The Kill Call

18

Dermot Walsh came in to West Street with a female colleague he introduced as Daksha Patel. They were an odd pair – Patel small and elegant, Walsh built like a prop forward, square and broad-shouldered, his neck padded with muscle.

As he was introduced to Walsh, Cooper thought he might actually have seen him playing against the Derbyshire Police first XV. He recalled a gap-toothed tight head with bandaged knees who’d tried to maim his opposing prop in the scrum every time the referee looked the other way. Even cleaned up and wearing a suit and tie, Walsh was still a bit scary.

The CID team had crowded into the small conference room to hear the Trading Standards officers. The room was nearly full and overly warm.

‘So what exactly is Trading Standards’ interest?’ asked Hitchens, looking happy to be involved in co-operation with partner agencies. It was probably something he could add to his PDR. ‘Can we help you? Or are you here to help us?’

‘It’s largely a question of background information which might be useful in your present enquiry,’ said Walsh.

‘The suspicious death of Mr Patrick Rawson.’

‘Yes.’

‘Please explain.’

‘Well, two years ago, a series of prosecutions were brought by Trading Standards with the help of one of the national horse protection organizations. We achieved several convictions. One defendant was fined sixteen thousand pounds and ordered to pay six thousand pounds costs, when he was found guilty of breaching trading standards legislation, and certain other offences.’

‘What other offences?’ asked Fry.

‘Selling a horse without a valid passport.’

There was a moment of silence. Some of the officers fidgeted uncomfortably, as if they thought they might have something more important to be doing. Cooper could see that Fry was one of them.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

Walsh held up a hand. ‘Please, let me explain. This all started when our animal health team launched an investigation on the back of a complaint from a first-time horse buyer, who said she wanted a mature, quiet horse for her children. She purchased an eight-year-old Irish cob mare for three thousand five hundred pounds over the internet, only to find the horse lame on delivery. The mare was returned, but the replacement, a gelding advertised as “four, rising five” and “quiet”, bucked her off on the first ride. Her vet said the horse was obviously immature.’

‘Do people really buy horses on the internet?’ said Fry.

‘People buy everything on the internet,’ said Cooper, who had bid successfully for some Mike Scott CDs on eBay just the night before.

Fry looked amazed. ‘Sight unseen?’

Walsh shrugged. ‘If they think they’re getting a bargain, buyers can be easily duped. It’s always been the same way. The internet just makes it a bit simpler.’

‘It’s like buying a house or a car on the internet.’

‘People do that, too.’

Patel was handing around a set of data sheets, listing the details of complainants. Names and addresses, allegations of breaches of consumer protection legislation. And the names of companies and individuals the complaints had been made against.

Cooper scanned the list. The companies concerned weren’t quite called ‘Nags R Us’, but they certainly had names designed to reassure customers that they were getting a docile mount, something suitable for a happy hack around the paddock.

‘This was a full-scale investigation,’ said Walsh. ‘We raided the defendants’ business premises. We followed up more than fifty complaints, dating back five years. As you’ll see from the lists, horses had been advertised for sale under a variety of trading names, claiming they were suitable for novice riders or had perfect temperaments for children. Some of them even came with money-back guarantees.’

‘And?’

‘And, in reality, many of those animals were unsound, or unsafe to be ridden. Buyers alleged that horses were delivered lame, malnourished, or covered in bite or kick marks. Some of them had coughs, back problems – and, in one case, navicular disease diagnosed at a post-sale vet check. At least four of the horses had to be euthanased after purchase.’

‘You can have a horse vetted before you buy it, though.’

Walsh looked up. ‘Of course. But vets don’t come cheap. If you’re looking for an inexpensive horse, the vet’s bill on top of the asking price can put it out of reach. Perhaps worse than all that, we turned up several personal injury cases involving children thrown from their horses – one suffered neck injuries, another a broken arm. Buyers who complained said that, instead of refunds, they got abuse and insults. These were members of the public who found themselves thousands of pounds out of pocket, and facing huge vets’ bills.’

‘Some of these purchases were face to face, though,’ said Cooper, running his finger down the list. ‘Not online.’

‘The trouble with the equine trade is that face-to-face deals are verbal, and payment is usually in cash,’ said Walsh. ‘There aren’t many businesses where that’s still true these days. As you know, anything that involves piles of cash and a minimum of paperwork is bound to attract a few rogue traders. There are lots more cases. Too many for me to mention.’

There were certainly plenty of them. Cooper could see an example of a couple who bought a horse for? 1,500, which was described as being an Irish hunter, aged nine or ten, and in generally good condition. Vets who had examined the horse after purchase said he was nearer twenty years old and not fit to ride. He had a wound in his mouth that would have made the bit very painful.

