Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

He leant forward, lowering his voice. ‘Between you and me, Merriweather’s no longer in Belmarsh. He’s in a safe house. Has been for the past two weeks. Ever since someone tried to kill him.’

‘So Vamen hasn’t thrown in the towel just yet?’

‘Did you think he would? Men like him are survivors, John. They don’t give up until they’re underground. Vamen wants Merriweather out of the way, and he’s going to keep trying until he’s succeeded.’

‘Is Merriweather all right?’

He nodded. ‘He was lucky, though. It was a very near miss. A paedophile on the same segregation wing attacked him with a sharpened lamb chop bone, of all things. Tried to jam it in his neck while they were out in the exercise yard. He managed to slash him but Merriweather’s quite handy with his fists and he managed to fight the guy off until the warders broke it up.’

‘A lamb chop?’ That was certainly a new one.

‘If the attacker had got a clean shot, and some power behind it, it could easily have killed him. It was solid bone.’

‘It’s not exactly hi-tech. Was it definitely an organized hit?’

‘The assailant’s not saying anything, but it was a completely unprovoked attack, and there was no history at all between the two of them. And that’s not the end of it. While Merriweather was recovering in the prison hospital someone put ground glass in his food. Luckily for him his appetite had been affected by what had happened, and the stuff they were feeding him wasn’t exactly gourmet, so he only had a couple of bites. He didn’t like the taste, said there was something wrong with it, and spat the stuff out. That’s when someone put two and two together and checked it. They found enough in there to have ripped his insides to shreds. And it was professionally ground down as well, almost into dust. He could have eaten a fair bit without realizing what was wrong. Whoever was behind it took a lot of trouble getting it ready.’

I sighed, concerned by what I was hearing. You think that when you’ve nicked someone and built a decent case against them, then that’s pretty much that. But in reality all we had against Vamen was the testimony of Jack Merriweather and those handful of witnesses prepared to follow his example and point their fingers at him for past crimes. If Merriweather was silenced, then so would they be, you could bank on it. And without them there was nothing like enough evidence to secure a conviction.

‘So, he’s not got any second thoughts about testifying?’

‘He’s doing fine now we’ve got him out of Belmarsh and into a nice little pad in the country. He’s moaning that he wants every creature comfort going, and even Cheryl to come and play happy families, but he’s holding up, and that’s the main thing. This is classified information, though, John. Only a handful of people know about it, and even fewer are aware of the location. Don’t mention any of it to anyone. Not even Tina.’

‘I won’t. I promise.’

A plump girl carrying two plates of steaming food came out from behind the bar and shouted out our number. I lifted my hand to acknowledge her and she came over and dumped them down in front of us.

We ate largely in silence, both of us hungry, but as I finished, a thought suddenly struck me. ‘Do you think what’s happening with Merriweather’s got anything to do with our case?’ I pushed my empty plate to one side. ‘I mean, there’s what Tina found out about Stegs Jenner and his possible involvement with the Holtzes. If he was somehow involved in the leaking of the Heathrow op. .’

Malik didn’t look convinced. ‘There’s no evidence against Jenner, nothing at all, and he seems to be co-operating fully. Plus, as Flanagan points out, there is the problem of motive.’

I nodded slowly, thinking. I’d been doing a lot of thinking these past few days. ‘But there could be a motive if we assume that Stegs is still working for the Holtzes, or at least for Neil Vamen.’

Malik’s eyes narrowed. ‘Explain.’

‘Well, say, Stegs uses O’Brien to set up the robbery at the airport hotel, knowing full well the robbers’ll get caught, thus implicating their boss, Nicholas Tyndall, and causing him no end of trouble — that would be a very nice outcome for Neil Vamen, wouldn’t it? A potentially very serious rival in the shit, which is effectively what’s happened, and if he can get rid of Merriweather at the same time, a chance to be back out on the streets and in complete charge of his old manor.’

Malik thought about it for a few moments, taking the odd pensive sip of his orange juice, which seemed to be lasting an unfeasibly long time. ‘Part of it fits, but there are still unanswered questions,’ he said eventually. ‘Such as, why would Stegs put himself in such a dangerous position, which he undoubtedly did, for someone like Vamen? Also, we’re assuming that Vamen’s positive he’s going to get out of jail, otherwise why would he bother trying to set up Tyndall? And why put his old friends, the Colombians, out of business?’

I finished my pint and placed the glass carefully on the table. ‘Something’s going down, though, Asif. I’m sure of it.’

Fiona Ragdale was pale and skinny, with bottle-blonde hair showing dark roots. She looked older than the twenty-three years she claimed to be, and tired too, but then she did have a hyperactive three-year-old boy jumping all over her. ‘Leave it, Jack,’ she said, swatting him away with an arm that was dotted with bruises. ‘I’m talking to these men. Go and play with your train set.’

She turned back to us as Jack ran off towards the other side of the room. ‘I ain’t seen him since that night,’ she said. ‘And I hope I never see him again. Not after what he did to us.’

We were sitting opposite her in the lounge of her cramped tenth-floor flat on the Warwick estate, a collection of monolithic 1960s council-owned tower blocks overlooking the A40 flyover, just west of Paddington station. Malik and I were hunched together on the tiny semi-collapsed sofa, trying desperately to stay upright, while she was hunched forward in a matching chair that looked like it had been savaged by a dog. The room itself was tidy but cold, and it badly needed a new coat of paint. The hole in the ceiling where Panner had fired the all-important round was still clearly visible, surrounded by long spider’s-web cracks in the plaster.

Malik made a manful attempt to lean forward in his rapidly sinking seat. ‘He hasn’t attempted to make contact at all since?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I thought he would. Usually when he threatens something, he comes back to finish it off. Maybe he reckoned he’d gone too far, what with the gun an’ all.’

‘Gun!’ shouted Jack happily, coming back over and standing in front of Malik and me. ‘Gun! Gun! Gun!’ I gave him a brief smile and he continued his running round the room. I thought it was tough on the little kid, being cooped up high above the ground when he should have been outside playing.

‘I’m not working the streets no more, all that stuff’s behind me. And I’m clean too. I ain’t touched a thing since January.’ She looked us both in the eye as she said this, and there was an unmistakable pride in her voice. ‘That’s why he was so pissed off with me.’

‘You’re doing the right thing,’ I told her, hoping she’d be able to keep it up.

Malik pulled the e-fit of our suspect from his jacket and passed it over to her. ‘Can you tell us if Mr Panner looks anything like this?’

She checked the picture out for a couple of seconds, then her face lit up with a surprisingly pleasant smile. ‘Nah, it don’t look nothing like him. This bloke might not be real but he’s a lot better looking. And his hair’s shorter.’