The Murder Exchange (13 page)

'I presume you're aware that Jack Merriweather
works for the Holtzes?'

Tve heard that, yeah.'

'So it's probably safe to assume that the Holtzes f
own Elite A and therefore almost certainly own
Arcadia, isn't it?'

'Are you asking me or telling me?' he said, using
the same phrase Elaine Toms had used the previous
day.

'Don't fuck us about, McBride/ I told him coldly.
'We're only talking in your front room because at
the moment we're giving you the benefit of the
doubt. However, so far you've told us absolutely
nothing that we didn't know already, so you're still
looking at a nice long spell in the nick. Now, answer
my question unless you want to continue this interview
down the station.'

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'All right, yeah, I suppose it's safe to assume. I
didn't know for sure he owned the place ... both
places ... but there were rumours. I don't like to
ask too many questions about that sort of thing.
You know, I don't want to get on the wrong side of
Stefan Holtz.'

I changed tack. 'How well did you know Shaun
Matthews? Honestly.'

'I got on all right with him. I knew him a bit, you
know.'

'Did you ever socialize with him outside work?'

McBride paused before answering, at the same
time breaking eye contact with me. 'A couple of
times, yeah,' he said eventually. T/Ve was both ex
army so I think he thought we had something in
;.'.>mmon. Most of the other blokes didn't really like
him much.'

'Why not?' asked Benin.

'Well, like I said, he rated himself. Threw his
weight about a bit, and he could get nasty if he
thought anyone was holding back on money owed
to the club.'

'Did he ever upset one particular person more
than any of the others? Enough to give them a
motive for killing him?'

'He had a run-in with one geezer, one of the
permanent doormen, John Harris. John was getting
a blowjob in the bogs from one of the punters when
he should have been out on the floor. I don't think
it would have mattered - you know, that sort of
thing goes on a lot. The birds are attracted to doormen,
aren't they?'

'I wouldn't know,' I said, hoping my daughter

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would never flutter her eyelashes at a lowlife like
McBride.

TBut the thing was, he did it quite a lot. He was
always poking the punters, sometimes two at a
time, and the thing was he had, you know, staying
power, so he could be at it for fifteen, twenty
minutes, sometimes even longer. Which I suppose
is why they liked him. Anyway, Shaun had just had
enough that night so he went charging into the
Gents, kicked open the door, and dragged John out
by his dick. John didn't know what had hit him you
know, element of surprise and all that - and he
got a fair old slap. Broken nose, couple of black
eyes. Nothing serious, but I think it was the humiliation
of it. Shaun marched him through the whole
club with his trousers still half hanging down, and
booted him out the door. Told him to come back
when he'd got his sex drive under control.'

'And did he come back?'

'Not after that. Well, you wouldn't, would you?
Not after someone's taken those sort of liberties
with you.'

'When did this incident take place?' asked Benin.

McBride shrugged noncommittally. 'A couple of
months back. Something like that.'

Benin and I looked at each other. We hadn't
heard about this run-in with John Harris, but then
no-one at Arcadia was going out of their way to be
of help. Benin made a note in his notebook. We'd
track down the sexually energetic Mr Harris later.

T>id Shaun Matthews ever discuss with you any
problems he had with anyone, problems that might
have resulted in someone wanting to kill him?'

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McBride shook his head. 'I know he dealt a fair
bit on the side, and I don't think he had too much
in the way of respect for the punters buying off
him. He told me a couple of times that he used to
mix his gear pretty heavily, but he never seemed
to worry too much that anyone'd come back and
give him any grief about it. He said he'd just tell
them to fuck off if they did. That was the thing with
Shaun: he wasn't really scared of no-one. He
always thought he was hard enough to get himself
out of any shit that came his way. You know what I
mean?'

i knew exactly what he meant. Plenty of
criminals are like that, too cocky to realize they're
walking on quicksand. Matthews was only the
latest in a long line of those who found out too late,
if they found out at all, that they weren't as invincible
as they'd thought. 'We're aware of one
particular incident where he dangled a man by the
ankles over the balcony of his flat. Do you know
anything about that?'

