The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller (3 page)

CHAPTER 3

     Jack finally got to sleep only to be called out of bed in the early hours of the morning to represent a man who had been arrested for murder. “Who did you say?” he asked groggily because he thought he’d misheard the name as it sounded so strange. The custody officer, whose voice he recognised, claimed he couldn’t pronounce it properly so he spelled it out. “Russian, you say?” The realisation dawned that the call hadn’t been made because his reputation had travelled half way across the world but because it was his turn on the duty roster. The caller told him the Russian was a sea captain.

     “I think I saw that boat come in.” The memory loomed dimly through the fog. The custody officer on the other end laughed at his sleepiness and reminded Jack that he had been up all night.

     “You get paid for being on the night shift. Not me. Anyway, what’s the evidence?” He knew this custody officer well and he wasn’t the type to be secretive for the sake of it.

     “The best there is, Jack. The murder weapon’s his. Sawn-off shotgun.”

     “Ah. What was he doing with a sawn-off?”

      “That’s what we’re asking.”

      “Could it be connected with his work?”

     “Ship captain needs a sawn-off. What? To stop the crew mutinying? That’s a new one on me.”

     “Seal gun?”

      That knocked him sideways. “Why’s it sawn off?” The response was pugnacious.

       “Yeah, okay.” There was a point to it but it wasn‘t worth going into unless that was the defence. “Has he said anything?”

     “Not a word. Claims to know no English.”

     “Great! I guess you’ve sent for an interpreter?”

     “Jack, we’re ahead of you. He’s on his way.”

     “Check, so am I.”

     Petrov (Peter) was indeed the skipper of the Russian factory-fishing vessel and he had become embroiled in a fish quay feud in which a local smuggler, Geordie Armstrong, had been murdered. The murder weapon just happened to be Peter’s shotgun and it was double bad news that it was a sawn-off. That counted heavily against him: criminals tend to saw off the barrel for ease of concealment and for the scattergun effect, which makes up for poor marksmanship. The plods couldn’t see any innocent explanation. The officer in charge of the case, Detective Superintendent Lowther, was an old adversary. He had also read the report from the two uniformed officers who said they had found him “spark out on the pavement” the night before.

     “I wasn’t spark out!” he protested. “I’d been attacked and …”

     Lowther was chuckling away.  “Yeah, yeah, I can see it all here, they said you were hallucinating too! Must be the DTs bonny lad! I’ve heard of imaginary friends before but imaginary enemies?” There is nothing a police officer likes more than to rip the Mickey out of a lawyer. The case was odd, though.  It wasn’t just the usual fish quay conspiracy of silence, which had a long history from the days of the Napoleonic Wars when they had sent the press gangs packing. The modern victims were DSS snoopers. Since the MAFF started to de-commission fishing boats, the official payroll had reduced considerably. But the over-enthusiastic questioning of the part-employed fishermen, whom the DSS suspected of moonlighting, meant the snoopers could often be seen sliding down the gut on the bones of their arse. Added to that dislike of anyone who was not from the Tyne riverbank the case had spawned a virulent stream of racism because the main suspect was Russian. The locals had him convicted before he was tried.

     An interpreter was present at Jack’s meeting with the client because the police had assumed he couldn‘t understand English when he had failed to answer their questions. Yet when Jack had a few moments alone with him he discovered this was a device. The Russian not only understood the language, he was well-educated, as many Russians had been under the Soviet system. He was very pleased to find that Jack had visited his country. “Where did you go?” he asked.

     “I went to Moscow on business just after the Soviet Union started splitting up. It was scary. The wild east they called it. Petersburg, was okay.”

     “Ah, I was born in the east. Never been to Petersburg,” Peter replied. “They say it is a very western city and it has no soul.”

     “No? Well, I had this long-standing wish to go to the Hermitage and see the chess sets of some of the Tsars. Peter the Great and Catherine the Second. They have the Faberge one of the last Tsar, Nicholas the Second, too.”

     “You are a chess player?”

     “Yes. Why? You play chess, too?”

     “Well of course, I am Russian!”

     “Oh yes, part of the education. I wonder if you will continue to be so great when the State system is no longer behind you?”

     The Russian smiled. “I suspect Kasparov is the last of the line,” he replied.

     Peter reckoned he played a pretty mean game of chess and when you are a player and a Russian tells you that, you listen, and not just because of Kasparov and Karpov and a few others, but because of a long history of chess hegemony going back to between the world wars. “Did you know,” Jack asked, “that Ivan the Terrible died over a chess board, playing with his successor, Boris Godunov?”

     “No I didn’t!” Peter laughed. “Foul play was it?”

     “Officially it was a heart attack but maybe he was getting a good beating, although the eye witness account from the English ambassador suggests it happened before the game began in earnest.”

     “So there was an Englishman there then, too?” Peter’s eyes twinkled. He had totally relaxed in Jack’s company and they had scarcely discussed the case.

     Peter’s history was equally interesting. Before being press-ganged into the family business, he had entertained notions of an academic post at a Russian university. That had been knocked on the head, though, by the Afghan War, into which he had been conscripted.

     “The Russian-Afghan War?” Jack asked.

     “Is there another? You and the Americans were on the other side, arming the Taliban.” He didn’t say it like an accusation but the irony wasn‘t lost. “They killed a lot of my comrades.”

