At Risk

22

After a wet night the day dawned clear, and as Liz drove northwards towards the M11 the roads hissed beneath the Audi’s tyres. She had slept badly; in fact she was not certain that she had slept at all. The amorphous mass of worry that the investigation represented had taken on a crushing weight, and the more desperately she had sought oblivion between the crumpled sheets, the faster her heart had raced in her chest. People’s lives were threatened, she knew that much, and the image of Ray Gunter’s broken head endlessly replicated itself in her mind. At intervals the features of the dead fisherman became those of Sohail Din. “Why don’t you take up amateur dramatics?” he seemed to be asking, until she realised that the voice in her head was her mother’s. But she couldn’t quite summon her mother to her side; instead, smiling knowingly at her, was an ivory-pale figure in a striped navy blue and white T-shirt. Through her transparent skin, Liz could see the hesitant passage of the blood in the veins and arteries. “I’m telling her that I’m in love with you,” Mark was shouting, somewhere at the edge of her consciousness. “I’m talking about our future!”

But she must have slept, because there was a point at which she quite definitely awoke, thirsty and sore-headed with the lingering smoke of Wetherby’s Laphroaig in her mouth. She had aimed for an early start and a fast exit from London, but unfortunately a sizeable proportion of the city’s inhabitants seemed to have had the same idea. By eleven o’clock she was still half a dozen miles from Marsh Creake, trapped on a narrow road behind a low-bed truck loaded with sugar beet. Its driver was in no hurry at all, and if he was aware that he was shedding a couple of beets with every rut and bump that he encountered, the fact didn’t worry him. It worried Liz, though, and at times she had to swing wildly on to the verge in order to avoid the bouncing vegetables, any one of which could have blasted through a headlight or found some other way of causing three figures’ worth of damage to the Audi’s bodywork.

Eventually, her shoulders aching with tension, she pulled up outside the Trafalgar, and on venturing inside found Cherisse Hogan polishing glasses in the empty lounge.

“You again!” said Cherisse, darting Liz a lazy-eyed smile. She was wearing a tight lavender sweater and looking, in her gypsyish way, rather spectacular. She had clearly recovered from any short-term distress that Ray Gunter’s death might have caused her.

“I was wondering if you had a room?” Liz enquired.

Cherisse’s eyebrows rose, and she moved unhurriedly into the shadowed fastness of the kitchen area-there presumably to consult her employer. Clive Badger should count himself lucky, thought Liz, if the rumours about the pair of them were true. And they almost certainly were true; women like Anne Lakeby had a knack for sorting the wheat from the chaff when it came to local intrigue.

Cherisse returned a couple of minutes later holding a key suspended from a miniature brass anchor, and led Liz up a narrow carpeted stair to a door bearing the legend “Temeraire.” The three other rooms were “Swiftsure,” “Ajax” and “Victory.”

“Temeraire” was low-ceilinged and warm, with a plum carpet, a tiled fireplace and a divan with a candlewick bedspread. It took Liz no more than a couple of minutes to unpack her clothes. When she went downstairs again Cherisse was still alone in the lounge bar, and beckoned Liz over with an inclination of the head.

“You know I told you about that Mitch? The one that drunk with Ray?”

“The one who reminded you of a bull terrier?” asked Liz.

“Yeah. That one. Staffy. He was on the tobacco game.”

“Importing and selling cigarettes for cash, you mean? Without paying the duty?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know? Did he offer you some?”

“No, Ray did. He said Mitch could get as many as I wanted. He said I could have them for cost and then mark them up and flog them on to the punters at bar prices.”

“Hang on, Cherisse. You’re saying that Ray told you this on Mitch’s behalf?”

“Yeah-he obviously thought he was doing him a favour. But Mitch went completely off his head. Told Ray he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about-’scuse my French-and told him to button it or he’d drop him on the spot. Completely off his head.”

“But you reckon that Ray was right? That Mitch was selling cut-price tobacco and cigarettes?”

Cherisse considered. “Well, it would be a strange thing to say if he wasn’t, wouldn’t it? And lots of people are into that. Working in a pub you’re always being offered cheap booze and fags. Especially fags. Everyone’s got a half-dozen cartons out in the van.”

“And have you ever bought any?”

“Me? No! I’d lose my job.”

“So Mr. Badger doesn’t buy from them either?”

Cherisse shook her head and continued with her desultory processing of the glasses. “I thought I’d mention it, though,” she said. “He’s a nasty piece of work, that Mitch.”

“He certainly sounds it,” said Liz. “Thanks.”

She stared out into the empty bar. Pale winter sunshine streamed through the leaded windows, illuminating the dust motes and gilding the accessories on the wood-panelled walls. If Mitch, whoever he was, was involved in the selling of cut-price tobacco, and had told Ray Gunter as much, why was he so angry when Gunter had mentioned it to Cherisse? Much of a tobacco-smuggler’s life was taken up with persuading publicans and bar staff to take his goods off his hands.

