Authors: Lee Weeks
‘We?’
‘The department.’
‘I suppose so.’ Willis wasn’t convinced. ‘But this is one cartel taking over another. If it goes wrong, a lot of people will be at risk.’
‘Yes. If it goes wrong Della will be dead. This is a risky business. We are in prevention now, not dealing with the aftermath. This is drug dealing, not murder. Everything about this is
risky. If it goes wrong, if Della ends up dead, she probably won’t be the only one, and the news will read that she was killed by the same drug dealers that killed her husband. Tony, Harold,
probably the whole family will be executed by one cartel or the other – or both.’
‘If it goes wrong, we may not catch the cocaine dealers but we may still seize the shipment, which is reputed to be the biggest ever to cross the Atlantic. For me it’s a
win–win situation. Would I risk it if I were Della? Having seen Tony today, realising what he’s capable of, yes I probably would. Who would want Tony in their life?’
‘What are we going to do about Ramirez and Garcia?’ asked Willis.
‘I think we should meet them tonight, let them show us a good time, watch how they are in this place. I’d like to see the extent of their corruption, how people talk to them, treat
them. We should learn a lot by watching them with their friends. Then we’ll head home tomorrow. Agreed?’
‘Agreed. I want to get back now. I want to be on hand with this plan of Della’s.’
‘You also want to watch over your partner, and see he doesn’t stray.’
‘You know that’s not going to happen. Carter is unorthodox but he’s smart and he’s a step ahead of most detectives. You wouldn’t think so, but it’s
instinctive to him. I don’t have any worries about him.’
After finishing with their visits to look at a few of the villas Eddie had built and to talk to the expat owners, they got in the car to drive back to the hotel.
Ross looked across at Willis as he fastened his seat belt and prepared to drive off.
‘Nobody who actually knows anything of value is going to talk to us. I’ve had enough. I’d rather spend my time having a nice cool swim than talk to lowlife, high-living
scum.’
‘I thought you were enjoying it.’
‘What, talking to Mr Silver Fox, barrow boy turned billionaire by ripping off ordinary folks? No thanks.’
‘Should we talk to one of the others on our list?’ Willis scanned through the names on her iPad.
‘No. We could waste a week getting around half of these luxury villas and by then I will rethink my universe and I will turn to you and say, “You know what, my dear? Crime really
does pay.” And we’ll drive off into the sunset like an alternative Thelma and Louise and live the rest of our lives on oysters and champagne.’
Willis frowned. ‘You’re quite bonkers.’
‘I know. Being a bit mad keeps me sane.’
They spent the next fifty minutes of the drive in silence as Willis rested her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. The warm air made her feel happy as they drove by the sea again on the
coastal road. It filled her senses with a special memory of the rare occasions in her life that she had ever gone to the beach. The long coach ride, full of its own special intrigue, followed by
the pile-out onto the beach of all the children from the home, and then the hours of laughter. Those were happy times in her childhood. There weren’t many and they never included her mother.
Willis thought about what Ross said. Being a bit mad hadn’t kept her mother at all sane. But, then, her mother wasn’t just a bit mad.
‘You okay?’ Ross asked. ‘You’ve gone quiet.’
‘Fine, just enjoying the scenery.’
‘What do you want to do about this evening?’ asked Ross. ‘I sense you’re not that keen on seeing the bright lights of Puerto Banús?’
‘It’s just I haven’t come prepared. I don’t have anything to wear. I don’t have any money. I think it’s not my kind of thing. I have so much work to catch up
on.’
Ross raised his hand for her to stop. ‘Okay, I get it, but do me a favour and just come out for a few hours. We can really check these guys out in their natural habitat. This is all on me.
I will claim it back on expenses. Wear your jeans and the white top again. It’s perfect for this place.’
‘Okay.’ Willis’s phone went off. ‘Robbo?’
‘The second set of samples you took from the Paradise Villas warehouse are back.’
‘Good, anything?’
‘Where the boxes were resting?’
‘Yes?’
‘Corresponds to distinct indentations, gatherings of dust and raised deposits of soil around the box edges, corners . . . Remember, you took photographs?’
‘
Yes
,’ Willis emphasised. She was getting irritated with Robbo.
