‘Did you get something out of Barker, then?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Steele murmured. ‘We hold the mortgage on his soul. We’re just about to follow up his information.’
‘Good luck.’ Montell paused. ‘Just out of interest, sir, can you tell me if DS Wilding’s staying in London tonight?’
‘Yes, he is. Why?’
‘Bastard! I owe Tarvil and his wife a curry, thanks to him.’
‘I won’t tell Ray, or he’ll want the fucking poppadoms. Cheers.’
‘What was that about poppadoms?’ the sergeant asked.
’An “in” joke,’ Steele told him. ‘Doesn’t matter. Dražen Boras turned up in Edinburgh this afternoon; the lads have been babysitting him.’
‘Damn!’ said Becky Stallings. ‘I was hoping he’d come looking for you here. I’ve seen his picture in Hello! magazine; he’s a looker, and eligible, too.’
‘Detective inspectors don’t read Hello! do they?’ asked Wilding, with a hint of scorn.
‘Detective inspectors go to the dentist like everyone else,’ she replied, then looked towards her office door as it opened, and a black man in shirtsleeves handed her a folder.
‘Sorry about the delay, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We’d to dig out the SIA duty officer to get this, but it’s finally come through.’
‘SIA?’
‘Security Industry Authority; they’re phasing in the licensing of security firms, and Aeron comes under their umbrella. That’s what they hold on them.’
‘I see; thanks, Wayne.’
She opened the slim folder as he left, and scanned through the file within, reading as she went. ‘Aeron Security plc. Michael Spicer, aged fifty-two, chairman and CEO. Founded 1995, registered office and trading address seventeen Aeron Passage, NW1. A total of twenty employees, five administrative and clerical and the rest all holders of the appropriate SIA licences. No member of staff has a criminal record of any sort. Firm was among the first to seek licensing and met all criteria at the first time of asking. No complaints against Aeron have ever been registered with the SIA, and they are regarded as maintaining high professional standards.’
‘What about Spicer himself?’ Steele asked her.
‘According to this he has a military background. Good: Wayne’s found his private address and telephone number.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Van Dyke Terrace, Blackheath. Posh.’
‘Is it far away?’
‘We should do it in half an hour. Do you want to call first, to make sure he’s there?’
‘Wait a minute,’ Wilding interjected. ‘We’re assuming that he’s at home. Aeron’s a security business: its office is probably manned at weekends.’
‘Let’s find out.’ The two Scots watched as she picked up her phone and dialled, then they listened. ‘Aeron Security? … Ah, good, you do have somebody on duty. This is Detective Inspector Stallings, Metropolitan Police; something’s come up relating to a security issue we believe you were involved in. We’ve come into possession of some information, and want to cross-check it with you. . No, I’m afraid I can’t do that: this is too sensitive to discuss over the phone. Who’s your managing director?. . Pardon, I didn’t catch that. . Mr Spicer, you say. I really think I have to speak to him. . Yes, I’ll hold on.’
Stallings put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘We may be in luck.’ She removed it again; her face fell slightly. ‘He isn’t? Who’s in charge?. . You’re the general manager, did you say, Mr Lemmon? In that case, we’ll speak to you, in Mr Spicer’s absence. We’ll be there inside twenty minutes, if the traffic permits. . Okay, that’s excellent. I appreciate that.’
She grinned at her visitor colleagues. ‘How about that, then? Come on, let’s commander a patrol car and turn up there like the Sweeney, with lights and sirens blazing. My job’s usually boring, dealing with white-collar crime; I miss the excitement.’
The sergeant looked at her, pure admiration in his eyes. ‘You really are nuts, Becky, aren’t you?’
She smiled back at him, and nodded. ‘Just a little.’
Aeron Passage was hard to find, a side-street off a side-street, behind Euston railway station. The sirens were entirely unnecessary there, but Becky Stallings had them sound until the car drew up outside number seventeen, an ugly modern four-storey building. The company’s offices were on the first floor and so the three detectives used the stairs, rather than the lift.
A middle-aged man was waiting in the reception area as they stepped inside. He was small and lean, with bags under his eyes. ‘What the hell was the noise about?’ he asked abruptly. His accent was strange, a little guttural.
‘It helps to clear traffic,’ Stallings replied cheerfully. ‘Are you Mr Walker Lemmon?’
‘Yes.’
She introduced the two Scots. ‘It’s really them who need to talk to you,’ she added. ‘I’m just the facilitator here.’
Lemmon frowned. ‘Okay, but I don’t have a lot of time: Saturday’s a busy day for us. Come through to my office.’ He led the way into a small room at the back of the building. The window was open, but it still reeked of cigar smoke. Wilding sniffed theatrically; the man ignored him. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked.
‘We’re involved in a multiple murder investigation in Scotland,’ said Steele. ‘You’ve probably heard about it. One of the victims was the daughter of a client of yours.’
‘We don’t discuss our clients. . Inspector, was it?’
‘Detective Inspector, yes, and I’m not here to discuss anything. I’m here to ask you some specific questions and to obtain any information you might have that will assist my sergeant and me with our enquiries. We’ve been told that about three years ago you investigated a man who had become a nuisance to your client Mr Davor Boras, of Continental IT. You identified him as Daniel Ballester, a journalist, and delivered a dossier on him to Mr Boras.’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Wait till I’m finished, please,’ Steele told him curtly. ‘We’re not clear on the instructions which Mr Boras gave your firm after that. However, it’s been suggested that you were told to persuade him to desist from making a nuisance of himself, but that when you went to do that, he’d disappeared.
‘Yesterday, Ballester was identified as the prime suspect in our enquiries, a man we were seeking under the assumed name of Dominic Padstow. We believe that before that you received further instructions from Mr Boras to trace Ballester. We need your co-operation, Mr Lemmon. We need all the information you have on this man.’
‘This is all conjecture,’ the general manager protested. ‘Why are you so sure this dossier exists?’
‘Our informant saw it.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘He has every reason to tell us the truth.’
‘Then get the dossier from Boras.’
Steele shook his head. ‘That would be very difficult. He shredded his copy yesterday afternoon.’
‘Why would he do that?’ Lemmon asked.
‘This really is conjecture on our part,’ Wilding told him, with a casual smile, ‘but we reckon he was taking no chances of being accused of withholding information from the police investigating his daughter’s murder. Now we could, if we were so inclined, put a hundred officers on to searching through the Continental IT rubbish bins, and piecing together all the shredded paper, but actually, pal, we don’t need to, because we know that folder existed, we know what was in it, and we know your company provided it. What we want from you is quite simple: any new information you or your people might have dug up on where Ballester might be hiding.’
Lemmon’s mouth twisted. ‘You have to understand this, Sergeant. This business delivers confidential services to its clients; that’s our stock-in-trade. Any information we possess belongs to the client, because he’s paid for it. A court can require us to disclose, so maybe you should go and get an order.’
‘Naw, that’s not how it works,’ Wilding retorted. ‘You have to understand this, pal. While you’re standing there spouting shite about clients and ethics in an industry that basically involves renting out muscle, a man we want for four murders is at liberty. If you make us go to court then we’ll do it.’ Lemmon’s eyes went to the impassive Steele.