Game Over (25 page)

He seemed to be sinking now, literally deeper into the chair, and figuratively into a drunken gloom. Slider hastened to ask his next question. ‘So what has Stonax been doing since he left the department? What has he been investigating? Has he been following up the Waverley B business?’

‘
I
don’t know,’ Andrew said. ‘Nobody tells me anything any more. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has. Never could keep his nose out of things that weren’t his business. But there’s nothing to follow up. The election’s over, the yard’s closed anyway, and AM are selling it. What’s to investigate?’ He closed his eyes. ‘Tell ye what, fellas, I’m just gauny have a wee nap, ’cos I’ve got a helluva headache coming on.’

It was clear they would get nothing more out of him – and Slider doubted he had any more to tell, so they left him in peace. As they left, Atherton kindly removed the brandy glass from his slackening fingers and set it on the coffee table, before it could tip over and wet his trousers. At least that would be one less thing for him to worry about when he woke up.

Fourteen

A Legend in His Own Lunchtime

T
hey had to pass Emily’s cubbyhole on the way to the office, and she was already back, beavering away on the laptop. She looked up as Atherton paused in the doorway and the look that passed between them, brief as it was, shook Slider. It was not that it was a look of unbridled passion: that wouldn’t have been so very surprising, knowing Atherton’s past record. It was that it was a look of acceptance, accustomedness, belonging, the sort of look you usually have to be together for some years to achieve. Somehow in three days they had passed from strangers to companions. It had happened that fast for him and Joanna, but their circumstances had been much more favourable. He hoped desperately, for his friend’s sake as much as Emily’s, that the whole murder-bereavement thing didn’t rear up and bite them when things calmed down a bit.

‘I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been finding out things.’

‘I never doubted you would,’ Atherton said.

She half rose, looking from him to Slider. ‘D’you want me to tell you now?’

‘I need tea,’ Slider said.

‘Canteen,’ Atherton translated, and they headed for the stairs.

As they climbed, and while they queued at the counter, she described how she had found Chris Fletcher and what he had told her; when they were seated with their cups, she got on to Trish Holland.

‘I’m sure now that Bates was sprung deliberately,’ she said, ‘and how it was done. The beauty of it is that nobody misses him. Wormwood Scrubs thinks he’s at Woodhill. Woodhill assumes he’s still at Wormwood Scrubs. And as far as Ring 4 are concerned, he never went anywhere. After a bit of useful confusion at the site where the van is found, it’s confirmed that it wasn’t a Ring 4 vehicle and there was never a prisoner in it.’

‘But then why get the police in on it at all?’ Slider asked.

‘I think that was a bit of insurance, in case anyone
does
miss him at any point. Then they can say, oh, yes, he escaped, but we suppressed the news for public-safety reasons. You can justify anything on health and safety grounds. But I don’t think his name was meant to get out. That was probably a mistake: the story was supposed to get the one outing as a deniable unnamed prisoner. The fact that his name
was
mentioned might account for why the escape filtered down through police levels to your superintendent. But it was never in the public domain. I’m sure if you asked in the prison service they wouldn’t know anything about it.’

‘But
how
was it done?’ Slider asked.

Emily looked pleased to be the one to be telling him something, rather than vice versa. ‘All you need is someone who can produce the right documents in the first place, someone who knows what they look like, the wording and everything, and knows the protocol. That suggests someone in the Home Office or with access to someone in the Home Office, but it needn’t be. It could be anyone who’s ever had anything to do with prisons or moving prisoners. With modern computers and printers, making the documents isn’t hard as long as you know what to put on them. And then, of course, you need someone with influence inside Ring 4, someone who can give the orders without being questioned.’

‘Who did you say this Holland woman said cancelled the movement?’ Atherton asked.

‘She said it was one of the directors. She said his name was Mr Mark.’

‘Mark?’ Atherton and Slider looked at each other.

