Trust No One Page 17

  She folded the paper carefully and clutched it in her hand, making sure that it was not visible to the cameras, as she made her way to the car.

  Leaving the car park, she turned down on to the ring road then headed out to the M602. From time to time, she glanced in her rear-view mirror, wondering if she was being followed.

  It was impossible to tell. The traffic was busy, and there was a steady stream of cars pulling on to the motorway behind her. The sun was low in her eyes, and it was difficult to concentrate on what might be behind her. When she reached the quieter M61, heading up north to join the M6, it might be easier to judge if anyone was sticking behind her.

  A few miles further she reached the junction with the orbital M60, taking the northbound turning that took her across the East Lancs Road to join the M61. Soon she was out in the quieter Lancashire countryside, passing the Reebok Stadium and then the great sweep of Winter Hill ahead of her. There were a couple of cars close behind her, but she had no reason to assume there was anything sinister in their presence.

  Nevertheless, when she reached Rivington Services, a mile or two further on, she pulled in, turning unexpectedly, earning a blast of the horn from the car immediately on her tail. She made her way into the car park, turned off the engine and watched other cars entering behind her. Some headed through to get fuel, others stopped. Businessmen making phone calls. Families stopping for a drink or a snack.

  The adrenaline had worn off a little, and the tiredness was returning. She climbed out of the car, pulling her coat around her against the chill of the bright day, and retrieved her laptop from the boot. Slipping back into the driver’s seat, she fumbled in her handbag for the data stick. When requested, she entered the password scribbled on the piece of paper.

  As the window opened on the screen, she glanced up, feeling suddenly exposed. She was parked towards the end of the car park, away from the service buildings, and there were no other cars close by. There was no sign that anyone was interested in her presence.

  There were several dozen files on the data stick, all with uninformative coded names. Some were Word files, but most were PDFs, images or copies of e-mails. She opened one of the image files at random. A series of photographs of Kerridge, taken with a long-distance lens, standing in what looked like one of the city centre car parks. There were other figures, mostly Kerridge’s associates. But Marie recognized two other figures in the picture. Two Dutchmen – known players in money laundering. The Agency had been liaising with the Dutch police for a year or more about them. It was the usual story. The authorities on both sides of the North Sea knew exactly who they were and what they were up to. The difficulty was building a reliable case. So far, despite their surveillance efforts, they’d obtained nothing likely to stand up in court. Just as with Kerridge and Boyle.

  The real trouble was money. These people operated 24/7, and did their business when other people were unlikely to be around. The cost of keeping tabs on them was enormous. Marie had seen major surveillance operations called off simply because the Agency’s overtime budget had been spent.

  She skimmed through the photographs in the file. They all showed the same scene, probably taken over a period of half an hour or so, as the group of men had talked, smoked, milled around. At one point, one of the Dutchmen appeared to be handing over a package to Kerridge. Probably nothing significant, she thought. These people wouldn’t risk soiling their hands with actual merchandise. This would be a set-up meeting, agreeing the terms of the deal and the logistics of the delivery.

  The photographs were hardly conclusive evidence, but they were important, showing a link between two sets of operators which the authorities had suspected, but had so far been unable to prove. They’d enable the investigators to draw another line between the countless dots that might one day produce a solid picture. A small step, but they were all small steps and every one constituted progress.

  She closed the file and opened another. More pictures, this time showing Kerridge sitting in the sunshine outside an attractive-looking country pub. She recognized none of the figures other than Kerridge himself, but they would be familiar to some of her colleagues. More dots being joined.

  She worked through several more files. There were copies of e-mail exchanges, some from Kerridge, some from other names she recognized, some that meant nothing to her. Again, nothing directly incriminating. But there was enough to help progress a case against Kerridge.

  Much of it would be inadmissible as evidence given its uncertain provenance. But it was better than anything else they had, and would open other channels of enquiry. Shapes and details that made no sense in isolation would gain significance as part of a wider narrative.

  Christ knew how Jake had pieced all this stuff together. At first, she’d assumed that Jake had turned informant just because he’d had enough, that he wanted out. But she knew from experience that most informants just go through the motions. They give up what they know, but don’t go out of their way to dig more. Why would they? You don’t expect them to take more risks than necessary. It was one of the key skills of the handler, to put enough pressure on the sources to come up with the goods without pushing them too far.

  But she’d sensed that Jake was different. The more he’d talked, during their time together, the more she’d felt that something was driving him. Something more than just weariness at the lifestyle, dislike of his associates. He wanted to do something proactive. To bring down the house of cards.

  She couldn’t imagine how much risk had been involved. She didn’t even know whether Jake had acted alone. But it was an extraordinary collection of material. He’d gone to the limits in exploiting his proximity to Kerridge and Boyle – copying documents, taking photographs, scanning material.

