The Sun Will Still Shine Tomorrow (19 page)

And a new fantasy. Working in her office and the last two to leave in the evening and making love to her on her desk.

“Well, Ash, what is it?”

Ashley opened his mouth but the words wouldn’t come. Kate set her glass down, leaned across and took Ashley’s glass from his hand. She placed it next to hers and eased her backside from the seat, leaning ever nearer to him.

He froze as he gazed into those hypnotic eyes. He felt her lips on his, a gentle kiss, no movement, just barely touching. And his mouth opened wider and Kate responded. Ever close now, their lips moving in perfect synchronicity as if they’d perfected the art over many years. Joined together, Kate’s tongue probed gently and erotically at his lips, she eased back slightly and traced her tongue along the surface. Ashley reached for her again, almost magnetically and the passion intensified.

John Markham was as good as his word. He sat in the pathologist’s office in Redcar, Cleveland, three days after the inquest had been concluded. He’d explained that Northumbria Police were concerned that the investigation relating to the death of Thomas Wilkinson had not been investigated thoroughly enough.

The pathologist was only too happy to talk. It was as if he was pleased to get it off his chest. He spoke while John Markham listened intently.

“I wrote to Dr Douglas within a couple of hours of the inquest. I was furious.”

“Angry?”

“Bloody livid. During the recess I explained in detail the anomalies and he promised I’d be able to put them to the court.”

John Markham waited for him to continue.

“It never happened, officer. He asked me to repeat my original findings then brought in this ridiculous idea about the deceased falling down a cliff.”

“But why would that be so ridiculous?” John Markham asked. “Officer Markham, I’ve been at more inquests than you’ve had hot dinners and I’ve been to at least twenty inquests where the deceased has fallen from a great height, down a cliff, a steep bank or a bridge, and the one thing that happens in every case

in question is that the poor unfortunate snaps a few bones. It’s inevitable. Imagine tumbling down a cliff; of course you’re going to break an ankle, an arm, a leg, a collar bone.”

The pathologist stood. He was trembling visibly as he placed his hands on the desk and looked down at John Markham.

“But not here, officer, not in this case. Not a broken rib or a finger or anything. Lacerations to the upper body. Explain that one to me. Explain how a whole body rolls one hundred and fifty feet down a cliff and only happens to injure the upper body and more particularly the head and face.”

He flopped back down in the chair and spoke in a whisper.

“He was killed, officer. Beaten unconscious and deliberately thrown into the sea.”

“You’re positive?”

Dr Morgan nodded his head slowly. The two men sat in silence as the enormity of the statement sank in. The pathologist spoke.

“You need to reopen the inquest, officer. The police need to request a different coroner, one that will allow me to deliver my findings.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Douglas couldn’t wait to get me off that stand.”

John Markham sat motionless.

“There was another anomaly, officer.”

“There was?”

“Yes. Tom Wilkinson had slight abrasions around each wrist, the sort of abrasions you would normally find if someone has been handcuffed during a struggle.”

“So what are you saying, Dr Morgan?”

Dr Morgan leaned forward, his face inches from John Markham’s.

“I’m saying, officer, that you boys better get your house in order because something smells. Something stinks like a month-old haddock and somebody or some people aren’t playing the game.” His voice louder now.”I’m saying that if I don’t hear that Tom Wilkinson’s inquest is reopened by the end of the month I’m gonna throw so much shit at the fan that Northumbria and Cleveland Police won’t know what day it is.”

* * *

“Jacob, it’s me. I’ve some bad news.”

Silence.

“John Markham’s been down to Cleveland to meet with the pathologist.”

“Go on.”

“The pathologist isn’t happy; he wants the inquest reopened.”

John Roddam relayed the details to Jacob Moor who stood throughout the conversation, though he couldn’t control the trembling in each leg. A pause, a full minute’s pause before Jacob announced:

“The pathologist, John…”

“Yes.”

“He’ll need to be taken care of.”

