Hope Road (26 page)

On his way out of the showroom he considers leaving the place open, see how long before word gets around and the place becomes a squat with luxury, four-seater bedrooms and an espresso machine. It wouldn’t matter. Unless the rest of today goes well, there’ll be no reason to come back here at all. And if things go badly, he’s gonna put a bomb under the place anyway.

Nothing’s gonna go wrong, though. Freddy’s not gonna die for something he didn’t do. He lets the shutters come down on
Tony Ray’s Motors
and turns away.

“T
hanks for coming at such short notice.”

They walk across a deserted playground on a housing estate a couple of miles out of town.

Bilyk merely nods, the affable smile now replaced by something altogether more businesslike.

“I don’t have much time,” John says as they sit on a bench. “This is the thing; you’re importing counterfeit money, using the hotel as a base. Your tractor business is a cover, a very good one, if I may say so.”

The Ukrainian raises his thick eyebrows, as if mildly amused by the accusation.

“I’m assuming,” John continues, “that the Galey Company was delighted with your offer to sell their products in the UK, but are going be rather puzzled when they realise that you and your order book have disappeared?”

The Ukrainian rolls his head to one side, still not a word.

“And to top it off, you get Freddy involved. Clever.”

“He was keen!” Bilyk says, evidently pleased by this last allegation.

“Just does the collections for you, does he?”

“He scouted a few people here in Leeds, changers for this weekend. But yes, mainly he just collects the shipments.”

“And the big bonus is that he works at
Tony Ray’s Motors
. My dad, the well-known counterfeiter. If Freddy was stopped with a big pile of fake notes, chances are the police’d jump to conclusions, think the Ray family was involved.”

“We all have to cover our tracks.”

“Freddy’s last collection was on Thursday at Immingham docks. Correct?”

Bilyk nods.

“And you? What’s your role?”

“Me? I never touch anything.” He grins. “I have tractors to sell! Counterfeit money? It must’ve been Fedir’s little scheme. I know nothing about it, officer.”

His confidence is irritating, but also confirms the strength of his position.

“The hotel manager was your banker, right?”

“Fuller? Yes.”

“And the changers?”

“We target one town at a time, north of England. We use local changers in each town we hit. That’s Fedir’s job.”

“But the changers have to come to Leeds to get the merchandise? You sell at the hotel, right? Down the side street, with the broken security camera?”

“Genius, don’t you think?”

John nods slowly. “One thing I don’t get, though. You keep the notes in Fuller’s safe, and they’re sold-on to the changers out of the fire exit. But
inside
the hotel there’s a surveillance camera pointing straight down that corridor. How do you get the stuff in and out without it being seen on the video?”

“Have you seen the size of that cleaner’s trolley?”

Sandy! They should be paying you more. Perhaps they are…

“Yes,” Bilyk continues, “it all worked well. The hotel, the shipments, everything. We kept the heat off Leeds right until the end. No one’s been looking for counterfeiters around here.”

“They are now.”

The Ukrainian sighs. “This weekend was our last flood for a while.”

“Then you got the call.”

“We were done. Fedir was ready to leave. Bags packed. An hour later and he’d’ve been gone. Then
she
turned up, drunk, shouting, threatening, a real foul mouth she had. Fedir had to sort her out. He enjoyed himself, last time, y’know… Then we left her in the hotel to cool down. We went to get something to eat.”

“Freddy as well?”

“Yes. I told him best to leave her, that we’d talk to her later, sort it all out. So we left. When Fuller rang, she was dead.” Bilyk throws up his hands. “Why would we kill a girl in our place of business after everything had gone so well? Does this make sense?”

John knows he’s right. But that’s not the issue.

“Tell me,” he says, “who paid Donna?”

“She was Fedir’s hobby, not mine.”

“That’s what you say, and I don’t much care whether it’s the truth. But who actually paid her for all the time she was with you?”

“I tell you, her arrangement was with Fedir. Ask him!”

“I think I should. You any idea where he is?”

“None at all.”

“He’s dead.”

Bilyk never blinks.

“And how would you know that?”

“Not important. He’s out of the picture.”

The Ukrainian shrugs in agreement.

“So,” says John, pausing to get things straight in his mind, “the changers come to Leeds to buy the notes, and the proceeds go into the hotel safe? Donna must have been paid from that money.”

