Fatal Legacy (3 page)

‘I’m not sure going on the board would be appropriate, James. I’m your auditor; it would cause raised eyebrows.’

‘Fair enough. How about you then, Jeremy?’

The solicitor flushed and took a long swallow from his crystal glass.

‘I, er, well … It’s a very close connection, and I am Wainwright’s legal adviser …’

‘I see. No takers, then.’ James hadn’t expected either of them to want to be so closely associated with the firm, but he had tested them anyway. That was the problem with the second generation: they were poor copies of their fathers and couldn’t be relied upon in a crisis. Not that this was a crisis, yet. They were watching him as a mouse watches a snake, waiting for the strike that might not come but wouldn’t miss if it did. He let them wait and sipped slowly on his drink as he considered his options. After a long pause, during which the tension in the room had turned Doggett’s baby face puce, he replaced his empty glass on the side table and stood up to leave.

‘We’ll do nothing for the moment; let’s see how he settles in. Fred, make sure you stay close to him, and Jeremy, you keep in touch with his delightful wife. That shouldn’t be too difficult, even for you!’

Without waiting for their replies, he turned and left them to their evening, which he knew would now be filled equally with a dread of ghosts from the past and a fear of the shadows cast by an uncertain future.

Graham pulled out an upholstered gilt chair and Julia backed into it graciously. Colin settled Jenny into a matching seat on the opposite side of the dining table and then sat down heavily in his own and raised his glass to drain his strongly ginned martini.

The restaurant was full, but the high level of background chatter, which guaranteed them privacy for their conversation, compensated for the long wait to be served.

Graham ordered champagne and smiled away his aunt’s disapproval.

‘In honour of Dad. He would have approved, and we need to do something for the poor old bugger after that memorial service.’

‘It was very …’ Julia searched for a word, ‘understated. It took them a month to arrange it after all. They could have handled it better.’

‘Oh, the service itself was all right. I think Alexander was right to keep it low key. After all, the funeral was only three weeks ago. It was the awful funeral meats afterwards that got to me. Sparkling wine, for heaven’s sake, and ham sandwiches!’

‘Well, that would have been Sally, she’s incredibly mean with money.’ Julia’s tone said it all.

‘You really don’t like her, do you, Aunt?’

‘She’s awful, a common little tart with ideas above her station.’

‘Really, darling, there’s no need to be so blunt.’ Colin glanced at Jenny, hoping that she hadn’t taken offence. She had dressed in black out of respect for Graham’s father, but there was very little of it and an awful lot of Jenny on display. She appeared
indifferent to Julia’s remarks. Julia ignored her husband and pulled Graham closer so that she could speak more privately.

‘I’m convinced that she … How can I put it politely?’ Julia paused, clearly uncomfortable at what she had to say. ‘Well, bluntly, Graham, I think she seduced your father into changing his will.’

‘Interesting. And a number of his friends today were insistent that it couldn’t have been suicide.’

‘Well, it was hardly an accident!’

‘Exactly.’

Unease about the coroner’s verdict had been rife among Alan Wainwright’s acquaintances, but initially they had found no answering concerns among his family, who had all been too eager to learn of their inheritance to allow room for doubt into their minds. But, with the will read and disappointments received, they were all too ready to share the concerns that remained over Alan’s inexplicable suicide.

Julia gave Graham an appraising look, then leant even closer to whisper in his ear. ‘If it wasn’t suicide, then …?’ She stopped quickly, realising that Graham had been one of the major beneficiaries of his father’s death. He sensed her embarrassment and changed the subject.

‘What do you know about Sally, Aunt?’

‘What do any of us know? Very little. She turned up here in Harlden less than six months ago and married Alexander in January. There were no relatives or friends from her side at the wedding, and she insisted on a register office ceremony. Then, just over a month later, your father died. Are you suggesting …?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything. I just think it’s been very convenient, that’s all.’ Graham paused, and then continued with a look of calculation on his face. ‘After the will was read, I hired a private investigator to dig into her background. He’s not from around here, I found him in London. So far he’s been a waste of money, but I’ve retained him for another week or so. One thing he is sure about, though: she changed her name or her date of birth at some stage. The maiden name on her marriage certificate is Price, but there’s no record of a Sally Price being born on the date she gave as her date of birth.’