The only reason that Liz could fathom was that Mitch had graduated from tobacco-smuggling to more dangerous games. Games in which loose talk could be fatal. Thanking Cherisse again, she changed a ten-pound note into coins, and called Frankie Ferris from the pay phone in the pub’s entrance hall. The hall was overheated, and smelt of furniture polish and air freshener. Ferris, as usual, seemed to be in a state of advanced agitation.

“It’s really come on top with this murder,” he whispered. “Total, like… Eastman’s been locked in his office since yesterday morning. Last night he was there till-”

“Was the dead man anything to do with Eastman?”

“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t ask. Right now I just want to keep my head down, and if the law comes knocking I want some serious…”

“Serious?”

“Like, protection, OK? I’m taking a major risk just making this call. What if someone-”

“Mitch,” said Liz. “I need to know about a man called Mitch.”

A short, charged silence.

“Braintree,” said Ferris. “Eight o’clock this evening on the top level of the multistorey by the station. Come alone.” The phone went dead.

He smells trouble, thought Liz, replacing the handset. He wants to keep on pocketing Eastman’s money but he also wants to protect his back when it all blows up. He knows he’ll get no change out of Bob Morrison, so he’s come back to me.

She wondered briefly about going down to the village hall, reestablishing contact with Goss and Whitten, and finding out if they had moved the case forward. After a moment’s thought, however, she decided to drive down to Headland Hall and speak to Peregrine Lakeby first. Once she had linked up with the others it would be harder to keep information to herself.

With a quiet popping of gravel, the Audi came to a halt outside Headland Hall. This time the doorbell was answered by Lakeby himself. He was wearing a long Chinese dressing gown and a cravat, and was surrounded by a faint odour of limes.

He looked surprised to see Liz, but swiftly recovered himself, and led her along the tiled corridor into the kitchen. Here, at a broad work table of scrubbed pine, a woman was drying wine glasses with an unhurried action which Liz immediately recognised. This must be Elsie Hogan, mother to Cherisse.

“Aga’s smoking again, Mr. Lakeby,” said the woman, glancing incuriously at Liz.

Peregrine frowned, pulled on an oven glove, and gingerly opened one of the Aga doors. Smoke whooshed out, and taking a log from a tall basket, he slung it in and slammed the door shut again.

“That should do it.”

The woman looked at him doubtfully. “Those logs are a bit green, Mr. Lakeby. I think that’s the problem. Did they come from the garage?”

Peregrine looked vague. “Quite possibly. Have a word with Anne about them. She’ll be back from King’s Lynn in an hour.” He turned to Liz. “Coffee?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” said Liz, reflecting ruefully that you couldn’t say to a man what she was about to say to Peregrine Lakeby and be drinking his coffee at the same time. So she stood and watched as he boiled water, spooned ground arabica beans into a cafetière, mixed, plunged, and poured the steaming result into a Wedgwood bone-china cup.

“Now,” said Peregrine, when they had quit the smoky realm of the kitchen and were once again comfortably disposed in the book-lined drawing room, “tell me how I can help you.”

Liz met his enquiring, faintly amused gaze. “I’d like to know about the arrangement you had with Ray Gunter,” she said quietly.

Peregrine’s head tilted thoughtfully. His hair, Liz noticed, swept back into steel-grey wings over each ear. “Which arrangement was that, precisely? If you mean the arrangement by which he kept his boats on the beach, I was under the impression that we had discussed that in some detail last time you and your colleagues came here.”

So, thought Liz, they haven’t been back.

“No,” she said. “I mean the arrangement by which Ray Gunter brought illicit consignments ashore by night, and you agreed to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to any disturbance. How much was Gunter paying you to ignore his activities?”

Peregrine’s smile tightened. The patrician mask showed minute signs of strain. “I don’t know where you’ve got your information from, Miss… er, but the idea that I might have had a criminal relationship with a man like Ray Gunter is quite frankly preposterous. May I ask what-or who-led you to such a bizarre conclusion?”

Liz reached into her briefcase and removed two printed sheets. “May I tell you a story, Mr. Lakeby? A story about a woman known in certain circles as the Marquise, real name Dorcas Gibb?”

Peregrine said nothing. His expression remained unaltered, but the colour began to ebb from his face.

“For several years now, the Marquise has been the proprietor of a discreet establishment in Shepherd Market, W1, where she and her employees specialise in…” she consulted the printed sheets, “discipline, domination, and corporal punishment.”

Again, Peregrine said nothing.

“Three years ago, the existence of this establishment was drawn to the attention of the Inland Revenue. Madame la Marquise, it seemed, had neglected to pay any income tax for a decade or so. It must have slipped her mind. So the Revenue asked the Vice Squad if they’d mind giving her a nudge, and the Vice Squad didn’t mind in the least. They raided the place. And guess who-along with an eminent QC and a popular New Labour peer-they found strapped to a flogging-horse with a rubber gag in his mouth and his trousers round his ankles?”

