The darkness within, p.14
The Darkness Within, page 14
Lomax rubbed a hand over the part of his face that wasn’t bandaged, and breathed out through his nose. ‘I knew David from way back. I helped him out with some research for a book he was planning to write. He let me stay with him when I was down on my luck. My marriage had ended, my missus chucked me out and I had nowhere to go.’ He closed his eyes again as he remembered the events. ‘David was a nice man. Not the kind of person I was used to associating with. He was cultured. He knew about wine and books and art and stuff. He used to try and teach me about that sort of thing. Before I lived with David, I’d never even read a book.’ He opened his eyes and gave a hollow laugh. ‘But David had another side to him too, especially when he’d been drinking. He wasn’t just a connoisseur of wine, he used it to blank out his dark thoughts. And those thoughts visited him often. In the end it was obvious he was struggling to cope with life. I came back from the pub one evening and there was a note on the kitchen table saying he couldn’t go on any more and I wasn’t to feel sorry for him. And that was that. I never saw him again.’
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked across at Denning. ‘That’s the honest truth. Whatever he did, wherever he did it, his body never pitched up.’ He touched his face again and winced slightly. ‘I reckon he ran into the sea and then disappeared, like that bloke back in the seventies.’
‘John Stonehouse?’ Denning offered, referring to the British politician who, in 1974, had famously faked his own death by drowning.
‘Reggie Perrin,’ Lomax said. ‘I always thought he’d done a Reggie Perrin.’
It was Denning’s turn to roll his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you contact the police? If you suspected he’d come to harm, you had a duty to let someone know. His family, for instance, were concerned about him.’
‘He only had a sister, and he hated her. This seemed like the obvious answer. He was talking about leaving his job, so that was boxed off. I used to run errands for him, so I knew the PINs for his bank cards. He’d paid off the mortgage on that house. He hardly had any friends to speak of and he never spoke to any of the neighbours. I’d totally fucked my life up. I was up to my arse in debt, my ex-wife was after me for more money. And there were some people I was keen to avoid – let’s call them former associates. For the first time in my life something good had come my way. I wasn’t going to let it pass.’
‘Except you lied. You pretended to be someone else. You fraudulently claimed his pension. You’re squatting in a house that isn’t yours. Not to mention the small matter of failing to report a suspected fatality.’
Lomax stared at the ceiling. After a moment, he closed his eyes again. ‘So what are you going to do? Arrest me for impersonating a dead man? I’ll deny it. I’ll say Cairns said he’d leave everything to me in his will. And let’s face it, you can’t prove he’s dead. Not unless you plan to dredge the English Channel.’
Denning waited a couple of seconds before asking his next question. ‘On the subject of former associates you were keen to avoid, how does Alfie Kane fit into all this?’
Another laugh. Slightly more forced than last time. ‘He’s got nothing to do with anything. I hadn’t worked for Alfie for years by the time all this happened.’
But Denning didn’t believe him. ‘David Cairns disappeared in the late nineties, just a few years after the Security Direct robbery. Is that a coincidence?’
‘You’re not suggesting Cairns had anything to do with that?’
‘Not Cairns, Mr Lomax, you. Or more to the point, Alfie Kane had something to do with it. And I think that’s the real reason behind your vanishing act. Did you know too much? Did Kane want you silenced? If Kane discovered you were still alive, he could have been responsible for the assault on you the other day. Paid someone to give you a good going-over to teach you a lesson for running out on him?’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not Kane’s style. He’d have confronted me himself: face to face, man to man. Alfie’s never been afraid of confrontation. Besides, I think you’re overstating my importance in Alfie Kane’s life. I worked for the bloke for a while. One of many employees over the years. One of many, and equally forgettable.’