‘It’s like a car dealer “clocking” his cars,’ explained Walsh. ‘People buy a horse thinking they’re going to get x number of years out of it, but if the animal is ten years older than they’ve been told, then they won’t get the same value out of it. It’s always been a case of caveat emptor in this trade – “buyer beware”. But buyers need to be very careful where they take their business. Very careful.’

‘Was the website closed down?’ asked Cooper.

‘Yes. We managed to get an order under the Enterprise Act, plus the sellers took a hit on legal costs. That means contempt of court and possible imprisonment, if they commit any further breaches of the act.’ Walsh looked around the table. ‘This was a very lengthy investigation by the time it came to court. I was personally involved in the enquiry for nearly two years. I’ve got a file of paperwork on this a mile high – you wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Oh, I think we would,’ said Fry, perhaps remembering the officers still processing the files from the E Division strike day.

Walsh smiled at her. Cooper noticed that he had a full set of teeth when he was off the rugby pitch. Presumably thanks to an NHS bridge or two, like many of the rugby players he knew.

‘But I don’t see Patrick Rawson’s name on any of these allegations,’ said Hitchens, who had been listening patiently.

‘No. Sadly, Mr Rawson was never named in any of the charges. Our enquiries with Companies House revealed from the beginning that Patrick Rawson was listed as a director in several of the businesses that complaints had been made against. He was also a known associate of all the other named dealers, even where he wasn’t a director. But so many of the arrangements were verbal that we were never able to build a strong enough case against him. Not enough to put him in court with the other defendants. The evidence just wouldn’t stick.’

‘He’s either a very lucky man, or very clever,’ said Hitchens.

Walsh nodded. ‘Both. Believe me, we tried very hard to tie in Mr Rawson with these offences. We were convinced that he was personally responsible for many of the frauds, but Rawson seems to have avoided putting almost anything in writing that could have been incriminating. This is a very slippery customer indeed. I interviewed him myself on several occasions, and he was always extremely plausible. Charming, even.’

‘What did Rawson have to say for himself?’

‘He dismissed the allegations against him as scare-mongering by rival dealers,’ said Walsh. ‘Mr Rawson’s solicitor said his client was disappointed that matters couldn’t have been sorted out privately. If he’d been contacted with complaints, he would have responded, he said. But, as far as I’m concerned, Rawson showed all the typical signs of a dodgy trader.’

‘It seems he was soon back in business,’ said Fry.

‘I’m not sure he ever went out of business completely. Just laid low for a while. The trade in misrepresented horses had probably become a bit too difficult for him. The horse passport legislation has helped a lot there, of course – most people know now that you don’t buy a horse without a passport, because it’s almost certainly stolen. Last I heard, Rawson was expanding into some new areas of enterprise. We’d got him on our radar by then, though. So when your officers started making enquiries about him, it raised a flag.’

‘Did you come across Michael Clay in the course of this investigation?’ asked Fry.

Walsh frowned. ‘Michael Clay? Is he an accountant?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘He’s a peripheral figure. Our forensic accountancy people had to deal with him when they were going through the books. He was never in the frame for any charges, though. Is he involved in your enquiry?’

‘We haven’t interviewed him yet, but he’s high on our list,’ said Fry. ‘He seems to have become Patrick Rawson’s business partner.’

‘Well, if that’s the case, my view is that Rawson was probably using Michael Clay as a front man, for the appearance of respectability. Clay is just the sort of person he would be looking for, to protect his own reputation.’

‘You mean someone to take the fall if things went wrong?’

‘Yes, exactly.’ Walsh began to gather his papers together. ‘You know, that was always my biggest regret in this enquiry: that we could never close Patrick Rawson down.’

‘And now -’ said Hitchens, about to voice what everyone else was thinking.

But it was Dermot Walsh who got it in first.

‘And now,’ he said, ‘someone has closed Rawson down for us.’

Sutton Coldfield had been in Warwickshire once. Now it was part of the huge West Midlands conurbation, centred on Birmingham.

Fry knew that Sutton people tended to see themselves as culturally very distinct from Birmingham, though they were only eight miles or so from the centre of the city. They hadn’t forgotten that Sutton had been a municipal borough in its own right for many years, boasting the title of ‘Royal Town’. Here and there, street signs still recorded the fact. Fry had passed one as she drove into the town from the A38.

If this had been a working-class area, no one would have cared very much about its administrative status. But Sutton Coldfield was regarded as one of the most prestigious locations in Central England. Just a couple of years ago, a national property survey had placed two Sutton streets among the twenty most expensive in the UK.

