‘I can see that you are afraid, Mr Patel,’ Vogel began. ‘But I need you to tell me why, and why you think you need police protection, before I can take any steps to arrange that. At the moment all we have to go on is that your office was broken into and ransacked. It looks like a burglary, and the burglars wouldn’t have expected you to be in there on a Sunday. They panicked and shot you. That’s the obvious assumption. Unless, of course, you have something else to tell us. Do you, Mr Patel?’
‘Look. I don’t know anything. Just that there are men wandering around with guns.’
‘To start with, we need you to tell us exactly what happened yesterday, when you were shot,’ Vogel continued. ‘Can you remember that, now?’
‘I suppose so. A bit. I remember arriving at the office. I was about to unlock the door, but it opened as I touched it. So I just pushed it and walked in. Stupid really. After that, I still don’t remember much. I think I must have been shot pretty much straight away. Everything since is a blank. Until I woke up in hospital.’
‘Did you see anyone before you were shot?’
‘Well yes, I suppose I did. Men in masks. Surgical masks. And baseball hats. I couldn’t see their faces. I guess I interrupted them. I may have told them to get out. I’m not sure.’
‘Do you know how many men there were?’
‘Two. I s-saw two. I suppose there could have been more. But I definitely saw two. Look, I need police protection. Really I do. I think they’re after me.’
‘But again, why? Why would these men be after you, Mr Patel?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’
‘I think you do, Mr Patel. Your partner was also violently attacked over the weekend, and he died. You don’t think that was coincidence, do you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Patel again.
Vogel stood up. ‘In that case, I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘C’mon Saslow, let’s go.’
He turned towards the door, with Saslow following.
‘No,’ Patel called out, his voice high-pitched and even more desperate. ‘Don’t go. Please. I’ll tell you what I can. But you have to protect me. These are people who live outside the law. I’m terrified of them. I have no idea how to deal with this sort of thing. I never realized...’
He paused, his breath coming in short sharp gasps.
Vogel and Saslow turned back and sat down again by his bedside.
‘It’s all right, Mr Patel, we can help you, if you will just be honest with us,’ said Vogel. ‘Who are these people, and what is your connection with them?’
‘It was Quinn, he got me into it, I didn’t realize what he was like, you see,’ Patel began. ‘He’s a manipulative bastard. He came to me for my accounting skills. And he offered me the world. I knew he sailed close to the wind, and I should have guessed it was all too good to be true. Maybe the truth is that I did know that, but I didn’t have a clue what he was really into, or what he was going to expect me to do for him. Honestly I didn’t. Not to begin with, that’s for sure. Anyway, I was desperate. I was in big financial trouble, you see.’
‘Why was that, Mr Patel?’ asked Saslow. ‘We know that you inherited a thriving business, which had a very good reputation locally. What went wrong? It was way before Covid that you joined up with Thomas Quinn, wasn’t it?’
Patel nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was all my own fault. I never wanted to be an accountant. I always thought it was the most boring job in the world. My father pressurized me into it, and when he died, way before his time, I found myself running the show, and I hated it. I looked for excitement. That’s my excuse anyway. I started to gamble. It became an obsession almost at once. I spent everything I could get my hands on. I ended up mortgaging not only my business premises, but also my house. To the hilt. When Thomas approached me I was about to go bankrupt.’
‘Did your family know?’ asked Saslow.
Patel shook his head. ‘How could I tell my wife that we were about to lose our home? I mean, what about our kids?’
He paused, his breathing laboured. ‘I saw Thomas as a way out. It was as simple as that. He lent me enough money to at least buy myself breathing space. I didn’t ask too many questions. Like where that money had come from.’
‘He lent you money?’ Saslow queried. ‘So presumably you were having to pay it back, weren’t you?’
‘Not exactly. I was supposed to be working off the debt. It was my job to juggle everything, move money around, at least on paper, keep all our balls up in the air. I never liked accounting, but I’m actually rather good at it, you see. I can work magic with numbers. Nobody can do it for ever, though. That’s always the problem. I couldn’t do it for myself for goodness sake. I’ve ended up with nothing. I don’t even have a lease on the flat Thomas let me live in, and I don’t know who really owns it, except it’s some sort of scam, for sure.’
‘What sort of scam? What exactly was it that Thomas Quinn was involved in?’ asked Vogel.
‘I never knew the whole of it, I just did what I was told. I kidded myself I was such a small part of everything, that I would be all right.’
‘Yes, but a small part of what?’ Vogel asked.
‘Thomas’ business dealings. Property was the front, mostly. They were... uh, very varied.’
‘Indeed. Were they also a little illegal, perhaps, Mr Patel?’
‘No. Uh. Well, perhaps. We were moving money around day and night all over the world. I guessed it was probably what is known as money laundering, but I never asked, and I was never told. I maybe turned a blind eye. But I had nothing to do with that side of things. Honestly I didn’t. Or at least not until everything started to go wrong. We were both being threatened, you see. I realized then that I’d got myself into an even bigger mess than I was in before...’
‘Who exactly was threatening you?’ asked Vogel.
‘Thomas called them his “international business associates”.’ Patel managed a strangled mirthless laugh. ‘International business associates?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘They’re thugs. Nothing but thugs. And crooks.’
‘Yes, but who are they?’
‘Who are they? They operate under many different names, and form companies which both appear and disappear at speed. They don’t exactly give you a business card. Not one which means anything, anyway. I’ve always tried to have nothing to do with them.’
‘Well, presumably if you’ve been Thomas Quinn’s business partner for nearly three years you must have had dealings with them, email and phone surely, even if you didn’t meet them. Isn’t that so?’
‘I told you, they’re not local. I’ve no idea where they’re based even. I don’t think it’s in this country. And no human contact. Not even phone calls. Not with me anyway. Everything was electronic. Email. And portals. WhatsApp. Sometimes texts. That was all.’
‘And yet you seem to believe that they came all the way to Bideford to break into your offices and do you harm. C’mon, Mr Patel. You must have some idea who they are and where they are from, do you not?’
‘All I know for certain is that they do what the hell they like. They’re ruthless, ruthless...’
Patel’s voice had risen again, his breathing even more troubled. Suddenly he stopped trying to speak, let out a cry of anguish and slumped back on the pillow. His eyes rolled back in his head.
‘Shit,’ said Vogel. ‘Saslow, get a nurse. Fast.’
One of the machines by Jason Patel’s bed began to bleep furiously. He looked as if he had lost consciousness. Had he also stopped breathing? Vogel wasn’t sure.
Saslow didn’t need to fetch anyone. Two nurses, a man and a woman, arrived almost at once. Vogel realized Patel must be linked to an alarm system which had alerted the nursing station of what Vogel feared might be a potentially cataclysmic change in the man’s heart function.