The Murder Exchange (12 page)

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the computer. It wasn't strictly legal any more for
someone with his record to be employed as a doorman,
unless he'd somehow convinced the council
that he was a reformed character, which I doubted.
But I knew it happened, and for the moment it
wasn't worth taking the matter up with Warren
Case.

A set of greasy steps led down to McBride's
abode. The front door was shabby, the once-white
paint peeling off in strips to reveal dull-coloured
wood beneath, while an ancient-looking hanging
basket containing nothing but dry earth and a
cluster of weeds hung limply from one of the outside
walls. There was a small dirty window to the
light of the door. I wondered briefly whether it had
ever been cleaned. It didn't look like it.
Straightening my tie, I peered through it and immediately
my spirits lifted. Eureka. Just what we
needed.

Within a Western country's somewhat limited
means of coercion, there's no surer way of getting
someone to talk than to give them the alternative of
criminal charges, and it looked like Craig McBride
was indulging in an activity that left him very
much exposed to the latter. Even through the
stains on the window, I could clearly make him out
sitting on a sofa in his front room behind a coffee
table on which a plate piled with white powder was
sat. Next to the plate was a large tub of baking soda,
and next to that were small transparent plastic
wraps, each containing more of the powder.
Sherlock that I was, I hazarded a guess that the
contents of each one weighed pretty much exactly a

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gram. McBride himself, dressed only in a pair of 5
shorts, was leaning forward, head down, fiddling w
with what looked like a small electronic weighing It
machine. As if confirmation of what he was doing If
was needed. Criminal mastermind young Craig ^
was not. He might as well have put up a sign on the ||
road saying 'Drugs this way7, such was his total fl
and utter recklessness. Never underestimate the % stupidity of criminals. Sometimes it's the only thing
that keeps a lot of us going. *

I turned to Benin, put a finger to my lips, and
motioned for him to have a look. Benin peered in,
then stepped back, smiling. 'It seems a shame to
disturb him,' he whispered. 'He looks so busy. Do
you think it's worth knocking on the window?'

I shook my head. 'No, he might make a dash for
it, or put up some resistance. Let's spring it on him Jj^ once we're inside.' I stepped forward and knocked i
hard on the door. J|

There was no immediate answer, which was to be
expected. He would now be desperately trying to
hide the stuff before someone spotted him through
the window. I gave him a few seconds, then
knocked again. This time, I motioned for Benin to
take a look through the window, knowing that we
had to play this right. I wanted McBride to see
Benin but not me (I looked too much like a copper),
but I also wanted him to see him after he'd got rid
of the stuff. That way he'd probably open the door.

As it turned out, we timed it perfectly. I stood
back and watched while Benin gave him a friendly
wave and a smile through the window, like a particularly
enthusiastic door-to-door salesman, before

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receiving a muffled 'Who the fuck are you?' in
return. Benin just kept smiling and moved away
from the window.
By the time the front door opened a few seconds
later and McBride's head appeared round it,
already mouthing abuse, we'd removed our
warrant cards and were lifting them for him to see.
His eyes widened momentarily and I spoke quickly
upfore he thought about making a dash for it. 'Mr
McBride? We're here to ask you a few questions
regarding the murder of Shaun Matthews.'

He looked nervous, which was to be expected.
'Who?'

'Shaun Matthews. I believe you worked with him
on a number of occasions on the door of the Arcadia
..;6htclub/

'Oh yeah, yeah, Shaun. That's right.'

'Can we come in?' I said, pushing the door open
and stepping confidently over the threshold like I
owned the place.

McBride tried to stand his ground, but without a
great deal of success. 'Look, it's not a good time
right now.'

'It won't take more than a few minutes,' said
Berrin, pushing his way in behind me.

'Oi, you can't come barging in like this. Don't
you need a warrant?'

I smiled and looked him directly in the eye, an
easy feat since we were only inches apart. 'Why?
Have you got something to hide, Mr McBride?'

'No, course not.'

'So what's the problem?'

'I'm just going out. Can't you come back later?'

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But he spoke this last sentence with defeat on hisi
breath, and I knew we had him.

