Brock And Kolla - 09 - Spider Trap (34 page)

‘Why did she think you could do it?’

‘I’ve told her I work as a security consultant. So she took me into her dad’s office and I had a look. It took me ten minutes to figure out what he’d done—you had to subtract one from each of the digits he’d written down to get the true entry code.Inside there were half a dozen sachets of cocaine, some of Magdalen’s mother’s jewellery, a pile of papers and a file. Magdalen removed one of the packets of coke and we went out to the living room.’ He shrugged. ‘Like I said,it took forever for her to fall asleep.She got all wild and lively again, wanting to dance, and then finally flaked out, just before the time I was supposed to leave. So I sent you the message and went back into the office and had another look. The papers seemed innocuous—birth certificates, company registration documents, stuff like that—but the file was odd. It was labelled “Dragon Stout”, and seemed to be concerned with a consignment of Jamaican beer for the Paramounts off-licence chain. I thought it was strange having just one business file in among that other stuff, and I had a closer look. Most of it was straightforward letters and documents about suppliers’ contracts, container layouts, shipping arrangements, customs forms, things like that, but then I came across this sheet . . .’

Tom opened the yellow envelope and emptied its contents onto the coffee table. He thumbed through them for a moment, then lifted a single sheet with the letterhead of the head office of Paramounts Beers,Wines and Spirits, Importers and Retailers. It was dated the previous year and took the form of a handwritten list of points, like a summary for a presentation or a report, and ran as follows:

TERMS:

• standard 20' container holds 1120 cases of 2 doz bottles of DS
  
• 300 (25%) cases of ‘special’ = 7200 bottles
  
• @ 80 gm/bottle = 576 kg FGBC
  
• @ £20,000/kg = £11.52m
  

‘DS is Dragon Stout?’ Kathy said.

Tom nodded.

‘What’s FGBC?’

‘Could be first-grade base cocaine. Twenty thousand a kilo is about right for wholesale Colombian, uncut.’

‘You think they’re bringing it over in bottles of beer?’

‘That’s how it looks.’

‘This isn’t the original, is it?’

‘No. There was a photocopier in the room, and I copied as much as I could of the file until I ran out of time. I haven’t really examined the rest. I know there are letters to the bottling plant in Jamaica and the names of distributors in the UK.’

Kathy frowned, worried.‘Isn’t this a bit too easy? I mean, are they really going to put this sort of stuff down on paper?’

‘It’s a business, like any other, Kathy. They have to keep records of what’s been agreed, what’s been paid. Look at the initials at the bottom: I.R., Ivor Roach. He’s the accountant, he has to know. It’s his file, in his private safe, in his home.Where else would it be?’

‘When is this going to happen?’

‘It already has. According to the dates there were four container loads delivered last year. That’s forty-six million pounds worth of cocaine wholesale, say a hundred million on the street as crack or coke.’

‘Well.’ Kathy felt incapable of judgement. It was four in the morning and she wanted sleep and time to step back and digest this. She felt she barely recognised the man beside her. His face was flushed, his pupils contracted and his nose running. ‘No wonder they’ve all got better cars than me,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose.‘And no wonder they’ve got plenty of friends.You look tired.’

‘Yes, I’ll be on my way.’

‘Kip here. Then you can run me back to my car in the morning.’

She was too weary to argue, and they tumbled onto opposite sides of his bed and fell into a troubled sleep.

twenty-three

I
t was one of the more difficult interviews of her life. Tom managed it as well as he could have, speaking with conviction, taking full personal responsibility and painting her role in the most favourable light. But still, she felt rotten. Brock didn’t rant or scold, that wasn’t his way. His silence was far more eloquent. He just sat there behind his desk, expressionless, his eyes fixed on Tom as he told his story, occasionally appearing to focus on some detail of his appearance, his puffy eyes, his inflamed nostrils. He didn’t look at Kathy at all, and she felt his disregard like a weight on her chest. Then, when the story was finished, he bowed his head over the papers and read them carefully, line by line, making notes on a pad in his deliberate script.

Finally he said, ‘You haven’t corroborated any of this? The shipping movements, the customs details, the contractors’ companies?’ This to Tom.

‘No, we thought we’d better talk to you first.’ ‘Check what you can, without arousing suspicion. Come back

at noon.’

‘Right.’ Tom began to draw back his chair.

‘And bring a written report of your operation, as brief and succinct as possible. Leave Kathy out of it.’

‘Fine.’ Tom was on his feet.

‘How did she get hold of the key?’ Brock asked suddenly.

‘The key?’

‘To her father’s safe. You said she had the combination and the key.’

‘Oh, yes. There was a false bottom in one of the drawers of his desk. The key and the note of the combination were kept there, along with other keys. She’d seen him access it.’

‘Hm.’ Brock turned away and they left.

They worked at adjoining desks, Tom tracking the movement of the containers and their consignments of Jamaican Dragon Stout through a friend in Customs and Excise, while Kathy checked the details of companies whose names appeared in the record using Companies House and a contact in the Fraud Squad. By noon they had compiled a fairly comprehensive background to the story outlined in Tom’s photocopied material. He had also written a highly abridged account of how he had come by it, with the help, so he said, of an unnamed member of the Roach family.

