Close Call (14 page)

‘You say he owns a club. What sort of club?’

‘It’s called Slim’s. In Wilmslow, which is in my bailiwick here in Cheshire. He gets quite a lot of the football fraternity in the restaurant and there’s gambling and girls, and drugs, of course. Sometimes it gets a bit wild at the weekends but nothing too bad, just some young footballer drinking too much or snorting too much coke and getting involved with the paparazzi.

‘There’s an upstairs operation as well, with girls providing special services, as you might say, but we’ve had no complaints and we’ve never bothered them up to now. Recently Immigration have been sniffing around. They’ve a strong suspicion that some of the girls may have been trafficked, probably from Eastern Europe, and they think he may be selling women on, because his own upstairs operation isn’t very big. Between you and me they’re planning a raid pretty soon and I’m helping them. I’ve got my eye on one of the girls as a possible inside source. The club’s in Cheshire, like I said, just inside our border, but Jackson lives in Greater Manchester’s area. You should talk to them; they know him pretty well. How’s he come across your radar anyway?’

Liz said cautiously, ‘We’re investigating a dodgy-­looking arms deal on the Continent and it’s possible he may be involved.’

‘Guns? Jackson’s crooked as a dog’s hind leg, but as far as I know he’s never sold weapons. Still, there’s always a first time – he’s not somebody who would turn down an opportunity.’

‘If I wanted the Manchester angle who should I contact?’

‘You should probably call the Deputy Head of Special Branch there.’ His voice sounded unenthusiastic.

‘Not the Head then?’

‘No, he’s new. It’s his deputy who knows Jackson. He says he’s been helpful in the past.’

‘What. You mean he’s a source?’

‘I wouldn’t go that far. But you’re better off getting the story from him.’

Halliday sounded oddly wary and Liz decided not to press the point. ‘OK, the Deputy Head it is. What’s his name?’

‘McManus. Do you want me to ring him first?’

‘Not Jimmy McManus?’ said Liz before she could stop herself.

‘Yes. That’s him. Do you know him?’

‘No, not really,’ she said, trying to recover from the surprise. ‘I met him quite a time ago. I’ll ring him myself,’ she added, though her heart was sinking at the prospect.

When the photographs came through Liz looked at them carefully, trying not to jump to conclusions. Some had been taken in the street, some in what looked like a restaurant but was probably the club. But there wasn’t any doubt – it was the same man. The same handsome face, with wide-set thin eyes, a sharp chin made sharper by the width of the high cheekbones. Afro-Caribbean, almost African but lighter-skinned, just the dark side of
café au lait
. Hair neatly cropped and, in all the pictures, very smartly dressed.

‘What do you think?’ asked Peggy, looking over Liz’s shoulder, unwilling to hope for too much. ‘Could it be our chap?’

‘“Could be” is the understatement of all time. He’s our man all right.’

‘But do we have any real evidence he’s one of the bad guys? Maybe he’s just a respectable businessman holidaying in Berlin.’

‘No. Milraud admitted he had a rendezvous with him and that the mysterious Arab set it up. What he hasn’t told us is why he met him and what they said to each other – nothing, according to him, except to arrange another meeting, but I don’t believe it. That’s just one of the things he’s holding back. So far we don’t have anything on Mr Jackson, and the Germans couldn’t hold him just for standing in front of a picture in a gallery, but I’m convinced he’s in it up to his neck. A Mercedes that comes out of nowhere, a private jet that diverts to God knows where, and most of all the contact with Milraud – that’s enough for me. And Halliday says he’s a tried and true bad guy.’

She looked at Peggy, who seemed convinced. ‘Now,’ said Liz, looking pointedly at her phone, ‘I’ve got someone else to ring to try and find out more.’ And Peggy took the hint and left Liz alone to make the call.

Chapter 22

‘Special Branch. McManus speaking.’

The voice was familiar, even after all these years, but it was more subdued, as if its owner had lost some vitality. Liz said brightly, ‘Hello there, it’s Liz Carlyle from MI5. I’m assuming I don’t have to say “remember me?”’

