Midnight Fugue (7 page)

His behaviour inside ensured he did the full term and, as his release date approached, Fleur found herself having to work out a strategy for the future not only for her brother but herself.

During her twenty years working for The Man her reliability and ingenuity had won golden opinions and rapid advancement. But Goldie Gidman’s career horizons had widened considerably too.

Fleur’s career running The Man’s financial affairs had begun shortly before Margaret Thatcher began to run the country’s. During the Thatcher years Goldie Gidman had come to see that this brave new world of free market enterprise offered opportunities to become stinking rich that did not involve the use of a hammer. Though the implement had changed, the principle was one he was very familiar with. Human need and greed left people vulnerable. Looking west out of the East End into the City he saw a feeding frenzy that made his own localized pickings seem very Lenten fare. And so began the moves, both geographical and commercial, that were to turn him into a financial giant.

But changes of direction can be dangerous.

It was Fleur who had pointed out to him the paradox that going completely legit left him much more exposed than staying completely bent. The movement from crookedness to cleanliness meant abandoning a lot of old associates whose faces and attitudes were at odds with the new glossy picture of himself and his activities he was preparing for the world. The trick was to make sure that, as new doors opened before him, the old doors were firmly locked and double barred behind. Fortunately he’d always tidied up as he went along and those who knew enough to do him active harm were few and far between. Now once more he scrutinized them very carefully and those he had any doubts about got visited by his long-time associate and enforcer, Milton Slingsby.

No one knew more about The Man’s affairs than Fleur Delay. Her record should have made her invulnerable. But the trouble was that her professional usefulness had more or less come to an end. Her talent for manipulative accountancy had been invaluable in the days when his main financial enemies were local tax inspectors and VAT men, and she had been helpful during the early moves into legitimate areas of speculation. But as Goldie prospered, he had turned more and more to the specialized tax accountants without whom a man could sink without trace in the mazy morass of the modern markets. In their company she was like an abacus among computers, but an abacus whose database was very computer-like. While she did not believe she was in imminent danger of a visit from Sling, she knew that Goldie valued people in proportion to their usefulness, and to have dangerous knowledge but no positive function was potentially a fatal combination.

As Vince’s release date approached, she saw a way to solve both her problems.

The key was Milton Slingsby.

Sling’s great merit was total loyalty. Whatever Goldie told him to do, he did. But he was nearly ten years older than Goldie and his early years in the boxing ring, where he was renowned for blocking his opponents’ punches with his head, were starting to take their toll. With Goldie by his side telling him what to do he could function as well as ever. But now the new respectable Goldie wanted to be as far away as possible from the kind of thing he usually told Sling to do.

So Fleur brought up the subject of her brother with The Man, not as
her
problem, but as
his
opportunity. Vince, she averred, would do the heavy work. She would do the planning, guaranteeing speed, discretion, and absolutely no lines back to The Man.

To employ someone like Vince Delay directly wasn’t an option for Goldie. Such men were by their very nature likely to prove as unreliable as the unreliables they were seeing off. But the prospect of having someone as heavy as Vince under the control of someone he still trusted as implicitly as Fleur was not unattractive.

He agreed to a trial run. Three days later the designated target fell while out walking his dog and cracked his skull against a fence post with fatal results.

That had been thirteen years ago and up till now neither party had had occasion to complain about the arrangement. Rapidly the Delays’ reputation for reliability and discretion drew in offers from elsewhere, some of which Fleur accepted, though as a Gidman pensioner, she had sufficient income to permit her to be choosy. But on the increasingly rare occasions The Man put work their way, she dropped everything else and came running.

It was important to please The Man, partly for pride, principally for preservation.

Her policy of keeping Vince as ignorant of the fine detail of their jobs as possible seemed to work. As a notorious ex-con, he got pulled in from time to time when the police had nothing better to do. Silence underpinned by ignorance and bolstered by the rapid arrival of a top-class brief had kept him safe. She used these occasions to point out to The Man just how ignorant Vince was. She felt pretty certain that as long as she was around and functioning efficiently, there would be no problem.

But take her out of the picture, and she knew beyond doubt that Goldie Gidman would be running his cold eyes over her brother.

