“Friday Fiction” Series: Arms Control, Chapters One to Three…
[Note from Steve: My British-style mysteries to date probably are more influenced by Dame Agatha and other authors’ creations rather than the hard-boiled American school, probably the major influence for my “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series (the Tums-chewing Castilblanco is as hard-boiled as lollipop-sucking Kojak, to be honest). After a bit of reflection about that, I decided to write a story about a hard-boiled British DI. Okay, he has Irish blood, so maybe the stereotype of Irish NYC cop also holds true with him? You decide.]
Arms Control
Copyright 2021, Steven M. Moore
Chapter One
Alan Galbraith wasn’t a patient man, and he was less patient the older he became. He was waiting for a bloke with the bad habit of being late most of the time. If he didn’t need information from the prat, he would have gone home to his girlfriend and dinner instead of sitting in a foul pub, nursing a beer. His third one! He stared at the sorry-looking peanuts in the little chipped dish and decided they were a poor substitute for Amanda’s homecooked dinners, few and far between because her work schedule was almost as bad as his.
Where Amanda had a full head of red hair and green eyes that made her look Celtic (she wasn’t), Alan was balding, a fact that made his blue eyes all the more piercing beneath his wrinkled brow (he had Celtic roots). The Detective Inspector knew he was well past his bird-watching prime, but Amanda didn’t seem to mind his ubiquitous slovenly appearance except when they went out. He always tried to tidy up a bit for such events just to please her.
The two had been in a relationship for almost two years. He knew that she might ruin that by asking for more commitment, but so far their intense work schedules had kept that from occurring. Any day now, he supposed she would tell him she didn’t want to play second violin to a copper’s addiction to work. Of course, she was as addicted to work as much as he was, running a graphics arts company mostly from her place.
Finally Ralph Hodges appeared and slid into the booth opposite Alan; he pointed to Alan’s pint glass. “I’ll have that,” the twit demanded.
Alan called for the waiter, asked for another lager, and added two bacon and cucumber sandwiches to the order. “Ye look a bit gaunt, Ralphie, and I’m a bit peckish. Unless you’ve got something for me, both sandwiches are mine.”
“You asked ’bout Sam Duncan of Duncan and Sons Trucking, right, Inspector?”
“I feared you were under the influence when I asked for that. What did you do? Find out who makes the king’s fancy white shirts instead?”
Ralph laughed. “No, I remembered correctly, Guv. Just got rumors for you, though.”
“I can work with rumors. Proof for the Crown Court can come later. Worth the pint and ten quid. We know Duncan’s lorries are making a lot of extra trips. Can you tell me why?”
***
Up to that time, the only form Alan and his team had on Duncan was drunk and disorderly, which had resulted in a night in the nick to sleep it off.
“One rumor is that he’s dumping garbage illegally.” Ralph shrunk away when he saw Alan’s furious scowl. “That’s just one rumor, Inspector. Another is that they’re moving drugs, ‘nother kind of garbage.”
Better, Alan thought. “Okay.” He gave Ralph his due. “That’s useful. Maybe. Can you take a peek inside a lorry for me?” He’d probably need a warrant for that, and judges and Alan didn’t get along too well.
“Too dangerous. My friend Herb tried to do that just out o’ curiosity, and two of Duncan’s drivers gave him stick, they did. He’s a guest of NHS now.”
Yeah, that figures. Duncan was a thug and only hired thugs. “Did Herb report that to us?”
“You mean to you coppers?” Alan nodded. Who else? “‘Course not. He’s not suicidal, Guv.”
Alan sighed and eyed the limp sandwich when it arrived—limp cucumbers making the toasted bread limp, which was hard to do with good country bread. He took another sip of lager after trying a bite and decided the rest was too risky. He shoved the sandwich over to Ralphie, who had already tucked in like he hadn’t grazed for a while.
Will my DCI consider a raid? Alan had turned down various offers of promotion to remain a DI, a position he loved. As a consequence, he now had a boss half his age who took few risks. Alan would put it to him like, “Jay, I’ve got information that Sam Duncan’s lorries are delivering drugs.” But with that DCI, that mightn’t be enough. And with Alan’s bad luck, only a few lorries would regularly carry drugs. And why lorries?
He’d have to try. He knew Duncan was dirty and up to no good…felt it in his gut.