‘Well, let me know what you find out.’ Julia smiled
unpleasantly
. ‘I’m very interested. It is unbelievable that your father could have left Alexander half his estate; he could hardly bear to look at him some days.’

Graham and Jenny had taken a room in the best hotel in town. It was only rated three stars and Graham was having some difficulty adjusting to the lack of five-star services. He was sitting up in bed when Jenny emerged from the shower.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

Graham quickly scooped up a bundle of papers and
photographs
and put them in an envelope. He passed her a small handful of press cuttings.

‘Julia gave these to me. There’s one here of the music festival where Alexander and Sally met – see, there’s a photograph of her. It says underneath that she’s a local girl, but no one I’ve spoken to remembers her. Isn’t that odd?’

‘Not really, it’s a big town.’ She slid beneath the bedclothes and put her arms around his lean waist. His skin smelt of lemons, whisky and cigars. It was uniquely his smell and she loved it. ‘It’s gone midnight,’ she murmured.

‘Uh-huh.’ He lifted the brown envelope off the bed.

‘What’s that?’

‘Surveillance photographs. They’ve just been delivered by my private detective. I asked him to follow Sally for a few days, and this arrived this evening, but there’s nothing interesting yet.’

‘You’ve inherited over fifteen million pounds. Why not let it go? You don’t need the extra money.’

‘I don’t care about the money. It’s far more than that. After listening to his friends today, I don’t believe my father
committed
suicide. Somebody killed him, Jenny, and I think Sally could have had something to do with it. I certainly believe she tricked my father somehow, and I’m going to prove it.’

Alexander opened a bottle of Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon and passed a glass to Sally as she huddled in front of a tiny electric fire in their sitting room. It was threatening to snow again, but she still insisted on keeping the central heating
thermostat to a level just sufficient to stop the pipes from freezing. He had only been married to her for two months after a whirlwind courtship, and there was so much about her that still baffled him.

‘I thought the memorial service went well, didn’t you, Sal?’

‘It was fine. I’m just glad it’s over at last. Some of them didn’t leave until nearly seven o’clock. God knows what extras that hotel are going to charge us.’

‘Not much. They need whatever business they can get right now. I just hired the room from them, plus the staff, and Mrs Willett did the rest, although she said she thought you’d been a bit tight with the budget you gave her.’

‘Did she indeed! Well, you’ve got to remember that we’re talking about
your
food and wine now, Alexander – and
she’s
got to remember that she’s
our
housekeeper! I’m not sure that Mrs Willett is going to work out.’

Alexander noticed the two pink spots of colour that glowed on Sally’s cheeks and recognised them for the warning sign he had become accustomed to. She’d had a difficult time after the service, with first one relative, then another snubbing her deliberately, and he could see that she was spoiling for a fight. Best to change the subject.

‘I saw you talking to George Ward after the service. I tried to join you but I seemed to be surrounded constantly by other guests. He’s our chairman – what do you think of him?’

‘Oh, all right, rather dull.’

‘He didn’t look dull; in fact, I thought he seemed really worked up about something. What did he say?’

‘He was going on about your uncle’s death, called it a tragedy, untimely, the usual. I thought he was a very nervous type, not chairmanship material at all.’

Sally picked up their empty dessert dishes and took them into their tiny freezing-cold kitchen. The treacle sponge had been too heavy for Alexander, but he’d known better than to leave it, as Sally wouldn’t stand for that. Waste of any kind was an appalling extravagance to her. He would never be able to fault her on thriftiness. He had already forgotten how quaint he had thought her, and their household management was now one of simple, if meticulous, routine. He was struck suddenly by
the magnitude of the change to their personal lives if they moved to Wainwright Hall. Worried that she wouldn’t be able to cope, he caught her hand as she sat down at the table again.

‘Sal, I don’t want you worried by our move to the Hall. Do you need help with it?’

