The Murder Exchange Page 33

  He dragged hard on the cigarette, shaking his head, reliving the scene. ‘First things first, I ask them what the fuck’s happened, and Tony says that they was unloading some boxes in the front room full of rifles they’d taken delivery of when they heard a noise round the back. Tony goes out to take a look what it is and catches this kid, who’s been looking in the window at what they’ve been doing. Fuck knows what he was up to. Maybe he saw them taking stuff out of the van and got suspicious, and just decided to have a butcher’s. It was a stupid thing to do, whatever it was.

  ‘So Tony nabs him and drags him inside, but now they don’t know what to do with him. They know they can’t let him go because he’s bound to tell someone, and then that someone’ll tell you lot, and you’ll come sniffing round asking questions, and even if they get rid of the stuff and it’s their word against the kid, Stefan’ll probably find out, and it’ll look bad on them. As it happens, I think they just panicked a bit as well, and Matthews, he admitted it was him, took a knife to the kid and killed him. Then they’re wondering what to do with the body so they call me. Can I have another fag, please?’

  Knox pushed the pack over to him and we watched as he pulled one out with shaking hands, put it to his lips, and lit it. Jackie Slap Merriweather, for all his initial bravado, was carrying a lot of guilt about with him, and had been for six months.

  He exhaled loudly. ‘So I tells them to get some gloves, not to touch the body unless they’re wearing them, and to make it look like a nonce has done it, then get rid of the thing.’

  ‘Did you help in that process?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. That kid was only a couple of years older than my oldest. I wasn’t going to do nothing. It was their problem, not mine. So I left them to it, but not before I’d told them to keep their gobs shut. I didn’t want Neil finding out about it.’

  ‘So where’s Tony Franks now?’ asked Knox.

  ‘Dead,’ answered Merriweather.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It’s a long story and, I have to tell you, it’s one I can’t hardly believe myself.’

  ‘We’re in no hurry, Jack. I think you may as well start talking.’

  He exhaled loudly again, then began. ‘Well, nothing happened for months. Obviously you lot were looking for the boy’s killers but I was pretty sure we – I mean they – were in the clear because it looked like you was searching for a nonce, and I think they’d covered their tracks well enough. Then, a couple of weeks back, it all went wrong. Someone offed Shaun Matthews.’

  Knox looked surprised. ‘What? You don’t know who?’

  Merriweather shook his head. ‘No. It was no one from the organization.’

  Knox and I looked at each other quizzically. This was an interesting development, and something we’d have to pick up on later.

  ‘Anyway, as well as doing a bit of work with Tony, Matthews also ran the door at this club called Arcadia, as you probably know. Now, Neil owns Arcadia even though his name’s not on the deeds, but a bloke called Roy Fowler’s the one who’s actually been managing it for him. But Fowler was skimming the club, taking money that was meant for Neil, and Matthews was involved as well. So, when Matthews gets topped, Fowler panics, thinks we’re on to him, which we were, and thinks we’re going to kill him, which we weren’t. Not as far as I knew anyway. The problem is, though, Fowler’s convinced he’s a dead man, so he takes evasive measures.’

  ‘What sort of evasive measures?’ I asked.

  ‘Blackmail. You see, he’s got something up his sleeve he’s been keeping as a bargaining chip for just this sort of eventuality. In fact, he’s got two things. He’s got a tape recording he made of a conversation he had with Matthews, and in this conversation Matthews, who as it happens was pissed, is talking about the weapons scam and how it’s run by Vamen, and also what happened with the kid. Just the sort of tape you don’t want falling into the hands of Stefan Holtz. But he’s got something worse as well. He’s got the knife that killed the kid.’

  ‘How the hell did he get hold of that?’ demanded Knox.

  ‘I honestly don’t know. Maybe Matthews panicked when they got rid of the body, kept it for a while, then gave it to Fowler to get rid of.’ He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t tell you. But, either way, Fowler decided to hang on to it, just in case it ever proved useful, and so, when Matthews died and he suddenly thought he was next, he sent a message to Neil saying that he had this incriminating stuff and that if we tried to do anything to him he’d make sure Stefan and the Old Bill got to hear about it. He also said he wanted a hundred grand so that he could get out of the country, and if Neil gave him that, then he’d hand over the knife and the tape.

