A Time For Justice (21 page)

7) Apparently Brown was part of a loose criminal syndicate in
Manchester. His demise could well have been orchestrated by Corelli
and his own pals. (How did Hinksman find him in Blackpool - inside
information?) But that’s pure conjecture on my part.

8) Just a word about Corelli. He’s a Mafia godfather (Yes,
they do exist!) whose sphere of operations is mainly Florida and
the Caribbean. He runs an extensive criminal organisation which
consists of drugs, gun running, commodity fraud, tobacco smuggling,
people smuggling, prostitution and gambling. These criminal
activities are fronted by highly lucrative legit businesses ranging
from hotels, fast-food joints, nightclubs, building and transport
companies and other leisure businesses such as deep-sea fishing
trips, etc. His personal net worth cannot be accurately estimated,
but he is believed to be a billionaire.

9) Having said that, most of this is purely conjecture by the
FBI as Corelli has no convictions whatsoever. He once faced a
murder indictment, but walked. He is continually investigated by
the tax authorities, but keeps his books spick ‘n’ span. Without
doubt he is the driving force behind the mayhem of the last few
days.

10) We don’t know the half of what’s going on, but this
international cooperation between crims worries me.

11) I’ll bet we haven’t seen the last of Corelli.

12) I don’t think we’ll ever get to the bottom of
this.

13) (Unlucky for some): Prepare yourself for a crack epidemic
in the north of England.

14) I’ll bet the killing hasn’t ended yet.’

Henry signed his name.

Then he went down to his car and drove home and went straight
to bed, exhausted and very sore.

Chapter Thirteen

Most of Henry’s predictions began to come true as he placed
the summary down on FB’s desk.

A silver-grey Bentley Mulsanne pulled up smoothly at the
International Arrivals door at Manchester Airport and collected two
people, a man and a woman, who had just landed on a flight from
Malta.

The man was called Lenny Dakin, the woman Cathy Diamond. Dakin
settled himself back in the plush upholstery and said to the driver
of the Bentley, ‘Is it all over?’

The driver nodded. He wore a peaked cap, like a chauffeur,
which was slashed to hide his cruel eyes. Although he also wore a
uniform, he looked very uncomfortable in it. He could only be one
thing - a villain. But not as big a villain as Dakin.

‘
Yes, boss, it’s over,’ said the driver. ‘With a certain
degree of complication. ‘

‘
Which is?’

‘
The American was arrested. Bad luck really, but he’s been
locked up. Got shot in the process.’

‘
Badly?’

‘
No.’

‘
But the job was done? Carver’s dead and so is
Brown?’

‘
Yup,’ the driver confirmed.

‘
So
I’m free to trade?’

‘
Absolutely,’ said the driver.

Dakin turned to Cathy Diamond. His teeth were gritted in a
smile.

‘
Yes,’ he hissed. She beamed at him, her eyes playing over his
face. She slid a hand onto his thigh and squeezed.

‘
Darling,’ she said.

They embraced victoriously, all the while Dakin keeping an eye
open to judge her reaction to the news.

‘
The way is clear now,’ he said, breaking off and kissing
her.

‘
Partnerships are just so much fucking crap.’

He reached for the car phone - the one fitted for the rear
passengers - jabbed a number in and looked at his watch. ‘It’ll be
morning in the States,’ he said to himself. Whilst waiting for the
connection he rocked impatiently, yet remained smiling and
happy.

Once the call got through there was a further delay while
Corelli came to the phone. Then he was there.

‘
It’s done,’ said Dakin excitedly. ‘Everything is clear.
They’re both out of the game now. We can go ahead with the original
deal.’

‘
Good, good,’ said Corelli.

‘
One hiccup though,’ said Dakin cautiously.

‘
What?’ snapped Corelli.

‘
Your man has been apprehended, so I’m led to
believe.’

‘
So you’re led to believe?’ repeated Corelli incredulously.
‘What does that mean? Do you not
know
what’s going on in your
organisation? Has he, or hasn’t he? Do you know - or
NOT?’

‘
Look, I’ve been out of the country for a few days. I thought
it best. I’ve only just been given the news. I’ll look into it,
OK?’

‘
I want him to have the best legal representation available.
Do not spare expense. You will fund it.’

‘
No problem,’ said Dakin. ‘So when are we likely to
meet?’

‘
I have heard the sad news that one of my relatives has
recently died quite tragically in Blackpool. He will be buried in
about four days’ time. I will be coming for the funeral. Maybe then
... I will try, but I have some business to attend to over here
first.’

‘
Until then.’

Corelli hung up. Dakin was left holding a dead phone to his
ear for a few seconds before he realised there was no one else at
the other end. ‘We are on a roll, honey,’ he said enthusiastically
to Cathy.

‘
Sweetie,’ she purred.

‘
Don’t spare the horses, James,’ Dakin instructed his
driver.

The Bentley slid onto the motorway and its speed soon hovered
around the 100 mph mark.

Lenny Dakin was forty years old. He was a Scot, born and
raised in the slums of Glasgow. Right from the start he had gone
into crime, establishing a gang of young hoodlums who terrorised
the neighbourhood, putting old people and shopkeepers in fear of
their lives and property.

In his teenage days he had had two run-ins with the Scottish
police which resulted in prosecutions; one was for petty theft for
which he was convicted and the other was for a robbery where he got
off at court. He was fifteen then and hired one of the best, and
most bent, criminal lawyers in Scotland, showing how successful he
was, even then. He was arrested on numerous other occasions, but
with no end result.