Sally looked at him strangely, and for a disturbing moment he thought she was going to laugh at him, but then she simply smiled and patted his hand where it rested still in hers.

‘That’s very sweet of you, darling, but I think I’ll cope.’

Detective Chief Inspector Fenwick settled back into a
moderately
comfortable chair and focused his full attention on the conference platform. It had been Assistant Chief Constable Harper-Brown’s idea that he should attend this seminar. The division’s training and development record was so appalling that any inexpensive opportunity to improve the statistics was latched on to immediately.

The room was almost full, a testament to the popularity of the subject even in these overworked, budget-constrained times. Two speakers stepped on to the platform and the lights dimmed. A slide flashed up on the screen.
Forensic Accountancy
, and underneath it, in smaller letters,
Cooperation Initiative
. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales had joined together with representatives of the banking and
insurance
industries to fund a series of lectures for police forces across the country. Their goal, apart from playing the part of good corporate citizens and thus hoping to soften any further tightening of the already tough regulations, was to improve their ability to work with the police to reduce fraud and the laundering of criminal money through legitimate business enterprises.

In a dry but authoritative voice, the first speaker explained briefly what money-laundering was: how criminals would set up a series of complex businesses through which they could pass the proceeds of criminal activity. Simply put, the ‘dirty money’ went in at one end – say the exchange of currency at a bureau de change – and came out clean at the other as untraceable cash or balances in legitimate bank accounts. Most of the dirty money was from drugs or smuggling, but the system
wasn’t choosy and proceeds from any criminal activity could be processed.

Governments, legislators and law enforcement bodies across the world had recognised in the 1980s that preventing a criminal from benefiting from a crime would reduce crime itself, either by making the risks of using the money unattractive or by preventing the financing of bigger and more rewarding criminal activities. Wide-ranging laws and regulations had been
introduced
, some of which made it the responsibility of the banks and other financial institutions to ensure that the money they accepted was legitimate. Penalties for failing to do so were fierce, for the company and even for individual employees, who could be prosecuted for any personal mistakes or
oversights
. The speaker explained that bank clerks themselves could end up with a fine, a criminal record and even a prison sentence if they accepted suspicious money or helped to process it in any way. But the better the controls that were put in place, the more clever the criminals had become and the more difficult it was proving to expose their schemes. Fenwick took detailed notes and listened with interest to the unfamiliar technical, legal and accounting terms.

The second speaker described new European-wide legislation that he and others were trying to have introduced, but his explanation was so complex that several of his audience nodded off to sleep. During the fifteen-minute break before the next session, Fenwick poured himself an extra-large cup of black coffee and nibbled on a shortbread biscuit in a desperate attempt to raise his blood-sugar level and avoid the embarrassment of falling asleep when the lights dimmed again.

‘Hello, Andrew! How are you?’ a deep Welsh voice boomed out behind him.

‘Davey! Good, thanks. Great to see you. Good Lord, it must be, what – three years now?’

‘And the rest. We were at that damned refresher course out in the sticks for over a month. That was longer ago than I’d care to be reminded of.’

Davey Morgan was a powerful, rugby-playing man who had gone through the selection process to be made a chief inspector (in the days when the rank still existed) alongside Fenwick.
They’d discovered to their mutual surprise a natural rapport and a shared dry sense of humour. Morgan was one of the few people with whom Fenwick felt he could relax. They’d always meant to keep in touch, but that was before Monique’s illness and Davey’s move away from the south.

‘Where are you now?’ Fenwick asked.

‘Still Liverpool. It’s a tough patch but the wife and kids live out on the Wirral and they love it. And you?’

‘Harlden, West Sussex.’ He couldn’t bring himself to discuss his family, and Davey sensed his reticence.

‘West Sussex. That rings a bell …’ He took a thirsty gulp of coffee, the porcelain cup fragile in his giant hands. ‘I know! Isn’t that where Harper-Brown ended up, as ACC?’

‘Yup. You know him?’

‘Know him! By God, don’t I just. Old Pencil-Pecker was my super for three bloody years. Boy oh boy, I don’t envy you.’

