The promotion to Inspector for Matson had come about one month previously, a reward for good work, and a new superintendent in the station who recognised good people and ensured they received the recognition they deserved. And now an email in her inbox from one of DI Hill’s colleagues outlining in detail what she had been trying to find. Little did she know that Bridget was not a two finger typist with limited computer skills, but a whizz who could type a hundred words a minute, and could access the overseas databases of a myriad of police stations, strictly legal, look for the keywords, and then run any document through an online translation service.
At Challis Street, Bridget told the team what she had already sent to Emily Matson, copied to Larry, who hadn’t had a chance to read it yet. ‘Nineteen months ago, a Peugeot car was sprayed with bullets in Belgium,’ Bridget said.
‘Confirmed?’ Isaac said.
‘I’ve a copy of the police report at the time, as well as an English translation. The occupants of the vehicle included the driver, Alain Courtois, 38, a Frenchman living in Brussels, the capital. He ran a private taxi service, cheap and reliable according to his website. Also, in the backseat, three passengers: two females, one male. The females were subsequently identified as Freya Brepoels, 29, prostitute, and Sonia Colen, 26, prostitute. Both of the women were Belgian nationals.’
‘The man?’ Wendy said.
‘English, false passport. I’ve run his photo against that of the dead man. It’s Samuels.’
‘I thought he had taken off with a fortune,’ Larry said.
‘Maybe he had,’ Isaac said, ‘but if he thought Frost could find him, then a low profile would have been more appropriate, or maybe he liked Peugeots and local tarts.’
‘How do we tie him into Frost?’
‘We can’t,’ Bridget said. ‘They were shot near a small village outside of Brussels, a wooded area. No witnesses and the vehicle had been pushed off the road into a ditch. Someone in the vehicle that rammed them had got out and sprayed Samuels’ vehicle with one hundred bullets from a semi-automatic rifle. Apart from that, nothing.’
‘No link back to Frost?’
‘The Belgian police never made the connection between the dead man and Samuels. If there’s a connection, it’s up to us to make it.’
‘No joy from the kneecapped man?’ Wendy said.
‘No. He’s still frightened, so is Ralph Lawrence, but he’s still carrying on. Not sure if we can protect him and the others,’ Isaac said. He could see a lot of possibilities, no proof, and the primary case, the murder of Gilbert Lawrence, was going nowhere.
‘If Samuels was killed in an assassination, that means someone paid, and plenty. And why? Frost would have wanted his money back, and a dead man isn’t going to give him any.’
‘Maybe he did have the money or some of it. We know that Frost is devious. Samuels was making plenty at his club, but was everyone losing? And Samuels would have had to ship the money out of the country. He’s hardly likely to have been carrying it on him.’
‘Bank records?’
‘I’m looking,’ Bridget said. ‘So far no luck. But he could have opened an account anywhere in a false name. All he’d need after that is the account number, the password, and a debit card.’
‘Not much of a life for someone who supposedly stole millions,’ Larry said.
‘He was meant to be in Dubai: Mercedes, Russian women out of the Cyclone Club, not in Belgium, a Peugeot, and a couple of locals.’
‘Made up to suit tough man Frost’s image?’
‘It’s possible,’ Isaac said. ‘Larry, phone up Inspector Matson. Tell her that tomorrow she’s on a trip to Belgium with you. Bridget, you make the bookings, and I’ll phone Matson’s boss to okay it. Check out the area where Samuels was staying, the murder scene. There must be witnesses somewhere. No reflection on the Belgian police, but they may have just put it down to an English gangster getting his comeuppance, a drug deal gone wrong. They’ve got their hands full over there with all the migrants trying to get across the channel.’
***
Yolanda was dismayed at Ralph’s pathetic attempts to gain some of his father’s fortune, only to get himself put in hospital, and her son was no better, succumbing to his old habits. The last time she had seen Michael, a few days previously, he had been drunk, and it had been clear that he had been smoking something other than cigarettes.
A pragmatist, Yolanda knew that father and son were weak individuals, more suited to each other than to her. In Antigua, there was a house and a good life with people such as herself: expats away from the cold and the bleakness, lapping up the sun, playing golf or bridge, or lying next to a swimming pool drinking cocktails. Ralph knocked on her hotel door, looking for a bolthole away from Michael and his girlfriend who had moved in on a permanent basis at the flat in Bayswater. That was when he found out that she had checked out, the hotel taking her to the airport.
Ralph knew the situation was tenuous. He was no longer Dorothy’s son but Molly’s, not that it concerned him as much as it should. And so it was that at three in the afternoon the only son of Molly Dempster and Gilbert Lawrence presented himself at his mother’s door.
‘Mother, I’ve come to stay for a few days, if that’s alright.’
Molly looked at the man, not the best specimen with his two-day stubble, his breath smelling of beer, his clothes creased. She knew that if it had been anyone else she would have said no, but it was her son: the babe in arms, the young boy who had come to her for sympathy after falling out of a tree, the pubescent
