money? So many questions lay unanswered, and while he would have liked to head down to Sussex and inspect the lie of the land for himself, he couldn’t spare the time.

Another big shipment was due to be delivered next week and again, he had to be there. It wasn’t as if he distrusted his crew, but if they saw him taking his eye off the ball, they would try and cut corners. With no one looking over their shoulder, what was to stop them dipping their mitts into the shipment and taking some of the product home for themselves, or trying their hand at being a dealer?

He stared out the glass-fronted office, a floor above the numerous racks of shelving containing thousands of car parts that were sold to garages all over Southern England. He soon spotted the bald head of his cousin and the most trusted member of his crew, Mark Russell.

He picked up the phone. ‘Mark, come in and see me, mate. There’s something I need you to do.’

‘Sure thing, boss.’

Through the car parts business, Chesson was trying to present himself to the world as a legitimate businessman. No, correct that. He hoped owning a car parts company would create a reputation which meant he would only appear in the business pages of a newspaper, and not on the front cover as one of the major drug suppliers in the south east.

In truth, he never intended to turn completely legit. The car parts business was cut-throat and the margins small, while the huge profits available from selling weed, cocaine, and heroin were too high for him to throw away.

Mark entered. He was a big guy, tall and well-built, but prone to fat if he indulged too much in his favourite beer, Young’s Original Pale Ale. He was looking quite trim at present, but it wasn’t in Dave’s nature to offer compliments.

‘How you doing, boss?’ he said, taking a seat in the creaking chair opposite.

‘I’m a bit pissed, to tell you the truth, but I’ll say more about that in a minute. How’s it going down there at the coal face?’

‘Pretty good. Stock levels are high, and deliveries are going out on time despite the absence of one driver.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Rob Deacon.’

‘That lazy bastard? He probably necked too much beer in the Nag’s Head last night. Sack the fucker.’

‘Dave, this is the car parts business, not the Sittingbourne warehouse. Here in the real world, a world including health and safety and human resources, there are procedures we have to go through first.’

‘I know, I know. I’ve got to give him a chance, then another one, to make it right. Only after all that palaver, I can get shot of him.’

‘Yeah right. You want me to start the process?’

‘Yeah, I want rid. Maybe we should just short-circuit all this corporate bullshit stuff, and shoot the bastard instead.’

‘Don’t say something like that when Tom’s around. He might take you at your word.’

‘How was the trip to Sittingbourne last night?’

‘Most of the Hamburg gear’s been shipped out. There’s a couple of keys left of H which is being picked up tomorrow.’

‘Good, it clears the warehouse for the new one next week.’

Mark nodded. ‘Everyone’s been briefed about the new consignment. So, what is it that’s pissing you off?’

Chapter Fifteen

Henderson didn’t want to make the same mistakes with Kelly that he had made with previous relationships. The nature of police work often meant he didn’t have a choice over the time he spent in the office, at a crime scene, or talking to witnesses and suspects. However, when there was a hiatus, a calm before another storm brewed, rather than mull over the evidence for the umpteenth time, he resolved to spend the time with Kelly.

When he arrived home, she was ready to go out. They kissed in the hallway. Henderson put his papers down, but kept his jacket on and they set off to find a pub for an early evening drink. Living in the North Laines there were several within easy reach after walking only five or ten minutes, and this being Monday, few would be busy.

Feeling none too energetic, they plumped for The Basketmakers Arms, a pub at the corner of their road and Gloucester Road, a place they had been into several times. Henderson liked it as it was a traditional pub serving good food and well-maintained beer. There was no need to check the menu, as Kelly had made a casserole the previous night which at this moment, was warming slowly in the oven at home.

Henderson opted for a pint of Gales Seafarer, while Kelly plumped for a rhubarb-infused gin. He brought the drinks over to the table and sat down.

‘I like these traditional places,’ Henderson said. ‘Too many pubs around here are being converted into cocktail bars with overpriced drinks and staff who often look as though they’d rather be customers.’

‘Or maybe it’s a sign you’re getting old.’

‘You think?’

‘I’m only joking, a lot of my students think the same. They like to come to places like this as they can’t afford overpriced cocktail bars.’

‘Wait until they start working, they’ll soon change their tune.’

‘How’s the investigation going?’

‘Slowly. I mentioned what you said about Taylor Goodman to Robert White.’

‘What did he think about it?’

‘It piqued his interest, as it did mine, since it sounds so similar to what happened to Jeff Delaney.’

‘Not to mention, they were also friends and socialised together.’

‘The thing is, a big search was organised at the time to look for him, but nothing was found. White is reluctant to spend another large part of his budget, and risk coming up with nothing.’

‘Taylor’s got to be there, in the bushes or caught in the reeds downstream. Sofia is certain he didn’t run off and wasn’t suicidal.’

‘She’s bound to say that though, isn’t she? Him disappearing reflects badly on her as it suggests their relationship was on the rocks, while suicide suggests a woman who didn’t know her partner well enough.’

‘Maybe, but she is convinced he wouldn’t run off with his clients’ money or commit suicide. Part of her thinks he’s still alive somewhere, perhaps disoriented because of some sort of mental episode. You have to find him and prove everyone wrong.’

‘We haven’t closed the door on the case yet. White’s instructed us to speak to Sofia, which we’re about to do, and confirm his laptop was taken, and wasn’t left in a pub or rented office, or hidden in a safe place while he went out on a cycle ride.’

‘That will be proof, right, if both Taylor and Jeff’s laptops have been stolen?’

‘It’s not proof in the evidential sense, it’s more proof by their absence.’

‘I see what you mean. How did your boss respond to hearing that?’

‘I think he’s a pragmatic sort of detective. He realises sometimes you have to act on the things you don’t know, rather than waiting for the evidence to tell you what you want to know.’

‘So, you think he’ll go for it?’

‘He might, but it runs the risk of making fools of ourselves.’

‘If you don’t find him?’

‘Right. He also said something else interesting.’

‘What?’

‘He asked me what I would do in the same situation.’

‘That’s about the third time he’s said something similar. What’s he doing, testing you?’

‘Could be. Finding out what I would do if I was in his shoes.’

‘Why would he? Surely the time for you to move up was when Sean Houghton left?’

‘If you remember, the ACC took me aside and in a roundabout way, said I was the victim of my own success.’

‘You have such a good clear-up rate, he was reluctant to recommend you.’

‘Yes, but maybe there’s been a rethink.’

‘Why?’

‘I hear on the grapevine DCI White is only here short-term as he intends retiring in a few months’ time.’

‘If that’s true, perhaps he is testing you.’

‘Yeah, but if I conduct a large-scale search for Taylor Goodman and come up with nothing, I will be directing traffic before the day’s out.’

‘It’s not like you to be so gloomy, Angus. C’mon, drink up and we’ll head back. A hearty serving of my special Spanish-infused casserole will soon cheer you up.’

Chapter Sixteen

‘I wouldn’t mind living around here,’ Sally Graham told Vicky Neal, as she drove the car slowly along West End Lane in Henfield. She turned into the driveway at Sofia Goodman’s house. ‘It feels like you’re in the country but all the shops and everything else in Henfield are only up the road,’ Graham said, as she got out of the car.

‘Yeah, and we’re not so far from Brighton either.’

Neal rang the doorbell and it was answered by a beautiful woman with dark features, long black hair, and wearing a body-hugging dress, emphasising her model-esque figure.

‘Sofia Goodman?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re detectives from Sussex Police; we spoke on the phone.’

‘Ah yes, do come in.’

Despite the dusky Latin looks, the voice and accent were Sussex through and through.

The detectives walked into the lounge while Sofia went off to make some hot drinks. The lounge felt airy and spacious as it wasn’t overawed with too much furniture or cluttered with a load of souvenirs and knick-knacks. Neal put this down to Sofia, and in the past, her husband Taylor, being young. Give it another thirty years and she imagined the room would look quite different.

There were many photographs of Sofia and Taylor dotted around the room, in exotic places and what looked like a domestic setting in the States, perhaps at the house where his parents lived. Neal took a seat on the settee and was about to say something to Graham when Sofia walked in bearing a tray. She dished out the drinks before sitting in the chair opposite the detectives.

‘You said on the phone,’ Sofia said, ‘you had new information which could help in the search for Taylor.’

Nothing like cutting to the quick, Neal thought. ‘We’ll get into that in a moment, but first I’d like you to talk to us about how Taylor went missing.’

‘Again? I must have told the same story ten or eleven times. You guys take notes, perhaps you should read them now and again.’

‘I understand your frustration, but sometimes the retelling of such a deep and personal story many weeks after the events can bring out fresh insights you may not have thought of.’

‘I suppose you’re right. Taylor was a keen cyclist and had a bike for road trips and one for country paths, depending on his mood. The morning he went missing, a Thursday, he decided he would go off-road and ride along the bank of the River Adur. There’s a public bridleway just off the main road, leading to a church. He liked going there.’

‘He’s ridden there before?’

‘Yes, many times.’

‘What was the weather like?’

‘Dry, light winds, a bit of sun. Maybe about sixteen degrees.’

‘What had the weather been like in the days leading up to his disappearance?’ Graham asked.

‘No one’s asked me that before.’

‘If it had been wet for the previous three or four days, it would have made the path slippery and perhaps the river would have been higher than normal.’

Neal had checked the weather before coming here so she knew it hadn’t been an issue but it was good for Sofia to be thinking about it.

‘I can’t quite remember, but Taylor is, was, the weather-watcher in this house and I’m sure he wouldn’t have gone near the river if he knew it was in spate.’

‘I don’t wish for you to go over the police search and all the turmoil afterward,’ Neal said, ‘but I would like to hear what you think has happened to Taylor.’

‘You’re the first to ask me what I think. Everyone I’ve spoken to is only too happy to tell me about what they think.’

She took a drink of coffee and for the first time seemed to relax.

‘There have been at least three theories in the newspapers: he fell in and drowned, he was killed elsewhere and his bike left beside the river to confuse the police, or he’s alive and well and now living off the millions he ran away with.’

‘Which one do you subscribe to?’

‘I discount the theory of him falling in the river and drowning. If he was forced to swerve to avoid a fox or something and went into the river, he was fit and strong and would have pulled himself out of there, I am certain.’

‘Okay.’

‘The scenario of him absconding with his clients’ money, I don’t think it’s realistic either.’

‘Why not?’

‘For one it would mean leaving me, and he would never do that. We loved each other. For another, Taylor was a strait-laced sort of guy. That’s his father,’ she said, indicating one of the pictures close to her. It showed Taylor and an older man standing outside a church, a set of pictures Neal thought were taken in the US. ‘And that’s the church where his father used to preach; he’s retired now. I’m not saying Taylor’s a bible thumper, far from it, but in life he made a clear distinction between right and wrong. He would never steal anyone’s money.’

‘Can we see the place where he worked?’

‘Sure.’

Sofia led them into a cosy study overlooking the back garden. It was almost a mirror of Jeff Delaney’s desk with cables lying there and nothing to plug them into.

‘I assume the police investigation team took his computer?’ Neal asked Sofia. ‘Do you want me to chase up its return?’

‘Oh no, your people didn’t take it. At first, I thought he’d left it somewhere, as now and again he worked from the Institute of Directors offices in London. I’ve called all the places he might have gone but none reported a laptop being handed in.’

‘It’s disappeared?’

‘Yes.’

Bang! Bang! Bang!

‘Someone’s at the door,’ Sofia said, unnecessarily. ‘Excuse me a moment.’

Neal’s antenna was alerted at the aggressive nature of the banging and she nudged Graham to indicate her concern. The DS had noticed a bell outside the house so there was no need for anyone to bang on the door. The detectives moved into the hall as Sofia opened the door.

Two men, one bald and bulky, the other slimmer and younger with a hawk-like nose grabbed Sofia and bundled her back into the house. ‘We’ve come for Taylor’s fucking laptop, where is it?’

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Neal said in the best authoritative voice she could muster.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ the bald guy sneered.

‘Sussex Police. Who are you?’

The bald guy approached and stood toe-to-toe with Neal, his face in hers. She fingered the pepper spray in her pocket.

‘Her fucking shyster of a husband, Taylor Goodman, has fucked off with my boss’s money and nobody is stupid enough to do that if they value their organs staying inside their body.’

‘Who’s your boss?’

‘None of your business, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she,’ he said, jerking a thick thumb towards Sofia, ‘knows where he is and is all set to join him later.’

‘For your information, we’re also interested in finding his laptop, but it isn’t here.’

‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’

‘It’s the truth, we wanted to take a look at it ourselves.’

‘Is that so? I bet she’s hidden it.’

‘Well, you’re not going to be around to ask her, are you? You are going to leave right now or I’m going to arrest you and your mate.’

He glared at Neal for a further four or five seconds before turning. ‘C’mon Tom, let’s get the fuck out of it. We’ll come back for her when those two bizzies have gone back to their pig pen.’

Chapter Seventeen

On a road north of Henfield, Henderson turned the car into what looked little wider than a cycle track. It was a public bridleway, forcing them to travel at a slow, steady pace to avoid the car bottoming out on the uneven surface, scaring horses or anyone else using the path.

‘This is reminiscent of the place where we found Jeff Delaney,’ Walters said.

‘It is, isn’t it? But we shouldn’t be surprised.’

‘Why?’

‘Taylor and Jeff were relatively young guys with energy to burn, and I think to break up the time they spent staring at a laptop, they would come out to the great outdoors and partake in some strenuous exercise.’

‘I suppose we should see more of it now with so many people working from home.’

‘It’s slightly different for many of them as they’re often at the beck and call of their employer. Goodman and Delaney weren’t,’ Henderson said.

‘Vicky and Sally must have felt scared at being accosted by those two thugs at Sofia Goodman’s house.’

‘I’ll bet. Sofia thinks they were from Dave Chesson’s gang, a south London drug outfit based in Bermondsey. She says he’s the only one of Taylor’s clients she didn’t regard as a legitimate businessman.’

‘If Goodman was investing the gains from Chesson’s criminal activity, he would be guilty of money laundering.’

‘For sure, but like many a gangster before him, Chesson nowadays puts a lot of his cash into legitimate businesses.’

‘At least, that’s what he tells the world. Has Sofia moved out?’

‘She has for the moment. Gone to stay with her mother.’

‘That’s something I could never do,’ Walters said.

‘No?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say she’s ashamed of what I do, but I think she’s cagey about it. In the street where she lives in Abergavenny, many of her neighbours don’t get on with the police.’

‘I can see her taking you round to meet them. You must remember Carol, she’d say, that tearaway who used to nick fags and get into fights, she’s a murder detective now.’

‘She’d be ostracised at best, driven off the estate at worst.’

‘The two men who came to Sofia’s house were after Goodman’s laptop; the same thing Vicky was looking for.’

‘Vicky said Sofia’s checked all the places he might have left it, even though he wasn’t in the habit of doing so as his business was on there. The only conclusion we can draw is the killer took it.’

‘Just like Delaney. Without either device, we don’t have a clue which companies they’d been investing in, so we’re not even at first base in trying to find out who’s been selling the stolen investments.’

The location they were heading for was a couple of kilometres along the track. They passed Shermanbury Place, a wedding venue, and St Giles’ Church. They arrived at the section of the river where Goodman’s bike had been found, marked by the forensic gear lying there. Henderson had noticed how the river had been many metres distant, until this point where the path ran closer. If the selection of the site was designed to confuse the hunt for Goodman’s body, the killer couldn’t have done a better job.

The original search team had worked downriver for about three hundred metres, searching the banks as they went, on the assumption Goodman had fallen in and been dragged downstream by the current.

This time, he wanted the area beside the river searched, on the assumption Goodman had not fallen in, but like Jeff Delaney, had been murdered and his body hidden in the undergrowth. The area was a mix of bracken, brambles and nettles. At one time, councils would trim back wild areas like this. Now, in an age of budget cuts and with the soaring costs of social care, they were left untouched; wilding as they quaintly called it.

Henderson’s phone rang.

‘Morning sir,’ he said, when he saw DCI White’s name on the phone screen.

‘Morning Angus. Are you down at the search area?’

‘Just arrived. Thanks for authorising the search, Sofia was most relieved when she heard.’

‘Those two thugs turning up at her house swung it for me. Goodman’s disappearance is more complex than it first looked. Are there any press?’

‘None that I can see.’

‘Be prepared. I had a call from the press office. They’ve had numerous media outlets making contact this morning, trying to find out what’s going on. Their main preoccupation seems to be with what new information prompted the search.’

‘We must have a leak. I can’t see them monitoring the search site.’

‘My thoughts too. I wanted to keep this hush-hush until we had something concrete to report.’

‘Me too.’

‘Try to get to the bottom of this, Angus. We can’t have people going behind our back and talking to the press. It’s unprofessional.’

‘I agree. I mean, we have a large team working on the investigation with many uniformed officers, but only a few people were in the know about this morning’s activity.’

‘That should narrow your range of suspects. Keep me updated if there’s any news. Talk to you later.’

While he had been on the phone, Walters had approached forensic team leader Geoff Thomas for an update. Henderson walked towards them.

‘Ah, morning gov. I was saying to Carol, the vegetation’s just as thick here as it was at Wisborough Green.’

‘Plus, it’s been over a month since he went missing. Branches and brambles could have grown quite a bit in that time, hiding him more thoroughly.’

‘That’s my fear, and also the weather might have dulled the brightness of his top. That was how you spotted Jeff Delaney, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Excuse me, I’d better get back.’

‘Thanks Geoff,’ Henderson said.

Henderson took a look around. If Taylor had been riding hard and swerved to avoid something like a darting fox, the DI thought it unlikely he would have ended up in the river. He wasn’t some out-of-control teenager, going fast for the hell of it, not too stable on the bike and confusing the front brake with the back. By all accounts he was an experienced cyclist who wouldn’t have been spooked by something unexpected, and would have stopped in time.

What persuaded the original search team to conduct a river search, he believed, was a fact unearthed by a Daily Mirror journalist. Goodman had struggled throughout his teenage years with mental health issues and attempted suicide when he was eighteen. This had changed the mindset of the search team from investigating an accident, or a deliberate act to harm him, into a premeditated jump into the water.

True to DCI White’s word, a succession of slow-moving vehicles approached, including one from the local BBC News television programme.

‘C’mon Carol, let’s join the team, I’ve nothing to say to this lot yet.’

Neither Henderson nor Walters was equipped for a deep dive into thumb-thick brambles capable of slicing skin and tearing clothes as they brushed past. They instead stuck to paths already made by walkers and those trampled by the forensic team.

A call went up. ‘Gov, come see this!’

The detectives had to walk back to the main path and duck under the crime tape where several journalists were now waiting.

‘Can you tell us what’s going on here?’

‘Have you discovered anything?’

‘What new information has brought you here?’

‘We have nothing to report at the moment,’ Henderson said. ‘This is an ongoing investigation. If anything is found, I will brief you, but don’t ask me to speculate.’

They turned and walked a few metres before stepping into a narrow path, trampled already by the forensic team.

‘What have you found?’ Henderson asked of the hunched white suit trying to see through the profuse and dense vegetation. He kept his voice low, not wishing to stir the hornets’ nest on the other side of the crime tape.

‘I didn’t want to shout with all those news hounds down there. It’s a body. It looks like our missing man.’

Chapter Eighteen

Standing among the throng of journalists and watching the white-suited blokes do their stuff, not far from Shermanbury Church, were Tom Mason and Mark Russell. They both worked for Dave Chesson and knew that while the boss loved making and accumulating money, he hated losing it.

They stood listening as a tall Scottish bloke called Henderson gave a statement to the press and the television cameras present.

‘Following receipt of new information, a fresh search for the body of Taylor Goodman had been authorised. I can confirm the body of a male has been found in the undergrowth behind me. It is too early to talk of identification. We hope we will be able to say for certain who it is once we have conducted fingerprint and DNA tests. Thank you.’

‘He didn’t come right out and say it,’ Russell said, as the two men walked back to their car, ‘but it has to be Goodman.’

‘You think? I’m not so sure.’

‘Tom, don’t be so fucking dense. What do you mean you’re not sure? How many bodies do you think are lying at the side of this river just waiting to be discovered?’

‘I dunno.’

‘This isn’t fucking Sicily or Sinaloa in Mexico, with murders every other day. This is Home Counties England, so take it from me mate, the answer is none. If there was, you would have their wives, husbands, kids crowing about it for weeks and shouting at that copper and his mates to go out and find them.’

‘I suppose.’

‘You suppose. For definite, that’s our man.’

They climbed into the car and, after setting off, Russell called Dave Chesson.

‘Hi boss, we went to the place your contact told us about–’

‘What went down?’

‘Like you said, the cops are searching for the body of Taylor Goodman.’

‘So, they don’t think he went into the river after all?’

‘No, the cop said, sort of off-camera, the first search assumed he drowned, but now they have new information to suggest he didn’t.’

‘I wonder what that information might be.’

‘I dunno.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘Yep, they found the body of a bloke in the bushes.’

‘Did they say it’s him?’

‘Nah, too early for that. If it’s him, he’s been brown bread for over a month. I doubt his own mother would recognise him.’

‘You’re right. Around here it’s crows and rats, but down there in the sticks there’s badgers, foxes; all sorts.’

‘Maybe we should bring our stiffs down here.’

‘Not a bad idea. Now, if it is him, what does it mean?’

Russell knew Dave was thinking. It wasn’t smart to interrupt.

‘If it’s him lying there, I have to stop calling him every fucking name I can think of and accusing the bastard of pissing off with my money. If it’s natural causes, I’ll say I’m sorry to lose him, as he was a good bloke and a fucking good investment expert. However, I still want to know what happened to my investments. If he’s been murdered, and you said his laptop is missing–’

‘That’s what they told us, but–’

‘Mark, don’t fucking interrupt again, you hear me?’

‘Yeah, sorry Dave.’

‘If he’s been murdered and his laptop’s gone, it tells me the killer took it, who at this moment, is out there spending all my fucking money. My fucking money! I want this bastard found, Mark,’ he said, practically shouting, ‘and taken alive because I’m gonna torture the fucker! I’m gonna pull off his fingernails, break his fingers and his nose. For this fucking thief, I’m gonna pull out the stops and give him the full works. You hear me?’

‘Yeah, I hear you, Dave.’

‘Go to it, then. Your job, your only job now, is to find Taylor Goodman’s killer.’

The line went dead.

‘Christ,’ Mason said, ‘his temper comes out of nowhere. Volcanic doesn’t cover it.’

‘Press one of his buttons and, as if by magic, it appears.’

They turned left when they reached the A281, and headed into Henfield.

‘We gonna search her house?’ Mason asked.

‘If she’s there, we’ll tie the bitch up as we look. Don’t want her on our backs complaining as we turn the joint over. If we don’t find the laptop, she’ll get a going-over until she tells us where it is.’

‘What if–’

‘Tom, if the laptop’s there, we’re gonna find it. If it ain’t there, it’s like Dave said, the killer took it.’

‘Right.’

When they arrived at Sofia Goodman’s house the driveway was clear, so Russell reversed the car onto it, all set for a quick getaway, if required. He decided not to give her the benefit of seeing them at the front door again, and having a chance to call the cops, so they headed for the rear.

‘I don’t think she’s in,’ Mason said.

‘And what makes you think that, Poirot?’

‘Who’s Poirot?’

Russell rolled his eyes. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘I don’t see any lights on in her house, but I do in some other houses, and I can’t hear any movement.’

‘We might get some movement when she hears this go.’ Russell had criss-crossed Gorilla tape across the glass panel in the back door. He reached for a small paving block at the side of the path.

‘Are you not using your lockpick thing?’

‘Nah, there’s no need to sneak up behind her, is there?’

Russell smacked the glass with the paving block and pulled the broken pieces of glass toward him, laying them on the path at his feet. Mason’s arm snaked through the smashed window and picked up the door key lying on the window sill. In seconds, they were inside the kitchen with the back door closed. They listened, but Mason was right, the woman wasn’t at home.

‘You do up, I’ll do down. Give it the works, Tom. Look under mattresses, in the toilet cistern, the attic; you know what to do.’

‘No probs.’

Mason wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but give him a job within his capabilities and he would do it diligently.

Russell started in the kitchen. He didn’t need to take out every cupboard as some weren’t big enough to house their contents and a laptop, but the large ones were. With those, he pulled everything out until the floor was littered with pots, plates, cups, baking tins, and cookery books.

Satisfied it wasn’t there, he went into the lounge and did the same with the units there. He checked under the piano lid, behind the settee, under the settee, the cupboards in the unit below the television. Nothing.

He pulled out, more in frustration than a genuine feeling something was hidden in there, the contents of the hall cupboard: board games, jackets, shoes, suitcases. Still no sign of the laptop.

The last room looked to him like Goodman’s study. It was the obvious place to find a laptop, but not the best place to hide it. He didn’t hold out much hope, as the only place not open was a cupboard below the bookcase from which he pulled out the contents.

He sat among cycling books and maps, pamphlets about mental health, and books about mindfulness, feeling a forlorn figure, He didn’t like disappointing Dave Chesson but he hated not coming across something he was tasked with finding.

A loud noise: Mason clattering downstairs

‘No sign of it up there,’ he said. ‘You have any luck?’

‘Nope. I think Dave’s right, it’s been nabbed by the killer. C’mon,’ he said, struggling to get to his feet, ‘let’s get the fuck out of here.’

Chapter Nineteen

Henderson drove along Lewes Road, busy with mid-morning traffic. His phone rang.

‘You looked good on television, Angus,’ DCI White said by way of greeting. ‘Have you received much training?’

‘A little, a long time ago. I’m fine sticking to the facts but don’t ask me to ad-lib.’

‘Same goes for me too. How did Goodman’s wife take it?’

‘A mix of relief and sadness, I’m told. She’d been telling anyone who would listen Goodman would never have committed suicide, and perhaps harboured a hope he might come back one day. So, on the one hand, she must feel vindicated, but on the other, disappointed.’

‘I can see why, and it also silences those who had accused him, or her, of nicking their investments.’

‘I’m working on the assumption their investments are gone, not nicked by Goodman, but by his killer.’

‘I wouldn’t be too wedded to one theory so early in the investigation.’

‘It’s hard not to be. Why else would someone kill both Delaney and Goodman?’

‘Look for a connection between the two men beyond mere friendship and being former colleagues. See if they were involved in something nefarious together, perhaps a fraud.’

‘Okay.’

‘You’re on the way to the P-M now?’

‘I am.’

‘I’ll let you go. Talk to you later, Angus.’

Taylor Goodman had been identified quickly as, during the previous search for him, DNA samples had been taken from his house, and they could be compared to samples taken from the body discovered at Shermanbury. There had never been any doubt in his mind about the body being Taylor Goodman; it was just a shame, on many levels, they hadn’t found him on the earlier search.

Henderson had seen the victim’s face, albeit after a month’s decomposition, scratched and nibbled by small animals or birds, and saw similarities between this and the photograph he carried. Not to mention, he was still wearing the distinctive Apple watch and strap given to him by Sofia.

The DI entered Brighton and Hove Mortuary. As Senior Investigating Officer he often attended post-mortems, and at one time he would have to be suited and booted before going anywhere near the cadaver. Nowadays, he and anyone else in attendance were located in a room overlooking the dissecting tables with direct communication to the pathologist conducting the post-mortem.

The Crime Scene Manager and the Coroner’s Officer were also there. The CO, Kingsley Owen, was an officious oaf of a man, a local government official elevated to an important position, and boy did he milk it. Henderson nodded a cheery ‘Good Afternoon’, but he intended saying nothing else.

‘Good afternoon, detective.’

Henderson watched as Grafton Rawlings and his assistant laid out the instruments needed for the P-M. A photographer was in attendance. Five minutes later, he listened as Grafton noted what he could from a visual inspection of the body, including ligature marks around his neck, before slicing through the ribcage with a saw and removing each of his organs.

Henderson stopped listening for a second as he processed the implications of Taylor Goodman being strangled in the same manner as Jeff Delaney. It wasn’t as though he wanted the P-M to stop there, having heard and seen all he came to see, as Grafton’s work was important, trying to discover if the victim had in fact died from the obvious, or something else.

By the end of the P-M, Grafton hadn’t spotted any alternative and ruled Goodman’s cause of death as strangulation. Unlike Delaney, who had few marks on his body, Goodman had a large gash on his head, indicating he had been struck with a heavy object, perhaps as he put up a fight, or banged his head as he fell off his bike.

Grafton also noted a wound to his leg containing bits of gravel, wood chip and mud, consistent with a fall from a bike. Henderson had considered this before: how to get a rider off their bike, particularly if they were moving fast. Someone could have rushed from the bushes and pushed him off, or a rope could have been tied across the path.

‘I had visions of this one being quite gruesome,’ Owen said to Henderson as they walked out, ‘with him lying outdoors for a month and all, but it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’ Henderson walked back to his car perplexed. It was the most Owen had spoken to him in the many years the CO had been attending P-M’s, despite Henderson earlier on in his tenure trying and failing to strike up a conversation with him.

On the drive back to Lewes he called Walters.

‘How was the P-M?’ she asked.

‘Not good to look at, but not so decomposed that meaningful conclusions couldn’t be drawn.’

‘I would’ve thought after a month it would be the opposite.’

‘Me too, but perhaps his body was in a good spot, away from wind and sheltered from the worst of the rain.’

‘What conclusions could you draw?’

‘It looks as though Taylor was knocked off his bike with something like a rope strung across the path. There are signs he put up a struggle as there are defensive wounds, and a large gash on his head. He had been strangled with a synthetic rope.’

‘Same as Delaney.’

‘For sure. Which suggests they were killed by the same person or persons in order to steal the money they had invested.’

‘Sounds like it.’

‘But think about this. Taylor’s portfolio was worth about one hundred million, although Sofia said it was an old estimate from a couple of years back, so it could be worth much more. Delaney’s was valued at over one hundred and twenty-five million.’

‘These killers are greedy.’

‘They certainly are. If there’s, say, two working on the capture, one breaking into his house and grabbing his laptop, and another working on cashing in the investments, that’s forty-odd million each. Two murders and all of them are multi-millionaires.’

‘You think they might disappear now?’

‘It’s a strong possibility, don’t you think?’

‘Definitely. That’s enough for even a youngster to live in luxury for the rest of their life.’

‘I mean, why take the risk of carrying out another? The word is on the street and I imagine other IFIs will be taking precautions, so why bother? Or are they so wedded to the accumulation of wealth they don’t realise the fortunate position they’re in?’

‘Not to mention, with so much money swelling the pot, it might attract the attention of some low-lifes who want a slice of it for themselves.’

‘For sure.’

‘On the other hand, they might be thinking, it’s been so easy so far, why not carry on? If you look at Goodman’s murder, it went undiscovered for over a month. Over such a protracted time, most of the clues have disappeared.’

‘It would be wrong to wish for another robbery and murder, but given the absence of decent clues so far in this investigation, it might be the only way for us to find them,’ Henderson said with a sigh.

Chapter Twenty

Mark Russell drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, impatient to do something. They were parked in John Street, Brighton, not the best place to be waiting in a car with traffic wardens appearing every fifteen minutes. Added to the mix, it was home to three large organisations: Brighton Police Station, American Express European head office, and Brighton Magistrates Court. It was the last one they were interested in.

‘It’s good to see Dave’s name still carries some clout down here,’ he said to Mason beside him. It was a dull Saturday, the day made worse by a cold breeze blowing up from the seafront.

‘Aye, that geezer Frenchie near crapped himself last night when you told him.’

‘I think it had more to do with the Glock you had pressed into his skull.’

They both laughed.

‘They say,’ Mason continued, in a mansplaining voice he used when talking about something he’d read on Instagram, or the strange web sites he looked at on the dark web, ‘torture doesn’t work.’

‘Works for me, works for Dave.’

‘Me too, but they say in extreme situations, when you’re desperate to find out something, they’ll tell you anything to stop the pain.’

‘Yeah, but you go into something like that, you’ve got to know where the bullshit stops and the truth begins. Then when they’re spouting utter crap, you can tell the difference. Last year–’

‘Is that him?’

‘Yellow jacket, blue trousers Frenchie said. Yep, he’s our man.’

Without waiting to be asked, Mason got out of the car and headed towards the Magistrates Court. There, Amani Munro was exiting, his jaunty gait displaying prima facie evidence of his release from the drugs charges he had been facing.

Russell gave them a minute or two until Munro turned into Edward Street before setting off. He too turned up Edward Street and pulled into a layby beside what looked like a couple of new office blocks.

Munro was still doing his jaunty walk as he neared the car, Mason close behind. Russell leaned over and opened the car’s rear door. In seconds, Mason had grabbed the unsuspecting walker and bundled him through the open door into the car. The door slammed shut, Mason got in, and they set off.

‘What the fuck is this? You bastards! You can’t–’

‘Shut the fuck up Munro,’ Mason said pointing the Glock at him and silencing the whining voice at a stroke. ‘We’re looking for a guy, and someone told us you’re the man in the know.’

‘Who did you talk to?’

‘You don’t need to know. What you do need to know, mate, is we work for Dave Chesson, and if we tell Dave you refused to cooperate, he’ll maybe allow you to select the bin or skip where we’ll stick your lifeless body. Understand?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Dave’s the main man in my book.’

‘Right. Shut the fuck up until we reach where we’re going, okay?’

‘Yeah, right.’

Russell followed signs for Brighton Racecourse. He’d been there before and lost a pile of money, but he liked its position high up on the South Downs. On Warren Road he slowed and bumped off the road into a farm entrance and brought the car to a halt in front of a closed gate. He switched off the engine.

He turned in his seat to face the passenger in the rear. ‘Amani mate, listen up, this is important. Some geezer killed a friend of ours from Henfield. He is, was, an independent financial investor. You with me so far?’

‘Yeah, Yeah, I don’t read the news or nuthin’, but somebody told me the story. Some fucker got away with millions. What a grab, man, wish I’d thought of it.’

‘Some of that money, a lot of it in fact, belonged to Dave Chesson.’

‘I don’t mean nuthin’ by it. I’d never steal from Dave–.’

Russell raised a hand to silence him. ‘The thing is, Amani, we, and Dave, are keen to find whoever killed this guy and nicked his cash. We’ve been informed you know plenty of people in this line of work.’

‘I do, I do, but I’ve heard nuthin’ about this one.’

‘Sorry mate, but that’s not the answer I wanted to hear.’

Mason leaned over, the Glock gripped lightly in his hand, tapping the back of the seat with it. ‘C’mon, pal, you must know something. You don’t want us to leave here empty-handed, do you?’

‘Give me a break here fellas, I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’.’

‘Think faster.’

‘How about you speak to Wazza?’ Munro said.

‘Who’s Wazza?’

‘Wazza Franks. What’s his first name?’ He paused a moment. ‘Lennie, yeah, Lennie Franks.’

‘Why would we want to talk to Wazza?’

‘See me, like, I focus on one thing, yeah? I’m into drugs, but nothin’ else; know what I mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I could tell you a shit-load about the people in the drug business around Sussex, but that’s it. Wazza, like, is into credit cards, forged passports and customs docs. It’s all money if you know what I mean. Different type of customer, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Wazza keeps his ear to the ground, has to, the cops are hot on it. If anybody knows anything about your guy, it’s got to be him.’

‘Where does this guy hang out?’

‘You know the Fishbowl bar in East Street?’

‘This is Brighton we’re talking about?’

‘Yeah.’

‘We’ll find it.’

‘He’s in there Thursday and Friday nights.’

‘Description?’

‘He’s black like me, but I’m Antiguan, he’s Nigerian. Less class, like. His hair is long in dreadlocks. He wears shades even in the dark. You into football?’

‘Yeah, sure. The Mighty Palace.’

‘What? The Seagulls beat Pal… I digress. Think Edgar Davids.’

‘How old?’

‘Mid-thirties.’

‘Good description. Now get the fuck out.’

‘What, here? We’re at the racecourse. We’re miles from the city.’

‘How observant of you, now get out. You can walk, can’t you?’

‘Yeah, but I’ve been helpful, man. It’s worth at least a lift back into town.’

‘Not today it isn’t. Now get the fuck out.’

‘Ah, fuck.’

He opened the door and got out. He trudged over the racecourse in the direction of Brighton, the sprightly walk gone, the tall buildings along the seafront visible in the distance and looking a long way off.

Russell started the car and set off. ‘I hope to fuck the next guy’s a bit more useful than him,’ he said to Mason.

‘Couldn’t be much worse.’

Chapter Twenty-One

Henderson walked to the far side of the Detectives’ Area where the murder team had gathered. He had come into the office early this morning, not to review the stack of evidence accumulating by the day, as there wasn’t any, but trying to find a way to give the investigation some impetus.

‘Morning everyone,’ he said, placing his coffee on the desk and sitting on the edge of it, directly in front of the whiteboards. ‘You will see we have added Taylor Goodman’s murder to the board. With what we know about the two men, and the way they were killed, we have every reason to suspect both murders were carried out by the same perpetrators.’

This didn’t cause the uproar it might have done in other murder cases. Everyone involved in the case had been saying the same thing ever since Taylor Goodman’s body had been discovered.

‘Finding Taylor Goodman’s body reinforced our suspicion; Delaney and Goodman were killed to give the criminals access to their investment portfolios. However, with the body having lain undiscovered for over a month, it was never going to offer us any more forensic data than we got from Delaney.’

‘Yeah, the heavy rain we had at the beginning of the month would have washed away any traces left by the killer,’ Phil Bentley said.

‘Vicky,’ Henderson said, ‘much of the background work on Goodman was done by detectives at Chichester. Liaise with them and obtain copies of his file. Save us going over old ground.’

‘Will do.’

‘Also, organise boards at the start of his cycle route on the A281, and another a half-kilometre or so past the point where we found his body. It might be over a month, but you never know.’

‘We didn’t have high hopes for the boards we had out at Wisborough Green,’ Neal said, ‘but for those not aware, a witness has come forward.’

‘That’s terrific,’ Bentley said. ‘I hadn’t heard.’

‘Yes, she was standing in the shadow of the scout hall, trying to untangle her dog’s harness when two men walked past, coming away from the place Delaney’s body was found.’

‘They probably didn’t realise she was there,’ Henderson said. ‘If they were indeed the killers of Jeff Delaney, she can count herself lucky.’

‘The woman said she noticed them as they looked a bit of an odd pair. One was tall and portly, the other smaller and slimmer. She is at this moment with the digital profiler trying to create an E-Fit of their faces.’

‘Once we have it, we need to trace these men as a matter of urgency. Two things stand out and point to them being suspects. One, our witness didn’t think they looked dressed for a walk in the woods. She was wearing walking boots for the uneven terrain, and a rain jacket for the forecasted sporadic showers. She said they looked as though they had come from a stroll down Oxford Street or The Lanes in Brighton. Second, she took a photograph of some cows in a field no more than five minutes later. The time the photograph was taken was within fifteen to twenty minutes of the time Jeff would have been running there.’

This created a buzz of excitement. He let it go for twenty seconds or so before calling a halt.

‘Let’s not get too carried away. Our witness saw more of their backs than their faces so I’m not feeling too hopeful at getting a good likeness, but if it was them, it tells us we’re looking for two killers.’

‘In a way it makes sense,’ Sally Graham said. ‘The big guy is there to do the strong-arm stuff and subdue the victim, while the little guy grabs his phone and finds out how to access his investments.’

‘At last, we’ve got something on the killers,’ Seb Young said.

‘With luck it’ll help, but moving away from that subject for a second, how do we think the victims are being targeted?’

‘Maybe there’s a professional association and they publish a members list,’ Graham said.

‘That could be it. Lisa, see if you can get to the bottom of this. Find out if there is a professional association or other lists of independent financial investors.’

‘I imagine they are authorised and perhaps regulated by some corporate body,’ DC Lisa Newman said, ‘such as the Financial Conduct Authority, but I’ll check.’

‘We now have access to Jeff Delaney’s bank statement,’ Walters said.

‘Good.’

‘He was a member of Soho House and now and again goes to their place in Brighton, but he hadn’t been there in the two weeks prior to his death.’

