Ash & Bone

44

Elder had barely parked outside his flat when his mobile began to ring. Katherine, he thought. Maureen. Instead it was Framlingham's familiar burr. 'That place of yours, Frank. Presentable, is it?'

'You should know.'

'Twenty, thirty minutes. I'll be there.'

He arrived within fifteen, bearing gifts. Scottish oatcakes, a chunk of Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire cheese, a bottle of wine.

'Thought you might be peckish, Frank. Must have been a busy day.'

'Busy enough.'

'This Kennet, enough to hold him at least?'

'I think so.'

Framlingham unwrapped the cheese and set it on a plate. 'Your thought that Grant might be an informant, protected that way, doesn't seem to pan out. But as a line of inquiry, not without its worth.' He was ferreting for a corkscrew in the kitchen drawer. 'Aussie plonk, Frank. Garlands Shiraz. Family winery near Mount Barker.'

The cork came free with a pleasing pop.

'Mike Garland, he's the cellar master, knows what he's about.'

Framlingham brought the glass to his nose to sniff the bouquet, then drank, holding the wine for a long moment in his mouth before swallowing.

'Lovely stuff, Frank. Tobacco, spice, liquorice, plum.'

Elder cut off a piece of cheese and it crumbled against the knife.

'This whole business,' Framlingham said, 'Grant and Mallory, unravelling that makes reading Ulysses like Harry bloody Potter. Key thing is this, though. For years now, going back to when he was a DI, Mallory's registered informant was Lynette Drury. Former prostitute, more recently brothel keeper and, more importantly, before that, shacked up with a known villain named Ben Slater.'

Framlingham broke an oatcake in two and set cheese deliberately on each half.

'The contact between Mallory and Slater seems to have come first. As much as twenty years ago, '84. Along with three others, Slater was up on trial for a payroll robbery out at Romford. Five days in, the judge ruled no case to answer. Slater and the rest walk free.'

And what's Mallory's connection to this?'

Framlingham smiled. 'Mallory was in the Special Patrol Group called in by the team on the ground. This is a couple of years before it was disbanded.'

And he'd be what then? Thirty? A little more?'

'Twenty-nine.'

Nodding, Elder tried the wine.

'So now,' Framlingham said, 'we move on two years later to '86. There's a series of armed robberies in the Home Counties, all of them within a thirty-mile radius of London. Post offices, building societies. By this time Mallory's moved on to the Territorial Support Group with the rank of sergeant. Slater's put under surveillance, his phone bugged, everything. Finally arrested on one charge of robbery after a raid on building society offices in Colchester. Thanks to a tip-off, the TSG are there in force. At the trial, however, one of the officers crucially fails to identify Slater as being present. No need to tell you which one. Slater walks free. Begins proceedings against the Met for harassment and wrongful arrest, which he later drops. For a while, things go quiet. Then in '89 there's an armed robbery, appropriately enough at Shooters Hill. Securicor van rammed into on the edge of Woolwich Common. Four men got away with eighty thousand in used banknotes. Slater and another man called Warland were questioned but not charged.'

'Mallory's involved?'

'Not yet. Eighteen months later, this bloke Warland's stopped for speeding going north out of the Blackwall Tunnel. Turns out he's got half the proceeds of a supermarket robbery in the car with him, a sawn-off shotgun in the boot. Plus a quantity of illegal drugs on his person. Of course, he rolls over. Coughs to the Woolwich Common job, names names. Slater for one.'

'Slater's arrested?'

'Arrested and charged.' Framlingham ate some more cheese, drank some more wine. 'When he comes up before the magistrate, the police case against bail's not as strong as it might be. Surprise, surprise. Slater skips the country, probably to Spain. Looks as if he stays away until some time in '92. By which time Mallory's a detective inspector in the Flying Squad.'

'The Sweeney.'

'Absolutely. With Maurice Repton his DS, holding his hand. Dennis Waterman to his John Thaw. It's around here Ben Slater's former girlfriend, Lynnette Drury, is registered as Mallory's informant. What connection there was between them before that it's impossible to say. But my guess is they'd been close for years. The pack of them.'

'Where exactly does Grant come in?'

'Not so much later. Slater stays clean as a cat's arse till '95. Then he's suspected of a bullion raid at City Airport. Gold ingots. Three quarters of a million pounds. And this is the first time Slater's name is linked with Grant. Familiar story. They're both arrested and charged but the case falls apart when it comes to court. The evidence of one of the principal witnesses is tainted and the jury's directed to ignore just about everything she's said.'

'She?'

'Drury. Lynette Drury.' Framlingham's smile lingered longer this time. 'Rumour has it her relationship with Mallory went well beyond the terms regarding informants laid down by the Yard.'

'They were lovers?'

'The way you put it, Frank, it sounds old-fashioned, almost charming. For all I know, she was still shtupping Ben Slater at the same time. Grant, too, for that matter.'

'And there's nothing more recent, linking them all together?'

'Until Mallory kills Grant. No, apparently not. But who knows?'

'Someone,' Elder said. 'Somewhere there's someone.'

'How about Lynette Drury? What she knows would fill a book and a half.'

'Have we got an address?'

'Funny you should ask.' Framlingham took a slip of paper, folded, from his breast pocket. 'There. Blackheath. Two years old, she might have moved on since then.'

'Surely you'd know?'

With a lazy movement, Framlingham's arm snaked out towards the wine. 'Best finish this off, Frank. Can't abide the waste.'

Not so long after Framlingham had left, Elder's mobile rang again. 'Bland,' Maureen said. 'He's taken the bait. This weekend maybe, Monday at the latest.'