Fogarty: A City of London Thriller (28 page)

Chapter 3
9

Pitcher & Piano Pub, Cornhill, London.

Monday 22
nd
August 2011; 7:30pm.

“Tell me what she said,” Max demanded as the tired pair approached a stately looking establishment with stuccoed walls and a grand entrance. The impressive entrance led to the Pitcher and Piano Pub, a well established eatery frequented by those who worked in the City, as well as tourists ‘in the know’. Max knew the Maitre D’ and they were quickly ushered to a table.

The meeting at Vastrick had ended with Dee pleading with Ben to turn over the information to the police immediately. Ben stubbornly refused. He wanted to talk to his sister first, and in any case someone within the police was clearly protecting Mapperley. Ben promised that he would sleep on it and they would call the police tomorrow. Ben had called Ashley and now he was confused again. Max pushed him
for details of the phone call.

“When she came on the line we exchanged small talk. I didn’t let on that I knew about May; that would have given the game away, if she was involved. She asked how the conveyance was going, and I told her I’m getting a draft contract drawn up tomorrow. I then asked her if she knew Gavin Mapperley. She was obviously puzzled, but answered without missing a beat. She said that Gavin worked three days a week for Garner-Brinkman in finance. Then she asked me why I wanted to know. I told her that his name had come up on the financial plan for the Rectory’s development, and that he appeared to have acted on behalf of Dennis Grierson.
At first she said it wasn’t possible. He worked for Garner-Brinkman, and he had no connection to their father. She paused and took a sharp intake of breath before saying quietly, ‘Oh no.’ She then explained that Lawrence had hired Mapperley, presumably under pressure from Grierson, and that she had no idea he was in league with Grierson. He had seemed such a nice man, she said. Then she asked me a question. She asked me whether I thought Dennis had Mapperley brought in here to keep an eye on her and Lawrence. I told her I thought it was possible, but that in any event it might be best to consider getting rid of him. She asked me why, and....”

“And you said ‘because he was probably responsible for beating May Fogarty half to death.’ Yes, I he
ard that bit,” Max interjected.

“Ashley then said she was going to rip his heart out, and started crying. I tried to calm her but she just said I should complete the sale as quickly as possible and she would meet up with me so we could decide what to do abou
t Mapperley. Then she hung up.”

“And you’ve gone from being a convert to being a non believer in one phone call. An hour ago you thought she was Madame Sin, and now she’s back to being
poor vulnerable and exploited Ashley.”

Ben shook his head, clearly unsure of what exactly he believed. “I really don’t know, Max. I might be grabbing at straws, but she is family.” He looked Max in the eye. “You know.
Maybe the only family I have.”

“Don’t forget May, Ben. She
’s family, too, and she is very definitely an innocent in all of this.”

***

Both men started with the mushroom and rosemary soup. Ben followed that with a steak, mushroom and Pedigree pie with mash, the steak gravy being infused with Pedigree Beer. Max opted for fish and chips. They made short work of their main meals, preferring eating to talking, and had both ordered sticky toffee pudding for dessert when they finally broke the silence.

“Right, Ben. While you’re making your mind up
about Ashley, how do you feel about taking your frustrations out on Mapperley tonight?” Max asked, with steel in his eyes.

“How are we going to do that?” Ben asked. 
“We don’t know where he lives.”

“I have an idea,” Max answered. He outlined a rough plan to Ben. Max wanted someone to pay for what
had happened to Mary, and he wouldn’t rest until he did something, even if it was nothing more than a token gesture.

Chapter 40

High Mead, Chigwell , London.

Monday 22
nd
August 2011; 7:30pm.

Gavin Mapperley yawned as his sleek green Jaguar turned off the A113, just after the Chigwell Hall exit, and onto High Mead. High Mead was an exclusive development of imposing Georgian styled houses, built in the early part of the twentieth century to house rich City workers. At one time Chigwell had a reputation of having a predominantly Jewish population, but that was less true today.