‘It rules him out of leaving his laptop,’ Henderson said.

‘It does, but we still don’t know if he ever went into a pub or coffee bar to work, but now that feels like a bit of a long shot.’

‘I agree. Before we wrap this up for now, is there anything else?’

He waited, looking around at the faces. ‘No? We meet again at six for an update. Vicky, you and I will go and see how our digital profiler is getting along with our witness.’

‘This case is like pulling teeth,’ Neal said, as they walked downstairs out towards the building next to their own. ‘We’re all working like mad and only finding little fragments of evidence.’

‘DCI White compared it to shifting sand, trying to find nuggets of gold.’

‘That’s what it feels like with clues so thin on the ground.’

‘It’s all because the killers chose the crime scene well.’

‘And killed their victims without blood splatter or tell-tale knife wounds or bullet holes.’

‘Do the same thing in a house and we’d come across fragments of DNA, hair follicles, pictures from door cameras. Do it in a city street and we might have witnesses and CCTV pictures.’

‘Which suggests they’re good at what they do, their methods perhaps honed over many such crimes.’

‘Once Lisa has compiled a list of IFIs, we’ll run a check and see if they have committed this type of crime anywhere else.’

‘Good idea.’

Their witness, Gemma Laird, was aged around thirty with short brown hair and a smiling open face. She also had good powers of observation and recollection as the faces of the two men she had seen were detailed, and not the usual identikit image of a long nose, piercing eyes, and a cheek scar.

‘We’re about finished with the E-Fit,’ the profiler, Jed Donovan, said. ‘I think Gemma’s done a brilliant job.’

Henderson introduced himself to Gemma and stared at the two images. One, a rounded chubby bloke with a cheery, open expression, the other a much slimmer man with a pale appearance and prominent facial bone structure, reminding the DI of an undertaker.

‘I don’t recognise either of them, how about you Vicky?’

‘No, I haven’t seen them before.’

‘This looks good enough to circulate. What do you think Jed?’

‘You might want to hang fire for a bit, see if it corroborates with other evidence you have. It’s been a couple of weeks since Gemma saw them–’

‘I have a good memory for faces and those two were quite distinctive.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Donovan continued, ‘I urge caution.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jeff Delaney’s father had worked for the RAF and their family had moved countries and houses every couple of years. When Mia had first met Jeff he’d told her this had turned him into an affable socialite, as he was forced to develop a fresh cohort of friends every time he landed in a new location.

He also admitted it had the downside of making his attitude towards relationships and friendships as transitory, even when there was no need to be. He said one of the reasons he loved her was that he believed she was the opposite. Her parents still lived in the house where she grew up, and arrived home at a reasonable time each night, giving her an altogether more stable childhood than the one he had known.

With no other roots to anywhere, she had approached the vicar of the local church in Kirdford. Jeff had liked living in the village, where he could be found running through its streets and enjoying nothing better than a pint in the local pub of a Friday evening when he had finished work.

The vicar agreed to perform the funeral service and only raised an eyebrow, not an admonishment, when told Jeff wasn’t a regular attendee. In fact, Mia knew Jeff wouldn’t class himself as a believer, which was surprising as he was good friends with Taylor Goodman, whose father had been a vicar in the US, and much of his religious teaching had rubbed off on Taylor.

As Mia drove towards Kirdford, news that a search team had found Taylor’s body left her more miserable than before. She had called Sofia, now staying with her mother, and once her friend had got over the shock of her husband’s death, she said she felt so relieved to know at last what had happened to him.

Sofia was too lost in her bubble to consider much else, so Mia didn’t mention that she considered the deaths of Jeff and Taylor to be connected. She was sure the police would have recognised this link too, but was there anything else about the work Jeff and Taylor did that would help them prevent another tragedy and catch the people doing it?

She wondered if finding the body meant the people hounding Sofia about their missing investments would now back off. His death sent a clear message: he hadn’t absconded with their money as they thought, but instead, had become a victim of a vicious killer. In which case, once Sofia had gone through a funeral service like the one Mia was about to, moved back to her house, and allowed herself some time to grieve, she and Mia could get back to how it was before.

Mia sat with Jeff’s mum and dad, Lesley and Gary, during the service and it was no surprise to find Lesley was more upset than she was. Lesley had seen him through his twelve-year marriage to Amanda Storey, and helped care for his two children, Stephanie, 8, and Oscar, 10. This made Mia the new girl in the class, still to prove her credentials and make her allegiances.

She had met them several times before, but it would have taken many years for her to be able to step up to a level playing field with Jeff’s ex. Amanda Storey was not only a good and caring person, she had been the victim in their son’s divorce, bearing the full brunt of the fall-out from Jeff’s philandering. Mia would never have the time to prove she would have been good for Jeff, and doubted Lesley and Gary would keep in touch following the burial of their son.

After the service she filed out and showed her appreciation to everyone she recognised for coming. She had organised the funeral and the reception at the local pub afterwards, but she would take a back seat to Jeff’s parents. Most of the attendees were from Jeff’s past life: members of his football team, former work colleagues, jazz band members, and some joint friends.

She was standing on her own outside the church, enjoying the time to reflect on Jeff’s life after a busy week. She looked up and saw someone walking towards her: Don Powell, the Rottweiler from Brandon Lewis’ kennel.

‘Hello Mia. I have to say you gave Jeff a mighty fine send-off.’

‘Yes, the vicar spoke with authority despite not knowing him well.’

He laughed. ‘Brandon knew Jeff wasn’t religious. It rankled with him.’

‘It didn’t stop him investing his money.’

‘No, you’re quite right; nor stop him employing me, as I’m much the same.’

‘I didn’t realise.’

‘Yeah, can’t be that way in my line of work. Hypocritical it would be.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Powell? Most people are heading over to the pub. I’d like to join them.’

‘Not me, if you’re asking. I stopped drinking about ten years back. Don’t touch a drop now.’

‘Commendable.’

‘When I first came over here to the UK, I was looking to see what happened to Jeff’s financial portfolio. With him gone, I assumed you’d taken it, and I accused you. However, the death of Taylor Goodman makes me think otherwise. I apologise for my rash judgement.’

‘Apology accepted.’

‘With Taylor and Jeff employed in the same business, it’s clear to me someone has targeted these boys in order to get their hands on the investments.’

‘I came to the same conclusion.’

‘You did? Good, we’re on the same page. What I’d like from you is to tell me why you think those two guys in particular were targeted. There must be hundreds of such people in the same business in this lovely country of yours. Why were those two singled out?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, they were friends and once worked at the same place–’

‘Where was that?’

‘A financial company called Gaynor Reed.’

‘Where are they based?’

‘Canary Wharf, in London.’

‘It might have been there. Is there anywhere else you can think of where the two of them came together?’

‘They socialised together, but not every week or anything like that, just whenever the notion took them.’

‘You’re not being very helpful Mia. I want to track down the criminals who stole Brandon’s investments, the same people, in my opinion, who killed your husband-to-be. You should want it too.’

Before Mia could tell him that was a job for the police, and that she had given him more information than she needed to, he reached into an inside pocket and pulled out something, making her flinch.

‘Here’s a card with my UK phone number added to it. Call me if you think of something that would help. I urge you to do this Mia, or, you know what, I’ll be back.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mark Russell drove into Brighton from the small house he and Tom Mason rented in Hove. He’d called Dave Chesson the previous night. He’d sounded pleased with their approach and the progress they had been making. Just as well, as Russell couldn’t think of another way to uncover the name of Taylor Goodman’s killer.

‘We’re gonna miss the big delivery tomorrow night,’ Mason said from the passenger seat. ‘It’s all hands-on deck according to Kahn.’

‘Yeah, we will. He’s getting this one from the Albanians who have a direct line to Ecuador.’

‘Not the fucking Albanians. I thought he said he’d never deal with them. When they find out what you’re doing and who you’re dealing with, they come in and take it for themselves.’

‘Dave said that was a risk a couple of years back when it was a much smaller outfit. We’re bigger now, both in men and guns. He says they know we wouldn’t give up our business without a fight and wouldn’t dare come after him.’

‘He can count me in if he wants to go out and kill a few of those fuckers, I hate ’em.’

‘What do you mean, you hate them? How many Albanians do you know?’

‘There’s a couple living around our way. They’re a nasty bunch, only looking out for their family, everybody else can go and fuck themselves as far as they’re concerned.’

‘What happened? Did one of them nick your bird, or did you get thrown out of one of their clubs?’

‘Nah, had a run-in about two years back when I tried to buy blow for a mate. The dealer was giving me aggro, so I squared up to him. His minder stepped in, a fucking Albanian don’t you know, and broke my nose.’

‘I hope you didn’t go after him with your Glock.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘These guys are hot on revenge. If you kill a guy, his brothers will come after you and kill your brother or your pop.’

‘Nah, I didn’t top him. Someone got there before I did. Pumped half a dozen bullets into the fucker.’

‘Problem solved.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Mark parked the car on the seafront, close to the Fishbowl pub, and crossed the road towards it.

‘What’s the plan?’ Mason asked.

‘You walk in and confirm Wazza’s there.’

‘Right.’

‘Make a judgement on how he is: stoned, pissed, stone-cold sober, and if he’s there with any mates.’

‘Then what?’

‘We talk to him when he comes out. How it goes will be up to him and if he’s got any minders with him.’

Mason headed to the bar while Russell mooched along East Street, looking in shops. He’d imagined Brighton would be much like Margate, a place where he used to go as a kid. It was, in the sense of having a seafront esplanade, and it smelled fishy, and not all of it aquatic.

Brighton was a few notches up. It felt like a real town beside the sea with big businesses and a decent football team, not simply a seaside resort that existed only to serve day trippers and hen night lassies.

He hoped Mason wasn’t taking his advice too literally, to go with the flow inside the pub, merrily necking pints and shots while cavorting with the locals. He needed him sober and able to shoot straight if required.

Mason walked out ten minutes later, by which time Russell was fed up looking at women’s clothes, and restaurant menus, although he did enjoy staring at the beers in a beer cellar, and the accessories in a gun shop. Mason headed over to join him.

‘How does he look?’ Russell asked him.

‘He’s as Munro said, a dead ringer for Edgar Davids; dark shades and dreadlocks. He wasn’t drinking much, hardly touched the pint of lager beside him, but chillin’ to the good vibes, you know?’

‘Is he with anyone?’

‘Doesn’t look like it.’

‘Be more precise, mate. I want a positive yes or no. I don’t want to be deckin’ a couple of his mates just to get at him, you hear what I’m sayin’?’

‘It’s a no, a definite no.’

‘Right.’

They hung around outside the pub for half an hour before the man of the moment exited. It hadn’t been bad as the weather was calm and warm, and the view pretty decent too with loads of scantily dressed young women heading out to clubs and pubs.

They walked fast and moved up behind Wazza. Russell was about to make a move when their target stopped and turned.

‘You the guys from Dave Chesson’s outfit?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I heard you fellas were in town. What d’ya need?’

‘To talk. Where do you live?’

‘Patcham.’

‘Want a lift back?’

‘Sure.’

‘The car’s across there,’ Russell indicated with a nod of the head.

‘Okay, let’s go.’

When they were all in the car and the door closed, Russell twisted around to face Wazza in the back seat. ‘The body of a bloke in Henfield was found beside a river last week. He’d been missing for a month. You know about it?’

‘Yeah, I heard.’

‘The dead guy was involved in investing a lot of Dave Chesson’s money.’

‘People said at the time he’d done a flyer. Fucked off into the ether with all the dough.’

‘We now know different. He was killed by someone. More to the point, Dave believes whoever topped him has made off with his loot.’

Wazza stroked his goatee beard in thought. ‘As I hear it, Dave doesn’t like being fucked over by anyone.’

‘Dead right, mate,’ Mason said, ‘or you would feel the sharp end of that famous temper.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What we want, Wazza, is a name to finger the guy who killed him.’

‘And what’ll you do if you find him?’

‘Dave’ll tie him to two cars and pull him apart limb by limb, I suspect.’

‘Grue-some.’

‘Know anything that could help us?’

‘Maybe I do.’

‘Like what?’

‘Quid pro quo.’

‘What?’

‘I give you something, you give me something in return.’

‘Fair enough. What do you need?’

‘People keep asking me for that good coke you used to bring in from Colombia. A key of that would help my memory.’

Mason, silent thus far, exploded in anger. ‘A fucking Glock would–’

Russell’s hand shot out and took a tight grip of his companion’s wrist, the one reaching for the gun. ‘Calm the fuck down, Tom. We’re having a chilled conversation here.’

‘That’s not what–’

‘Tom, shut the fuck up. I’m dealing with this.’

‘Sorry about that,’ he said, turning back to Wazza. ‘He can be a bit hot-headed at times.’

‘No probs.’

‘You want a key for telling us about this killer?’

‘Yep.’

‘Is your information kosha or what?’

He shrugged. ‘For you to judge, man, but this ain’t some try before you buy kinda shit. You want it, you pay for it.’

‘Fair enough, you got yourself a deal.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

Don Powell removed his hat as he took a seat in reception. He had to hand it to the financial services crowd, the offices here were a lot plusher than Prado Foods or any of the other businesses Brandon Lewis owned.

That said, Powell was a Southern boy, rarely venturing across the Mason-Dixon Line. He hadn’t been to downtown New York or Chicago, and imagined the glass citadels of Citicorp or American Express would rival this place. However, they did serve damn fine coffee, the best he’d tasted since coming to the UK.

He had come to Gaynor Reed Asset Management in Canary Wharf, after Mia told him both Taylor Goodman and Jeff Delaney used to work there. Some people in Powell’s line of business followed the money, or tried to squeeze the last drop out of any witnesses they came across. Powell concentrated on relationships, social and business, as he believed this was where the meat of any investigation lay.

Minutes later, a young lady in a creaseless tight skirt approached.

‘Mr Watson will see you now.’

He rose and followed her, keeping his eyes away from her shapely butt. He liked to gaze at an attractive body as much as any man, but he wanted to get a feel for the place by looking around at the financial analysts on the spacious floor of this building: talking on the phone, tapping into their computers, staring at the big screens hanging from the ceiling with rolling news, others with stock market movements.

This was an alien world to him. He couldn’t understand how they made money buying and selling numbers on a screen, and went home and felt good about themselves. He had always worked with his hands and counted a good day as one where he returned dog-tired from doing a ton of physical work.

Director Patrick Watson rose from behind his desk to greet him. He was dressed in a sharp, dark blue thinly lined suit, a blue shirt and red tie. His hair was brown and thick, but tidy and a neat length; altogether a smartly dressed dude.

‘Mr Winklehaus, it’s so good to meet you.’

‘It sure is good to meet you too, Mr Watson,’ he replied. They shook hands. ‘This is a fine-looking business you have here, I’m very impressed with what I see.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, resuming his seat. Powell did the same.

‘Can I offer you something to drink?’

‘No thank you. The very helpful lady out there, Miranda, I think her name was, looked after me, but hell, too many coffees first thing and I’ll be climbing the walls for the rest of the day.’

‘I know what you mean. You said on the phone you have a large sum of money you would like to invest?’

‘Sure thing. See, the US economy is not what it used to be. In fact, that red-neck Hamilton in the White House is so busy with the nuts and bolts of the economy, he forgets about us folks down here with money in the stock market. Prices are tumblin’. So I figured, I’ll come to the good ol’ country and put my money here.’

‘You’ve made a good decision. The stock market here is a bit more stable than the US, but I have to caution you by saying we are not immune from whatever the US President decides to do. As they say, if America sneezes, Britain catches a cold.’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I expect y’all are used to times like that. Buying stocks when they’re cheap, and selling high when things are better.’

‘Very true. You said your interest is pharmaceuticals and technology, do any other areas interest you?’

‘I would be advised by your professional opinion, but I like to take a bit of a risk. Pharma stocks will rocket if they discover a novel treatment, and the same for the launch of new phones and computers.’

‘It’s always useful to balance your portfolio with other, less volatile investments. For example, you could add retail, general manufacturing, and telecoms.’

‘When we get down to the detail,’ Powell said, ‘we can talk about that, but tell me how the investment process within this firm operates.’

‘Out there,’ Watson said, clearly warming to a spiel he had no doubt trotted out countless times, ‘we have analysts continually monitoring markets: stocks, precious metals, gilts–’

‘Gilts? What the hell are they?’

‘Government-issued bonds.’

‘Like Treasury bills?’

‘Similar. As I was saying, analysts will update your portfolio with whatever they buy and sell.’

‘Do I get my own analyst or is the work shared by all those folks out there.’

‘The analysts are all specialists: some in technology, others pharma, others in retail or financial services.’

‘I see. Who are the stars of the show?’

‘See the chap over there,’ Watson said, pointing, ‘bright blue blazer and curly hair?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s our resident expert on AI. Consistently returns ten to fifteen percent every year. Last year it was thirty.’

‘Very impressive. I was reading in one of your newspapers about a star trader you used to have here, Jeff Delaney. Did you know him?’

Watson narrowed his eyes, as if looking for a sign that he was a private investigator or journalist, but the brash, rich, and not too bright American industrialist carapace was too thick for him to penetrate.

‘I was his manager, as a matter of fact.

‘You were?’

‘Yes, he used to work out there in the general office.’

‘Was he the bright and shining star the newspapers all said, or is this another example of glorifying the dead?’

‘No, he was very good.’

Watson went on to talk about Delaney, but unlike delivering the business spiel, when he appeared relaxed and in his element, this sounded forced. It was as if he hadn’t liked the man but was trying to put a brave face on it.

Don Powell left Gaynor Reed ten minutes later, promising to get back to Patrick Watson once he had talked to one other asset management company. He had gone there to see if the people at Gaynor Reed had fond memories of Jeff Delaney and whether they could shed any light on why he was killed.

He was stopped from asking further questions by the cold, detached way Watson talked about Delaney. It was as if the man had been his sworn enemy, but he couldn’t admit to it for appearance’s sake. Powell intended leaving there with the reason behind why Jeff Delaney was killed: had he upset the boss of a big company with connections to the mob, or had he panicked and sold the stock of a business owned by crooked businessmen, precipitating its collapse?

Instead, he now had Patrick Watson in his sights. He didn’t look to him capable of killing Delaney, his soft hands hadn’t handled anything more lethal than a pen, although Powell knew killers came in many guises. However, guys like him were rich, took recreational drugs, worked hard and played hard, and lived for the chance to take risks. If not him, it wouldn’t be beyond his abilities or resources to hire someone to do the dirty deed.

This new information was something he needed to bounce off Brandon. It was around eleven in the morning in the UK, too early to call Missouri, even though Powell knew Brandon was a light sleeper and would answer. He would do it later, but he was sure Brandon would agree with him. Shaking down Watson looked as if it would soon pay dividends.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Henderson parked the car, got out, and walked in the direction of the seafront. He was in Southdown Road in Shoreham-by-Sea and walking past a pretty terrace of white-painted houses. He turned down a path leading to a royal-blue-painted door.

It was a bright, sunny afternoon, a surprisingly warm spell for mid-October and the houses all around looked at their finest, exuding that unique seaside vibe. He believed that if looking for a house you wanted to buy, it was best to view it in the worst possible weather. Even the ugliest of houses looked fantastic in bright sunshine.

He knocked on the door. It was opened by his former Detective Sergeant, Harry Wallop, who enveloped the DI in a slightly awkward man-hug.

‘It’s great to see you, gov.’

‘And you, Harry,’ he said when they parted. ‘How have you been?’

‘Not too bad. Thanks for coming to see me. I really appreciate it. Come into the lounge.’

‘You can drop the gov now, mate. Plain ‘Angus’ will do just fine.’

‘Old habits die hard. Can I get you something?’

‘I’ll take a coffee if you’re making one.’

‘No problem.’

‘Where’s Hannah, is she working today?’

‘She wasn’t supposed to be, but you know how it is, they’re always short-staffed.’

‘I suppose the extra shifts will come in handy with you not working.’

‘It’s not so bad, as I’m now on the disability pension.’

A few minutes later he came in with the drinks on a small tray with a variety of biscuits.

It made Henderson laugh. ‘Is this because some witnesses we visit aren’t always hospitable, so you make sure your visitors are well looked after?’

‘It used to piss me off,’ he said taking a seat in the big chair in the corner. ‘Sometimes, we’d travelled an hour and a bit just to get there and you didn’t even get so much as a handshake.’

‘So, how are you doing?’

While on a case earlier in the year, Harry was walking away from a crashed electric vehicle following its collision with a telegraph pole, when it exploded. It had put Harry in a coma for four days and resulted in him leaving the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team and resigning from Sussex Police.

‘I’ve still got the shakes,’ he said holding out his trembling hand, ‘but I no longer get the flashbacks that I used to suffer for about a month following the accident.’

‘That’s good to hear. When do you think you’ll go back to work?’

‘A week or two, I should think. It’s a case of getting my head into gear, because as far as the physical side is concerned, I’m more or less back to normal.’

‘Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll find out what’s available.’

Around half of the staff at the Malling House complex were civilians. In common with other large organisations, Sussex Police had departments for catering, a call centre, computer systems, and security, but many were employed in more direct police work: managing the large fleet of vehicles, maintaining infrastructure, conducting training, roles that allowed officers to spend less time at a desk and more on the street.

‘I appreciate it, gov… I mean, Angus. It would be good to be close to what’s going on, without having the responsibility to go out and deal with it.’

‘I sometimes feel like that.’

‘I suppose you’re working on the murder of Taylor Goodman? I saw your statement to the press on South Today.’

‘You did? If you looked closely, you might have noticed blood on my face looking as if I’d shaved with a blunt razor, but I got it from thick brambles, some of which were as sharp as knives.’

‘You’re all right, it wasn’t obvious. How’s the investigation going?’

‘It’s an awkward one, if I’m being honest. Where Taylor was found is out in the sticks beside a river, so there are no cameras, witnesses, or houses nearby with nosey neighbours and their video doorbell cameras. Nothing to help, and with him lying dead for over a month, not much forensic data either.’

‘That’s a tough one. I still think about stuff like this whenever I read something in the paper about you guys being involved in an investigation. I make assumptions about the approach being used: the people you need to interview, the information to be gathered at the crime scene, the data you might get from ballistics.’

‘It makes whatever crime drama you watch on television a nightmare.’

‘I can’t watch them, and yet they’re Hannah’s favourite type of programme.’

Henderson sat with Harry for a further fifteen minutes before getting up to leave. He promised Harry he would call again soon, and Harry assured him he would call him when he felt able to return to work.

As much as Henderson felt a responsibility towards his former DS, as he was injured on a case where he was the officer in charge, he wanted him back in some capacity. It would be a shame to lose such an experienced officer whose unique way of looking at things was often a good counterpoint to tunnel vision.

Walking back to his car, his phone rang: DC Lisa Newman.

‘Hi Lisa, how are you doing?’

‘I’m good. I heard you were seeing Harry today. How is he?’

‘He says he’ll be ready to do some sort of light work in a couple of weeks, but I’m not so sure. What he went through was traumatic, it’ll take a lot longer to get over.’

‘Thanks for the update. The reason I called is I think I know how the killer is targeting his victims.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mark Russell wound down the car window for a bit of light relief from the garlic whiffs coming from Tom Mason following their curry earlier this evening. They were sitting outside a house in Melville Road in the Seven Dials area of Brighton. The house, according to Wazza, the place where their target was staying.

In fact, Wazza had told them it wasn’t one killer they were looking for, but two. Not long after they’d dropped him off, Russell called Dave Chesson with an update. Dave was happy about the progress, but didn’t share how this new information was going to change his torture routine. Would four cars be used for two killers instead of two?

Wazza only knew one of the men: a guy going by the name of Buster. He was gay and often came to Brighton as it was an active gay scene, better than where he lived in Slough. Wazza made a point of saying he was straight, but his friend was gay and this was how he’d met Buster.

Drug dealing was a bit of a sideline for Wazza as his main business was financial fraud: stolen credit cards, passports, insurance fraud, holiday scams, so when Buster told him he was in the criminal game, also on the financial side, he’d listened closely.

‘Why don’t we go in there and nab him?’ Mason asked, breaking Russell’s chain of thought.

‘I’ve told you, we’re monitoring his movements. Find out where he goes and hopefully he’ll lead us to the other guy.’

‘He doesn’t seem to be moving very far.’

‘I agree, he’s not. We’ll give him until eleven, or if he switches off the lights before and heads to bed, we’ll bugger off and come back in the morning and do it all again.’

‘Eleven? That’s two fucking hours of watching nothing but the curtains in his front room.’

‘You got a better fucking idea, Sherlock?’

‘Yeah, go over there and get the big bastard to open the door. I’ll stick a gun in his gob and he’ll soon tell us where the other geezer lives.’

‘What if he doesn’t? Need I remind you, you’ve got form in this department.’

‘Do you have to bring it up every time?’

‘Tom, I’m bringing it up as we would be faced with the same situation here. What if the big bastard in there clams up? You’ll hit him again, and maybe he still says fuck-all, and so you hit him some more, and so it goes on until you know what? He’s lying on the floor brown bread and unable to tell us fuck-all, and now every cop in Brighton is out there looking for us.’

‘It wouldn’t come to that,’ Mason said, sulking.

‘It would. I don’t know what’s happened to you mate, you’ve lost patience or summat. One minute you’re asking some bloke a few questions, the next something snaps, and before we know what’s going on, the guy in front of you is lying unconscious.’

‘Hey, look the hall light came on,’ Mason said, mock excitement in his voice. ‘Maybe he’s taking a piss. If this is tonight’s excitement, I’m all in.’

Russell was about to remonstrate as he couldn’t take much more of his carping, when the hall light went off again and the front door opened. A big guy appeared. He was around six-three, but not the muscle mountain Russell imagined. He looked portly, not fat in the belly, but a guy who could carry excess weight and not let it show.

He stood in the darkness of the doorway and gazed around. Russell expected him to take out a packet of fags and light up, but he didn’t. He was looking for watchers: police surveillance or perhaps the covert actions of a rival. It was a sensible precaution for anyone in the criminal game to take, especially him, as he and his buddy had pulled off such a big and public heist.

Mason was about to say something but Russell silenced him. He could see Buster was not only looking, but listening as well. If it was cops he was wary of, he would be trying to hear the static crackle of a radio transmission, or the sound of a careless detective dropping his phone. The car window had been opened, away from sight of the house, so the car wouldn’t steam up. He was confident, despite Buster turning and looking over to where they were parked, the reflection from a street lamp on the glass would make him and Mason invisible to him.

Buster’s surveillance check took no more than about thirty seconds, but Russell’s nerves were on such a knife-edge, it felt like several minutes. Satisfied, Buster ignored the Hyundai car parked outside his house, which they assumed to be his, and started walking.

He wasn’t a brisk walker, a result of his considerable bulk, so they waited until he had turned a corner before exiting the car. By the same token, they didn’t expect him to walk around the corner and then speed-walk or break into a sprint. This assumption proved correct as when Russell and Mason rounded the same corner, they could see him up ahead.

With Buster being so cautious as he came out of his house, they moved to the other side of the street and walked as quietly as possible. To make it appear more natural for two guys to be walking along the road at night, they could have engaged in some inane banter, but Russell thought it better not to make any extraneous noise that might encourage him to turn around.

Turning into Addison Road, Buster walked thirty or so metres, before climbing the steps towards a house with a red door. Russell had been clocking some of the properties as they walked past. The multiple bell pushes on some indicated they had been converted into flats, but not this one.

This made sense because if those guys had pulled a similar heist to Goodman’s before, they would be rolling in dough. They didn’t need to stay in poxy flats with poor soundproofing, students above and below with no compunction about shouting at the top of their voices, or playing their music at high volume after midnight. They had money, they could rent a nice house like this one while they planned their next heist. One he, and garlic breath beside him, hoped to disrupt.

‘What now?’ Mason asked as they walked past the door, after first taking a glance at the guy who had opened it and greeted Buster like a good friend. All Wazza knew about him was he was a much smaller figure than Buster, and this guy fitted the bill. That said, most people would be smaller than Buster, so as an identification aid it was useless.

‘I think we should barge in and beat up the pair of them,’ Mason continued. ‘You could go and get the car and we’ll take them back to Dave.’

‘What, only to find the small guy’s a vicar who’s talking to Buster about his forthcoming wedding, or a bloke he’s met on Tinder and he’s in there for a good shag?’

‘If that’s the case,’ Mason said laughing, ‘there wouldn’t be any problem getting them to come with us would there? Not with both of them naked and the big guy with his cock up the little guy’s arse.’

Russell laughed. ‘You’re right, it would make it easy.’

They turned the corner and stopped out of sight of the target house.

‘C’mon Mark, what are we waiting for? We should go in there and grab ‘em.’

‘You’re not thinking this through. If the little guy is someone we’re not interested in, there’s no two ways about it, we’d have to waste him. We can’t have him blabbing to the cops and them launching a manhunt to find Buster. If so, Dave would clamp our balls in a vice.’

Mason thought for a moment, something he didn’t do often. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said at last.

‘Do what?’

‘Waste the little guy.’

‘Right, okay, but no guns. There are too many houses around here.’

‘Don’t worry, I have other ways.’

It was Russell’s turn to think. Dave wouldn’t be happy about them leaving a dead body in Brighton, but if this was the cost of nabbing their man, how could he complain?

‘All right, we go in, but listen, for the reasons I’ve said, no guns.’

‘Right.’

‘We knock on the door and say we’re two charity collectors for what, I dunno? St Dunstan’s School for the Blind.’

‘Nice one, I like it.’

‘Once they open the door a bit, we barge in and shut the door quickly. You can then pull out the Glock for intimidation purposes only, but on no account do you fire unless it’s absolutely fucking necessary. What I mean is, if he pulls a gun on you, nothing less. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean it, Tom, we’re this close, I don’t want everything to go tits-up over some stupid gun blast, and have every copper in Brighton swarming over to this place.’

‘Got it.’

They headed back to Addison Road. Walking towards the target house, the front door opened and Buster and the little guy appeared. They wasted no time negotiating the steps outside the building before climbing into an Audi A5 parked outside. Despite Russell and Mason breaking into a run, the car drove off before either of them could reach it.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Unable to find a parking spot close to Mia Barraclough’s house in Hova Villas, Henderson parked the car a few streets away.

‘The update meetings are getting shorter,’ Carol Walters said, walking beside him.

‘It’s the nature of the two murders, there’s not much for detectives to investigate and therefore not a lot to report.’

‘It was good Lisa finding a list of independent financial investors.’

‘It told us the rough areas where they operated, so it would be great for someone looking to invest money, or indeed steal it, but useless for us in determining who might be next. And there’s no point in issuing a warning as the list is too long.’

‘I think the team’s morale is taking a hit.’

‘It’s inevitable, but all we need is a small breakthrough and it will turn this investigation on its head.’

‘I admire your optimism, but…’

‘Keep the faith, Detective Walters, keep the faith.’

Henderson reached for the doorbell of Mia Barraclough’s house, but the door was flung open before he reached it.

‘Ah, Angus, it’s so good to see you.’

She enveloped Henderson in a hug, an unusual occurrence when on duty, but he responded as he could see she was stressed.

‘Come on in.’

They walked into the lounge. Mia took a seat in the chair by the window, the detectives on the settee.

‘You said on the phone–’

‘Yes, I called Sofia this morning. She had popped back to her house in Henfield to collect a few things. Someone had broken in by smashing the window on the back door. The whole place has been ransacked.’

‘In what way ransacked?’

‘Cupboards have been emptied all over the floor, drawers pulled out and turned upside down, kitchen produce all over the floor. It was carnage.’

‘Was anything taken?’

‘She’s not sure. She didn’t have the courage to face it. She picked up what she needed and left.’

‘If you give me her phone number, I’ll get an officer to accompany her when she next goes there and we can determine what’s been stolen.’

‘Good idea, it would help. Just give me a sec.’

She picked up a notebook, wrote down the details, ripped off the page, and handed it to Henderson. He would do more than send an officer to her house. He would also add a fingerprint team to see if the perpetrator had left any dabs on the glass or inside the house.

‘Does she have any idea of the reason for the break-in?’ Walters asked.

‘She’s convinced it was Dave Chesson’s men, the two who barged their way into her house while two of your officers were there on another matter.’

‘I remember Sergeant Neal telling me they had warned Sofia they might come back,’ Henderson said.

‘That’s right.’

‘They were looking for Taylor’s laptop.’

‘Why?’

‘Taylor had a system on there which was updated with the performance of the investments he had made, and either gave his clients access to it, as I believe Jeff had done, or sent them regular updates.’

‘Yes, Jeff mentioned that to me.’

‘When the updates stopped because he wasn’t around, or the thieves of the stolen laptop had either wiped the system or switched it off, the investors were left in the dark.’

‘Right.’

‘Some might have decided to wait it out, others will be heading for the courts, while those like Dave Chesson have chosen a more direct action. He wants Taylor’s laptop to try to recover the money he’s invested.’

‘I see.’ Mia looked sheepish for a moment, so Henderson refrained from talking to allow her to say what was bothering her.

‘Can I mention something else?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘It’s not something concrete, more like something I’ve sensed.’

‘Go on.’

‘A couple of weeks back while at the university, and again at Jeff’s funeral, I was approached by a man called Don Powell. He works for Brandon Lewis, the new Head of Health and Human Services in the US and a confidant of the current President.’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ Walters said.

‘He’s a controversial figure for his views on immigration and abortion, but the important thing here is, he had invested a large sum with Jeff.’

‘So, Lewis sent this Don Powell over here to do what, find out what happened to Jeff?’ Henderson asked.

‘Yes. I think, first of all, he wanted to make sure Jeff was dead, and hadn’t run off with Brandon Lewis’ money.’

‘The same as Dave Chesson with Taylor Goodman’s investments,’ Walters pointed out.

‘I think he’s been looking for Jeff’s laptop.’

‘Makes sense based on what we said before, but what makes you think that?’

‘I can’t say for definite if he’s been in Jeff’s house, as your people were there as well.’

‘That’s understandable.’

‘But I think someone has been in here.’

‘In this house?’ Henderson said, sitting forward on his seat. ‘Is anything missing?’

‘No, it’s not the same as Sofia’s. There’s no broken window, no upended drawers. I said it’s a feeling, but I’ve only connected the dots after Sofia’s break-in. About two weeks ago I came home and thought I detected a faint but unusual scent in the air. Over the next few days, I noticed one or two of my things were not in the places where I left them.’

‘You dismissed it at the time, but only now think the same thing’s happened to you?’ Walters asked.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘In which case, I think Powell is also looking for the laptop,’ Henderson said. ‘He must have thought you had it, either taken it for safekeeping, or in the warped way members of President Hamilton’s inner circle often view the world, thinks you murdered Jeff and took the laptop so you could help yourself to his clients’ money.’

‘My God, I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

‘It means Mia, you could be in danger.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kieran Rafferty waited a moment or two until his watch located an unseen GPS satellite hovering somewhere above. When he felt the familiar vibration on his wrist to say it had locked on, he set off running.

He lived in Steyning in West Sussex. While working for LBS Finance, he’d lived in London, but it had always been his desire to move to the country like his two mates, Taylor Goodman and Jeff Delaney. The one fly in the ointment was his wife, Leila, as she was a dyed-in-the-wool city girl.

With him working all day at home, he didn’t yearn for the sound of traffic or planes flying overhead at the start and end of each working day. He wanted trees, fields, places where he could walk and run, and plenty of fresh air to fill his lungs.

Leila was long gone, a quick divorce followed by a fast train back to London, but not before they had bought a large four-bedroom house in the village and a meaty 4x4 to ferry the kids if they ever came along. He had since traded the car for a sports car, but kept hold of the house.

He knew what he was doing today carried an element of risk. He didn’t mean being hit by a car as he ran along a section of King’s Barn Lane and a couple of other quiet roads before reaching his off-road route, but going out at all. He knew all about the deaths of Taylor Goodman and Jeff Delaney. If by some chance he had missed the news, guys at various financial outfits had called and messaged him to talk about it.

No one, not the police nor any of his old colleagues were certain what connected the two men. Why were they targeted, and not him or some of his former colleagues? Taylor and Jeff were both IFIs, they lived in Sussex, they were young, they liked to exercise, they socialised together. They were friends with one another and they were both friends with him. He could go on, but he would be digging a deeper and deeper hole.

Some guys at the place where Taylor and Jeff used to work, Gaynor Reed, were worried as they played in a band as Jeff did, they liked cycling as did Taylor, they were members of Soho House as was Jeff. Thinking about this could drive him crazy, but instead he took precautions.

He varied his running route every time he went out, and didn’t repeat a run over a two-week period. It was easy to do in this area as there were so many different ways he could go. He also carried a spray similar to a pepper spray which would incapacitate any attacker. He had tried carrying a knife, but it banged against his leg in his pocket as he ran, so he moved it to his waistband, where it must have slipped when he was negotiating a tricky bit of trail, as it disappeared, never to be found.

He ran through a new section of Steyning with identikit new houses and postage-stamp-sized gardens, but in his view, people had to live somewhere. He was from the area, born in nearby Keymer, so he would resist the wholesale development of any large field around the village, but small developments like this one didn’t bother him too much as it brought new, younger blood into the village.

The difficult part was crossing Washington Road, the A283, because at the top and tail-end times of the day, it became very busy. He didn’t have to wait long for a gap this time, although he always took a second glance up and down the road as it was easy to underestimate the speed of some cars and motorbikes.

He joined the public footpath and like always, the enveloping greenery and his gradual shift away from road noise had a calming effect, amplifying the sounds of the forest and dulling the sound of his pounding feet and heavy breathing. He never listened to music, as whenever he did, the effect of stepping into nature’s domain was reduced.

Today’s route was a mix: through small forests of trees and along the side of large open fields. With this being late October, fields were no longer swaying heavy with wheat or corn but shorn of whatever had been growing there and left looking dishevelled.

One of the benefits of running, and at times, one of its curses, was it provided a good opportunity to mull over things in his head. Often it was an industry or company report, or a recent call to a chief executive. He could often outline most of his upcoming daily activity this way.

Up ahead, a wooded area. He had to be careful as many roots had risen to the surface; once or twice, he had nearly fallen and twisted his ankle. From the corner of his eye, he spotted movement in bushes to his left. He looked over to see rustling branches and leaves. With shaking hands, he stopped and reached in his pocket for the spray.

He pulled off the cap and held the can at arm’s length, his aim far from steady but it would have to do.

‘C’mon, you bastard, I’m ready for you!’ he called.

The crunching and crackling increased, and out of the undergrowth came… a large Alsatian dog.

He had just about replaced the cap on the can when the dog’s owner appeared, puffing as if he’d been running.

‘Barney, where the hell did you disappear to?’

He turned and looked at Rafferty. ‘Sorry, mate, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did he scare you?’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Don Powell had been following Patrick Watson for a couple of days now and knew several things about him. He lived alone in a detached house, one large enough to house a family. He was a divorcee, the PI guessed, as he had seen no regular partner. He went into the office regularly and spent his weekends at his golf club. He didn’t know if that was typical of his behaviour as he hadn’t been following him for long, but it gave him some information he could use.

This Friday Watson did something which Powell would have thought unusual, even if he had followed him for longer, as he travelled to Brighton. Powell never doubted his own ability at sniffing out a rat. Many on the outside, would say he was wasting his time, tailing a guy on gut instinct, but experience had taught him that clues, evidence, and confirmation of wrongdoing, often appeared in the most unexpected places. It wasn’t the strongest or smartest who marshalled the spoils; they went to those who were the most persistent.

He was curious to see what attracted Watson to the place. Did he have a woman down here, or a man, come to that, or was he one of those forty-somethings who saw middle age looming and insisted on doing the club scene in a vain effort to cling onto whatever vestiges of his younger self still remained?

Watson wasn’t carrying a suitcase of any kind when he stepped off the London Bridge to Brighton train, only a valise, which was big enough to hold a small selection of papers and a laptop, nothing more. This jettisoned the idea of a weekend or an overnight stay, so he had to be here for a meeting, or perhaps a bracing stroll along the seafront.

