Bank, any language of your choice.
She charges the earth.'
'Monkton's MI6.'
'That's right. That's why she's PV'd as well. Hayder couldn't believe his luck. All he had to do was write the script.'
Faraday could imagine Nick Hayder's glee. Fort Monkton was a government-run training establishment across the harbour in leafy Alverstoke. Screened by trees and an eight-foot wire fence, it turned out spies for MI6. Posted abroad, languages were a must. Hence, Faraday assumed, the success of Gisela Mendel's little enterprise.
'So how did you play it?'
'Gisela put the word round a couple of local estate agencies, pretending the fort was up for sale, just the way we asked her.
Mackenzie was onto her within a day.'
'She knows who Mackenzie is? His background?'
'No, he's just a punter as far as she's concerned, someone who's made a pile of money and now wants somewhere really high-profile.'
'And you think she believes that?'
'She's never told me otherwise.' Willard permitted himself a rare smile. 'You hear about the football club?'
'No.'
'Mackenzie tried to buy in. He was after an eleven per cent stake.
With that kind of holding, he'd be looking to take Pompey over.'
'And?'
'They saw him coming and knocked the deal on the head. After that, he made a play for the pier.'
'South Parade?'
'Yeah. Problem there was he put in a silly bid and tried to snow them with all kinds of pressure. They got so pissed off in the end, they pulled the plug, and you can hardly blame them. Mackenzie's so used to dealing with low life that he forgets his manners. Quote the guy an asking price, and he instantly divides by ten. Ten. That's not negotiation, that's robbery. The pier people walked, big time, and then one of them found himself talking to Nick.'
This conversation, according to Willard, sowed a seed in Nick Hayder's ever-fertile mind. By this time, Tumbril had abandoned any thought of baiting the usual investigative traps. There was no way Mackenzie allowed himself anywhere near the distribution system and therefore no prospect of scooping him up with half a kilo of uncut Peruvian. The other strategy following the money might, in the end, achieve the same result via a money-laundering conviction but Tumbril's hotshot accountant was talking another three months minimum with the calculator and the spreadsheets and both Hayder and Willard himself were nervous that headquarters' patience might not stretch that far. Somehow or other, there had to be another way.
'So?' Faraday was beginning to warm to this conversation. At last, he thought, the pieces are beginning to fit.
'So Hayder took a good look at what happened with Mackenzie over the pier. Number one, the guy's determined to get his name up there in lights. He owes it to himself, to his mates. He wants the world to know there's nothing he can't buy. Number two, he's after a casino.'
'A casino?'
'Sure. Make Mackenzie's kind of money and the big problem is washing it all. You can carry it out of the country and stuff it in foreign accounts. You can treat yourself to a couple of Picassos. You can buy into legit businesses, bricks and mortar, whatever. If you've got the patience, you can even launder it through bureaux de change. Brian Imber will be giving you the full brief tomorrow but the truth is we're knocking all these options on the head. Believe me, it's getting hard to wash dodgy money. A casinos solves a lot of that. Plus he smiled 'there was still the question of profile.'
A casino on the pier would have been the answer to Mackenzie's dreams.
Punters would flood in, the tables would magic dirty money into legitimate winnings, and everyone in Pompey would know that Bazza Mackenzie had finally made it.
'So Nick started looking for another property, another proposition. You know he used to go running?'
'Still will, when he's better.'
'Sure. So he was out there one weekend, hammering along the se afront when bosh he's staring out to sea and he suddenly realises the answer.
Spit Bank Fort. This is him talking, not me.'
Faraday knew it was true. He could hear Nick Hayder's voice, picture him leaning into the conversation, his head lowered, his hands chopping the air. This was the way the man had always operated, total conviction, turning a gleam in the eye into a string of successful prosecutions. The latter happened way down the line, but without the wit and the balls to pull some truly original stroke, the bad guys were home free.
'Mackenzie put a bid in?'
'At once. 200,000. Said it had to be rock bottom because sorting the place out would cost a fortune. Gisela wouldn't drop a penny under the asking price. One and a quarter million.'
Slowly, week by week, Mackenzie had gone to 550,000, each new trip to the fort confirming the vision that had begun to obsess him. A glass dome, he'd told Gisela, would seal the interior from wind and rain.
Punters could look down on the gaming floor from the upper deck.
Croupiers would be dressed in period blue artillery tunics. Girlies in naughty Parisian gear would serve drinks and canapes. And every night, with the gaming over, there'd be yet more boodle stashed away in the thick-walled cartridge magazines deep in the bowels of the fort. Spit Bank, to Hayder's delight, had become Mackenzie's dream fantasy, the clinching evidence that the Copnor boy had well and truly made it.
'That's why Wallace came as a bit of a shock. He was Mackenzie's wake-up call.'
Faraday was trying to put himself in Mackenzie's shoes. After all the plans, all the gloating phone calls to his mates, came the sudden news that some total stranger had stepped into the city and virtually doubled his bid. As a wind-up, it was undeniably sweet. But as a potential sting, thought Faraday, it still had some way to go.
'Mackenzie's after a meet. Before Wallace puts the surveyors in.'
'I know.' Willard nodded. 'We needed to back Mackenzie up against a deadline, make him sweat. That's why Wallace has the surveyors on standby for Friday next week. My guess is we're probably talking Wednesday or Thursday for the meet.'
Faraday smiled. He was thinking of Wallace in the hotel room earlier.
The over-loud tie, the ear stud, the brash little touches. Young guy on the make. Clever.
'You really think Mackenzie has him down as a dealer? Same line of business?'
'That's the plan.'
'And you think he believes it?'
'I'll be disappointed if he doesn't.'
Faraday turned the proposition over in his mind. Turf was important, whatever line of business you happened to be in. The last thing Mackenzie needed was serious competition, and in a city like Portsmouth there was an added complication. Pompey belonged to her own. Intruders like Wallace needed reminding of that.
'So how will Mackenzie play it? Violence? Half a dozen mates round the corner?'
'Maybe.' Willard shrugged. 'Or he might just try buying him off. If he's silly enough to talk drugs, or some kind of co-distribution deal, we're home and dry. If it's a straightforward bung, he's still exposed himself. Either way, we end up with evidence. And not before time, eh?'
Willard broke off. He'd picked up the distant thump-thump of a fast inflatable and he turned in time to catch the rib powering down for the passage up-harbour. The controls were manned by a slight, solitary figure in a blue anorak. Minutes later, Willard was doing the introductions.
'Gisela Mendel.' Willard nodded towards Faraday. 'Joe Faraday. I mentioned him on the phone.'
Faraday smiled hello. Her handshake was businesslike. The big outboards were still idling below them. She needed to be back at the fort asap.
'No problem.'
Willard had taken charge, bending to slip the rope she'd made fast to the bollard, and Faraday sensed at once