Fry remembered this north-east corner of Birmingham only vaguely. She had never been stationed in this area, and had no friends who lived here. She did recall a shopping precinct known as the Gracechurch Centre, but now it seemed to be called simply The Mall. Other than that, during her time in the West Midlands she had known it mostly as the home town of a few TV actors: Arthur Lowe and Dennis Waterman among them. It was a sort of celebrity, she supposed.

The Rawsons’ home was in the Mere Green district of Sutton. Fry drove around the northern edge of Sutton Park and found herself in pleasant, leafy streets typical of so many affluent outer suburbs.

‘Nice,’ said Gavin Murfin, who constituted the only assistance she’d found available for the trip. ‘There’s a bit of dosh tied up in these properties, I reckon.’

‘Yes, Gavin. Can you see Hill Wood Road?’

‘You should use a sat-nav like mine, Diane. Do you know, I’ve even got Sean Connery’s voice on it now to do the directions? Brilliant.’

‘Just check the A to Z: Hill Wood Road.’

‘OK, got it.’

This was the semi-rural part of Sutton. Large houses set back from the road and sheltered by trees, with plenty of space between them to provide privacy. Perhaps no actual farming still went on, but it was certainly a place for people who could find a use for stables and paddocks, and large agricultural sheds with concrete hard standings big enough for a few lorries.

‘Off to the right somewhere,’ said Murfin.

They saw the M6 toll road in the distance and turned down a narrow lane for five hundred yards before they came to the entrance to the Rawsons’ property.

‘He did well for himself,’ said Fry, drawing the Peugeot up in front of a triple garage, built in the same style and the same warm, brown brick of the house itself. They crunched across a gravel turning circle to the liveried police car standing near the front door. Fry introduced herself and Murfin to the two West Midlands officers.

‘Good morning, Sergeant. We’ve been expecting you. How was the trip?’

‘Fine,’ said Fry.

‘We should have taken the toll road,’ suggested Murfin.

Fry sighed. ‘Is Mrs Rawson at home?’

‘Yes, we informed her you were coming.’

‘How are we going to do this?’ asked Murfin, as they walked to the door.

‘According to the book,’ said Fry. ‘With courtesy and consideration.’

‘I don’t think I know that book.’

‘They probably hadn’t published it when you were in training, Gavin.’

‘I don’t go back to the Dark Ages, you know.’

‘How come your eating habits are so medieval, then?’ said Fry, as she rang the bell.

Deborah Rawson was sitting in a large conservatory watching a stable girl exercise a horse outside. Mrs Rawson wore a cream silk blouse that looked so expensive it was probably produced by some rare Buddhist silkworm in the foothills of the Himalayas. The atmosphere of the conservatory was thick with perfume. Mrs Rawson had prepared herself for her visitors.

‘If you’re married to a man like Patrick,’ she said, ‘you learn to expect that the worst will happen some time. Sooner or later.’

Fry’s first question had actually been a polite one – an enquiry about Mrs Rawson’s welfare. Now, as she studied the woman, she wondered whether Hitchens had been right about the effects of shock. She looked a little more upset than she had yesterday. Paler, more nervous in her gestures. Her eyes didn’t seem to be able to settle on her visitors, but constantly darted back to the girl and the horse outside.

‘Your husband had been in trouble on a few occasions, hadn’t he?’ said Fry.

Deborah lowered her head, tapping out a cigarette from a packet on the coffee table in front of her. ‘He tended to sail a bit close to the wind, I suppose. Pat was just that sort of businessman, you know. I’m sure you’ve met the type before, Sergeant. He enjoyed the challenge, the adrenalin rush. Thrived on it, in fact.’

‘The challenge of breaking the law?’

‘No, not exactly. The challenge of seeing how much he could get away with. He’s made quite a bit of money, at times.’

‘But his main business was the buying and selling of horses. Is that right?’

‘The equine trade. That’s what he liked to call it, when he was talking to his friends down at the golf club. But I wouldn’t say it was his main business. Not recently, anyway. He had a finger in lots of other pies.’

She lit the cigarette from a gold lighter. Smoke drifted up into the glass roof, and hung there, swirling slowly.

‘I suppose you might say he was a born salesman,’ said Deborah. ‘Patrick had the charm to sell anything to anybody. Snow to Eskimos, isn’t that the saying?’

‘Something like that,’ said Fry.

‘He was selling cars when I first met him. Down in Digbeth, that was. A snappy suit and a dodgy hair cut.’ Deborah laughed. ‘But it was his smile that reeled me in. That, and the commission he told me he was earning.’