He followed Watson down Queens Road towards the seafront, busy at this time of the early afternoon. Surprising, as it was Friday, which until COVID 19 arrived had been a working day. He could imagine a home worker taking a call from a colleague or the boss and telling them he or she was hard at work, while trying to get comfortable on a beach towel, the only barrier between them and the uneven pebbles underneath.

To his surprise, and knocking the walk along the seafront idea, at the Clock Tower Watson took a right and strolled along Western Road. Not the determined stride of the office worker desperate to reach their building on time, or the casual but resolute gait of a man intent on buying some new clothes. If he had lived a couple of hundred years back, Powell was convinced Watson would be doffing his top hat at every woman he occasioned to meet.

Fifty metres further on he stopped at a restaurant, an Italian called Antonucci’s. He pushed open the door and headed inside. The PI soon caught up and stood at the window, pretending to look at the menu. He watched as Watson hugged one of the staff, before being led past the tables of lunchtime diners into a room at the back.

Powell wasn’t hungry. He always made a point of eating a hearty breakfast as lunch was often something he grabbed on-the-go, or missed out altogether. He entered the restaurant and was given a choice of tables. He took one close to the room at the back and sat in a seat giving him the best view of his fellow diners; an old habit.

He ordered a mineral water while re-appraising the menu. Having spent some time in Italy, working on a job for Brandon about two years back, he’d had his fill of pizza and pasta and never wanted to be served either of those again. This often gave him a problem when dealing with corporate and family celebrations as, almost without fail, pizza was the dish of choice.

He’d learned a couple of things about Watson by following him here. The financier had found his way to the restaurant without resorting to any map app on his phone, suggesting he had been here before. The big hug he received from perhaps the owner, only corroborated this theory. This from a man who lived over fifty miles away in Orpington.

The other morsel was his use of the private dining room, as it wasn’t a regular offering and more for those in the know. Powell had checked their website on his phone and it wasn’t mentioned. Maybe he was the solitary sort who didn’t like eating with the general public.

In some respects, Powell could concur with this sentiment. Ever since lockdown he had noticed restaurants becoming much louder. It was almost as if diners were letting off steam after having been cooped up for so long with only home cooking for succour.

The use of a private dining room could also suggest a small meeting with perhaps four or five friends or colleagues, for those who wanted to talk about sensitive subjects, and didn’t want anyone outside their circle overhearing.

When the waiter came back Powell ordered grilled fish, sea bream, served in a garlic butter sauce with new potatoes and greens. Knowing Italians, the chef would no doubt sneak a small portion of pasta onto the plate, but there were enough of other ingredients that he liked for this not to bother him.

The identity of Watson’s dining companion became clear when a man entered the restaurant, spoke to a waiter, and was led towards the private dining room. He was short, about five foot six, with tidy black hair, swept back with gel, an angular face with strong bone definition, a serious expression, and a focussed way of looking around; a hawk appraising its next meal.

As a former cop, Powell resisted the temptation to postulate a theory, a 2+2=5 hypothesis as his old senior detective used to say. He was close to the small dining room, but unable to hear the hum of the men’s greeting above the loud hubbub in the restaurant.

He received the ordered fish dish and ate it in a leisurely manner, in part to assuage a dicky stomach that stopped him eating Indian, Thai, or other spicy food. He had tolerated butter and garlic in the past, but would have to see if this Italian concoction had an adverse effect or not. It was also to spin out the time he spent in the restaurant.

Diners who had arrived after him were already leaving, a quick bite and then back to the grindstone. Others, a bit older and more than likely retired, were doing the same as him, taking it slow. Perhaps they suffered from similar stomach issues.

By two, the restaurant had really emptied out, and all the while he sipped a so-so cup of coffee. It was quieter so he could better hear the noises from the small dining room and it sounded as if tempers were rising, as if an argument was simmering.

Suddenly, he heard shouting.

‘I told you; I want out!’ This had to be from the little guy as Powell knew what Watson sounded like.

‘One more is all I ask!’

‘Why the hell should I?’

‘You bloody know why. Do you need me to spell it out for you?’

‘You can fuck off!’

Chapter Thirty

On the whiteboards in front of Henderson, a description of the two people spotted walking away from the place where Jeff Delaney’s body was found, shortly after his murder. Beside it, the two E-Fit pictures of the men provided by their sole witness at Wisborough Green, Gemma Laird.

He felt the descriptions were more accurate than the images, as Gemma’s power of recall was good, but she said she didn’t get a good look at the faces of the two men, and the E-Fit was made about two weeks on from her sighting. The descriptions alone wouldn’t make a good newspaper appeal without decent images, so he needed to think of another way to approach this.

He pondered the information on the boards for another couple of minutes when an idea came to him. He walked over to Carol Walters’ desk.

‘Grab your coat, Carol.’

‘Why, where are we going?’

‘I’ll tell you in the car.’

When Henderson had programmed the car’s satnav, Walters said, ‘Ah, I see what this is about. What’s new that she hasn’t told us already?’

‘She’s known Taylor much longer than Mia’s known Jeff.’

‘That’s true, and they lived together, but she’s a time management and wellness coach. Do you think she understood a lot of what her husband did?’

‘We’ll soon find out.’

‘Right.’

‘Did I tell you, Kelly wants to get a dog?’

Sofia looked harassed when they knocked on the door of her house in Henfield.

‘Do come in, but please excuse the mess. I’m still trying to tidy it.’

He walked into the hall and could see the cupboards and shelves in the lounge, Taylor’s study and the kitchen were still in disarray.

‘You’re lucky to catch me as I only came back from my mother’s house to collect some more clothes. When I first saw this, I assumed I’d been burgled…’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘No, nothing appears to be missing.’

‘My officers talked previously to you about Taylor’s laptop.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where were you the day he went missing?’

‘You don’t think I could have… That’s preposterous.’

He smiled. ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m only thinking you must have been out of the house when the laptop was taken.’

‘Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Sorry for jumping to conclusions. Yes, the day Taylor disappeared a member of my staff, I only have four, it’s a small team, went off on sick leave with a stomach bug. I had to learn the training course she’d written, and then present it to a class of fifty managers in the evening. As a result, I was out all day and arrived home much later than I intended.’

Sofia went back to putting items into the cupboards and re-inserting pulled out drawers. Henderson and Walters gave her some help.

‘Now we know what happened to Taylor,’ Henderson said, ‘is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted him dead?’

‘I never thanked you, before, for finding him. I owe you my heartfelt thanks.’

‘I’m glad we did, but it wasn’t only me, it was a team effort.’

‘I realise that. I’d like to thank them too. In answer to your question, no one stands out as wanting Taylor dead. I’ve considered all our friends and relatives, neighbours and former neighbours, people he dealt with, but I came up with nothing.’

‘What about the places where he worked before becoming self-employed? Did he leave any of them on bad terms, for example, or because someone wanted him out?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If you can, please list them for me.’

‘He started out after university at Barclays, and stayed there for about six years, followed by five at Bank of America, including two years in the States. He then joined Gaynor Reed Financial for three years. He left there and became self-employed.’

‘Think back to what he told you about leaving one place and moving to another.’

‘He didn’t talk much about Barclay’s, only to say he was young and stupid and made plenty of mistakes, but I’m quite sure he left there on good terms. In the US with Bank of America was when he got his first crack at investing funds.’

‘Why did he come back?’

‘It was a two-year assignment. He tried to stay longer, as his parents live there, but they wanted him back in London.’

‘I see.’

‘He couldn’t settle when he came back and only stayed with Bank of America for another six months.’

‘It was his choice to leave?’

‘Absolutely. While working in America he got the urge to go solo, but first, he wanted to join a big UK institution to see how they gained and managed clients. Hence the move to Gaynor Reed.’

‘It’s there he met Jeff Delaney?’

‘Yes.’

‘At Gaynor Reed, Taylor and Jeff were the best of friends. They socialised together, traded work tips, did the London to Brighton bike race a couple of times.’

‘I see.’

‘When one-by-one they left to set up on their own, they agreed to move to Sussex, not in the same area so they might be competing for work, but close enough for them to get together when the notion took them.’

‘I suppose due to the nature of the work they could live wherever they wanted,’ Walters said.

‘And with the money to do it. A place other than London was their starting point.’

‘What about leaving Gaynor Reed, how–’

‘Hey! I’ve just remembered something. Taylor didn’t get on with his manager. He would try to belittle him in meetings and occasionally his name would be left off a guest list. A bad argument between them sort of forced his hand, but when he left, he managed to put it behind him.’

‘What was the name of his manager?’ Henderson asked.

‘Patrick Watson.’

Chapter Thirty-One

Mark Russell drove towards Seven Dials in Brighton. The weather had taken a turn for the worse with gales during the night, and it was still gusty this morning. Bloody early morning as a matter of fact.

They had staked out the house of Buster and his smaller companion the previous day, but after about five minutes it had dawned on them that neither were at home. Realising they must have departed before they’d arrived, Russell, with a reluctant Mason in the passenger seat, decided to start their surveillance even earlier.

Rather than stake-out both houses and be caught out once again when they buggered off in the little guy’s car, they decided this time to watch the little guy’s house in Addison Road.

‘I think the little guy’s the boss of the outfit,’ the dozing ugly boy beside Russell piped up, his first real words of the morning.

‘Was this the result of a dream or has it been bothering you all night?’

‘Nah. The big fella looks as dumb as fuck; the brains are all with the little guy.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘You can’t just knock off Taylor what’s-his-name and cash in his paperwork at the local Londis. You need to know what you’re doing, and the big guy doesn’t look as though he has many brain cells to spare.’

‘I agree, it’s not one of your usual heists, like robbing a subbie or turning over a security van. You have to know how stockbrokers work.’

He parked the car with an oblique view of the little guy’s house and waited.

‘If they’re not in this time, and you tell me tomorra to get up at fucking five instead of six, that’s it, I’m out. I’ll tell Dave I’m better suited to late night dope runs than early morning stake-outs.’

‘I hear you. I don’t like getting up at this time either. I’m a night owl, not a lark.’

They were both smokers but Mason was heavier than him. They decided not to light up while on surveillance as smoke coming out of a car would be a dead giveaway. However, he agreed with Mason that he could vape, as the smoke cleared quicker.

‘What the fuck is that supposed to be?’ Russell said when Mason started puffing. ‘Hay and horse shit?’

‘Nah, it’s Choco Nut Tart. It’s a new one on me; I quite like it.’

‘You can’t beat the smell of real smoke.’

‘Yeah, but–’

‘Hold on, there’s movement.’

Buster was walking along the road towards the little guy’s house. He turned up the path and rang the bell. As before, the little guy was ready to go, and moments later they both headed out to the Audi.

‘Gotcha!’ Russell said, gripping the steering wheel hard. ‘We’ll follow those fuckers and see what they’re up to.’

‘Maybe it’s a visit to their old mum in a dementia home.’

‘What, at quarter to seven in the morning?’

‘If she’s got dementia, she wouldn’t fucking care what time it was, or be able to read a clock, would she?’

The Audi set off and, at a discreet distance, they followed. In these quiet residential streets, a car behind another would look suspicious, but they soon arrived at Seven Dials where the traffic flow increased. The Audi took the Dyke Road junction and they did the same some three cars behind.

‘He’s a doddle to follow,’ Mason said, ‘driving so slow and taking all the turnings with such care. Even I could do it.’

‘It suggests to me they’re on a job and making sure they don’t get pulled over as they might be carrying.’

‘What job is worth doing at seven in the morning? Anything worth doing is always at night.’

‘You’re forgetting something.’

‘What?’

‘Taylor Goodman went out cycling in the morning, and Jeff Delaney–’

‘Who?’

‘I told you about him. He’s the other guy, a financial guy like Taylor, that’s been found dead. If our info is good, these fuckers in front have killed at least two of them financial guys.’

‘Oh, I get it. The guys in the Audi are out at this time to nab someone else who’s out cycling?’

‘Maybe not.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You just can’t rock up and grab one of those guys.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘They might be living with someone, as Taylor was. Maybe he goes out with a few mates. Maybe he doesn’t go out on Saturday. They want to get them alone when they’re out exercising.’

‘Okay, I get it.’

‘I imagine to make their thing work they’d have to watch him a couple of times, see which way he goes; scope the terrain a bit.’

‘Right.’

At the junction between Dyke Road and the A27, they took a left and headed west. This sort of made sense to Mark, with his limited knowledge of local geography. This way looked more rural, the other way led to the A23 and north to Gatwick Airport and London, way more urban.

Ten minutes later they were approaching Shoreham. He knew this not from road signs but from their position high on the South Downs where he could see the town in the distance. The Audi moved into the left lane, signposted for Shoreham, Steyning and Horsham. They headed north, missing out Shoreham and travelling towards the other two places.

‘Well, this is a right mystery tour, this is. Places I’ve never seen or heard of before.’

Traffic was light, but enough for Russell to stay several cars back, keeping the car hidden from the folks in the Audi by hugging the same line as the car in front. Approaching a roundabout, the Audi’s left-hand indicator began to flash, signposted to Steyning. The car ahead of him was going the same way. The front two cars made it through the roundabout without delay, but Russell had to wait until several cars passed before he could follow.

Driving through Steyning High Street was straightforward, as the Audi was slow and it was easy for him to keep up. Russell’s anxiety notched up a couple of levels when it took a right off the road and into Jarvis Lane. He drove past.

‘What are you doing, mate?’ Mason said, alarmed. ‘The bastards are getting away.’

‘This feels like their destination,’ Russell said, as he turned the car into a parking space. ‘Look at the map,’ he said pointing at the sat-nav, ‘the road they took leads into the countryside.’

‘I hope you’re right mate,’ Mason said, stepping out of the car. ‘It looks a bloody long walk.’

They adopted their ‘two men out for a stroll’ routine, a steady but purposeless walk, cigarettes in hand, and having an animated chat about football.

Jarvis Lane was long and narrow but they had sufficient visibility to see the Audi wasn’t parked there, so they could speed up. Approaching a bridge over a dual carriageway, the road widened and led into King’s Barn Road where the houses became larger. About fifty metres further on they spotted the Audi.

‘Thank fuck for that,’ Mason said, ‘all this walking is knackering me out.’

‘Smoke less.’

Russell pulled out his phone and marked the car’s position. They would try to determine the house they were watching when they returned to Hove; if not, Dave employed a couple of IT boys who could find out anything.

They walked past the Audi without looking in. They had eyeballed it from further back and the two guys were inside, rubbishing any thoughts of them visiting a sick mother, or attending a meeting with their sponsor, if they had one. It was clear they were here on surveillance.

All they had to do was find out which financial investor lived there and they would know their next victim. They ducked into bushes out of sight of the people in the Audi and any watchers in the houses.

Russell pulled out his phone and looked up a list of independent financial investors in Sussex. ‘There’s a guy listed here as living and working in Steyning. His name is Kieran Rafferty.’

‘It’s got to be him. There can’t be two of those sorts of guys living in a small place like this.’

‘No, you’re right, there’s only one.’ He put the phone away.

About ten minutes later, the two guys in the Audi got out of the car and walked back the way they had come. Mason wanted to follow but Russell said no. The men’s car was parked here and the house they had been watching was here as well. They could be looking for a place to buy a coffee or searching for somewhere to take a piss.

Sometime later, a door on one of the houses opened and a guy in running gear appeared. He looked early forties, with short hair, and had the slight build of someone who ran or cycled regularly. He nudged Mason, as the guy looked at his watch, pressed a couple of buttons on it, and then set off.

‘That’s him?’ Mason asked.

‘Looks like it. Let’s go.’

They walked at a brisk pace but the runner was faster. It wasn’t Russell’s intention to try and keep up with him, but to determine which way he would go. He was assuming there would only be a limited number of routes he could take once heading in a specific direction.

They jogged for a bit, not allowing Rafferty to get too far in front. When he reached the bridge they’d crossed earlier, he veered right into Cripps Lane. They followed the lane to its junction with Church Lane, and spotted the blue top of the runner disappearing into the distance.

‘Why have we stopped?’ Mason asked.

‘Look ahead and over to the right. Do you see the big guy standing in the doorway trying to be inconspicuous?’

‘Inconspicuous? No fucking chance with his fat gut and wearing all that strange clobber.’

‘Them being here tells me a few things. One, we haven’t wasted our time following them. They’ve got to be the guys who done over Taylor Goodman. Two, the Sherriff of Nottingham and Little John are only on a stake-out, as they let our man run past. Three, because they’ve stopped up there, they must have been here before and are confident about the way he’ll go.’

‘Which is?’

‘How the hell would I know? But once we get back to the ranch and I get on my laptop, we’ll work it out. C’mon, let’s make a move. I saw a café back there in the village. All this rushing about has made me hungry. Let’s go get a nice cooked breakfast.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

Don Powell’s car was parked on a road in an exclusive estate in Orpington, to the south east of London. He had to be careful about this as the residents in the area were rich folks and didn’t take kindly to people sitting in cars; they would assume he would be casing their house. If annoyed, they wouldn’t think twice about calling the cops or a private security firm, and if in the US, the stroppier ones would be picking a weapon from the gun cabinet.

In his favour was the lingering daylight, not the usual time for the light-fingered fraternity to be about looking for places to rob. In addition, the houses were so far apart he wasn’t actually outside or near one, but while he didn’t have a good view of the house he had come to see, he had a good line on the access road leading to it.

Patrick Watson lived here and a quick browse on a house search site on his phone reckoned his house to be worth somewhere north of three mil. A fitting abode, he thought, for a man who no doubt earned a six-figure salary and was handed a half million-pound bonus each year.

Which made his theory of Watson being the lynch-pin of a team targeting independent financial investors baffling. Why the hell did he need the money? Did he require a bigger house to accommodate his inflated ego, or more garages to house his, at present, small collection of classic cars?

A call to Brandon Lewis settled the argument: Powell had followed the money, Brandon said, and it had led to Watson. Powell had heard him talking to the small guy, instructing him to target someone else. It wasn’t Powell’s job to understand why, but to clean up the mess he had created. Brandon was convinced Watson was the guy who had targeted Delaney and it was Powell’s job to recover the money, and do what he deemed fit to the man who had started this.

Powell wanted more proof of Watson’s involvement. Although, try as he may, he couldn’t construe the harsh words of the argument he had overheard in Antonucci’s restaurant in Brighton any other way.

He knew through social media and event searches Watson was a member of the local golf club and played there most weekends. As luck would have it, a prize-giving ceremony was taking place this Sunday evening and, as one of the recipients of an award, chances were Watson would be there. This meant he wouldn’t be confronting Watson as he returned from a restaurant or pub and getting him to talk, or kidnapping him as he had originally planned. Instead, he would try something else.

At six forty, Watson drove out in his restored E-Type Jaguar, a beautiful car driven by an odious man. It wasn’t yet dark, so to kill a bit of time, Powell set off for a walk. Walking around the estate and almost opposite the back of Watson’s place, he spotted what appeared to be an empty house. The driveway was empty and wasn’t overlooked. He stood for a moment, and noted the tell-tale key box; it was a rental. With it looking so dark and empty, he wondered if the occupants were away for the weekend, or if the house was between rentals.

Checking there was no one about, he made his way into the back garden. After first confirming it backed onto Watson’s property, he loosened a couple of panels on the back fence and snuck through. With the houses on the estate being so expensive, the rear gardens were huge, giving him a long walk to the back of Watson’s house, but large trees and bushes, coupled with the increasing darkness, shielded him from view.

Opening the back door presented little problem, but the alarm would. There were no motion detectors in the kitchen, indicating the owner was a cheapskate, but in the hall, one would be there for sure. He had come armed with Watson’s birthdate, 14th May 1984, and had noted a couple of variations. If none worked, he would have to make a quick exit before the thing triggered for real.

He spotted the alarm box through the open kitchen door, close to the front door. He first took a deep breath before hurrying towards it. He keyed in 1405, but it continued to beep. Then, 0584, but the beep increased in rapidity. Next, 1984. The beeping stopped. Powell let out a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding. Luck had played a part as he knew some of those systems used six digits.

He headed straight for what looked like Watson’s study. He opened the little filing cabinet beside the desk and flicked through the files. The guy was a meticulous filer, with clear separation by colour for household expenses, golf, cars, and investments. Powell was looking for something more exotic, as he imagined a guy like Watson would not hide his ill-gotten gains in British banks, but in the Seychelles or the Caribbean.

He pulled out a blue section and was happy to find it contained files on the Bank of Antigua and Bank of St Lucia. Although the deposits were large, it looked to him like the earnings of a highly-paid individual and the bumper bonuses he no doubt received. In addition, the dates did not tie up with the deaths of Taylor Goodman or Jeff Delaney.

The desk had another small filing cabinet on the other side, but unlike the one he had rummaged through, it was locked. If Watson kept the key around his neck, Powell would be forced to smash it open, making it obvious there had been a break-in, something he hoped to avoid.

He looked in all the places where he knew most people would hide keys. Finding nothing, he tried, as a last resort, lifting the files in the first filing cabinet. There at the bottom, he spotted a little key.

To his delight, the small key opened the locked cabinet. The files were organised in the same meticulous way as the other one, but while rummaging in there he’d had trouble finding anything that he would describe as exotic; every file in this cabinet fitted the term perfectly.

He pulled out files for banks in Hungary, Serbia, Honduras, El Salvador, and Ecuador. Powell wasn’t a numbers man, but it didn’t take him long to see from the statements Watson was depositing money in one bank, then a few weeks later, bumping it into another bank, and a couple of weeks later doing the same thing again. At the end of the process, it ended up in a bank in the Cayman Islands.

Watson did this, he suspected, to make it difficult for regulators and financial fraud experts to track the money. What interested him was by tracking the amounts back to the initial deposits, often a bank in Hungary, the dates of those deposits tied in with the dates of the two murders.

This proved Watson had taken possession of the financial investments made by Goodman and Delaney a few days after their deaths. He then sold them, depositing the proceeds in a Hungarian bank, before the financial merry-go-round started.

He pulled out his phone and took pictures of many of the bank statements. In some respects, he felt he was wasting time, as he intended to wait for Watson to return. He would confront him, and give him an opportunity to speak as he wanted to know why he did it. He would tell him he wanted Brandon’s money or he would start breaking bones, and then he could take away any files he wanted.

He put all the files back where he found them and was about to return the key to its hiding place when he heard a noise outside. It wasn’t the unmistakable rumble of an E-Type’s four-point-two litre engine, but something smaller, and it had pulled up in Watson’s driveway.

He didn’t have time to check it out and instead stood behind the study door, reached into his jacket and extracted his knife. He looked at his watch. He had been in the house longer than intended, an hour and a half, but he assumed the golf club ceremony would go on much later. Perhaps Watson was peeved at only receiving a minor award. The front door opened and he heard the shuffling of feet.

‘Patrick, I think you’re pissed,’ a woman’s slurred voice said, as the door slammed shut. ‘Are you sure you’ll be able to get it up? Have you brought me back here under false pretences?’ She laughed at her own joke.

‘No, I’m not pissed, only pissed off that I didn’t win the Captain’s Award.’

‘You seemed to be downing a lot of whisky in front of me, but just remember, there’s always next year.’

‘That’s funny, I thought I’d put the alarm on when I went out.’

‘Who the hell cares? C’mon, kiss me, this woman wants loving.’

‘I just want to check–’

‘My boy, you’re checking nothing.’ Powell heard the sound of kissing and erotic sucking and slurping noises. ‘Steve comes back from his Portugal trip tomorrow night,’ she said in breathless gasps, ‘this is the only free night I have and I want to make the most of it.’

‘I understand that, but–’

‘No buts. Get your butt upstairs buster, you have some important work to do.’

They clumped upstairs and seconds later he heard the slam of a door, presumably the one to the main bedroom. He waited until he heard the rhythmic sound of the bed squeaking before he made his way through the kitchen and out of the house. He hesitated before passing through the hole in the fence, until he confirmed the adjoining house still looked empty. He walked through the back garden and returned to his car.

He still needed to confront Watson, find out if Brandon’s money could be recovered, and who else was involved in stealing it. If it couldn’t be recovered, it would be bad news for Watson. For all his Christian moralising, Brandon would not be upset if Powell stuck his knife into Watson’s chest.

Chapter Thirty-Three

On Saturday morning, Kieran Rafferty had run the Lancing Beach Green parkrun. It was only the third parkrun he’d done, part of his plan to mix his running routes up a bit. This Monday morning, he would do the same route he’d run the previous Thursday when confronted by an Alsatian dog.

He usually ran without headphones but since the deaths of Taylor and Jeff he needed something to drown thoughts of his friends out of his head. He had been listening to podcasts at home for some time and he’d tried the same on Saturday’s run with good results.

It was easier than an audiobook when a sudden lapse of concentration as he negotiated a muddy bit or steered past a couple of boisterous dogs would leave him floundering as to who this new character was, or pondering why the plot had all of a sudden veered off in a different direction. With a podcast, often about history, food, or football, he could dip in and out and still enjoy it.

He set off down King’s Barn Lane. It was a blustery day, the wind must have been strong overnight, as plenty of branches, twigs, and leaves were strewn over the road. The unsettled weather had been a deterrent to others as by the time he made it to the Washington Road, he had passed no more than half-a-dozen people.

He paused the podcast as he crossed the road and started it again when he reached the other side. He had always enjoyed running and going out when he felt like it, but for the foreseeable future he had to make the most of his leisure time as new client enquiries had rocketed.

He supposed he should have anticipated it with the Sussex area now down by two IFIs. He was picking up former clients of Taylor and Jeff, and a load of new ones, some of whom would have gone to his dead friends if they were still around.

He rounded Nash Farm to the buzzing noise of chainsaws and occasional shouting, no doubt clearing up the debris from the previous night’s storm. He hadn’t heard a thing as nowadays he slept as sound as when he was a teenager, but he could see evidence of its destructive power all around.

He made his way across the edge of a bare field, running parallel to Wyckham Lane. When he reached Natts Cottage, he turned north towards Huddlestone Wood. He didn’t feel it was a dangerous thing to do, heading towards woods, as he wasn’t going into them as Jeff had done, only skirting the edge.

He glanced at his watch as he approached. His pace was good. He wasn’t being propelled by the wind which felt like it was blowing about ten metres above his head, but all other conditions were good for running.

A noise from the left. As he turned, something came barrelling towards him, knocking him off his feet. It didn’t knock him out, thank goodness, but what was it – a bird, or a deer panicked by a fox? The answer came moments later when a large man towered over him.

‘Hello Kieran, we meet at last.’

How did he know his name? He was a big guy with a high-pitched voice and wearing a waistcoat and bow tie. For God’s sake, more inappropriate dress for a stroll across storm-damaged fields and woods he couldn’t imagine.

A big mitt reached down and grabbed a handful of his running top and pulled him upright. ‘Come, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,’ he said.

Kieran got to his feet, his head swimming. Before he knew where he was, an arm wrapped around his throat and dragged him backwards towards a gap in the undergrowth. He tried to struggle but as soon as he gained any form of traction, the arm tightened against his neck.

A sound in the distance, the slap of feet on the path; people running. Were they coming towards him? The sound grew louder and it was definitely heading in his direction. Someone was coming to help!

‘Help!’ he shouted, but it was garbled and muted, sounding more like, ‘Haagh!’

The next few moments were a bit of a blur as the arm around his throat disappeared, causing Kieran to double over, hands on knees trying to clear his head and massage his throat. He looked round. The big guy who had grabbed him was being attacked by two new arrivals, but they weren’t runners or dog walkers as he anticipated.

Like the big guy, these two weren’t dressed for a walk in the woods, more a stroll into town. One was large, muscled and bald, while the other was younger and slim, but despite it being two against one, the big guy was holding his own.

Seizing his chance, Kieran legged it, back the way he had come. A shout, a coarse south London accent, ‘The fucker’s getting away!’

‘No, Tom!’

Bang! It sounded to Kieran as if a gun had fired. He looked around in panic to see the bald new guy wrestling with something in his companion’s hand: a gun. Behind them, seeing his attackers were otherwise occupied, the big guy who’d grabbed him was making a break for it. Kieran felt his hip, back, legs, head, but he couldn’t feel any pain or see blood. The guy was either a bad shot or the other guy had put his aim off. He started running again.

Before turning into the bend up ahead, he glanced behind him once again. No one was coming after him. The two newcomers were in the woods no doubt searching for the big guy. Kieran rounded the bend and, out of sight of the melee behind, stopped running. He leaned against a tree, his legs and the rest of his body trembling uncontrollably. He felt exhausted, as if having completed a marathon.

From what he knew about the deaths of Taylor and Jeff, the big guy was dragging him into the bushes where he and his accomplice would find out how to get into his laptop and steal his investments. Then, he would be killed.

If so, who were the newcomers? On the one hand, he would like to thank them for saving his life, but on the other, did he really want to meet the sort of men who packed a gun for a walk in the country?

Chapter Thirty-Four

Henderson and Walters walked through the double doors of the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton. They knew which ward the patient was in and made their way there.

‘Aside from the information Kieran Rafferty might give us about the attack, boy did he have a lucky escape,’ Walters said.

‘For sure. Based on the previous two murders, these guys don’t mess about. Once they’ve got what they want, they dispatch their victim without hesitation.’

‘But we won’t discuss that with him, will we?’

‘No we won’t. By the sound of it, he’s been through enough.’

The DI wouldn’t put it past Kieran’s attackers to come to the hospital to kill him and take his phone and house keys. While he was lying helpless in bed, they could use his fingerprint or face to open the phone and start the thieving process all over again. To prevent this, Kieran had been given a private room with a copper on guard outside.

To ensure they couldn’t get hold of his laptop, Henderson had also positioned another copper at his house in Steyning. He hoped they weren’t too late; closing the stable door and all that.

Henderson held his ID up to the officer on the door before he was let inside. Kieran was sitting up, propped up on pillows, and either dozing or staring into space.

‘Hello Kieran.’

He turned slowly, as if on tranquillisers.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Inspector Henderson and this is Sergeant Walters from Sussex Police. We’d like to talk to you about the incident you were involved in earlier today.’

‘Okay.’

They took seats beside the hospital bed.

‘If we can start at the beginning,’ the DI said. ‘Were you ever under the impression your house was being watched?’

A crease crossed his brow, suggesting perhaps he had never considered it before. ‘I...I don’t think so. Do you think it was?’

‘The reason I ask is in order for both sets of attackers to accost you on the path, they would need to have watched you several times to understand the route you took.’

‘I’ve been trying to vary it, you know, with what happened to Taylor and Jeff…’

Henderson nodded.

‘I haven’t noticed anyone watching the house, although I wouldn’t call myself that observant, but I’ve spotted some new people hanging around the village.’

‘New?’

‘I mean, out of place. Steyning is a small village and if you go out at roughly the same time each day, you start to recognise the same people walking their dog, heading to the shop for a newspaper, or going out for a walk, so any new face tends to stand out.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘I couldn’t describe them, equally they might have been visitors or workers on somebody’s house or garden.’

‘Sure.’

‘I said I try to vary the way I go, but it’s difficult as you have your favourites, don’t you, and other routes don’t always deliver the goods.’

‘Makes sense. If you can tell us what happened when you were confronted?’

Kieran told them about the run and the man who suddenly appeared and hit him, as well as the two men and the ensuing melee. He spoke in a soft Irish accent with an unpleasant grating quality, no doubt the result of the big guy wrapping his arm around his throat.

‘Did the man who attacked you say anything?’ Walters asked.

‘He said something like, ‘there’s someone I’d like you to meet’, and spoke in a high-pitched, almost feminine voice.’

‘It sounds like he had a companion.’

‘I thought so.’

‘Would you be able to describe your attacker?’

‘Certainly. When he pulled me up after punching me, I got a good look at his face. It’s imprinted up here,’ he said tapping the side of his head.

‘Once you’re out of here, we’d like you to sit down with one of our E-Fit analysts and see if you can build a detailed profile of the man.’

‘What? Leave? I’m safe here, why would I want to go anywhere?’

‘Calm down Kieran, we’re not asking you to do it now, you can do it whenever you’re ready.’

Henderson gave him a few moments to compose himself. With having gone through such a traumatic experience, it was no wonder he felt vulnerable.

‘Okay, I’d be happy to.’

‘Good. What of the two men who intervened? Have you seen them before?’

‘No, I didn’t recognise them, but whoever they were, they saved my bacon.’

‘Can you describe them?’

‘I think so. One was young, tall and thin, lanky I would have called him, and I’m sure I heard the other guy call him Tom.’

‘That’s useful. What about this other guy?’

‘He was older, say early to mid-forties, heavier set and bald as a coot.’

Henderson nodded.

‘You know them?’ Kieran asked.

‘It could be a couple of employees of Dave Chesson, men we’ve come across before. Chesson was an investor in Taylor Goodman’s fund, and those two were sent here to find out what happened to his money.’

‘Taylor? I didn’t realise. Why do you think they helped me, or were they trying to shoot me?’

‘From your description it sounds like the two men hadn’t thought in advance what they would do with you, all they wanted was the people they believed killed Taylor and stole Chesson’s money. When you ran away, I think the shooter acted on instinct.’

‘Like, a witness is running away, shoot him.’

‘Something along those lines.’

‘I now have two reasons to thank them. One for getting me away from the big guy, and two for not shooting me.’

‘It sounds like you had a lucky escape.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘When you come out of hospital, Kieran, is there anywhere else you can go?’

‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead. A place to convalesce, you mean?’

‘No, a place where you’ll be safe. Somewhere that isn’t Steyning where you can stay until we catch these guys.’

‘What, you don’t think I’ll be safe in my own house?’

‘I said earlier, I suspect they’ve already been watching your house for several days, so they know where you live. They could come back.’

‘Oh my God! Do you think they will? What can I do? Should I get a gun?’

‘I wouldn’t advise you to do that. Those men are not so much after you, but your laptop and whatever you use to store your passwords. Once they have that, they will start to empty all your client accounts.’

‘Hey,’ he said, throwing back the bedcovers, ‘I have to go home now and pick up my laptop.’

Henderson held his hand up in a placating gesture. ‘There’s no need. I’ve posted an officer outside your house. He’ll make sure no one breaks in.’

He breathed a sigh of relief and got back into bed. ‘Thank God for that.’

‘So, is there a place where you can go in the meantime?’

‘I’ve a sister in Esher, I could ask her.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment or two. ‘Yeah, I’ll call Nancy. She and her husband both work and her kids are at school, so I will get peace during the day to do some work.’

‘Good, please get that organised. Upon your release from here, I’ll have a car take you home and wait until you’ve packed what you need.’

‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’

‘However, you’ll be on your own from that point on, and remember, you should only move back to Steyning once we have the perpetrators in custody.’

‘I understand.’

Chapter Thirty-Five

Vicky Neal and Sally Graham walked along the same path where earlier in the day Kieran Rafferty had been attacked. Unlike the morning when the weather was unsettled and the wind gusty, it was now calm with a welcome bit of autumnal sunshine.

‘These guys sure like lonely country routes for their running and cycling,’ Neal said. ‘We could be in the Yorkshire Dales or the Lake District for all the landmarks I can see.’

‘Yeah, all around are nothing but bare fields and remote farmhouses. I suppose when you’re working with stocks and shares all day, and reading the financial reports of big companies or the statistical reports published by the government, it’s a quiet and peaceful counterpoint.’

‘I prefer tarmac under my feet and a coffee shop up ahead on the corner.’

‘How did the forensic team get all their gear along this narrow path?’

‘With great reluctance and a substantial amount of swearing according to the boss. Their continual bitching is in part because we haven’t caught the perps yet and they fear there could be many more cases like it.’

Graham laughed. ‘They must realise we’re not doing it on purpose. Although, I do think some of them could do with a long walk to run off all the doughnuts and biscuits I often see them scoffing when I’m over there.’

‘Perhaps, Ms Graham, you’d like to dispense your dietary advice face-to-face, as I can see patches of their protective gear up ahead.’

‘No chance. I’m a detective, not their nutrition advisor.’

Team leader Geoff Thomas was standing away from the crime scene and enjoying a smoke; ‘managing’ he called it. They headed towards him.

‘Hi Gregg, it’s a fine day to be outdoors. How’s it going with the search?’

‘Don’t talk to me about the great outdoors. Simply lugging our gear out here feels like we’ve done a day’s work before we’ve even started.’

‘Have you found anything?’

‘There are no dead bodies, which is a bit of a surprise.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘When Kieran Rafferty fled the scene, he said one of the two new people who attacked the big guy fired a shot. If the big guy was their target, it’s possible they may have hit him.’

‘Perhaps they wanted him alive.’

‘To tell them where all the money was located, yes. I would do the same in their shoes.’

‘If no dead bodies, what else have you found?’

‘Around here,’ he said, indicating the area close to where they were standing, ‘is where the main scuffle took place, the big guy coming out of the bushes over there,’ he said, pointing. ‘Although, I don’t think it could have been much of a scuffle as no blood, hair, or skin traces have been found.’

‘According to Kieran the new arrivals stopped attacking the big guy when he legged it, as one of them fired a shot at him. Right after, the two guys were seen wrestling with the gun.’

‘Good point.’

‘Anything else?’ Graham asked.

‘If you would like to come this way.’

They were led into a small clearing where forensic staff were conducting fingertip searches. ‘This is where we believe the companion of the big guy was waiting for Rafferty to be brought to him.’

‘Did they leave anything behind?’ Neal asked.

‘If they have, we haven’t found it yet.’

The clearing had been selected with care, Neal reckoned. The path wasn’t visible from there, and anyone walking past wouldn’t realise what was happening only a few metres away from them.

‘How do you think the big guy and his mate escaped from the two interlopers?’ Graham asked. ‘Or maybe they didn’t and we’re now looking at a kidnap situation?’

‘There’s no evidence to suggest they were kidnapped, as there’s no trampled or broken branches, here or in other parts of the wood. However, if the gunman came into this clearing and found the big guy and his companion, holding a gun to their heads would assist in their capture, I would imagine.’

‘So, no need for a struggle?’

‘No, but on the other hand, if the new guys believed the big guy had escaped down the path, the same way Rafferty was intending to run, they could have gone after him. The big guy and his mate might have legged it the other way, so their paths wouldn’t have crossed.’

‘Yet another lucky escape,’ Neal said. ‘Thanks for your help, Gregg. We’ll take a look around.’

‘Be my guest.’

The woods weren’t thick, sandwiched as they were between two large fields. With it being October, nothing much was growing there, so spotting a couple of people running away, Neal imagined, wouldn’t be so difficult.

‘I think the two guys with the gun must have kidnapped the two who were trying to abduct Kieran,’ Graham said.

‘Why do you think that?’

‘If the chasers started off going in the wrong direction, they only had to look around, and the big guy would have been visible for miles.’

‘True, but if they felt certain he’d gone along the path and followed it for quite a while, both parties could have moved far apart. Before the chasers realised he wasn’t in their sights, it would have been too late to do anything about it.’

‘It doesn’t sound as though forensics are going to get much more out of this crime scene.’

‘I don’t think so either. Let’s head back to the car.’

Chapter Thirty-Six

Mark Russell drove towards the little guy’s house in Addison Road for the last time. It would be the last time, because if he was there, Russell was going to torture him and Buster until they transferred the money back to Dave, before he’d put a bullet in each of the bastards’ heads.

This wasn’t anger getting the better of him, but the result of Dave Chesson giving him an earful the previous night. Dave was angry at them for letting the killers of Taylor Goodman slip away. They hadn’t done it on purpose; they’d chased Buster who was running ahead of them before they realised he wasn’t the guy they were after. When they got back to their spot in the woods, Buster and his mate were gone.

They hadn’t gone out in the evening to sit outside either Buster or the little guy’s house, waiting for them to return, as they were both nursing wounds. Their punches to the big guy’s chest and stomach made little difference to him, but when he’d attacked them, it was like getting belted with a sledgehammer. He looked a proper prat in a waistcoat and bow tie, but he punched like a heavyweight boxer.