Mapperley’s driver came to a T junction and turned left along a concrete estate road which ended in a large turning circle. On the left had side of the road stood a curtain of greenery provided by tall fir trees, and on the right were the large houses only the very well off could afford. The Mapperleys’ home had cost £310,000 fifteen years earlier, and was probably worth
well over a million pounds now.

The driver turned the Jaguar into the curved driveway of Fir View House, crunching loose gravel under the tyres as the car came to a halt in front of a triple width garage. The garage was always occupied by his wife’s Range Rover, his son’s Audi, a jet ski and an array of surfing and skiing equipment, and so the Jaguar spent its nights on the white gravelled driveway.
Martin Gosling exited the car and opened the door for his passenger, Gavin Mapperley, to get out.

“Take the car, Martin. I don’t need it tonight, and it will save you taking the bus
home. Just be sure to come and collect me at seven in the morning, OK?”

The driver answered with a brisk ‘Yes, sir.’ Mapperley’s driver then drove the car out of the semi circular driveway and back onto the con
crete road paving of High Mead.

Mapperley’s phone rang before he could unlock the front door, so he set down his briefcase and walked from under the stuccoed white colonnaded canopy to ensure a good mobile phone signal. The number on the display belonged to
the Boss.

Gavin Mapperley’s day had been close to a disaster
, and he wasn’t relishing this call, but he knew he had to take it. He had been leaving messages on the Boss’s phone all day without any response, which was highly unusual, but then he remembered something about a hospital appointment and some brain scans and he understood why his call was being returned at seven thirty in the evening.

“Gavin, do I employ you to destroy my business, have me imprisoned and generally ruin my life?” The initial intemperate volley continued before he could answer. “Tell me, Gavin, what kind of morons work for us? As I recall, those morons were instructed to quell a possible rebellion in the flats by intimidation, and a bit of property destruction, if necessary.” There was a pause, but Gavin knew better than to interrupt. “But what did we get instead? Big moron kills a little old lady pensioner, and lands us with a murder investigation, continuous police presence and a community up in arms, whilst little moron looks on. What
the hell was he doing, Gavin?”

“The old lady attacked him. Sh
e stabbed him, and he lost it.”

“What? She had a knife?”

“No, it was actually a hatpin, but maybe he thought it was a knife.” There was an ominous silence on the other end of the phone. “, are you there.”

“Oh, I’m here, Gavin. I’m all here, which is more than can be said for that brain dead goon who killed the old lady because she pricked him with a hatpin. What the hell would he have done if she’d punched him? Burn down the estate?” The
Boss was screaming now.

“Try to calm down,
Boss. We have a plan to give Rafe up as a sacrifice to Bob Radlett, who will wrap the murder case up quick and try to take the uniforms off the estate as soon as possible.”

“I hope that this plan revolves around the sudden and violent demise
of that cretin Rafe Patterson.”

“It does,
Boss.”

“It had better. He has cost us a lot of revenue, a lot of hassle and to cap it all he almost
beat my grandmother to death!”

***

Ashley Morgan slammed down the receiver and swore violently to the empty room in a creative outburst of blasphemy and cursing. She paused before she continued muttering out loud, the thin veneer of sanity scraped away, even if temporarily.

“Damn Gavin, damn Rafe
bloody
Patterson, damn them all! They’re all weak bloody men, overdeveloped little boys whose only claim to being the superior sex is that they have a set of balls and a surfeit of testosterone. God, what a way to ruin a world! Put bloody men in charge of it! If only I‘d encountered one man in my life who was worth anything, just one man who could come close to being my equal. But, no. The cast list of men in my life is filled with egotistical fops like my real father, weak mummy’s boys like my step dad and crazed sexual animals like Dennis Grierson. Even Lawrence, who seemed intelligent, well educated and tough at first, was soft in the centre. He had cried like a baby when the Rectory started to go wrong, afraid his daddy would find out and be disappointed. Didn’t you, Lawrie,” she said, lifting a silver frame which held a picture of her smiling late husband. “I slapped you so hard that day I loosened a tooth, and from then on I took charge and your days were numbered.” She kissed the image in the frame and laughed for a good minute.

