Game Over

Fourteen

A Legend in His Own Lunchtime

They 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.’

‘Swan? Good choice. He’s sound enough.’

‘He understood the situation.’

‘All right. I’ll square the magistrates. But you’ll have to get a move on, because that only gives us another forty-eight hours, and still waters wait for no man.’

And I’m nowhere near a solution, Slider thought as he went away. He wondered what Bates was up to, why Pauline hadn’t called him back, if Joanna was all right. She’d be in rehearsal just now, so he couldn’t call her. Instead, when he got back to his office, he called Jimmy Pak.

‘I haven’t got anything to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’d have rung you if I had.’

‘I know,’ said Slider. ‘It’s just frustration. I needed to bother somebody.’

Pak laughed. ‘At least you know yourself. Self knowledge is the key to—’

‘No more proverbs, thank you. I’ve just had a skinful upstairs. Tell me what’s happening.’

‘I’ve got more respect for him than I thought. It’s really hard to crack. I’m trying every combination I can think of but no good so far. He must have been really cautious, or have something really important to hide.’

‘Both, I think. He knew he was dealing with pretty ruthless people.’

‘Right. Well, the safest password is a completely random sequence of letters and numbers. Breaking that is just chance. But people hardly ever use completely random sets because they can’t remember them. So they use birthdays, family initials, pets’ names, that sort of thing. If they do have a random set, they usually have to write it down somewhere. You’ve got access to his paperwork?’

‘Yes, all but the file that was stolen.’

‘If it was written down in there you’re in trouble. Otherwise, you’d better start looking for it. I’ll keep on trying, but it’ll speed things up if you can find it.’

‘I would like to speed things up. What am I looking for?’

‘A set of eight, numbers and letters mixed. Look in his diary, address book, personal papers, that’s the most likely place.’

‘Right. I’ll leave you in peace, then.’

‘Do that, man. Luck!’

‘Luck yourself.’

He passed on the instruction to the troops who were toiling through Stonax’s effects, and then sat behind his desk staring at the sea of papers with what felt like a brick of ignorance in his head. It was no good. He couldn’t even think. He needed to get out.

As he passed through the outer office he said to Swilley, who was nearest, ‘I’m going out for half an hour. Hold the fort, Norma.’

‘Boss, oughtn’t we to know where you’re going?’ she called after him. ‘Just in case?’

‘A man’s snout is sacrosanct,’ he called back over his shoulder.

The Kensington Park Road – always known as the KPR to local residents – had in Slider’s memory been a shabby, run-down street of peeling stucco, cracked windows and blowing rubbish, the fine old houses divided up into the lowest sort of bedsits. Now, since so much smart money had come to Notting Hill, it had been bought up and done up, and was exactly the right place for a man to set up in the burglar alarm, window lock and security camera business. Jack Bushman’s shop was just up from the Westbourne Grove turning, a discreet and narrow place with a smart fascia in green and gold, polished wood flooring and a retro wooden counter which Slider guessed played well with the locals. Solder Jack himself was standing behind the counter doing something to a piece of equipment that looked like the inside of a radio. His eyes sharpened as he saw Slider, but his welcoming smile did not waver and, most tellingly to Slider, the hands holding the piece of kit did not disappear under the counter.

‘Hello, Jack, how’s it going?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Mr Slider,’ he said. ‘It’s going well, thank you.’ He was a tall man, well set up, with a big, handsome head topped with thick hair, swept back, in which there was the odd thread of grey. His face had the lines of experience in it now. It was the sort of firm, large-featured, fatherly face that inspires trust, especially in women, and a bit of age did it no harm at all.

He had been straight for – oh, it must have been ten or twelve years now, Slider reflected; and it was interesting that the thought of Jack knowing the inside secrets of all the locals’ security arrangements did not bother him. Poacher turned gamekeeper. But of course, Jack knew that he would be the first to be asked his whereabouts if anything went down, and there was nothing better for keeping a man straight – apart from his own intentions.

‘Just passing?’ Jack asked, his eyes taking in the Jiffy bag Slider was carrying and moving politely away to his face again.

‘It’s not an entirely random visit,’ Slider said.

‘Not trouble, I hope?’ Jack said, but it was without alarm. He had the calm eyes of a man with a clear conscience. His accent, Slider noted, had gone upmarket quite a bit too, obviously to fit in with his new clients.

‘It’s a lot of trouble,’ Slider said, ‘but for me, not for you. I’ve got something here that I wonder if you’d have a look at, tell me what you think.’

‘Always glad to help.’

Slider drew out the evidence bag containing the device from Valancy House, and passed it across the counter. Jack took it up and looked at it, turning the bag in his hands. ‘Can I take it out?’

‘As long as you don’t dismantle anything. It’s been tested for prints.’

‘Wouldn’t get anything useful off surfaces this small,’ he said with professional confidence. ‘But I’ll put gloves on anyway.’

He had a box of disposables under the counter. ‘How come?’ Slider asked.

‘Some devices it’s not a good idea to get grease and acid on,’ he said. Gloved, he removed the device from the bag, stuck a jeweller’s glass in his eye, and examined it minutely, using a pair of tweezers to move the wires out of his line of sight. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Simple, but all the best devices are. What was it used on?’

‘Security door. One of those buzz-in jobs in a block of flats.’

‘Old one?’

‘Pretty old.’

‘So the locks cut out if there’s a power failure. The modern ones use a conventional lock with a key or a numbers pad as a back-up. What did you want to know about it?’