Fenwick laughed. ‘So it’s not just me then? I thought the man had singled me out for his disapproval.’

‘Lord, no. He’s a nightmare, although I can see that you’d not be his type.’ Davey joined in the laughter. ‘I bet your paperwork’s doubled.’

Fenwick shook his head grimly. ‘Well, it
should
have done, but I can never seem to keep on top of it.’

That, he thought, was just one of the many problems he had in his relationship with Harper-Brown. It was as if they defined the fundamental requirements for being a police officer from different ends of the spectrum. Their only point of overlap was the importance of solving crime: Fenwick because of a driven search for justice in an unfair world, and the ACC for the statistical and measured satisfaction of a job well done, reflected in an improved ranking in performance league tables. This one common sense of purpose provided a tenuous link from which they both strove to create a credible working relationship at least sufficient to allow them to co-exist within the West Sussex Constabulary.

In the second half of the seminar, Fenwick was lectured on the legal protections that existed to prevent suspected fraudsters and money-launderers from incriminating themselves. He made very few notes and listened in growing disgust until the final
talk about cross-force and international cooperation restored some of his faith in the system. The speaker, Commander Miles Cator, had been seconded from the Metropolitan Police to head a high-profile task force that coordinated Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise, intelligence services and police authorities in the UK, in cooperation with similar units in five other countries. He described how they had been working for three years to uncover a multimillion-dollar money-laundering operation that spanned three continents and ten countries, in an investigation that had employed over one hundred people. It had led to the arrest of fifteen people, spread across the US, UK and Monaco, who were still awaiting trial in custody.

Fenwick concentrated, barely blinking, on Cator’s closing words:

‘… So, if there is one message I would like to leave you with, one lesson from this case which is still at least a year away from trial, after which I’ll be able to talk more freely about our methods, it is
never
underestimate the scale and complexity of the arrangements these gangs put in place. Crime, whether it’s smuggling drugs or illegal immigrants, prostitution or plain old grand larceny, is
big
– and I mean
big
business. In fact, it is one of the most significant and universal sources of income there is in the world.

‘Big businesses can buy the best legal advice, computer systems and accounting services they need in order to thrive. We have a world within a world today. The tentacles of organised crime, and the money-laundering arrangements needed to allow it to survive, spread everywhere in industry, our leading professions and even potentially into some governments.

‘The people behind this are wealthy, organised, inventive and clever; ruthless and utterly without remorse. And it is only by combining the best of our talents that we will ever be able to compete with them and win. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.’

Cator received the longest round of applause, and Fenwick was surprised by Davey’s scepticism as they discussed the morning over a lunchtime pint.

‘So you didn’t rate what Cator said?’

Morgan shook his head. ‘All conspiracy tosh if you ask me.
Course crime is big business, everyone knows that, but most of it’s ill planned and opportunistic. I’ve not met any of his “master criminals” in my life, have you?’

‘Perhaps that’s because they’re the ones we never catch. You know as well as I do that if you add up the amount of money we know circulates from drugs alone, we only ever intercept a fraction of it. Where does the rest go?’

‘Don’t know, but what’s your division’s detection rate?’

Fenwick knew instantly: ‘Twenty-two point three per cent last year.’

‘Not bad! But my point is that the undetected money is accounted for by the seventy to eighty per cent of unsolved crimes. Where I come from, the great news is that the murder rate’s up and it’s mostly the daft buggers killing each other off! I bet more of them have been scared or injured out of the business than have ever been captured by any grand
Inter-bloody
-pol scheme.’

Fenwick couldn’t help but laugh at Morgan’s totally
politically
incorrect view on life – no wonder he and Harper-Brown had never seen eye to eye – but that didn’t mean he agreed.

‘That’s only one side of the story, Davey. I think Cator’s more right than wrong. There is another aspect to this business. It’s just that those involved are so smart we rarely come across them.’

His remarks were greeted with another great belly laugh. ‘That’s because there’s a little bit too much of the intellectual in you, boyo. You’d love to get your teeth into an arch-criminal – a real meaty challenge to whet your appetite. Me, I’m more of a realist. Come on, I’ll buy you another.’