McBride tried without success to stifle a laugh.
Teah, I remember him saying something about that
one. I think the geezer was a student or something.
Shaun sold him some stuff that was meant to be
skunk but he'd got it cheap off some Moroccan
geezer because it was so shit. Apparently, all it did
was give you a sore throat. The bloke tried to get his
money back and Shaun demonstrated his refunds
policy. I don't think he came back again.'

'Have you got a name for this student?' asked
Benin.

He shook his head. 'No. He just told me the story

119
r

f

when we was out one night. I think he said the ~
bloke might have gone to City and Islington, but I
couldn't say for sure.'

'Did Matthews ever say anything to you about
ripping off the Holtzes?'

McBride gave me a withering look. 'Shaun might
have been a bit of a headcase, and a bit of a wanker
if you're honest about it, but he wasn't totally
fucking stupid. He wouldn't have ripped off people
like the Holtzes, and if he had, he wouldn't have
said nothing about it. Not to no-one.'

I sat forward in my seat and stared hard at him. I
don't like getting withering looks from smalltime
crooks who've got little but not-so-fresh air
between their ears. 'You're still not helping us
much, Craig. And you're not giving us any reason
to walk out of here and forget that you're sitting on
a pile of dope that most assuredly is not for
personal consumption. Are you?'

'Look, I don't know who killed him. Honest. You
know, what the fuck can I do about that? I can't
make it up, can I?'

'Several witnesses reported seeing Matthews
with a woman with short blonde hair on a number
of occasions. We think they may have been
romantically linked. She certainly used to visit him
at his flat. We've now identified her as Jean Tanner.
Here's a photo of her. Not the most flattering one,
but mugshots never are.' I took it out of my pocket
and handed it to him. He looked at it quickly, then
handed it back, shaking his head. Td like to think,
for your sake/ I continued, 'that you can tell me
what her relationship was with Mr Matthews.'

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McBride made a number of noises suggesting he
was thinking hard but they weren't particularly
convincing. 'He might have mentioned something
once, about some girl he was seeing, but he didn't
really say anything about--'

'Craig McBride, I'm arresting you on suspicion of
possession of Class A--'

'All right, all right, hold on. Don't be hasty.'

'What do you mean, don't be hasty? I could grow
a beard waiting for you to tell me anything.'

'Look, I don't want any of this getting back to me.
Seriously'

'Any of what?'

McBride put his head in his hands, then removed
[hern and exhaled loudly. 'Any of what I'm going to
tell you.'

I didn't get too excited. 'We'll treat it as an anonymous
source if it's applicable,' I said. 'Now, I
suggest you get on with it.'

'Shaun had a girlfriend, a girl he'd been seeing
for a few months, and her name was Jean, but I
don't know what her second name was. The thing
was it was all really hush hush. I'm surprised anyone
saw them together. He only told me about
it one night after he'd had too much gear and drink.
I think he wanted some advice.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, this girl, and I think it must be the same
one, she was sort of already spoken for. She was
seeing Shaun on the side.'

'It happens,' I said.

'Not to Neil Vamen it doesn't.'

Once again, Berrin and I looked at each other.

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This certainly put a new angle on the whole thing.
The gentleman gangster. 'You're telling us she was
Neil Vamen's girlfriend?'

He nodded. 'That's what Shaun said.'

'Christ/ said Benin. 'No wonder he wanted it
kept quiet. Do you think Vamen found out?'

'I don't know. Honestly.'

'How did Shaun meet her?'

'I heard she used to work as an escort girl for this
agency Roy Fowler runs called Heavenly Girls.
Maybe that's how he met her.' I raised my eyebrows.
This was an interesting one. We hadn't
realized that one of Fowler's sidelines was managing
a brothel.

Berrin finished writing in his notebook and
looked up. 'Neil Vamen's married, isn't he?'

McBride shrugged. 'Yeah, he is, and his missus is
a looker too, but you know what blokes are like.
Especially ones with money. Everyone knows he
plays away from home.'