  She opened a third file – more images. Photographs of documents taken with a digital camera or mobile phone. Slightly blurred in some cases, as if taken in a hurry. She squinted at the screen, trying to work out what she was looking at. Some were tickets. Ferry tickets for the Hull–Zeebrugge line. It was impossible to make out the details, but she suspected that the tickets were for trips made by Kerridge or one of his associates, probably under some assumed name. If the image were enhanced, it could help identify the alternative identities that Kerridge’s people used for their overseas liaisons. They’d picked up one or two through surveillance, but the interaction with Kerridge’s people was more frequent than anything they’d picked up so far.

  There were more copies of tickets, and copies of invoices from transport and courier companies. They’d suspected, but been unable to prove, that Kerridge was involved in carousel fraud, a VAT scam involving the transfer of real or notional goods between different tax regimes. If they could track down the supposed transfers, they might start to disentangle the network of shadow companies involved.

  Further into the file, she came across a series of images taken from passports. An ID photograph she recognized as Kerridge, though his hair looked darker in the picture, as if dyed. The passport was in the name of Stuart Larson. There were more photographs of passports, some with images that she recognized. A driving licence with Kerridge’s photograph, again in the name Stuart Larson. Two more passports with Kerridge’s image and different names.

  She flicked randomly through a few more files, convinced now that the material was dynamite. The key question was whether anyone, on either side, knew quite how much Jake had taken.

  She suspected not. If anyone really knew what was on this data stick, they’d be making more serious efforts to recover it. Her impression was that everyone – Boyle, Kerridge, Welsby, Salter, Uncle fucking Tom Cobleigh and all – suspected that Jake had taken more than he was letting on, but no one knew what. The interesting thing was that most of this material related only to Kerridge, with few references to Boyle. It seemed that Jake had held back this side of his evidence – the other half of the picture – because he hadn’t known who to trust.

  She opened one more file, this one intriguingly l
abelled ‘Stamps003’. To her surprise, it was a series of images showing just that – photographs of postage stamps. She skimmed through them, momentarily baffled. It looked like a child’s stamp collection. Some British, others clearly foreign. What was this doing in here?

  It took her a few moments to understand. Money laundering again. She was no expert, but she’d attended a few lectures on emerging trends. One of the trends was investment in high-value, low-volume commodities. They didn’t come much lower volume than rare postage stamps. You might even make a profit on your dirty money.

  There were further image files devoted to other commodities. Racks of wine, artwork, even rare books. All of these would open up more paths they could follow up, join yet more dots.

  Her attention was caught by a movement in the corner of her eye. She realized she’d become engrossed in the material, forgetting where she was. She looked up, conscious now of the value of the evidence in her possession, her sense of vulnerability increasing.

  She’d opened one of the car windows when she had pulled into the lay-by, but the interior had steamed up. She rubbed at the windscreen and peered out, then turned on the engine and heater.

  She didn’t know what had caught her attention. There were still few cars parked at this end of the car park. Several more had passed, but she’d become aware of something else, something she’d intuitively perceived as threatening.

  It was only when the rear window had fully cleared that she spotted it. Just near the entrance to the car park, a few hundred metres behind her, sited directly in line with her, there was a parked car. A small anonymous grey saloon, almost unnoticeable from where Marie was sitting. At a conscious level, she couldn’t be certain how long it had been there.

  She was in no real doubt, though. The car’s arrival had half-registered in her peripheral vision while she was engrossed in the material on the laptop.

  She watched the car for another minute or two, hoping that the driver would decide to depart, having consulted his map, made his call, or completed whatever task he’d parked up to perform.

  But the car remained motionless.

  She made up her mind in an instant. Always assume the worst. That was a maxim that Keith Welsby had taught her. He applied it as a general guide to life, but she’d adopted it only as an operational rule of thumb. As Welsby had often pointed out, at least it meant you wouldn’t be disappointed.

  The car engine was running. She checked in the rear-view mirror that there were no cars entering the car park behind her. Then she released the handbrake, put the car into gear, and floored the accelerator.

  She’d picked this car partly for its performance. Deceptively nippy, the review had said. One way of putting it. She headed across the car park going far too fast, and then pulled out on to the perimeter road, by now getting close to sixty. A moment later, she was on the access road to the motorway, already well above seventy. She pulled out suddenly, cutting neatly between a lorry and a white van, then across into the outside lane. She was a trained high-speed driver, accustomed to velocities and circumstances more challenging than this. Even so, she could almost feel the animosity of the drivers she’d cut up.

  She took a glance in the mirror, trying to see whether the grey car had pulled out in pursuit, but there was no sign of it. She kept up her speed, undercutting traffic in the outside lane, putting distance between herself and anyone who might be following her.

  She didn’t want to keep this up for too long. For all her skill, there was always the risk of coming up against some less accomplished driver. And if she got caught doing this speed, Salter wouldn’t be pulling too many strings on her behalf.

  There was a junction ahead. She contemplated turning off, but decided she needed to confuse things first. Give her pursuer – assuming there was a pursuer – some options to play with. She sped past the junction, waited for another.

  Minutes went by with no sign of a turn-off. It was bloody typical. She should have seized the first opportunity.

