In the office at the police station in Brussels, there was no need for Bridget to set up her laptop, having done it the previous day. The two of them, she and Brun, went straight into reviewing the CCTV from outside the shop in Herzele, the one monitor between the two of them. Scrolling back, the vehicle could be seen entering the town square, and then parking.
‘See there,’ Brun said. ‘You can see Caxton getting out of the passenger’s side.’ Bridget looked closer, could see another person in the driver’s seat, a large man, even larger than Caxton. Bridget was sure who it was, but it wasn’t conclusive.
The pair moved to another monitor with higher definition. Zooming in helped but blurred the man. An overlay of O’Grady was imposed on the monitor, an attempt to align features: the nose, the mouth, the chin. The identity was required first, the proof later. Both admitted defeat. Scrolling forward from where the vehicle had parked, it stopped just before driving out of range of the camera. Two men got out of the car. This time their features were unmistakable; it was Ainsley Caxton and Hector O’Grady. O’Grady could be seen picking up the phone: a time, as well as a location.
‘Traceable,’ Brun said. He sent an email, Bridget could not understand what was written as it was in Dutch. ‘A colleague. He’ll give us the number phoned.’
‘You don’t have O’Grady’s number.’
‘We must assume he dialled an English number. My colleague is very thorough. He will not let us down.’
Inside the Land Cruiser, with a brief side view in through the passenger’s door, they could see a weapon, its barrel visible.
‘There’s proof,’ Brun said.
‘Proof that they committed the crime. Wherever the weapon is now, it’s long gone. They could have brought it over from England, tied it to the chassis underneath, or they could have purchased it locally.’
‘Only on the black market. The laws are strict here: residency, proof of address, police check.’
‘The same as in England,’ Bridget said, not sure of her facts.
‘They would have brought it from England. Coming into Belgium, the checks are not that strict. Unfortunately, the trade in illegals, contraband, drugs, is one way, not two. The checks will be more vigorous going back to England. They would have dumped it; the river is the most likely. No chance of finding it now.’
‘The deaths of Samuels and the others are murder,’ Bridget said. ‘It will be difficult for the Belgian authorities to prove a case.’
‘Almost impossible. Circumstantially, yes, but the defence lawyers are smart. It’ll never be proved. I’m afraid it’s up to you in England to bring these two men to justice.’
***
Ralph Lawrence, no longer evicted from his flat, moved back. His mother was holding up, tearful at first, then stoic. For a reason he could not explain, he was sad. It wasn’t as if Michael had amounted to much, but he was his son. He reflected on a cheerful baby, a playful young boy. Even Yolanda had eventually found some affection for him.
He had once caught her singing a lullaby as her son gurgled in his cot, only to pull away and make some excuse about trying to get him to sleep. She had a busy day the next day: socialising, a meeting at the magazine where she submitted the occasional article. He knew that she cared, but the woman was driven to better herself, and wasted emotions were not needed.
Two years later, she was away more than she was at home. He had followed her once, found out that the articles and the magazine were no longer needed. She had found herself a fancy man, a banker in the city. Ralph remembered the confrontation that night, where she defended her position, the child crying in the other room. After that, they never slept together, until she had finally left when Michael was six, old enough to be boarded out for five days a week at school, and then at seven years of age for the full week, long weekends and holidays excepted.
Yolanda had gone, he had an empty house, and he needed money. It was a friend from school who had told him about the rich pickings in the South of France and the Costa Brava. An Englishman, well-educated and speaking with a plum in the mouth, could get anything, be anything, he had told Ralph.
Two weeks later he had been in St Tropez, only visiting, checking if his friend was right, when a woman approached him. ‘You must be a lord,’ she said. Ralph knew that he had dressed well, something he always prided himself on. Instinctively he had replied. ‘Lord Lawrence, the second son of the Earl of …’ somewhere he couldn’t remember now.
‘My husband and I, we love the Royal Family.’
‘Oh, yes. I get to spend time with them, went to school with one of them.’
Ralph unintentionally had struck the mother lode. His friend who had said it was easy pickings stood back in amazement as Ralph was whisked off to dinner, and then invited to stay at the mansion the woman and her husband had rented for the season. Over two weeks, he continued to spin them tale after tale: how the castle was in need of repairs; if only they could come over sometime, but it wasn’t suitable for them; how he could introduce them into society, maybe even be able to get them to meet a prince.
It had been so easy, only interrupted because Michael was coming home for two weeks. As he left the mansion, the wife thrust a cheque for fifty thousand pounds into his hand. He had done nothing, hurt nobody, not even committed a crime. All he had done was entertain