     “It’s like that thing about China, isn’t it?” Jack said, “It’s their land. It’s not our land.”

     The Russian nodded agreement. “I am glad that I got you on this duty solicitor thing, Jack. Do you mind if I call you that?”

     “Be my guest. I will call you Peter.”

     The claim that Peter couldn’t understand the language had enabled him to play for time. Now Jack was on his side, he wasted no time in saying he had been framed.  The back story was someone wanted to get rid of the dead man, a notorious local smuggler, and, at the same time, whoever it was had taken the opportunity of getting even with the Russian. “Two birds with one stone, isn’t this what you English say?”

     Everyone has a conspiracy theory of course, so Jack didn’t succumb easily. “Why should anyone from Tyneside bear you a grudge?” Peter couldn’t answer that but he told Jack something new: the local fishermen would not have a grudge against him merely because he was fishing their grounds, no more, at least, than the usual xenophobia. The factory ship system provided East Coast fishermen with a service: they sold their fish to him at sea and this meant they stayed out longer and earned more than if they returned to market after each catch and then had to await the tide again.  No, it was the big fish processors who lost out, in particular a North East coast multi-trawler and market owner who went by the name of Albert Abel.

     “Don’t think I’ve heard of him,” Jack replied.

     “I’ve come across him further down the coast. Hull, Grimsby?” 

     Jack nodded. Peter continued with his tale and it turned out he’d had more than one threat from this man’s henchmen; he knew that, if he ever landed in the U.K, he could be in trouble. He normally stayed at least two miles out and let the local fleet come to him but engine problems had meant he had no choice but to put into port for repairs.

     “What would this Abel guy have against Armstrong?”

     “I don’t know,” the Russian admitted. “I never heard of him before this case.”

     Jack nodded. “I know a lot of the fishermen round here. Armstrong’s got a reputation locally as a petty smuggler. Drugs, usually. MDMA or cannabis brought across from Holland, booze, cigarettes from France. Basically anything he could pick up at sea and drop off on a quiet coast.”

     “Oh my God!” The Russian leaned across and grabbed Jack’s arm like he was a saviour. “I was indeed fortunate to find you the duty solicitor, Jack.”

     Jack was touched by the man’s sincerity. He was a tough sea-captain but he was obviously frightened out of his wits and this interview had lightened the gloom for him, let him see a chink of light. “From what you know of Albert Abel would he have been interested in any of that?”

     The Russian shrugged, “You know more than me, Jack, but from what I know of Mr. Abel there is not much happens on this coast he doesn’t have a hand in. I come across people like these everywhere I go, down every coast on every ocean. There is always a strong man, someone who runs the business. If he doesn’t run it he will tax it, if you see what I mean.”

     Jack saw only too clearly, so there was a possibility that Albert Abel or his men were evening up an old score and chalking up a new one at the same time.  He came away from the interview believing the Russian and determined to help, just as he always did when he thought his clients were getting a raw deal. It wasn’t easy, though. In accordance with the new procedure for cases which could only be tried at the Crown Court, the case was sent up from the Magistrates and the prosecution applied for an expedited hearing because of the international repercussions. As it turned out, they needn’t have worried because the Russian Embassy, embarrassed by the publicity, had washed its hands of Peter and it also wanted the case over and done with as quickly as possible. A few days later, during a lull in the remand hearing, whilst the Judge was looking at the papers, Jack tried to impart some of his misgivings to Lowther who, after hearing Jack reassure him of his implicit belief in his client’s innocence, queried wryly, “Jack, have you ever represented anyone who’s guilty?”

     Jack had to stop and think about that. “I’ve had a few found guilty,” he replied, and it was hard for him to admit anything more. The truth was he had to believe in his clients’ innocence; if he didn’t he couldn’t do as good a job. It wasn’t exactly that he would go through the motions; he’d never do that; but he couldn’t be committed heart and soul to anything but a just cause.

     “That’s not what I asked you! I think it’s the influence of these Chinese friends of yours, Jack. You’re learning to be inscrutable.”

     Later, he had to say goodbye to his client and send him off to Holme House prison. “I trust you’ll be okay,” he said anxiously, and into his hand he thrust a plastic carrier bag. The Russian looked in it and saw in there a travelling chess set. He grinned broadly and thanked Jack profusely. “Just to keep you occupied, stop it driving you round the bend.”

     “Hey, it’ll be very useful,” the fisherman said, “I’ve been a prisoner before!”

     “When was that?” 

     “During the Afghan war. In the Kunar valley. And I never expected to get out. This will be a bit more easy, I feel.”

     Jack had to attend a Chinese community charity banquet that same evening. He had accepted the invitation some weeks earlier and by the time it came around he had a bad feeling about it, one he couldn’t quite pin down to anything tangible  When he thought about it his mind rested on Gerry or it went back to Peter and the remand hearing. When he was preoccupied with something he found it hard to concentrate on anything else and certainly found it hard to enjoy a normal social live. He could never take his mind off a case once he’d got started. He didn’t want to go to the function in this kind of mood but it was too late to pull out. He went through the dinner and the speeches on autopilot and only pricked up his ears at a titbit of information about a notorious Hong Kong gangster called K.K. Chow, a Triad boss, who was taking over the narcotics business. “You’re smiling Mr. Jack,” Johnny Kwok said, “but he very big crime boss, I assure you. He was policeman once. Station sergeant, Mong Kok district. He dismissed from post.”