Dead at First Sight, page 34
A light drizzle was falling again. He walked along the street, with an underpass to the left and the gasometer beyond, thinking, planning. Feeling very much better, suddenly, although he knew that would not last. Sometime soon again the nausea would return.
When he was a fair distance away from the seafront road he stopped and did a Google search for van rental companies in the area. In his search yesterday, he’d found several. He pressed the link for the phone number of the one that had been second on his list, and dialled the firm. They had a vehicle which suited his purposes fine. He told them he would be with them within the next two hours.
Perfect. He still had two unused identities on him – passports and driving licences in different names. He would collect the rental, drive to his hotel near Gatwick, pick up his bag, then head over towards Primrose Farm Cottage, Forest Row. Copeland and his beloved Lynda were due to rendezvous at 6.30 p.m. He would get there nice and early. Later he would drive to Ashford and catch a late Eurostar to Paris with his one remaining identity.
He was thinking about the lyrics of one of the few musicians he liked listening to, John Lennon, and one of his favourite tracks, ‘Beautiful Boy’ – ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’
Oh yes.
Jules de Copeland, think about that. It’s not going to happen.
110
Friday 12 October
Shortly before 9 a.m., partly through hunger and partly to relieve the monotony, Doug Riley opened his rucksack, removed the lid of the plastic box inside and ate a breakfast of the egg sandwich, tomatoes and cucumber his wife had prepared for him. Just as he finished, his earpiece crackled.
‘Mike Whisky One?’
‘Mike Whisky One,’ Riley replied to the support van.
‘Two covert entry officers approaching in a white Ford van, index Juliet Foxtrot, Five Nine, Papa November Echo. They said to thank you for the photographs.’
‘Glad we had the time to fit them in,’ Riley answered, facetiously.
Moments later the van passed him and halted outside the house. Two officers in forensic protective suits climbed out and hurried to the front door, one carrying a toolbox.
Riley watched through his binoculars as the one with the toolbox opened the lid, selected a device that looked like a pocketknife and inserted a rod into the lock. Within seconds the door opened and they went in.
Ten minutes later they came back out, closing the door, and drove off. Riley radioed in what he had seen.
His earpiece crackled into life again. ‘Mike Whisky One,’ he said.
‘Mike Whisky Two. An overweight British Blue cat has just appeared through the rear-door flap.’
‘Thanks for that information, Mike Whisky Two.’
‘Just thought you’d like to know.’
‘Sure it’s not a cat burglar?’
‘Might be going cat-fishing,’ Hastings retorted.
Riley groaned. ‘Just don’t let it piss on you.’
Half an hour later there was another break in the monotony when a post van appeared. The driver pulled up, got out, shoved several envelopes through the letter box in the door and drove off.
Riley radioed his colleague to tell him.
‘Any mail for me?’ Hastings asked.
111
Friday 12 October
Pinned to a whiteboard in the Incident Room was an aerial map of Primrose Farm Cottage and the immediate surrounding area. Two red circles marked the positions of the CROPS officers, logged from their transponders.
Below was pinned a floorplan of the cottage, obtained from council records, from when a planning application to extend the building had been put in twenty years back. Roy Grace had virtually memorized it. There was no hallway; the front door opened straight onto an open living area, with a dining area to the left and kitchen beyond, and a door out to the rear. To the right was the snug area, with an inglenook fireplace. A staircase, facing the front door, went up to the first floor where there were four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and what looked like a narrower staircase up to an attic. In the kitchen was a trapdoor, with steps down to what was marked on the plan as a wine cellar.
Also pinned to the whiteboard was a section of an Ordnance Survey map of the area. Grace had marked a circle of approximately five miles radius from Primrose Farm Cottage and was now staring at it, noting the terrain, studying the grid of roads, lanes, bridleways, footpaths. He needed to have a ring of steel around the property. The ability to check out every approaching vehicle from any direction.