He and Mason were annoyed at how their attempted capture had panned out. They had done all the ground work with surveillance and Google Maps, and they had one of the two bastards right in front of them. Why hadn’t they just shot the big fucker in the leg? He might have started moaning his head off at all the blood he was losing, but he could still have told them what they wanted to know.

As Dave would say, failures fall back on hindsight, successes plan ahead. Today, he had planned ahead; both Glocks were loaded and ready to roll.

They’d arrived at their surveillance position early, although he was quite sure Buster would not be coming around first thing. A heist like theirs required planning and while the one with the guy in Steyning was blown, it would take them a while to set up another.

They were there in case the little guy had to report to his sponsor, if he had one. If he did, they would save a bullet for him. If not, he would most likely be taking a lie-in, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck had gone wrong.

‘When are we going in?’ Mason asked. ‘I’m itching to give them fuckers some payback.’

‘Me too, but we’re waiting to see if they break their morning routine.’

‘Not rushing out to the Audi when the big guy comes calling?’

‘Yeah. The last few times we’ve watched them, it all goes down about seven. We’ll go in a few minutes after, or if we see any movement.’

‘Can’t wait,’ Mason said rubbing his hands together.

‘I thought Dave was out of order last night.’

‘Don’t be saying anything like that in front of the guys in the warehouse, he’s killed people for less.’

‘I know, but he called us idiots, waste of space fuckwits. I’m his fucking cousin in case he’s forgotten. I’m family, and family is supposed to mean something, even to a bunch of criminals like us.’

‘I know. I think he would have shot us both if we were in the same room.’

‘It’s not as if we haven’t bled for this job.’

He looked at Mason, a big bruise on his cheek where Buster had thumped him, and in the rear-view mirror at his own black eye. He would like to have said to Dave they did the same to Buster but he wasn’t sure they did.

‘What’s Dave getting so het up about? It’s only money he’s lost. The business makes millions every week,’

‘It wouldn’t matter to him if it was a car, a watch, or some gear from the warehouse, Dave sees stealing from him as a slight.’

‘A what?’

‘Like an insult.’

‘Right.’

‘It makes him mad if it’s mentioned, as he thinks it reduces his authority, and he won’t give it up until the thing is returned or some compensation is paid. The payment might be money, but also kicking the shit out of someone, or taking something from the thief.’

‘What, like an ear?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That sounds like Dave.’

Russell looked at his watch. ‘Let’s go do it.’

They left the car and walked with purpose towards the little guy’s house. All the curtains were open as they were the previous times they’d been there. It made sense if he was leaving the house early, but not if he was having a lie-in. Russell said nothing to Mason as he knocked on the door.

It was a gentle but firm knock, not the hard smack of a couple of debt collectors or detectives. Enough to wake, not enough to alarm.

‘Try it again,’ Mason said, after receiving no answer and no sounds of anyone moving about inside.

Russell knocked again and listened through the letterbox, trying to detect movement. Nothing.

This time he gave the knocker the full treatment. Bang! Bang! Bang! It was enough to wake the folks on either side who no doubt were peering at Mason and Russell through a gap in the curtains, one hand on their phones, ready to take a picture if it got interesting, or to call the cops if it got nasty.

‘Back to the car, mate.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s not fucking answering. Did you also notice there’s no Audi outside and all the curtains are open? He’s not in.’

They walked back to the car. Russell was livid and if Mason said something stupid like, where could he be? he would deck him.

‘Fuck,’ Russell said, when he closed the car door. ‘If he’s fucked off, we’ll never find him. Dave will have our balls in a vice.’

‘What about Buster?’

‘What about him?’

‘We should go around to his place. If he’s not there, they might be out on a job.’

‘Or they both might have fucked off.’

‘Either way, it would be good to know.’

‘You’re right.’ He started the car and drove towards the junction. He was about to turn when he noticed in the rear-view mirror a car had just pulled up outside the little guy’s house. He watched as a man got out of the car and walked to the house, keys in hand.

‘You should see this.’ Russell said.

Mason turned. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

Russell executed a U-turn and parked in front of the recent arrival’s Ford Focus. He exited the car and without waiting for Mason, knocked on the door.

Seconds later, it was flung open by a well-dressed young man with short and tidy styled hair: hairdresser, actor, or estate agent, he would guess if asked.

‘Hello, can I help you?’

‘We’re looking for the guy who lives here.’

‘You missed him by a day or so. He gave up the tenancy of this one a few weeks early, but paid us up to the end of the month. His mother has taken ill, I’m sorry to say.’

‘Where has he gone?’

‘I haven’t a clue. He called one of the girls in the office and told her he was moving on.’

‘What’s his name?’ Mason asked.

‘Em, if you’ve come to see him, I would imagine you would know who he was.’

‘We’re officers from an OCG tactical unit,’ Mason said ‘We’re trying to track him down as he’s a serious criminal who uses a variety of names. What name was he using here?’

‘He’s a criminal? I had no idea.’

‘Sir, we need a name.’

‘David Hayes.’

‘One of the aliases he’s used before. Would anyone in your office know where he might have gone?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Can you check?’

‘Give me a moment.’ He backed into the hall and took out his phone.

‘OCG Tactical Unit?’ Russell whispered to Mason, ‘Nice one mate.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the estate agent said, walking towards them. ‘Mr Hayes didn’t leave a forwarding address.’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

‘Right,’ Henderson said, as he brought Tuesday morning’s meeting to a semblance of order. ‘Yesterday, as most of you will now be aware, Kieran Rafferty, an IFI and friend of Taylor Goodman and Jeff Delaney, was attacked while running near his home in Steyning. He says a large man punched him, then tried to drag him into nearby bushes. His description of the man is similar to the one given by Gemma Laird in Wisborough Green.’

‘It’s the first time,’ Walters said, ‘any of the victims have survived to tell the tale, but it has all the hallmarks of the previous attacks.’

‘Kieran is coming in tomorrow when we’ll sit him down with an E-Fit analyst and with luck get a better likeness while the image is still fresh in his mind.’

‘Excellent,’ Phil Bentley said. ‘Maybe this time it’ll be good enough to publish in The Argus.’

‘Vicky, did your visit to the crime scene reveal anything to add?’

‘Only that we were a little surprised not to find a body or at least a spillage of blood, with Chesson’s goons making a grab for the big guy.’

‘It looks as though,’ Henderson said, ‘Kieran’s attacker made his escape while the new arrivals were wrestling with the gun. One attempting to shoot Kieran, the other doing his best to stop him.’

‘Sounds likely,’ Neal said. ‘In a clearing behind the path the team found evidence of recent trampling of branches, moving of small logs to sit on, and so on, making them think his companion was waiting for him there.’

‘Where they would no doubt interrogate Kieran,’ Bentley said, ‘and get him to cough up the passwords to all of his investment files.’

‘Lisa, what do we know about Kieran’s background?’

‘Of the three IFIs we know about,’ Newman said, ‘Kieran has been self-employed the longest. He was born in Steyning and it was his friendship with Taylor and Jeff that encouraged both men to move down here.’

‘Okay,’ Henderson said.

‘How they met is interesting. Jeff and Taylor worked at Gaynor Reed, while Kieran was at LBS Finance. When he was fired from LBS for a contentious speech he made at one of the firm’s boozy dinners, he received messages of support from Jeff and Taylor. They only knew him through industry contacts, but their friendship grew from there.’

‘Kieran didn’t ever work beside either of the other two?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

Henderson had a meeting scheduled with Patrick Watson, Taylor and Jeff’s former manager at Gaynor Reed. He had hoped Watson would shed a light on all three crimes, but he suspected motivation for Kieran’s attack was to be found elsewhere.

‘I assume Kieran also appears in that list of IFIs you uncovered?’ he asked.

‘He does. He’s divorced from his wife, the negotiations of which were calm and conciliatory, I’ve been told, only possible at the cost of throwing a shed load of money at the issue.’

This caused a ripple of laughter.

‘No kids?’

‘No,’ Newman said. ‘He has a sister, as you know, and he’s staying with her at the moment.’

‘Okay, anything else?’

‘Nothing of note.’

The DI addressed the group. ‘We thought we had established a connection between the victims as Jeff and Taylor worked for Gaynor Reed, but as Kieran was employed somewhere else, we’ll park it for the moment, but make no mistake, we’ve caught a break here.’

He stopped to take a drink.

‘I don’t mean in a forensic sense as the killers have chosen the attack area well once again; as before, nothing of value has been left behind. What I mean is this: the killers have had it all their own way up to now. This time, they didn’t finish the job, so now they have to react. They can either go after Kieran to complete unfinished business, or target someone else.’

‘Will Kieran have a guard 24/7?’ Neal asked.

He shook his head. ‘As much as I’d like to, it’s not going to happen. Any ongoing risk is all conjecture on our part, as there is nothing to suggest the attackers will target him again.’

‘The killers would be stupid to do so,’ Sally Graham said.

‘If they did, it would tell us a lot about their motives,’ Henderson said.

‘I see what you’re getting at, gov,’ Graham said. ‘If they come back for Kieran, it’s not because he’s the next IFI on the list, there has to be some other reason behind it.’

‘Unfinished business,’ Neal said.

‘For sure. We need to find out what connects our three victims. Vicky, I’d like you to delve into their work background. Look for something that links them.’

‘Okay.’

‘Phil, I’d like you to examine their social lives, and Lisa, I’d like you to assist. These guys were friends, they went cycling together, out to dinner, nights down the pub. Did they do more than that? I’m thinking here did they go on holiday together, did they start a business, did they sell drugs? Look for anything that stands out.’

‘Will do.’

‘Sally, pull the financials of the three men. Look for large deposits indicating something illegal like drug dealing or kickbacks, and credit cards for unusual vendors. It’s a shame we don’t have their laptops to see their investments, and to find out if they owned any crypto currency wallets, but work with what you have.’

‘Will do.’

A few minutes later, Henderson returned to his office. He didn’t wake his pc but sat there thinking. The failed attack on Kieran Rafferty felt like the opening they craved. He only hoped the killers had left sufficient crumbs out there for them to find.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Don Powell had been kicking his heels these last few days. He’d had a good look through the pictures he had taken in Patrick Watson’s house and was convinced he was the man behind the attack on Jeff Delaney. The question was, what was he going to do about it?

The man with the plan, the man with the money –or without it, depending on your point of view –Brandon Lewis, was in Washington attending back-to-back meetings with the likes of the Secretary of State and the Vice President. He was not to be interrupted under any circumstances according to his secretary and the keeper of all things related to Brandon, Lyla Cairns.

He liked Lyla, as she never messed him around. If Brandon was in a meeting with a lesser soul, saying he didn’t want to be interrupted, she would put him through regardless. If she said Brandon didn’t want to be disturbed, or wasn’t contactable, she meant it.

He grabbed a jacket and headed outside. He had rented a house in Hove, allegedly with a sea view, which was true if he stood at the end of the front garden. He walked towards the seafront. He liked Hove, it was more genial than brash Brighton and better for older folks, although there were plenty of young people around, so he assumed there had to be facilities for them as well.

Powell was forty-nine, an odd age, middle age as some folks called it. He wasn’t young by any stretch as no way could he go back into one of those sweaty dance clubs and bars he frequented in his youth. At the same time, he wasn’t as old as some of the people around him, squeezing their large frames out of cars, walking at a slow pace, or having to stop to take a breath after a short burst of exercise. He had all his faculties although some, like his hearing and eyesight, weren’t as sharp as they used to be.

If he was musing about life, it was because he had been trying to decide the best time to retire. His job wasn’t like a normal job which he could see out to his sixty-fifth or seventieth birthday. A second’s inattention could lose him his target, a forgetful moment could leave some evidence and put him in the slammer, while a delay in his reactions could see him injured or killed.

He would see Brandon through his four-year term, though it was possible President Jack Hamilton would blow it before the end and Brandon would take an early bath. If he stayed in Washington for the full stretch, Brandon would come back to St Louis feeling a tad deflated, like the day after a grand party, forcing him to freshen up his close group of associates to give him a lift. Powell believed soon after would be a good time to go.

He walked along Hove seafront with Brighton in the distance. He liked it here, the UK felt less intense than the US, and the police and criminals were less brutal as they didn’t often carry guns. It was a divisive issue in the States – the Ivy League northerners who hated them railed against the redneck southerners who couldn’t do without them under any circumstances.

The argument was always if criminals carried guns, cops and ordinary citizens should carry them too. If the hoods bought automatic weapons, everyone else needed to do so too. It had become a mini arms race. The UK had never started along this path so it didn’t have a serious problem, but in the US, they were omnipresent and could never be taken away, no matter the intentions of a well-meaning president.

The seafront in Brighton, in his experience, was never quiet. At weekends it was populated by family groups, allowing the little ones to skate or ride their bike. On weekdays, like today, he would see runners, dog walkers, holidaymakers, and the odd bloke in a faded yellow jacket tidying up. He did wonder why most of them weren’t at work or college, but the world had changed, adopting a more casual approach to the working day than twenty years before.

His phone rang.

‘Brandon, how the hell are you?’

‘What a time I’ve had, Don, I’m exhausted. If it’s not meeting the guys at the head of government, it’s the intense issues they talk to you about and expect you to have a good understanding of as well. Good job I’d boned up on as much as I could before I got here.’

‘You think Hamilton will go the whole way?’

‘It’s looking better in the polls. He’s brought in a new media advisor who has developed a series of hand signals which he uses behind the camera, telling him to elaborate, say nothing, or just shut the hell up. He needs a good dose of the last one as he often talks himself into corners which he has difficulty getting out.’

‘It’s a pity more presidents didn’t use the same system, you never know, we might not have sleepwalked our way into Vietnam and Iraq.’

Powell was a former marine. Too young to have served in Vietnam, he’d completed two tours in the Middle East. He and many of his colleagues were scathing about politicians who ran scared of Gallup Polls and vocal voters, and frequently took decisions to assist their re-election while putting fighting men in harm’s way.

‘I’ve had a good look through the stuff you sent me. Well done to you for all your good work. I knew you’d get to the bottom of it.’

‘Thanks Brandon.’

‘I’ve looked Watson up. He’s a star performer in the financial world, but to you and me, he is nothing but an out and out scumbag of a criminal.’

‘He’s a rich guy, it makes you wonder why he does it.’

‘In my time in Washington I’ve met several billionaires, the ones who are always fawning over Jack. They can’t get enough is the short answer, Don. They think, I’m good at making money, why would I give it up?’

‘I suppose.’

‘In addition, they’ve spent most of their twenties, thirties, and sometimes their forties, doing nothing but building a business: no drinks with the boys, no softball on a Tuesday, no cosy nights at home with their wife or girlfriend. They often have no interests outside work and would be appalled if anyone suggested they should do nothing but sit on a beach and drink tequila.’

‘Do you agree Watson is the guy behind this?’

‘Absolutely I do. Do you think you’ll be able to recover my money?’

‘I’ll have to do it the hard way. Get into his house and stand over him while he does it.’

‘Let me think about that for a second.’

The phone went quiet.

‘Do it, Don. Force him to give me back my money, but I leave it to you to determine the level of persuasion required. I’m trying to not be that interfering politician, but I would ask you to be mindful how any negative media coverage will play out here in the US.’

‘Understood.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Henderson and Walters took a train to London Bridge followed by the tube to Canary Wharf.

‘It’s years since I’ve been here,’ Walters said, ‘and now it looks all grown-up and established with shops and restaurants.’

‘I know what you mean. There was a time when it was a collection of soulless tower blocks, turning into a ghost town on weekends and bank holidays.’

‘Kieran’s E-Fit of his attacker is a big improvement on the one done by Gemma Laird.’

‘Gemma’s likeness wasn’t far away, but lacked definition. If we’d published it, it would have had the switchboard overwhelmed with false sightings.’

‘Now the new one’s been published in The Argus it will be interesting to see if we get many callers.’

They entered Atlantic House and after passing through security, took the lift to the twenty-second floor, the home of Gaynor Reed Asset Management.

‘What a transformation,’ Walters said, as they took seats in reception, awaiting the appearance of Patrick Watson. ‘It’s smoked glass and steel on the outside, in here it resembles the foyer of a five-star hotel.’

‘It does rather, all soft cushions and mood lighting.’

‘It must have been a bit of a wrench for Jeff Delaney and Taylor Goodman to swap this for a seat in their home study with a view over the bushes in the back garden.’

‘It’s what some places call golden handcuffs, all the things they give you, like plush offices, gym membership, bonuses, to stop you leaving or moving to a competitor.’

‘It doesn’t apply to Sussex Police, although we do a good line in steel handcuffs.’

‘I suppose they serve the same purpose.’

‘What?’

‘Trying to keep people in.’

A young lady approached. ‘Detectives, would you like to come this way?’

They were led into Patrick Watson’s office. If the vibe out in reception was luxury, here it was aerial tourism. With only a turn of the head, Watson could see the river, the O2, the National Maritime Museum and Cutty Sark, and over to the south-west, Rotherhithe and Bermondsey.

Patrick Watson came out from behind his desk to greet them, a plus in Henderson’s book. They shook hands and sat down.

‘I am leading the team at Sussex Police,’ Henderson said, ‘investigating the deaths of Taylor Goodman and Jeff Delaney, both of whom used to work here.’

A look of panic briefly passed over Watson’s face, so Henderson added, ‘We’re not suggesting anything untoward happened while they were here, but it’s a connection we cannot ignore.’

Henderson didn’t know if indeed something untoward had happened here or not, but he didn’t want Watson to be on the defensive before they started talking to him.

‘Both Goodman and Delaney were in my team, as a matter of fact. Taylor was a very good analyst of tech companies with a happy knack of sensing which novel technologies would make it to market and those that would not. He had spent time in America, the place where, I believe, his mother is from, before he came here. I think it helped.’

‘Do your analysts need much managing?’ Walters asked.

‘It’s a good point, detective, as they are adults and we treat them as such. I like to think we give them enough rope to hang themselves with.’

He smiled at his own joke, before realising it was possibly in bad taste.

‘What I mean is they have a lot of autonomy,’ he clarified, ‘but when the system on my computer throws up a red flag, meaning someone has made a large investment or their portfolio is experiencing lower than expected returns, I step in to help.’

‘I assume if this happens too often, you fire them?’

‘You have to understand this is an extremely competitive environment where results are paramount. Some companies fire their worst performing staff every quarter, but we don’t. Instead, I’m on the lookout for those taking what I regard as unnecessary risks.’

‘You didn’t have such problems with Taylor?’ Henderson asked.

‘He was very good at what he did, as I said, but he liked to work unsupervised and resented any interference from management. It was no surprise when he went off to work on his own, but I was sorry to lose him.’

‘According to his wife, you and Taylor had a serious argument that forced his hand and encouraged him to leave.’

‘I wouldn’t characterise it as serious, more like a heated discussion, Inspector. It seemed to me at the time it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as he had been itching to leave for months.’

‘What was the argument about?’

‘His desire to leave, of course. He was a top performer; I didn’t want to lose him.’

‘What about Jeff Delaney, what did he do?’ Walters asked.

‘He was an expert on retail companies, the likes of Boots and Marks and Spencer on the high street, and Amazon and Asos on the internet.’

‘Was he also a top performer?’

‘He was, but he had a more difficult time than Taylor. The trajectory of most tech companies is on the up and up, while retail is more of a roller-coaster ride.’

‘So his achievement in being successful in a volatile market,’ Henderson said, ‘was better than say, someone like Taylor, who worked in an ever-rising market.’

‘That,’ he said, through gritted teeth, ‘is what he kept telling me at bonus time. His returns might be low, but he pointed out they were an improvement over Chad Herman at Buttman Chase or Ted Farley at Henley’s, but what could I do? This is a returns business. If you don’t hit target, there’s no bonus.’

They left Atlantic House ten minutes later.

‘I’d come here with an open mind,’ Henderson said. ‘When I decided we needed to talk to him, it was because he had been the boss of Taylor and Jeff, nothing more, but now I’m not so sure. Did you see how he reacted when their names came up?’

‘Yeah, at the beginning of the interview he looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and when we started talking about the two guys it was as if he was forcing himself to keep calm.’

‘Is it his way of processing grief at the death of two former colleagues?’

‘If he didn’t like them and had wanted them out of Gaynor Reed, he should have been happy they both left.’

‘I’m not sure what to make of him. On the one hand, he doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of a killer, and why would he want to steal investments when I imagine he’s paid a shed load of money?’

‘I can’t see it myself,’ Walters agreed.

‘On the other hand, we know not to assume what a killer looks like as they come in all shapes and sizes, even in expensive designer suits, and boy, did he look shifty. I think we need to look more into Patrick Watson as there’s something about him that bothers me.’

Chapter Forty

Kieran Rafferty was in the middle of his morning routine; reading emails, checking the markets, browsing the world news. An earthquake in Japan caught his eye. It registered five on the Richter Scale, so it was a sizeable quake and it had killed a number of people. He went back to the business section and looked at its effect on the Nikkei–

‘Right Kieran, I’m off,’ his sister, Nancy, said, bursting into the room without knocking and ruining his concentration. ‘Can you remember to feed the dog and take him out, and could you put the steak that’s defrosting on the worktop in the fridge around lunchtime, otherwise we might not have anything to eat tonight. Not trying to make you feel guilty, just saying.’

‘I will. Have a good day.’

‘You too. Bye.’

‘Bye Uncle Kieran!’ Georgia shouted from the bottom of the stairs. He thought Joe, Georgia’s brother, hollered something too, but with modern kids you couldn’t be sure if they were just talking loudly.

‘Bye,’ he called back.

Now, where was I? he mused.

‘Oh, I forgot to say,’ Nancy said, bursting in again. ‘Mum texted me late last night. Doesn’t that woman ever sleep? She wants to come down here this weekend and see her poor, injured boy. Aren’t you the lucky one? Bye!’

He groaned out loud. His mother meant well but she would fuss over him, with constant pestering to put his feet up, and bringing him non-stop cups of tea, often accompanied with jam and toast. He hadn’t eaten jam and toast since leaving home and despite telling his mother he no longer loved it, she still served it to him.

He appreciated Nancy and her husband Zaheer putting him up and tried to wear a happy face whenever they or the kids were around. He missed his own home and supposed he had become used to living alone. Things he put down were still in their place when he returned, and something uneaten would still be there for another day.

In this house, his niece and nephew borrowed charging cables without asking, helped themselves to anything in the fridge or biscuit barrel, and despite Joe being only twelve, Kieran noticed his deodorant and after-shave were going down at an alarming rate.

He had to put on a brave front as the man or men who’d attacked him were still out there. This was in spite of Nancy trying to keep his spirits up by suggesting the bad guys would have moved onto some other poor sod. If so, why did he feel his attack had been a failure and at some point the bad guys would try to correct it?

It didn’t help talking to the cop who had come to see him in hospital, DI Henderson. He said criminals didn’t often come back to a house they couldn’t burgle, or a bank they failed to rob, but it couldn’t be ruled out. He could only be sure they wouldn’t come back once the perpetrators were caught.

He tried to focus on work, but his concentration was shot, Instead, he went downstairs to the kitchen to make a coffee. Most mornings, the kitchen was left tidy, but this one had been fractious with Nancy and Zaheer having slept through their alarm call, so everyone had been rushing, and now it looked as though a gas leak had ignited.

Kieran started up the Nespresso machine. He used a whizz-bang Gaggia at home, a large, chrome piece of kit that crushed the beans and produced an almost perfect cup of coffee. Nancy’s little machine probably cost about a tenth of the price of his own, and the coffee it produced wasn’t half-bad.

While it was warming, he tidied up. No one had the time this morning to cook anything, all food came out of cereal packets or the fridge, so all plates went straight into the dishwasher and the boxes were all returned to the cupboard. By the time the clear up was finished, the machine had filled the mug, and all he had to do was wipe crumbs off the kitchen table.

He picked up the steaming mug and sat at one of the chairs while Charlie, their Springer Spaniel, rubbed against his leg, seeking attention. He liked dogs, but was unsure about this one. As a child, Kieran’s family owned a Border Collie, an intelligent dog with bags of personality. Butch was discerning over which humans he approved of, and those he did not. Above all else, he would obey a command. When approaching a road, he would be told to stop, and stop he would.

Charlie, by way of contrast, liked everyone, more so those who patted him on the head or rubbed his ear. He had been taught all the usual commands like sit, walkies, and stop, but there was no telling if he would choose to obey them or not. Kieran suspected Nancy hadn’t trained him well, but now having spent time in his company and walking him every day, he realised the silly mutt was a scatter-brain, not unlike a boy he knew in school, Brian Daly, later diagnosed with ADHD.

He got up from his seat and reached for the dog food. Charlie would eat whatever he poured, no need to add a piece of lamb from last night’s dinner, or a bit of fish from yesterday’s lunch, as he used to do when they were kids for Butch.

He returned to his seat and enjoyed the peace and quiet, Charlie happily chomping and crushing as if he had never seen food before, and he sipping a decent cup of coffee. By feeding the little guy now he was resigned to taking him for a walk as soon as he finished. On particularly wet days he would occasionally go for a dump in the back garden, but Kieran was mindful of his niece and nephew who often played there when they came back from school.

He finished his coffee, put the cup in the dishwasher and went into the hall where he picked up his jacket and the dog’s lead. There was no need to call Charlie. As soon as he saw Kieran heading for the coat stand, he was there, right beside him, his tail wagging like fury.

The house was in Esher, north Surrey, and if he was of a mind to, he could have plotted some good running routes as there were several large parks, a golf course, and Sandown Park Racecourse close by. Running, for obvious reasons, was off the agenda for the moment, and he didn’t know if he would go back to it when he returned to his house in Steyning.

He supposed he could walk the routes he used to run while carrying something he could use for protection, which would go some way to building his confidence. Perhaps he could get a dog. If he went for a larger breed than Charlie, say an Alsatian or Boxer, it could act as a companion, and if properly trained, as his protector.

He mulled the idea over in his mind, warming to it, as Charlie tugged on the lead, keen to go faster. Reaching the park and spotting no other dogs near them, he bent down and unclipped Charlie’s lead from his collar. He shot off at a pace, but soon came to an abrupt halt when something caught his attention. He leaned over and started to sniff a patch of grass.

Kieran walked along the path while Charlie gambolled like a pup. He decided he would sit on a bench and let Charlie wear himself out. There was one up ahead but it was already occupied. No matter, there was another fifty metres further on.

Moving closer to the bench, the seated guy looked up at something in the distance and for a moment Kieran thought he recognised him. Was it a guy he used to work beside or someone he’d seen in Steyning? He walked on but when he turned to take another look, the guy got up from the bench and walked away from him.

He was smaller than average, of slim build and with short dark hair. Kieran was sure he had seen him around Steyning. Not a resident or maybe a new one, as he had only noticed him in the last couple of weeks. If he’d seen him around Steyning, what the hell was he doing here in Surrey?

Chapter Forty-One

DI Henderson returned to his office, fresh from a meeting with DCI White. The boss was good at remembering all the little side issues that often crept up in a murder investigation. Most of them were listed in Henderson’s Policy File, but it was so much better to have them circulating in your head; like a bag of disparate jigsaw pieces, some that could be put directly into the puzzle while others would be discarded as they belonged to some other puzzle.

At ten, Phil Bentley walked in. Henderson lifted the Jeff Delaney and Taylor Goodman files and joined him at the small meeting table.

‘I’ve told you, gov, about all the goings-on in Fraud and why they couldn’t talk to me for the last couple of weeks?’

‘You did.’

The boss of the Financial Fraud unit, CS Henry Gadd, was an affable, old-school type, who didn’t smoke a pipe or wear tweeds, but wouldn’t look out of place if he did. He had been found dipping his hand into the pots of gold accumulated by his suspects, and was now awaiting trial at Lewes Crown Court. His vacancy had sparked a frenzy of job hopping, the result of which was all serious work in the unit had more or less been put on the back burner.

‘It’s all sorted now with Hamal Singh in the hot seat.’

‘Good to hear.’

‘The guy I spoke to said they had conducted a fraud investigation into Taylor Goodman.’

‘What did they find?’

‘After he disappeared, believed drowned, they pulled his phone, credit card, and bank records to see if he was still active, and drew the inevitable conclusion that he wasn’t. They assumed if he had done a runner, he must have started a new life with new credit cards and a new phone, although the bank account bothered them somewhat with over two hundred thousand in it.’

‘That much? If he had absconded, it would have been hard for him to leave it behind. He would have needed ready funds for transport, hotels, and all the rest. For sure, he would have had the investments to sell, but it would’ve taken time.’

‘They presumed he must have left the money to support the drowning story. In any case, they said it was likely he had another source of funds, one he had been building for years.’

‘At the time, it must have sounded a plausible plan,’ Henderson said.

‘With everything being investigated and coming up with nothing, you can imagine it wasn’t filling anyone with glee, so they were on the point of canning it.’

‘I’m not surprised, and I imagine in trying to track the investments they didn’t fare much better than we did.’

‘The problem for them, and us, was without Taylor’s laptop, or at least, having a list of the investments he’d made, there is no way of knowing what happened to them. The fraud guys have all manner of contacts within banks and stockbrokers, perhaps one of them could have reported a large sale of shares, and given the name of the trader behind it.’

‘So, another dead-end?’

‘It looks like it.’

‘Thanks Phil.’

Bentley got up and left the room. Henderson went back to his desk. He looked through his emails but couldn’t concentrate on what he was reading as his mind was on Jeff Delaney and Taylor Goodman.

An email from forensics caught his eye. It was short so even he could comprehend what it was trying to tell him. They had extracted a DNA sample from a hair found in the clearing where they assumed Kieran Rafferty’s attacker had been trying to drag him. They were in the process of eliminating all the coppers who had trampled on the scene. More later.

It was progress of sorts, but Henderson wouldn’t be holding his breath. It could’ve been someone from two weeks before Kieran’s attack, or the first responders to Kieran’s 999 call.

He got up from the desk, wandered into the Detectives’ area, and headed towards the coffee machine. He found a clean mug and set the device off to fill it. In terms of difficult cases, this one took the number one spot. This triggered a thought: the killers must have done this kind of thing before, and perfected their methods before coming to Sussex. He carried his mug over to Lisa Newman’s desk.

‘Hi gov.’

‘Lisa, did you have any luck researching if our killers had done anything like this before?’

She reached for a large pile of papers, but decided against it and put it back.

‘I went through a countrywide sample of the IFIs on the list and found nothing amiss. I also searched on the PNC and Google for attacks on IFI’s but found nothing.’

‘Let me think about it. If they had been active anywhere else in the UK, it would suggest this was nothing more than a high-rolling moneymaking scheme. Although why would they need to repeat it, say, five or six times is beyond me. These guys are handling funds from half a million upward. Rolling a couple of them would be enough money for most people.’

‘I agree.’

‘As they haven’t done this anywhere else, two possibilities emerge: Either the attacks in Sussex are their first attempts, or it’s some sort of vendetta against the three men.’

‘Perhaps this will add some fuel to the vendetta theory. I’ve been doing some research on Patrick Watson.’ Newman reached over and woke her pc. ‘This is his profile on LinkedIn.’

Henderson leaned in for a closer look. It was an impressive CV, chock-full of industry awards and promotions. The mark of a successful financial individual.

‘See here,’ she said, pointing. ‘Before working at Gaynor Reed, he was at a company called LBS Finance.’

‘That name rings a bell.’ Henderson thought for a moment. ‘Isn’t that the place where Kieran Rafferty used to work?’

‘It is, and Watson worked there at the same time as Kieran.’

Henderson sat back in the chair, stunned. He looked at Newman intently. ‘We’ve been looking for something that connects all three victims and you’ve found it. It’s Patrick Watson.’

Chapter Forty-Two

Kieran Rafferty was becoming more accustomed to the noises and routines in the Khan household. Zaheer, Nancy’s husband, was first to leave in the morning, working as he did for an insurance company in London. Next, it was the kids getting up while Nancy tried to get herself and both of them ready for the day ahead. How she managed it with their sports kit, violin, snacks for break, and making sure they wore the most appropriate clothing for the weather and had the right books for classes, he would never know.

Now the house was quiet, except for creaking in the walls and the odd hiss from the boiler cupboard. It wasn’t an old house, perhaps thirty years old, but it sure made a lot of strange noises. The neighbourhood was as quiet as Steyning. On a sunny day he would see several neighbours out in their gardens mowing or weeding, while on an overcast day like today, nothing much would be moving except for the post woman and the occasional delivery vehicle.

He walked downstairs and greeted Charlie, who responded as if Kieran had been away for eight weeks instead of eight hours. He let him out the back door, into the sizeable back garden while he switched on the coffee machine. He let the machine do its thing while he picked up Charlie’s packet of dog food and poured some of it into his bowl.

He let Charlie back inside the house and the greedy mutt went straight to his bowl and started munching. He often did this when coming in from the outside, checking to see if any food or treat had magically appeared. This time he wasn’t disappointed. Kieran poured a mug of coffee and took it up to his room. He would come down in a couple of minutes and take Charlie out for a walk.

He was starting to enjoy staying here. It was less fraught than he imagined it would be, as he and Nancy had history when they were younger: arguing over everything and fighting like cat and dog. The level of contentment was tinged with a splash of worry as he knew at some point he would have to go back to the house in Steyning.

Nancy had matured into a calm and capable woman, a world away from the moody and feisty teenager he remembered, and professed to be fine with him staying there. She appreciated him looking after the dog, picking up the kids when she couldn’t, and ensuring the house wasn’t left unoccupied for long periods during the day. However, he knew it could be a strain having someone living with them, so he had to be careful not to overstay his welcome.

He finished the coffee and went downstairs to deal with Charlie. His desk upstairs overlooked the front of the house so he knew what the weather outside was up to: light winds with an occasional shower. He put on his waterproof jacket, clipped on Charlie’s lead, and made sure he had some pooh bags in his pocket before venturing outside.

It was colder than it looked from the window so he stopped for a moment to zip up his jacket. Despite staying in Surrey and living well away from his house in Steyning, he was still wary of the men who attacked him, and conscious the police hadn’t yet made any arrests.

He had received a call the day before from Sussex Police, telling him they believed the big guy had been trying to drag Kieran into the bushes while the two thugs who had turned up were after the big guy, not him. Nevertheless, Kieran was wary of anyone who looked suspicious and, as a result, kept his head down and spoke to no one.

He made his way to Claygate Recreation Ground. He had been there many times before and was getting bored with it. A few streets away was Clayton Common, a large area with space for the dog to run, and trees, lots of trees, but he was too nervous to venture there. Maybe in a week or two he would feel different.

After Charlie had done his business and the result deposited in the poo bin, he unclipped his lead. He ran like a greyhound, his body full of pent-up energy, making Kieran feel tired just watching. For all his gay abandon, the dog turned every so often to make sure Kieran was following, making him feel confident he wouldn’t run off.

Twenty minutes later, he wanted to go home, although he imagined the dog would have been happy to stay there all day. They made their way home where he went straight to the coffee machine while Charlie made a beeline for his bowl, but this time was disappointed to find it empty. Kieran waited until his coffee had poured before reaching for the treat box. He had just placed a dental stick into the dog’s slavering mouth, causing him to run to his basket where he would munch every morsel, when the doorbell sounded.

The house was fitted with a video doorbell, but the app was on Nancy’s phone not his, so he couldn’t see who it was. Most likely an Amazon delivery for Nancy, although the kids were of an age when they often piggybacked on their mother’s account.

He walked to the door and opened it, but tried to close it straight away as he recognised the man standing there: the big guy who’d attacked him in the woods near Steyning.

Despite Kieran’s best efforts at trying to keep the door closed, the big guy pushed it open with ease. He and another man walked in, closing the door behind them. Kieran recognised him as well: the little guy who had been sitting on the park bench.

‘Hello Kieran,’ the small man said in a south London accent, ‘we’ve been looking for you.’

Chapter Forty-Three

Nancy headed out of the school gates. It was six-forty-five, and the end of a long day. Despite all the admin and the hassles associated with being Head of Department, she was also Head of the Lower Sixth. They were normally well behaved but one boy today, Sam Ewell, had been caught smoking a joint.

The headmaster gave what she regarded as a fair assessment of where regular joint smoking could lead. The boy was a star chemistry and maths student, so the head didn’t want to discourage him, but at the same time didn’t want him let off without giving him a warning and setting an example to others.

The punishment was two weeks’ suspension. Having to deal with this issue on its own would have made Nancy late. However, it was trying to calm his parents who had come to pick him up that took the time. Talking to teachers at their retirement events, the one thing they said they wouldn’t miss was the bureaucracy and paperwork that had increased over recent years.

Other teachers, Nancy included, would also cite the increase in entitlement of parents, some of whom believed the job of a teacher was to teach, while the punishment and sanctions meted out to their badly-behaved offspring was their prerogative. Part of the belligerence of Sam’s parents, she suspected, was down to their attitude towards smoking cannabis, as it was a lot more tolerant than Nancy or the headmaster.

She put all negative thoughts behind her as she drove to her friend Harriet’s house. Whenever she or Kieran couldn’t make the pick-up of Joe and Georgia, she would call Harriet and she would step in. It was her fall-back plan, although it had never been used in the time Kieran had been staying with them as he didn’t go out, for obvious reasons, until now.

The thing getting on her goat was that he didn’t tell anyone he was going out. She wasn’t by nature a quick-to-anger person, a good quality for a teacher as never a day went by when one of her students would do something that would make a saint squirm. She was a slow burner, but when it came to the boil, it would explode like Coke from a shaken bottle.

When she pulled up in front of Harriet’s house, she resolved to try and contain her anger for the time being. She didn’t want to annoy her friend, or put the kids on the defensive as they loved their Uncle Kieran. She parked the car, got out and walked to the front door, taking several deep breaths as she did so.

‘Hello Nancy,’ Harriet said on opening the door. She reached out for a hug.

‘I needed that,’ Nancy said, as she walked inside and closed the door behind her.

‘Tough day at the coal face?’

‘You could say that. One of my Lower-Sixth boys was caught smoking in the toilets.’

‘That’s not so bad. Jake used to do the same thing.’

‘As much as I love your husband, I would never hold him up as a paragon of virtue or an example for young people to follow. In this case, it wasn’t any old cigarette.’

‘What, a joint?’

She nodded.

‘Ah. Jake did many bad things, but as far as I know, he didn’t do that.’

‘C’mon, we can’t stand nattering all day in the hall. Let me take these two urchins out of your hair.’

‘They’re no trouble,’ Harriet said, pushing open the lounge door.

She was right, they were both glued to the television, sitting alongside Harriet’s two girls. Put on a teen-style box-set and twelve-year old Georgia was hooked. Joe, three years her junior, liked anything Georgia did.

‘Hi you two.’

‘Oh, hi Mum,’ Georgia said without taking her eyes off the screen.

Joe got up from the floor with some difficulty as he looked half-asleep. He walked over and hugged her legs. ‘Hi Mum,’ he said. ‘Can we go home now?’

She said goodbye to Harriet, stressing the point, she would return the favour whenever Harriet needed her.

Georgia sulked for a bit as she liked staying at Harriet’s, as she had a lot in common with her daughter, Polly. She soon got out of it when Joe started goading her about her fancying Polly.

With the two of them play-arguing in the back of the car, it provided enough room for her anger to grow and push to the fore. When the car stopped at Manor Drive, she turned off the engine, got out and strode towards the front door. This elicited a plaintive cry from Joe about needing help to carry his stuff, but she ignored it.

‘Kieran!’ she hollered, as she stomped up the stairs. ‘Where the fuck were you today? I was late leaving school and had to call Harriet,’ she said, as she pushed open the bedroom door. The admonishment she was about to deliver to Kieran stuck in her throat.

Kieran was lying on the bed, fully clothed. It didn’t take a doctor to see - his eyes open and unblinking, his pasty face and unchanging expression - that he was dead. In contrast to his pale face, around his neck was a broad, angry red welt that she hadn’t noticed this morning.

She stumbled to her knees, let out an animalistic howl of anguish, and fell wailing at the side of the bed.

