Alex Palmer - The Tattooed Man

‘Commander Harrigan,’ Edwards said, getting to his feet and extending his hand. ‘I understand you’re on leave. I didn’t realise that. Thank you for coming in like this.’

‘It’s not a problem, Minister. Thank you for taking the trouble, given what happened yesterday.’

‘This is life and death to me now. I will do everything I possibly can to find out who is responsible.’

‘You can be assured we will put every resource we have into this, Minister,’ the commissioner said, unsmiling. ‘In case you’re wondering why Marvin is here, Paul, he’ll be managing the budget for this investigation. You’ll remain the ultimate arbiter of operational decisions, though presumably you’ll delegate that authority to your 2IC while you’re on leave. If any negotiation proves necessary, I’m sure you can work it out.’

The commissioner at work, Harrigan thought. Divide the minions while protecting your backside at the same time. The golden rules for corporate success.

‘Shall we start?’ Marvin said.

‘Before we do, where’s Inspector Gabriel? I asked for him to be here,’ Edwards said.

‘He’s busy at the moment, Minister,’ Marvin replied. ‘I’m not convinced he should continue as the operational officer in charge of this job. That’s something I wanted us to discuss. I have a very well-qualified officer I can recommend.’

‘As far as I could tell, he did a good job yesterday. Why are you replacing him?’

‘We’re not.’ Harrigan shut down the possibility ruthlessly. ‘Personnel is my responsibility, Marvin. You don’t need to concern yourself with it. For your information, I have complete confidence in Trevor.’

‘Then get him. I want him here,’ Edwards said.

They sat in awkward silence while Chloe located Trevor Gabriel. Harrigan contemplated Marvin’s attempted removal of both himself and Trevor, all before the morning tea break. Why waste time? Shortly afterwards, Trevor arrived.

‘Sorry about this. No one told me I was supposed to be up here.’

‘You’re here now,’ the commissioner replied with an acidic glance in Marvin’s direction.

‘Let’s get on with the reason why I was visiting Nattie yesterday,’ Edwards said impatiently. ‘I understand you received your own copy of this document this morning but there’s no point in wasting these. You can thank my staff for working most of the night to get them ready for you.’

Edwards’ adviser handed to each of those present a high-quality copy of a thick dossier. The top of each page was marked with a series of file references, then the name Beck, Jerome. Harrigan leafed through detailed notes, surveillance photographs, maps tracking the subject’s movements, emails, lists of associates, known aliases. Each page was stamped Top Secret.

‘This was hand-delivered to my electorate office sometime on the night my son and ex-wife were shot.’ Edwards’ voice shook. Barely, he recovered himself. ‘My office has a mailbox for those constituents who prefer to deliver documents in person. This was left there.’

‘Do you have any surveillance cameras, Minister?’ Harrigan asked.

‘No, unfortunately we don’t. This is the envelope it came in but there’s no information on it. There was this note too.’

The envelope and a note identical to the one received by the commissioner were sheathed in a plastic sleeve. As Edwards had said, there was nothing to identify where either had come from.

‘It’s my belief,’ Edwards continued, ‘-and this is based on experience, I have been a cabinet minister for the last five years-that this is a surveillance dossier from a British intelligence agency. You’ll note that all the pages have the British government seal in the lower right-hand corner. Before you say it could still be a fake, the nature of the information contained in that document tells me it’s almost certainly genuine. Whatever this agency is, it’s been on this man’s trail for years. My adviser will sum up the contents for you. He had the pleasure of reading it last night. It runs to several hundred pages.’

The adviser blinked exhausted eyes. ‘It’s a very detailed document. I’ve only been able to skim it so far. It tells us that Jerome Beck was born in 1946 in Dresden, in what became East Germany. Father unknown. His mother died in 1997 in Berlin. There’s no record of any other close family. He fled from East Berlin when he was eighteen. He applied for political asylum in Britain and was granted it. He’s a British citizen but he’s not based in any single country. Until he came here, his address could have been any number of different locations in Europe and Africa. He was identified as an illegal arms dealer from the 1960s onwards, working mainly in South East Asia. In the late seventies and eighties, he was attached to the South African special security forces under the apartheid regime, working mainly as an agent provocateur. In the nineties, his name was linked to an international arms-smuggling syndicate known to deal in arms sourced from the former Soviet Union. He was also questioned in relation to the murder of a Russian journalist who was investigating that syndicate. Then around 1997, about when his mother died, he disappeared for a while. In a more recent incarnation, he worked in a scientific research facility in north London. He seems to have been an administrator of some kind. By all accounts, this employment was above board. However, during that time, he was also associating with individuals who may have been involved in the illegal diamond trade out of Africa. Then about four years ago, the dossier was closed and that is the end of the information. All in all, he’s had a very comprehensive criminal career.’

‘A busy boy,’ Trevor said.

‘Very. He was a career criminal and a murderer,’ Edwards replied. In an instant transformation, his body tightened up like a clenched fist. ‘Julian’s dead just because he was in the same room as a man who was nothing but a piece of rubbish.’

‘Do you need anything, Minister?’ Harrigan asked after a short pause. ‘Can we get you some coffee?’

‘Let’s just get on with it.’

Marvin looked up from his copy. ‘Why send this to you, Minister?’

‘I assumed I was being warned off Beck. But given what’s happened since, that can hardly be the case. I’ve a question for you, Trevor. You’re the operational officer. Why do you think these murderers sent those pictures out on the net this morning?’

Harrigan watched Marvin stare coldly at his 2IC.

‘The killers’ motives are their own, Minister,’ Trevor replied. ‘From our perspective, it’s blown the investigation wide open and put it squarely in the public eye. The publicity will just keep on going. My judgement is, that’s what they wanted to achieve. Also, they couldn’t have known we’d already identified the Ice Cream Man. They were making sure we did.’

‘Had you? How did you do that?’

‘Cassatt had a unique and distinctive tattoo on his left arm. Given the state of the body, it wasn’t immediately visible. The commander here checked it on instinct.’

‘Well done,’ Edwards said.

‘You obviously knew the Ice Cream Man well, Paul,’ Marvin said.

‘It’s a very well-known tattoo,’ Harrigan said, and noticed Edwards glance quickly at Marvin, summing him up.

‘I agree with you, Trevor,’ Edwards said, ‘but I also think my son’s killers wanted us to be each other’s insurance. If you weren’t prepared to act on this information, then I certainly would be.’

‘We would always act on information of this significance, Minister,’ the commissioner responded coldly.

‘I’d expect so,’ Edwards replied. ‘Now, to get to the point. I’m not so ill informed that I don’t know my ex-wife’s business. She knew exactly who Beck was. Julian told me he was given her name by an associate in London. You need some background. It’s a complicated story and it starts with Julian. He was a troubled young man. We had joint custody but I was never there and he always lived with his mother. He had bad influences, he never finished high school. He experimented with anything he could ingest and he drank heavily. I let him down in other words. But recently he’d started to get involved in green politics. He’d joined an organisation and was working for them. It gave him a sense of purpose. I used to listen to him talk about it. He had real capacity, maybe he could have been a leader. Then just last week he told me he had something on his mind. Among other things, it had to do with your ex-Detective Cassatt.’