There was so much potential for this to go badly wrong. Maybe he should take the safe option, after all, he wondered, and put in a decoy?
His thoughts were interrupted by DS Alexander, standing beside him. ‘Sir, we’ve found a Streamline taxi that picked up a man matching Copeland’s description. He flagged the car down a short distance from Marina Heights at 7.45 a.m. – the time fits.’
‘Nice work. Where did it drop him?’
‘Gatwick Airport – South Terminal.’
Grace looked at him. ‘Does that mean he’s bailing out? Are they looking for him at the airport?’
‘Yes, sir, security has a full description of him and his alias. Inspector Biggs is the duty commander there today. He’s checked with security and is pretty sure no one of that description has passed through so far. He has officers checking the departure areas.’
‘Make sure he checks the lounges, too.’
‘That’s happening, sir, and the CCTV. There is one strange thing the taxi driver reported. He had two suitcases with him – one was reasonably heavy but the other, a large one, felt empty.’
Grace thought fast. Was Copeland doing a runner? With an empty suitcase? Ignoring £300,000? Maybe, in the scheme of things, that was small beer to him. But could that amount of money, in cash, be insignificant to anyone?
Why else would he be carrying an empty suitcase, unless he intended putting something in it?
Something as bulky as the cash?
Gatwick Airport wasn’t just a hub for flights.
While Alexander stood in front of him, Grace pulled up the calculator on his computer. On a previous case he’d had to check the weight of £1 million in fifty-pound notes, which was about twenty-six kilograms; £300,000 would be about eight kilos. Well within an airline weight limit.
But with a legal limit of £10,000 being the most anyone could take out of the country without an explanation, would anyone in their right mind take a punt on £300,000? Although, as was becoming increasingly common now, villains were converting cash into crypto-currencies.
‘Jack, I’m hypothesizing that Copeland isn’t doing a runner. He has that suitcase for a reason. Circulate his description to all car-hire companies in the Gatwick area, and to all the taxi and limousine companies. We can’t assume he’s trying to flee the country.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He turned to Glenn Branson.
‘Want to come for a drive in the countryside?’
‘To take in the autumn colours? Sounds idyllic, boss.’
As Branson stood up, DS John Camping approached Grace with a clutch of documents in his hand. ‘Sir, I have an update from Jersey. Their States Police Financial Crimes Unit have come back with some potentially useful intel. Our enquiry links with something they’ve been working on for many months. A network of internet fraudsters, focused on internet dating, operating throughout Europe, but mostly Germany. And here’s the best bit!’ Camping gave him a broad smile. ‘It tallies with information we already have. Mr Big – the mastermind – they suspect is none other than Steven Barrey.’
Grace banged the desk. ‘Yes!’
‘How confident are they, John?’ Branson asked.
‘Confident enough to put him on 24/7 surveillance, sir.’ He looked at Branson, then Grace. ‘They’ve also put a phone tap on his landline and listening devices to try to capture any mobile phones he uses. My contact over there, DC Vanessa Forde, says they are particularly anxious to stamp out this operation because of the importance to Jersey of being a secure financial centre.’
‘Are they planning to arrest Barrey?’
‘They are still information gathering, sir,’ Camping said. ‘But if he tries to leave the island they will stop him.’
‘Good.’ Then Grace turned back to his immediate situation. In less than seven hours, if he was right, Jules de Copeland, with an empty suitcase and potentially murderous intent, was meeting Lynda Merrill, who had romance in mind, in the remote rural location on the whiteboard in front of him.
There was one possible good outcome. And one very bad one.
112
Friday 12 October
Roy Grace let Glenn Branson drive, to give him time to think and to study the roads and terrain around Primrose Farm Cottage. But they’d barely travelled a couple of miles from Police HQ before he remembered why it was that, last time Glenn had driven him, he’d vowed never again. He gripped the grab handle above him in scared silence, stabbing an imaginary brake pedal in the footwell in front of him, willing Glenn to slow as he was driving far too fast, in his opinion, for the wet road. Glenn overtook a car and pulled into a tight gap shortly before an oncoming lorry thundered past.