Peregrine’s gaze turned to ice. His mouth was a thin, taut-clamped line. “My private life, young lady, is my own business, and I will not, repeat not, be blackmailed in my own house.” He rose from the sofa. “You will kindly leave, and leave now.”

Liz didn’t move. “I’m not blackmailing you, Mr. Lakeby, I’m just asking you for the precise details of your commercial relationship with Ray Gunter. We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. The easy way involves you giving me all of the facts in confidence; the hard way involves a police arrest on suspicion of involvement in organised crime. And given that, as we all know, there’s a regular flow of information between the police and the tabloid newspapers…”

She shrugged, and Peregrine stared down at her, expressionless. She returned his gaze, steel for steel, and gradually the fight and the arrogance seemed to drain out of him. He sat down again in slow motion, his shoulders slumped. “But if you’re working with the police…”

“I’m not quite working with the police, Mr. Lakeby. I’m working alongside them.”

His eyes narrowed warily. “So…”

“I’m not suggesting you did anything worse than take Gunter’s money,” said Liz quietly. “But I have to tell you that there’s an issue of national security at stake here, and I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to endanger the security of the state.” She paused. “What was the deal with Gunter?”

He stared bleakly out of the window. “As you surmised, the idea was that I turned a blind eye to his comings and goings at night.”

“How much did they pay you?”

“Five hundred a month.”

“Cash?”

“Yes.”

“And what did those comings and goings consist of?”

Peregrine gave a strained smile. “The same as they’ve consisted of for hundreds of years. This is a smuggler’s coastline. Always has been. Tea, brandy from France, tobacco from the Low Countries… When the Channel ports and the Kent marshes got too dangerous, the cargoes moved up here.”

“And that’s what they were landing, was it? Booze and tobacco?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“By who? By Gunter?”

“No. I didn’t actually deal with Gunter. There was another man, whose name I never found out.”

“Mitch? Something like Mitch?”

“I’ve no idea. Like I said…”

“How were you paid?”

“The money was left inside the locker on the beach. The place where Gunter kept his fishing gear. I had a key to the padlock.”

“So apart from this second man, did you ever meet or see anyone else?”

“Never.”

“Can you describe the second man?”

Peregrine considered. “He looked… violent. Pale face and a skinhead haircut. Like one of those dogs they’re always having to shoot for biting children.”

“How did you meet him?”

“It was about eighteen months ago. Anne was up in town for the day, and he and Ray Gunter came up to the house. He asked me outright if I wanted to be paid five hundred pounds on the first of every month for doing absolutely nothing.”

“And you said?”

“I said I’d think about it. He hadn’t asked me to do anything illegal. He rang me the next day, and I said yes, and on the first of the next month the money was in the locker, as he had said that it would be.”

“And he specifically said that it was tobacco and alcohol they were bringing in?”

“No. His actual words to me were that they were continuing the local tradition of outwitting the Excise men.”

“And you had no problem with that?”

He leaned back against the sofa. “No. To be absolutely frank with you, I didn’t. VAT’s the bane of your life when you’ve got a place of this size to run, and if Gunter and his chum were giving Customs and Excise a run for their money, bloody good luck to them.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me? About their vehicles? About the vessels they picked up from?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid. I honoured my side of the bargain, and kept my eyes and my ears closed.”

Honoured, thought Liz. There’s a word.

“And your wife’s never suspected anything?”

“Anne?” he asked, almost bullish again. “No, why on earth should she? She heard the odd bump in the night, but…”

Liz nodded. The second man had to be Mitch, whoever Mitch was. And the reason he had been so furious with Gunter for talking about tobacco-smuggling to Cherisse was that the two of them had something much more serious to hide. Gunter had clearly been an indiscreet and generally far from ideal co-conspirator. As the man who owned the boats and knew the local tides and sandbanks, however, he had equally clearly been a vital cog in the operation.

Would Frankie Ferris come up with anything on Mitch? His manner on the phone had suggested that he knew who Mitch was, which in turn suggested that Mitch was one of Eastman’s people. But then that was Ferris all over-desperate to prove his usefulness, even if it meant stretching the truth.

She looked at Peregrine. The urbane façade was almost back in place. She had given him a brief scare, but no more. On the way out she passed Elsie Hogan, who was standing, arms folded, in the kitchen doorway. Peregrine didn’t waste a glance on her but Liz did, and saw the calculated blankness of the older woman’s expression. Had Elsie, she wondered, spent the last ten minutes engaged in the household servant’s traditional pastime of listening at the door? Would there soon be lurid tales of bared bottoms and upper-class spanking orgies circulating in the local bus queues, post offices and supermarkets?