Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Ben pointed to the screen, finger waving with excitement.
‘That’s it! That’s the one! That’s the one that took him!’
The CCTV operator zoomed in on the rear of the van captured by one of the cameras on the bypass. As she did, the registration number became pixelated, a jumbled mess of whites and greys that could have said anything.
‘Bugger it,’ Ben muttered. ‘Can you enhance that?’
The CCTV operator turned her head to look at him. ‘Sorry?’
‘Can you, you know, do the thing like in the films, where they make it clearer?’
‘Like in Blade Runner, you mean?’ she asked.
‘Aye. I don’t know, I’ve never seen it, but aye. If you say so.’
She shook her head. ‘No. But…’
The operator turned her attention back to her monitor. She twisted a little dial mounted next to her keyboard, advancing frame by frame, while remaining zoomed in on the number plate.
Still nothing. The registration remained indecipherable until the van had travelled all the way out of frame.
‘Bugger it!’ Ben said again, but louder this time, and with more oomph behind it.
‘Hold on,’ the operator said. She pressed a few buttons, tapped a few keys, and the footage on-screen was replaced by nine separate images, laid out three by three on the monitor.
She turned her dial again. Every image progressed, ticking forwards, quickly at first, then slowing as her hand eased back the dial a few degrees.
‘There,’ she declared.
Before Ben could see what she was referring to, she tapped a key on her number pad, and one of the boxes filled the screen.
There, at the edge of the frame, was the same white van. It was taken from a different angle—the front, this time—and even before she’d zoomed in, she’d started to read off the registration.
Ben peered at the screen as the image was enlarged. The reg was clear. They had it.
‘Gotcha, ya bastards!’ he cheered, then he hurriedly wrote the number plate down, handed the CCTV operator a miniature Twix he produced from a coat pocket, and hurried off to share the news.
‘Blackmail?’ Hamza sat in the driver’s seat of his car, turned to face Callum Walker sitting beside him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It wasn’t me. I mean, it was me. On the phone. But it wasn’t my idea. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen!’
‘Slow down, Callum,’ Hamza urged. He took a couple of steadying breaths, leading by example. ‘Just relax. Slow down. And tell me everything.’
It took a few attempts for Callum to get his breathing under control and put a lid on his rising panic attack. He gripped the handle above the side window with one hand, and braced the other against the dashboard, like he feared the stationary vehicle was about to crash.
But, he breathed. In. Out. Just like Hamza had shown him. Just like he’d been doing his whole life until that moment without any difficulty.
And then, when he was calm enough to continue, he explained.
He explained about how he’d overheard two of the younger HAWKS members making plans to blackmail some local drug dealer.
How they’d realised he was listening in.
How they’d threatened him, intimidated him, forced him to get involved so that he couldn’t run to the police.
So that he’d be implicated, just as much as they were.
They’d told him they were being kind to him, the young man and woman, letting him off lightly. All he had to do was place the call on the burner phone they gave him. He didn’t even have to leave his house.
No risk, no danger, no violence. One phone call. A few scripted sentences, and he was done. There’d be no money in it for him, but that was fine. He would have refused it anyway, he insisted. But he’d have proven himself. He’d have demonstrated his loyalty.
‘I didn’t realise it was the dead fella in the car until tonight,’ Callum whispered.
He’d whispered through most of the explanation, like he was afraid that someone might overhear him.
‘I mean… I suspected. I suppose I did know, really. I just didn’t want to admit it. He was a drug dealer, wasn’t he? This sort of thing, it happens all the time in their world. Crime. Criminals. It’s a risky business.’
He covered his mouth with a shaking hand, his eyes filling with tears.
‘But then Joe. Poor Joe.’ He broke, his face crumpling like the scrunched-up tissue he pulled from a pocket. ‘What did Joe ever do to anyone?’
‘Was he involved?’ Hamza asked. ‘In the blackmail?’
Callum shook his head. Firmly. Emphatically. ‘No. No, not at all. Not that I know of. He wouldn’t. He was a good man. Better than most. But he found the body, didn’t he? He had to see… that. And, and it must’ve been too much. What he saw. It… it must’ve been too much for him because—’
He sobbed. A bubble of snot swelled and popped.
‘Oh, God, Joe.’
‘You’re alright, Callum,’ Hamza assured him. ‘You’ve done the right thing coming to me with this.’
He started to take out his notebook, then thought better of it and took out his phone instead.
‘These people. The ones who got you mixed up in all this.’ Without looking, he tapped in his contacts until he reached the number for the Incident Room. ‘Tell me who they are.’
Sergeant Fleck inched the door of the Incident Room open and peeked inside.
‘Um, can I come in?’ he asked.
‘Aye, course. In you come,’ Dave urged, beckoning him over.
Fleck entered, exhaling heavily, like it was a relief to be back on home territory after the night he’d had.
‘How’d it go?’ Dave asked, his attention fixed on his computer screen.
