Negril Bob looked around the room; it was comfortable. He could even get a woman if he made a phone call, but what he wanted most of all was Charisa Devon. He had seen her before they had threatened her brother, the honest Billy, who now was the manager of the shop that he was meant to steal from. His sister had only been the threat, but he had watched her on several occasions after that: sometimes when she was walking home from her college, sometimes with a white man. She moved in a way that excited him. There was an innocence about her that he found irresistible; he knew he had to have her, and staying confined in a room looking out over the street in an unfamiliar city solved nothing.
He packed his case and walked to the nearest railway station. He phoned his lawyer and told him to prepare his defence.
‘You’ll not stand a chance. The case against you is tight.’
‘Why, how?’
‘There was a witness, and the other two admitted that you were involved, that you were the leader.’
‘That’s not proof, that’s only an inconvenience.’
‘I’m your lawyer, don’t tell me.’
‘And if the person who saw us changes his story?’
‘Then the case against you would be weak.’
‘An arrest?’
‘Not for long, if there’s no proof.’
Negril Bob ended the phone call, regretted staying out of sight for so long. There was a solution, and then he would deal with Billy and his sister. He was a man who did not forget, and Billy had reneged on their deal. It was time for him to pay up. The train pulled into the station, and he climbed aboard. It was four hours to London, long enough to formulate a plan, long enough to make a few phone calls to people who owed him a favour.
***
George Happold had not appreciated the visit by two detective inspectors. His elevation to the peerage was near, and this Amelia Brice business was starting to impact it; questions were being asked as to his suitability, and all because of the one person he loved, his daughter.
And why? After all, it had been him who had created the most significant merchant bank in the country, he who had bankrolled the government’s latest election campaign, ensuring that it was financially sound. It had been touch and go at the last election, and the governing party were not likely to last long, eighteen months at most. If his peerage was not in the bag before then, he knew it would never come. The leader of the opposition and he did not see eye to eye after clashing at a Royal Commission investigating banking practices in the United Kingdom. The honourable leader of the opposition was all for stricter government control: more audits, the right to charge individuals who deviated from the rules laid down. Happold, a fervent believer in the need to maintain flexibility when deciding where to apply their funds, had argued with him.
It had been a battle that the leader of the opposition had won on political lines. Happold conceded privately to his daughter, his confidante in such matters, that the man had been right on a technicality. And now he had Waverley, the philandering son-in-law, causing trouble, and all because of a former flame. He was angry with his son-in-law, but his daughter was adamant that she wanted him, and that she could control him, which he knew she would.
After all, wasn’t she a Happold, and they never failed, although his father, a punctilious snob, had. Life as a child for Happold had been a succession of schools, some exclusive, some not. Holidays on the continent, or at homes which varied in size and quality dependent on his father’s latest business venture. The young George, mentally mature for his age, even if his body had been slow in developing, had seen it from his early teens. His father was a day-dreamer, the eternal optimist, believing that success was guaranteed if enough effort was applied. By the time of his nineteenth birthday, the young man’s father had ceased to exist, as had the family fortune.
George Happold, as he reflected on the past, did the one thing he thought he would never do: he phoned Jeremy Brice.
***
Richard Goddard came into Homicide on his last day. There had been a plan for Challis Street Police Station to have a farewell party for the detective chief superintendent, but as he had told Isaac, it was not goodbye, just au revoir. ‘If this works out, I’ll be back,’ Goddard said. ‘Although probably not here.’
‘How long?’ Isaac said, sorry to see this happen to the man who had guided his career, sometimes irritating him as well, a man who had been a good friend. Wendy had shed a tear when Goddard had come to say goodbye, even thrown her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek, which had embarrassed the normally formal DCS, although he should have expected it after Bridget had done the same. Larry Hill had shaken the man’s hand firmly, holding it longer than he should, remembering that it was the DCS who had got him out of his previous police station and into Challis Street with Isaac. ‘Sorry to see you