‘I looked him up,’ Emily said with exquisite relish. ‘Thomas Mark, director and, more recently, major shareholder. He owns forty per cent of the shares – transferred to his name by their previous owner, Trevor Bates.’

‘Thomas Mark, Bates’s driver and right-hand man,’ Slider said bitterly. ‘We couldn’t implicate him when we took down Bates, and he disappeared off the radar.’

‘The transfer was affected before the date of Bates’s arrest,’ Emily said. ‘Obviously he suspected he might be in trouble and was taking care to lay off his assets.’

‘And Bates was so arrogant,’ Slider marvelled. ‘So sure we couldn’t touch him, right to the end.’

‘He was right in a way, wasn’t he?’ Atherton said. ‘He must have known that he’d be got out. Maybe he’d worked out the plan already, just in case. But who was his man on the inside – the inside of the Home Office, I mean?’

‘You said he had government connections,’ Emily said, ‘so I’ve been looking that up, too. Bates owned a company called OroTech. He built it up himself from scratch. It was mostly electronics and IT, but it had a large property division called Key Developments, some residential, but mainly large-scale property development.’

‘Yes, we knew property was his other interest.’

‘It was under OroTech that he provided services to the US government. I’ve got a friend on The Hill who’s just confirmed that.’

‘Thank God for open government,’ Atherton said. ‘We could do with a bit more of that over here.’

‘Anyway, OroTech also had a very nice contract with the UK government for IT services, which originated from—’

‘Let me guess: the Home Office,’ Slider interrupted.

‘Not even close,’ said Emily. ‘It was the Department of the Environment, and the junior minister responsible for the contract was Richard Tyler.’

Slider had no idea where to put this information. His brain whirred out of gear. Emily looked at him anxiously.

‘I am right, aren’t I? That is the name you said, the man you couldn’t get because you didn’t have enough evidence. I thought it was interesting they were linked in that way. One villain proving the other, so to speak.’

‘Yes, Tyler was the name,’ Slider said. ‘And there’s an old saying, hear a new name and you’ll hear it again within the day. Tyler’s not exactly a new name, but we’ve heard it once already today.’

Between them, Atherton and Slider told her the story of the framing of her father. She listened soberly, and under the table Atherton advanced his knee to touch hers comfortingly, because it couldn’t be pleasant to have all that brought up again. At the end, she said, ‘Coincidence? It must be, mustn’t it? This Bates person can’t be connected with Dad in any way, can he?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ Slider said. ‘Obviously, from what you say, Tyler and Bates knew each other and if Tyler had given Bates a nice fat government contract, I’m betting from what I know about him that there was something in it for him. But other than that I can’t see how Bates could be connected with your father’s death. And from what Sid Andrew said, the whole departmental thing your father got into trouble over is finished and done with. The election is history.’

‘Hmm,’ said Emily thoughtfully. ‘Well, you don’t mind if I go on looking into him, do you – Bates, I mean? His business connections seem to have spread a long way and infiltrated some interesting places.’

‘As long as it doesn’t upset you to do it,’ Slider said, ‘it can only be a help to us.’

‘It helps me to keep busy. And I’ve got the bit between my teeth now,’ she said. ‘It’s the reason I became a journalist, because once I start on a story I can’t stop until I get to the end – until I know everything.’

‘It’s much the same being a detective,’ Slider said, and seeing Emily’s instant glance towards Atherton, realised he had probably hit on the thing that they had in common; and which, given a fair breeze, could allow them to make a go of it.

Slider and Atherton walked back to the office, dropping Emily on the way at her cubbyhole. ‘They
can’t
be connected, can they?’ Slider said. ‘The two cases?’

‘Only one is a case,’ Atherton reminded him. ‘We aren’t investigating Bates’s escape.’

‘If only we could get hold of the movement order,’ Slider said. ‘I’d like to know who was behind that.’

‘Well, they’ll never let us even ask for it, so you can forget that. And we still don’t know what Stonax was investigating.’