‘Well, there’s got to be something more to this than you’re admitting to,’ Denning said. ‘By the sounds of it, it’s unlikely Dr Cairns had many enemies, so even if someone had assumed you were him, I can’t see them having a good reason to assault you. Whereas Kane…’ Denning sat back on the chair, hearing it creak under his weight. ‘Why don’t you tell me about the Security Direct robbery? We know Kane was involved, and I suspect you could probably name names if pushed. It might count in your favour if you find yourself in need of police protection.’
Lomax was staring at the ceiling again. His eyes were still open, but focussed solely on a dark spot to the right of one of the light fittings. ‘You’re talking crap. Either arrest me for pretending to be David Cairns, or just leave me alone. I’m not going to tell you anything about Alfie Kane that isn’t already common knowledge. If you want to use someone to get to Alfie, then find some other muppet, because I’m just not interested.’
Denning stood up, placing a hand on the back of the chair. ‘What are you so frightened of? If it’s Kane, we can give you protection. If it’s something else, then you need to tell me. Because this isn’t finished. Not by a long chalk.’
Lomax turned his gaze from the spot on the ceiling to look at Denning. ‘Except it is finished, at least as far as I’m concerned.’ He was still looking Denning squarely in the eye. ‘I have nothing more to say.’ With that he picked up the copy of The London Echo that was lying on the bedclothes and began reading it again.
Denning noticed the headline on the front page: Police Still No Closer to Finding Cop Killer. There was the same out-of-date picture of Buckfield in his full police regalia that had appeared in the press releases. But underneath there was another picture. One of Denning leaving the mortuary the previous day. It had clearly been taken from a distance and from an unflattering angle. At first glance, Denning looked considerably older than his thirty-four years.
Despite Lomax’s admission, they were still no further forward in finding Buckfield’s killer. And he was still convinced Lomax hadn’t given him the full story. But with McKenna on his back, there was little chance of him being allowed to follow this up for now. He thought about passing it over to Anna Klein, but what did he actually have? Suspicions that Lomax had lied about what had happened to Cairns? Without any proof, there was no way of telling what had really happened to Cairns, and all they had at the moment was whatever Lomax chose to tell them.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Denning headed back to his car. As he pulled out of the hospital car park and turned onto the main road, he glanced in his rear-view mirror. A grey Toyota Corolla had pulled out of a parking space at the same time and was now following him down the road. There were two men sitting in the front, neither of whom he could see clearly: the driver was wearing a pair of shades, while the passenger had a baseball cap pulled down over his face. The sun reflected off the car’s windscreen, making it even harder to get a clear view of their features.
He reached a set of traffic lights and the car pulled up behind him. The man in the passenger seat was speaking on a mobile phone, but looking straight ahead at Denning.
The lights changed and he moved off.
As he pulled away, the car followed him. The number plate was partially obscured by mud, and he could just about make out the first three letters, but the numbers were unreadable.
The car followed him down Holloway Road. It stayed close all the way into Highbury. He was tempted to phone the local plod and get someone to pull the car over, but that really would be giving in to paranoia. This could be nothing more sinister than someone innocently leaving the hospital car park at the same time as him and heading into central London. But there was something about the whole thing that made him feel uneasy.
He slowed as he approached the next set of traffic lights at Highbury Corner. The lights changed as he was almost upon them and he briefly accelerated, turning left onto St Paul’s Road at the last second without indicating.
He checked the rear-view mirror again and saw that he’d managed to lose the car.
Denning knew it could be his paranoia getting the better of him. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that this had happened so soon after he’d spoken to Kane. Was it a warning? We can follow you and find out where you live?
He turned into a side street just before Balls Pond Road to make sure the car was no longer following him.
His hands were trembling on the steering wheel. If Kane was threatening him then it made him all the more determined to bring him to book.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dave Kinsella was in the middle of making a phone call when Denning arrived back at the office, slightly shaken. He sat at his desk thinking over what had just happened, and was determined to dismiss it as nothing more than rampant paranoia. He could take it further, and confront Kane. But without any proof, he was unlikely to get very far.