‘A bit close, matey,’ Grace said, grimly.
‘Nah, plenty of time. It’s all about judgement.’
‘And the Collision Investigation Unit and the mortuary. Didn’t they teach you the principles of driving on blue lights at police driving school?’ Grace asked.
‘Yeah, get there fast!’
‘Really? The key message I took away was drive to arrive.’
Glenn, as ever when he drove, had the focus and grim determination of Lewis Hamilton, but without the Formula One driver’s skill.
‘Road death statistics are badly up in East Sussex this year,’ Grace added by way of a more subtle hint.
‘Many back-seat drivers among them?’ Branson retorted.
Grace, with a copy of the Ordnance Survey map on his knees, looked at the satnav screen. He consoled himself with the knowledge that there were now less than nine miles to go. A further comfort was the statistic a traffic officer had given him, that most accidents take place within one mile of starting a journey. At least, some small relief, they were out of that danger zone.
He tried to focus on his task. Could he really allow Lynda Merrill to go to the cottage – at least without putting armed officers inside with her? But it came back to his concerns that she might inadvertently alert Copeland and panic him into doing a runner. No, he had to press on with his plan, but that plan had, first and foremost, to ensure she was fully protected.
It was just coming up to 1 p.m. when they found the tumbledown gates that marked the entrance to the cottage, fallen leaves carpeting the drive. He told Branson to pull over, then climbed out of the car and walked some yards down the steep drive to the point where it levelled out, but he couldn’t see the house from here. The first CROPS officer would be much further along. Both the ferns and shrubbery either side, and the forest beyond, were dense. There was clearly no other route to the house from here, for a vehicle, other than this driveway.
Grace got back into the car and directed his colleague to take the first right. They turned into an even narrower lane, beneath a guard of honour of overhanging trees. Much of the road surface was covered in fallen leaves.
‘Amazing colours,’ Branson said, staring at the autumnal golds around them.
‘So you do actually notice the beauty of the countryside sometimes?’ Grace ribbed.
‘When it’s autumn, yeah – all dying, decaying. That’s our bag, isn’t it, death?’
Grace scanned both sides of the lane as they drove. They passed an occasional cottage and one very large house set a short distance behind a five-barred gate, with a horsebox in the driveway. Carrying on, the landscape dipped sharply down to their right. They passed a fallen tree at the roadside, then saw a sign for Southern Water and a reservoir. A short distance on was a sign by a narrow, unmade track for a sailing club. On their right, a barrier made from a small tree blocked off the entrance to another track into the forest.
Endless places for a car to hide, he thought. You could hide an entire army here.
‘You’re in a cheerful mood,’ he said to Branson. ‘Is this how being about to get married makes you feel?’
Branson shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ve been around dead bodies too long.’ He carried on driving, following Grace’s directions along a series of roads and lanes that eventually took them a full 360 degrees around the property.
Roy Grace marked every junction and indentation where a vehicle might be concealed as they went. He didn’t spot where the CROPS support vehicle was hiding – clearly they’d done a good job of concealment. They drove back round to the far side of the property and explored a track that went into the forest. But it stopped after a short distance, opening up into a picnic area.
Grace sat studying the map for some while, discussing with Branson the number of vehicles they would need to check anything approaching. They could put a car at each end of the lane, either side of the entrance. But that wouldn’t give them enough time to have the registration checked. If they made the net wider, he calculated it would need a minimum of a further seven cars to ring fence the place. A resource, even for a major operation such as this, that would be hard to put together quickly, if at all, and he only had a few hours at most.
A new Silver Commander had relieved Julian Blazeby a few hours earlier. Superintendent Terry Novak was an officer after Grace’s own heart because, like himself, Novak was willing to take risks – something that was becoming increasingly rare in the force. Grace phoned him and told him his concerns. Would they be wiser after all to approach Lynda Merrill and take a gamble on losing Copeland, he posited?