‘They found substantial traces of Grade A Colombian cocaine mixed with a small amount of stone composite. Looks likely someone’s been making fireplaces out of compressed
cocaine.’
Willis sat up in the passenger seat and turned wide-eyed to Ross.
‘When are you coming back here?’ Robbo asked.
‘Tomorrow. Have you told Carter?’
‘I can’t get hold of him at the moment but I will tell him asap.’
‘Manson has to be at the heart of this,’ said Willis. ‘With or without Eddie.’
‘Get Ross to help us on this. He had photos of Manson and Marco. We need him to check for more of the same. Any photo which includes Manson at all and sightings of the white van. We need
that second location – the place he transports the boxes to. I’m thinking it must a laboratory of a fairly big size. The process of extracting the cocaine from these large features must
involve quite a bit of space. It shouldn’t be too hard to find business parks with that capability.’
‘Okay, will talk to him now. See you tomorrow, Robbo.’
Willis came off the phone.
Ross’s head swivelled back and forth, from road to Willis, waiting.
‘Cocaine comes in many forms,’ teased Willis.
‘Don’t do this,’ Ross groaned. ‘Just get on with it, for goodness’ sake.’
‘It’s disguised in things like gel bras, woven Inca baskets, fresh yams with the centres hollowed out and, wait for it, bespoke, composite, marble fireplace surrounds.’
‘God, you’re kidding me. It was staring us in the bloody face all the time,’ Ross said as he swerved to avoid a chicken who had decided to cross the road at that moment.
‘Not quite,’ Willis frowned.
‘Almost,’ replied Ross.
Ross drove along the mountain road back towards the coast. He switched the mute button on the satnav so he could concentrate.
‘Where does that put Manson?’ he asked. ‘Does he work for Tony?’
‘We need to have more on Manson if you can help with that.’
‘Sure, I’ll get on it. He’s definitely made some bad life choices, if he thinks he can start working for the cartels and have some control over it. Unless he is the innocent
party here? What if it was Eddie that was doing a sideline in making things out of cocaine and Manson’s just realised what he’s landed in?’ said Ross. ‘What’s Carter
going to do? What’s his take on this?’
‘I don’t know yet. Robbo hasn’t spoken to him yet.’ Ross glanced across at Willis; she ignored it. She had her eyes glued to the road ahead. The narrow lanes didn’t
allow for the speeds Ross liked to drive.
‘We definitely have a few more questions to ask Manson,’ she said.
‘Surely, now, this should be handed completely over to the NCA. This is our territory. It’s quite clear we are never going to solve this murder. This is way more complicated than
just a murder and we both know the murder was just the cherry on the cake.’
‘It was always our case. We’re hanging on to it,’ answered Willis.
He laughed drily. ‘We’ve been specialising in bringing Tony Butcher down for so many years I’ve gone grey, or I would have if I’d let it happen. We have all the contacts
in place now. We are very near. This is bigger than Eddie Butcher’s murder.’
‘Did you know about Manson?’
‘No, not directly.’
‘That’s a no, then.’
‘I accept we have been useful to one another but now the murder squad should step aside. The National Crime Agency has the powers that you don’t. We can cross boundaries; impound
goods in customs; we have immigration powers. We are set up to deal with this situation.’
‘So, you never thought it might be made into things like fireplaces and put into expensive villas?’
‘No.’
Carter left and went back to Melvin’s flat in Bethnal Green. He sat outside in his car. The body had been removed but the place was quiet with the work of the
white-suited forensics officers, bringing a type of serenity in the methodical search of Melvin’s last minutes. Carter got out and came to stand at the door to the flat.
Sandford, the chief forensics officer, passed across the corridor in front of the door, and came back to talk to Carter.
‘Have you got anything for me?’ asked Carter. ‘It looked similar to Eddie Butcher’s injuries to me.’
Sandford nodded. ‘We might be in luck this time. He was killed where you found him; we might find something of the killer here. How far did you walk into the flat?’
‘Not far. You saw where the body was, just inside the lounge? I smelled it first, the smell of roasting flesh.’
‘I’m amazed he didn’t just set the house on fire. He’d used the blowtorch on just about every inch of the man’s skin.’