‘Rough.’
Dave’s fingers click-clacked across the keys. ‘She upset?’
‘His wife of forty years?’ Fleck asked. ‘Was she upset? Well, she certainly wasn’t happy.’
‘That’s fair,’ Dave said.
‘I would’ve been up here sooner, but got roped into helping with the fingerprint processing,’ the sergeant announced. He looked around the otherwise empty room. ‘DCI Logan interviewing her now?’
‘Yep.’
Tap-tap-tap.
Click-clack-click.
‘What you doing?’ Fleck asked, joining Dave at his computer. ‘That the blockchain?’
Dave’s fingers paused, mid-stroke. ‘Aye. How’d you know?’
Fleck shrugged. ‘Used to dabble a bit. Years back, when it was all kicking off. Find anything?’
‘I mean… Aye. No. I don’t know,’ Dave said.
‘Glad you cleared that up.’
Dave half-smiled, acknowledging the joke. ‘The guy you know, the bank manager, you reckon his bank has read access to this wallet?’
Fleck straightened up, raising his hands like he was offering his unconditional surrender.
‘No idea. Like I said, he didn’t actually say very much.
He couldn’t. He can’t. Not without us going through official channels.
But if you’re asking if I got that impression?
Yes. He said’—the sergeant corrected himself—‘he implied funds were coming into the wallet, so if that’s the case, then presumably he can see it, aye. ’
‘Right. That’s what I thought,’ Dave said. ‘But that doesn’t really match up with what I’m seeing. There’s a shitload in this already, but nothing new coming in.’
Fleck bent to study the screen again, eyes scanning left and right all the way down the page.
‘Multiple wallets, maybe?’ he suggested.
‘Must be,’ Dave conceded. ‘Which would mean…’
‘She’s hiding something,’ Fleck concluded.
‘Reckon you can try squeezing your bank manager fella a bit more?’ Dave asked. ‘See if he can imply anything else?’
Fleck winced, not relishing the thought. ‘He was already pretty pissed off when I spoke to him earlier.’ He checked his watch. ‘Bank’ll be shut, but I should have his home number somewhere. I wouldn’t hold your breath, though.’
Dave scratched at his chin. ‘Maybe leave it and see what Hamza or Logan say?’
The sergeant liked that plan. ‘Good call.’
He straightened up and ran a hand through his thinning hair. It was still damp from the rain.
‘Anything else come up while I was out?’
Dave’s fingers resumed their dance across the keys.
‘No, not really. Oh! No, wait. Aye. Bosco Maximuke was abducted.’
‘Abducted?’ Fleck frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Dave shrugged. ‘He was grabbed and bundled into a van by a couple of big lads, apparently.’
‘Jesus Christ! When? Do we know where they took him?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well… did they get a description?’
‘Aye,’ Dave said. ‘“Couple of big lads.”’
‘That’s it? That’s all we’ve got?’
‘No, we’ve also got “van,”’ Dave countered. ‘So, you know, that’s something.’
The sergeant looked over at the window, and at the city lights twinkling beyond it. ‘What the hell’s happening out there?’
‘Not a bloody clue,’ declared a voice from the doorway.
Ben Forde rushed into the room, waving a scrap of paper like it was a proclamation from God.
‘But maybe this’ll help us figure it out!’ He slammed the paper down on Dave’s desk. ‘Number plate. That’s who grabbed Bosco.’
‘Nice!’ Dave said, switching tabs on his computer and navigating to the DVLA database.
The phone on his desk rang before he had a chance to log in. Fleck snatched up the paper and hurried to another terminal, while Dave answered the call.
Hamza’s voice was faint and crackly, the limits of Highland mobile phone coverage making themselves known once again.
Across the room, Sergeant Fleck finished logging into the database, and keyed in the registration details.
Pressing the phone to his ear, Dave managed to get the gist of what the detective inspector was telling him. Blackmail plot. Callum Walker. Two of the younger members of HAWKS.
Ben bobbed from foot to foot as he rushed back and forth between both desks. On Fleck’s screen, the registration search came back with a hit.
Over the phone, Hamza gave the one name that Callum had known. The man who had orchestrated the blackmailing of Victor Belov.
‘Curtis Neil,’ Dave repeated. He looked over at the Big Board, like he was expecting to find a photograph of the man already pinned up there. ‘Who the fuck is Curtis Neil?’
Across at the other desk, Fleck turned the monitor so Ben could see it. The sergeant’s face had turned a shade of ash-grey.
There, under the registered keeper section of the DVLA listing, was the same name.
‘Curtis Neil,’ Ben read.
‘Who is he?’ Dave asked. He scanned the Big Board again, but they had nothing there about the man. Not a sausage.
That wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Fleck cleared his throat as he rose to his feet, one hand pressed on the desk to steady himself.
‘Someone dangerous,’ he whispered. ‘He’s someone very, very dangerous indeed.’