Blindside (22 page)

‘Follow me,’ she said as she went towards a door at the back of the counter area.

He went through the door behind her and down a narrow set of stairs. There was another door at the bottom with three heavy-duty locks which she opened. The door swung inwards and Cahill could tell from the way she held it that it was armoured – the wood fascia intended as a disguise.

He walked past her into a large, well-lit basement. It was a workshop with a couple of long benches and shelving racks on two walls. There was a large metal cabinet on one of the other walls.

‘What’s your story?’ Cahill asked as she picked a key from a chain attached to the belt of her jeans.

She looked back at him from over her shoulder.

‘Boston PD. Twenty years.’

‘Why this now? Why Denver?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

Cahill walked over to the cabinet as she opened it, displaying a number of handguns arranged on metal pins. There were two shelves at the bottom filled with boxes of ammunition.

‘Before we go any further,’ she said, turning to him and putting a hand firmly on his chest, ‘I know that you’ve been vouched for, but what’s your intention with my stuff?’

‘Defensive only.’

She looked hard at his eyes.

‘Okay, soldier. I had to ask, you know.’

It came out like:
Okay, Soul-jah. Hadda ask, y’know
.

Cahill nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘What are you after?’

Wotcha ahftah
.

‘Something reliable, like a Glock.’

‘I got plenty of them bad boys. Take your pick.’

Cahill looked at the guns and pointed to the one he wanted. She told him to go ahead and he lifted it from its mount and checked it out.

‘Good for you?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘It’ll do.’

He reached down and grabbed an identical weapon.

‘And this,’ Cahill said. ‘Just, you know …’

She nodded. ‘Can never be too careful. Ammo?’

She was Cahill’s kind of person. Direct. No words wasted.

He paid cash and took a box of bullets and two nylon holsters to go with the weapons. When they were done, she led him back up the stairs and into the main part of the shop.

‘You be careful out there, soldier,’ she told him as she unlocked the front door. ‘Bad people around, you know.’

3

Logan swung his legs out of bed and on to the carpet, scrunching his toes up and releasing them again. He saw that Cahill’s bed had been made up, the cover pulled military tight. A note on hotel paper was lying on the pillow. It was from Cahill: said he had gone out on an ‘errand’ and that Logan was to organise getting a car – ‘something with a big engine in case we need it.’

Need it for what?

He went for a shower and towelled dry, dressing in jeans and a plain navy T-shirt. He didn’t feel tired and was glad of getting a long period of uninterrupted sleep. He also felt hungry, so grabbed a lightweight Merrell walking jacket and went down to the restaurant to get something to eat.

He checked his phone after breakfast but he had no messages. It was too early back home to call Ellie so he stuck the phone in his pocket and left to find the rental car place that he had seen in the mall last night.

There wasn’t much foot traffic in the mall. It was a standard working day for most people and the city wasn’t exactly built as a holiday destination – not unless you were staying there to use it as a base for the nearby ski resorts.

He spent an hour in the rental place, most of that time stuck behind a large American woman who insisted on telling the sales agent every detail
of her flight down from Chicago and how she was visiting her sister who was ill and how her sister’s no good husband …

Logan zoned out.

After a brief attempt by the agent to sell him a convertible, Logan rented a Cadillac sedan with the biggest engine that they had. It sounded to Logan like it would be powerful enough for whatever Cahill had in mind. The agent gave him directions to the rental parking lot, where the cars were stored, and all the paperwork in a branded folder.

Logan walked the short distance to the lot in the crisp morning air and found the car with the help of one of the attendants who looked about as bored as a person could. He started the car engine and it came to life with a satisfying growl. He spent fifteen minutes getting used to the car’s controls and driving around the lot to acclimatise himself to the automatic gearbox, and also turning left and right from the ‘wrong’ side. When he was happy, he looked in the car’s Sat Nav for a local landmark to give him on-the-road-driving experience and settled for the Denver Broncos’ stadium – Invesco Field at Mile High – because it was a little outside the centre of the city.