She ran her own eyes over him as finally he emerged from the cathedral and headed towards the VW.

The fat guy was already getting into his ancient Rover.

Vince slid into the passenger seat beside his sister.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked. ‘Where’s the woman?’

‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist,’ he said. ‘She’s still inside. They’re meeting up later for lunch at the hotel. Twelve o’clock. I heard them fixing it.’

The Rover was nosing its way out of the car park. She started the VW and followed it out into Holyclerk Street.

‘We not tailing Blondie any more then?’ asked Vince.

‘We’ll let the bug do that for us. If she stops anywhere, we can check it out. You keep an eye on the laptop. Now tell me exactly what you saw and heard in the cathedral.’

When he finished, she squeezed his arm and said, ‘You done well, Vince.’

He basked in the glow of pleasure that praise from Fleur always gave him.

They had left the cathedral area behind them and were approaching the main urban highway. The Rover signalled left towards the town centre. Fleur signalled right.

‘We not going to see where’s he’s heading?’ said Vince, puzzled.

‘I’m starting to have a good idea where he’s heading,’ said Fleur. ‘What I want to see is where he’s coming from.’

09.50–10.30

It was funny, thought the Fat Man. Turning up at the Station by mistake on his day off would have been disastrous, but striding in now and taking them all by surprise felt like old times.

‘Morning, Wieldy,’ he said breezily. ‘Got a couple of little jobs for you.’

Detective Sergeant Edgar Wield had the kind of face that didn’t do surprise, but there was a slight pause for adjustment before he said, ‘Morning, sir. Be right with you.’

Dalziel noted the pause and thought, Gotcha! as he flung open the door of his office.

The evidence of his uncertain return to work was visible in the room’s relative tidiness. Pascoe had been using it latterly and the bugger had got everything ship-shape and Bristol fashion. The Fat Man had found himself thinking it was a shame not to benefit from this orderliness and for ten days he’d been replacing files in the cabinet, closing drawers, removing clutter from his desk, and even striving to keep the decibel level of his farts under control.

That he could take care of instantly. As he sank into his chair he let rip a rattler.

‘Didn’t quite catch that, sir,’ said Wield from the doorway.

‘Would probably have broken your wrist if you had,’ said Dalziel. ‘Seven years back there were a DI in the Met, Alex Wolfe, under investigation for corruption or summat; resigned, I think, then disappeared. I’d like all you can find about him. Same with Mick Purdy; DCI back then, now he’s Commander. But softly softly, eh? Don’t want to set any alarm bells ringing.’

‘What sort of alarm is that likely to be, sir?’ said Wield.

‘No idea. Probably none. But you know me, discretion’s my middle name.’

No it’s not, it’s Hamish, thought Wield. But that was a piece of knowledge he didn’t care to flaunt.

‘This something likely to come up at tomorrow’s case review, sir?’ he asked.

The Fat Man glanced at him sharply. The bugger can’t have picked up on me mistaking the day, can he? No way! But that blank, unyielding face could make a nun check if her lacy knickers were showing.

‘Nowt official yet. That’s why I’m here on my day off,’ he said. ‘Pete around?’

‘No, sir. His day off, too. He’s going to a christening.’

‘Eh? Ellie’s not dropped another? I weren’t out of the loop that long, surely.’

‘No. They’re guests. Like you, seeing as you’re not official.’

‘Don’t get cheeky. Was a time when I’d be met with smiles and coffee.’

‘Was there, sir? Can’t bring it to mind. Shall I organize a coffee?’

‘I’d rather have it than one of thy smiles, Wieldy. No, you get right on to Wolfe. I’ll wake one of them idle buggers out there.’

He followed the sergeant to the door and looked around.

His gaze lit on DC Shirley Novello, engrossed in her computer screen.

‘Ivor!’ he bellowed. ‘Coffee!’

The young woman looked up and replied, ‘No thanks, sir. I’ve just had one.’

Something that on another face might have been called a grin touched Wield’s lips, then he moved away swiftly.

‘Now!’ bellowed Dalziel. ‘Why else do you think we let women into the Force?’