There was a long pause, followed by the quick sharp laugh she remembered well. ‘You can say that again. Hello, Liz. I take it this is a business call.’

You bet it is, she thought firmly. ‘I sent round a photograph recently asking for information. I’m surprised I didn’t hear from you. It’s been identified as one Lester Jackson. Apparently you know the man.’

There was another, shorter pause.

‘Yes, I do. I didn’t see your photograph. What’s he gone and done now?’

‘I was hoping you’d tell me. Has he got form?’

‘Strictly speaking no. But this isn’t Little Lord Fauntleroy you’re asking about. Why are you looking at him?’

‘He’s cropped up possibly in contact with someone we’re investigating on the Continent,’ she said cautiously. ‘We’re trying to work out what role he might be playing.’

There was another pause, then McManus said, ‘I would have thought the Continent was a step too far for our friend Jackson.’

‘Oh really. Why’s that?’

‘Frankly, this guy is not the sharpest knife in the box. He’s home-grown and strictly a small-time villain. On his own patch he does OK, and most of his business is legit – his club has its dodgy angles but the restaurant’s not bad. To tell you the truth, there’re a few shenanigans that go on upstairs, but nothing to get excited about. I’m surprised to find him showing up on your radar.’

‘Your colleagues over in Cheshire seem to take a different view.’

‘You must mean Halliday.’ McManus gave a derisory snort. ‘He’s a young man who gets a bit over-excited. Not much goes on in Cheshire and he’s got a bee in his bonnet about the club. He’s cross that he’s never managed to get anything on Jackson.’

‘He said Jackson was a source of yours.’

‘Is that what he called him?’ McManus laughed, but there was nothing amused about its tone. ‘Listen, the guy’s helped me out on a few occasions, pointed me the right way when I was bringing down the coke traffickers in this town. He’s done enough for us that we leave him alone.’

I get it, thought Liz angrily. Let Jackson traffic in women in return for helping out once in a while with drugs. Drugs got the headlines, while prostitution was just seen as a necessary evil – however many lives it ruined, however many women it kept in a kind of slavery. ‘So why was he in Berlin then?’ she asked. Immediately the words were out of her mouth she wished she hadn’t been so specific.

‘I haven’t a clue. But believe me, if he’s got himself tangled up in something big-time, Jackson is not playing a large role in it. He’s small beer, Liz. Honestly.’

‘OK. Thanks for letting me know.’

She paused for a second, feeling awkward. Then McManus said, his voice softening, ‘It’s been a long time. So how goes life for you?’

‘Good, thanks. Same employer, as you can see.’

McManus laughed. ‘I always had you down as a lifer. You had the talent, and the commitment. I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up running the whole shebang one day.’

‘Don’t count on it.’ McManus had always been a charmer when he wanted to be. ‘But what about you? You must like Manchester if you’re still there.’

‘Like? I don’t know about that.’ His voice was flatter now. ‘It’s a living. I can’t complain.’

‘Oh.’ It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. ‘Well, I’d better get moving; we’ve got our weekly brief in a minute. Thanks for the info.’

‘Any time.’

She didn’t like leaving it like this. She said, wanting to give the conversation a better ending, ‘I may have to come up to your part of the world. If I do, I’ll drop in and say hello.’

‘You do that. It would be good to see you again.’  Then he added, ‘Just don’t make a special trip on account of Lester Jackson. Take my word for it, the guy’s nothing for you to worry about.’

Putting the phone down, Liz felt troubled by the conversation. She stood up and went over to the window, looking down as a small tug chugged along the river. The Thames was lifeless-looking and grey under the overcast sky of late autumn. His account of Lester Jackson just hadn’t rung true. ‘Small beer; not the sharpest knife in the box’ did not describe the elegantly dressed man who, according to the Germans, had strolled into the Schweiber Museum, had conducted quite clever counter-surveillance, had been whisked off the street by a Mercedes, picked up by a private plane and collected by yet another limousine from a private airfield.