“From Fedir’s share, yes. Remember, I never touch the cash. Even the takings.”

“Donna said she was paid in fakes.”

“Donna said a lot of shit.”

“It’d be a nice touch, though, wouldn’t it? Your last night, everything’s gone smoothly. Pay the hooker in counterfeits, and Fedir saves himself a few thousand.”

Bilyk shakes his head. “That would be a risk. A stupid one. We don’t work like that.”

“Not much of a risk now, is she?”

Bilyk continues to shake his head. “The biggest risk was Freddy.”

“Freddy?”

“He falls in love with Fedir’s little hostess, next thing we know she’s threatening us. You tell me where the risk is, Mr Ray.”

“All I know is she ends up dead in my car, next to a stash of fake notes.”

Bilyk’s expression hardens.

“The notes in the car were not ours!”

“I know they weren’t! They were far too good. They were
mine
.”

The Ukrainian doesn’t move.

“They were being stored in the car,” John adds.

“Well, that’s unfortunate, but you should be talking to Freddy about that.”

“Not Freddy. He knew nothing about it. But suddenly there’s a girl dead, Freddy’s arrested, and it’s all fucked up.”

“Fedir dumped her,” Bilyk says, the anger rising in his face, his voice held at a tense whisper. “But we did not kill her.”

“I know you didn’t. But you sent Fedir away to create the suspicion that he’d killed her, whilst you stayed in full view of the camera half the night. And now,” John says as he stands up, “it’s your turn to disappear.”

He moves a little way back from the bench and sets himself as best he can.

“Me?” the Ukrainian says, almost laughing. “I have business here. Legitimate business! Plus, the police have my passport. No. I play their game, then I move on.”

“You’ve got half an hour. I’m gonna tell the police about the counterfeits you’ve been running.”

Now the Ukrainian does laugh, a big throaty roar that echoes around the deserted playground. By the time he struggles to his feet, it’s turned to a snigger.

The two of them are the same height. Neither backs away.

“Tell them what, Mr Ray? Why don’t you fuck yourself and your police girlfriend. She knows they were your counterfeits, does she?”

“No, you fuck
your
self, Andriy Danyluk. BSc Chemical Engineering, 1990-3, King’s College, London.” John smiles. “I have a copy of your university application form. Photo, your parents’ address in Kiev, your Ukrainian identity number, the lot. Like I said, in half an hour Mr Bilyk gets the blame. But if you’re still around, it’ll be Andriy Danyluk. You decide.”

“And will poor Mr Bilyk get the blame for the murder as well?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

John prepares to go.

“Call yourself a taxi,” he says. “And make it snappy. As long as you disappear now, the hunt for you goes cold.”

“And Freddy?”

John blows out his cheeks. “He gets charged with conspiracy. Fifty grand? That’s all they’ll prove.”

The Ukrainian frowns.

“But you said yourself, the notes are different. There’s no connection back to our operation.”

Not yet, there isn’t.

“Main thing,” John says, ignoring him, “is that the right person goes down for killing the girl.”

The Ukrainian thinks for a second, then nods. The deal is accepted, the best outcome for everyone.

But John hasn’t finished.

Ok, here we go…

“Shall I let Lanny know, or will you?”

“What the f…”

The blood rises in the Ukrainian’s face. His composure is gone, and John instinctively takes another step back as he reaches for his phone.

“Shall I ring Lanny, tell him you’re about to disappear?”

Bilyk stares at the phone, anger and incomprehension doing battle for domination of his face.

“How,” John says, as arrogantly as he can manage, “did you know to work the angle with Freddy? How did you know to use the
Eurolodge
? Why even choose Leeds? Because you’ve had help from Lanny Bride. Clever, using the Ray family name the way you did. But it’s pure Lanny Bride, a move like that, he never misses a trick. But he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known about the notes in the car. You see, they were my dad’s…”

Dropping Tony Ray’s name into it? Can’t hurt.

“…Lanny and my dad go back a long way. There’s a lot of respect there, a lot of history. I don’t think Lanny’s gonna be standing shoulder to shoulder with you on this one, Mr Bilyk, not when he finds out that you’ve fucked Tony Ray up the arse.