‘It was never his intention to hide the evidence with a fire. This man loves torturing his victims for no good reason, it seems. The killer wanted me to find Melvin like that. He sent me a
message with Melvin’s missing dog. This man is a frigging monster.’
‘Did you know the deceased?’
‘Yeah, we used to talk.’
‘As in?’
‘He was an informant, of sorts, but just a casual arrangement; he never told me anything worth knowing in all the years I knew him. Certainly, nothing worth killing him over. The most he
did was take photos of people on the evening of Eddie Butcher’s funeral. One of those used to be in a Colombian death squad.’
‘That would explain things.’
‘He was a nice bloke, been through the mill. Not the luckiest chap. He gave tours of this area, showing people where the Krays lived, that kind of thing. But he hadn’t worked for a
couple of weeks. He was scared. Someone took his dog. He told me they were trying to frighten him off from giving his tours.’
‘I guess he didn’t listen.’ Sandford was standing still and listening to Carter for once. Normally he walked away when Carter started talking. The two irritated one another.
Sandford was a rugby man and Carter was football. Carter spent money on designer clothes, he loved shopping. Sandford let his wife buy his clothes for him from Marks & Spencer.
Sandford smiled at Carter kindly. He had registered that this was different from the many murder sites they’d worked together. This was personal. And then Sandford remembered he needed to
be somewhere else.
‘I’ll leave you to it. You don’t need me bothering you,’ said Carter. Sandford had already gone back in to continue his work. As Carter looked past him he could see the
pieces of charred, curled skin stuck on the armchair.
‘By the way, what did you do with the dog?’ Sandford turned to ask.
‘Pam, who works with Robbo, has taken it.’
Carter walked back along the road to the Blind Beggar, looking at Melvin’s photos on his phone. He had a look at Melvin’s social media to see who had written on it.
There were a few messages from locals. There were lots of reviews from happy clients who had experienced one of his East End Gangster tours. Carter decided he’d walk the tour himself. First
he went to see Chrissie at the Blind Beggar and ordered a coffee. The barman went off to make it, annoyed: it always pissed him off when people ordered coffee in a pub. Chrissie came through from
the back and stopped in her tracks when she saw Carter.
‘Can I have a word?’ he asked.
She nodded. They went through to the garden at the back, where they would have privacy.
‘Did you hear about Melvin?’
‘Yes. I feel sick to my stomach. Is it true he took hours to die?’
‘He was tortured for a long time. He died by having his throat slit, at the end.’
‘Sick bastard.’
‘Got anyone in mind when you say that?’
She turned away. ‘I can only repeat what I already told you about what happened last night. Like I said, Harold and Lev were in, and the tall strange-looking blond man with the bun; he
left with Harold. There were a handful of others. They all saw Melvin drunk. They were all quite kind to him, really, except when he started getting aggressive. He started accusing them of trying
to stop him working, stealing his dog, he got nasty. Even Harold tried to make him calm down but he couldn’t.’
‘Harold left at the same time as Melvin, you said?’
‘No, Harold and the blond man left half an hour after.’ She shook her head. ‘This isn’t Harold’s style. I know Harold Butcher’s style. I’ve seen it many
times over the years. Harold is a mean, quick-tempered man, but he wouldn’t torture someone just for fun. I’ve said all I know.’
‘Okay, thanks.’ Carter looked at Melvin’s route for his tour, although he already knew it would take a circular route past the gym where the Krays boxed, past their old house,
their school.
Carter walked down to St Matthew’s and along past the railway bridge and the ballerina graffiti. He crossed over and headed towards Lev’s bakery. He could see Lev
watching him.
‘Hello, Lev, how’s it going?’
The café was empty. Lev was keeping himself very busy behind the counter, chopping iceberg lettuce.
‘It’s going okay, thank you, Inspector.’
‘You heard what happened to Melvin?’
Lev nodded. His eyes made fleeting eye contact with Carter’s before he tipped the lettuce into a serving container and wiped his hands on his apron.
‘I hear you were in the pub last night when Melvin was there.’
Lev nodded.
‘What kind of state was he in?’
Lev shrugged, as if there was nothing really unusual in the evening.
‘He was drunk. He’d lost his dog. It’s understandable.’ Lev moved on to carving thin slices of cucumber with a mandolin cutter.