  ‘So Neil, who’s none too pleased to find out about the dead kid, arranges to meet up with Fowler to do the exchange. At the same time, he finds out from Elaine Toms, who’s like his eyes and ears in Arcadia, that Fowler’s going to be getting his security from Tiger Solutions. Well, Tiger’s run by a bloke called Joe Riggs, who’s a bit of an associate of Neil’s, nothing major, but he’s had some involvement in the weapons side through Tony. So we set it up that Tony would be on the team taking Fowler to the meet. He’d deal with Fowler, and anyone else who got in the way, and take back the evidence. End of story, end of problem.

  ‘Except it didn’t work out like that. Joe’s been rumbling on about his partner, Iversson – the naked bloke you nicked – for a long time, and even thinks that Iversson might have offed his missus – that’s Joe’s missus – years back. So, when it’s all set up, Joe makes sure that Iversson’s one of the ones escorting Fowler, because he wants Tony to take him out as well. Only problem is, Iversson was a bit tastier than Tony was prepared for, and Tony was the one who got shot.’

  ‘So Iversson didn’t have anything to do with the murder of Fowler?’

  He looked at me. ‘No. He didn’t have a clue what was going on. The thing was, though, he was now a fucking complication. He knew what had happened, plus you lot were after him, so things could have got very dodgy if he’d been picked up.

  ‘We were still thinking what to do about him when he turns up at the Arcadia and ends up in the sack with Elaine Toms, who, as it happens, is one of Neil’s exes and a girl he’s got a real soft spot for. They were going to have Iversson killed round her flat, which was where he was staying after you lot started looking for him, but then Neil has a bit of an idea. A better way of dealing with him. Like I said earlier, Neil’s been looking to move in on Stefan for a while, but it was never going to be easy because Stefan didn’t move from that fucking house of his, and he’s guarded to the hilt. Plus, Neil doesn’t want to be seen to do anything that’ll make him look disloyal. Far better to get someone else to do it. So he gets Elaine to push Iversson into kidnapping Krys because he knows that’s the only way he’s going to get Stefan out into the open. Joe helps her set everything up, Krys gets lifted, and when Stefan turns up at the rendezvous with the ransom money, he gets popped by our people. And the beauty of it is that no one suspects Neil at all.’

  ‘What happened at the farmhouse?’ asked Knox. ‘We found Riggs’s body there, as well as a number of others, including Krys Holtz’s.’

  Merriweather sighed. ‘That was Riggs’s fault. He was meant to sort out Krys and Iversson and leave their bodies there so that Iversson would get the blame for everything, but that fucker’s got a real knack for staying alive, and it was Riggs who got killed. When Riggs didn’t show up to say that it had all been sorted, we had to take our own evasive action. We thought Iversson would head for Elaine’s so I went round there, just in case she couldn’t handle things, and that’s where you found me. She tried to kill him, he attacked her, and I just got in the way.’

  ‘What about Shaun Matthews?’ I asked. ‘Who killed him if it was no one from your own organization?’

  ‘Christ knows,’ said Merriweather. ‘Who the fuck poisons anyone anyway? It’s a recipe for getting caught these days, what with all them technological advantages you lot have
got.’

  ‘Our information strongly suggests that Matthews’s girlfriend of a number of months was also a mistress of Neil Vamen.’

  ‘Who’s that, then?’

  ‘Her name’s Jean Tanner.’

  For the first time in the interview, Merriweather laughed, although there wasn’t much humour in it. ‘Oh yeah, you were on about her in the Seven Bells the other week, weren’t you? Nah, I wouldn’t put it quite like that. They went out for a little while – old Neil likes to have a few girlfriends – but it was all over way back.’

  ‘When?’