“Lanny’s in town, by the way. But you know that, cos you’ve already spoken to him. Next time you do, make sure it’s to say goodbye. And be sure to tell him whose money was in the boot of that car. Tony Ray’s. You’ll remember the name, I think.”

He’s still holding the phone up.

“Don’t get me wrong, Andriy. If you ever come back here there’s a warm welcome for you. Who knows, perhaps we can do business. But for the moment you very much need to disappear.”

“Jesus Christ,” the Ukrainian says. “I thought you were the chicken-shit accountant of the family. The boring one.”

“Yeah, well I just turned into a bird of prey.”

As the Ukrainian stomps off across the park, John looks down at the phone in his hand. The next call changes everything. It’ll all play itself out now, one way or another. He can’t prove who killed Donna, not yet. But there’s evidence, and he reckons he knows where to find it. First, though, he’s got to send the police the wrong way.

He dials Millgarth, asks for DI Steven Baron.

B
aron isn’t comfortable with this. But the Super is: get him in and hear what he has to say.

Then arrest him
, Baron tells himself as he watches the incident room fill up. Fifty grand’s worth of fake notes in the boot, and he knows nothing about it?
Bollocks. Arrest the lying bastard. If he doesn’t shop himself first.

“Right,” he says. “John Ray has asked to speak to us. He’s coming alone, no solicitor. Won’t say what it’s about. It’ll be me and the Super. Plus Matt here…”

Steele prickles with satisfaction, just about managing not to show it.

“Matt, you’ve been in contact with him. You know his style.”

“Aye, leaves a shiny trail behind him.”

“Well some people like him. And I’ll bet a jury would. He’s… I dunno, he’s just one of those blokes people seem to like. You can see it a mile off.”

“Drives a Porsche, doesn’t he?” someone from evidence management asks, getting his facts wrong.

“Currently stepping out with the adorable DC Danson…” says a grey-faced DS who’s been staring at CCTV footage for thirty-five of the past fifty hours.

A flurry of sordid comments follow, the atmosphere turning jovial and unproductive, the result of too much overtime and not enough sleep.

Baron holds up a hand, waits for quiet.

“Okay, this is what we’ve got. John Ray, born into crime but plays it straight. Decent career, all very legitimate. When his brother gets killed he comes home, takes over the family firm, turns
that
legit. Selling cars, it makes you a bloody hero, if your dad’s a crook, that is.”

There’s a ring of bitterness in Baron’s words. An embarrassed silence falls on the room. This doesn’t sound like the DI.

Baron senses the unease, continues.

“It’s bullshit. Gotta be. Brought up with liars and thieves. The boot was full of fake notes. His
dad’s
car, technically. But his dad’s has a stroke, can’t speak. This has to be John’s deal. And John’s money.”

He looks around the room. The suggestions start to come. He fields questions, assesses ideas, forms ad hoc theories. They all know that Baron failed to solve the Joe Ray murder. Some would say it makes him a poor choice to lead this investigation. But nobody’s asking them. So they come up with ideas about John Ray. Within minutes everybody in the room is gunning for John Ray. Donna Macken? Nobody’s mentioned her.

Baron takes a call.

“There’ll be someone down for him in five,” he says, snaps it shut.

“Right, he’s here. Matt, last thoughts?”

Steele folds his arms, stares at his shoes.

“Come on,” Baron says, “we haven’t got all…”

“The Porsche. It doesn’t add up.”

“He’s right,” somebody else says, to murmurs of agreement.

“Go on,” Baron tells Steele.

“There’s three GT3s for sale in Yorkshire. Doesn’t ring any of ’em. Takes the train to Peterborough, two hundred miles there and back and fifteen mile round trip in a taxi when he gets there. Looks at the motor for ten seconds and doesn’t buy it. Comes straight home, fifty thousand quid in his pocket, goes to a prize gala at the
Metropole
with Den, spends all night with her. Next thing we know there’s a dead girl and fifty grand’s worth of snide notes in his car, and he’s got one of
us
for an alibi.”

Steele looks around the room, eyes wide, head shaking slowly.

“If that’s not dodgy, you can all fuck me til I squeal for mi mammy.”

“Nicely put,” Baron says as he stands. “Come on, let’s go. Oh, and Matt? Feel free to give him a bit of a workout up there.”