‘And there’s Pinto’s.’
‘You’ve no proof.’
‘His body’s got to be somewhere,’ Isaac said. He still wanted O’Shaughnessy to crack and to tell him where Pinto was and how the drug syndicate operated, but he knew that could wait.
***
Len Donaldson may have been an expert on illicit drugs, but he knew nothing about jewellery. Neither did Wendy Gladstone, who had accompanied him on the Homicide team’s behalf. Both had to admit that Alex Hughenden, regardless of what he might be, knew the value of silver and gold. The shop was stocked with the most exquisite items at prices neither of the two moderately paid police officers could afford. The jewellery that Wendy had so admired in the shop window on a previous occasion was locked in a safe at the rear of the shop.
Hughenden, when he realised that the search was going ahead, had given the police all assistance, including the combinations to the safes and how to disable the alarm, which was as well as the police would have still entered and opened the safes, although it would have taken longer.
‘I don’t want you messing up my shop the same as you damaged my house,’ Hughenden said. He was allowed to be present while the search was being conducted, but not to interfere.
‘It’ll be fixed,’ Donaldson said. He had seen the house and had been appalled at the mess left by the police. Someone was going to pay, he knew that, but they had apprehended a murderer, and now he had the heat on the shop owner. Not that it showed as Hughenden was calm, assisting where he could, advising on what each item in his store cost: its silver mark, how many carats, its history, and most importantly, where he had bought it and for how much.
‘We’ll not find anything,’ Donaldson said. He had brought a jewellery expert with him to validate whatever Hughenden said.
‘Why do you say that?’ Wendy asked. She was attempting to focus on the work in hand, but she was also bedazzled by such beauty.
‘He’s a meticulous man. His records will be the same.’
‘Forged?’
‘Some may be.’
‘Are you saying we need his records checked by a forgery expert?’ Wendy asked.
‘We need something on this man,’ Donaldson said. ‘He’s the key to the drug trafficking, I’m sure of it, but he’s not going to crack. Not unless we have a lever.’
‘He may know about Fuentes and Pinto.’
‘Do you know how many people die each year in England because of people like Hughenden and O’Shaughnessy?’ Donaldson asked.
‘A lot more than the three deaths we’re dealing with at Challis Street.’
‘Over two thousand five hundred last year. That’s three times the European average.’
‘It puts it into perspective,’ Wendy admitted.
‘The deaths of a few criminals are nothing compared to the harm they cause to society. Frankly, I’m not bothered with Dougal Stewart, not even your Vicenzo Pinto, or the Brazilian, if their deaths lead us to whoever’s running this syndicate.’
‘I can understand your sentiments. I had a friend whose son became addicted. It killed him in the end.’ Wendy reflected on her oldest son who for a while had smoked marijuana.
‘Don’t worry, Mum. It’s harmless, no worse than beer,’ he’d said.
Thankfully, in his case, it had only been a passing fad, and he soon migrated back to beer, although at the time his coming home drunk had caused her sleepless nights.
The jewellery expert could only praise the quality of the items in the shop. ‘Nothing to note here,’ he told Donaldson and Wendy. ‘Excellent quality.’
‘Is any of it stolen?’ Donaldson asked.
‘The well-heeled don’t always report it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Unless it has special significance, they’ll not bother. And most people inflate the price for insurance.’
‘But for precious items, they’d need to be valued,’ Wendy said.
‘A valuation at retail prices, which means the owner would be unlikely to receive that much if they sold them on the open market. They’d be forced to sell through a place like this, and they want their commission.’
‘You’d better take the records,’ Wendy said.
‘I’ll have them checked out by Fraud and Forgery,’ Donaldson replied. He informed Hughenden, who maintained his air of infallibility.
The search had taken three hours, and Len Donaldson realised he was no nearer to solving his case. Wendy returned to Challis Street Police Station.
Both knew there was a lot more work before their respective cases could be closed.
***
Wayne Norman was a smart arse, always on the periphery of crime. He was a thin young man of twenty-two, and whereas he should be forging a career in the city or in trade, he was doing neither. Not that either option interested him anyway. He was what society would deem a useless layabout. A definition his hard-working mother would only concur with.
‘Find yourself a job,’ she had said the previous night in the flat that they called home, although others would call it a slum. The woman worked two jobs to pay the rent and to put food on the table, and a twenty-two-year-old child who bled her dry emotionally and financially was not something she needed. She had reasoned with him, even kicked him out a few times, but after a week he had come back reeking of living on the street, dossing down where he could, sleeping in a charity clothing bin or down an alley.
He was her son and she could not kick him out again, even if she did not love him the way a mother should love a child.
‘Jobs are for fools,’ Wayne Norman would always reply. ‘Look at you, working day and night for a pittance.’
‘And what about you?’ she’d ask.
‘I get by.’ And get by he did with petty thieving: handbags and mobile phones mainly.
For once, he had