* * *

The front of the office was a legitimate taxi office in the East End of Newcastle. Billy Graham had purchased the business at a token knock-down price after his bullies had engaged in a relentless twelve-month campaign that had effectively brought the business to its knees.

The owner had refused to bow down to the threats and intimidation and flatly refused to pay Billy Graham a single penny for monthly security.

It mattered not.

Graham had personally visited and threatened the man on at least half a dozen occasions and the sheer lack of respect the business man afforded him meant that Graham no longer wanted to enforce a monthly security service – he wanted the business – lock, stock and barrel.

Word would filter through the city. Don’t fuck with Billy Graham.

The final straw came in the Christmas of 2002. His henchmen had disabled the entire fleet of cars over a twenty-four hour period the weekend prior to Christmas Day.

It was the most lucrative weekend of the year for the drivers, the weekend’s takings equivalent to a month’s wages any other run-of-the-mill time of year.

It was the unofficial ‘Christmas bonus’ that would provide their families with gifts and presents and, in some cases, the summer holiday later on in the year.

The Newcastle punters were generous to a fault and a combination of excess alcohol and over-exuberant festivities ensured that the cab journeys were frequent and the tips were large.

The first car had been petrol-bombed outside the owner driver’s council house in the Meadow Well Estate in North Shields.

He had been unlucky. Most cabs had just had their tyres slashed or a window or two broken, lights popped, the sort of inconvenience that would take a few days to put right.

It broke the resolve of many of the drivers, coming on top of the many months of intimidation and lost earnings they’d suffered.

John Balding, the owner of
Taxis 4U
received fourteen calls over that weekend from drivers apologising but reluctantly declaring they had no option but to hand in their notice.

He understood.

It was finished.

The business he’d run successfully for twenty-seven years had breathed its last breath. It had given him a good living, it was time to admit defeat. His wife had begged him to sell up, accept William Graham’s generous offer of one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds for the industrial unit on Byker’s Brough Park Industrial Estate. After all, she kept reminding him, he’d only paid twenty-eight thousand for it and the mortgage had been cleared years before.

She didn’t understand.

He picked up the telephone and keyed in Billy Graham’s personal mobile telephone number that he’d been told to call should he have a change of heart.

Billy Graham was pleased with his new acquisition but, of course, he had slashed the original offer he’d made to the owner. Economic climate, he’d claimed, times were tough, money tight, and anyway the goodwill of the business had been re-evaluated now that Mr Balding only had a handful of cars that were operational.

Graham was a good businessman, of that there was no doubt. He had smirked as he handed over the briefcase containing the cash.

He wandered through the small office at the front of the building but not before he’d informed the two girls on the front desk that they were fired. The following week he opened up the new office with Billy Graham’s personally selected staff and embarked on a huge advertising campaign announcing that
Taxis 4U
were back in business.

He offered discounted cab journeys for the remainder of the month and made sure every client stepped from a
Taxis 4U
cab with their very own laminated plastic card, complete with telephone numbers.

And he wasted no time restructuring and reforming the building. John Balding had used the back of the premises as a small repair station for the cabs. He’d turned the far side of the building into a small lounge where the drivers relaxed or took a coffee or a beer or two at the end of a long shift or just relaxed between jobs.

Graham brought in his favourite architect who transformed it into his personal domain. Two full-sized snooker tables sat in the middle of the huge open-plan unit. A 48-inch plasma screen hung on each of the four walls and plush leather sofas sat on top of the ridiculously expensive, deep-pile carpet.

On the far side of the room where John Balding’s makeshift bar had stood, Graham had commissioned a fully-stocked optic bar together with draught bitter and Guinness and strong bottled beers from around the world.

It would be from here that he would plan his entire business operation.

In between the bar and the front office of the taxi company was Billy Graham’s record office. He’d known he’d needed the office for a while now. His acquisition of the taxi premises had given him the impetus to set it up.