The sky was clear again today and it was a pleasant drive to the stadium. He parked the car and went to the small museum to look around at old photos of the football team and learn about its history.

When he was back outside, his phone rang.

‘You get a car?’ Cahill asked.

‘Yeah. A Cadillac.’

‘Sounds good. Where are you?’

‘Out at the football stadium.’

‘Why?’

‘No reason. Just went for a drive. What about you?’

‘Back at the hotel. You coming here now?’

‘Sure. You get your errand done?’

‘Yes.’

‘Probably best if I don’t know what it was.’

‘You got it. Listen, I want to go see if we can speak to these people this afternoon.’

Logan was about to ask what he meant, then remembered it would be to check out the D. Hunter list that Bruce had e-mailed over last night.

‘Okay. I’ll head back now. Ten, fifteen minutes.’

Logan parked on the street near the hotel and bought a local newspaper –
The Denver Post
– before walking back to meet Cahill.

‘You should drive,’ Logan told Cahill. ‘You’re the native after all.’

‘Sure.’ Cahill nodded. ‘Think you can handle being my passenger?’

Logan looked at his friend and, not for the first time, wondered if there was a tiny spark of madness inside his head – the kind of spark that marked men like Cahill out as different from everyone else.

Men capable of going into battle and coming out the other side.

4

‘We got a hit on the semen sample,’ Murphy told Irvine, perching on the edge of her desk.

‘You sure know the way to a woman’s heart.’ She smiled.

He looked so pleased; Irvine didn’t want to burst his bubble by saying that she knew it would belong to Russell Hall. Let him have his moment.

‘Russell Hall,’ he said.

‘We know him. His name surfaced already.’

‘Is he in custody?’

‘Sort of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Depends on whether being in the care of the pathologist counts as being in custody.’

‘He’s dead?’

She nodded.

‘Killed some time last night or this morning out in the east end. I guess he made someone unhappy when he killed Lewski.’

Murphy put the DNA result on her desk and left. She felt kind of bad.

She went back to her notes from the review of the CCTV footage. Looked again at the licence number for Hall’s car. A thought struck her: how does a drug dealer finance a luxury car purchase? Probably not cash. That would arouse suspicion at the car dealership.

What if he had an outstanding lease or finance contract?

She accessed the force’s credit reference database and entered the details for the car. The search result told her that there was a loan on it for £10,000 through a little-known finance company. And that the loan was in the name of a company.

She checked out the company. Its registered office was located at an accountancy firm: Marshall Scott.

She was still for a beat. Then she called Armstrong and told him the news.

‘Can you get over here and we’ll drive up to see them?’ she said.

‘What about getting a warrant and doing a proper raid?’

‘We don’t have enough evidence for that yet. Let’s see what we can get by dropping in unannounced again.’

‘I’m leaving now.’

‘Run it all past me again,’ Armstrong said to Irvine as he drove. ‘So I’ve got it clear in my head, you know.’

‘Okay. So, Russell Hall used to run Frank Parker’s drug operation.’

‘I got that.’

‘But he left three months ago to join up with Johnson and now this as yet unidentified new boss. This new boss is probably the real owner of the flat that Lewski and Murray lived in – not the accountants.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, it’s all supposition at this point, but Hall was running around in a high-end car which was financed through a company with links to the accountants. Which probably means that they
are
dirty.’

‘You mean that they launder money for the organisation that Hall’s boss runs?’

‘Correct.’

‘And they are committed enough to their client’s cause to even use some of the money to buy flats for prostitutes and put the flats in their own names.’

‘That way the money looks even cleaner. I mean, it’s not even connected to Hall or the boss in any way.’

‘Right. And if they’re doing stuff as basic as organising finance for
cars, it probably means that they have access to all of the financial information for the organisation.’

‘Sounds like we can probably break the whole thing open through their records.’

‘Maybe.’

