Written in Blood (22 page)

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘You must know George Hollis,’ Mariner scanned the room. ‘Is he here?’ That would be just too good to be true.

The man looked at him strangely. ‘You trying to be funny? Do you know George?’

‘Only by reputation.’

‘He was a good officer.’ The response seemed a touch defensive.

‘Was?’ Mariner’s ears pricked up.

‘He retired six months ago.’

‘He went early?’ Mariner was guessing here.

‘Ill health.’

‘Really? What happened to his partner, what was his name, Jaeger?’

‘He moved on. How was it you said you knew them?’

‘Oh, the names just came up in a case I was looking at. Joseph O’Connor. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.’

‘Can’t say that I have.’ But steel barriers had come down behind the eyes, and Mariner was sure that he saw the other three move nearer, literally closing ranks.

‘I was talking to a couple of people at the Judicial Review Commission who worked with Sir Geoffrey Ryland. To be honest they weren’t very complimentary about Mr Hollis, but then, everyone has a different perspective, don’t they?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Tom Mariner,’ Mariner said, pleasantly. ‘One of Jack’s DI’s at Granville Lane.’ He stuck out a hand but no one took it and the temperature in this part of the room seemed to drop a couple of degrees.

‘Ryland should have stuck to politics,’ muttered one of the other men, short and square with no neck that Mariner could see. ‘Fucking Judicial Review Commission has done more damage than good, everyone knows that. It’s hard enough trying to get villains put away in the first place. Now every petty criminal who wants to get off the hook blames it on the arresting officers.’

‘Is that how George Hollis felt?’

‘A lot of us do.’

‘Convenient that Ryland got shot then, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say but—’

‘All I’m saying is that Ryland was good at exposing coppers who bent the rules, and one of those he had in his sights was George Hollis. Not long after Hollis “retires”, your euphemism, not mine, both Ryland and O’Connor get shot in what was apparently a revenge killing. As our American cousins are fond of saying: you do the math.’

‘Do you have any idea who you’re talking to, son?’

Mariner felt a movement beside him. Jack Coleman was at his elbow. ‘Could I have a word, Tom?’ He steered Mariner away from the group. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘Just having an open and honest discussion with a couple of your former colleagues.’ Mariner realised he was having difficulty getting his tongue around the words.

‘And bringing your own career to an end as well as mine? Go home, Tom. I appreciate you coming. I know it’s not the best time for you, but you’ve had your say. Now go home.’

Mariner stopped off at the gents before he left and found himself alongside another man at the urinals. ‘You want the truth, Sir Geoffrey Ryland did us all a favour,’ the man said, quietly. ‘Hollis’s time had gone. He was a dinosaur. Most of the squad were glad to be rid of him.’

Mariner didn’t like to turn to look. It wasn’t something you did. ‘I’m having trouble finding out much about Hollis’s relationship with Terry Brady, especially their involvement in Joseph O’Connor’s arrest,’ he said.

‘Hollis and Brady had a special relationship.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ve no evidence, but rumour was that in return for being cut into deals Hollis used to let Brady know when and where raids were going to happen.’

Friends on the inside. ‘So how—?’

‘That’s all I can tell you.’ And without glancing in Mariner’s direction, the man zipped his fly and walked out, the door banging heavily behind him. Now Mariner didn’t know what to believe. But it might help to explain why Jackson was released without charge.

Tempted to try and track down the stranger and press him for more, Mariner chose instead to take Coleman’s advice and make his way home. Walking down the ramp to the car park he passed a couple of the Harlesden officers standing outside smoking. He was about to get into his car when he thought better of it. He’d had too much to drink, and the Harlesden men were watching him. Wouldn’t they just love it if he drove off in his condition? It was still relatively early, the evening just getting going for the Birmingham club scene, so instead he walked back along the service road, their eyes boring into his back, and when he got to the main road he jumped on a number 47 bus.

The Boatman was almost deserted when he got there; another dinosaur taking its last breath. A couple more pints ensured that by the time Mariner left there he was pretty well oiled but managed to stagger back to his house, which was still empty and no car outside. This arrangement with Bill Dyson was going to be perfect.

But Mariner must have slept pretty deeply because when he rose late the following morning, feeling better than he had a right to, Bill Dyson was in the kitchen making toast. He turned a broad smile on Mariner. ‘Morning!’

Christ, he was one of those people who was happy first thing.

Dyson was already dressed for the office, suit and tie. ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you last night. I was back pretty late. Entertaining clients.’

‘Not at all. It would have taken a lot to wake me. I’d had a bit of liquid anaesthesia to help me on my way.’

‘Dyson grinned. ‘Sounds like more fun than I had.’

Was it? Mariner recalled the way the Harlesden men had watched him go.

‘You had a phone call,’ Dyson was saying, ‘about twenty minutes ago, a guy called Baxter? I jotted the number on the pad, just in case.’

‘Thanks,’ said Mariner, thinking that he hadn’t bargained on a social secretary as well as a lodger, but then he realised he was being oversensitive. He went into the lounge and closed the door before calling Baxter back.

‘Jayce said you wanted some information about George Hollis.’

‘We need to talk. Can you meet me somewhere?’

‘I’m out and about today. You’re in Brum, right?’

While Baxter was speaking there was a light knock on the door and Dyson leaned in to give Mariner a parting wave.

Mariner halted him with a signal. ‘One minute, Mike, please—’

‘Sure.’

Covering the handset Mariner asked Dyson: ‘Which way are you going?’

‘North - spaghetti junction,’ Dyson said.

‘Any chance of a lift?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’ll just be a minute.’

‘No problem.’