Berrin looked across at me, waiting to see what
came next. It was difficult to know what more we
could ask McBride, or whether what he'd told us
was enough to get him off the hook.

'One more question,' I said. 'Who did you buy
these drugs from?'

McBride sighed, looked pained for all of about
one second that he was about to betray someone,
then gave us the name of a fairly well-known local
dealer. I knew immediately he was lying. The drugs
had almost certainly come from somewhere within
Stefan Holtz's organization. It was rumoured that
Holtz himself strongly disapproved of drugs and,

122
unlike many underworld figures, had never
touched them himself. However, his people were
responsible for importing one hell of a lot of the
cocaine that passed through London every year, so
his personal stand clearly didn't prevent him helping
to ruin the lives of plenty of other people.

I leant over, picked up the plate of dope and the
individual wraps, and stood up. 'If you hear anything,
anything at all about the murder of Shaun
Matthews, I want to hear about it.' I handed my
card to McBride who accepted it with a relieved
expression on his face.

'Course I will/ he said. Thanks.'

'Where's the toilet in here?' I asked, walking out .-- !.hc room, with Berrin following,

'It's just on the left. What are you going to do
with the gear? I'll give it back, but the thing is I
haven't paid for it yet.'

I went up to the dirty-looking bowl and emptied
the plate into the water, before chucking down the
wraps. I gave it a healthy flush and watched as
most of it disappeared.

T>on't take the piss, Mr McBride,' I told the
distraught-looking doorman as we left his flat.
'We've done you a major favour here.'

When we were back in the car, Berrin gave me a
worried look. 'Was that such a good idea, Sarge?
You know, letting him off like that. We could have
got a lovely little collar there.'

'And it would have just bogged us down in
paperwork, and wouldn't have done anything to
hinder the Holtz supply chain. Sometimes you've
got to let the small fish go so you can get hold of the

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big ones. But do me a favour and don't say anything
to anyone about it.'

'Course not. Do you think it was worth letting
him go like that, though? Did we get enough out J
of him?' ^,

'We've got other people with motive now, so it's 1
putting us further forward.' *

All we've got to do is find them.'

That, my friend, is what it's all about.'

Iversson

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when I buzzed
Joe up and led him through to the lounge. It was a
stinking hot day and all the windows were open. ,¥ Outside, the traffic rumbled endlessly past. *

'Nice place for a hideout/ he said, dropping on
the floor a bag containing belongings he'd picked
up from my flat. He sat down in one of the leather
chairs, and put the four-pack of beers he'd also
brought down on the glass coffee table. I went and
got a couple of glasses and emptied the contents of
two of the cans into them. 'So, where's the girl?'

'She's gone out/ I said, sitting down opposite
him. 'She'll be back later.'

'And how long's she going to let you stay here
for? I mean, she doesn't even know you, does she?'

'I told you, I went to school with her.'

'But, Max, you're not eighteen. That was a long
time ago now. You haven't seen her in, what?
Twenty years.'

I took a drink from my beer. 'Not that long.'

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'But long enough. You've got to be careful, lime
changes people. She might just run to the law.'

'She won't.'

'Well, either way she's going to want you out of
here pretty soon, isn't she?'

I nodded, not liking to think about that. After the
sexual athletics of the previous night, I was in no
hurry to go anywhere. 'I suppose so.'

So we've got to discuss what you're going to do.
The police came round to see me this morning, asking
about you. Questions like, what were you doing
driving a car riddled with bullets? And why were
you so keen to make a break for it when you
were stopped for questioning, smacking two
<pers in the process? That sort of thing.'

'What did you tell them?'

'What do you think? I didn't tell them anything,
just said I'd always thought you were pretty
straight, and that I didn't think you were involved
in anything untoward.'

'Do you reckon they believed you?'

He shrugged. 'Difficult to tell. I think so, but you
never know. It helps that you've never been in
trouble before. But they're definitely looking for
you, Max, and that's not good.'