Yes, Fry could see Patrick Rawson as a used-car salesman. She reminded herself not to be taken in by a salesman’s smile when she went to buy herself a new car. As if that was likely.

‘What about the horses? Where did they come in?’ she asked.

‘From his father, Owen Rawson. It was in the family.’

Fry followed Mrs Rawson’s gaze and watched the horse being trotted across the paddock. She had no idea what kind of horse it was. A brown one, that was all she could say. But even she could tell that it moved with eye-catching grace, muscles sliding smoothly over its shoulders, feet lifting high off the ground. For a large animal, its step was dainty, as if it was afraid of damaging the grass.

‘I don’t know a great deal about horses,’ she said. ‘But is there really much money to be made?’

‘It’s like anything else, Detective Sergeant. It depends whether you know what you’re doing.’

‘And your husband did?’

‘Certainly. Patrick always knew what he was doing.’

Murfin had been gazing out of the conservatory windows, leaning to see the stable block to one side of the paddock. Fry wasn’t sure he’d even been listening, but he threw her a glance, raised an eyebrow, and she nodded.

‘And has business been good recently, Mrs Rawson?’ he asked.

Deborah took the cigarette out of her mouth and looked at him, surprised. Until now, she had barely acknowledged him, probably regarded him as no more important than the stable girl, there only to rub down the horse when it got too sweaty. She seemed to have to think about his question.

‘I really don’t know,’ she said at last.

‘It’s just that I notice the stables seem to be mostly empty.’

‘Horses come and go. I couldn’t even tell you what there is out there, without Patrick being here. The girl might know, I suppose.’

‘You don’t even know how many horses there are?’

‘As I told you yesterday, I’ve never had anything to do with the business. You’ll have to talk to Michael Clay.’

‘You told us your husband went up to Derbyshire for the horse sale. And you were right, there is one scheduled for this Saturday. But would he also have called on private individuals? Private sellers?’

‘I suppose so, if it was worth his while. I think he had some regular dealings with stables and riding schools.’

‘What sort of dealings?’

Deborah blew a cloud of smoke, narrowing her eyes. ‘I think my answer is the same, Sergeant. You’ll have to speak to Michael if you want to know more details.’

‘Well, we’re here to examine Mr Rawson’s papers,’ said Fry. ‘You did say you would give permission for us to do that.’

‘Yes, of course. You mean business papers, I imagine?’

‘Particularly any appointments book, a diary. That sort of thing.’

‘Yes, I see. But he was on a business trip – he might have had those with him.’

‘If we could just check -’

Deborah Rawson rose. ‘This way, then. Patrick does have a desk he uses when he’s at home. Used, I mean.’

‘Thank you.’

‘“His friends down at the golf club”?’ said Murfin when Deborah Rawson had left them alone in a sparse office.

‘Yes, and the “equine trade”. Mr Rawson seems to have had social aspirations.’

‘He sounds as though he was just a dodgy horse dealer, though.’

‘Not just that. A finger in a lot of pies, remember?’

Fry opened the first drawer. It rattled as she slid it out, and revealed only a few pens, a stapler, a scattering of jumbo paper clips.

‘Besides, social aspirations happen to people a lot when they get some money, Gavin,’ she said. ‘It’s never enough for them. They want respect as well.’

‘Respect, maybe. Your average drug dealer on the street wants respect. But Rawson never seems to have worried too much about respectability, which is a different thing altogether.’

Fry nodded. ‘Yes, that’s an interesting bit of contradiction in his character there. Deborah was right – her husband seems to have had an urge to live dangerously, a need for a bit of risk in his life. I wonder what damage the Trading Standards investigation did to his standing in the club house.’

Murfin was rifling through a filing cabinet, tutting over dozens of empty suspension files and a half-full bottle of Laphroaig whisky.

‘If I know anything about golf-club committees, any sniff of a court case could have been fatal,’ he said.

‘Fatal?’

‘Just an expression, like. I meant fatal to his standing as a member.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’

Fry tapped her fingers on the desk. She was finding no diary or appointments book. No PDA or laptop either. Nothing where a schedule of meetings or the names of regular contacts might be listed.

‘You know, if those two sides of Mr Rawson’s personality clashed, he might have got very angry about it,’ she said.

‘Angry at who?’

Fry thought for a moment. ‘Whoever landed him in court, I suppose.’

Murfin laughed as he banged the filing cabinet shut. ‘Not Trading Standards.’

‘No, I don’t think so. They’re a bit hard to get angry with, aren’t they? I was thinking more of one of Mr Rawson’s customers, someone who got stung when a deal went wrong. Or someone else in the same business, perhaps.’