‘So there certainly were those orders and those shipments last year, Chief,’ Tom said as Brock finished reading their report.

‘What about this plastics business?’ Brock pointed to one of the names on Kathy’s schedule of companies involved in the transactions.‘Are you sure it existed?’

The order to PC Plastics in Solihull was one of the most incriminating items in the Dragon Stout file, involving the supply of 50,000 brown plastic sleeves, described as ‘wine sample containers’. These would presumably have been used to hold the cocaine inside the ‘special’ bottles of beer, hidden in the middle of each container load. However the company had gone out of business the previous year and Kathy hadn’t been able to contact its directors.

‘It certainly existed,’she said,the first time she’d spoken.‘I got details from Companies House, and I rang the local chamber of commerce, who knew of it. They also know of the managing director, name of Steven Bryce. He has other companies that are still functioning. I tried one of them and was told he’s overseas at present, on a business trip.’

A hurried breakfast and several cups of strong coffee had restored her confidence to some extent. They hadn’t been able to find anything in the papers that didn’t have some form of corroboration,and Kathy was beginning to be infected by Tom’s obvious excitement. Brock, though, betrayed no particular enthusiasm.

‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘Leave it with me.’ He reached for the phone and they left.

‘I’ll buy you lunch,’ Tom said as they made their way downstairs.‘He might show a little interest.What does he want, signed confessions?’

Kathy turned down lunch. She didn’t want to listen to Tom building up his hopes. She wanted to think.

Later that afternoon she drove into South London and parked in the lane outside P
ART
W
ORN
T
YRES
.Which part? she wondered. The light was on in the window of the girl’s flat above the laundrette. She silently climbed the stairs to the access deck and listened at the door. She thought she heard the sound of soft music, but not of babies. She knocked.

The door opened on George’s face then began to swing shut

again. Kathy stuck her foot in the gap. ‘Go away,’he complained.‘Go away.’ ‘On your own, George? Don’t keep me standing out here,

there’s a good lad. Someone might see me.’ George gave a moan and let her in.‘Carole’ll be back soon.’ ‘Won’t take long. Just need a bit of help. Nothing heavy. How

did you enjoy the concert on Saturday?’ ‘All right.’ ‘I was watching you.You seemed really taken with it.’ He shrugged, scuffed his shoe on the worn carpet tile.‘It was

cool.’ ‘They were raising money for people like you, George, for

scholarships—music scholarships, for example.You could apply.’ ‘Nah. I don’t do classical stuff.’ ‘Not just classical,any kind of music.I know Michael Grant,the

bloke who organised it.Would you like me to ask him for you?’ George met her eye with a kind of pained anxiety, as if he knew this was a trap but couldn’t help responding.‘Maybe.’ ‘All right, I will. I passed the JOS last night and saw your

posters.Were you playing?’ He nodded. ‘Teddy Vexx and Jay Crocker were there too, yes? I saw

their car.’ Another nod, more wary. ‘Do you know a girl called Magdalen, friend of theirs?’ ‘Yeah ...’ Something about the way he said it made Kathy ask, ‘Fancy

her, do you?’ ‘Nah.’ He looked down at the floor again, embarrassed. ‘She is very pretty though,isn’t she? You’d have to notice her.

Was she with Teddy and Jay at the club last night?’

‘Nah, some other bloke.’

‘Ah. Has she split up with Teddy then?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Didn’t Teddy mind her being with this other bloke?’

George suddenly recognised danger. ‘Did something happen to him? Look, I didn’t see nothing. There wasn’t no trouble at the club. Magdalen and the bloke left about midnight, but Teddy and Jay stayed on till three or four—I swear, I saw them.’

‘That’s okay, George. There was no trouble. Look, between ourselves, Magdalen’s family are worried about her drugs and the company she keeps, that’s all.’

‘Ah.’He looked relieved.‘The other bloke looked okay.White guy. I’ve seen him around. I was surprised, though, that Teddy didn’t seem bothered.’

‘Did he know Teddy?’

‘Don’t think so. I didn’t see them speak.’

‘All right, that’s all I wanted, George, thanks. And I will look into that other thing for you . . .’

At that moment they heard the clatter of feet on the deck outside and the impatient rattle of a key in the door.

‘Oh fuck.’ George panicked. ‘She’ll see you here. She’ll tell Teddy ...’

‘What’s her name?’ Kathy said quickly.

‘What?’

‘What’s Carole’s other name?’

‘Marshall, why . . .?’

The door swung open and Carole marched in. ‘Those bleedin’—’ She glared in surprise at Kathy.

‘Ms Marshall?’ Kathy said.‘Hello, I’m from the clinic. There’s been a mix-up over medications. They asked me to come down in person to check you’ve got the right ones. Sorry about this. Can I just see your bottles?’

‘Eh? Clinic?’

‘GUM, dear,’ Kathy murmured tactfully and shot a coy smile at George, who looked blank.‘Are they in the bathroom?’

‘Oh . . . no, they’re here.’ Carole, flustered by Kathy’s imitation of a caring health professional, rummaged in her bag and produced a plastic bottle of pills.

Kathy examined the label. ‘Oh, that’s fine. Not you then. Marvellous. I’ll be on my way. Bye.’

She walked out.