Mariner lifted his hand. ‘Still there, Mike?’

‘Yeah. How about the M40 services at Junction 8, say half eleven?’

‘Sounds fine. I’ll see you there.’

‘Look out for an old Discovery, dark green, personalised plates: JMB.’

 

‘I appreciate this,’ Mariner said, climbing into Dyson’s car minutes later. ‘I’d had one too many so left the car behind last night. It’s at Tally Ho just off the Pershore Road.’

‘Wise move. Was it some kind of celebration?’

‘Of sorts. My DCI’s retiring. It was a celebration for him but I’ll be sorry to see him go. He’s been a pretty solid anchor for me over the years.’

‘Oh aye. We could all use one of those.’

‘So how are things going for you?’ It was the rush hour and the traffic was slow, so it seemed reasonable to make some kind of light conversation.

‘Pretty well so far,’ Dyson said. ‘I already had one or two clients in the area, and I’m finding my way round better. Any news on that job?’

‘I haven’t had the chance to discuss it yet, but I’ll be seeing her again soon. It’s down in Oxfordshire, a couple of hours from here. That still your patch?’

Dyson grinned. ‘I’m not fussy, I’ll go anywhere.’

‘She lives out in the sticks and has people going in during the week but she’s on her own all weekend.’

‘Sounds right up my street. We could put in a link to the nearest police station.’

‘That’s what I was thinking of.’

‘If you want to let me have her address I could go and talk to her.’

‘I might need to soften her up first.’

Dyson laughed. ‘I get the picture. Well, just give me the nod when you’re ready.’

‘I will.’

‘By the way, not that there’s any hurry, but I think there’s a problem with one of the taps in the en-suite bathroom. I can’t turn it off fully and it seems a shame to waste the water.’

‘I’ll have a look at it sometime.’

‘Sure. Like I said no rush though.’

Dyson signalled and turned off the main road and into the training centre without prompting from Mariner and took him all the way to the empty car park where the lone vehicle stood. A man in navy overalls was gathering litter from around it, the detritus from the previous night.

‘Must’ve been a good night,’ remarked Dyson.

‘Well, thanks again for the lift,’ Mariner said. ‘We should go for that pint sometime.’

‘That’d be good, though I may not be around for the next few days. I’ve some work around Carlisle.’

‘Hope it pays off.’

‘Cheers.’

As Mariner approached his car the road sweeper was passing it too. ‘Looks like you’ve got a problem there, mate,’ he said. He pointed to a wet patch on the ground behind the wheel arch on the driver’s side. Probably an oil leak. Mariner dipped in a finger and sniffed. It wasn’t oil, it was brake fluid and the puddle was about eight inches in diameter. He’d lost a lot. This would strengthen Anna’s view that it might be time to change the nine-year-old Volvo. She’d been saying for ages that it was on borrowed time. Mariner thought back to the conversation with the men from Harlesden. Two of them had been loitering in the car park when he came out to collect his car and had watched him unlock it before changing his mind. He dismissed such scepticism. They were coppers for God’s sake. As Dave Flynn would say, he was getting carried away.

That Mariner was on first name terms with the mechanic from his local garage was an indication of the state of his car.

‘I can be there in about thirty-five minutes,’ Carl said.

It was freezing outside and Mariner was still missing his overcoat, so tucking a note under the windscreen wiper he went and tried the door of the social club. It was open. He went in as a woman with her mop and bucket emerged from the gents.

‘My car’s broken down. Any chance that I can wait in here, where it’s warmer?’

‘Suit yourself love.’

In daylight the bar presented a forlorn contrast to the night before, cool and drab, the air stinking of stale beer and smoke. Mariner took a seat by the window where bright sunshine streamed in and he had a full view of the car park. It was a beautiful morning, the sun casting long shadows on the frosted sports field, completely still and lacking activity.

Not relaxed enough to remain inert, Mariner hunted through his pockets for something to occupy him and came across the list of rejected JRC referrals Trudy had given him. Each record on the database was sparse, with few details; just the name, date of referral, the advocate’s name and the due release date. But that was all Mariner had asked for. He began idly scanning the names of the appellants that Ryland personally had turned down and crossing out the others. There were dozens of them so he narrowed it down by deleting all except those whose convictions had been for drugs and/or gun related crimes. It was an arbitrary process and didn’t necessarily exclude the others, but he had to do something to reduce the dozens of names to a manageable task.

Next he looked at the release dates to see who would have been out in the last year or so, and finally the numbers began to look workable. A glance outside confirmed the car park as deserted, so on the back of an old invoice folded in his wallet he began logging the details of the remaining cases, half convinced that this was a waste of time. He made a note of each person, the case reference number and the name of the advocate who had made the application.

A name leapt off the page; Rupert Foster-Young. It looked familiar. Then Mariner recalled Carrie Foster-Young, the glamorous blonde photographed on Ryland’s arm during his student protest days. It wasn’t exactly a common name so had to be more than just a coincidence. Foster-Young had applied for leave to appeal four years ago, his offence, aggravated burglary that carried a sentence of eight years. Ryland had turned it down.

Did Carrie have a brother, or even a husband? Despite their relationship Ryland had gone on to marry another woman soon after it ended. Was it because Carrie Foster-Young was already married, or had been married before? Maggie had said nothing, only that the switch from one woman to the other had been sudden. So the likelihood was that it was a brother. The other alternative gave Mariner palpitations, but there was one vital piece of information missing from the datasheet. His mobile battery was low but he risked the call anyway.

‘Could I speak to Trudy?’ She hadn’t been at the Commission long, but Mariner was hoping against the odds that Foster-Young’s might be one of the files that had been retained.