‘Dermot Walsh said that Rawson blamed jealous rivals when they first brought a case against him.’

‘So he did. We should give Walsh a ring when we get back to the office, and ask him if Rawson mentioned any rivals in particular.’

‘Right. You’re thinking there might have been some kind of feud?’

‘Yes, a feud that Patrick Rawson lost.’

‘If that’s so – and since Rawson seems to have come up to Derbyshire to meet him – the rival could well be someone local to us.’

‘So he could, Gavin. So he could.’

Fry checked the desk for hidden drawers, ran a hand along a book shelf. Telephone directories, a road atlas, the Official Form Book 2009, with cover picture of jockeys straining hard for the wining post. Diaries, but filled only with dates of birthdays and dental appointments. She found the most recent diary and turned to the current week. Derby horse market was marked on Saturday, and the name of the Birch Hall Country Hotel on Monday night. But no names, no times of meetings he might have arranged. This really was a man who had learned not to put anything in writing.

‘There’s nothing here,’ she said in disgust. ‘Absolutely nothing of any use to us, Gavin.’

‘Where to next, then?’ said Murfin.

‘We need to talk to Rawson’s partner. Let’s go and see Michael Clay.’

Michael Clay’s home was further into the city, Birmingham proper. Well, after a fashion. Great Barr was a suburb on the outer edge of Brum, an ocean of pre-war red-brick semis bordering on Walsall and West Bromwich. The Clay home was easier to find than Rawson’s, though. No need for a sat-nav here.

‘No, I’m sorry, Mr Clay isn’t at home.’

The door had been answered by a woman of about her own age, so tightly buttoned up in a woollen jacket that she appeared to have almost no shape. Her dark hair was pushed untidily behind her ears, and there was a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead, as if she’d been caught in some physical exertion. Moving furniture, or beating the carpets. Something she could take her feelings out on, judging from that sour expression.

‘And you are…?’ asked Fry.

‘His daughter. Erin Lacey.’

The woman carried on looking at Fry blankly. Then she began to take a step back, as if to close the door firmly on an insurance salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness. Fry held up a hand.

‘Does your father have an office address, Mrs Lacey?’

‘Well, he has an office in a business centre in Kingstanding. But he’s not there, either. He’s gone away for a few days.’

‘Where?’

‘He went up to Derbyshire.’

‘But that’s where we spoke to him yesterday. I thought he would have been back home today.’

Mrs Lacey threw out her hands helplessly. ‘I’m sorry. If you had an appointment, he must have forgotten.’

‘It wasn’t exactly an appointment,’ said Fry. ‘But he did give me the impression he would be available. I need to talk to him about the death of his business partner, Patrick Rawson.’

‘Oh, of course. How dreadful.’ Her brow crinkled. But to Fry the frown seemed to suggest a concern at whether she’d left a piece of furniture in the wrong place, rather than sadness at the death of Mr Rawson. ‘All I know is that my father is away. I’m looking after the house for a while.’

‘What about Mrs Clay? Your mother?’

‘She died, five years ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

The woman seemed a little nervous. Fry would have loved to get inside the house to have a look around, but she had no warrant, no justification. Michael Clay wasn’t a suspect, or even a material witness.

‘I presume you can give us a contact number for him, though,’ she said. ‘A mobile? Mr Clay must have a mobile number we can reach him on?’

She raised an eyebrow, as the woman hesitated. ‘I’ll write it down for you.’

‘Thank you.’

Fry took the number and exchanged it for her card. ‘When your father returns, or if he gets in touch in the meantime, please ask him to contact us as soon as possible.’

‘Is there trouble?’

‘Not for Mr Clay. We just want to speak to him.’

‘I’ll tell him’ she said, already closing the door.

Fry could see her shape moving behind the glass, long after they had walked down the drive to their car.

Standing on the pavement, she made a point of phoning the number she’d been given in full sight of the windows of the Clay house. She got a voicemail message, a man’s voice claiming to be Michael Clay, but not available at the moment. At least it was a genuine number.

‘Mr Clay, this is Detective Sergeant Fry of Derbyshire Police. We spoke yesterday. I’d be grateful if you could give me a call at your earliest convenience.’

‘Not at home, then,’ said Murfin, when she finished the call.

Fry glanced at the house again. ‘I wonder…’

‘What are you wondering?’

‘I’m thinking about what Dermot Walsh said this morning, about Patrick Rawson using someone to take the fall if things went wrong. And I’m wondering whether Mr Clay discovered what his role was in Patrick Rawson’s scheme of things.’