Eventually, Ashley set down the picture frame and pushed back in her office chair, forcing herself to relax and calm down, but it was difficult. She was now regretting not terminating Ben when she’d had him at her mercy in the basement of the Rectory. That had been her plan when she’d placed the thought of revenge in Dennis Grierson’s addled brain, suggesting that she could be used to lure her twin brother to the Rectory on the night of h
er feminist affirmative action.

Ashley felt little regret for the murders of Dennis, Lenny and Lawrence. Dennis was a pervert, plain and simple, so stupid that he believed he alone ran their little criminal enterprise. It was Dennis who made pennies with his petty crimes, whilst she made the real money in the boiler house boom, large scale forgery and her deal with the Belgians, which moved Grierson’s crew several steps up the food chain. She could import the drugs through third parties, distribute through third parties and take the lion’s share, and if anyone got arrested, well, it wasn’t going to be her. No, Ashley stayed well away from the product, except for her
own personal supply, of course.

As for Lenny
, he had been collateral damage and Lawrence stupidly thought she was eliminating her purported father to save him. Poor misguided Lawrence. She smiled when she remembered the look of horror on his face as she killed him. It was classic. But Ben - at first she had thought he would be her alibi, her defender. She spoke again to the picture of Lawrence on her desk.

“Sorry, darling, you were a means to an end. But the script was already written.” Imitating Vivien Leigh’s southern belle accent in Gone with the Wind, Ashley
spoke to an imagined audience.

“A poor defenceless woman loses her beloved husband, and is nearly raped and killed in a shocking attack on a quiet country Rectory. Enter stage left, hulking man of men and ex All Blacks rugby hero, Benjamin Ambrose Fogarty.” Ashley cheers and leads the imagined applause. “Oh, Ben, you have come to save me! At last, a real man! What a pity you are my brother, but then again...”

A smile played across her lips.
The phone rang again, the third time tonight; it was a call from the USA.

“Ashley Morgan speaking,” she purred into the mouthpiece, all of her demons vanishing as she spoke. Her dark alter ego was now banished to the recesses of her troubled mind. She had business to attend to, and in an instant she was Ashley, the perfect businesswoman once again.

New Scotland Yard, London.

Monday 22
nd
August 2011; 8pm.

DCI Trevor Griffiths, team leader in charge of Operation Bilbao, sat in front of the AC’s desk as she tried to absorb the information in the report she had just received.

“Let me see if I have this right. Sorry, Trevor, but I have only really had time to skim your report. You appear to be saying that the murder of Mary Akuta could be r
elated to the Rectory murders?”

“Ma’am, if it isn’t then it’s o
ne hell of a coincidence.”

“OK. Give me the highlights; I want
to get home before midnight.”

Trevor Griffiths, as honest as the day was long, had been seconded to the Yard almost ten years earlier from Cardiff when Sir Ian Blair was Commissioner. He was seen as being independent, a good solid Detective Inspector who could root out corruption in the Met without being tainted by fear or favour. As a result he was admired by some but abhorred by others. He relaxed into his chair and his mellow Welsh tenor voice tol
d the story calmly and quietly.

“Bob Radlett picked up the Mary Akuta murder this
afternoon, from the Superintendent. It seems he canvassed for it; said that he had a confidential informant who could bring in the murderer in forty eight hours. His Super wasn’t going to turn down an offer like that, obviously. I heard about it and insisted on tagging along to keep my eye on Bob, as you had asked. Radlett told me to get my ‘Taffy Welsh arse’ out of his case. I think he may need some cultural and ethnic orientation training, Ma’am,” Griffiths joked. The AC frowned; she was aware that some policemen did not take her equality initiatives seriously. Her subordinate saw the frown and continued.