Chapter Forty-Four

Henderson took the call while driving from the office, on his way home. He changed direction and headed towards Carol Walters’ apartment in Hove.

On listening to the call from the control centre in Lewes, he had thumped the steering wheel in frustration. Kieran Rafferty should have been safe at his sister’s house; instead the killers of Jeff Delaney and Taylor Goodman had somehow tracked him down and finished the job they had failed to carry out the week before.

He knew it had to be the same killers even from the scant information passed to him by the call centre. Who else could it be? And it had to be for the same reason: to get their hands on the financial investments Kieran had made on behalf of his clients.

Henderson picked up Walters outside her building and set off to Esher. Her sombre mood matched his.

‘Of course, what the papers will be banging on about is could we have done more to protect him?’ she said.

‘I’m not sure we could. How could I justify tying up three or four officers on eight-hour shifts for a threat we weren’t convinced existed?’

‘That’s not how the media is going to see it.’

‘You’re right. Although I think DCI White will feel more of their heat than I will.’

‘A baptism of fire for the new man.’

‘It had to happen sometime, but putting his issues to one side, it presents us with an opportunity.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Kieran was killed in his sister’s house. The other deaths were outside and subject to wind, weather, and animal disturbance, giving us a cat’s chance in hell of obtaining any forensic information. This one is inside, where Locard’s Exchange Principle most definitely applies.’

‘A criminal always leaves something behind or takes something away.’

‘Exactly. Our job, or to be more precise, the job of the forensic team, is to turn the house upside down until we find it.’

Manor Drive in Esher looked a quiet and leafy road, the only disturbance, he suspected, the odd car driving past or mating foxes. Now, it was besmirched with police vans and cars, crime tape, officers standing outside smoking, the still of the evening tainted by the crackle of police radios and the sound of officers talking. No matter the area, rich like this one, or a poorer one in a sink estate, there were always those who came out from their warm houses, leaving their mugs of cocoa and toast to go cold in order to eyeball the spectacle.

‘This is a nice area,’ Walters said, when the car stopped, ‘and look at their house. Not bad for what, a teacher and a husband in insurance?’

‘Whatever they do, it pays better than the police. I could never afford it.’

‘Me neither.’

They got out of the car and walked to the house. No journalists could be seen to shout their insistent questions and badger anyone coming in or out. It was only a matter of time, as many tuned into police radios or had informants at police stations.

The two Sussex detectives signed in with the copper manning the door and were directed upstairs. There, they were met by more coppers, the crime scene manager, forensic team, photographer, and in the middle standing over the prone body of Kieran Rafferty on the bed, Grafton Rawlings.

Henderson nodded at the officers he recognised and made his way inside.

‘Evening Grafton.’

‘Ah, hello Angus,’ the pathologist said, looking up from his examination. ‘We’re not often called out to a case on a Monday evening, which is a shame, as I don’t know about you, it’s a day I don’t often go out.’

‘Me too. What’s the story with Mr Rafferty?’

‘You know him?’

‘Yes, he was the man attacked last week near Steyning – another of our IFIs.

‘Ah, yes, I remember. They got him in the end?’

‘It looks that way. How did he die?’

‘Strangled, just like the other two. With a thin ligature, one made from an artificial fibre I would surmise at this early stage.’

‘Time of death?’

‘Rigor mortis is starting to fade, so it would have occurred about twelve hours ago.’

‘Do we know who found the body?’

‘His sister Nancy, who’s downstairs being consoled by a WPC.’

Henderson had a last look at the body before joining Walters nosing around the bedroom cum study.

‘His laptop is missing,’ she said, pointing to a desk where a power cable lay untethered to any piece of equipment.

‘It certainly looks like it.’ He turned his gaze to the window. ‘It’s not a bad place for a man to be, especially one who must have felt he was being hunted. From here he could see the activity in the road.’

‘But he wasn’t able to spot the guy or guys who had come to kill him.’

‘True. Carol, organise door-to-door along this road. We need to get a handle on when the killers arrived and, with luck, a decent description.’

‘No problem.’

‘First though, let’s go downstairs and talk to his sister.’

Henderson and Walters walked out of the Khan household twenty minutes later. Nancy had been very upset, but her husband Zaheer had been very helpful. So much so, that Henderson cancelled his instructions to Walters about organising a door-to-door operation.

Chapter Forty-Five

‘Kieran Rafferty was murdered yesterday morning,’ Henderson said to the assembled murder team. ‘I think it’s safe to assume even at this early juncture, he was killed by the same people who murdered Taylor Goodman and Jeff Delaney. The reason I say ‘people’ is because we now know for certain more than one person is involved. Thanks to Kieran’s sister and brother-in-law we now have pictures of the perpetrators.’

This caused a hubbub of chatter as Henderson turned to the board and posted pictures taken from the sim card attached to the Khan’s doorbell video camera.

‘These two men forced their way inside,’ the DI said, tapping the picture on the board. ‘They match Gemma Laird’s earlier description of the guys she spotted at Wisborough Green, and the one Kieran himself had done of the larger man. Does anyone recognise them?’

The room went quiet.

‘Gov,’ DS Phil Bentley said, ‘I’m heading over to John Street this afternoon on another matter, I can take the pictures with me and see if they’ll display them at briefing sessions.’

‘Good idea. See if you can also persuade them to take copies out on patrol cars as well.’

‘Will do.’

‘It’s possible,’ Henderson continued, ‘the killers may be coming to the end of their killing spree. Each of the victims had portfolios approaching, and often exceeding, one hundred million pounds; it’s netted them a fortune. Unlike stolen jewellery or a painting when a fence will only pay a fraction of an item’s actual value, if the killers know what they’re doing with the investments, they will receive the current stock market rate.’

‘If they do decide to call a halt,’ Vicky Neal said, ‘it’s maybe not a good idea to scare them into making a move by having their pictures displayed on the front page of The Argus.’

‘We’ll wait until officers at John Street have had a good look,’ Henderson said, ‘after then we might have no other option but to go for it.’

‘It’s fortunate for us,’ Vicky Neal said, ‘the killers decided to enter the house, and not attack him when he was out for a run or walking the dog.’

‘Definitely,’ Walters said. ‘Now we have a good chance of picking up their DNA.’

‘Hence the reason we have a full forensics presence at the house in Esher. There’s a good chance the perps have left something behind. It’s just a case of the team finding it.’

‘Angus, can I talk to you a minute?’

He turned to see DCI White standing there. Henderson asked DS Walters to take over the meeting and allocate duties to those in attendance, while he walked over to see what his boss wanted.

‘Let’s head back to your office,’ White said.

When they got there Henderson took a seat behind his desk while White closed the door.

‘What the hell happened to Kieran Rafferty?’ he asked. ‘I thought we had that situation under control.’

‘The men who attacked him during his run in Steyning last week, must have found out where he was staying, but we had no evidence to suggest they would go after him again.’

‘You think it’s the same people?’

‘There’s no doubt in my mind.’

‘But how could this happen on our watch?’

‘This is the thing, we weren’t watching him.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Why would we? We don’t do it with other victims of assault. We advised him to go and live with his sister in Esher, but we didn’t have him on active surveillance, or offer him personal protection.’

‘Why not when he was at risk?’

‘What risk? We all thought the killers had tried to roll him and failed, so they’d try it with someone else. No way did we think they would go to the trouble of tracking him down. Not to mention, it would have been hugely expensive to mount a 24/7 guard outside his house when we had no intel to suggest he would continue to be a target.’

The DCI’s hard demeanour softened, perhaps playing over in his mind a similar situation he had once been involved in.

‘Yes, but the killers did go after him. I’ve got an imminent meeting with the ACC. He’s called a press conference in about an hour and he’s convinced the journos main focus will be our non-attendance at the victim’s house.’

‘As I said, there was nothing to suggest they would go after him again. It’s not as if IFIs are thin on the ground. There are plenty of others out there.’

‘Good point.’

This prompted a thought in Henderson’s head. He hoped it would still be there at the end of this meeting.

‘I would suggest the ACC should steer away from any thoughts of the potential costs of guarding him, and concentrate on what we did do: insisting he moved to his sister’s house which we considered the best protection against any risks he faced.’

‘Another good point. Right,’ he said, ‘you’ve given me some good stuff for the press conference, but you’ve still got to face the family who might have similar questions. Good luck, Angus. See you later.’

Henderson sat thinking for a moment. Could they have done more to protect Kieran? Thinking about it now, even after his death, he still wouldn’t change his advice. Nobody at the time believed there would be a continual threat, and moving him to Esher was a precaution, as his attackers knew where he lived in Steyning.

He called in sergeants: Bentley, Walters and Neal and joined them at the meeting table.

‘I had a thought when discussing Kieran’s murder with DCI White. What if the killing of the three victims isn’t so much a get-rich scheme by a bunch of clever criminals, but a targeted attempt to exact some form of revenge.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Neal asked.

‘By posing the question, why did the killers go after Kieran a second time when they failed the first-time round?’

‘All three guys, Goodman, Delaney and Rafferty, were top performers in their field,’ Bentley said. ‘By definition, they would have had the largest amounts invested, but I see what you’re getting at. If it was purely money they were after, why didn’t they just pick the next name on the IFI list?’

‘Right!’ Henderson said with feeling, pleased to see the idea was being taken seriously, and not considered yet another left-field theory. ‘The killers went after Kieran for a reason, and when they didn’t succeed the first time, they went after him again. It wasn’t any old IFI they were after; they targeted Kieran Rafferty. Our job now, is to find out why.’

Chapter Forty-Six

Don Powell was back in Orpington again. This time he had no intention of breaking into Patrick Watson’s house, instead, he would speak to the man himself.

He had parked away from the target house, but with visibility of the road Watson would use when returning home. He had arrived at five-thirty, but a quick recce had told him he wasn’t at home. Powell knew enough about those working in finance that even if they left the office on time, although many did not, they still would have a long commute home.

Powell was used to stake-outs. When he first left the Corps, he took a job as a personal security guard. At times, he was part of a small detail guarding driveways or buildings, but at other times he guarded individuals.

It wasn’t always a rich individual fearing a home invasion, but at times a senior corporate type being targeted by animal rights, fascists, or militant trade union organisations. Depending on the layout of their property, he would often hole up in a small outbuilding overlooking the driveway, but if not available, he would sit in his car all night.

It had conditioned him into being a patient man. If feeling bored, he would watch a TV programme on his iPad or listen to music or podcasts, so watching a house for two, maybe three hours didn’t present him with many problems. The way Watson responded to his questions and demands would determine what elements of persuasion Powell would use. Brandon had given him free rein to do what he believed necessary and he was not a man Powell liked to disappoint.

Of course, if an injured Watson overcame his fear of being exposed as a crook, he would have no trouble pinpointing his attacker as Brandon Lewis’ man. However, that’s as far as he, or the police, could take it. They didn’t know Powell’s name, and if anyone contacted Brandon he would deny all knowledge and characterise it as yet another attempt to smear him. The only people at Prado who knew his true identity were Brandon and his secretary, Kyla.

At six forty-five Watson drove past. His car, this time, was a blue Porsche sports, a fuck-you-I’m-rich statement if he ever saw one. Powell knew he drove it a couple of miles between his house and Orpington train station, and left it stationary outside his house for most of the weekend.

He allowed Watson a few minutes to change and perhaps grab a drink before the PI walked in the direction of the house. Powell left his car where it was, pointing towards the main road, more out of habit than a necessity this evening, he imagined.

It was close to seven and light had faded as he approached the front door. It wasn’t dark enough to hide his presence, but gloomy enough for neighbours or anyone walking past not to get a good look at him, or a clear view of what was about to happen.

He knocked on the door. It was pulled open by a confident Watson, but his smile faded and he did a double-take when he saw his caller. Powell stepped inside, eased him out of the way and closed the front door.

‘It’s you!’ Watson exclaimed. ‘The Texan: Ronald V Winklehaus. What are you doing here?’

Powell punched him in the gut, causing him to double over, coughing.

‘I’m no Texan,’ he said, pulling Watson up by the lapels. ‘I’m a private investigator and I’ve come here to recover Brandon Lewis’ money. Ring any bells?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Let me refresh. You and your little pals killed Taylor Goodman and stole all his investments. Some of those investments belonged to my boss. Make sense now?’

‘Nope.’

‘I don’t care about the money invested by others, or the other financial guys you’ve killed. I just want Brandon’s money.’

‘I don’t have that sort of money lying around.’

‘Do you think I grew up in a one-room shack in the Boondocks with an illiterate mother and no running water?’ He punched Watson again, this time in the kidneys, way more painful than the one before.

‘We use electronic money same as you, Watson, you sanctimonious cocksucker. Get me annoyed again and I’ll make a start on your face, so much so that your married woman friend, the one you’ve been humping from the golf course, would have trouble recognising you.’

He glanced up as if to say, How do you know about her? but he was in too much pain to speak.

‘Let’s move into your study.’ Powell hauled Watson up and guided him into the study and closed the door. He also pulled the blind and put on the light.

‘Right, you bent fucker. Get on there,’ he said, nodding at the laptop, ‘and transfer Brandon’s money.’

With a grimace, Watson opened the laptop and keyed in the password. ‘I don’t know the amount, or–’

‘It’s all here,’ Powell growled, chucking him a piece of paper. It included Brandon’s Iban and Swift details, enough information to make an international transfer, and the amount he wanted. Brandon had given Powell the last valuation statement he’d received from Taylor Goodman, and to this Powell had added two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a present to himself for all the aggravation Watson had caused.

‘I notice you’re not denying stealing money from Goodman and the other IFI’s.’

‘Why would I? You’d just redecorate my face. All the same, how do I know you won’t take the money and call the police?’

‘If I did, it would implicate me and maybe hold up the repayment of Brandon’s money. I’m only interested in settling this issue as fast as possible.’

‘That doesn’t sound to me like a cast-iron guarantee.’

‘It’s the best you’re gonna get.’

Watson went onto the website of an Antiguan bank, one Powell had never heard of. He watched as Watson started to fill in the details for a transfer of funds.

‘For security purposes, they’re about to send me a text with a verification code. May I?’ he said, reaching for his phone.

‘Go ahead, but no funny stuff or you’ll regret it.’

‘Why would I bother?’ Watson said, in a voice, suggesting he had regained some of his old bravado. ‘You’ve caught me fair and square, and while I’m not happy about paying this money out, it’s small beer in the overall scheme of things.’

‘I figured the same.’

‘You’re not going to tell other people who’ve lost their money to come running to me, are you?’

‘No, I’m not. Quit yakking and finish the transfer.’

Watson keyed the code he’d received by text into his laptop. After clearing a succession of pop-ups about money-laundering and what to do if being coerced by crooks, he pressed the initiate transfer button.

‘There, it’s done.’

‘Good. Give me your phone.’

‘Why? Please don’t take it, I have my life on there.’

Powell put the device on the floor and stamped on it until it was a pile of mangled electronic components and shards of glass. It would stop Watson calling his killer buddies or the police, or taking a surreptitious picture or video of him and his departing car. He also grabbed his laptop.

‘What are you doing?’

‘This is my insurance. If you have another laptop, or tomorrow in the office you try and pull that transfer back from your bank, I will use what’s on this one to expose you. I memorised the password you used, but if somehow you change it, Brandon has some talented IT people who would be able to get in there while eating their lunch. You get me?’

‘Yes.’

Powell would call Brandon soon after leaving Watson’s place to inform him about the impending money transfer, and instruct him to move his money to another account. This would make it impossible for Watson’s bank to recall the transfer.

‘Don’t look so dejected. You have enough money to go out later this evening and buy a hundred laptops.’

‘Hmph.’

Powell got up and walked to the study door. Watson came up behind him, no doubt to lock and bolt the front door once the PI had left.

‘One more thing.’

‘What?’

He punched Watson straight in the nose, knocking him backwards, causing blood to ooze over his nice cashmere sweater and smear down the wall he had fallen against.

‘That’s for all the trouble you’ve caused me.’

Chapter Forty-Seven

Henderson yawned as he stretched. He had just come back from a press conference chaired by ACC Andy Youngman concerning Kieran Rafferty’s murder. Last night hadn’t been a late night, or a boozy one, as he avoided both while working on a major murder investigation.

He and Kelly had gone to a pub in Brighton for a meal. They had walked there, given the proximity to their house, something he was well used to, but which she found to be a bit of a novelty. When she lived out in the country at West Hoathly, if she wanted to go out anywhere it meant she or one of her friends had to drive.

She didn’t object to being the sober one, except on those evenings when everyone around her was getting drunk. This was when people started telling a story or joke they had told before, and often forgot the punchline.

The DI was tired this morning because when they got home from the pub, Kelly wanted to go to bed, but it wasn’t to catch up on her sleep. He was thankful the house was detached, albeit no more than about a metre from its neighbour, and the windows double glazed, as they seemed to be making a lot of noise.

At eleven, Henderson made himself another coffee. He returned to his office and joined sergeants Bentley, Neal, and Walters at the meeting table.

‘As anticipated, the ACC came in for a lot of criticism at this morning’s press conference; he told them. ‘Journalists were saying we had a duty to protect Kieran Rafferty and we let him down. The ACC defended our position robustly, telling them we didn’t have the resources to offer protection to every victim of assault.’

‘Which is a fair point,’ Neal said. ‘And we had no evidence the perps would come back for another pop.’

‘The question it raises is did the killers act because he was a loose end, spoiling their one hundred percent record, or was the mistake something they had to correct as Kieran Rafferty was on their hit list.’

‘Could be,’ Phil Bentley said, ‘because Kieran got a good look at the big guy, they were killing a witness.’

‘That would make sense,’ Walters said, ‘if they’d left his laptop.’

‘Perhaps it was two birds with one stone. They killed him to access the investments, and at the same time they were doing away with a witness.’

‘We’ve looked at the IFI list again,’ Neal said, ‘but with twenty-odd names, there’s no point if we think they’re going to quit after three.’

‘Although we know the three dead men were all managed at some time by Patrick Watson. Do we know if he managed any others on the list?’

Neal pulled out the list and scanned it. ‘There is no mention of any of the others having worked at either Gaynor Reed or LBS Finance, so unless Watson had worked somewhere else, which from memory I don’t think he did, then the answer is no.’

‘From the review Lisa and I did of the three victims and Watson’s background,’ Bentley said, ‘Watson only worked at those two companies.’

‘The thing that keeps nagging at my brain,’ Henderson said, ‘is for the killers to go after Kieran a second time. Most crooks I’ve come across wouldn’t touch a scenario like this with a bargepole. The victim, and those close to him, would be wary and could be armed; they might recognise their attacker and exact retribution; plus the killers would have to spend time and effort tracking him down. It all sounds like too much hassle. This on the other hand, smacks of something else.’

‘Plus, the risk they took by killing him indoors. The only thing we’ve found connecting all three is Watson,’ Walters said.

‘As I said when we met him, Carol, he doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of a killer, and if it is him, he’s not doing it for the money, as he must be loaded. So, where’s the motive? What do we know about him, Phil?’

‘He was an easy man to research as he’s a regular poster on Instagram. His posts feature the exotic places he’s been and the various classic cars he drives, often with a beautiful woman on his arm, which concurs with your view, gov, about him not being short of money.’

‘Okay.’

‘He rose through the ranks at LBS Finance and had a big money move to Gaynor Reed where he won a couple of industry awards. He’s had no criminal convictions, if we don’t count his pile of parking tickets or the nine points on his license, all for speeding. He’s a star performer at his firm by all accounts.’

‘Which only reinforces the idea of this being something else, like targeting the most successful guys who’ve left the firm, or maybe the settling of old scores. I’ll talk to the DCI about putting him under surveillance, but as you can imagine, it’s a sensitive subject for the time being.’

‘Rather you than me,’ Walters said.

‘Phil, how did you get on with taking the picture of our two suspects over to John Street?’

‘I spoke to DS Daly and he was helpful. Yesterday, the picture was displayed at all the morning briefings and copies were issued to every patrol car.’

‘Good work. I would rather one of them identified our two perps than go on a county-wide appeal than have our suspects disappear completely.’

‘I agree.’

‘Right, I think we’re all agreed this is the way we should go with this. Watson is now one of our main suspects. Carry on the research, Phil, see if you can find any chinks in his armour, indicating some grievance between him and the three victims.’

Henderson returned to his desk after the sergeants departed. He felt they were making progress, but it was baby steps at best. They had video evidence against the two men who had appeared at Nancy Khan’s door minutes before Kieran Rafferty was killed, but he also needed forensics to prove the men had been in Kieran’s room and killed him.

With Patrick Watson, they had nothing specific against him other than he was connected to all three victims, and to no others on the IFI list. Also, he would have the necessary skills to cash in the stolen investments.

Once they had some idea of his movements, and refined his connection to the victims, and with luck to the other two suspects, Henderson would apply for a warrant to search his house. There, he was confident they would find something. He was sure Watson couldn’t handle such large sums of money without leaving a trace.

He was about to go upstairs and talk to DCI White when Phil Bentley rushed back in.

‘Hi, Phil what’s up?’

‘Good news, gov. I’ve just been on the phone to John Street. One of their officers has identified the big guy in our picture.’

Chapter Forty-Eight

Mark Russell lit another cigarette and sat back in the chair. It was situated in the rear garden of the property they rented in Hove, and faced the sun, but it was fleeting, hiding every so often like a bashful teenager behind big fluffy clouds. At this time of year, the first day of November, he tried to grab any rays he could.

In his job, he was either in the car parts warehouse which had no windows, or out at night unloading a large consignment of drugs from the continent. As a result, he often had the complexion of a nightwalker, one of the zombie characters inhabiting the computer game Mason was playing in the lounge.

For the last few nights they’d followed directions given to them by their old contact, Wazza, and entered a number of gay bars in Brighton. It wouldn’t be sensible to blunder into any of those and demand to know the whereabouts of a guy called Buster, but they had the name and description of someone who could help them.

Feeling like a couple of lost boys who had strayed blindly into a convent, they entered another bar and found the guy they were looking for. Dessie was luxuriating in the arms of another, giggling over a joke while drinking some weird pink gin. With a little persuasion, and the passing of several twenty-pound notes, Dessie coughed up the name of someone who knew Buster. Taking Russell’s number, he assured them a person, a trans by the name of Ashley, would call the next day.

The sight of queens, cross dressers and outrageous gay men turned Mason into the worst version of himself, sneering and scowling at anyone who dared look at him and almost starting a fight with Dessie when he was a bit coy at releasing Ashley’s name. At least he didn’t try to hide his prejudice by claiming to be a modern man who was in touch with his feminine side. He would tell anyone who asked that he hated gays, trans, and the LGBT+ crowd, pure and simple.

Dave Chesson was pissed at the length of time it was taking them to find Buster, but he understood the problems they faced. Russell was instructed to find him without drawing any heat from the cops, as Dave had a new delivery coming that evening and he wanted to warehouse and sell it with as little fuss as possible.

Russell was enjoying the lukewarm rays on his face, wallowing in the positive feeling it gave him, but then it was gone. He opened one eye expecting to see a big fat cloud blocking the sun, but instead it was the thin, scowling face of Mason, probably annoyed at being bitten once again by a zombie.

‘Has he, she, or it, or whatever the fuck they call themselves, called yet?’

‘Would I be sitting here if they had?’

‘I just thought…’

‘No, Tom, no call.’

‘Those gay fuckers are all the same: unreliable. I knew as soon as Wazza said we had to deal with them, this would go tits up.’

‘Wazza told us to do this because Buster is gay and he moves in gay circles. It couldn’t be more straight-forward, if you’ll excuse my pun.’

‘There must be another way.’

‘There isn’t.’

Mason walked away, his grumpy face set in stone. Russell was about to relax once again when his phone rang.

‘Hello Mark? This is Ashley. Dessie asked me to call you.’

According to Dessie, Ashley was a bloke who wanted to be a woman. They’d been undergoing hormone treatment and dressed in the full female regalia, as Dessie had shown him a picture, but the voice on the other end sounded male.

‘That’s right, I wanted to speak to you, Ashley. How are you doing?’

‘I’m well Mark, and I hope you are too. I hear you’re trying to contact Buster.’

‘That’s right.’

For reasons Russell couldn’t explain he had deepened his own voice. Perhaps, Mason’s rampant chauvinism was rubbing off.

‘Why do you want to speak to him?’ Ashley asked.

‘He borrowed something from a friend of mine and I want it back.’

‘Buster doesn’t strike me as the thieving kind. Could you be mistaken?’

‘There’s no mistake, Ashley. In any case, if he doesn’t have what was taken, I still would like to speak to him, as he might know who does.’

‘I understand. Are you intending Buster harm?’

‘No. I’m simply trying to get back what belongs to my friend.’

‘It’ll cost you.’

‘Dessie told me, I already paid him.’

‘Just checking. Do you have a pen?’

That night, Russell and Mason were parked outside a house in Northease Drive in Hangleton. It was a suburban street, nice though, as it was up on a hill overlooking Brighton. There were many bungalows suggesting old folks, but they didn’t get on Russell’s goat as much as some people, as he knew he would get there in the fullness of time. That is, providing Dave, or one of his rivals, didn’t shoot him first.

‘Why do you think he’s moved here?’ Mason asked.

‘I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since we found the little guy had moved out. They might have had the houses on a short-term let, or maybe they’ve been rumbled.’

‘No way by us,’ Mason said, indignant. ‘We was being discreet.’

‘We were, but, I dunno, they might have spotted our car once too often, or saw us following them.’

Mason sat back scowling.

‘What’s wrong with your fizzer?’ Russell asked. ‘You look like you’ve swallowed a wasp.’

‘I don’t see why we’re trusting some bloke who dresses up as a woman. And how the fuck does he or she know Buster? The big bastard wants to poke it up the hairy arse of a bloke, not someone pretending to be a bloody woman.’

Mason’s shower of insults about the unreliability or otherwise of gay people in general, and Ashley in particular, went on for some time, until about two in the morning, but there was still no sign of Buster. In between, they analysed Crystal Palace’s poor recent form and what the current manager, or his replacement, should do about it.

About half past two, the trickle of drunk clubbers and party-goers heading for home after a good Friday night had dwindled to almost nothing. Still no sign of Buster.

For about the tenth time Mason said, ‘I think Ashley’s given us a bum steer.’

‘It’s just that we’ve copped Buster when he decided not to go out clubbing, but instead stayed all night at one of his pals.’

‘A gay shag-fest more like. Can you imagine?’

‘I don’t want to imagine, thank you very much. C’mon, he’s not coming back tonight, is he? We’ll head off and come back in the morning.’

‘Not too early I hope, I’m knackered.’

Chapter Forty-Nine

It was Saturday, five weeks on from Jeff Delaney’s murder, almost a week since Kieran Rafferty’s, and Henderson was in the office. So were most of the team, as the lead given to them by an officer familiar with the gay scene in Brighton had been the first decent breakthrough in the investigation.

The big guy, first identified by Jemma Laird at Wisborough Green, and more clearly by the doorbell video camera at Nancy Khan’s house, was called Charlie Bamford, known to his mates as Buster. He wasn’t from Brighton, but sticking around to take full advantage of the vibrant gay scene there.

Buster had moved once since arriving, but Henderson’s informant didn’t know if it was due to a dispute with a landlord, or a calculated move not to put down roots. Henderson suspected someone had got too close. Maybe not in the romantic sense, but perhaps another criminal intent on grabbing their own slice of the rich spoils that Buster had already accumulated.

The amount of money stolen, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, would attract criminals like flies around a fresh cow pat. Buster didn’t have to boast about his exploits. Once criminals had connected him to the heist, they were quite capable of doing the maths. Most of the criminals the DI had come across couldn’t multiply or do algebra to save their lives, but show them a drug deal or a load of gear stolen from a warehouse, and they could determine its value faster than a cop with a calculator.

Buster was on the Police National Computer. Nothing recent, but in his teens and twenties had been arrested for handling stolen goods, drug possession, and taking cars without consent. This didn’t indicate a reformed criminal who’d seen the error of his ways, but someone who’d got better at it.

Henderson hadn’t been given Buster’s new address as their informant didn’t know it, so one of the main tasks for his team today was to find it. With an owned property, there were a number of ways to find this such as the HM Land Registry, council tax records, or utility bills.

When dealing with a rental, things became a bit hazier. Some landlords required tenants to pay the bills, while others covered everything with a higher rental cost. His hope was that Buster’s agreement leaned towards the first option with his name on a gas or electricity bill. If it was a short-term let, something like a holiday rental with Airbnb, they would have no chance of finding him.

Other members of the team were calling rental agencies in Brighton and Hove. It helped knowing Buster’s real name, but if he had used an alias they were also sunk. Although, he knew from personal experience, many rental agencies required references, and those were more difficult to fake.

With the team taking such a narrow focus: trying to locate Buster, and finding out what they could about Patrick Watson, the DI was in the process of reviewing the rest of the case notes to make sure they hadn’t taken a wrong turning. It was an important action as heading down the wrong path would waste scarce resources, have top bosses breathing down their necks, and demotivate the team if forced to move in a different direction.

By eleven, he was satisfied he knew how the killers operated. He believed Patrick Watson was orchestrating the attacks and his two henchmen were involved in carrying them out. Perhaps the big guy did most of the heavy lifting, as he’d tried to do with Kieran Rafferty at Steyning, while the little guy did what? Interrogated the captive for information about the location of his laptop, the password to access it, perhaps something about how the investments were organised?

Selling the investments was very much Watson’s territory. He worked for a major financial outfit, he knew the markets, and had a good idea what the investments were worth. Henderson didn’t know if he would have used his position at Gaynor Reed to sell them; he doubted it, but could he have set himself up as a stockbroker?

Maybe Watson knew a friendly broker who would do the work for him, or perhaps he was already an active private investor and added all the stolen shares to his existing portfolio. He wondered if there was an opening there in case they searched Watson’s house and found nothing, because if they could find out how he had sold the stolen investments, it would be proof positive of his involvement in the heists. In their favour, Henderson knew the finance industry had been scarred by several historic money laundering and price fixing scandals, and nowadays was more adept at laying down comprehensive electronic audit trails.

His phone rang.

‘Good morning, Angus,’ the deep voice of DCI White said. ‘You tried to speak to me yesterday but caught me leaving the house for a reception.’

‘Thanks for calling me back, sir. I wouldn’t ordinarily call you about this matter, but following the furore over Kieran Rafferty’s murder, I thought it best to discuss it with you first.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I’ve talked to you before about how we believe Patrick Watson is responsible for orchestrating the attacks on all three of our murder victims, and using the two men in the picture I showed you to carry out the dirty work.’

‘They make sense as a team, don’t they? The financial guy identifies the targets and sells the stolen investments. The two hoods kidnap the victim, steal his laptop, and kill him. Watson couldn’t do what they do, and they couldn’t do what he does.’

‘I agree.’

‘Have you found enough evidence to arrest him?’

‘No, and this is the thing I wanted to talk to you about. I’d like to put him under surveillance.’

‘I see what you mean about this being sensitive. Is there any other way?’

‘I don’t think so.’

He paused for a moment. ‘I don’t see it would cause any fuss as he lives in London and no one down here will hear about it unless there’s a leak.’

‘It will be kept on a need-to-know basis.’

‘I agree, Angus. Keep me posted.’

Henderson was jotting down a couple of names of those he could trust to be involved when Lisa Newman walked into his office.

‘Hi Lisa.’

‘Hi gov. We’ve found Buster’s address.’

Chapter Fifty

Monday afternoon, Mark Russell turned the car into the car park at Starbucks beside the A23 in Coulsdon in south London. According to Dave Chesson it was halfway between Bermondsey and their gaff in Brighton. Russell believed Costa at Pease Pottage Services was a better bet, but when his suggestion got shouted down he knew better than to argue with Dave so he conceded the point.

‘A traditional sausage sandwich?’ Mason said, rubbing his hands together as he got out of the car. ‘I’m having a bit of that.’

‘It’s lunchtime, not breakfast, and you might not fancy eating anything when you hear what Dave has to say.’

‘He did sound a bit angry.’

‘A bit angry? He’s bloody livid. It was a good job it was only a phone call. If we were face-to-face, I think he would have shot me.’

‘What’s he so mad about? We’ve tracked the big bastard down, haven’t we?’

‘Yeah, but he feels no closer to getting his dough back.’

‘I think we are.’

‘Well when Dave comes you’ve got the chance to tell him to his face.’

Mason would have to wait a little longer as Dave wasn’t there yet, just four oversized truckers who made the table and the seats they were sitting on look as though they were fathers of primary school kids at parent night.

Mason, as he said he would, ordered the traditional sausage sandwich while Russell settled for a cup of coffee and a croissant. The food came about five minutes later and he had to admit, the sandwich was more like a roll and didn’t half look appealing. Russell was divorced, lived alone, and did the cooking himself. He knew an English cooked breakfast wasn’t difficult to do, and wondered why these American coffee shops hadn’t cottoned-on. The four truckers close to them would have ordered one each for sure.

They’d finished their food and drinks by the time Dave’s Bentley pulled into the car park. Russell, despite the way he was feeling, smiled. He liked to see drug dealers like Dave showing off their wealth with big houses and fancy cars. They took way more risks than the average businessman, so why shouldn’t they now and again splash the cash?

Some eschewed the visible signs of wealth, thinking it would alert the authorities to their activities. That was bullshit thinking. The cops used intelligence from narks and witnesses, intercepted phones, and seized cargo to get a march on drug dealers, while the sight of a Ferrari or a Tag Heuer watch told them nothing.

Dave breezed in without acknowledging them and ordered tea. This was unusual behaviour as he was often generous with money, always buying several rounds in a bar and picking up the tab any time there was a group meeting in a restaurant.

Russell braced himself and hoped the light meal he had eaten wouldn’t turn to mud in his stomach. Being in a public place suggested Dave’s anger hadn’t yet reached the level where he would reach for a knife from the table or a gun from his pocket. The four fat truckers were nobody’s idea of peacemakers, or indeed suitable adversaries for Dave Chesson in full fight mode, but between them and the serving staff he felt sure someone would whip out their phone and film it. This, he felt, would be enough to ensure things did not get out of hand.

Dave walked over carrying a mug of tea.

‘Hi boys, how are you doing?’

‘Hi Dave.’

Dave sat down. ‘Nice gaff this. I like a basic caff now and again. What did you have, Tom?’ he asked, nodding at the empty, tomato sauce-smeared plate.

‘Sausage sandwich. Really good. You should try it.’

‘Maybe I will, but not today. I’m not hungry.’

Russell said nothing. It didn’t pay to rush Dave, and ask him why he had called this meeting. He would reveal all in his own time.

‘How’s Brighton, Mark? Been in any nightclubs yet?’

This was a private joke. The last time he had been in a nightclub about a year back, he felt too old and got drunk after mixing drinks. He ended up spewing over the floor and it splashing up the legs of several girls, including one he fancied.

‘I’m too old for that sort of thing, Dave.’

‘Yeah, even as a teenager you still were a crap dancer.’

Mark smiled. He had been a dad dancer before it became fashionable.

‘To business. I’m not fucking pleased with you two, as you haven’t tracked down those thieving scumbags yet.’

‘But–’

‘Hold on, Mark, I shouldn’t have said tracked, but kidnapped or captured. You haven’t got either of those bastards strapped into a chair so they can tell me where my fucking money is, have you?’

‘We’ve tracked down the big guy. We were at his place last night, but he didn’t show up.’

‘Right, right, that’s progress of sorts, but correct me if I’m wrong: there’s two of those bastards in this little enterprise?’

Russell nodded.

‘The big guy and the little guy?’

He nodded again.

‘My money’s on the big guy being the muscle and the little guy being the brains.’

‘Could be.’

‘Maybe you’re chasing the wrong one. What if you grab the big guy and he tells you fuck all? Could be all the details are in the little guy’s head.’

‘I’ll make him tell us,’ Mason said.

‘How?’

‘The usual: pull out his fingernails, burn him with a fag, break his fingers.’

‘You’ll do that?’

‘Yeah, I will.’

‘Sounds like a plan. Now convince me you can nab him.’

‘We know where he lives,’ Russell said. ‘We’ll sit outside his gaff and wait for him to come back.’

‘Mmnn. Okay, listen up guys.’

They moved closer.

‘You are to do nothing else, and I mean no boozing, clubbing, nothing until you nab this fat bastard. Right?’

They nodded.

‘Once you’ve got him, you are to squeeze every little bit of information out of him. If he doesn’t know where the money is, he has to tell you where you can nab the little guy. You are to grab him and do the same to him. I want my money back. Am I being clear enough?

Russell and Mason nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘This is the only thing I want you both working on, but remember, this is your last chance.’ He stared at them both, a steely look in his eye. They nodded again.

‘This is Monday. I’m giving you ‘til Friday. The two thieves can be dead or in hospital, I don’t care, as long as I have my money back, So, don’t come back to me empty-handed. Do you understand?’

Chapter Fifty-One

Henderson returned to his office on Monday afternoon armed with a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry. To hell with clean eating. There were times, and this was one of them, when nothing was more satisfying than a nice cup of coffee and a decent snack.

The reason for his change in outlook? He could now see some light at the end of the tunnel. Armed with Buster’s address, he had placed a couple of cars in the roads outside waiting for him to show up. He knew nabbing one of the team wouldn’t be the end of this case, more like the beginning of the end.

Once in custody, Buster could lawyer up and refuse to say anything, despite the compelling but circumstantial evidence they could throw at him. Nevertheless, armed with his real name, they could track down friends and family and, with luck, it would lead them to other members of his thieving and murdering crew.

The DI had also put surveillance on Patrick Watson. It wasn’t his intention to arrest him yet, as they didn’t have any evidence against him, less than levelled at Buster, but if they were able to nab Buster and he implicated Watson, they would be ready to move.

What he couldn’t get his head around was why Watson was involved in this. If the case ever came to trial, the DI could hear in his head the learned voice of the prosecuting counsel:

‘What you have before you, ladies and gentleman of the jury, is a case suffused in nothing but greed. In short, the accumulation of more and more wealth for each of the accused.’

This would be the simplest story, and the easiest one for a jury to understand. Henderson, however, believed the case was more nuanced, as targeting only one of the IFI’s would have netted the killers fifty to a hundred million pounds, so much better than robbing a security van, holding up a post office, or doing a bank job. So why did they go on to kill another, then another? There had to be something else behind their motivation other than purely money.

Henderson could think of several reasons. Perhaps it had something to do with the most successful performers, as the killers had picked three of the best. Maybe it was a disaffected client of all three, but that sounded too far-fetched. Same with a serial killer going after all three because he knew the men all worked from home. In which case, why was the laptop, containing access to all the investments, taken?

Instead, it suggested the person behind it knew about the investments and how to dispose of them. Therefore, it had to be someone with sound financial knowledge, more than likely someone from the industry; someone like Patrick Watson. If so, what lay behind it had to be a vendetta between Watson and all three victims. What had sparked it would be anyone’s guess. Maybe they would uncover it once they had one of the gang in an interview room; or perhaps they would never know.

Henderson’s phone rang. It was Phil Bentley, part of the surveillance team watching Buster’s house in Hangleton.

‘Hi Phil, how’s it going?’

‘No sign of our man yet. Although it’s too early according to a local guy I talked to.’

‘Really?’

‘He lives in the house opposite and when he was out sweeping the path, I walked over and spoke to him.’

‘You don’t think he could be friendly with Buster and alert him to your presence?’

‘No chance. Buster hasn’t been in the house long enough to have met anyone, and the guy gave me the impression he doesn’t really know him. If you want my opinion, he’s one of those retired guys who keeps his eye on what happens in his neighbourhood. Not so much to spot antisocial behaviour or any wrongdoing, but to give him an interest.’

‘I see. Did he have anything to tell you about Buster’s movements?’

‘He’s out most of the day. Comes back around six in the evening, and is in the house until about eight. He goes out again, probably to a pub or club, as he often comes back around eleven, eleven-thirty, with another bloke in tow.’

‘The little guy we saw in Nancy Khan’s video?’

‘No, not him. Our man thinks they’re men he’s picked up. He says Buster’s gay. It’s another reason I don’t see him being friendly with Buster; I got the impression he doesn’t like them.’

