Trust No One

‘You’re the print lady, aren’t you? Came highly recommended, I understand.’ There was an undertone to his words that was unmistakable.

‘Glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘I hope I’ve lived up to expectations.’ She’d already completed the trial order, ahead of schedule and at what she knew was a very competitive price.

‘Done some good work so far, from what I hear. Printing, and all that.’

‘And all that,’ she agreed.

‘Jeff appreciates a good supplier. So far I’m told you’ve done well.’

‘Not the cheapest, but the best.’

‘Something like that.’ He smiled. ‘Mind you, don’t get me wrong. Jeff appreciates a cheap supplier as well.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind. And that you’re the finance director.’

‘Got me sussed too, then? Well, yes, that’s my job.’ He paused. ‘For what it’s worth.’

‘Quite a bit, I’d have thought.’

‘It pays well enough, if that’s what you mean. Though maybe not enough to compensate for evenings like this.’

‘And I was trying so hard to be sparkling,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘Funnily enough, the evening’s rather brightened up in the last few minutes.’

‘That’ll be the prawn cocktail.’

He lifted his glass of white wine. ‘Yeah, and the Chateau Toilet Duck. Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

That had been it, she thought. That trivial, jokey salutation. As they’d clinked their glasses, she’d felt as if something had passed between them. Some coded, inarticulate message. Some unspoken pact. Both knowing more than they were able to say. Not quite trust. Perhaps, at that point, nothing more than a balance of suspicion. But something.

That was where it had started.

That night, too, was the first time she really had an inkling of what she might be letting herself in for. It was the first opportunity she’d had to get anywhere close to her key targets – the smooth Jeff Kerridge and his much rougher number two, Pete Boyle. She already felt that she half-knew them from the files and reports that she’d worked her way through in preparation for the assignment, but meeting them in the flesh, after everything she’d read, was something else again. Everything she’d read indicated that, appearances aside, they were an unpleasant pair. Kerridge had built a business empire by ruthlessly jamming his hands into every pie he could find, legal or otherwise. He was what passed for the brains of the outfit, running a complex network of on- and off-shore companies that allowed him to funnel cash wherever he wanted for tax avoidance and laundering purposes. The forensic accounting team had tracked through some of those movements, but they didn’t yet have enough to be confident that a case would stick.

Boyle was a different matter. A hard-case from Hulme who, by dint of being that bit brighter than his associates, had managed to claw his way up to near the top of the pile. The word was that Boyle looked after most of Kerridge’s dirty work, and that some of that work could get very dirty indeed. Unlike Kerridge, who’d managed to stay squeaky-clean, Boyle did have a record, though it was mainly petty stuff from his youth. These days, he tended not to risk messing up his own Hugo Boss suit, if he could pay others to do the work for him. They were getting closer with Boyle. They’d picked up two or three of his associates over the last year or so on a variety of charges – GBH, demanding money with menaces, manslaughter in one case. No one had actually blown the whistle on Boyle, but they were gradually piecing together enough evidence to collar him. He’d left his metaphorical fingerprints in a few too many places.

At the dinner, true to form, Kerridge had been charm personified, chatting amiably with Marie during the earlier part of the evening. He had an old-fashioned manner which stayed just the right side of flirtatious. Probably just as well, Marie thought, eyeing Kerridge’s fearsome-looking wife. ‘Ah, Miss Donovan,’ he’d said. ‘The printer. I’ve heard some very good things about you. Your work comes highly recommended.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘I hope I manage to live up to my reputation.’

‘I’m sure you will.’ He turned and waved in the general direction of his wife, who was standing just a few inches behind him. ‘My wife, Helen. This is Miss Donovan—’

‘Marie.’

‘Marie, who’s handling some printing for us at the moment. You two should get together. I’m sure you’d have a lot to discuss.’

The two women gazed at each other with expressions that confirmed their obvious lack of any common ground. Helen Kerridge was a certain sort of Cheshire lady, Marie thought. Well-off, self-made, dismissive of those who thought their characters might be defined by something other than material possessions. Marie could imagine the older woman patrolling the upmarket clothes shops and restaurants of Wilmslow or Alderley Edge, killing days that had little other purpose.

‘We could do lunch sometime,’ she said, mischievously.

Helen Kerridge gazed at her for a long moment without speaking. ‘Sometime,’ she said finally, in a tone that suggested they should aim for one of the chillier days in hell.