Once Kinsella had ended the call, Denning headed over to his desk. There was an old saying that said if you wanted to know about something, ask someone who was there, and Kinsella had been around for donkey’s years. He may not know where the bodies were buried, but he would have a good idea where to start digging.
‘Dave, do you fancy a coffee?’
Kinsella looked momentarily taken aback, probably thinking it was a trick question. Then his face broadened into a smile. ‘OK, boss. I wouldn’t mind a break from this.’
They headed to the coffee machine on the ground floor. Denning selected a latte with two sugars for Kinsella and an Americano for himself.
They sat in the empty conference room.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked Kinsella. ‘Uncovered anything interesting in Buckfield’s past?’
Kinsella sipped his latte and pulled a face. ‘Just what you would expect. Nothing’s rung any alarm bells so far. And CCTV from that rat’s nest of an estate is worse than useless.’
Denning waited for a moment. ‘What about Alfie Kane? Has his name come up yet?’
‘Kane?’ Kinsella narrowed his eyes. ‘Not in relation to anything specific. Why?’
Denning told Kinsella about his meeting with the reformed gangster that morning. He didn’t mention being followed from the hospital, focussing instead on the rumours linking Buckfield to Kane. He wasn’t sure how much Kinsella knew about the DPS allegations, and whether Kane had ever been mentioned by name, or how much was just hearsay. But Kinsella was around at the time and was familiar with the state of play back then. ‘There’s not much on the PNC. I know you’re familiar with Kane’s activities from way back, before he officially turned his back on the dark side. I thought, maybe, you could give me a bit of an insight into Kane?’ He took a sip of his coffee and tried to ignore the acrid taste. ‘I’d really like to know the stuff that isn’t flagged up on any police system. For a start, where did he get his money from?’
Kinsella pulled another face. ‘His main business is the haulage firm. But he’s had a finger in a lot of very different pies over the years.’
‘Any of these pies likely to attract interest from us?’
He shrugged. ‘Revenue and Customs, maybe, but I reckon his business dealings are mostly – if not entirely – legit these days.’
Denning had looked Kane up on the Companies House website. The haulage firm was certainly profitable, judging by the previous year’s annual returns, but profitable enough to pay for the swanky mock-Georgian mansion with the view of Epping Forest? He was sure there had to be something they were missing.
‘Going back further. The not so legitimate aspects of his business empire, where did they come from?’
‘Apparently he was just your average tearaway in his youth. Then he got ambitious: nicking cars for bank jobs, hiding stolen goods, that kind of thing. He started hanging out with some of the big boys, doing odd jobs for them, running errands. After a few years, he wound up working for Bernie Michaelson. I suppose that gave him his first taste of the gangster lifestyle.’
‘Bernie Michaelson?’
Kinsella chuckled. ‘Before your time, boss. Michaelson was an old-school villain who made his name in the sixties and seventies. A known associate of the Krays when they still called the shots, as well as other lesser-known players. Unlike them, Michaelson preferred to keep his name and face out of the limelight. By the mid-seventies, he had an empire that covered Soho and West London, a lot of it inherited from the twins after they went inside. Casinos, knocking shops, strip joints. Even owned a couple of bars and a nightclub – Smokey Joes on Wardour Street. Someone put a bullet in his brain in the early eighties. We never got anyone for it. Then again, maybe we weren’t looking too hard.’
‘And Kane worked for this Michaelson character?’
‘For a while. Hatchet man, gofer, that kind of thing. I think he ran one of Michaelson’s casinos back in the late seventies. Kane was still in his twenties at the time; a right cocky little so-and-so by all accounts. He bought up a lot of Michaelson’s properties after his death, then sold them off a few years back for a tidy profit.’
But there was something Denning had to know. Something that had been bothering him ever since the name Alfie Kane was flagged up on his radar. ‘How come we never got Kane for his part in the Security Direct robbery?’