'We'll be very unhappy if we have to come back
later, Mr McBride,' I said, 'and we'll be asking ourselves
why you wouldn't let us in, and that might
mean we have to investigate you further.'

'All right, all right, you win.' He moved away
from the door and led us through the cramped hallway
and into the kitchen, well away from the room *
where he'd been dividing the drugs.

The kitchen was a mess with a big pile of empty
plates and cups in the sink. The tops were dirty and
there was a vague smell of grease in the stale air. He
leant back against one of the tops while we stood in
the middle of the floor facing him. 'Ask away/ he
said, seemingly a little more confident now.
Probably thinking what he was going to tell his
friends about this near miss and how stupid the
coppers were for not having a clue what he'd been
up to when they arrived. I decided to put a pin in
his balloon and establish control immediately.

'We'll level with you, Mr McBride. This is a
murder investigation, so it's information relating to
the murder that we're interested in, nothing else.
The fact that you've got a load of white powder
hidden somewhere in your sitting room, and that
that white powder's very likely a Class A substance,
and that possession of such powder with
intent to supply is an offence which always ends in
a substantial custodial sentence, particularly for
someone who already has a lengthy criminal
record' - the blood was draining from McBride's
face and his body had tensed - 'is not our primary

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concern. However, if you don't answer our
questions truthfully, then we may suddenly
become very interested in that white powder and
what it represents. Do we make ourselves clear?'

McBride looked like he was weighing his
options. The tension in his muscles did not bode
well. Even the tattoos on his arms were rippling.

'Now, you could try and make a break for it.
You're a big man, you might even make it. But then
we'll have the drugs and we'll put out a warrant for
your arrest, and you'll get caught, and then you're
in a position one hell of a lot worse than if you
simply stay here and answer our questions. Do
von understand what I'm saying?'

How do I know you won't charge me anyway,
whatever I say?'

I've just told you why. Now let's do this interview
somewhere a bit more comfortable. Your
drugs den'll do.' McBride started to say something
but I wasn't listening. I turned and walked back
towards the front room, with Benin in tow.

We both sat down on the sofa and motioned for
McBride to sit on a chair opposite. He did as he was
told, his expression that of a man gutted to have
been caught out in such a stupid way.

'All right,' I said. 'How well did you know Shaun
Matthews?'

He didn't answer us for a couple of moments as
he continued to weigh his options. I looked
casually down over the side of the sofa to where the
tin of gear, the individual wraps, the baking soda
and the scales had been hastily stashed. It seemed
to do the trick. 'OK, I suppose.'

Ill
Berrin consulted his trusty notebook. 'You
worked the door at the Arcadia on sixteen separate
occasions in the three months prior to Mr
Matthews's death. I expect it's fair to say that he
was there on most of those occasions, as he was the
chief doorman.'

'Yeah, I knew him quite well. He was all right.
Fancied himself a bit, but all right.'

'He was the main dealer in the place, wasn't he?'
I said.

'Look, I don't want any of this getting back to
me

Once again, I looked over the side of the sofa at
the incriminating evidence. 'I don't really think
you've got a lot of choice, Mr McBride. Not
unless you don't mind spending the next couple of
years behind bars, wondering why you're the only
person left who still believes in that outdated
concept of honour among thieves.'

'OK, OK, yeah. He was the main dealer in the
place. He ran it all on the floor.'

'How did it work?' asked Berrin.

'Basically, all the doormen were dealers. Not big
time, mind. But we were allowed to supply.'

'By whom?'

'The management.'

'Roy Fowler, yeah?'

'Yeah, him.'

'Carry on,' I told him.

'We had the monopoly on the place. If anyone
else was caught dealing in there, they got a serious
kicking. What happened was that it was common
knowledge among all the punters that the doormen

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were the people to go to when you wanted something.
You couldn't just keep going up to the
entrance and asking for stuff, so if someone wanted
to buy something they asked the doormen inside
the building, you know, who were patrolling
the dance floor and that. They didn't usually carry
anything on them, just in case it was undercover
coppers, but if they were happy with the buyer,
they'd give their order to Fowler or Matthews, or
one of the other staff, and they'd go off and get the
gear. The doorman doing the selling would pocket
the cash and then, at the end of the night, everything
would get divvied up. Fowler got eighty per
cent of everything you sold, that was the going rate, you got the rest.'