By the time he was twenty, Lenny had become one of those
self-styled gangland bosses for which Glasgow is famous. For a
good eight or nine years he was very much the king of his wing of
the castle. He was into everything in a small-time way: bribery,
extortion, prostitution, burglary, theft and handling stolen goods.
It was all pretty unsubtle stuff. He controlled his part of town
very nicely thank you, but he didn’t reckon on the big boys moving
in. Which they did in ruthless style.

There was a bitter underworld feud between Dakin’s gang and
two others who had come together to oust him. It was the time of
the ‘Clyde Murders’, as the press liked to call them. Eight people
were found dismembered throughout Scotland, all villains, and not
one murderer caught, but each body linked to Dakin and his sordid
war.

In the end it got too much for him. He had a lot of muscle,
but not as much as the other two gangs put together. Dakin knew
when he was beaten. He held a summit meeting in secret with the
other two gang leaders and came to an agreement - namely, that he
would give up the struggle, put his men under their control, cut
his own losses and split. Alive.

He’d realised he was close to becoming another one of the
Clyde bodies.

He moved south to Manchester where his sphere and scale of
operations expanded dramatically.

In a loose partnership with Brown, whom he’d met previously
(the criminal underworld is a small underworld), he embarked on a
series of violent armed robberies throughout the north-west of
England, mainly with Securicor vans as targets. It was very big
stuff, as Dakin intended it to be, netting them more than two
million pounds in a period of less than nine months.

This was to be the financial bedrock of their
empire.

Dakin had previously decided where the true fortunes were to
be made in crime - drug dealing. And he set about achieving his
goals with a vengeance.

He and Brown made several journeys to Australia and the Far
East where they established contacts, couriers and routes. After
some initial blunders, mainly as a result of not bribing the right
officials, business began to boom. Their first ever deal grossed
them a profit of over one million pounds. By the end of their first
two years in operation they had amassed over five million pounds
each.

This time Dakin planned everything carefully.

He was never in a position where he could be compromised, and
if he ever felt he was in any danger he dropped the deal or made a
killing. Three doubtful couriers who knew too much and talked too
loudly got bullets in the back of the head.

He also invested wisely in legitimate businesses with real
profits, real management structures and good accountants who were
paid excellent money to launder drugs profits through these
businesses and offshore companies that existed in name only. He
owned a small chain of supermarkets, six chemists, a dozen
newsagents, several specialist wine importers, four pubs and a
discotheque.

But his business relationship with Brown was always on shaky
ground.

Their characters were not really compatible.

Dakin, tough, businesslike, careful; Brown, flash,
unpredictable, volatile, careless and unprofessional.

Some of these things Dakin could forgive, but he suspected
Brown of two serious transgressions, neither of which he could
prove.

One was that he short-changed on deals.

The other was that he had bedded Cathy Diamond.

Brown’s lack of professionalism was his undoing; things came
to a head during negotiations with Corelli.

Dakin had realised that even more money was to be made by
dealing with the Colombian drug cartels. They were much more
organised than the Asian drug barons, whom Dakin could never truly
bring himself to trust. Something about their manner. He always
expected a knife in the back.

Feelers put out amongst the international criminal fraternity
led him and Brown to Corelli’s organisation, which acted as
wholesalers for Colombian operations in Florida.

Talks began slowly and tentatively between Corelli and the
Britons, though they never actually spoke to the big man himself,
only his distant intermediaries. One of these was Danny
Carver.

It was during the course of these negotiations that Carver
struck up a friendship with Brown. They were very much alike,
sharing the same taste in cars, women and gambling.

Neither was happy with his lot.

Carver was ambitious to make it alone.

Brown was continually getting pain and grief from Dakin for
the smallest thing and he’d grown to hate the man. He wanted
out.

The result was they engineered a side deal which failed to
include either Corelli or Dakin.

When Dakin discovered the deception - and the amount of money
involved - he secretly flew to Florida where he had an urgent
meeting with Corelli. Here, he told him the facts as he knew them:
behind their backs, Carver and Brown were about to make twenty
million pounds sterling, conservative estimate.

Corelli had nodded sagely. He knew of Carver’s disloyalty.
It
had been going on for some time now.
Other deals had been struck and Carver had been warned several
times, but this was the last straw. Corelli had shown remarkable
restraint so far. Now it was time to act. Corelli promised to
dispose of both Carver and Brown, for the sake of the business,
nothing personal, then to resume talks with Dakin.

He had been true to his word.

Dakin was impressed and a little overawed. Now it was up to
him to show Corelli that he was also a man of his word and get the
best criminal lawyer in the country to act for the hit man. Fuck
the expense.

Firstly, though, he had a little problem of his own to sort
out.

The Bentley was driven to Dakin’s modernised farmhouse in the
Ribble Valley, set high on the banks of the river, overlooking the
ancient Roman fort of Ribchester.

The first thing Dakin did was call his solicitor, to whom he
paid a great deal of money as a retainer. After a polite threat
from Dakin ‘I’ll cut yer articles off’ - the less than enthusiastic
solicitor promised he would make his way to Blackpool and engage
himself to act for Hinksman.

After this brief conversation, he summoned his driver and said
one cold sentence to him.

‘
Get me Reeve.’

Gerard Reeve, dressed in only his underpants, held back the
curtains and peered out of the hotel window. It was mid-morning and
the Lake District village of Grasmere was milling fairly busily
with its tourist trade, most of which centred on its main asset -
William Wordsworth.