‘Right. The presence of another individual gives us a problem if we decide to wait until he comes back after clubbing. No, we’ll need to nab him in that little window between six and eight.’

‘It’ll be dark around that time, so that’s in our favour.’

‘I would prefer to grab him on his return from the pub, he would be tired and perhaps worse for wear, and we could choose our time. In the early evening, it only gives us a short time span and he’s likely to be more alert and maybe a bit wary.’

‘I see what you mean.’

Henderson looked at his watch: 16:45. ‘We’ve got about an hour to put something together at this end. It should be enough time. Call me as soon as he comes back.’

‘Will do.’

‘Also, try and get a sense from the way he’s walking and behaving to determine if he’s rushing back to collect something, or he’s more relaxed, intending to be there for a couple of hours, maybe getting ready for a night on the town.’

‘Will do.’

‘Talk to you later.’

In terms of a team, he would need a door banger, a couple of uniforms and one or two detectives. With no suggestion of firearms being used in the murders of the IFIs, he wouldn’t require the services of an armed response team. This was a difficult call, because even though a criminal hadn’t used firearms while offending, there was no telling what weapons he had available in his house. Nevertheless, he would stand by his original decision: no firearms team.

He got up from behind his desk and walked towards the Detectives’ Area. The main task now was grabbing some bodies who hadn’t yet packed up their things and were about to head home.

Chapter Fifty-Two

‘I prefer dealing with Dave when he’s angry,’ Russell said as he drove. ‘Not this happy-clappy Dave with a smile that could cut through steel. At least then, you know what you’re dealing with.’

‘Me too,’ replied Mason. ‘Him smiling and saying, how are you boys? fucking creeped me out.’

‘You got the message, though?’

‘Sure, it’s our last chance.’ He paused a second or two, thinking. ‘Do you think, last chance means the bit before he pulls us out and puts someone else on the case? Or, is it, we’ve wasted enough time on this, we need to pack it in?’

‘It wouldn’t be the second one, I’m sure,’ Russell said. ‘This is money we’re talking about; a lot of Dave’s money. He’s not going to give it up without a fight.’

‘What then?’

‘It means it’s the last chance for us.’

‘What, he’ll kick us out of the business?’

‘Could do, and–’

‘Shit! What else could I do? I’ve worked for Dave since I left school.’

‘Maybe,’ Russell said, laughing, ‘he’ll write you some references.’

‘Yeah, how would that sound? He’s great at unloading bags of drugs from the back of a van at three in the morning.’

‘Yeah, he’s very persuasive at dealing with the public, especially when he sticks a Glock into their faces.’

They both laughed. They were heading to the address they had for Buster in a district of Brighton called Hangleton. After their meeting at Starbucks, Russell had returned to their rental before popping into a local shop to stock up on provisions needed for a long surveillance job. He and Mason would sit outside Buster’s house for as long as it took, day and night if need be, until the man in question made an appearance.

When they reached Northease Drive, they couldn’t find a parking place close to Buster’s gaff and made do with a space further up the road, but it still gave them a decent view of his front path.

‘This is a worse place for watching than the last gaff at Seven Dials. Here, it feels like suburbia: all bungalows and tidy gardens.’

‘I know,’ Russell said. ‘The presence of two strangers sitting in a motor will be lighting up the phones of everybody on the Neighbourhood Watch WhatsApp group.’

‘Yeah, Who are those strange men? Are they casing my house, or are they a couple of paedos watching the kids coming out of school?’

‘If it’s kids we’re after, we’d need to go back to school ourselves and learn how to tell the time; school finished a couple of hours ago.’

‘Yeah, you’re right, it’s gone six. Only after-school clubs and sports teams would come out as late as this.’

‘At least it’s getting dark, and the old folks might mistake us for some blokes trying to get away from a house full of noisy kids, or debt collectors for her at number 27 as she can’t hold a job for more than five minutes.’

‘Or a couple of guys intent on grabbing that fat bastard walking up the road.’

‘What? Is that him?’

‘It sure is.’

It was clear Buster had the same parking problem as they did, as he’d left his car further down the road. He ambled towards his house as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Little did he know his world was about to come crashing down in the next few minutes.

‘Let’s go grab him now,’ Mason said, reaching for the door handle.

‘Calm yourself mate. The blue-rinse brigade might be a bit short-sighted but there would be no mistaking the two of us jumping the big guy and trying to force him into his house or our car.’

‘We wouldn’t need to manhandle him. A gun in the ribs should do the trick.’

‘Yeah, that’s okay when he believes what you’re telling him, but what if he doesn’t? What if he thinks, and he’d be right, no way will you try to shoot him out in the street.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘We leave him until he gets into the house. Maybe he’s the sort of guy who, after a hard day, thinks there’s nothing better than putting on his slippers, pouring himself a whisky and taking a seat in his favourite armchair.’

‘I hate whisky.’

‘My point is, he’ll be easier to manipulate once he’s in the house. You can smack him about for a bit, not too much, but enough to let him know we mean business.’

‘Then?’

‘Then, we tie him to a chair and you can beat him some more until he tells us what he knows and where the little guy lives.’

‘I know you and Dave think the little guy is the brains–’

‘Why the hell don’t you? The big bastard looks as thick as fuck. Do you think he could have planned all this? I mean, they scouted out all those financial guys, killed them in places where the cops wouldn’t find clues, and stole their laptops with access to big financial investments.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Make no mistake, this is a million-quid criminal enterprise, bloody ingenious if you ask me, and making better money than Dave ever did.’

‘You think?’

‘You bet.’

‘We should move now.’

‘Wait,’ Russell said.

He had been watching the lights going on in the house. They didn’t show the movements of a man sitting in his front room watching television, but someone heading around upstairs: in the bathroom, in the bedroom, back to the bathroom. A man getting himself ready to go out for a night on the town, perhaps.

When the bathroom light went out and didn’t go back on again, he told Mason it was time to move. They stepped out into the crisp and cold November air.

‘Christ, it’s freezing,’ Mason said, ‘I should have brought my Parka.’

‘A little exercise punching the big man’s torso will warm you up soon enough.’

‘Yeah, it sure will.’

Russell noticed a smile playing on Mason’s lips. He’d met only a few people in the drugs business who liked to mete out violence for its own sake, as most considered it a means to an end, not an end in itself. Did Mason’s enjoyment of it make him a psycho?

It wouldn’t be a problem if he kept the violence within the drugs business, as there was plenty of that around, but for a bit of light relief, what if he started beating up and murdering other people, such as the Albanians he didn’t like? He would have to talk to Dave about it.

They were about twenty metres from Buster’s house when, to Russell’s astonishment, he heard the hurried opening and closing of several car doors in front of them, hidden temporarily from view by the van just up ahead on their right. Seconds later, six people, including two uniformed coppers, appeared and made a bee-line for Buster’s house.

He placed a hand in front of Mason’s chest to stop him walking.

‘What is it?’ he asked, looking up from his phone.

He pulled Mason into the shadow of the van, then nodded towards the people now gathered on the steps outside Buster’s front door. ‘Look, it’s a cop raid,’ Russell hissed. They watched in rapt fascination as the officer at the front lifted a metal door basher, and within two strikes, had smashed the door open. The folks behind all piled inside.

‘We need to get the fuck out of here!’ Mason said. ‘C’mon.’

Russell didn’t hear what Mason was saying as he was led robot-like, back to the car. The crashing of Buster’s door became a metaphor for the lives of him and Mason going forward. It was a disaster of mega proportions. If Buster was charged and held on remand, their chances of recovering Dave’s money had plummeted from highly possible, to zero.

Dave wouldn’t see it as an audacious coup by clever cops, reaching the criminal before they could. He would see it as a giant fuck-up, and the two people responsible would be standing right in front of him as he reached for a knuckleduster, a baseball bat, or more likely, a gun.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Henderson put the phone down. He had been talking to Kelly, telling her he would be late home. He’d called after speaking to DCI White to inform him about Buster, aka Charlie Bamforth, who they now had in custody.

When he and five other officers had entered the house in Northease Drive in Hangleton, they’d found the suspect in a state of undress, having just come out of the shower. Any plans he had to spend the night in the gay bars and clubs of Brighton were cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Henderson took a cursory look around the house as Buster was being made ready. It was surprisingly neat and tidy for a single bloke. This was in part due to it being a rental he hadn’t occupied for long, as most people didn’t fill them with all their personal things, but also the fastidious nature of the man himself, who dressed for a night in the cells in a flowery waistcoat and bow tie.

If Henderson was expecting to see at least three laptops lying on a table he would have been disappointed, and in the brief conversations he had with Buster, he didn’t strike the DI as the brains behind the outfit. Nevertheless, he instructed forensics to give the house the once-over, and if they found nothing else but the contact details of his little mate, it would be considered a successful evening’s work.

Henderson and the other members of the team were now back in the office, awaiting the arrival of Buster’s solicitor from the prestigious London law firm of King and Taylor. Henderson wondered who Buster had called, as he imagined the number of this solicitor wasn’t one he could recall from memory. Could the call have been to the little guy, or to Patrick Watson? If he was a betting man, his money would be on the latter.

Of course, if his theory about the robberies was correct, each member of this small but murderous crew could, without too much trouble, afford the services of the most expensive lawyers in the land. They had access to millions. All in all, it made Henderson’s job so much harder.

Henderson received a call fifteen minutes later to say the solicitor was now with his client. Henderson left them a further twenty minutes to complete their briefing before he and Walters walked over to the interview rooms.

‘Heard anything back from forensics?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. To be honest, I’m not expecting much as his place looked pretty clean. I think most of the detail will be known to the little guy.’

‘Well, it’s a good job we’ve got Buster’s phone, isn’t it? His details are bound to be on there.’

‘I do hope so.’

Interview Room three was up ahead.

‘Carol, Buster’s high-priced defence brief may try to bully or steamroller us, but neither of us should feel intimidated. We’ve got Buster bang to rights with Nancy Khan’s door video footage. There’s no way he can squirm away from that.’

‘Noted.’

They walked inside. Henderson could have seen without having any prior information that the man sitting beside the accused wasn’t a duty brief or one of the locals; the neatly trimmed grey hair, the sharp lines of his light-blue suit, and the air of confidence, or perhaps arrogance, couldn’t help but give him away.

Buster was as big as he looked in the video: tall and broad, but not in a muscled way, more like fat spread evenly all over his frame. He had a big, open and jovial face that looked used to smiling and laughing, but being in here was as far away from that as anyone could get.

‘Good evening, Inspector I hope this will not take long.’

‘Good evening, gentlemen. We’ll do introductions once we have set up the tape.’

When it was done, Henderson started. ‘I am Detective Inspector Henderson, Sussex and Surrey Major Crime Team.’

‘Detective Sergeant Walters, Sussex and Surrey Major Crime Team.’

The brief nudged Buster. ‘Charlie Bamforth, but everyone knows me as Buster.’

‘Reginald Stanhope, Buster’s defence barrister.’

‘Thank you. Now, Buster,’ Henderson said, ‘you are charged with the murder of Kieran Rafferty on Monday, 28th October at his sister’s house in Esher, Surrey, and the theft of his laptop containing a portfolio of investments, which we believe have now been sold.’

Buster shrugged. ‘No comment.’

‘What evidence do you have, Inspector; a door bell camera? Many of those as you know, are unreliable. The pictures could have been faked.’

‘I’m surprised at you, Mr Stanhope, doubting clear evidence of wrongdoing. The time stamp of the recording, ten-thirty in the morning, concurs closely with the pathologist’s findings on Mr Rafferty’s time of death.’

‘Pathology techniques for identifying times of death are notoriously variable, as you well know, Inspector. If this case comes to court, which I doubt, I will be making this point strenuously to the jury.’

‘As is your prerogative. However, we believe your client has also been involved in two other such robbery-killings. For the murder of Jeff Delaney, we have a witness who identified a man fitting Buster’s description. For the murder of Kieran Rafferty, we not only have the video evidence, but the accused attacked Mr Rafferty a week earlier while he was out running in Steyning. Mr Rafferty gave us a good description of his attacker, and there is no doubt in my mind it is the accused sitting next to you.’

‘I haven’t had the time to review all the evidence but I’m sure when I do, you will not be so confident of a prosecution.’

‘I am confident all the evidence will hold up in court and therefore your client will not only be charged with each of those serious offences, he will be held on remand, and scheduled for trial in the new year.’

‘You said you would get me off,’ Buster said, his face in an exaggerated pout. It was clear he was upset at the threat of losing his freedom, but nevertheless, the high-pitched voice sounded unbecoming for a man of such large stature.

‘If your client is willing to divulge the name and whereabouts of his partner in the video, the man who can be seen in this photo,’ Henderson said, as Walters passed one over from the folder lying in front of her, ‘and also the name of the man we believe is selling the stolen investments, we may be willing to eliminate some of the lesser charges.’

Stanhope leaned over and said something to Buster. He replied and the two of them had a whispered conversation. When finished, Stanhope looked at Henderson. ‘Can we postpone this interview until tomorrow, Inspector? I need more time to review the evidence and discuss your offer with my client.’

‘Let’s say ten tomorrow.’

‘Thank you.’

Chapter Fifty-Four

Mark Russell couldn’t get hold of Dave Chesson on Monday night. As he hung up he remembered Dave would be engrossed in his monthly poker night, a game he played with some business associates and a few fellow criminals.

Rumours had been rife in the warehouse for years about it being a scam: Dave teaming up with Ray Mann, a large, tattooed, and muscled black guy, to fleece the businessmen. The stakes were high enough to warrant such behaviour as often the pot stood at over one hundred grand.

Russell managed to get hold of Dave this morning, Tuesday, by which time the news had been published on various websites about the unnamed man arrested by Sussex Police the night before. He was being charged with murder and the theft of a large sum of money. No way would he be tasting fresh air this side of the decade.

The previously smiling Dave was back to his old self: incandescent with rage at hearing the news. His mood wasn’t helped by losing thirty grand at the previous night’s poker game. He and Mason were told to pack up the Brighton search and head to the warehouse in Bermondsey without delay.

Russell would be sorry to leave Brighton as the place had a nice vibe, and the weather was a tad warmer and less dreary than south London. Mason, on the other hand, would be pleased to see it in his rear-view mirror. He hated all the gays, the LGBT+ colour bands worn by their followers, and the frivolous nature of the place: everybody intent on having a good time, nobody serious enough for his liking.

‘This is so fucking stupid packing it in so soon,’ Mason said. ‘We should go after the little guy.’

‘So you’ve said before, and I’ll say what I said to you at the time: we know fuck-all about the little guy, where he is, where he hangs out. We only found out about Buster because he was gay.’

‘Maybe the little guy is one of them as well, have you thought of that?’

‘Maybe,’ Russell said, as he parked the car outside the Bermondsey warehouse.

‘We could talk to some of the geezers we talked to before, like Wazza.’

‘He told us he didn’t know the little guy.’

‘Yeah, but through him we might find someone who does.’

‘Suggest it to Dave.’

‘I think he’s moved beyond that.’

‘Let’s find out, shall we?’

They got out of the car and walked towards the warehouse. The boys working inside were subdued, giving them awkward looks. It was obvious Dave had been sounding off, or they had been earwigging outside his office.

They climbed the stairs to the office and walked inside and closed the door. Dave was on the phone and he motioned them to the two seats in front of his desk. To an outsider, he looked exactly like the manager of a car parts warehouse. This was the illusion he wanted people to see, although if anyone could hear the numerous phone calls he fielded they would soon know he was arranging drug deals and not the delivery of carburettors and air filters.

‘The wanderers return,’ he said as he chucked his phone on the desk, ‘empty-fucking-handed. Did I not say don’t return empty-handed?’

‘You did, Dave, but we were right there, about to go in after him when the cops arrived.’

‘Then you should’ve moved for him ten minutes earlier. You should’ve discovered the bastard’s address a day or two earlier. I’m disappointed with the way you handled the whole fucking thing.’

‘That’s a bit unfair–’

‘How the fuck is it unfair, Tom?’ Dave said, his voice only a few decibels off shouting. ‘I sent you to recover my dough, and did you come back with it? No fucking way.’

‘But–’

‘No buts. Buster, the fat fucker who stole my dough, is now in police custody. If I’m reading the news right, he won’t see daylight for another twenty fucking years. I’ll never get my fucking money, right?’

‘You might if we find his partner, the little guy,’ Russell said, in a voice a lot calmer than it should have been.

‘Explain, but this better not be another fucking excuse to try and calm me down as I’m ready to throw you two bastards in the Thames.’

‘We think Buster is the muscle behind the crew, not the brains. The reason we wanted to nab him wasn’t to find out what he did with the money, as we don’t think he would know, but to tell us where to find the little guy.’

‘How are you gonna do that with the fat fuck in jail?’

‘We met a few geezers in Brighton who knew him. We can use them to lead us to the little guy.’

‘When we get him,’ Mason said, ‘I’ll make sure he tells us where he keeps the money.’

‘Will you fuck. You’re out, Tom.’

‘What d’ya mean, I’m out?’

‘You’re off the team, pal. You fucked up so you’re off. Get the fuck out.’

Mason retorted in a raised voice, but Dave’s face was impassive: he wasn’t for moving. With some reluctance, Mason got up and walked out. Russell noticed as the door opened, Big Stu was standing outside; not a good sign.

Russell wanted to ask why he was there but he knew he couldn’t. Dave ran the crew his way and couldn’t stand anyone questioning his methods.

‘Right,’ Dave said, ‘you do this, Mark. You go after the little guy but make no mistake, cousin or no, don’t come back without, you hear what I’m saying?’

‘Loud and clear.’

‘Off you go.’

Russell walked downstairs. The mood of the warehouse team was sombre and he could see them casting occasional glances towards the office at the back. He turned to see what was interesting them, but he had a good idea. Through the not-so-clean window above the closed door he could see Big Stu and another tough character, Gary Town, punching and kicking someone who was below the window and out of sight. He knew without asking: it was Tom Mason.

Dave had ordered Mason’s punishment for his transgressions, but also as a warning to Russell: fuck this up and you’ll end up in the same place. He hurried through the warehouse without speaking or looking at anyone, and let out the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding only when he was behind the wheel of his car. He drove away from the warehouse, vowing never to come back.

Chapter Fifty-Five

In the twelve-hour recess called by Buster’s brief, Henderson had returned to his office, packed his things and headed for home. This morning, he was back in the office preparing for the next round with Buster and his high-paid lawyer.

His big fear now with Buster in custody was that his colleagues-in-crime would take fright and disappear forever. With the money they had stolen, and knowing how close Henderson’s team had come to catching them, he doubted they would try and pull the same trick somewhere else. Instead, they would probably lie back on the deck of their yacht, or on the beach of a sun-kissed island and congratulate themselves at how clever they had been.

The evidence against the little guy in the video was as strong as the evidence they had against Buster, but what they had against Patrick Watson, the man they believed was behind the whole operation, was tenuous at best. For sure, he was the common denominator linking all three victims, but what it represented was anybody’s guess.

If Buster refused to cooperate and the little guy remained elusive, he would have no option but to pull in Patrick Watson. Surveillance was being maintained on Watson so Henderson knew where he would be when it came time to arrest him. Also, the surveillance would tell him if Watson, and maybe the little guy, were preparing to run. The detectives in the surveillance car were instructed to follow Watson wherever he went, but if he bolted fearing arrest and spotted the tail, he would most likely succeed in shaking it off as it was easy to do with only one car following.

Walters appeared at the door. ‘Are you ready, gov?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ he said, as he stood and picked up his papers.

‘Do you think Buster will be interested in making a deal?’ she asked as they walked.

‘Who knows? I think it could go either way. Now Stanhope’s had a better look at the evidence, he might consider it a bit flaky and convince Buster he should take his chances at trial.’

‘On the other hand,’ Walters said, ‘he might not have any allegiance to his colleagues and won’t mind chucking them under a bus.’

‘Let’s see,’ he said, pushing open the door to the interview room. After a recess, Henderson liked to examine the faces of the brief and the client. If both were glum and not speaking, it often indicated a disagreement between the two parties. If the brief looked confident, but his client didn’t, it meant he felt he could present a strong defence in court, but his client believed he was being railroaded into it.

If smiling and talking, as they were now, it indicated no disagreement; client and brief were in perfect harmony. He wondered what song they were singing.

When Walters had finished setting up the recording gear, Henderson faced Stanhope. ‘Mr Stanhope, I trust you’ve had time to review all the evidence against your client and have considered my offer to drop some of the lesser charges in return for passing on some information about his colleagues?’

‘My client is facing three murder charges, inspector. Dropping the attempted kidnap charge isn’t cutting much ice.’

‘So, does that mean you are rejecting my offer?’

‘Not exactly. My client will tell you something that I’m sure will help you with this investigation, but in return you must do something for him.’

‘Okay, let’s hear it.’

‘Me and the guy you see in the picture you showed yesterday,’ Buster said, ‘might have done some of the things you said we did, but as Mr Stanhope says, I’m leaving you to prove it. I’m not giving you the whole thing on a plate.’

‘I see.’

‘The guy in the video with me, let’s call him Barry, not his real name. Barry was a bit of a tea-leaf when he was younger, did some housebreaking with this friend, a lad called Liam. One night they broke into a house and were pursued by a big dog. They ran across gardens, climbed fences, pulled over bins, but still the dog followed. They ran up an embankment alongside a canal when Liam slipped and fell in. Barry stopped to help, but when he had almost reached Liam’s outstretched hand, the dog leapt on him. He fought it, and managed to whack it with a big stick, causing it to run off. When he went back to the canal, Liam was nowhere to be seen.’

He stopped to take a drink of water.

‘Did Barry report Liam’s drowning?’ Walters asked.

‘He made an anonymous call to the local plod. They searched the canal the following day and two coppers in a rubber boat found his body.’

‘It’s a tragic story, Buster, but what’s it got to do with this case?’

‘I’m coming to that.’

‘Okay, carry on.’

‘Nobody knew of Barry’s involvement in Liam’s drowning, but one day, about a year back, and about five years on from Liam’s death, Barry received a call from Liam’s older brother. He told him he knew what the two of them had been doing that night and he blamed Barry for Liam’s death. To atone for this, he told Barry he needed to do something for him.’

‘What was that,’ Henderson said, ‘to attack the Independent Financial Investors?’

Buster nodded.

‘For the tape, Buster.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He wanted you to rob those IFIs and, let me guess, for Barry’s brother to sell the stolen investments?’

‘I can see why they made you a detective.’

‘Why did this person want to rob the IFIs?’

‘I dunno. It’s an easy way to make big money, I suppose.’

‘Is there no other reason you can think of? If someone has enough knowledge to sell the investments, chances are they work in the financial services industry, and as a result, are often well compensated.’

‘There’s no other reason that anybody’s told me.’

‘What’s his name, this brother of Liam’s?’

‘I told you this story so you could understand why Barry was doing this. You see, he’s been self-employed all his adult life, and he hated working for anyone, especially for a man who’s blackmailing him.’

‘I understand this is not a normal line of work for him and he’s doing it under sufferance, but he has to answer for his crimes. Give me his name or the name of Liam’s brother.’

‘I’m not going to do that.’

‘You said at the beginning, Mr Stanhope, that if Buster gave me valuable information, which I don’t think he has, he wanted something in return. I’m curious to know what that is.’

‘During the recess,’ Buster said, ‘I had decided to give you the name of Liam’s brother, but I’ve changed my mind. In return, I wanted you to offer protection to Barry in the event of Liam’s brother being freed. He’s a very dangerous man, and if he felt that I, or Barry had betrayed him, he would kill us both.’

Chapter Fifty-Six

Early on a normal Wednesday morning, Patrick Watson would be found sitting on the six-ten train into London, The Financial Times opened in front of him, joining the hordes of other commuters heading into the City, and some like himself, to Canary Wharf. Instead, he was at home in bed and lying beside Marissa, the delightful lady who worked in the coffee shop at his golf club.

He had left work two weeks before, citing a need to address a fictitious health issue. He had enjoyed his leaving party, filled as it was with much gaiety, laughter, and debauchery: drunks doing daft things, various folks snorting coke in the toilets, and a liberal dose of shagging in the corridors.

He left with the well-wishes of the managing director and the voices of many of his colleagues ringing in his ears: When you’ve recovered, drop me a line and I’m sure we’ll find a suitable place to utilise your considerable talents. If only they knew.

Why did he need to work? His goal all along had been to get rid of Goodman, Delaney, and Rafferty; selling their investments had been an after-thought, his way of sticking two fingers up to the ungrateful bastards he had made rich in his day job. But even he was surprised by the volume and value of investments held by each man.

His job at Gaynor Reed had left him middle-class rich, but now with selling the stolen investments, it took him into a different league altogether. Before, he could stay in a five-star hotel or rent a villa on a sunny island, now he could buy the hotel or own the whole island. If criminal enterprises were allowed to appear in The Sunday Times Rich List, he was confident he would achieve his life’s ambition and see his profile featured there.

The question running through his head was where to go from here. He had always liked the James Bond novels and fancied, like the author Ian Fleming, owning an estate in Jamaica, where he would sit on the veranda writing a thriller novel or his memoirs. With the money he had now, it was no longer an idle daydream to distract from a boring train journey or a tedious article about Treasury bonds or the government’s economic policy; a Jamaican estate was within his reach if he wanted it.

The pleasant fug was interrupted when his phone rang. As he reached for the vibrating and noisy device, he noticed Melissa didn’t stir. No wonder she was often late for work.

‘Hello Dutch,’ he said, ‘this is a bit early for you.’

‘I suppose so, but it’s never too early for bad news, is it?’

‘What do you mean? What’s happened?’

‘Buster’s been arrested.’

‘He’s what? How?’

‘I went around to his house this morning as we had arranged to go out for breakfast, but I got no reply. While I was standing there an old guy from across the road came over and told me a contingent of police came around last night and carted him off.’

‘My God, that’s terrible!’

‘If you had been up early this morning and looked at the news, and I mean the national news not just the local Sussex version, you would have seen he’s been charged with murder.’

‘How come?’ Watson said in genuine disbelief. ‘They can’t have anything on him. You did them all out in the open where you said it wouldn’t leave any clues.’

‘We were fine with the first two, but Rafferty was different. We had to do him in a house.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I told you at the time it was a bad idea to go back, and doing anything inside a house leaves clues, but you were insistent.’

‘I was, wasn’t I, but I relied on your professionalism to see it through.’

‘There’s no point in crying over spilt milk, we need to move on. I’m leaving today and, as I consider my debt to you paid, this is goodbye. We’ll never see one another again.’

‘Wait. I don’t want you to go, I want to do more. The adrenaline rush I get each time we do it is exhilarating and not something I’ve ever experienced before. It’s better than sex.’

‘What’s better than sex?’ a sleepy voice said. ‘I’ve never had any complaints.’

‘It’s just an expression, Melissa. Go back to sleep.’

‘If that’s what you think of me, you’ve got a lot of making up to do before I’ll let you near me again.’

‘Who are you talking to?’

‘Melissa, she’s…anyway.’

‘If you want to roll a few more financial guys, you’ll have to find someone else or do it yourself.’

‘C’mon Dutch, tell me you didn’t enjoy it.’

‘I’m enjoying the money for sure, it’s way better than any other job I’ve pulled, but now I’ve had enough. I’m out.’

‘Listen mate,’ Watson growled, ‘you’re out when I say you’re out.’

‘Bollocks. I did what I did as I felt I owed you, but I don’t feel that way anymore. What are you going to do about it, anyway? I’m in Brighton heading off to God-knows-where, and you’re in bed in Orpington with the lovely Melissa.’

‘You forget, Dutch, we grew up in the same area. I know where your folks live, and as I’ve told you before, let me down and I’ll go after them.’

‘You wouldn’t, you’re too much of a coward.’

‘Don’t push me Dutch.’

Dutch sighed. ‘Thanks to all the money we’ve been making, I moved my folks to a new place. Yours, I note, moved away some time before.’

‘What? You didn’t tell me.’

‘Why would I when I knew you would react like this?’

‘But why go? We were so good together!’

‘Buster’s arrest is the reason. While I’m confident he’ll not rat on us, who knows what they’ll pick up from his phone and laptop, not to mention when they search through his stuff.’

‘Shit, you’re right. I didn’t think of that.’

‘Goodbye Patrick, I’m confident we’ll never meet again, but if we do, I hope it’s not across the dock at the Old Bailey.’

The phone went dead. He cradled the silent device, thinking.

He’d felt panic when first hearing of Buster’s arrest, but calmed when Dutch said he wouldn’t rat on them; he also believed he wouldn’t. He hated the idea of giving up the attacks, even though it had sated the hatred he felt for the three men, he was addicted to the good feeling the whole process gave him.

He got up from bed and started dressing. ‘Hey Melissa, wake up.’

‘What, after another shag, are you? You’ll get nothing from me without an apology for your earlier gaffe.’

‘No, it’s not that. I need you to go.’

‘Go where?’ she said, easing herself up. ‘You said last night we would spend the day together. You were going to take me to Le Provence for a long, boozy lunch, or was there something wrong with my hearing?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with your hearing. This is nothing to do with you, it’s me. I have to go out. Our day together is cancelled, I’m afraid.’

‘Typical,’ she said, getting out of bed, and looking more awake than before. She started dressing, but it didn’t take long: only underwear and a dress. Her jacket was downstairs on the hall stand. ‘You’re the same as all the rest, promise me whatever just to get me in the sack. Next day, when the hangover and regret kick in, there’s something else you’d rather be doing.’

‘It’s not like that. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry doesn’t cut it, you creep,’ she spat, as she pushed past him, ‘and don’t you dare talk to me when you’re next in the club. In fact, you might be too embarrassed to show your face at all as I’ll be doing whatever I can to blacken your name. Goodbye loser, I’ll see myself out.’

In the normal course of events, Melissa’s outburst would have worried him, as he liked her, and much of his social life, and the majority of his outdoor exercise, took place at the golf club. However, Buster’s arrest had changed everything. He had to get away from Orpington and the life he had carved for himself as soon as possible.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Buster’s reluctance to name names and further implicate himself wouldn’t stop the DI charging him with all the offences on the table: the attack and attempted kidnap of Kieran Rafferty at Steyning, the murder of all three IFIs, and the theft of their investments.

When Henderson had conducted the interview with Buster, he didn’t have in front of him the contents of the big man’s phone or laptop. Then, he had only been charged with Kieran Rafferty’s murder. Now, with a myriad of texts from someone called ‘Dutch’, who he assumed was ‘Barry’ in the story of Liam’s drowning, and also Buster’s companion in the door camera video, he had clear evidence of Buster’s involvement in all three murders.

The texts contained details such as the address of the IFI that Buster and Dutch would be heading to, and the name of their target. It all tied to the names and addresses of the three victims. Several of the texts had the initials DAR at the end, which he had been informed meant ‘Delete After Reading’. For some reason Buster hadn’t done this.

It meant no matter how hard Stanhope would try to manipulate and influence the jury at Buster’s trial, the big guy couldn’t wriggle out of this one. Once the DI had presented the evidence to Stanhope, and charged Buster with those other offences, he fully expected Stanhope to call for a meeting to see if Henderson would consider making a deal.

He would be disappointed to know the deal was no longer on the table. Not only did they have the texts sent to Buster from Dutch, they also had Dutch’s phone number. With this information, they could track his geographic location. At the moment, he was on the move and, as those systems utilised GPS on satellites, there was an inherent delay.

This, he assumed, meant Dutch had heard about Buster’s arrest and had decided to cut and run. Anticipating this, his journey was being monitored to ensure he wasn’t heading for an airport, train station, or ferry terminal.

In addition, a team consisting of Phil Bentley and Seb Young were following in the same general direction. At this stage, they didn’t know which car he was driving, but were under instruction to nab him at the place where he stopped for the night.

He was about to put a call through to the other team outside Patrick Watson’s house when Lisa Newman, who was coordinating the tracking of Dutch, walked into his office.

‘Just to let you know, gov, Dutch has driven past Gatwick and Heathrow airports without stopping, which is good news, and is now heading west down the M4.’

‘He’s right to be avoiding airports because as soon as he turned in there, we would alert the airport authorities and have him arrested. He would have nowhere to run.’

‘So true. If there’s nothing else, I’ll carry on with the tracking.’

‘Thanks Lisa.’

He was about to reach for his phone when it started ringing. ‘Hi gov, It’s Vicky.’

‘Hi Vicky, I was about to call you. What’s up?’

‘I think Watson’s got wind of Buster’s arrest. I think he’s packing up.’

‘What do you see?’

‘Last night he went to the golf club and came back with a woman on his arm. This morning, she came storming out of the house, slammed the door behind her, and drove off in a screech of tyres.’

‘A lovers’ tiff?’

‘I think he chucked her out after a change of plan, probably a phone call about Buster, and she didn’t like it. At the moment, he seems to be dashing from room to room, stuffing his things into bags and dumping them beside his car.’

‘Sounds like he’s leaving too. We’ve also got a handle on Buster’s mate, a guy he calls Dutch. We’re following his car westbound on the M4.’

‘Good news.’

‘Are you well prepared to follow Watson?’

‘We’ve food and drink for at least a few days, and the car is full of fuel. We’re all set.’

‘With luck you might not have to go far, but if he does head further afield, be prepared for the longer haul.’

‘I know. Oh, hang on a sec…Watson is coming out of his house. He’s carrying several bags.’ She paused a few seconds. ‘He’s loading everything into the boot of his car.’

‘I don’t think it’ll be bags of money,’ Henderson said laughing, ‘but something much duller like bedding or groceries.’

‘True.’

‘He drives several cars from what I understand, which one is this?’

‘It’s a large Audi estate, a boring car by his standards, and one to deter thieves and to please the neighbours, I think. His two sports cars are in the garage.’

‘I think he’ll be sorry to leave them behind.’

‘With all the money he and his pals have stolen from the IFIs, I imagine he doesn’t care. He could easily replace them.’

‘Give me the reg of the Audi and we’ll track him with ANPR in case you lose him.’

She gave the details to him.

‘Right, I’ll leave you to get on, but keep me posted of any major developments.’

‘Will do, gov. Bye.’

He would be interested to see if Watson followed the same route as the little guy. If what Buster had told them in the interview was true, about the little guy being blackmailed by Watson to carry out the robberies; perhaps now with their cover blown, he wanted to get away from his blackmailer as fast as he could.

If later they found Watson was travelling west, it would suggest to him the blackmail story was a load of bull, and they were planning to get together to start again. However, the drowning of Liam Watson was real enough, as Lisa Newman had tracked down the original news story. The surname of the dead man was interesting, the same as the man Vicky and Sally were about to follow, further implicating Patrick Watson in the murder of three IFIs.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Mark Russell had been driving around Brighton without aim or purpose. He had told Dave he would shake down the contacts they had for Buster, but he had no reason to believe the little guy was gay, so he’d been spouting crap just to get out of Dave’s office with his organs intact.

Dave walked around with an undercurrent of violence which bubbled to the surface if ever any of his stuff, particularly money or drugs, went missing. It didn’t matter if it was a couple of million handed to an investment guy, or one of their dealers was short by a few hundred, Dave would see it as a slight on his leadership of the crew and go mental.

He had seen former dealers with broken arms and legs, electrical burns on their torso, and in one case, someone who had rolled a dealer and stolen the night’s takings had their house torched.

The assault on Mason was in part to tell the crew who was boss, but also to send a warning to Russell - fuck this up and you’re next. He had to admit, as a way of motivating someone it appeared somewhere at the bottom of his list. What it did, though, was force him to come to a decision.

While driving around, he was trying to formulate a plan. He would try Wazza again, and while he probably wouldn’t know where to find the little guy, he might know someone who did. Even that plan was flawed. With so much money at stake, he would imagine some other crews were in town looking for him as well.

The streets he was driving around were in Hangleton, the place where Buster had lived. Logic being, the two men had stayed within walking distance of one another before when they lived around Seven Dials, so why not now? Of course, the bird may have already flown the coop, but he had to try.

Two streets away from Buster, and one he had driven down about five minutes before, he struck gold. He spotted the little guy up ahead, putting something into the back of his car. Russell accelerated, hoping to block him, but the bastard jumped into the driver’s seat and drove away before he could get there.

‘Damn!’ he shouted as he banged the steering wheel in frustration. Upon reflection, his plan to block him was a gut reaction as it wasn’t a good place to grab anyone. It was a clear morning with lots of windows around, and a succession of people and cars driving past. No, he would follow him to his destination and grab him when he stopped.

He hadn’t come prepared for a long trip, with only a little food and one small bottle of water for company, although the car had plenty of fuel and he wasn’t needing a piss. If push came to shove and the little guy didn’t decide to make a toilet stop, the water bottle would probably be empty at that point and he would use it to relieve his bladder.

The little guy was driving a silver Nissan Qashqai, which looked like a nondescript hire, similar in shape and colour to ninety percent of the other cars on the road. He memorised the registration plate, in part to give him something to do, but also to ensure he didn’t follow the wrong car.

They travelled north on the M23 before joining the M25 clockwise. Russell had to be careful about his road position and not allow the Nissan to get too far ahead, as invariably they would meet traffic with lanes moving at differing rates, making it difficult to move between them at short notice. Travel conditions were good for early November; an early thick frost had disappeared, leaving the air chilled but clear.

Luckily, the Qashqai wasn’t moving fast or being driven recklessly so Russell found it easy to keep up. They made it to the M4 without drama and headed west. His stomach was rumbling, as he’d eaten little for breakfast in anticipation of a difficult meeting with Dave, and for an hour or so after, he couldn’t face eating anything.

He pondered the possibility of going off at a service station even if the car he was following didn’t. He could go to the toilet and buy some food, and on coming out, drive faster and probably catch up with the little guy, but decided against it. Even though the Qashqai was travelling at about sixty-five, on coming back onto the motorway Russell could come across an accident, slowing the traffic, or he could make good time and cover the miles, only to realise the target car had left the motorway at the previous junction. He had no choice: he would have to grin and bear it.

Many miles later, the sign appeared for Membury Services, one mile ahead. They had already driven past two service stations, and at each Russell had willed the Qashqai’s indicator light to flash. ‘You’re going off at this one, mate, I feel it in my bones,’ he said out loud. ‘Or should I say, my bladder insists on it.’

The Qashqai moved into the left lane, a good sign in Russell’s book, although the little guy had been driving as if he had swallowed the Highway Code: obeying all the signs and moving to the left after overtaking. This time he stayed there, and hallelujah, the left-hand indicator started to flash.

Russell had to be careful. If it was busy, he could be forced to park a distance away from the little guy’s car and not have visibility of him leaving. With luck, it wasn’t; he parked five spaces away and could still see the Qashqai without trouble.

Russell didn’t wait for the little guy to get out of his car, instead he crossed over to another line of parked cars and made a beeline for the toilets. It was such a relief to be in there, and for once he had time to read the adverts for breakdown services and period poverty: the stuff you could learn while taking a leak.

Ablutions complete, and enjoying the feeling of stupendous relief, it was time to hit the shops. In case they were heading for a trip through the Welsh valleys, to the likes of Anglesey or Pembroke, he decided to stock up. Unlike Mason, he wasn’t one for sweets and chocolate, and instead bought a couple of sandwiches, a pork pie, several cans of Coke, and a newspaper in case of any downtime.

Feeling pleased with himself, not only for the relief on his strained bladder but to have followed him this far, he retraced his steps back to his car. He almost dropped his booty in shock when he realised the Nissan had gone, a Ford Focus now in its place. Had he been rumbled, or had the little guy only stopped to go to the loo? He rushed back to his car, any thoughts of a relaxed lunch, nibbling on a cheese and ham sandwich while idly watching the empty Nissan, were blown out of the water with the effectiveness of a torpedo hitting a static ship.

He dumped his fare on the passenger seat and drove off while still putting on his seat belt. He slowed when he passed the petrol station, debating whether to go in and top-up or not, when he saw the Nissan, or at least a silver SUV, as it was too far off to be sure.

