“Yes.”
“I heard you were a pro, somebody who’d been in the game a while and knew how to operate. That’s why I let you in, Martin. That’s why I trusted you with my fucking money.”
Singh’s voice remained at the same maddeningly reasonable tone.
“You think you can make a mug of me, Martin, is that it? Do you think that I wouldn’t notice you rocking up to my house driving a top-spec car and shoving a ten-grand watch in my face, like you’re the fucking Godfather?”
The room fell ominously silent and Henderson watched Singh chew the last olive in suspended slow motion.
“That’s the reason the FIU are looking at you. Because you put yourself on the telly and put yourself in the frame. Because you, with your piss-poor upbringing, just couldn’t resist swanning around like King Dick for a day.”
Singh wiped his hands on a napkin and then pushed his face so far into Henderson’s they were almost touching.
“Is that who you think you are, Martin? King Dick?”
“N-no. I mean, I’m not. No.”
“Listen carefully, you little twat. As far as I’m concerned, our relationship ends here. I want every scrap of paper you’ve ever touched to be ash by the end of the day. I want everything cleared out of that house as if it never existed. I want the companies completely shut down. Do you understand?”
It took a special kind of criminal to command men older than himself but Singh had proved himself more than capable. White collar crime might have been his most lucrative venture but it was not where he had started out.
His reputation preceded him.
“Now fuck off.”
Henderson scrambled off the stool and backed toward the door.
“One last thing, mate,” Singh called out. “You blab one word to the pigs and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
After he’d gone, Singh turned back to the men around the table.
“He’s a liability.”
CHAPTER 25
Henderson drove until he reached the border of Scotland, another forty miles north of Cragside. From there, he could drive to Stranraer and catch the first ferry over to Northern Ireland, then drive down to Cork where he had friends who could help him.
That was another lie.
He didn’t have friends, he had paid associates.
He needed time to think and, when he saw a sign for a cheap roadside hotel, he pulled in, driving his car around to the back of the car park where it couldn’t be seen from the road.
It turned out to be more of a guest house than a hotel, run by a sour-faced woman who barely asked his name, let alone queried why he was paying for a room in cash. She pocketed the money and then retreated into one of the back rooms where a television blared while Henderson locked himself into a squalid little room which held the faint odour of smoke and sex.
He splashed cold water on his face and looked at himself in the cracked mirror above the sink in the corner of the room. There was no en suite bathroom, only a shared toilet and bathtub further down the hall bearing an assortment of stains.
What the hell was he going to do?
The reflection staring back at him was of a man past his prime, desperately trying to cling on to the life he had built on a foundation of sand. Everything from his haircut to his handmade shoes had been the best that money could buy. He didn’t care too much about what passed for good taste, so long as he could tell himself it was the best.
It was important that he had the best.
It was even more important for people to know it was the best.
He wanted respect, damn it, from all the people who’d been born with a silver spoon in their mouths, never having to worry about where the next meal was coming from. He wanted them to stand and admire his shiny car and to ask about its leather seats and gadgets. He wanted them to wonder what he did for a living and to imagine it was something important, and then he wanted to tell them to mind their own business when they asked. He’d golfed with almost every rich man in the county and attended the best parties, so he could see his picture in the society column of the local paper alongside every has-been celebrity in the neighbourhood.
He hated them all.
The way he saw it, he was performing a public service by redistributing their wealth. It might have been going into his own coffers but at least it was better than seeing the fat cats get fatter.
Not that he ever felt inclined to stick his hand in his pocket and help his fellow man, mind you. Those scroungers could get off their arses and find a job, like he had.
He wasn’t Robin Hood.
Henderson remembered the old days when he’d been a boy growing up on the docks in Newcastle, when there hadn’t been two pennies to rub together. He’d worn hand-me-downs and shoes that were too big for his feet, he’d eaten cheap food and dreamed of having lots of money one day. That dream had sustained him through the hard years, when he’d toed the line alongside all the other lads from school and gone to work with his hands. He’d clawed his way up the ladder until…well, until it all changed and he’d been out in the cold again, back to square one. After that, it had been every man for himself.
Years had passed and he’d lived some real highs, especially back in the eighties and nineties. He’d splashed money about and bought himself companionship from young men who wouldn’t look twice at him otherwise. Without a steady income stream, there would be nobody to keep him company at night.
He started to cry big, self-pitying tears that rocked his body.
He needed to get to Ireland. If he stayed, he’d either be arrested or killed. But his passport, his documents, his things were all back at the estate manager’s cottage and he couldn’t leave without them. Besides, Singh was right; he needed to destroy the paper trail—and not just the stack he’d hidden in his car boot.
Now that the first waves of panic had receded, he forced himself to think clearly.
What did the police really have?
Circumstantial evidence, maybe. He imagined they’d found out he’d lied on his CV to get the job at Cragside. Well, that was nothing to do with a murder investigation. He’d talk his way around that with the Gilberts soon enough, especially Cassandra, who would listen to any old sob story. As for his bank accounts, if the FIU had anything serious they’d have arrested him already. As for Victor…he hadn’t told Singh about the money he’d paid the blackmailing old bastard. That was private business. If the police matched up any cash withdrawals, he’d tell them it was pure coincidence or play the ‘no comment’ card.
Then, there was the girl.