reminded him briefly of happier mornings with Eadie Sykes.
'You want a break?'
'No.' Faraday shook his head. 'Press on.'
'Sure.' Prebble helped himself to the last of the biscuits before Joyce scooped the plate away. 'From where I'm sitting, the Cafe Blanc was the turning point. For one thing, it was a stand-alone business earned its own profits, had a perfectly kosher set of accounts. Bazza was using it to wash the dirty money, of course he was, but you'd need to spend a lot of time proving it. Secondly, it gave Bazza a taste of what a real business could do for him. In my experience, these guys are always trying to square the circle. They want a big legit success and everything else that goes with it. At the same time, they can't tear themselves away from old habits. Money that easy is irresistible.'
'Once a criminal…'
'Exactly. The Cafe Blanc did it for Bazza. It was perfect. Trendy decor. Good vibe. Lots of profile. Plus the chance to bury all that embarrassing loot. That spelled Bazza heaven. All he needed to do now was repeat the trick.'
Another money-making opportunity, Prebble explained, arrived in the shape of his brother Mark. After nearly ten years in the Caribbean he returned home for a brief holiday. He and Bazza naturally had a lot of catching up to do and much of the conversation must have revolved around cocaine. Mark, with his working knowledge of the Caribbean, had developed some interesting contacts in Colombia. He also wanted to set up a yacht charter business of his own but needed substantial backing.
Bazza, in turn, was keen to put his ever-increasing UK profits to work.
Mark's dream of running a company of his own might just be the answer.
'How come?'
Prebble shot a look at Imber, then leaned forward. The fact that he hadn't once consulted the file at his elbow told Faraday a great deal about the fascination of an inquiry like Tumbril. Bazza Mackenzie had got under this young man's skin. No wonder Imber had put such faith in him.
'Bazza was being pressed to take some of his money offshore. The Cafe Blanc was turning over a decent profit and there'd be more businesses to come. He could declare these profits in the UK, no problem, but the money he was making in the cocaine biz was becoming an embarrassment.
There was only so much he could put through the Cafe Blanc. Somehow, he had to find another hidey- hole.'
'Gibraltar.' Faraday was there already.
'Exactly. The place is perfect. Every bloke you meet knows someone who sets up front companies. Taxes are minimal and everyone keeps their mouth shut. All that… plus Bazza would really feel at home.'
'How do you mean?'
'Gib is Pompey with palm trees. Big naval base. Loads of pubs. Fights at the weekend when the package tours arrive. Like I just said, perfect.'
Faraday caught Imber's eye and smiled. Only last year he'd spent a couple of days in Gibraltar trying to coax a murder suspect onto the plane home. Thanks to the local police they'd scored a result, and in the back of his mind he'd always wondered about a trip back. Maybe now he'd get the chance.
'So how did Mark fit in? The brother?'
'Bazza set him up in Gibraltar. He used cocaine money to stake him on a flat and paid for a year's lease on an ocean-going yacht. The yacht was already berthed in the dockyard marina. Mark was in business within a couple of months. I've got the audit trail next door. Bazza didn't put a foot wrong.'
'And Mark would ship the cocaine over? Is that what you're saying?'
'Absolutely not. Some of Mark's contacts gave him a better deal at the Caribbean end but he'd developed delivery routes he trusted and saw no point changing any of that. Sailing the gear over in charter yachts is for the fairies. The Americans were using satellite surveillance, even then.'
Bazza, he said, had always put his faith in couriers. Local guys from Pompey were bought a new suit and a plane ticket. Colombian cocaine was available wholesale on the island of Aruba, ten miles off the coast of Venezuela. The couriers flew the cocaine back to Amsterdam, on a through ticket to Heathrow, but left the flight at Schipol. Their suitcases, stuffed with cocaine, would be retrieved by paid baggage handlers at Terminal Two.
'And it worked?' Faraday was looking at Imber. This was his territory.
'Like a dream. The gear was skimmed from time to time but you'd expect that.'
'What about Mark?' Faraday turned to Prebble.
'He was still in Gibraltar. The first year he made the charter business pay. Bazza effectively controls it so that pleased him no end.'
'It's got a name? This business?'
'Middle Passage. Mark specialised in rich dot. com kids with money to burn. He took them across to the West Indies and showed them the ropes. On the way back, they got to do it themselves. It was a neat idea.'
'But there had to be more to it.'
'Of course there was. Middle Passage, when you get down to the paperwork, is just another launderette. The company's registered to a couple of local solicitors. Behind Middle Passage, there's a front company, then another one, then a third. You have to wade through an army of nominees before you get anywhere near the name Mackenzie.'
'And it works?'
'Too right. Middle Passage is currently leasing five boats. That's a flotilla. As a legit business, it's paying the brother a fortune, but from Bazza's point of view it's even better than that. All these companies in Gibraltar enable him to recycle the money exactly as he chooses. It couldn't be easier.'
For most of the last seven years, he explained, Bazza's boys the so-called 'smurfs' had been hand-carrying holdalls of cash on a near-monthly basis down to Gibraltar. Paid into various accounts in amounts of less than 10,000, they attracted no attention. As the offshore nest eggs grew and grew, Bazza also began to invest in a whole range of Portsmouth businesses, from a chain of tanning salons to a stake in a taxi firm, paying with nominee-authorised transfers drawn on the Gibraltar accounts. Cash that had left Pompey in a Nike holdall returned electronically months later, newly washed and ironed.
'That simple?'
'That simple. And it doesn't stop there. I can show you a folio of properties abroad. Florida. Marbella. Dubai. Northern Cyprus.
France. You name it. Plus, of course, Pompey Blau.'
'That's Mackenzie's, too?'
'Afraid so.'
Faraday shook his head, amazed at the sheer reach of Mackenzie's empire. Pompey Blau was a forecourt operation selling quality German cars from a site in North End. Over the past five years or so it had done amazing business, not least because Pompey Blau undercut every other outlet by at least 20 per cent. Faraday had lost count of the detectives in the city who were now driving around in near-new BMWs.
'The business is in his name?'
'No way. There's a guy called Mike Valentine.'
'I've heard of him.' Faraday was frowning. 'Car dealer up in Waterlooville. Tied up with Misty Gallagher's daughter. Right, Brian?'
'Right. Man his age, should know better.'
Prebble filled in the details. In the mid nineties, using money from Gibraltar, Bazza had staked Valentine's plans for the hived-off sales operation that was to become Pompey Blau. Valentine picked up decent German vehicles at the big London auctions, mainly Mercedes and BMW.
Heavily discounted, they sold in days to Pompey drivers looking for a bit of class. Seventy-five per cent of the profits went back to Bazza but Mike Valentine was still a happy man. Twenty-five per cent of that kind of turnover was a great deal of money.
'It doesn't end there, either.' It was Imber again. 'Once we got into this properly, we realised that Mackenzie had built another clause into the agreement. We knew there had to be a route for shipping down the gear coming into Heathrow. Turned out it was Mike Valentine's responsibility.'
Once the cars had been bought at auction, substantial quantities of cocaine were stashed in the air-bag