‘And leave that scumbag free to carry on wiping out the savings and destroying the lives of decent people with his internet scams, Roy?’ Novak said, with deep bitterness in his voice.
Grace remembered now. Novak had told him only a few weeks back how his elderly mother had been conned out of £12,000 by a scammer pretending to be her bank. It was almost every penny she and his father had in the world. His eighty-seven-year-old father was so distressed, he’d been unable to sleep and lost his appetite, causing him to end up in hospital suffering from exhaustion. According to the medics, so Terry Novak had said, this was common for victims. The husband would feel consumed with guilt, anger and a sense of utter helplessness – as well as anguish at the irreplaceable loss itself.
Novak went on. ‘Roy, we have two armed CROPS covering the house and we’ll have ARVs in place. Copeland hasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of making it through that front door.’
‘I like your attitude.’
‘Sometimes, Roy, in this world gone crazy, where we police officers spend more time watching our backs than looking for villains, attitude is necessary.’
113
Friday 12 October
It was a fine, almost cloudless day in Jersey and the bright, low sun was shining straight into Steve Barrey’s eyes. Sorokin, with his back to the window, could see, to his pleasure, that his guest was clearly uncomfortable. That was exactly the reason he had requested this window table, and he’d made sure he got there early, ahead of his guest, to secure the seat he wanted.
The former New York detective had been told that because of Barrey’s facial disfigurement, he preferred corner tables and low lighting levels, to be away from gawkers. Where the man sat now, bang in front of the window, in plain view, and with the dazzling light on him, he was like an actor placed centre-stage. The Stetson he had tilted low and his dark glasses completed the theatrical image.
Barrey was dressed in a loud suit, a tieless shirt buttoned to the neck and bling Louboutin brogues with silver toecaps. Sorokin found it hard to look at his ravaged and scarred face, framed by wisps of hair from his blond wig, but equally hard to look away.
‘I can see you’re wondering whether it’s polite to look or not, Mr Sorokin – or rather, Detective Sorokin, aren’t you?’ Without waiting for an answer, he said, ‘Feel free, look away, I know I’m not a pretty sight, am I? My friends all call me Crispy.’ He smiled with a decent set of teeth that looked strange against the tiny slivers of pink that were what remained of his lips. Then he jabbed a finger downwards. ‘But the good news is, all’s OK from the waist down!’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Sorokin said. He was conscious of the occasional glances from other diners – whether it was curiosity at Barrey’s disfigurement or the man’s local reputation as a crime overlord, he didn’t know.
Barrey was struggling against the glare, despite his dark glasses. ‘Great view, isn’t it?’ Sorokin said. And it was a very fine view down across the yacht basin and the ocean beyond. The Quayside was a smart restaurant, too, all glass and modern furniture, elegant staff. Situated close to the banking and financial services district of the island’s capital, St Helier, the busy lunchtime crowd were well dressed, talking quietly and earnestly. ‘I thought I’d let you have the view.’
‘You’re the visitor,’ Barrey said. ‘You should have the view.’ He shook his head. ‘You didn’t tell them it was me coming when you booked, like I told you to – they know me here, they always put me in a corner table at the back where we can’t be overheard.’ He looked around him and signalled to a waitress. ‘Drop that blind, would you?’
As she moved towards it, Sorokin put up an arm, halting her. ‘I’m enjoying the sun on my back, leave it, it’s fine.’
Barrey bristled, but said nothing. From what this guy had told him over the phone, with his background in the Mafia-busting team of the NYPD, his organized crime connections in the US could be of real value to him, both for money laundering and for expanding his internet romance fraud business into that country. Yet there was something about Sorokin that didn’t sit quite right. The guy was cocky and arrogant, as if he knew he held a full hand of the cards he wanted.
