As for ‘Robert Brown Msc’, we are still none the wiser, but it doesn’t matter so much now. I’m sure we will work it out sooner or later.
Stephen had been given a guided tour of the library when he arrived. He looked like a boy, eyes wide, smile even wider. The years dropped away from him.
Viktor is having breakfast in his room, and making notes for later. Interesting to see how he plans these things out. Andrew Everton is on his way up too. It was the Kent Police Awards last night and he couldn’t miss it. They were giving Chris and Donna a commendation. I saw it on Donna’s Instagram. I think Bogdan should probably have been with her, but he had to drive Elizabeth and Stephen up here. I wonder if Donna minded? No one else seems to have spotted they are dating, but Pauline and I had a quiet gossip about it earlier. Donna certainly wasn’t smiling in the photographs.
One person who isn’t here is Fiona Clemence, but that’s not to say she isn’t involved.
Alan has stayed at home.
I make that sound as if it was his choice, as if he had a few things he wanted to catch up on. If we are all up here in Staffordshire, who is looking after him, you ask?
There is a new resident in the village. He is called Mervyn, and he is Welsh. I have always had a soft spot for the Welsh. He used to be the headmaster of a school. You can tell that too. Strict but fair. Grey hair, dark moustache, you know the look. Don’t mind if I do. I have shown him to Pauline at a distance and got a thumbs-up. I thought Pauline might have got a little upset about the way I questioned her at our afternoon tea, but not a bit of it. I suppose she just wanted the truth to come out as much as the rest of us.
Now, Mervyn has a Cairn Terrier called Rosie, and we bumped into each other a couple of days ago on a walk. Alan sniffed around Rosie and, I daresay if Alan were asked, he’d tell you I sniffed around Mervyn too. Long story short, we got chatting, and the same afternoon I dropped around a cherry Bakewell for him, just to say welcome to the village. Mervyn is going to feed and walk Alan while I’m gone. I told him I would be very grateful, and he gave me a little smile.
And, before you ask, yes, Mervyn is heterosexual. He’s had two wives and five kids, and there was a Top Gear DVD on one of his shelves.
We should only be here for twenty-four hours or so, unless something goes very wrong. Which reminds me, I must make sure that Ibrahim moves his car round to the back of the house. Bogdan didn’t need telling – his is hidden away.
We’re planning to kick off at about midday. I think everyone knows what they’re doing. I don’t really have a role as such, I just get to watch.
Which I think I’ve earned, given I worked out who murdered Bethany Waites.
Very soon the whole world will know.
I gave Mervyn my phone number, ‘You know, in case you want to send me a picture of Alan,’ but so far he hasn’t used it. I keep checking, but nothing.
71
It was an indignity to be dumped at the gates in a blindfold, but, if that’s the price of entry, so be it. Paranoia is to be expected.
The approach to the house is magnificent. Long, gravel driveway, topiary hedges, fountains, statues of lions. But today there are no staff tending to it. No gardeners or chauffeurs poking their noses in, able to tell what they’ve seen. It’s exactly as was promised. Looking up at windows ahead, no movement there either. You have to allow for the possibility that this is a trap, but, thus far, it doesn’t look like one.
The house itself is too big. Way too big if this man, the Viking, lives here alone. Given the secrecy involved in this whole operation, and given the monosyllabic nature of their email exchanges, that’s a fair bet. It will be just the two of them, and it will have to be played exactly right. Get what you’ve come for and go. Not easy, not easy at all, but the rewards will be worth it.
A push on the bell, and the sound of it reverberates deep inside this lonely house. How much would the Viking have paid for this place? Twenty million? At least.
Footsteps approach, and the huge oak front door opens. There he is, the man himself. What is he? Six six? Huge beard, Foo Fighters t-shirt clinging to a huge torso.
An offered hand, a shake.
‘You must be the Viking?’
‘And you,’ says the Viking, ‘must be Andrew Everton. Let me take you to my library.’
Andrew Everton follows the huge figure through a marble entrance hall, and into a carpeted corridor. Every wall is covered in art, most of it too modern for the Chief Constable’s tastes, but the odd sailing ship or Norman church here and there make up for it. The Viking leads him into a library, a cocoon of dark wood and red leather and soft lighting. Andrew Everton thinks about the sign on his office wall, CRIME DOESN’T PAY. We’ll see about that.
The Viking gestures to the walls, lined from floor to ceiling with books. ‘Are you a reader, Chief Constable?’
‘Love writing books more than reading them, if I’m honest,’ says Andrew Everton, and sits in an armchair indicated by his host. ‘We can probably skip all this chat if you’d rather? It’s a lovely house, it was a pleasant journey, I don’t need the loo, and I’m OK for water.’
The Viking nods. ‘OK.’ He sits on, and nearly fills, a two-seater leather sofa, and switches on a lamp beside him. ‘What do you need from me, Mr Andrew Everton?’
72
Joyce
The lamp is the key to the whole thing.
Once you switch it on, you switch on the cameras and microphones. We’re all in the staff kitchen at the back of the house, quiet as church mice, and now we can see the live images from inside the library. We can’t see Henrik, because he didn’t want to be on camera. Because of his criminal empire, not because he is shy. Although he is also quite shy, I think.
By the way, I checked my crypto account the other day, and it’s now worth fifty-six thousand pounds. So thank you, Henrik.
Andrew Everton looks very sure of himself. Has no idea of what he is walking into. Elizabeth gave him a tip-off – ‘absolutely between us, Andrew’ – about the Viking. The money-launderer who had been trying to kill us. ‘I can get you a meeting, don’t ask me how, and don’t ask me where, just thank me. Perhaps you could pay him a visit?’
And paying him a visit is exactly what Andrew Everton is doing now. Not to gather evidence, not to arrest him, but simply because he is a man in great need of a money-launderer.
Because Andrew Everton was the brains behind the VAT fraud. Andrew Everton killed Bethany Waites and blackmailed Jack Mason and Heather Garbutt into silence.
In his book Given in Evidence, I think I told you about it, the main character is a gangland boss called Big Mick. And Big Mick’s full name?
Michael Gullis.
A silly error very early on in the scam. We all make mistakes.
And in case you’re wondering if it might be a coincidence, the name of the other early payee also crops up in one of Andrew Everton’s books.
I told you Ibrahim cracked ‘Carron Whitehead’. It was simple really.
It’s an anagram of ‘Catherine Howard’. The teak-tough detective. Clever Ibrahim.
So our guess was that Andrew Everton, so far unable to unlock any of the proceeds of the fraud, might like to have a private chat with the Viking.
And that ‘private chat’ is what we’re watching right now.
73
‘I’m a police officer,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘You understand that, of course?’
‘I understand,’ says the Viking. ‘So long as you are not filming me or recording me, we are cool.’
‘Likewise,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Though if you are taping me, not a single word of it would be admissible in court anyway, so you’d be wasting your time.’
‘No one is taping anyone,’ says the Viking. ‘That’s not how I work. You say you need my help?’
Andrew Everton leans forward. ‘I have ten million pounds in various accounts around the world. I currently have no way of retrieving it without questions. I am hoping you might be able to help me.’
‘Ten million? Yes, easy,’ says the Viking. ‘What’s in it for me?’
‘Half a million,’ says Andrew Everton.