  He shrugged. ‘I dunno, four, five months ago? But she was a right weirdo. Used to work in Heavenly Girls, but even the punters stayed a bit clear of her. She was nice looking, and all right when you first met her, but, I dunno, it’s difficult to put your finger on, but something about her wasn’t quite right, know what I mean? I know old Neil was glad to get rid of her. As it happens, I think she was the first girl he’d ever been with who actually scared him – not that he’d ever admit it, of course.’

  ‘So, what about Craig McBride?’ I asked.

  ‘Craigy? They said he died of a smack overdose, didn’t they? Not that I ever saw him take any. Always thought he was more of a coke man myself. He died round her place, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d helped him along.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘I dunno, maybe he was annoying her or something. The thing is with her, she was the sort you could imagine doing something like that, do you know what I mean? She was dodgy.’

  ‘And it takes one to know one, eh, Jack?’ said Knox.

  ‘Whatever.’

  We all sat in silence for a while while Merriweather sucked up what was left of his latest cigarette.

  ‘So, do you think she could have killed Matthews, too?’ asked Knox eventually.

  He shrugged again. ‘Fuck knows. That’s for you to find out, isn’t it?’

  Monday, eight days later

  Gallan

  But we never did find out who poisoned Shaun Matthews.

  Five days on, and after much internal discussion, the likeliest scenario suggested that, for whatever reason, Jean Tanner had been the one. The theory, agreed by all the original investigating team, but with absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back it up, was that there had been some sort of relationship between Tanner and Matthews, but it had ended before his death and, for whatever reason, there’d been bad blood between the two of them. Being a girl who liked to throw her favours around, she was also seeing Craig McBride, and had got him to supply her with the poison to get rid of her ex-boyfriend. McBride was the only person we could think of who might have had the means to obtain it, almost certainly when he’d been out in Bosnia. He was also stupid enough to think that he could get away with it by making Matthews’s death look like an accident. Jean had undoubtedly thought the same way, and had administered the fatal dose to her unsuspecting ex.

  Then, a few days later, we’d paid a visit to McBride and he’d panicked, thinking we were getting too close. He’d gone round to talk to Jean, they’d had an argument, and at that point she’d decided that he was now a liability. Maybe he’d been suggesting she come clean and tell the police, or something like that.

  Jean had acted decisively. Somehow, she’d managed to obtain and inject him with a huge quantity of heroin and, unable to get rid of the body, had left to plan her next move, before finally deciding that it was probably best to return and make out that the whole thing had been an accident. Burley, then, had probably not been as corrupt as I’d first thought and, rather than trying to protect her as a favour to Vamen, he was simply being too lazy to do his job properly, and his obnoxiousness was natural rather than artificially created. Fair enough. Hopefully some day, someone in charge would notice it, and he’d suffer as a result.

  We’d brought Jean Tanner in for questioning and Berrin and I had kept her in for twenty-four hours while we’d interrogated her. She might have been a weirdo (although I have to say I found her to be pretty level-headed) but she was no fool and, knowing that the police had nothing on her bar theories, had denied everything. She didn’t know who’d killed Shaun, she hoped they caught whoever it was, and, as for Craig McBride, that had been a tragic accident that had taught her the dangers of drugs. When I’d pointed out that McBride had had a phobia about needles, her jaw had dropped, her eyes had widened, and she’d simply said, ‘Really? How odd.’ In the end, we’d had to let her go. Berrin had been pissed off, and was particularly concerned that a woman who might well have committed two murders in the space of a couple of weeks was walking the streets unmolested.

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ I’d told him. ‘Crime can sometimes be a good short-term career move, sometimes it can even be quite a good medium-term one, but I promise you this, it’s never a good long-term one. They all get caught in the end. If she is a psycho and she really did kill those two blokes, then somewhere down the line, she’ll try it again, and she’ll come unstuck. In the meantime, just make sure you don’t ever go out with her.’

  ‘Do you think she did it?’ Berrin had asked.

  ‘Thinking it and proving it are two very different things. If I can’t prove it, then I prefer not to make a judgement. Probably is all I’d say. Probably.’