They turned in at the door, and at once Hart got up and came towards them. ‘I reckon there was definitely something fishy about Daniel Masseter’s death, guv,’ she said.

Hollis, who was also in the office, drifted up to listen, and they all perched on desks while she told them about her visit to Mrs Masseter’s house, and the bogus Inspector Strong who took away Masseter’s papers and computer. ‘I’ve checked, and the local police never went back at all, because as far as they were concerned it was an ordinary RTA. They just handed it over to Victim Support. And nobody from the CID knew anything about it.’

‘So whoever killed him went back and seized his papers and computer, to stop anyone finding out what he was investigating?’ Slider said.

‘That’s what I reckon. It’s a pattern with Stonax, innit?’

‘Except that they didn’t take his computer.’

‘No, but they took his Cyber-box; maybe they thought they could get in that way. And it wouldn’t have looked so much like Dave Borthwick done it if they’d nicked the computer, would it?’

‘Yes, I was forgetting we had our sacrificial lamb downstairs,’ Slider said.

‘We’ve had a bit of a breakthrough on Bates,’ Atherton said. ‘Or rather, Emily has.’

He told of her discoveries, and at the end, Hart said, ‘Bloody Nora, what a cheek, eh? Makes his gofer head of the company that’s going to move him about if he gets caught! Makes you proud to be British, dunnit?’

Slider shook his head. ‘We don’t seem to be any further forward with the Stonax case – and let me remind you all that that’s what pays our wages.’

‘I think I’ll have another look at the Waverley B business,’ Atherton said. ‘See if anything strikes a chord.’

‘Waverley B?’ Hart queried. ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

‘Shipyard on the Clyde.’

‘The Clyde? That’s in Scotland, isn’t it? Mrs Masseter said Danny had just come back from Scotland.’

Atherton’s eyebrows rose. ‘It’s a big place. But there may be a connection. Sid Andrew said all that Waverley B business was over and done with, but what if Stonax had found something else that was fishy, and Masseter was helping him with it?’

‘See what you can find out,’ Slider said. ‘Given that both of them are dead in violent circumstances, it’s tempting to think there’s a link.’

Porson listened with keen intelligence to the new developments.

‘Tyler,’ he said in disgust. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. A leper doesn’t change his spots. But Andrew isn’t wrong – you can’t prove any of it now.’

‘No, sir. But I’d like to know what Stonax was up to the last few months and whether it had anything to do with Tyler in any way. He’s been out of the country, but that doesn’t mean he’s been out of play.’

‘Hmm. And Tyler knew Bates. Well, birds of a feather gather no moss.’

‘We knew Bates had government connections.’

‘Yes. But if you’re right about this escape, it doesn’t begin and end with Tyler. There’s got to be collusion on our side too.’ He stared bleakly out of the window, still for once. ‘I should have taken early retirement. I’ve been in the Job too long. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a bent copper. Give me an old-fashioned, honest criminal any day.’ He sighed and pulled himself together. ‘Well, keep at it. Do everything you can, and I’ll back you up, but don’t throw the winds to caution. Remember however far you row out, you’ve got to row back. What are we going to do about Borthwick?’

‘We can’t let him go, sir,’ Slider said. ‘The press’ll be all over him like a rash, and he’s not the sort to keep his mouth shut.’

‘You think he’d be in danger?’

‘Whoever’s behind Stonax’s death, it looks as if they killed Masseter too, so one more wouldn’t turn their stomachs.’

‘You want to charge him?’

Slider hesitated. ‘We’ve got enough to cover ourselves, and I don’t suppose he’ll complain. He’s pretty docile. I just want to make sure he’s safe.’

Porson hesitated too. ‘It’s an awful lot of paperwork and man hours. I’d sooner spend ’em in a different shop. Look, it’s the weekend coming up. We’ll keep him till Monday and see what happens, make a decision then. Has he seen a brief?’

‘Yes, sir. Kevin Swan.’