‘Whether there’s anything about it that would tell you who made it.’

He removed the eyeglass and lowered the device on to its bag. ‘I’ve been out of that game a long time,’ he said.

‘I know. But you’ve kept up with things. Your opinion has got to be better than mine, anyway. Tell me what you think.’

‘Well, it’s simple. But elegant, almost. A lot of people could do it, but they wouldn’t all bother to take the trouble someone’s gone to with this. This was done by someone who cared what his work looked like. So he was intelligent, skilled, and right far up his own arse.’

Slider almost laughed at the descent into vernacular. ‘Self absorbed? Self obsessed?’

Jack nodded. ‘A nutter. Why bother? The way this wire’s held with a tiny brass screw. Anyone else would just stick it with a touch of solder. Do the job just as well. The bloke who did this is watching himself doing it. Playing to his favourite audience. Probably masturbates a lot,’ he concluded, straight-faced.

‘Anything else? What about that timer?’

‘It’s nice,’ Jack said with genuine admiration. ‘I’ve not seen one like it. Chinese. All the new miniature stuff is coming from China now. Used to be Taiwan, but its mainland now – they’re catching up in everything. And since they took Hong Kong back they’ve got no trouble with distribution.’

A heaviness had settled on Slider at the mention of Hong Kong. It seemed to be leading him towards the conclusion he had started to suspect, but didn’t want to.

‘Got a name for me?’ he said. ‘Strictly between us. It never gets back to you.’

Jack shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’d have said straight off one name in particular, but he’s inside. Not for this sort of thing, though.’ He met Slider’s eyes. ‘Trevor Bates. He was legit, as far as this sort of thing goes, but he got banged up for some personal stuff.’

‘I know. I did the banging,’ Slider said. Jack’s eyes widened slightly, but he forbore to pursue the point. ‘How did you know him?’

‘I didn’t, not personally, but I’ve come across him a few times at trade fairs and so on. I saw him once put something together as a sort of demonstration – a listening device. It was on his stand at the Surveillance and Security Trade Fair at Olympia. Fascinating, watching his little fingers twinkling away. Didn’t like the bloke – him with his silly red hair down to his shoulders. What did he think he looked like? But he was good. And his company imported all those Far East novelties. He had connections out there.’

‘I know.’

Jack surveyed his face. ‘You thought it was him,’ he said.

‘I didn’t want to. It creates all sorts of complications.’

He gestured at the device. ‘Bad trouble?’

‘The worst.’

‘Sorry.’ Carefully he replaced the device in the evidence bag and began peeling off the gloves. ‘I tell you what, though, it doesn’t altogether surprise me. If ever there was a bloke up himself it was Trevor Bates. Little runt of a bloke,’ he added with all a large man’s contempt, ‘and they’re often the worst. Napoleon complex, you know? Got to be better than everyone else to make up for it.’

‘You may not be wrong,’ Slider said.

Outside, he walked back to his car in a brown study, only to find a traffic warden in the process of writing him a ticket.

‘Didn’t you see the notice on the dashboard?’ he said, pointing out the battered POLICE ON CALL sign he had stuck there when he was forced to park on the double yellow.

She was unperturbed. ‘I don’t take no notice o’ dem tings. People write hall sorts o’ notices, hanyting to get out o’ payin’.’

‘But I really am a policeman,’ he said, showing her his brief.

‘Dat don’t mean hanyting to me,’ she said magnificently, continuing to write. ‘Once I start de ticket, I got to finish. “I started so I’ll finish”,’ she concluded, and tee-hee’d merrily.

Slider was just going to say something moderately savage when a roar of a motorbike, now hard-wired into his brain, made him jump for cover, carrying the woman with him. They had been standing together on the road side of the car; he flung her almost bodily before him into the gap between the bonnet and a white van which was obviously destined to be her next port of call. She was a hefty woman and about his own height – useful in altercations, he supposed vaguely – but his adrenaline made him strong as well as fast, and the motorbike roared past as she shrieked and clutched him and they both banged into the van doors, setting its alarms going, and reeled off on to the bonnet of his car.

The van blocked any forward vision, and by the time he had regained his balance and got out from behind it, the bike was long gone.

‘Don’t you touch me!’ the woman shrilled angrily, brushing herself down. ‘You can’t touch me! I’ll call de police!’

‘I am the police,’ he reminded her. ‘Did you see the number?’

‘People all against us! But you shouldn’t park wrong if you don’t want a ticket. Hit not my fault. I just makin’ a livin’.’ She burst noisily into tears. ‘People all de time takin’ a pop at us, callin’ us names – hittin’ us. I’m sick of it. I’m callin’ de police on you dis time. I got your number.’ She shook the parking ticket at him. ‘You not get away wid it!’

‘I just saved your life,’ Slider said, exasperated. ‘That motorbike tried to kill me, and you with me. Did you see the number?’

But she had backed away from him on to the pavement, and one or two passers-by were starting to take an interest. She noticed them, and began to play to the gallery. Her sobs increased in volume and she said to the world in general, ‘He attack me! For no reason! I just doin’ my job! A helpless woman!’

Slider decided on the better part of valour. Fortunately, traffic wardens were not popular, and with her size she looked anything but helpless, despite her boo-hooing, so no-one was exactly leaping forward to get involved. But that might change at any moment, and he got in his car and drove away before someone discovered his chivalry and got involved.