'And was business good?' asked Berrin.
McBride nodded. 'Not bad.'
'How much would you make in a night?'
'A couple of hundred on a good one.'
Berrin whistled through his lips. That's a lot of
money, especially for the bloke taking the eighty
per cent.'

'Did all the doormen get an opportunity to make
that much money?'

'Yeah, we took it in turns to walk the club.'
I thought about this for a moment. If McBride
was to be believed the club was turning over some
serious drugs cash every night. I did the sums in
my head. It was more than enough to kill for.
The Holtzes own the Arcadia, don't they?'
McBride's face experienced a passing shadow of
fear. Quick, but noticeable. 'It's Roy Fowler, as far
as I know.'

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'Who owns Elite A?'

'Warren Case.'

I sighed. 'You're not really helping us very much,
Mr McBride. I know that it's Warren Case's name
on the company's certificate of incorporation, but I
want to know who really owns it. Who takes the
profits.'

'I honestly don't know. I just work for them.'

Once again, my eyes drifted towards the drugs.
'What is this stuff? Speed or coke?'

'It's speed.'

'Looks like a fair amount of it.'

'Drugs Squad'll be interested,' mused Benin.

'Very.'

McBride was sweating. It might have been a hot
day but his nerves were unmistakable. He knew he
had to talk but the prospect was scaring him.
'Listen, I've told you the truth. I don't know who
owns it. A couple of times this geezer would turn
up at Elite A and come in and talk to Case, and once
I saw him leaving with this big holdall. I heard him
say something to Case, you know just joking, saying
that he must have done well that week.'

'So it's fair to assume that the holdall contained
money?' McBride nodded. 'But I'm a bit confused
here. You said Fowler made eighty per cent of the
takings and the individual doormen made the other
twenty per cent. So where did all these holdalls of
cash at Elite come from?'

'From what I've been told, Fowler took the
money and checked it, but he didn't keep it all.
Most of it went back to Elite.'

'Which means that Elite and Arcadia were very

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closely linked, wouldn't you say?' McBride gave a
very reluctant nod. This man you saw at Elite's
offices, who was he?'

'Jack Meniweather.'

'Well, well, well.'

Jack Merriweather. Better known, at least behind
his back, as Jackie Slap, on account of his shiny
Mekon-style bald pate, itself the result of a sudden
feenage attack of alopecia. The story went that at
the age of sixteen young Jackie had been forced to
share a cell in a detention centre with a powerfully
built homosexual named Lennie, and such had
been the stress of having to fend off Lennie's
unwanted advances that he'd lost all his hair. At the
time it had made the news, because there was a
„! of controversy over the 'short sharp shock'
method of teenage incarceration. One wag had
suggested renaming it the 'short sharp slap', and
for Jackie at least the name had stuck.

Nobody took the piss out of Jack Merriweather
any more though. Not now he was a part of Stefan
Holtz's crime organization. It also answered at least
one question about who really ran things at
Arcadia. Merriweather worked directly for Neil
Vamen, who was one of Holtz's closest associates,
in many ways his eyes and ears in the outside
world now that the big boss had become something
of a recluse. I'd met Vamen once a few months
earlier when we'd interviewed him after his name
had come up in connection with a box of twelve
Kalashnikov rifles that had been discovered at
Gatwick Airport. A short, barrel-bodied individual
with thinning hair and striking turquoise eyes, he

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was good-looking in a thuggish sort of way. And
very polite, too, I remember that. Someone in CID
had once said that Neil Vamen put the manners
back into murder, and, I had to admit, there was
definitely something charismatic about him. But,
like all these blokes, you had this feeling that if you
crossed him you'd pay dearly for it, and he'd been
linked to more than one murder, including that of a
young female accountant who knew a little too
much (nothing ever proved, of course, he was far
too canny for that), which to me sort of took a bit of
the gloss off the image of Raffles, the gentleman
gangster. It fitted with his way of doing things that
he used Merriweather to collect the money. The
truly successful criminals never get their hands
dirty.