CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kingston Private Vaults occupied the basement of a Georgian building between a solicitor and a shop selling watches nobody in North End could afford.
Leah stood across the street at seven in the evening and wondered whether this was the first time anyone had approached it with a dead detective, a dead biker and a stolen signet ring.
Probably.
Drew wore a dark coat over his cut.
"You look suspicious," Leah said.
"You say that like it's new."
"You have blood on your collar."
He rubbed at it.
"Better?"
"Now you have smeared blood on your collar."
"Excellent."
Michael remained in the car with Daniel and Ben.
Owen had taken Amy to Sam's sister-in-law's house. Pete was in hospital under police guard, which meant he was either finally safe or absolutely doomed.
Hale's officers were still surrounding an empty clubhouse.
For once, being underestimated felt useful.
The vault manager was a thin man named Mr Hesketh who treated Leah's warrant card with the suspicion it deserved.
She had no legal warrant.
She did have a police identification card that had not yet been cancelled.
"Ongoing corruption investigation," she said.
Drew looked away so Hesketh would not see him smile.
The brass key opened the outer lock on box 417.
The signet ring opened the second.
On the flat rear face of the ring was a tiny raised pattern that fitted into a mechanical plate inside the box door.
Hesketh blinked.
"I've never seen that before."
Drew said, "Family business."
The box was long, shallow and disappointing.
Inside sat a black accounting book, a cassette tape, three Polaroid photographs and an envelope addressed to GARETH.
Leah stared at the ledger.
"Sixteen years."
Drew did not touch it.
"Feels too easy."
"Nothing about this week has been easy."
She opened the book.
Rows of dates.
Initials.
Amounts.
Ship names.
Police operation numbers.
Names appeared only after the first twenty pages, as if Mick Pike's paranoia had eventually lost patience with abbreviations.
Robert Hale.
Marcus Venn.
Frank Dorran.
Peter Lawson.
Michael Quinn.
Leah stopped.
Drew read the name beside her.
"Your father."
A payment sat next to it.
Twenty-five thousand pounds.
Leah turned the page.
Another payment.
Then another.
Michael Quinn had been paid by the Line for nearly two years before his supposed death.
Drew said nothing.
That was worse.
Leah picked up the ledger and walked out of the vault room.
Michael saw her face through the glass door before she reached the car.
He got out.
"What?"
She threw the book at his chest.
He caught it.
"Page twenty-three."
He opened it.
His expression did not change quickly enough.
Leah laughed.
"There it is."
"Leah--"
"You took money."
"Yes."
Drew came out behind her.
Daniel remained in the passenger seat but had gone still.
Leah stepped closer to Michael.
"All this time you let me think you were some heroic detective who got too close. You were on the payroll."
"At first."
"At first?"
"I took payments to protect shipments."
"Say it properly."
Michael looked at the floor.
"I was corrupt."
The words sat between them.
Leah had wanted truth for sixteen years.
She discovered she hated it.
"How long?"
"Eighteen months."
"Why stop?"
"Because a driver died. Nineteen years old. Hale had told me a shipment was drugs. It wasn't. There were two trafficked girls in the van. One tried to run when police staged the seizure. Hale's man shot her."
Leah stared.
Michael continued.
"I realised there was no edge to what Hale was building. No line he wouldn't cross. I went to Mick. Mick had reached the same conclusion for different reasons. We started collecting evidence."
"And the money?"
"I kept taking it so Hale believed I was still inside. Every payment in that ledger is real."
Drew said, "Convenient."
Michael looked at him.
"It isn't meant to be convenient. I was dirty before I tried to become useful. Both things are true."
Leah thought of Gareth.
Pete.
Daniel.
Everybody protecting someone by ruining someone else.
She hated the symmetry.
"What's on the tape?" Daniel asked from the car.
Drew held up the cassette.
"Old technology. Your generation."
"Fuck off."
Hesketh appeared in the doorway behind them.
"Detective Quinn?"
Leah turned.
"Yes?"
He held out a small envelope.
"This was lodged with instructions to give it to the first person who opened box 417 using both keys."
"When?"
"Original deposit. Nineteen years ago."
Leah took it.
Inside was one handwritten sentence.
IF HALE KNOWS YOU HAVE THE BOOK, DO NOT TRUST THE TAPE.
Everyone looked at the cassette.
Drew said, "I knew it was too easy."
A phone rang.
Michael's.
Unknown number.
He answered.
"Yes."
His face changed.
He put it on speaker.
Venn's voice filled the pavement.
"Open the envelope yet?"
Leah looked around the street.
"He's watching."
Venn laughed.
"Always."
Michael said, "What do you want?"
"The same thing I've wanted all week. The ledger."
"Hale wants it. You want promotion."
"Hale is finished. He just doesn't know it."
That changed everything.
Leah said, "You're moving against him."
"I'm correcting a succession problem."
Drew looked at her.
Venn continued.
"You have something else I want."
"What?"
"Daniel."
Drew's face hardened.
"Why?"
"Because Daniel made a copy Hale hasn't found."
Daniel got out of the car.
"No, I didn't."
Venn laughed again.
"You did. You just don't know what it is."
The line went dead.
Daniel stared at the phone.
Michael looked at him.
"What did you copy?"
"Everything on the card."
"Before that."
Daniel shook his head.
"Nothing."
Drew said, "Think."
Daniel's expression tightened.
Then he looked at the Polaroids.
Drew had put them on the car roof.
Three photographs.
One showed Mick Pike and Michael outside the old clubhouse.
One showed Hale leaving a port office.
The third showed Daniel at twenty-two, Drew at nineteen and a motorcycle between them.
Drew picked it up.
"Why is this in Mick's box?"
Daniel stared.
"I gave that to Mick."
"Why?"
"I didn't. I gave him the camera."
Leah looked at the photograph.
"What camera?"
"Old instant camera. Mick used it at club events. I fixed the back after it broke."
Michael's eyes narrowed.
"Where is it?"
Drew looked toward the street.
"Clubhouse. Trophy cabinet."
Daniel whispered, "Fuck."
Leah understood.
The photograph was not the copy.
The camera was.
And Venn was currently surrounded by police at North End.