Why had McManus tried to downplay Jackson’s importance? Come to that, why had he not responded to the photograph Peggy had circulated to all Special Branches? He must have received it and known very well who it was.

She thought back to the McManus she had known years ago and the reason she had split up with him. Then he had been prepared to bend the rules in his pursuit of criminals who he was convinced were guilty, even when he couldn’t prove it. Was he now bending the rules in pursuit of something else? His own interests perhaps?

And McManus had exhibited all the verbal tics of the practised liar – ‘honestly’, ‘believe me’, ‘to tell you the truth’, and ‘frankly’. She realised that she didn’t believe a word he’d said about Lester Jackson, and now she was worried that in talking to him she had given too much away.

Chapter 23

Katya knew all about the police in her country – they were armed and violent and sometimes if you paid them enough they would go away – but she didn’t know about the British police. People said they were different, but those were normal people, people who were in the country legally, people with the right stamps in their passports, people who had genuine passports. Not people like her for whom the smallest brush with the authorities could mean disaster.

So when a young man knocked at the door of the house where she rented a room and said he was a policeman, an icy panic gripped her. He flashed an identity card so quickly that she couldn’t have seen it even if her eyes had been working properly. She’d been woken by his knock and was still half asleep as well as scared.

‘Detective Sergeant Halliday,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’ and before she could say anything he pushed past her and went into the lounge. The three other girls who lived in the house had all gone out to work. They had nine-to-five jobs, but Katya got home at four o’clock in the morning and usually slept till the early afternoon.

The lounge was in a mess. One of the girls slept there on the sofa and she’d left her clothes and underwear scattered on the floor. Halliday sat down on the one chair while Katya stood in the doorway in her nightclothes and nervously waited for him to say something.

‘I expect you know what this is about, love,’ he said with a smile that was only superficially friendly. He seemed young to be a detective; his hair was spiky and shiny with wax, like the kids she saw sometimes on her way home, coming out of the clubs.

She didn’t say anything and he laughed. ‘Come on, Katya. Speak to me.’

‘Just tell me what you want,’ she said, not that she had much doubt. He must know she was there illegally, without proper papers, and she feared the worst – deportation back to Dagestan, the country she had been so happy to leave. But if he’d come to arrest her, why was he on his own? It seemed odd.

‘I’m interested in your place of work.’

‘Slim’s?’

‘That’s right, love. You work upstairs, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Funny kind of place, Slim’s. I mean, it’s a club downstairs, full of respectable citizens having dinner and a drink or two and a dance. But if someone wants a special dessert they can get it upstairs.’

Katya said nothing, wondering what he was getting at. She didn’t know whether what went on upstairs in Slim’s was legal or not, all she knew was that neither she nor any of the girls who worked there had the right papers. But if he was inquiring into what went on in the club, why had he come to her? She didn’t run the place. Whatever he wanted, she wished he’d get on with it. But his next remark gave her a shock. ‘How well do you know Mr Jackson?’

She shrugged. ‘He is there most nights, but he doesn’t often speak to the staff.’

Halliday sneered. ‘Oh, so he’s too grand to talk to the people who help make him rich.’

She didn’t reply; the less she said the better. She must do nothing to rouse his interest and then he might go away. She knew Jackson, of course, but as a daunting presence rather than as someone you could talk to. He was the owner of the club, with the power to hire and fire. But it was more than that – he owned them, the girls, and she had no doubt that he was behind the operation that brought them into the country.

The girls in the upstairs room at Slim’s were stunners – the prettiest girls their home country had to offer. Katya was proud of this, since part of her job was selecting the girls who got brought over. For that, she had to travel to Dagestan from time to time, and when she did she used a false passport that was given to her for the journey, then taken away. It said she was Bulgarian. The girls she recruited came to the UK in a lorry; she knew that from talking to them when they got here. The other part of her job was managing the girls once they arrived.