He went back into his office and sat at his desk. The encounter with the blonde at the cathedral had kick-started his day, but he still felt a bit out of sorts. He’d got the problem of the lost day sorted, so what was left to bug him? If he did any more internal digging, he’d be looking at his belly button from the inside, so he changed his point of view and looked around the room. After a few moments, he got it.

Problem solved, or just about to be!

Six or seven minutes later Wield dead heated with a coffee-bearing Novello at the Fat Man’s door. No plastic beaker from the machine this; she’d have had to go down to the canteen to get half a pint of the Super’s favourite blend in his own mug. It smelled good, but from the look on Novello’s face, Wield thought it might be wise if Dalziel got her to taste it before touching it himself.

He opened the door for her and followed her into the room.

It had changed. Most of the drawers on the desk and filing cabinet were pulled out, a dented metal waste bin lay on its side against a dented wall, and in the furthermost corner as if hurled there with great force lay a file that the sergeant recognized as the one containing Pascoe’s briefing notes for the case-review meeting. The window was wide open and the breeze so admitted was having a great time rustling through various loose sheets scattered across the floor.

Dalziel noted him noticing and said, ‘Been doing a bit of tidying up. Ivor, you can’t have much to do if you’ve time to fetch coffee. Run me this number will you?’

He scribbled Gina Wolfe’s car number on the back of an unopened envelope that bore the Chief Constable’s insignia and the words
Urgent and Confidential
.

Novello took it, turned, rolled her eyes when she had her back to the Fat Man and went out.

‘Right, sunshine, what’ve you got?’

Wield said, ‘Seven years back, DI Alex Wolfe was targeted by the Met’s Internal Investigations. He was a key man in a team investigating a financier, David known as Goldie Gidman.’

‘So Wolfe was a paper-chaser,’ said Dalziel with the muted scorn of the front-line cop for the Fraud Squad. In the Fat Man’s eyes, boardroom crime was to real crime what soft-porn movies were to child prostitution.

‘Foot in both camps; he’d done his share of hard-end stuff,’ said Wield. ‘Commendation for bravery during the Millennium siege. Also I get the impression this weren’t straight Fraud Squad stuff. The officer initiating it was a deputy assistant commissioner. Owen Mathias. You know him?’

‘Heard of him,’ said Dalziel. ‘Took early retirement and died. Dicky heart.’

‘That’s right. Seems to have had Gidman in his sights for a long long time, but never laid a finger on him. That’s likely why he called this op Macavity. Turned out a bit too accurate. All trails banged up against a dead end, or a smart lawyer with a writ. Conclusion, Mathias’s at least, someone was leaking. So he set Internal Investigations on it and they focused on Wolfe.’

‘What do you mean,
Mathias’s at least
?’

‘Get the impression there were a lot who reckoned that Macavity were a waste of time and money. They’d not been able to touch Gidman in his early days in the East End. Now he were out of the mucky back streets and into the City, he were so squeaky clean, the Tories were accepting donations from him.’

‘Proving what?’ grunted Dalziel. ‘So you’re saying this Macavity op were a grudge thing between Mathias and Gidman?’

‘I’m saying it feels like that’s what a lot of people thought.’

‘Did this mean Internal Investigations just went through the motions?’

‘Can’t say. Certainly nowt were ever proven against Wolfe. He happened to be on compassionate leave at the time, so they didn’t even need to suspend him. Then he resigned. Bit later he vanished. Estranged wife reported it, they looked at it, no evidence of foul play, he was a grown man, no charges had been brought so he wasn’t a fugitive. I got the impression they were glad to be shot of him without the fuss of a full-blown corruption enquiry.’

‘OK. What about Purdy?

‘Wolfe’s DI back when he was a sergeant. Paths parted when he went up to DCI and Wolfe to DI. Wolfe more into the paper-chase side of things, Purdy stayed hands on. Did well. Current job, Commander in some Major Crime Unit at the Yard.’

‘Right. Operation Macavity, things improve there after Wolfe vanished?’

‘Seems not. Shelved soon after. No evidence, no action.’

‘And nowt since?’

‘Not a word. Looks like the records have been hoovered clean. Like they’d feel embarrassed at it coming out how much time and money they’d wasted. Not surprising, considering how things have worked out for Gidman.’