He turned towards the petrol station and sure enough, the little guy was standing among the pumps filling the Qashqai with fuel. He stopped and did the same. Russell kept filling his car until the little guy had gone into the office to pay and then come out. He stopped the pump even though the car wasn’t full. It would have to do.

He went in to pay and it was just his luck to get stuck behind a bloke buying a basketful of groceries. A staff member came over and had the sense to open another till and soon he was heading outside and back to the car. He accelerated hard on rejoining the M4 and in a matter of minutes spotted the Qashqai up ahead.

They were heading in the direction of Bristol and Wales, with many places in between such as Swindon and Chippenham, but at least he could discount the likes of Birmingham and the West Country, as this wasn’t the best way to reach them.

At the Bristol junction, the Nissan moved over to the right, leading to the Prince of Wales Bridge over the River Severn, the body of water separating England from Wales. Perhaps they were heading for a valleys trek after all.

On another day, he would have enjoyed the view of the broad expanse of the river; Wales in front, England in the rear-view mirror. In his youth he had been a keen coarse fisherman. Perhaps he would rekindle some of that passion in a post-Dave Chesson world.

Approaching Cardiff, he realised a valleys tour was off the agenda as the Nissan’s left indicator flashed. So, he has a bolt hole, or at least knows where he can hide for a spell in Cardiff?

He followed him all the way through the city, not too difficult with a twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit on many roads, out to what looked like a redeveloped part of the city signposted to Cardiff Bay.

He knew nothing about Wales except the docks area used to be called Tiger Bay. Then, it had a rough reputation with dingy pubs, prostitutes, and narrow streets full of shady characters. He supposed the old warehouses and docks had been razed and this new place of high-rise apartment blocks, a marina, and city centre eateries built in its place. Here endeth the sum total of his Welsh knowledge.

Twenty minutes later they stopped outside houses in Ludlow Street in a small town called Penarth. He parked the car and watched the little guy unload his car and walk into a house in the road using a key. He smiled with satisfaction as he knew tonight wouldn’t be a long stakeout. He would go and get something to eat and come back later and grab the little bastard.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Patrick Watson made a final check of the bags he had loaded into the car. He went back into the house and checked every room, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. At his cottage in the country, there was bedding, cutlery, and various toiletries, so he didn’t need to take much except food and his clothes.

In reality, all he needed to take was his credit cards and his laptop. The credit card would buy him anything he needed, and the laptop gave him access to all the money stolen by Dutch and Buster, which provided the means to pay for it.

The thing he didn’t know was how soon, or if ever, he would set foot in his house again. He felt sure the police didn’t have anything to implicate him in the murders, even if Buster spilled his guts and told them everything he knew. Buster’s verbal outings would be labelled the fantasies of a deranged mind by any good defence barrister. The only hard evidence of any wrongdoing was contained in his new phone and replaced laptop, and nobody was getting a look at either of those.

He had mixed feelings as he closed the front door and locked it shut. This had been his house for the last eight years, bought after he made a serious killing on some shares that he had owned. It was against the rules at Gaynor Reed to buy shares on your own account which you also bought as a trader for the firm. The logic being if the firm bought a large holding of shares in a company, it would push the share price up. Yes, yes, but rules like this were for the little people to follow, not for the likes of him.

It was a pity houses weren’t like cars. If you wanted to get shot of a hot car, all you had to do was take it to a rough housing estate and leave the keys inside. Oh, the freedom of youth.

He took a final look at the close where he and his neighbours had lived in almost total harmony, although if he brought a lady home, he always got a frosty reception from Gina in number six the following day. Almost without exception, they were happy years. His two main passions, golf and women, were catered for with memberships at the golf course and his local gym. He climbed into his car and drove off.

In movies, there was always a tear in the eye of the departing actor, but not for him and not today. In fact, he felt little emotion at all, not for all the women he dated and dumped, or those he soundly beat on the golf course. If he was a minister in the UK government, he would be the one who didn’t baulk at closing factories, or if an actor, the diva who didn’t mind upsetting the make-up artist, the play’s director, or the audience.

It wasn’t far from Orpington to the M25, and minutes later, at the Swanley Interchange, he joined the M20 heading east. He had done this journey dozens of times. He had bought the cottage as a sort of love-nest, a place to take his girlfriends without the disapproving looks of his female neighbours and the wink-wink attitude of their partners.

Of late, his female companions had come from closer to home: the married wife of a fellow golfer, and Melissa from the golf club coffee shop, so there was less need to woo them with walks in the country, drinks in a friendly local, and cosy evenings in front of the wood-burning stove.

The Audi estate had family-saloon written all over it, but with matte grey styling and badges removed, people were excused for not knowing it was the RS 6 Avant Performance version. For such a big car, it had a four-litre V8 engine, astounding acceleration and a top speed of one hundred and eighty miles per hour.

In Germany he had driven the car close to the maximum which was exhilarating and nerve-shredding at the same time. It was exhilarating to see the scenery zip past at a rapid rate, like pressing the fast-forward button on the remote while watching a movie. It was nerve-shredding as he had to continually watch the other lanes of traffic, looking for anyone not paying attention, and coming into the path of a car travelling at twice their speed. It was a good job the brakes were also excellent.

He tended to speed when driving on the M20, keen as he was to spirit his lover to his quaint little cottage in the country. This time he was also in a hurry, but because he wanted to feel safe. Part of feeling safe was keeping a close eye on his rear-view mirror. He had varied his speed once or twice and still a BMW containing two women followed a couple of cars behind.

The house was in Sutton Vallance in Kent and there were a number of ways he could approach it. The Maidstone junction was coming up and he decided to take it. He usually didn’t leave the motorway this early as it took him through the centre of Maidstone which was often choked with traffic, but he could use it to confirm if they were following him. If they were, he would try and lose them in Maidstone’s narrow streets.

He left his exit from the motorway to the last minute and suddenly shot off towards the Maidstone junction on the left. The BMW followed, leaving it even later and almost smacking the bollards separating the carriageways. Here was proof positive of a tail.

In Maidstone, he jumped the odd traffic light and soon the BMW was five or six cars behind with no hope of catching him. Heading south on the Sutton Road, he was so far in front of his pursuers they had lost sight of him, so he turned into a housing estate. He drove around for a few minutes and, after spotting a coffee shop on the satnav screen, he headed towards it. There, he enjoyed a cappuccino and a cinnamon swirl while his tail car was no doubt many miles behind.

He drove out of the housing estate with less confidence than he should have felt. If the two cops had kept on driving, he was in the clear, but if they had parked further up while trying to decide what to do, he could drive past them. His car may have been a family estate, but it was unusual in that there weren’t too many of them about; no wonder, as the model he drove cost north of one hundred thousand pounds.

A few minutes later, he left the road he was on and drove through small streets he had never driven before. He used the satnav to direct him to Avery Lane, then to the village of Langley Heath. The main road through Langley Heath was the road he usually drove when coming off the M20 at a later junction closer to his cottage, so he knew the way from there.

He drove from Langley Heath to Sutton Vallance, keeping his eyes peeled for the BMW. He knew the cops would not be waiting at the cottage as the house wasn’t in his name with it being owned by a company registered in Latvia.

He arrived there without incident and parked the car in the garage. He closed the garage door before removing his things, making sure the cops didn’t spot it by chance when driving past. He knew the odds of that happening were slim, as there were innumerable villages and roads where they could be instead.

He walked into the house and opened several windows to get rid of the musty smell with it being closed up for so long. Later, he would close them, put on the heating, and light the fire. Then with a whisky in his hand, he would decide how long he would stay and what he would do next.

Chapter Sixty

Phil Bentley and Seb Young were in a pool car following a Nissan Qashqai belonging to Buster’s companion-in-crime, Dutch. They didn’t know what car he drove when first starting out, but on a quiet stretch of the M4 they were pretty sure, and confirmed for certain when he stopped for a toilet break and fuel at Membury Services in Berkshire.

Having followed him all the way across the Prince of Wales Bridge into Wales, and past the perpetual traffic jam known as Newport, they lost him in Cardiff.

‘This is like Brighton,’ Seb said in frustration as they negotiated Cardiff’s busy streets. ‘I thought it was only the Greens who put in those stupid twenty-mile-an-hour speed limits.’

‘Maybe they have a Green council down here as well,’ Bentley replied.

They must have negotiated ten or twelve sets of traffic lights with the Nissan still ahead of them until they got caught in the wrong lane and had to wait until the traffic on their inside would allow them to merge. When they eventually took the correct turn, the Nissan was nowhere in sight.

No matter, back at the office they were using ANPR and the GPS signal from Dutch’s phone to keep track of its movements, so they wouldn’t lose him completely. In the end, the folks in the office tracked the car to a street in Penarth.

‘I think I’ve been here before,’ Seb said.

‘Why don’t you remember?’ Bentley asked, as he searched for a place to park.

‘It was such a long time ago. I had an aunt who was Welsh and we often came down to stay with her. She died when I was eleven, so I was quite young at the time, but I do remember there’s a nice beach with a pier.’

‘Sand or pebbles?’

‘Parts of it are sand and other parts pebbles, I think. I hate the pebbles on Brighton beach.’

‘Me too.’

Bentley parked the car a street away from where the Nissan was parked in Ludlow Street. Before getting out, he called DI Henderson.

‘Hi gov, we’ve arrived in Penarth.’

‘Good work both of you. We’ve got Dutch’s location, but of course GPS is only accurate to a couple of metres, so it could be one house, or the one next door. You can either look in the windows or knock on doors to confirm; use your judgement.’

‘We’ll try the first as there’s plenty of light and folks will still have their curtains open.’

‘I’ve contacted the locals. There’s a match on tonight at the Cardiff City Stadium and the inspector I’m dealing with won’t know what officers he’s got available until the match commander tells him what manpower he requires for the game.’

‘Okay.’

‘So, sit tight and grab something to eat. I expect an update from him around six-thirty.’

Bentley looked at his watch: five-ten. ‘No problem.

‘Talk to you later, Phil.’

They left the car. With Young walking on the side of Ludlow Street where Dutch’s house was, and Bentley on the other, they headed up the street. They tried to make their walk-past casual, as two men walking together might have screamed ‘cops’ to Dutch if he spotted them.

Close to the houses they thought Dutch was in. Bentley stopped in the shadow of a van and pulled out his phone as if receiving a call. Moments later, Dutch walked into the lounge, the main room Bentley could see, picked up something and walked out. Bentley had seen his photograph back at the office, and they’d walked past him at the service station, so he knew what he looked like and recognised him. He noted the house number and met Young at the top of the road.

‘Got him,’ Bentley said. ‘It’s the house with the blue door.’

‘Excellent. It wouldn’t do for the door basher to smash in the door and find it’s an old lady on her Zimmer frame.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. Let’s get some food.’

They walked into Penarth town centre and found a restaurant. It was early November and many holiday places like this, and in the Brighton area where he and Young lived, felt as though they were winding down after a busy holiday season: many shops were closed, few cars lined the main street, and the restaurant they were in was no more than half-full, although it was still early.

‘I think I’ll have the steak and a pint of the local ale.’

‘Fine, but limit it to only one drink. We don’t want to give the locals a reason to report us to the boss.’

‘No probs. You, I suspect, will either have the steak or the chicken. Got to keep your protein levels up.’

‘Too true. I’ve got a match on Saturday and if we beat them, we go top of the league.’

‘Good stuff.’

‘I wonder what brought Dutch down here.’

‘Maybe it’s the same situation as me. It could be the house of an aunt or some other relative. Mind you, those guys have been making so much money they could have bought a lot of houses all over the place.’

‘That would be true if they’ve pulled this sort of stunt several times in the past. With the victims we’re dealing with, I don’t think enough time has passed for them to have accumulated a lot of properties.’

‘I suppose. What do you think his plan will be?’

‘It’s hard to say how these guys think. They must know since Buster’s arrest airports and cross-Channel ferries are no-go areas. His and Watson’s pictures have been circulated to Border Force officers.’

‘Good, as soon as he tries to have it scanned by the reader, it’ll flash up on the screen and the border official will have him arrested.’

‘Which suggests he didn’t come here just to take advantage of Penarth’s proximity to Cardiff Airport.’

‘I suppose he’s got no choice but to hole up for a while until he’s no longer front-page news.’

‘Or any page in a newspaper, or on a website come to that.’

‘It does happen, though, doesn’t it?’ Seb said.

‘What?’

‘You know, we forget about them. Give it a couple of weeks, then another bonkers pronouncement by the American President, a natural disaster or a terrorist atrocity comes along, and everyone starts to focus on that.’

‘He might not be what everyone is reading about, but we won’t forget him, will we?’

The food came and as they hadn’t eaten much during a day of sitting in the car, they both didn’t hesitate to tuck in.

‘This is good,’ Seb said, between mouthfuls. ‘I love a good steak.’

‘It’s only a steak, Seb. In my experience they don’t vary much from restaurant to restaurant. My chicken, on the other hand, is covered in a spicy sauce with a flavour I don’t think I’ve ever tasted before.’

They finished the food, and once the near-clean plates had been taken away, Young ordered the sticky toffee pudding. Bentley decided to pass.

‘Don’t you do puddings? Saving your waistline?’ Young asked.

‘I do sometimes. I didn’t fancy any of the choices on the menu.’

‘I love ’em. I reckon it was school dinners that did it for me.’

‘Hang on,’ Bentley said, holding up a hand. He pulled out his ringing phone and answered it.

‘Hi Phil,’ DI Henderson said.

‘Hi gov.’

‘My Cardiff inspector has come good with your back-up. Four officers will be with you in about half an hour. They will meet you and Seb at the bottom of Ludlow Street at its junction with Glebe Street, for a briefing.’

‘Brilliant, we’ll be there. We’ve now pinpointed Dutch’s house.’

‘Excellent. Give me a call when you’ve got him.’

‘Will do, sir.’

‘Happy hunting.’

Chapter Sixty-One

Feeling refreshed, Mark Russell walked back to Ludlow Street. From what he had seen of Penarth, he liked the place. He knew it had a promenade with a pretty beach and pier at the bottom of the hill, as he had seen pictures of it on the wall of the restaurant. Perhaps he would settle down here once he had parted company with Dave Chesson.

While eating, he had been formulating a plan. He would extract Dave’s money from the little guy, move away, and Dave and his team would never see him again. He liked the drug business as he found it interesting, sourcing something that people wanted and selling it to them at prices they could afford: capitalism in action, someone once called it.

However, he had come to realise Dave was a psychotic nutjob. The way he had Tom Mason beaten up had sickened him, and it wasn’t the first time. A good friend of his had fallen foul of Dave and now walked with a permanent limp. Knowing losing money was Dave’s biggest bugbear, it would give Russell great pleasure every time he looked at the big figures that were soon to be added to his own bank account.

He walked up the street towards the little guy’s house. He didn’t think there was any value in knocking on the door. The little guy had just arrived in Penarth, so he would be suspicious of anyone coming to see him so soon. It was a terraced property, no doubt with a small back garden only accessible by going through the house, and with the same arrangement on the street on the other side of the garden, so no back door for Russell to sneak through.

Noting no downstairs lights on, although there was an upstairs one, he pulled out his lockpicks. Being a holiday place, many of the windows on the opposite side of the street, and either side of the house, were enveloped in darkness, indicating perhaps they were holiday lets. It couldn’t be they were out for dinner as the place he had been in, and the town itself, was pretty deserted.

Glory be! There wasn’t a deadlock, but a simple Yale lock. He put away his lockpicks and took out from his wallet a piece of metal, the size and shape of a credit card. He slid it in and pushed back the lock. In seconds, he was in the hall. He closed the door quietly and ascended the stairs, mindful of any tell-tale squeak.

The top hallway was shrouded in darkness, the only light spilling under the door of one of the bedrooms. He turned the handle slow and quiet and pushed the door open only to realise he needn’t have bothered. The little guy was sitting in front of a desktop playing a computer game, Call of Duty it looked like, while wearing chunky noise-cancelling headphones.

He pulled the gun from his waistband, leaned over and tapped the barrel on the back of the little guy’s hand, resting on the mouse.

‘What the fuck!’ he shrieked, ripping the cans from his head. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘Shut up and stop shouting.’

‘But who are you, how did you get in?’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘You and your big mate killed my financial advisor and stole my money. I want it back.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Dave Chesson. Ring any bells?’

‘I’ve heard the name, but I don’t handle the investments.’

‘Don’t spin me porkies, pal, I’m not in the mood.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Who handles them, then?’

‘Someone else.’

Mark sighed. ‘Look dipshit, I’ve been chasing your big fat buddy for ages, and now you. I’m not going after anyone else. It’s either you, or I give you a taste of this,’ he said, pointing the Glock at his head. ‘Now, I’m asking nice. Would you like to see an example of when I’m not?’

‘Fuck no. How much are we talking about?’

‘Three mill.’

He thought for a moment. ‘I can get it.’

‘What’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Dipshit.’

‘Everybody calls me Dutch.’

‘How come?’

‘My name’s Gary Holland.’

‘Ah, right.’

He killed the game on his pc and loaded an app. His fingers moved like lightning over the keyboard so Russell couldn’t see what was going on, but he logged on to what looked like a bank as he saw the word Bahamian. ‘Do you have your bank details?’

Russell hadn’t thought that far ahead. He had come straight from Dave’s warehouse and had only decided he’d nab the money as he drove on the motorway. Therefore, he didn’t have a secret bank account in some mosquito-riddled Central American country to dump it into.

Instead, he pulled a debit card out of his wallet and handed it to Dutch. Russell knew he couldn’t leave such a large amount of money in there. He would have to move it offshore, away from the authorities. He didn’t know how to do it, but he now had three million reasons to learn. Every criminal was aware how seriously banks monitored accounts, but he knew a crooked lawyer who would swear it came from the sale of a property.

‘Right it’s done.’ Dutch leaned over and handed the bank card back.

‘How come you have all this dough? Does your boss pay you well?’

After seeing how easy it was for him to hand over the dough, he was debating asking for more. Just then, he heard a kerfuffle at the front door. Dutch shot out and into the other bedroom before running back.

‘Cops!’ he shouted. ‘They’re at the door!’

Dutch grabbed his jacket, put it on, then opened the window. He climbed out and dropped down, his hands gripping the bottom of the window ledge with his fingers. He hung there for a second before letting go. Russell did the same, but it was a touch more awkward for him being bulkier, with the added advantage of having less distance to fall. He let go just as he heard the front door crash in downstairs.

Russell hit the ground at an angle and heard something snap. He fell over. His leg spasmed in pain. Realising he couldn’t move and the cops were close, he pulled out the Glock, wiped it down, then leaned over and chucked it into the rose bushes at the side of the garden. Keys rattled in the back door before it was yanked open.

‘We’ve got one here!’ a cop shouted to people Russell couldn’t see.

He rushed over and pointed his carbine in Russell’s face.

‘Get your fucking gun out of my fizzer. I’m not going anywhere, you plonker; I’ve broken my fucking ankle.’

In time, and being inspected by the armed team commander and a couple of plain-clothes detectives, an ambulance arrived. The cops had tried asking him what he was doing there, and where Dutch had gone, but after feigning concussion and shock, they left him alone.

In the time he would have to spend recuperating, he would concoct a good story. It was important for him to do so, as there was three million in his bank account and he didn’t want anyone keeping him from it.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Thursday morning Henderson was in the office feeling frustrated at the loss of both suspects. In Watson’s case, he had considered ordering a hard stop on the motorway, but he had done this in a previous case and received much stick for doing so. Not to mention, they now knew Watson was driving a powerful car and could have led them into a dangerous high-speed chase.

In Dutch’s case, they came close, but the arrest team arrived just a few minutes after he had legged-it out of the window. Now, he had to find a way to put this stage of the investigation back on track. A few minutes later, sergeants Walters and Neal trooped in, along with DC Lisa Newman. DS Phil Bentley was still in Wales.

Once seated around the meeting table, Henderson made a start. ‘Let’s begin with Patrick Watson. We think he is somewhere in Kent around the Maidstone area. How do we find him?’

‘Have his photo published in the local paper?’ Neal suggested.

‘It’s a possibility, but if he sees it I reckon he’ll stay indoors for a few weeks and only go out in disguise. I don’t want that to happen, so let’s keep that one on the back burner for now. We’ve checked the land registry?’

‘Yeah, I did,’ Newman said. ‘The only property listed in his name is the one in Orpington.’

‘Maybe he bought one in Kent through a company he owns.’ Walters said.

‘Or maybe it’s owned by a relative, or the home of a friend,’ Neal said.

‘Aye, Henderson said, ‘we could spend weeks looking, and by that time he could be long gone.’

‘There might be an easier way,’ Newman said.

‘Let’s hear it.’

‘We have Buster’s phone. I know Dutch was the main contact between the crooks and Watson, but what if Buster called him now and again or the other way around? Maybe Watson called him when he couldn’t find Dutch.’

‘Great idea!’ Henderson said.

‘I have the phone details here,’ she said, extracting several sheaves of paper from a folder. ‘This one is calls made,’ she gave it to Walters, ‘this is texts,’ she handed it to Henderson, ‘and this one is calls received.’ She passed the last to Neal.

For a few minutes they looked down the lists for any sign that Buster had contacted, or had been called by their handler, Patrick Watson.

‘There’s nothing much on the texts,’ Henderson said, ‘except a lot of gay-boy stuff to his pals.’

‘Same with the calls made,’ Walters said. ‘Most to boys called Darren, Steve, and Alex.’

‘There’s two names on the calls received file that I think look odd,’ Neal said. ‘It’s similar to Carol’s list, plenty of men’s Christian names, except for two. They’ve popped up only once or twice, with the handles Fartface and Shitprick.’

‘Interesting,’ Henderson said. ‘By the sound of it, two people Buster didn’t like.’

‘I’ll research both mobile numbers,’ Newman said, ‘see if either is near Maidstone.’

‘Good. It gives us a way forward. Now, if we can move on to Dutch. I suppose you’re all aware that a team smashed their way into his house in Penarth, but Dutch escaped out of an upstairs window.’

‘I had a look at those houses on Google Maps,’ Newman said. ‘They’re the type where you can only access the back garden through the house, meaning there is no side alley.’

‘I see what you mean,’ the DI said. ‘Him climbing over a fence would only take him into someone else’s garden with no means of escape.’

‘True, although with Penarth being a holiday town, it’s possible many of the houses on either side are empty.’

‘Could be he’s hiding in one of them.’

‘Maybe,’ Newman said, ‘however, with Dutch’s house being near the top of the road, jumping over three fences would have taken him away.’

‘I’ll ask Phil to take a closer look,’ Henderson said. ‘The team also found another man there, as yet unnamed, with a broken ankle.’

‘I thought that a bit odd,’ Walters said. ‘It’s understandable for Dutch to scoot out of the window to escape the raiding party, but why did the other guy decide to do the same?’

‘Perhaps he was guilty of something too, and panicked when he heard it was cops.’

‘His ankle was set last night,’ Henderson said, ‘and he was given some sedatives. They didn’t get much sense out of him at the house, so Phil is going into the hospital this morning to interview him.’

‘How do we find Dutch?’

‘We still have his phone number, providing he still has the phone, and didn’t leave it in the house in Ludlow Street when he fled. We should use that.’

‘I’ll add it to the other numbers I’ve got to research,’ Newman said.

‘Do you need help?’

‘No, I can manage.’

‘Good. Let me know when you have something. Talk to you all later.’

When his office was quiet, he picked up his phone and called Phil Bentley.

‘How was your first night in Cardiff?’ Henderson asked.

‘We’ve a twin room in the Premier Inn in the centre of town. You don’t need to go out to enjoy the nightlife, you can watch it out of the window.’

‘We’d like to go back to tracking Dutch’s phone. You didn’t notice if he left it in the house?’

‘I’m sure I would have noticed, he must have taken it with him.’

‘I don’t think we’ll be able to use it for long, as he’ll soon realise that’s how we’ve caught up with him in the first place and ditch it.’

‘At least he can’t be far away. He’s on foot as he left his car outside the house. The locals have impounded it.’

‘It will limit his actions, for sure. You’re going to see the mystery man with the broken ankle this morning?’

‘Yep. I still have no idea what he was doing there.’

‘It has to be someone Dutch called to meet him there. How else would he know he was in Penarth?’

‘I agree.’

‘Once you find out his name, give Vicky a call and she’ll run it through the PNC. It might help jog any amnesia he’s suffering from.’

‘You don’t think there’s an innocent explanation for him being there?’

‘I can’t think of one.’

‘I imagine when someone is battering down your door it causes people to panic.’

‘You think maybe he was a Deliveroo driver?’

Phil laughed. ‘Maybe not as innocent as that, but we’ll see.’

‘Indeed we will. Good luck, Phil.

‘Talk to you later, gov.’

Chapter Sixty-Three

Patrick Watson opened the back door of the cottage, carried a cup of coffee over to the little table and chairs on the patio and sat down. It was a sunny morning but chilly, although the temperature gauge was expected to climb a degree or two by noon. It didn’t pay to be too optimistic, it was early November after all.

He had evaded the cops and by rights should have been feeling mightily smug. He was, but it was tinged with a nagging suspicion; how did they track him down? Had they been watching him while he was living in Orpington, or was this paranoia messing with his mind? The BMW they were driving was a popular car so he could have been mistaken.

Thinking back, it had to be something like this or motorway cameras, as they only followed him when in sight of his car. When he’d managed to get ahead, they couldn’t pick up the scent again. In addition, they weren’t waiting for him when he arrived at the cottage meaning no one had attached a tracker to his car.

Therefore, unless they flooded the Maidstone area with cops or plastered his face over the front page of the Kent Messenger, he was in the clear. Nevertheless, it made sense to stick around the cottage for the next five or six days, at least until the story of the dead IFIs was no longer topical. He didn’t need to go out as he had just received a delivery of groceries and, with his laptop, he could browse local and national newspapers all he wanted.

He pulled out a paper handkerchief and blew his nose. Brandon Lewis’ Rottweiler had broken his nose when leaving his house in Orpington a week ago. Luckily, his private health insurance was still valid until the end of the year, so he’d had it reset at a clinic in Chelsea. The bruising was better than it was, but it was still tender and had started to run in cold weather. Hopefully, this would disappear when he had moved to sunnier climes.

He had never stayed indoors for any length of time, not even as a child with a broken leg, or later when suffering from appendicitis. The closest he had come was a four-day sex and cocaine-fest with the delectable Sofie Grossman when they only got out of bed to go to the toilet. There was no Sofie to occupy him this time, not even a picture of the said lady on his phone, so he would have to grin and bear it as his liberty depended on it.

He sat back with his hands behind his head. What was he going to do with all the money in his possession? He knew about companies, it was a major part of what he did all day, analysing their performance and talking to their directors. He could start investing in the stock market like the rich individuals he used to admire, but where was the fun in that?

He toyed with the idea of starting a company, something that had always been in the back of his mind to do, making things that he knew about like golf clothing or gym equipment. Thinking about it, he realised it would raise his profile too high. In the course of his former colleagues’ work, they scoured company databases and reports looking for the next best thing. With that sort of scrutiny, he would be outed within weeks.

In the same way he had to remain indoors now, he would have to keep his head down in future. This meant not rising to the top of the local golf club standings and having his picture published in the local paper, or becoming involved in a serious spat with the husband of a wife he was having an affair with.

What better place to get away from it all than from the deck of a yacht? He had crewed yachts several times belonging to the Chief Executives of several of Gaynor Reed’s clients, and it had encouraged him to complete his Day Skipper and Coastal Skipper qualifications. He had always intended buying his own at some point, but work had got in the way. Now, with work no longer a hindrance, he could buy one and sail to wherever he pleased.

He opened his laptop and searched yacht broker sites. The first decision he had to make was between sail and power. A yacht required skill and work to keep it moving, while a motorised cruiser would sail all day providing there was fuel in the tank and the engine was serviced regularly. He had always regarded them as gin palaces, but nevertheless, spent some time considering them.

Ten minutes later, and the fire beneath his enthusiasm still unlit, he moved to looking at yachts. Within seconds his heart was racing. This is where he needed to be, the wind in his hair and a large sail above his head, stiff under a steady breeze. It was pleasing to note he could afford every boat on the site, but he was in danger of getting ahead of himself. There was no point in buying a large ocean-going yacht if he didn’t have the skills or the crew to sail it.

He narrowed his search for one in the region of ten to fourteen metres long but luxuriously appointed. At last, one boat caught his eye: a new Beneteau Ocean 40.1, a twelve-metre yacht, retailing at just over a quarter of a million pounds.

His plan would be to sail it for a couple of years around the Mediterranean, then with more experience under his sailing cap, trade it in for something larger. He would then sail it across the Atlantic to somewhere like Antigua where he would buy a villa. Having so much money behind him, he could buy a local hotel, allowing him to apply for a locally-issued passport.

He walked back into the cottage to make another coffee, happy that he had decided on a way forward. He helped himself to a Maryland Cookie, delivered that morning, and pondered how he could buy it. He was sure rich individuals often bought something like this without seeing it, but not him. He needed to make sure it was as luxurious as he required, plus he needed to decide where to berth it.

Having made the decision, he wanted to go and see it today, but how feasible was that? The death of the three IFIs was still out there, a live and current story, as was the name of the man being held in custody, Charlie Bamforth, Buster’s real name, but there was still no mention of himself or Dutch. After yesterday’s car scare, he believed it was only a matter of time before his photograph was out there.

If he visited the yacht brokers today, someone might recognise his picture and, in a day or two, join the dots, No, it was too risky. He would stick to his original plan and stay in the cottage for at least a week. If a picture of him appeared tomorrow or the day after in a newspaper, it would be forgotten in a week or two. Then he could travel to Southampton and buy the yacht. He would live in it for a few days, find out how everything worked then sail it to Ireland or the Isle of Man and hole up there for the rest of the winter.

He made coffee and carried it back to the table. What could he do now to try and speed up the process? He could transfer money from his offshore account to his UK bank and have it ready for the big day, and perhaps even call the brokers and put a deposit down over the phone.

In order for the transfers not to alert the UK authorities to his criminal activity, he had set up a number of UK- and foreign-registered companies. One such company owned the cottage and he decided to do the same with the yacht and have one of his companies buy it. The authorities were less diligent at policing the movements of money between companies than they were with individuals, since big corporations made millions of such transactions every week.

He clicked on the app for his Antiguan bank and sipped coffee while it loaded. He keyed in his security credentials and waited for the large sum to appear on his account. In essence, the money had been a secondary bonus; killing the three IFIs had been his primary goal, but now having it, seeing it on the screen made his heart flutter. Did he say, flutter? His heart almost suffered a seizure. The balance showing was a measly twenty thousand dollars!

His mind was in turmoil. All his lovely loot, the future he had been planning, gone in a puff of internet ether! He composed himself enough to look through the previous transactions on the account and spotted six sizeable debits removing large chunks from his nest egg and transferring them to a bank in the Bahamas several days ago.

He stood abruptly, knocking over his chair, and paced the patio in anger. Had someone hacked his account, or done the same to the bank? Maybe it was something he had done in a drunken stupor, moved money to another offshore account. He pressed his temples hard, thinking about it, but no, it was none of those things. His mind raced through a Netflix-style roll of other possibilities before settling on the cynical, cat-like features of Gary ‘Dutch’ Holland.

Chapter Sixty-Four

He adjusted his position on the bed and right away Mark Russell felt more comfortable. He had never spent a night in hospital and had to say, it wasn’t half bad. Once they had given him painkillers and reset his ankle, it was pampering all the way.

He had asked for a private room. Now he was in clover money-wise, he could afford to splash the cash and, as luck would have it, one was available. He lay back on the crisp white sheets and closed his eyes. On the cabinet beside the bed there were grapes, a bag of Haribo, a bottle of Lucozade, magazines, and on the wall, a TV playing breakfast television. Could life get any better?

He looked over at the sound of the door opening. Was it that gorgeous brunette nurse called Sian coming back to see him again? He wanted to ask her out as he thought she fancied him, or could it be the drugs messing with his senses, and perhaps his judgement being all over the place as he was feeling a bit vulnerable.

It was two guys. If he had been connected to a heart monitor it would have leapt into the danger zone and started beeping its head off, as he thought they were goons sent by Dave Chesson. When the tall one said, ‘I’m DS Phil Bentley and this is DC Seb Young, from Sussex Police,’ his heart rate started to decline.

Bentley picked up the patient chart clipped to the bottom of the bed. ‘Ah, you do have a name, hello Mark Russell. Where are you from, Mark?’

‘London.’

Russell had toyed with the idea of using a false name but he imagined it would have caused the admin department in the NHS to have apoplexy. He had been tempted to use it to thwart any attempts by Dave to try and catch up with him. He’d received a couple of texts looking for an update, and Russell had replied each time with something non-committal.

He knew the cops would want to talk to him, and if they had looked at his criminal record: breaking and entering at fifteen, taking a car without consent at seventeen, and possession of marijuana at nineteen, it smacked of a misspent youth. Nothing since, and nothing to tie him to Dave Chesson’s drug operation, unless DS Bentley shared intelligence with the Organised Criminal Gangs Unit, which he doubted.

‘Why were you found on the patio of the house of the man we were looking for with a broken ankle?’

‘We’re mates, right?’

‘Go on.’

He didn’t want to blurt his fictitious story in one go, like a bad actor not used to thinking about timing or using pauses to encourage audience concentration.

‘C’mon Mr Russell, we haven’t got all day.’

‘He called me yesterday afternoon and told me he would be in Penarth at his aunt’s old house. He owes me money, see.’

‘What happened?’

‘We’re talking in the upstairs room and he’s giving me all his excuses when he hears banging at the door. He goes to take a look and the next thing I know, he shouts, ‘They’re here!’ and he’s leaping out of the window. I went after him.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Why do you think? Someone hammering on the door says to me debt collectors or drug dealers, neither of which I want to mess with. I also knew if I didn’t keep up with him, I’d never see the five grand he owes me. So, I jumped out of the window as well.’

‘You didn’t think to go downstairs and out the back door like normal people?’ the other cop asked.

‘What planet are you on? Heavy thumping on the door says to me four or five villains were about to burst in. If I had gone down there, they would have killed me.’

‘How well do you know him?’ Bentley asked.

‘Dutch? We’ve been mates on-and-off for about ten years. Good enough to lend him five grand.’

‘What’s his real name?’

‘Gary Holland.’

‘Where do you think he’s gone?’

‘He’s not from here, but he spent a few summers with his aunt,’ Russell said, adlibbing at a rate of knots. ‘I reckon he knows his way around Penarth and some parts of the coast, but I would say that’s it.’

‘Is there anyone local he might stay with?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘If his aunt used to live here, perhaps there’s some cousins or nephews he could call on?’

‘Maybe there is but he’s never mentioned any.’

‘It’s a long way to come from London to Penarth for only five grand.’

‘How much do you boys earn? Five grand is a lot of money to me and I always collect my debts.’

‘Nevertheless, why not wait until you were both back in London?’

‘I got the impression he was on the run from someone. I had to grab him before he disappeared.’

‘I think that might have been us.’

‘I thought it more likely to be a bunch of hoodlums, you know?’

‘So you said.’

‘Do you have any more questions? I’m tired and need to rest.’

‘When I mentioned your description to my boss, he said you sounded like one of the two men Dave Chesson sent to Sussex to recover his missing money.’

He said nothing.

‘You don’t wish to comment?’

‘You didn’t ask me a question, but now you mention it, I think your boss needs to put his specs on. I’m a bald bloke because I had alopecia when I was twenty-seven and my hair fell out, and I’m heavy set because I work in a warehouse.’ He shrugged. ‘I know at least a dozen blokes who could fit a similar description.’

‘Do you know Dave Chesson?’ Bentley pressed.

‘Anybody living in South London knows about Dave Chesson and what he’s involved in, but does that mean I know him or move in his circles? No, I try to keep my nose clean.’

‘That’s all the questions we have for the moment, so we’ll leave you in peace. Can you give me your contact details so I can get in touch if there’s anything else I need to ask?’ Bentley got out his notebook in anticipation.

Russell gave him the address of one of the guys who worked in the warehouse. It was a house he knew well, as the guy had lost his license due to drunk driving and Russell often picked him up on his way to the warehouse. He also gave the cop a phone number. It was his mobile number with two digits changed, an easy mistake to make by someone suffering from concussion.

The cops left a few minutes later. He suspected they might be back when they tried to call the bogus phone number, but maybe they wouldn’t. They would be too busy trying to find Dutch. In any case, he would be checking out of the hospital this afternoon.

He would take a taxi to a hotel and get the driver to stop on the way while he used the crutch to limp into a shop and buy a laptop. He would then move the three mill that Dutch transferred to a place where the cops would never find it. Then, using Google Maps he would decide where he wanted to live, and Rightmove to see if there was a house he wanted to buy. Yes, things in the past might have turned a bit crappy, but now he could see a new life forming.

Chapter Sixty-Five

Traffic was busy as Henderson and Walters made their way around the M25 towards Maidstone. As luck would have it, the locations of Fartface and Shitprick, the two names on Buster’s phone that he didn’t often contact, were both located near Maidstone. Neither one stood out in particular, so he plumped for the first.

Given they were heading into the territory of Kent Police, the rest of their raiding party were local.

‘How is Phil getting on with the hunt for Dutch?’ Walters asked.

‘He went back to the house in Ludlow Street in Penarth. He had no indication of which way Dutch had gone, so he tried the houses on either side, both of which were occupied. He looked over the fence at the one adjoining the back garden. It was empty and looked like a holiday rental, and when he climbed the fence, he realised the back door had been forced.’

‘Dutch spent the night there?’

‘Phil said it didn’t look like it. If you remember, Lisa said the only way to access the garden was through the house.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He must have broken in and made his way out of the front door into the street.’

‘And walked off into the sunset.’

‘It looks that way.’

‘Do we have any leads?’

‘Not at the moment. His phone wasn’t found during the search of Ludlow Street, but he must have switched it off, or it was smashed when he jumped out of the window, as we can’t track him.’

‘What about Watson, do you think he’ll suss it’s the phone that’s giving him away? Meaning we and the team from Kent will congregate in a field around a ditched phone?’

‘Not according to Lisa’s search. She’s pinpointed it to a house and is under instruction to call me if the signal moves.’

‘Call me cynical, but because he realised Vicky and Sally were following, I reckon he might have ditched it.’

‘We’ll soon find out.’

They turned off the M20 at Junction 4, the one before Maidstone, and took the A228 heading south. Henderson had decided to approach the house in the dark, not so late they would find Watson bleary-eyed and standing in his jim-jams, but with enough cover to stop neighbours videoing the whole scene on their phones.

They arrived at the scene and drove past. The house was in a narrow road called Butcher’s Lane, and situated close to the road. It was a large detached house with lots of small windows, through which they could see several lights burning, indicating Watson was at home. Henderson did a U-turn, drove past the house once again and found a place to park, awaiting a call from the Kent boys.

‘Not bad for a second home,’ Walters said.

‘A bit too middle-class and family-sized for a single bloke like Watson, don’t you think?’

‘Maybe not. If you’re after plenty of space and access to the country, and you can afford it, I think it’s fine. If it was mine, I’d have it as my main residence.’

‘It would give you one hell of a commute.’

Henderson’s phone rang. He listened for a few moments before saying to Walters, ‘They’re here.’

Henderson drove to the rendezvous with the Kent contingent. It consisted of two detectives and four uniforms. It wasn’t an armed unit as they had perceived no such threat, but the Kent detectives carried handguns, as did Henderson and Walters. Introductions made and the plan of action reiterated, they all grabbed whatever gear they needed and set off for the target house.

Henderson made small talk with the two detectives as they walked, the detail of what they were about to do had all been discussed during an earlier Zoom call. They reached the house and everyone took up their positions. The house had good security and it took the officers who were assigned to cover the back of the property several minutes to open the locked gate.

The rest of the team stood around the front door, bathed in the white beam of a security light, as the door basher lined up. Bang! Bang! Bang! The door swung open.

