safe, in his home.Where else would it be?’
‘When is this going to happen?’
‘It already has. According to the dates there were four container loads delivered last year. That’s forty-six million pounds worth of cocaine wholesale, say a hundred million on the street as crack or coke.’
‘Well.’ Kathy felt incapable of judgement. It was four in the morning and she wanted sleep and time to step back and digest this. She felt she barely recognised the man beside her. His face was flushed, his pupils contracted and his nose running. ‘No wonder they’ve all got better cars than me,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose.‘And no wonder they’ve got plenty of friends.You look tired.’
‘Yes, I’ll be on my way.’
‘Kip here. Then you can run me back to my car in the morning.’
She was too weary to argue, and they tumbled onto opposite sides of his bed and fell into a troubled sleep.
TWENTY-THREE
It was one of the more difficult interviews of her life. Tom managed it as well as he could have, speaking with conviction, taking full personal responsibility and painting her role in the most favourable light. But still, she felt rotten. Brock didn’t rant or scold, that wasn’t his way. His silence was far more eloquent. He just sat there behind his desk, expressionless, his eyes fixed on Tom as he told his story, occasionally appearing to focus on some detail of his appearance, his puffy eyes, his inflamed nostrils. He didn’t look at Kathy at all, and she felt his disregard like a weight on her chest. Then, when the story was finished, he bowed his head over the papers and read them carefully, line by line, making notes on a pad in his deliberate script.
Finally he said, ‘You haven’t corroborated any of this? The shipping movements, the customs details, the contractors’ companies?’ This to Tom.
‘No, we thought we’d better talk to you first.’ ‘Check what you can, without arousing suspicion. Come back
at noon.’
‘Right.’ Tom began to draw back his chair.
‘And bring a written report of your operation, as brief and succinct as possible. Leave Kathy out of it.’
‘Fine.’ Tom was on his feet.
‘How did she get hold of the key?’ Brock asked suddenly.
‘The key?’
‘To her father’s safe. You said she had the combination and the key.’
‘Oh, yes. There was a false bottom in one of the drawers of his desk. The key and the note of the combination were kept there, along with other keys. She’d seen him access it.’
‘Hm.’ Brock turned away and they left.
They worked at adjoining desks, Tom tracking the movement of the containers and their consignments of Jamaican Dragon Stout through a friend in Customs and Excise, while Kathy checked the details of companies whose names appeared in the record using Companies House and a contact in the Fraud Squad. By noon they had compiled a fairly comprehensive background to the story outlined in Tom’s photocopied material. He had also written a highly abridged account of how he had come by it, with the help, so he said, of an unnamed member of the Roach family.
‘So there certainly were those orders and those shipments last year, Chief,’ Tom said as Brock finished reading their report.
‘What about this plastics business?’ Brock pointed to one of the names on Kathy’s schedule of companies involved in the transactions.‘Are you sure it existed?’
The order to PC Plastics in Solihull was one of the most incriminating items in the Dragon Stout file, involving the supply of 50,000 brown plastic sleeves, described as ‘wine sample containers’. These would presumably have been used to hold the cocaine inside the ‘special’ bottles of beer, hidden in the middle of each container load. However the company had gone out of business the previous year and Kathy hadn’t been able to contact its directors.
‘It certainly existed,’she said,the first time she’d spoken.‘I got details from Companies House, and I rang the local chamber of commerce, who knew of it. They also know of the managing director, name of Steven Bryce. He has other companies that are still functioning. I tried one of them and was told he’s overseas at present, on a business trip.’
A hurried breakfast and several cups of strong coffee had restored her confidence to some extent. They hadn’t been able to find anything in the papers that didn’t have some form of corroboration,and Kathy was beginning to be infected by Tom’s obvious excitement. Brock, though, betrayed no particular enthusiasm.
‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘Leave it with me.’ He reached for the phone and they left.
‘I’ll buy you lunch,’ Tom said as they made their way downstairs.‘He might show a little interest.What does he want, signed confessions?’
Kathy turned down lunch. She didn’t want to listen to Tom building up his hopes. She wanted to think.
Later that afternoon she drove into South London and parked in the lane outside PART WORN TYRES.Which part? she wondered. The light was on in the window of the girl’s flat above the laundrette. She silently climbed the stairs to the access deck and listened at the door. She thought she heard the sound of soft music, but not of babies. She knocked.
The door opened on George’s face then began to swing shut
again. Kathy stuck her foot in the gap. ‘Go away,’he complained.‘Go away.’ ‘On your own, George? Don’t keep me standing out here,
there’s a good lad. Someone might see me.’ George gave a moan and let her in.‘Carole’ll be back soon.’ ‘Won’t take long. Just need a bit of help. Nothing heavy. How did you enjoy the concert on Saturday?’ ‘All right.’ ‘I was watching you.You seemed really taken with it.’ He shrugged, scuffed his shoe on the worn carpet tile.
‘It was cool.’ ‘They were raising money for people like you, George, for scholarships-music scholarships, for example.You could apply.’ ‘Nah. I don’t do classical stuff.’ ‘Not just classical,any kind of music.I know Michael Grant,the
bloke who organised it.Would you like me to ask him for you?’ George met her eye with a kind of pained anxiety, as if he knew this was a trap but couldn’t help responding.‘Maybe.’ ‘All right, I will. I passed the JOS last night and saw your
posters.Were you playing?’ He nodded. ‘Teddy Vexx and Jay Crocker were there too, yes? I saw
their car.’ Another nod, more wary. ‘Do you know a girl called Magdalen, friend of theirs?’ ‘Yeah …’ Something about the way he said it made Kathy ask, ‘Fancy
her, do you?’ ‘Nah.’ He looked down at the floor again, embarrassed. ‘She is very pretty though,isn’t she? You’d have to notice her.
Was she with Teddy and Jay at the club last night?’
‘Nah, some other bloke.’
‘Ah. Has she split up with Teddy then?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Didn’t Teddy mind her being with this other bloke?’
George suddenly recognised danger. ‘Did something happen to him? Look, I didn’t see nothing. There wasn’t no trouble at the club. Magdalen and the bloke left about midnight, but Teddy and Jay stayed on till three or four-I swear, I saw them.’
‘That’s okay, George. There was no trouble. Look, between ourselves, Magdalen’s family are worried about her drugs and the company she keeps, that’s all.’
‘Ah.’He looked relieved.‘The other bloke looked okay.White guy. I’ve seen him around. I was surprised, though, that Teddy didn’t seem bothered.’
‘Did he know Teddy?’
‘Don’t think so. I didn’t see them speak.’