‘No, can’t, I’m afraid. I’ve got to get back.’

‘You’re going back into work again today? Forget what I said; it’s just plain daft, it is, that you are.’

‘No choice. H-B’s called a meeting to review resourcing, case allocations, secondments, the lot, across the whole division. If I’m not there I’ll find at least half my teams reassigned tomorrow morning.’

‘Well, he’s not changed. Go and fight the good fight then, and good luck to you.’

The meeting dragged on. They were expecting a difficult Easter, and the Assistant Chief Constable was looking for even more of his force to be deployed along the south coast to prevent any trouble. Organised protest groups were known to be planning riots and he didn’t want a conflagration on
his
patch.

By seven o’clock Harlden had lost ten of its complement to secondments along the coast, manpower neither uniform nor CID could afford to lose, as they were already four under establishment as it was. Fenwick groaned inwardly as he thought of the extra work, standbys and long shifts that Easter would bring, just as the school holidays were starting.

Harper-Brown closed the meeting with a sharp reminder of the need to maintain efficiency. ‘Some forces are achieving detection rates of close to thirty per cent,
regularly
, and rates of, say twenty-two point three are, frankly, looking
anachronistic
.’

Fenwick was keen to escape now that the meeting was over. The last thing he wanted was to hear Harper-Brown’s infamous ‘Ah, one more thing …’ directed towards him that evening. He’d made it as far as the top of the stairs before he heard the call.

‘Ah, Chief Inspector, just one more thing. Yes, you, yes, Fenwick. My office, if you please.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Fenwick hid his sigh of exasperation under a cough and turned reluctantly to follow the ACC. His boss from Harlden, Superintendent Quinlan, was standing close by.

‘Problem?’ Fenwick asked in a low voice as he passed him.

Quinlan shrugged and shook his head. ‘None that I know of.’

When they reached the ACC’s office, Harper-Brown left the door open, so it couldn’t be an unforeseen disaster after all.

‘How was the conference today?’

‘Conference? Oh, this morning. It was good, really good. One speaker, Commander Miles Cator, was exceptionally strong.’

Harper-Brown’s normal poker face turned dark at this unexpected praise before resetting into an expression of polite enquiry.

‘Ah, Cator was there, was he? What d’you make of him?’

‘Impressive, sir, from what I could tell. Young, of course, but
bright, and seemed a good policeman.’

Harper-Brown busied himself with papers on his desk for a moment, avoiding Fenwick’s eye.

‘So you didn’t find him, how shall I put it, a bit of a showman? You know, all smoke and mirrors?’

‘Not at all, sir. What he could reveal of his methods seemed very sound and his results speak for themselves. Oh, I’m sure he’s a bit of a diplomat, if that’s what you mean, dealing with all those other authorities, and of course he’s very young for his rank.’

The ACC was silent for a moment, and Fenwick gained a very clear impression that he’d upset him in some way.

‘Very well,’ said Harper-Brown eventually. ‘I want you to produce a summary of all the sessions and circulate it within the constabulary. No point in a little learning not being shared, and money-laundering is a very hot topic. And Fenwick, make sure that it’s a balanced paper – all the sessions, please.’

Fenwick had six open cases that he was working on, and he’d already lost a day to the seminar. Now he was going to have to spend further hours behind his desk producing this paper.

‘Oh, and one other thing, Fenwick. I have a meeting with the Chief Constable and the Police Authority tomorrow afternoon and they’ve asked for a report on our complaints procedure. I believe that in Sergeant Warner’s absence on secondment, you’re the acting officer in charge of that at Harlden. I have all the other divisions’ reports except yours and I’ll need it for first thing tomorrow morning.’

Fenwick stared at him in disbelief.

‘I don’t think the Superintendent or I were aware that you needed a report, sir, otherwise I’m sure it would have been with you.’ Even as he said it, Fenwick knew he shouldn’t argue.

The ACC’s thin mouth almost disappeared.