‘Armed police! I repeat, armed police!’ one of the Kent detectives shouted. ‘Stay where you are!’

In a well-disciplined move, one officer moved upstairs, one into the kitchen at the rear, with the remaining detectives trying each of the downstairs rooms. Henderson and Walters opened the lounge door. There, they found an elderly man in one armchair and an equally old woman in another, looking at them with shocked and fearful eyes.

‘Where is he?’ Henderson demanded.

‘Where is who?’ the shaky voice of the woman asked.

‘Watson, Patrick Watson.’

‘Never heard of him,’ the man said. ‘You must have the wrong house.’

Henderson thought for a moment. He had got Lisa to check and double-check they had the right address. A thought came to him. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Daniel.’

‘Daniel what?’

‘I’m not going to tell you. How do I know you aren’t fraudsters?’

‘We are police,’ Henderson said. Just then a uniformed cop walked in. ‘All clear upstairs, gov.’

Henderson nodded in acknowledgment.

He turned back to Daniel. ‘Surname, please.’

‘Bamforth,’ the woman said.

The penny dropped.

‘You have a son, Charlie?’

‘He’s no son to me,’ Daniel spat. ‘He’s given me nothing but trouble all his life. I blame my recent heart bypass on all the aggro he caused me.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I think he had criminal tendencies since the day he was born,’ Mrs Bamforth said. ‘He stole things at nursery, beat up other boys at primary school, and sold drugs at his secondary school. That is, before he was expelled.’

‘Stole money from us as well,’ Daniel said, ‘thousands. I should have drowned that bloody boy at birth.’

‘Have you recently been in contact with him?’

Henderson remembered the last call to Fartface was about three months ago.

‘Not me,’ Daniel said.

‘It was me,’ his wife said, looking a tad sheepish.

‘What the hell did you call him for?’ Daniel asked, sounding as shocked as when Henderson first came in the door.

‘I wanted to see how he was. See if he had changed,’ she said, ‘but he hadn’t. It was the same old Charlie, talking about all the money he was making, and not asking how his father was after his operation. Such a selfish boy.’

‘We are sorry to bother you,’ Henderson said. ‘As you say, Mr Bamforth, it’s obvious we have the wrong house.’ Hit the crossbar, he might have said, but didn’t think it appropriate. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

‘Hang on matey,’ Daniel said, ‘who the hell is going to fix our broken front door?’

Chapter Sixty-Six

Friday night in Cardiff and Phil Bentley and Seb Young were having dinner. Seb was savvy enough to know they couldn’t rock up to any decent restaurant in a big place like Cardiff and expect to be seated without a booking. During the week they might get away with it, but not at the start of the weekend.

Problem was, they didn’t know what was out there, so Phil had spent an hour or so looking at various places and checking TripAdvisor reviews. Seb would have opted for a burger from McDonalds, but Bentley liked his food and wanted to go to a place serving good fare.

They settled on a South American/Mexican fusion restaurant with Argentinean steaks as well as tacos and a variety of dishes with beans on the menu. They were seated at the window where they could see how the youth of Cardiff enjoyed themselves. Like Brighton, guys wore T-shirts and girls wore short skirts, taking little notice of the bitter November evening.

‘This place looks better in reality than it did in the pictures,’ Seb said, as he sipped a Mexican beer.

‘I wasn’t too enamoured with pictures of what looked like a couple of tables with hen parties.’

‘I don’t mind, as where else would you see so many women out for a good time? What I didn’t like was all the dark walls making the place look small and gloomy, but it seems like they’ve smartened it up.’

‘What do you make of the boss smashing his way into a house in Kent only to find it was Buster’s parents’?’

‘Red faces all round and by the sound of the bolshie old boy at the house, he’ll lodge a complaint with the chief constable or send a terse letter to The Argus.’

‘I’m not so sure anybody needs to feel embarrassed. I mean, they didn’t find Watson, but it was a choice between two locations and not knowing which one was right.’

‘It won’t stop the old boy complaining.’

Their waiter arrived and they ordered. Steak for Bentley and chilli for Seb. Plus, a couple of more beers.

‘What’s more of a concern,’ Bentley said, ‘is Dutch ditching his phone.’

‘It had to happen. He must have sussed that’s how we were able to follow him.’

‘Yeah, as we had no idea where he lived or what car he drove.’

‘Well, it means our little adventure to South Wales is coming to a close in the morning. I’ve quite enjoyed being here, although the weather feels a bit colder and windier than it does in Brighton.’

‘I’d have liked it better if we’d nabbed Dutch,’ Bentley said. ‘I hate going back to the office empty-handed.’

‘The problem now is we don’t have a clue where he is.’

‘Lisa thinks the boss will have no option but to publish his picture in the local paper.’

‘I don’t see why he wouldn’t.’

‘He was reluctant to do it at the start as he thought Dutch would go into hiding and we’d never find him. Now, it looks like he’s got no choice.’

‘Same result, maybe. If Dutch keeps his head down for a few weeks and gets away from Wales, he’s been and gone.’

The meals arrived and it went quiet as the two of them tucked in. It gave Bentley a chance to look out the window again. In the half hour or so since he’d last looked out, the crowds were still as thick and moving from bar-to-bar, but the movement of arms and legs had become more exaggerated, and the noise level much louder.

‘This chilli is good, a bit fiery for my liking, but still good.’

‘I wondered why you’ve been so quiet.’

Bentley finished his meal and sat back watching Seb doing his best at spooning the fiery chilli into his mouth, and now and again, glancing out of the window.

Could it be? he thought. Yes, it was him! He dashed out of his seat and ran outside. Dutch heard the sudden movement behind him and turned. He saw Bentley running towards him and took off.

‘God no,’ Bentley groaned, ‘I’ve just eaten a big meal.’ He tried to sprint after him, but every so often a half-inebriated body would drift into his path, causing him to take evasive action. They were running past closed shops and open restaurants, past bins and planters. Bentley was gaining ground, but when he thought Dutch was close enough for him to rugby tackle, a young woman, avoiding a playful hand being swept in her direction, jumped into his path and sent them both tumbling.

When he recovered, he realised nothing was damaged or broken, and was also pleased to see the woman wasn’t hurt. In fact, she was laughing about it as he helped her to her feet.

‘What the fuck were you doing, pal,’ her companion said, as he approached Bentley in an aggressive manner, ‘smashing into my gal like that?’

‘Leave it,’ the girl said, ‘the vodka saved me. No bones broken.’

‘It was an accident,’ Bentley said. ‘Take your girlfriend’s advice and leave it.’

‘Leave it, or what?’ he said squaring up to Bentley. ‘We’ll see about that.’ He took a swing at Bentley who avoided the punch, grabbed his arm, twisted it, and shoved it hard up his back.

‘Woah,’ the girl said, ‘that was a neat move.’

‘Aghh,’ the guy said, ‘you’re breaking my fucking arm.’

Just then Seb Young turned up.

‘What’s going on?’ Young asked.

‘What’s his name?’ Bentley asked the girl.

‘Owen.’

‘Listen Owen, we’re cops. Plain clothes ones, the type you don’t mess with. Catch my drift?’ Bentley said as he shoved his arm further up his back.

‘Fuck!’

‘You know what I mean?’

‘Yeah!’

‘Good. When I let you go, if you carry on with this, I will arrest you and I’ll make sure you spend at least a couple of nights in the cells, maybe nursing a broken nose or busted arm. You got it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Louder, I can’t hear you.’

‘Yeah, I got it!’

Bentley released his grip and Owen stood rubbing his arm.

‘Sorry for knocking you down, madam,’ Bentley said to the girl.

‘It’s no problem. It was my own fault.’

He didn’t realise a small crowd had gathered; many had their phones out and were filming the incident for their Instagram or TikTok feed. He hoped they’d caught the earlier bit of him accidentally running into the girl, or at least hadn’t been recording when he told Owen they were detectives. Either one would prevent it being branded as another example of police brutality, or for the more patriotic types among their followers, one more instance of the English subjugating the Welsh.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Henderson had called CI White to inform him of the failed raid at the house of Buster’s parents. His boss didn’t make too much of a fuss, realising they were working with limited information. He also wasn’t bothered about the chances of Mr Bamforth making a complaint. It was unlikely to be about the door, as Henderson had sent someone round to fix it, more about his peace being disturbed and he and his wife being frightened out of their wits.

‘What are the chances of Shitprick being the right location?’ Walters asked.

‘Well, with Buster being so nasty about his parents that he calls his mother Fartface, there could be all sorts of people out there in his bad books. I would say it’s no better than fifty-fifty.’

‘Maybe he has a sister who also lives around Maidstone.’

‘Wouldn’t that be a bummer if true.’

Henderson had warned the Kent boys before setting out they might have to raid two properties this evening. As a result, the raid team moved from the Bamforth house and headed to the location they had for Shitprick. In common with the Bamforth’s, the location of the phone hadn’t changed, suggesting the owner was at home, or in Walters’ mind, the phone was now lying in a field. If the latter, this evening would go down as the worst in Henderson’s Sussex police career.

‘This is a rural and quiet part of the country. I always think of Kent as the Channel Tunnel and queues of lorries at the side of the M20 in Operation Stack.’

‘It is–’

His phone rang.

‘Hi Phil, I’ve put you on speaker. Carol’s in the car with me.’

‘Hi Carol.’

‘Hello Phil, how’s Cardiff.’

‘Seb and I were having dinner in a restaurant this evening when, would you believe, Dutch walked past the window.’

‘What!’

‘Yeah, it was definitely him. I gave chase and had almost caught up with him when I collided with a young woman and we both fell over.’

‘Was anyone hurt?’

‘No, she’s all right. I lost Dutch, though.’

‘That’s two duds in one day. Surely, when we hit this other Maidstone property we can’t have three.’

‘Let’s hope not.’

‘The picture we have of him from Nancy Khan’s video camera is being enhanced. When it’s done, we’ll publish it in newspapers around Cardiff.’

‘Good idea, although it’s about the only thing we have left.’

‘You’re travelling back in the morning?’

‘Yeah, we are.’

‘See you tomorrow, then, Phil. Thanks to you and Seb for all your efforts.’

‘Thanks, gov, bye. Bye Carol.’

‘He didn’t sound too happy,’ Walters said.

‘No, to get so close and then lose him is galling.’

‘I wonder why Dutch is staying so close to Cardiff.’

‘When Lisa researched his background, I don’t recall him having any relatives down there.’

‘Maybe he has a son or daughter under a different name.’

‘That’s a good shout. Speak to Lisa in the morning and see if she can find anything.’

‘Will do.’

They arrived at the target house, a large detached cottage with what looked like open fields at the rear.

‘I know it’s dark and there’s a strong wind blowing,’ Walters said, ‘but doesn’t this place look spooky? I doubt in daylight it would be any less creepy.’

‘It’s the ideal place for a horror writer to live, or even one writing fantasy for young adults. They would never be short of material, that’s for sure.’

The lights in the house were on indicating someone at home, but the curtains were closed so they couldn’t see who it was. Henderson got out of the car without making a noise and spoke to the Kent detectives. ‘Same as before, cover the exits, bash the door down and search all the rooms.’

‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just knock on the door and find out who lives there first?’

‘If only life was that simple. If it is Watson’s place, at the first knock, he’d high-tail it out of the back door and be racing across those fields before we knew what was going on.’

‘I guess you’re right. Shall we make a move?’

Same as the Bamforth house, one officer made his way to the rear. The security wasn’t so strong so he was through the gate in less than a minute. The door banger lined up.

Two bangs and they were in. Two officers headed upstairs, one into the kitchen, while the detectives fanned out and opened the doors to other rooms.

Henderson found Patrick Watson sitting in an armchair with the television playing loud, the crash-bang of a thriller movie. Hadn’t he heard the door banger? Henderson picked up the remote control and muted the sound.

‘Hey! I was watching that!’

A bleary-eyed, and clearly pissed, Patrick Watson turned and looked at Henderson, or at least tried to, as he was having trouble focussing. ‘Wait a sec, I recognise you,’ he slurred. A glass of red wine in his hand slopped around, threatening to spill onto the wooden floor.

‘I’m a police detective Mr Watson, you may recall I came to see you a few weeks ago.’

‘Detective, eh? Why are you here?’

Henderson read him his rights, but he would repeat it later when he had sobered up.

‘What d’ya mean?’

‘We are arresting you for being an accessory to the murder of three men: Taylor Goodman, Jeff Delaney, and Kieran Rafferty.’

‘Oh? Am I? I can’t remember. I cert– I defi–I know for sure I hated their guts, I remember that much. Did I kill them?’ he said shaking his head. ‘Don’t ask me.’

‘What happened to your face?’ Henderson asked. Around his nose was a patchwork of various coloured bruises, suggesting something that happened about a week before. ‘Did you fall over drunk?’

‘Oh that?’ he said, gingerly touching the affected area. ‘A fight with a woman’s husband that I lost.’

‘Sorry to hear that. C’mon now, sir,’ Henderson said, removing the threatening-to-spill glass from his hand and placing it on a nearby coffee table.

‘Oi! I’m still drinking that.’

‘I think you’ve drunk enough. Let’s get you down to the station.’

The two uniforms came into the room and eased Watson out of the chair.

‘That detective said,’ Watson slurred to one of the cops as they staggered past, ‘we’re going on a train. Where are we going?’

After he was led outside, Walters said to Henderson, ‘For a moment I thought maybe he was faking it, so he could try and scarper when our guard was down, but I think it’s the real deal. A couple of days in his little bolt-hole and he can’t stand the silence so he hits the bottle.’

‘Oh, he’s drunk all right. I just hope he doesn’t throw up in the car.’

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Mark Russell stayed in a Cardiff hotel for only one night. He wasn’t as mobile as he would have liked to be, but he’d got used to using the crutch and the painkillers subdued the majority of the pain. In any case, the break was on his left ankle and, as his car had an automatic gearbox, he didn’t think there would be any problem driving.

Yesterday evening he had mastered the ins-and-outs of offshore banking, and shifted most of his money into two accounts that he had just opened, with a few hundred thousand kept back for everyday spending. He’d also decided he would move to Warwick.

An old mate lived there and he had touched base with him the previous night. He’d offered to show Russell the nicer parts of town and would help him to pick a place to live. His mate had nothing to do with Dave Chesson so he had no qualms about taking up his offer.

Breakfast was better than he imagined. He had pictured himself piling some sausages, bacon, fried eggs and all the rest onto his plate, only to remember, with a crutch under one arm, he’d be unable to carry it back to his seat. Help arrived in the shape of waitress, Carys. She asked him what he wanted and went off to get it. She realised his predicament, she said, as her old man broke an ankle playing rugby and she remembered how helpless he was.

She’d piled his plate high with food, but he didn’t object. The whole effort of walking was draining on his energy, so by meal times, he felt ravenous. Many people passing his table expressed sympathy, believing he’d suffered a DIY accident, or had slipped on treacherous leaves. If only they knew he was trying to get away from the police, their compassion would melt like ice cream under a hot sun.

He tucked in. The hotel was located in the city centre so he imagined during the week it would be full of business types and more successful tradesmen and contractors. This Saturday morning, the clientele looked more like retired folks, here for a weekend city break. Cardiff seemed a good place for walking: plenty to see, according to a leaflet in his room, such as the university, numerous arcades, and the Welsh parliament building.

Russell had his heart in his mouth when he had started moving the money, as Dutch had given it up without too much of a fight. This made him think perhaps he had a way of clawing it back. However, the funds transferred as expected and when he logged on to his bank accounts this morning, the money was still sitting there.

Thinking about it now, if Dutch and his pals had rolled a couple of those investor guys, they would have pocketed many millions, but was his share enough to cough up three million and not even baulk at it? Perhaps Dutch had stiffed the big boss and stolen some of his money, or if he was handy with computers, had somehow hacked into the big man’s bank account and emptied it.

In which case, perhaps he should have asked for four or five million, Russell thought as he reached for his crutch. Nah, he thought, dismissing the idea. What he had now was plenty to start a new life away from Dave Chesson and his cronies, and for that he felt grateful.

Russell went back to his room and took a final look around before picking up the bag with his possessions and walking out. After settling up at the front desk, he sat in the lobby awaiting his taxi. He envied these able-bodied folks who could walk in and out of the hotel without hindrance; they didn’t know how lucky they were.

His taxi arrived and he hobbled out. The driver came out to see if he could lend a hand which Russell appreciated; he couldn’t see a taxi driver in South London doing the same.

‘How did you do your leg, mate? A rugby injury?’

In London they saw Russell’s bald head, mean face, and stocky build and thought: gangster. In Wales, it was rugby player.

‘No, mate. Fell off a ladder.’

‘Ah, right,’ He proceeded to tell a story about a window cleaner friend who was so traumatised by a fall, he used a telescopic pump now as he refused to climb a ladder.

He felt more relaxed this time as the taxi made its way towards Penarth. Last time, he was wound up, as he was about to confront Dutch. This time, it was all about retrieving his car and starting a new life in Warwick.

When they got closer to the street where he had left his car, he asked the driver to pull into the side and got out. It was one street away from his car, but it wasn’t the exercise he wanted, mindful of having to sit in a car for a long period as he headed north, but because he was the cautious type.

He was wearing a bobble hat for the cold, and hobbling along on a crutch. Anyone who knew him, would walk past without a scintilla of recognition. He was on the High Street and heading up the hill to Plassey Street. It was in fact a gentle slope, but to him it felt like a hill.

At the junction with Plassey Street he stood at the corner, looking to all as if catching his breath, but surveying the area and taking a good look along the road in the direction of his car. He wasn’t concerned about receiving a ticket from a traffic warden, as he knew from a sign he could park there all day without a permit, but he was scanning for the presence of cops or Dave Chesson’s men.

It was a few minutes before he spotted them. Standing in the doorway of a modern-looking church, he saw Big Stu and, on the other side of the road, leaning against a lock-up, Gary Town; the guys who had beaten Mason. But how had they tracked him down?

He knew how they worked, he’d done it himself on several occasions, and cursed the phone in his jacket for giving his location away. He would ditch it on his way to Warwick and buy another. He had no qualms about doing this, as he doubted there was anyone in his Contacts file he wanted to keep in touch with.

He thought for a moment and pulled the disgraced device out of his pocket. He dialled 999 and asked for the police.

‘What’s your emergency?’

‘I live in Plassey Street in Penarth and I can see two men and they’re acting suspicious. It looks like they’re trying to break into houses or steal cars.’

‘Can I ask your name, sir?’

‘David, and I live at number 57,’ he said, before terminating the call.

There had to have been a patrol car in the vicinity as, within minutes, one came cruising along the road. The cops spotted the tattooed and muscled figure of Big Stu in the church doorway and stopped. One cop got out and approached. The other saw Gary Town across the road and did the same.

Loud voices carried down the road and Russell could hear, ‘It’s a free country,’ from Big Stu, and, ‘Move along’ and, ‘Arrest you,’ from the cops. The body language spoke of great reluctance as Stu and Gary Town left their posts and walked away. Russell was pleased to see them walking in the opposite direction from where he was standing.

Russell set off. When he arrived at his car, the cops had just taken off in their car and Big Stu and Gary Town were nowhere in sight. He was sure they would be back within the next ten minutes. Before setting off, and with great difficulty, he took a look around the car. Under the passenger wheel arch, he found what he was looking for: a tracking device.

He removed it and, when he thought no one was watching, attached it to a recently arrived delivery van. He felt sure Ellis the Baker would take them on a merry dance around his customers in Penarth, Barry, and Cardiff, before heading back to the bakery in Newport for a refill.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

A sober and serious-looking Patrick Watson met Henderson’s gaze on Sunday morning as Walters switched on the recording equipment and they completed introductions. Beside Watson was Dominic Tranter, an expensive and famed defender of the rich and famous who had fallen foul of the criminal justice system.

Did Watson fall into this category? Many of Tranter’s cases involved naïve footballers and television actors, sucked into criminal enterprises because of a growing drug habit, or because they’d grown so used to women throwing themselves at their feet, they didn’t bother asking their age or checking for consent.

One thing was certain, Watson could afford his services. Not including the loot he had taken from the dead IFIs, he was still a successful and well-paid financial executive. Watson’s annual bonus could, he was sure, cover Tranter’s hefty fee.

‘Mr Watson, can you tell me what your relationship is with Charles Bamforth, otherwise known as Buster?’

The question seemed to throw him off balance.

‘What? Buster…I don’t know him.’

He received a gentle nudge from Tranter.

‘I mean, no comment.’

‘You say you don’t know him, so why is your mobile number on his phone?’

‘No comment.’

‘Are you having a relationship with him?’

‘What? I’m not gay. Ask the woman at the coffee shop in my golf club.’

‘I just asked if you had a relationship with him: is he a friend, colleague, bridge partner?’

‘No comment.’

‘I’ll ask again, why then, is your number on his phone?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps he wanted financial advice.’

‘If so, it’s obvious he wasn’t happy with what you told him.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘The name beside the number is not Patrick Watson. Oh no. It’s Shitprick.’

‘What! The ungrateful swine. After all I’ve done for that fat fucker!’

‘Patrick,’ Tranter said, ‘what have I told you?’

‘I know, sorry.’

‘I think we’ve established that you do know him. I’m sure you also know that along with his partner-in-crime, Gary Holland, known as Dutch, they killed three independent financial investors and stole their investments.’

‘I read about it.’

‘You did more than read about it. While you were sobering up yesterday, my forensics team analysed your phone and laptop.’

‘Can they do that?’ he said, turning to Tranter. ‘Is it legal?’

‘Yes,’ his brief replied.

‘On your laptop, there were several apps for banks in the Caribbean.’

‘Not unusual for someone in my profession.’

‘I’m sure it isn’t. However, when we looked into those accounts in more detail, we found this.’

Walters handed over a piece of paper.

‘This is a printout from your Antiguan bank account, and as you can see, the balance is twenty thousand US dollars.’

‘That doesn’t sound like the proceeds of a big-time theft, does it?’ Watson said, a smirk on his face.

‘No, it doesn’t, but when we look at this, the picture changes.’

Walters passed over several more sheets of paper.

‘These printouts show the transactions that have taken place on this bank account.’

‘I’m sure, Inspector, if this case comes to court, I will be able to demonstrate how this information was obtained through underhand means.’

‘Not at all, Mr Tranter. The laptop was seized in a legal manner as part of the house search of someone suspected of a major crime, and the passwords for all those accounts are available in an app on his phone.’

‘I see.’

‘As I was saying, this information shows transactions pertaining to this account. The first deposit is more or less the same date as the robbery from the first dead IFI, Taylor Goodman. You can see on that occasion, over two hundred million US dollars was deposited. I know Mr Watson is well paid, but this, I suspect, dwarfs the turnover of his firm.’

‘My former firm.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I left there a few weeks ago.’

‘On friendly terms?

‘Oh yes, they even threw a party for me.’

‘Going back to the printout, we can see two further large-scale deposits, both of which coincide with the death of the other two IFIs.’

‘I…act for several large investors,’ Watson said. ‘It’s their money.’

‘If so, why is there no evidence of those investors: no emails or texts instructing you to act?’

‘I think we should have a short recess, Inspector,’ Tranter said.

Henderson and Walters retired to the coffee machine along the corridor.

‘He’s in a corner,’ Henderson said, handing a milky latte to Walters. ‘He can’t wriggle out of it.’

‘No, he can’t. Mind you, him saying the deposits came from some rich investors was not a bad shout for a man in a corner forced to think on the spot.’

‘It’s a pity there isn’t the evidence to back it up.’

‘What do you make of the twenty thousand left in his account?’

‘He’s behaving like a typical fraudster. He thinks by moving the money from bank to bank we’ll lose the trail, or interest, leaving him home and dry.’

‘It seems to be working as we don’t have a clue where he’s moved it.’

‘It’s just a shame Watson won’t have the freedom to enjoy it. In any case, we’ll involve the fraud team and ask them to track down the funds.’

A few minutes later, Tranter came out and indicated for the detectives to return.

‘My client and I have had a discussion,’ Tranter said, ‘and in the interests of not dragging out this interview any longer than is necessary, my client will admit handling the investments of Dutch and Buster, but nothing more. He did not take part in, or order the murder of those three victims.’

‘You knew what they were doing to obtain this money,’ Henderson said.

‘No, I thought they were rich investors.’

‘Don’t make me laugh. Both of those guys were petty criminals. Unless they’d found a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow, there’s no way they would have access to that amount of cash.’

‘No need to be flippant, Inspector,’ Tranter objected.

‘I’m just illustrating the preposterous notion that small-time crooks like Dutch and Buster could rock up to your client with over a hundred million to invest, and he wouldn’t ask where they had got it from.’

‘I suspected something,’ Watson admitted.

Henderson shook his head. ‘Only suspected something? You’re a smart guy, Patrick, how could you not see it? In any case, rich investors would have approached you as a director of Gaynor Reed, not in a personal capacity.’

‘I knew about the murders, how could I not when everyone in the firm was talking about them. I might have suspected something was off, but there’s no way I could’ve known for sure.’

‘How did you first meet Dutch and Buster?’ Henderson asked.

‘Dutch was best mates with my younger brother, Liam.’

‘The boy who died when he drowned in a canal?’

‘Yes,’ he spluttered. ‘How did you know?’

‘Buster told us. He also said you blamed Dutch for his death.’

‘Of course I bloody well did! He was older and he knew Liam could be reckless. He should have been looking out for him.’

‘You were angry with him?’

‘Damn right I was! That bastard could have saved the only brother I had. Liam was my best friend.’

‘And you wanted Dutch to pay for his part in Liam’s death?’

‘Absolutely. I wanted to make him suffer.’

‘So you used Dutch to get at the three other people you hated most?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t answer that,’ Tranter said, his lips tight and terse. ‘You’ll only incriminate yourself.’

Watson sat in silence, his arms folded and his mouth zipped.

‘I don’t think it matters whether he answers it or not, Mr Tranter,’ Henderson said, when it was clear nothing would be forthcoming. ‘We have enough evidence of Mr Watson’s involvement in this crime to continue prosecuting the charges. Your client will still face charges of being an accessory to murder.’

Chapter Seventy

Henderson had been a little bit optimistic when telling Watson and his expensive brief that strong evidence had been obtained from his phone and laptop. For sure, they had accessed all the information on his laptop, but not everything on his phone. This morning, the phone analysis work was now complete, and he had in front of him a printout of Watson’s texts.

What was compelling, it was clear Watson and Dutch were not friends and only communicated when there was a job to be done. To this end, there was a flurry of texts before and after each of the murders.

Before, the address and movements of the intended victim were sent by Watson to Dutch. Immediately after, texts from Dutch to say the job was complete, and arranging a time to meet Watson, no doubt to hand over the stolen laptop. Some weeks later, when the investments had been sold, several texts about the amount realised, and the share due to Dutch and Buster.

The texts were always to Dutch. An occasional one was sent to Buster, to ask if Dutch was around as he hadn’t answered an earlier one. The more recent texts from Dutch took on a different tone. It was clear any obligation Dutch felt to Watson had been cleared, but Watson was insistent he wanted him to carry on. It was a good job they had arrested him when they did, as his last text to Dutch made sober reading.

Dutch you fucking bastard you’ve STOLEN my money. I want it back or I swear I WILL KILL YOU!

Walters walked in. ‘Ah, you’re looking at Watson’s texts. I was as well. It’s clear to anyone reading those that Watson was orchestrating the whole thing, although it does beg the question, why? It’s obvious he doesn’t need the money.’ She took a seat in the chair on the other side of Henderson’s desk.

‘I called the Chief Executive of Gaynor Reed earlier this morning,’ the DI said, ‘to see if he could shed any light on it.’

‘And did he?’

‘First off, he wasn’t shocked at Watson’s arrest.’

‘He wasn’t?’

‘He was surprised to hear he was charged with organising three murders. He was sure if he went to jail it would have been for insider trading or fraud. Watson, he said, sailed too close to the wind at times, and took too many unnecessary risks.’

‘I think there’s a lot of people in that industry who are risk junkies.’

‘The Chief Exec went on to say Watson hated people who were doing better than him, as he had been a success all his life, even at school. The three men who died were all star performers and, while working for their respective firms, outperformed Watson. Looking back, he could see now how Watson’s behaviour drove them to set up on their own. He often belittled their achievements in meetings, rubbished their share selections, and reported minor infractions such as drunkenness during a night-out, or overfamiliarity with a female colleague as if it was a serious disciplinary offence.’

‘He’s as twisted as any criminal we’ve come across.’

‘Yes, the smart suit and expensive aftershave make him seem a cut above your average con, but underneath he’s no different.’

‘I imagine the CPS will have no qualms with us charging him with all offences.’

‘No. The texts prove his involvement, not as a passive investor as he claims, but as the instigator, and we now have the motive behind the murders. None of them would have happened if it wasn’t for Watson.’

‘For all his stupid obsession at being the best, you would have thought the three victims leaving his orbit would have been enough for him. But no, he had to take it to its violent conclusion.’

‘Was this the reason you came in to see me, or something else?’

‘I came to update you on the search for Dutch.’

‘Fire away.’

‘All cops in South Wales have been issued with his mugshot and told to be on the look-out. We have surveillance outside the house of his sister who lives in Porthcawl, and also at the house raided by Phil and the team in Penarth, just in case he’s holed up in one of the empty ones close by.’

‘Good. Although, Watson’s final text to Dutch does change the landscape somewhat.’

‘Him stealing all of Watson’s money?’

‘I took it to mean not his personal money, the money he had set aside in an envelope for a rainy day, but the hundreds of millions nicked by the gang from the IFIs.’

‘The account with only twenty grand?’

‘The very one. I think Dutch cleaned him out in a final act of revenge.’

‘He must have really hated him.’

‘With that sort of money, he could hire a car, rent a house, buy a boat, lie low until the coast is clear. In a few weeks’ time he could be in Argentina, Thailand, Australia and living it up like a lord.’

‘We’ve alerted all UK airports and ferry ports, so he won’t get far.’

‘If he knows the right people he could cut his hair, grow a beard, and have a passport issued in a new name. Is there anything else we’re missing? What about Phil’s sighting in Cardiff? Does that suggest he’s moved there?

‘Maybe, but talking to Phil, he says Penarth is a holiday town so it doesn’t have a wide variety of shops. If he needed stuff to equip an empty cottage, for example, he would need to come into the city.’

‘So perhaps he doesn’t live there, he’s just getting what he needs?’

‘I think so, although Phil said he hadn’t been carrying any bags when he chased him.’

‘We’ll park that thought for the moment and see if the local cops come up with anything.’

‘I sure hope they do,’ she said, rising and walking to the door. ‘If they don’t, chances are we’ve lost him for good.’

Chapter Seventy-One

It had been a quiet night for PC Evan Jones and PC Ffion Caddell. Wednesdays often were. Not the drunks of a Thursday and Friday night, the party goers and football fans on a Saturday, or Evan’s own bugbear, rugby fans on a Sunday night.

Being Welsh, Evan grew up with the game, but ever since breaking his collarbone playing in a school match at age fourteen, he now hated it. Give him football, his beloved Cardiff City, any day of the week. He couldn’t say anything about it to Ffion, as her fiancé was a lock-forward with Merthyr RFC and she couldn’t wait for him to win his first cap with the national side.

Their patrol beat was Cardiff Airport to Barry, but at weekends they would often get called out to an emergency in Cardiff or Newport. On a quiet night like tonight, they patrolled the perimeter of the airport. They were instructed to be on the lookout for parked cars or vans, as they were often used by drug shippers, posing as plane spotters. During the day these were common, but at three in the morning it would be highly unusual.

A drug shipment from Holland had been intercepted two weeks before, not by them, but the National Crime Agency, and they had been ordered to keep on alert. The NCA believed the intercepted shipment could have been a decoy, despite being valued at two million, with the real deal following on later.

‘It’s dead as a doornail around here,’ Ffion said.

‘I think so. We’ll head over to Barry for a spell, come back here for another spin around the perimeter, and then it should be time to head back to the station for the end of our shift.’

‘Cool. I hate working nights. I can never get used to them.’

‘Wait ’till you have a couple of young kids and you’ll see what disruption means. I get woken up about a half-dozen times every day with them shouting.’

‘At least you’ve got Caitlin at your side. Without her, I doubt you’d still be a copper.’

‘I guess. I’m gonna turn off here, okay?’ he said, as they approached a roundabout at the eastern edge of the airport.

‘You needing a piss, again?’

‘’Fraid so.’

He turned left into Tredogan Road, a quiet and dark country road in stark contrast to the bright glare of the airport lights behind them.

‘You wanna get that checked. I was looking it up–’

‘What d’you do that for? You concerned about my wellbeing? Is there a soft, caring Ffion under that tough, hard, copper exterior?’

‘Is there hell. My da had the same a few years back. I was just brushing up.’

‘What did your research tell you?’

‘You might be diabetic.’

‘Could be, all the crap we eat on shift.’

‘You might have a swollen prostate.’

‘What? That’s an old man thing. I’m only thirty-four.’

‘Yeah, but you know what I always say, there’s an exception to every rule.’

‘What did he have?’

‘Who?’

‘Your da.’

‘An enlarged prostate. Had some of it cut out, and now he’s right as rain.’

‘Cut out? Sounds painful.’

‘Trimmed then; sound better?’

He stopped the car at the side of the road. At this time of the night there was no traffic, and little movement on the main road a kilometre or so behind them. Therefore, no embarrassing pictures of The Peeing PC to be found on Facebook, or a video on TikTok.

He completed his business and zipped up. Perhaps Ffion was right, maybe he needed to have it checked. He was sure his uncle Gareth died of prostate cancer. Or was it pancreatic? God, his memory was fading too, maybe he was suffering from dementia.

Turning, he noticed a car bumped up on the verge further up. The lights were off, and with no houses nearby it suggested a car abandoned by thieves, or a drug distributor waiting for a shipment to arrive but avoiding being closer to the airport due to the increased police presence.

In silence, he indicated to Ffion what he intended to do; pulling out his extendable baton to alert her as to how seriously he was taking it. She got out of the car and soon caught up with him.

‘You think it might be drug dealers from the airport?’ Ffion whispered.

He nodded.

‘Better call it in. The NCA said these guys often come tooled-up.’

‘Do it.’

She pulled out her radio and made the call to the control centre. A minute or so later, she put the radio away and turned to him. ‘They said take a look-see, but at the first sign of trouble, we are to call for back-up. Repeat: Mr Fuck-It-I’m-Going-In Jones, you are not to take any chances.’

‘Got it.’

They approached the car, a new Toyota Corolla hatchback. He noticed the Avis sticker on the back window. So far, so normal. The windows were steamed up, but could see enough to confirm there was only one occupant, asleep across the back seat. If the car contained two or more occupants, they would beat a retreat and call in an armed response team, but he felt confident they could deal with this.

With Ffion on the opposite side of the car in case the guy tried to do a runner, Evan tapped the window with his baton. It took the sleepyhead several more taps before he roused. He sat up, and Evan was pleased to see his first instinct hadn’t been to reach for a weapon.

Evan gingerly opened the back door. In the weak rays of the car’s interior light the PC recognised the face in front of him from a photograph he carried in his jacket pocket.

‘Well, if it isn’t the elusive Gary Holland, known to all as Dutch. You’re the UK’s favourite fugitive, mate. I think every cop in south Wales is looking for you. How lucky for me you’ve fallen right into my lap? C’mon mate, you are under arrest.’

Chapter Seventy-Two

Henderson drove towards the office. It was Friday, and for once he was looking forward to a relaxing weekend. He had tried to get Kelly interested in football and told her it would be better if she saw a live game. To this end, he had bagged two tickets for Brighton and Hove Albion’s Sunday match against Aston Villa at the Amex.

This morning, he would interview Dutch, who like Watson and Buster before him, would most likely be accompanied by a gold-plated barrister. No matter, the case against all three men was compelling and, as he had said earlier to Walters, the CPS had no qualms about prosecuting the three men.

The case against Dutch was simple. He and Buster had been captured on Nancy Khan’s video where they could be seen arriving and leaving the house in Esher around the time Kieran Rafferty was killed. In addition, a hair located close to Kieran’s body was found to belong to Dutch. Proof positive he had been in Kieran’s bedroom cum study.

Another forensic gem was found following a search of Buster’s rented house. Hidden at the back of a food cupboard behind tubs of pot noodles and tins of spaghetti, they found a synthetic cord. Analysis had proved it was the weapon used to kill all three victims.

The DI was stunned to hear Dutch had been discovered sleeping in a car. With all the money at his disposal, Henderson imagined he could do whatever he wanted. Thinking about it, the problem was he had remained in South Wales, the place where his picture had been widely circulated. If he had fled to the Midlands, or Scotland, it would have been a different story.

He arrived at Malling House and headed towards his building. News of the arrest of Dutch had clearly spread as several people not part of the investigation team shook his hand and clapped him on the back. He supposed it was because it had been such a high-profile case, although it seemed to him, it often garnered headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Taking a seat behind his desk, he looked at the pile of papers and numerous post-it notes, all the things he was forced to ignore while working on the investigation. He decided not to start anything until he had a coffee in his hand. He walked into the Detectives’ area and made his way to the coffee machine.

‘Morning gov,’ DS Walters said, as she stirred a cup with a teaspoon. ‘Want one?’

‘Yeah, go on.’

‘Are we all set for Dutch?’

‘I had a message from Gary on the desk. His brief won’t be here until later today. Tied up at the Old Bailey in another case, apparently.’

‘It’s just a formality, wouldn’t you say?’

‘What, Dutch?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Forensically we’ve got him in Kieran’s room, we know he was being blackmailed by Watson for the death of his brother, and we know he hacked Watson’s bank account. There might be one or two gaps that Dutch can fill in, but I think we’ve got most of the picture.’

She handed a steaming cup of coffee to Henderson. ‘Give me a call when we’re ready to interview him.’

‘Will do.’

Henderson walked back to his office, noting the relaxed vibe of the detectives; the laughter, the loud voices, the jibing. When Dutch was finally banged-up, he would organise a formal meeting to ensure no loose ends were missed, and a piss-up for everyone at a suitable venue in Brighton.

It had been a testing case for everyone with several of the team missing birthday and christening parties, while the sport-loving members would now have a chance to catch-up on the fixtures.

He had been sitting in his office chair for less than a minute when his phone rang.

‘Angus,’ DCI White said, ‘how are you? I bet you’re glad to see Dutch in custody at last?’

‘You’re dead right. But for the chance intervention of two South Wales cops, he could have been long gone.’

‘Could you come and see me? It won’t take long.’

‘Sure. I’ll be right up.’

Henderson hit the stairs two at a time. He had been thinking about his staff who were now able to catch up on their missed activities, but he realised when reaching the top and being out of breath, he had been neglecting his running. November wasn’t often a good time to start running again, but needs must.

Entering DCI White’s office, he realised Assistant Chief Constable, Andy Youngman was also in attendance. Youngman immediately got up from his seat and grasped Henderson’s hand before enveloping it in a firm handshake.

‘Well done, Angus, for solving this one. Who knew such a stellar financial star like Patrick Watson was also a psychotic killer.’

‘It was a surprise to me too, sir.’

Youngman let go of his hand and retook his seat. White indicated a spare chair for Henderson.

‘Angus,’ Youngman said, ‘previously promotion was denied to you as I felt your strengths were the hands-on DI role you are doing now, and I didn’t want to lose that.’

‘I understand.’

‘Your excellent conviction record is such that I feel it has to be rewarded. As a result, I’m promoting you to DCI. In the meantime, DCI White will move back to Surrey and I will transfer many of the administration functions that are currently part of his brief, over to Cindy Blackstone, my admin assistant. This will allow you to concentrate on what you’re good at. How does that sound?’

Henderson was taken aback; he had not expected this. ‘Excellent. I accept, thank you, sir.’

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About the Author

Iain Cameron was born in Glasgow and moved south to Brighton in the early eighties. He has worked as a management accountant, business consultant and a nursery goods retailer. He is now a full-time writer and lives in a village outside Horsham in West Sussex with his wife, two daughters and a lively Collie dog.