They parked outside the office and saw immediately that the cars they had seen on their previous visit were not there. Irvine looked at Armstrong.

‘Think maybe they’re on the run after what happened with Hall?’

Armstrong shrugged.

‘Let’s see what we can find out here first.’

The receptionist looked nervous when they walked in.

‘Remember us?’ Irvine said, showing her warrant card.

The woman nodded.

‘They’re not here,’ she said. ‘Haven’t come back since late yesterday.’

‘Is that normal?’

‘Not really. I mean, they missed some meetings this morning and they never do that without telling me.’

‘You called them?’

She nodded again. ‘At home, on their mobiles. I sent them e-mails and texts.’

‘And you haven’t heard from either of them?’

‘No. Is something wrong?’

Irvine felt sorry for her. She had probably received her last ever salary slip from these guys.

‘I think it probably is, yes,’ was what she said. ‘Do you have their home addresses?’

The woman stared straight ahead. ‘I can’t give you those,’ she said.

Armstrong placed his hands on her desk and leaned forward. ‘Look …’ He glanced at her name badge. ‘… Mary. It’s very likely that your bosses are mixed up with some bad people and are now getting ready to run. If they are not already running. So the sooner you give us the addresses the easier it will be. I mean, we can find them on our own but that will just waste time.’

He stood up to his full height.

‘You want to be seen to be helping us, don’t you? Who knows who will get dragged into this investigation, you know.’

The woman caught the insinuation, her face going two shades paler in an instant. She tapped on her computer and a printer under her desk hummed and spat out a sheet of A4. She handed the sheet to Armstrong.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘What should I do now?’ she asked, her eyes filling and her voice wavering.

‘I suggest you lock up, go home and start looking for a new job,’ Irvine said. She reached over and put her hand on top of the woman’s. ‘You’ll be fine. But call me if you hear anything.’

Irvine put a business card in front of her on the desk. The woman looked at it as though she had never seen one before in her life.

Back in the car, Armstrong asked Irvine what she thought was going on.

‘I have a bad feeling,’ she said.

‘Me too.’

‘I mean, if this guy killed Johnson and Hall, he’ll have no problem taking care of a couple of accountants as well.’

‘Especially if these guys have the keys to his money.’

‘You want to call and get some uniforms over to the houses?’

Armstrong waved the sheet of paper that the receptionist had given to them.

‘No, they’re not far,’ he said. ‘Both in the west end.’

‘We can be there in less than half an hour. You ready for what we might find?’

‘Not really. But what’s that got to do with anything?’

5

Marshall’s car with the vanity plate was sitting in the driveway of his modern home. It looked as though he had bought an older house and demolished it to build something in glass and steel. Something very expensive.

‘I don’t care how well you’re doing as an accountant,’ Irvine said. ‘There’s no way that a two-partner firm operating out of that office makes enough to allow him to buy something like this.’

‘You’re right.’

‘We should have checked them out more thoroughly.’

She looked at Armstrong and felt the skin on her face stretched tight across her bones.

‘They brought it on themselves,’ Armstrong told her, opening his door and stepping out on to the pavement.

Armstrong walked ahead of Irvine up the driveway, stopping to cup his hands on the driver’s window of the car and looking inside.

‘Nothing,’ he said, turning to Irvine as she came up behind him.

She walked past him to the front door of the house. It was a heavy, oak door – double the size of a standard door. There were glass panels on either side and Irvine looked through one of them into a wide entrance hall. There was nothing immediately out of place that she could see.

‘Looks normal,’ she told Armstrong.

A metal intercom panel was installed on the wall to the side of the door.
It looked to Irvine as though it was a video camera device to allow the occupiers to see who was at the door. She pressed a button on the panel and heard a chime inside.

Waited.

Pressed the button again.

Waited.

‘No one’s going to answer,’ she said to Armstrong.

He grabbed the door handle and pulled it down. The door clicked and Armstrong pushed it open. He looked at Irvine. Unsaid between them: not a good sign that the door was unlocked.