Another chuckle. ‘He’s too clever. You can guarantee his paw prints would have been kept well off that. He helped plan it, maybe – and I’d bet my pension some of that bullion found its way into his possession – but he’d make damn sure there was nothing that led back to him.’
‘But you’re certain he was involved?’
‘Word at the time was that Kane was certainly part of the food chain. But then so were half the faces in London, if you were to believe all the whispers.’
Denning nodded and sipped his coffee. ‘Does the name Gordon Lomax mean anything?’
‘Lomax?’ Kinsella’s mouth twitched to form an upside-down ‘u’. ‘Can’t say I recognise the name. Was he linked to Security Direct?’
‘Possibly. He’s certainly connected to Kane. Or at least he was.’
Kinsella drank the rest of the rancid coffee. ‘You still think there’s a connection between Buckfield and Kane? You think that was what all that crap with the DPS was about: Buckfield was taking backhanders from Kane?’
‘Do you? It’s likely Kane knew someone in the police. It can’t be a coincidence that he got away with so much as often as he did. I’m not saying it was Buckfield, but we can’t overlook the possibility he was somehow involved. Or at the very least, he knew about it and deliberately turned a blind eye.’
‘Think about it, boss: if Buckfield was on the take, what happened to all the money? You saw that flat. He wasn’t living the life of Rockefeller, was he?’
Denning finished his coffee and threw the plastic cup into a bin by the door. ‘Then we keep looking, Dave. We find something that connects the two men, even indirectly. And start with Gordon Lomax. I reckon he’s the weak link here.’
‘Whatever you say, boss.’
Kinsella didn’t sound convinced, but Denning knew he’d do it anyway. Kinsella may not have been the sharpest of detectives when it came to following a hunch, but he was the sort who would gnaw away at something until he found what they were looking for.
Denning couldn’t help feeling this whole thing had Kane’s fingerprints all over it. It couldn’t be a coincidence that two people closely associated with Kane had been attacked: one murdered and the other in hospital. It was like he was trying to silence anyone who could directly connect him to his dodgy past now that he was trying to persuade the world he was a reformed character. At the moment, he had nothing more than a hunch to work on. Finding the evidence to nail Kane wasn’t going to be easy.
He was about to head back to his desk, when he noticed a text from McKenna:
Wherever you are, get your arse back here pronto! Harrison wants to see you in his office – and he’s one unhappy bunny.
* * *
Harrison was behind his desk, a look of thunder spread across his face like a nappy rash. They were in the office Harrison had commandeered at the rear of the building, with the view of the car park.
‘How’s the investigation going into Buckfield’s murder? Found his killer yet?’
Direct and to the point. His face remained unsmiling. Denning knew a bollocking when he was on the receiving end of one. He just wasn’t sure why he was being treated to it and not McKenna.
‘We’re making solid progress, sir,’ he said. ‘We’re exploring a number of possible avenues, and I’m confident of a breakthrough soon.’
‘Close to making an arrest?’ Harrison’s voice rose very slightly at the end of the sentence.
‘Not as yet, sir. Like I said, we’re—’
‘“Exploring a number of possible avenues”. Yes, I heard you. Only I’ve heard that kind of twaddle before. It usually means an investigation is stalling. Is that the case here, DI Denning? Are things stalling?’
Denning sensed he was being backed into a corner. Harrison would keep pushing until Denning told him what he wanted to hear.
‘Well, to be honest, sir, we’re not making the kind of progress I’d like. We now know when he was killed, so we’re going over CCTV from the day in question, but that all takes time. Plus we’ve still to establish a clear motive for DCI Buckfield’s murder.’
Harrison pressed his hands against the arms of his chair. ‘Just a suggestion, but perhaps if you spent more time looking into likely motives and less time harassing people who have no connection with this case, you might find progress was a bit sharper.’
Denning had a pretty shrewd idea where this was heading, but opted to play along.
‘Sorry, sir, I’m not with you?’
‘Alfie Kane, Denning. I believe you spoke to him this morning.’
