Alex Howard - Time to Die

In 1985 he started Albion Property, funded, according to the file, by the robbery proceeds. And that, said Cohen, is more or less that. He disappeared off our radar. He looked at Whiteside’s impassive face.

Whiteside considered the implications of what he’d just learnt. For Whiteside, the absence of Conquest’s record from the PNC was the most important thing. It was a very serious matter indeed. He remembered the year before a court official had been sent down for three years for taking bribes to delete motoring offences from the police national database. He knew too, historically, that a great deal of police information had been transferred from paper records to fledgeling computer systems in the early eighties and a lot of low-grade crime records had simply been destroyed or junked. They’d been deemed not worthy of keeping. Conquest’s records were too important for that. Someone in the criminal records system had deliberately removed them. Conquest had to have had some serious influence.

Well, Hanlon had been proved right. Conquest did have a record. He was, or had been, dirty. He wondered, though, if what he’d learnt was remotely important. It could be argued that Conquest was a triumph of the system. He had done time for his crimes, well, one of them anyway, and had built himself a successful, legitimate, life. But he knew Hanlon too well for her to be satisfied with that. Hanlon believed that, on the whole, leopards don’t change their spots. Something else was going on other than redemption for Conquest to have paid a great deal of money to have his records expunged. Property was a good way to launder money. He thought of Conquest’s lavish lifestyle, the former connections with drug dealing. He remembered what Hanlon had said about the money he was spending outstripping the reported income. He guessed that’s what Hanlon was assuming, money laundering, but he didn’t know.

If Hanlon had any faults in Whiteside’s opinion, it was that she played her cards too close to her chest. But then again, Whiteside wasn’t overly concerned with larger pictures. One thought occurred to him as he switched his phone off.

‘Dr Cohen, does that file mention any known associates?’

Cohen glanced at the screen. ‘He set up Albion, the name of his business — the poet Blake would be turning in his grave — with a partner, a Paul Bingham, in the eighties, but there’s no more mention of him.’

Whiteside felt a surge of elation and excitement inside. Bingham. Paul Bingham, could it be? He struggled to keep the tension out of his expression. ‘This Bingham, does he have a nickname?’

Cohen raised his eyebrows and peered at the screen. ‘Yes, he does,’ he said. Please God, please let it be Rabbit, prayed Whiteside. ‘Rabbit. Does that help?’

‘Yes, yes, it does,’ said Whiteside. Oh my God, yes, it does.

‘Will there be anything else?’ Cohen asked.

Whiteside shook his head. Rabbit Bingham. No wonder Conquest wanted any criminal details keeping off his record. If Conquest was involved with crime it was something far more disturbing than drugs. Far worse. He could see now why Conquest would do anything to keep off the police radar. No wonder he was trying to find out what the DI wanted the other night. He must have been shitting himself when Hanlon, a woman with a fearsome reputation for direct action, had turned up on his doorstep.

‘Thank you very much for your time, Dr Cohen. I’ll see myself out.’ Whiteside could have punched the air with elation. Bingham!

As he walked down the stairs Whiteside thought, now I know what you’re thinking, Hanlon. Child sex abuse and murder. You lift a stone and what do you find under it. Rabbit Bingham. And now Conquest. He couldn’t wait to see Hanlon’s face.

When she was delighted, she would raise her left eyebrow. Grim satisfaction, Hanlon’s version of happiness, was a wintery smile. What he now had was maybe enough for the two together.

As soon as he was outside in the street he phoned the DI. Her phone was switched off so he left a message. ‘Ma’am, you were right. Most importantly, Rabbit Bingham, yes, that Rabbit Bingham, was one of Conquest’s associates. Oh, last thing, that number question: 18 is A. H.’ He wouldn’t need to explain what that meant. Hanlon would know. Those bloody dogs of Conquest’s. If he’d called them Rover and Spike, Whiteside wouldn’t even be at the institute.

Whiteside wasn’t Hanlon. He didn’t hide emotions. He grinned as he flagged down a taxi. Time to go home and celebrate.

Celia Westermann sat upstairs in what had been an attic room at the top of the building and watched Whiteside on one of the twelve CCTV monitors she had on her desk. Her face was no longer that of the amenable, put-upon drudge. It was implacable and cruel. There was no trace now of the downtrodden secretary. Invisible, a malignant ghost sitting at her desk, she had tracked Whiteside’s progress on camera down the stairs, back through security, past Zev and Reuben, the guards on the door, and into the street. She clicked on the icon on her screen where she had herself accessed Conquest’s file and picked up her own phone while she looked at the image of Whiteside as he talked on his mobile.

People say that there are two requisites for betrayal: love and hate. Eta Westermann, Celia’s mother, had dementia. Physically, she was fit for her age, she could live for years, but mentally was another story. She was a seventy-eight-year-old baby. She had a baby’s needs: nappies, washing, feeding, attention. The home that she was in was wonderful. The staff were highly trained and motivated, the building light, airy, clean. It was also extremely expensive. Celia could not afford it on her salary. That was where the love came in. Then there was the flip side of love.

Celia felt she practically ran the institute. She had been here for twenty-six years now, running virtually all of the administration, from IT to wages, and got as much thanks as the expensive computer equipment that surrounded her. Less maybe. She was regarded by the predominantly male workforce as an old maid, practically pitiable despite the fact she probably did three people’s jobs. Indeed, to replace her, they would need three people. Zev and Reuben earned more than she did — she authorized their pay checks for God’s sake, and what did their jobs entail, looking menacing and checking bags. A dog could do that job. A chimpanzee could do it. A retard could do it. And they had the gall to look down their noses at her.

Almost a year ago a bill from the home had arrived that she simply couldn’t pay. The next day she took out a bridging loan from her bank and the same evening, accessing the institute’s encrypted files, worked out who was selected for ‘action’ by the London branch of Shin Bet, Israeli intelligence. She chose one of three names. With the recent assassinations of scientists in Tehran still fresh in Muslim minds, the person concerned was more than grateful for the tip-off.

Payment from the Arab had been swift and generous. Since then, each transaction becoming morally and practically easier, she had done it three times more. Today would be her fifth. From another database, she accessed Conquest’s mobile number and called it. He answered immediately. Celia liked that in a man. He was curious to know who the unknown caller was. She told him why she was calling, using a voice changer to disguise herself. It was a man’s robotic voice that read out over the phone to an increasingly disturbed Conquest the contents of his file. For a price she would give him the name and address of the journalist who’d accessed it. Payment would also ensure she kept an eye on any further access of his details, which she would pass on.

Conquest agreed, as she’d known he would. How could he refuse? Her screen showed the bank balance of the account she had set up to handle these transactions. Within a couple of minutes the balance increased dramatically and she gave him Dunlop’s name and his address from his business card. She hung up. What Conquest did with the information was up to him. Mother had another six months of care.