Marie had seen Boyle only from the other side of the room. He was a broad muscular man, who clearly still devoted considerable time and energy to working out. He looked awkward in his undoubtedly expensive suit, a glass of fizzy wine in hand, with the air of a man who would much rather have been propping up some bar downing a pint of lager. Every now and then, his eyes scanned the room, his shaven head twisting on his thick neck, as if keeping watch for signs of trouble.

Marie’s only real objective for the night had been to begin building her own profile, become acquainted with one or two of the right people, get her own face recognized. She’d wondered whether to approach Boyle, but couldn’t find a reasonable opening. In the end, she’d been happy enough chatting to Jake Morton, who seemed the most promising route into the Kerridge empire.

Towards the end of the evening, when they’d finished eating and had moved on to brandy and liqueurs, Jake made his excuses and slipped away from the table. ‘Got a three-line whip for a debrief with Jeff,’ he’d said. ‘He likes to make sure we’ve all done our bit.’

She’d found herself stuck with some pompous old fool who ran a haulage company in Macclesfield, nodding politely while he ranted on about fuel duty and VAT. After a while, while he’d gone off to secure himself another brandy, she’d slipped away from the table herself and made her way out into the hotel lobby.

She’d only ever been a social smoker and it was years since she’d had a cigarette at all. There were moments, though, when she could envy the little amicable groups congregating around the front doors of the hotel. She slipped past them and walked out into the car park, enjoying the cold of the night air after the alcoholic fug of the function room. It was a chilly night, but the sky was clear and full of stars. She paused for a moment, enjoying the relative silence. The hotel was in the hills, on the edge of the Pennines, and, as she crossed to the edge of the car park, she could see the lights of Manchester and the Mersey Basin spread out below.

She had been standing for a few moments staring at the view when she heard the sound of raised voices behind her. She turned, peering into the darkness. There was a small group of men standing twenty or thirty metres from her, clustered in the lee of a large 4x4 parked near the entrance to the car park. She could make out the flicker of cigarette ends, the sound of some sort of altercation.

Her curiosity piqued, she moved slowly and silently around the edge of the car park, keeping close to the fence, trying to hear what was being said. None of her business, probably, but she shouldn’t miss the opportunity to pick up anything that might be of value.

She stopped suddenly and held her breath. Now she was closer, she could make out Jake Morton’s voice. She took another few steps then peered out from behind the row of parked cars.

It was Morton, no question. And next to him was the unmistakable bulky silhouette of Pete Boyle. There was another figure facing them, but she couldn’t make out his face.

It was Boyle’s slightly louder voice that she’d first heard. ‘It’s all right for you, desk monkey,’ he was saying now. ‘It’s not you taking the risks.’

‘From what I see, it’s not you either, Pete,’ Morton said. ‘So don’t come the martyr. I just say that we should play it cautious. If we go off half-cocked, we just risk drawing more attention.’

‘Bugger caution. I’ve tried being cautious. That’s why we’re in the shit.’

‘We’re not in the shit, not yet. We just have to be careful, that’s all.’

‘We’ve had three people picked up in the last three months. Bail refused in every case. Somebody’s grassing.’ She could see Boyle drop his cigarette butt and crush it hard under his shoe. He looked as if he was envisaging performing the same action on some more animate object.

‘We don’t know that,’ Morton said. ‘Shit happens.’

‘It’s happening too often lately. We need to do something. Send a fucking signal.’

‘We can’t take somebody out just because you think he might be a grass—’

‘Why the fuck not?’ Boyle said. ‘Even if we’re wrong, we’ve sent a message.’

‘We’ve sent a message that we’re a bunch of fuckwits who don’t know what we’re doing.’

Marie had moved a step or two closer, listening hard. It was the kind of stuff they needed to get on surveillance, she thought. Which was presumably why Boyle and Morton were having this conversation out in the car park, in case they were bring tapped in their hotel rooms or cars.

‘Come on, lads. Bit of teamwork. We’re all pulling in the same direction.’ It was the third figure who’d remained silent up to this point. Kerridge himself, she realized. He gently interposed himself between the two younger men with the air of a boxing referee who can see the bout slipping out of control. ‘You’ve both got a point.’

There was nothing in what he was saying, she thought, but he had a natural, easy-going authority that had immediately reduced the other two men to silence. His own voice was unexpectedly soft, so that Marie had to strain to make out his words.