So many pies, he’d smiled to himself, how on earth do we keep check on everything? His own records system consisted of the odd scribble on the back of a fag packet and a glove compartment in his Jaguar XJS so full of paperwork that it could hardly close. It had to be replaced.

Margite was twenty-five, intelligent, a trained accountant and ambitious. Her father was German and therefore her planning and foresight were meticulous. She’d turned the whole operation around within a month.

She’d compiled Excel spreadsheets detailing the whore houses he ran and the protection rackets and legitimate businesses he used to front things up. She’d made sure the tax and NI contributions were in order and that the accounts were supplied to Companies’ House on the very day they were due.

She’d discovered discrepancies in the figures supplied by the dealers and madams and musclemen employed in Graham’s empire. They’d all received a severe beating and been told to get back in line.

Margite was brilliant. In all the years he’d been in business he had never really known what he was actually making. Now he knew to the penny and he was astounded. Margite received a brand new BMW X5 as her reward for increasing the profits in every single division of his establishment. She’d been with the company three months and in the fourth month he was screwing her on the snooker tables and the leather sofas and across her very own office desk, such was her stop-at-nothing attitude to succeed. (The X5 helped too.)

Margite’s office, or rather her laptop, held a record of Graham’s life.

Everything.

Every address, every dealer, every bouncer, every taxi driver, every shop they protected, every pound received and every penny spent. Margite positively glowed at their regular monthly financial meeting (her idea) as she demonstrated to Graham his wealth and the sheer magnitude of his operation.

Graham was on remand now and the first thing Margite did was to increase her monthly salary. Why not? If the very pillars of our society, our very own Members of Parliament, can determine their own pay rises, why shouldn’t she?

She keyed in the change on the Excel sheet on her laptop and sent an explanatory e-mail to the bank.

His businesses would continue. She would make sure of that. He’d be going down for a long stretch but they’d carry on. It was just that she would siphon so much off that she’d be a millionaire within five years. She smiled inwardly.

She had to hand it to Bulldog Graham. Thick as two short planks, yes, but he knew how to get what he wanted. She’d experienced that first-hand as she’d eventually given in to his sexual demands. She wasn’t going to. Keep things strictly plutonic had been her motto. But that night… she blamed too many wines and a silver-tongued cavalier with a hint of aggression and menace and a huge cock that brought a tear to her eyes as he thrust into her roughly with a fistful of her hair as she bent over the green baize.

Her world came crashing down at 8.05 on that fateful Monday morning. It was always quiet, Mondays always were.

She had never seen a warrant card before but the police officer had been convincing and his shiny Northumbria Police badge housed in a battered old black leather wallet was obviously genuine. He’d advised her to remain quiet and read out her rights that she’d heard so many times before on the TV cop shows. And she sat in stunned silence as he loaded her records and CDs and cheque books and software into a large plastic box.

And she shook uncontrollably and chewed at her fingernails as he unplugged her laptop and placed it on top.

* * *

“Hello, could I speak to Rafi Patel please?”

“Rafi Patel speaking. How can I help you, sir?”

“Rafi, it’s Robert Sinton, your solicitor.”

“Good morning, Mr Sinton, how are you?”

“Good, Rafi… good… Rafi, we need to talk, there’s been a development.”

“A development, Mr Sinton, I don’t understand.”

“It’s good news, Rafi, you’re not going to believe it… they’ve dropped the charges against you.”

“They have? You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, Rafi, I’m your bloody solicitor.”

“What has happened?”

“I received a letter last week from one of the policemen who took your confession. Well, an ex-policeman anyway. He admitted that they’d abused you during the interviews, racially abused you, said you were terrified and would have admitted to anything.”

“No,” Rafi mouthed quietly into the telephone receiver.

“I contacted the Chief Superintendent at Market Street and he admitted that the policeman in question resigned a couple of weeks after your interview. When I pressed the Chief Superintendent he admitted there’d been an inquiry into racial abuse by this man. It was that policeman who interviewed you. Ashley Clarke, do you remember him?”