  It was a sunny morning in early September and I was walking down Cleveland Street towards the Middlesex Hospital. My mobile rang. It was Malik.

  ‘John, how are you?’ His tone was cheery, which wasn’t really a surprise. The object of his last year-and-a-half’s work, the Holtz family and their immense criminal enterprise, was finally unravelling. Some might even say it had something to do with my perseverance.

  ‘I’m well, Asif. You?’

  ‘Very good. Look, the reason for my call, it’s a thanks, really, for all the work you’ve done, and to let you know that this morning we arrested Vamen and six of his associates on a whole variety of charges relating to their activities. And Merriweather’s continuing to sing like the proverbial canary.’

  ‘I’m glad he’s proving useful. It’s a pity he’s got to get immunity, though.’

  ‘Well, he’s not going to get full immunity. There are a couple of charges he’s going to be facing, and he might get a nominal spell inside.’

  ‘Not nearly as much as he deserves, though.’

  ‘You know the score, John. Sometimes you’ve got to swallow your principles when you’re dealing with people like that. Whatever happens, he’s a marked man for the rest of his life. I’d rather not be in his boots.’

  ‘Any sign of the bodies? Franks and the others?’

  ‘We’re still searching that maggot farm but I’m not optimistic. The maggots will have eaten all the flesh and apparently the bones were ground down afterwards. It seems they’ve done it with a few people.’

  ‘I bet they have. What about the knife in the Robert Jones murder?’ Merriweather had told us that Joe Riggs had been at the Fowler murder scene that night, and had retrieved the knife and the tape from Fowler’s briefcase while the night-club owner was being murdered. He had then weighed down the objects in a strongbox, and chucked them in the Thames.

  ‘Nothing yet, but we’re still looking.’

  ‘I think that’s my only regret in all this,’ I said, ‘that we didn’t get a chance to bring either Franks or Matthews to trial for the killing.’

  ‘In a way it’s better this way, isn’t it? There wasn’t a huge amount of evidence against them. They could easily have got off, and then the family would have been devastated. At least now they know that the people who took their son away have paid a pretty heavy price.’

  I wasn’t so sure. All we had was Merriweather’s word for that. Maybe he’d been more heavily involved than he’d let on, which would have explained why he’d co-operated so quickly when it had become obvious to him that the police were on the scent. If so, he was going to get off scot-
free.

  Malik asked me if I’d kept the family informed of what had been going on. ‘I have as much as possible. I think they realize now that no one’s ever going to go to prison for the murder but, like you say, maybe it’s better this way.’ Not that I really believed it.

  ‘I’m going to have to buy you lunch sometime soon,’ said Malik. ‘When things have settled a bit. I’ll give you a call, OK?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, doubting if I’d be eating a slap-up meal on SO7 for a while yet. ‘That’d be nice.’

  We said our goodbyes, and I walked into the hospital entrance.

  Iversson

  I was sitting up in bed in my hospital room and thinking about how I was going to get out of this situation. It didn’t look good. They had two armed coppers guarding me in shifts round the clock. I was obviously a real VIP. Very Important Prisoner, that is. One thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to be fighting my way out. Not only was I absolutely fucking exhausted, I also had a minor blood infection, and the wound in my shoulder was making the use of my right arm next to impossible. I was just going to have to front it and hope for the best. I’d thrown the Glock into a wheelie bin in Clerkenwell while I was on the way back to Elaine’s apartment on that final, fateful day when the bitch had finally showed her true colours, so at least there was no way that could be used against me. Most of my co-conspirators were dead, and if Elaine and whoever the gunman with her was didn’t break (and I had no reason to think they would), I might just be able to scrape through unscathed. I’d been taught anti-interrogation techniques back in my army days so I was reasonably confident I could hold my own, even in my weakened state. As the days had passed and my wounds had slowly healed, so my pecker – battered so badly (quite literally) by my experience with Elaine, and Joe’s betrayal – was finally going back up again. I will tell you something about me: I am nothing if not resilient.