  Finally, she reached another junction, a link with the M65. As far as she could remember, if she headed west she could do a loop round the end of the motorway and join the northbound M6 at an earlier point than if she continued along the M61. If there was anyone behind her, it would help confuse things, open up more options about where she might be heading. She looked in the mirror. No sign of the grey car.

  She hesitated briefly, then hit the brake and pulled the wheel to the left, cutting across all three lanes to the exit, momentarily startled by the appearance of a lorry bearing down on her in the inside lane. The driver flashed his lights in warning, but there was no real risk. She was already past, heading up the slip road, her speed undiminished.

  There were a couple of cars following her up the exit, but none of them was grey. She pulled on to the M65, still keeping her speed up, then, when she was more confident that no one was behind her, she slowed down to the legal limit.

  She realized she’d been holding her breath for some time. Gripping the wheel, she inhaled steadily, calming herself, the adrenaline slowly receding.

  She could still see the startled expression on the lorry driver’s face as she’d swept across in front of him. And she didn’t need any great powers of deduction to know what he’d been thinking. Women fucking drivers.

  Chapter 17

  Each time she’d met Jake over the preceding months, things seemed to have moved on. The first drink had turned out to be both less complicated and more successful than she’d really expected. They’d met in some upmarket bar-cum-restaurant just off Deansgate, shared a bottle of wine and eaten a pretentious sandwich. Jake had pitched it perfectly, she thought. Slightly more than just a drink, but nothing as significant as a dinner date. And Jake himself had been the perfect gentleman – almost disappointingly so, she’d thought later. She’d half-expected that he’d try it on at some point and had wondered how she’d react if he did. But the question never arose, not then at least. He’d organized her a taxi back to her flat and seen her off with an entirely decorous kiss on the cheek, but not before she’d agreed to another date.

  He was a smooth operator, there was no question of that. Not remotely pushy, but with each step neatly judged. She had no problem with that. After all, her job was to get closer to Jake, in order to get closer in turn to Kerridge’s operation. It looked like Jake intended to make the first part of her task relatively easy. The challenge was to make sure that her judgement remained as sound as Jake’s.

  On a personal level, she’d enjoyed the evening. Jake was good company – relaxed, personable, good humoured, an easy conversationalist but also a good listener. All the kinds of qualities, it struck her, that had first attracted her to Liam not so very long ago. She had pushed that thought from her mind. This was just work.

  The second dinner felt somehow more significant, though, as if she were taking a step into a new territory. As if, at least in her own head, she’d already crossed a line and knew there was no going back. Once again, she’d had to admire Jake’s perfect pitch. She’d somehow expected that he’d invite her to one of the swanky hotel restaurants adorned with the name of some celebrity chef. Instead, he took her to a small, French-style restaurant tucked away in some dark corner of the Northern Quarter, where the decor initially seemed a little rough and ready, but the atmosphere was relaxed and intimate. The food was unpretentious but excellent, and the wine flowed a little more freely than she’d intended. She still didn’t feel that she was being actively wined and dined. This was nothing more than a pleasant supper between friends, Jake’s manner suggested. But she recognized that the laidback ambiance probably would make her more susceptible to Jake’s charms than if she’d had a starched waiter standing at either shoulder.

  Nevertheless, she kept a careful watch on her tongue even as they moved on to a second bottle of wine. She was getting better at this now, chatting amiably about her fictitious life, steering clear of the danger areas. Even so, it required concentration. At one point
, she almost found herself talking about one of Liam’s paintings. She bit back the words, shifted the conversation on to safer ground, and felt a sharp stab of guilt at her silent disloyalty.

  Jake, she suspected, was treading equally warily, though she could detect no obvious signs of caution in his relaxed demeanour. He talked cheerfully about his work in Kerridge’s empire, but gave no hint that their activities were anything other than entirely legitimate.

  ‘What’s his main business, then?’ she’d asked at one point, taking the risk of at least a gentle prod into the machinations of Jake’s working life.

  ‘Like I say, import-export stuff, mainly,’ Jake said, pouring them both another inch or two of wine.

  ‘All a mystery to me,’ she said. ‘What sort of import-export? I mean, what sort of goods?’

  He shrugged. ‘If there’s a market for it, Jeff’ll try to get his finger in the pie. He’s the ultimate middleman, really. Does his bit to facilitate the trade, and creams off a nice slice for himself in the process.’

  This sounded like a prepared line, she thought. Jake’s skilful way of deflecting further enquiry.

  ‘What sort of stuff is it, though? Typically, I mean,’ she prompted.

  He regarded her for a moment, as if even this kind of query might be too intrusive. Then he smiled.

  ‘Oh, God knows. Anything and everything. Brings in a lot of cheap plastic crap from China. Stuff they give away at funfairs or that you see market traders trying to offload on an unsuspecting public. Can be surprisingly lucrative, that stuff. And then there’s electrical goods – again, especially the stuff from China that can undercut the big brands . . .’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘Christ, Marie, I’m even beginning to bore myself now. Under Jeff ’s tutelage, I can talk about this stuff till the cows come home. But you really don’t want to hear it.’