To Alan’s surprise, the DCI agreed to call for a raid. Maybe I finally won his trust? Of course, the pillock only worried about closing cases to pad his resume, always looking for the next promotion, so maybe trusting Alan wasn’t a great motivation. He didn’t call out the SCO19, though. Considering what they found, that might have been a good idea.
Three of the seven lorries inspected were carrying illegal merchandise all right, but they carried weapons, ammunition, and bullet-proof vests instead of drugs.
Jay congratulated Alan. Sure, for him it’s still a win! But the DCI didn’t wait long to take the joy out of that.
“Now you only have to discover who are the buyers of those arms. Maybe some ISIS sympathizers?”
“I’ll get on that, sir,” Alan said, although he’d already thought about that eventuality. The case no longer involved Duncan; it was bigger than that scrote. Alan doubted it involved ISIS, though. Sure, there were ISIS sympathizers in England. One group had even gone to Syria, earning the nickname “Beatles.” But Sam’s lorries had been headed northeast, from Southampton towards London. Liaison with the Yard might be required. Or, even MI5, if Jay was right. He’d hate both.
He went home to his girlfriend Amanda.
***
The following morning, Alan’s sergeant approached his desk carrying a mug of coffee for him along with hers.
DS Judy Benson was almost as tall as he was. She’d introduced him to Amanda and was already the best sergeant he’d ever had. She wore her dark black hair short, framing her face nicely, which was rather plain and without makeup but often showing a comforting smile. Best of all, she was as smart as an owl and just as quick to pounce on a clue as if it were a scurrying field mouse. They often bounced ideas off each other, about cases and life in general. She was his work-Amanda, and Amanda and Alan had often double-dated with Judy and her boyfriend, an interesting quartet to be sure, because there were nearly twenty years’ difference between the pairs’ ages.
“Late night, Guv,” she said, putting the mug on his desk. “You still look knackered.”
“And you slept like a baby, I suppose. Your beau is off to Scotland, right?”
She nodded and smiled. “You know, I thought last night would close the Duncan case.”
“Might’ve been closed if the cargo’d only been drugs like Ralphie said. I’ll bet the buyers of those weapons will take their business elsewhere now.” He took a sip of coffee and smiled at his sergeant. “We’re back at square one, lass. We’ll get the team together in a bit, but sit yourself down. Let’s be creative. How the hell are we going to find out who those buyers were?”
“Beats me. I’ve got nothing beyond what our DCI said, and I find it hard to believe that ISIS sympathizers were the buyers. They don’t need all those weapons, just a few bombs in lorries or scimitar-waving fanatics willing to be martyrs.”
“You’re a woman with too much imagination. Um. I just had a niggling thought.” He leaned back in his chair—it received a lot of punishment as his pounds increased with age. He took another sip of his coffee. “What if we get Sam Duncan to tell us where he keeps paper records for his weapons smuggling? The bloke doesn’t know computers from cantaloupes. Said he keeps it all in his head and he’s not telling us. Bollocks! The scrote’s much too dumb to have much in that hard head.”
“You mean, make a deal with him? Would Jay go for that?”
“Maybe. Closing down Duncan’s operation plus nicking the buyers would be twice as good for our beloved DCI to achieve his aspirations for another promotion. Keep that in your thoughts for now. Let’s see what the team says. They’re not shy about voicing opinions even when they’re worth crap.”
Chapter Two
Both DCI and team had liked the idea.
It was the second time Alan and Judy faced the heavyset Duncan with the bulldog-like jowls. He looked a bit more deflated and weary this time. So did his barrister, an oily, pasty-faced, hawk-nosed arse with beady eyes who was dressed in a striped suit that made him look like a poor imitation of a gangster in a 1930’s movie.
Judy went by the book, getting the barrister and his client to agree to recording, reading Duncan his rights again, and then announcing for the record all who were present.
Alan thought they might get a bit more joy this time. We already have him for arms smuggling, although we need to know the port of entry for the arms. That wasn’t a big deal. If it came up in the interrogation, well and good, but the detective was more interested in who the buyers were.
“Checked with the VIPs, and they said we can make you an offer, Sam: A reduced sentence if you show us records of who purchased all those weapons and when. Maybe even a sentence cut down to a few years instead of the minimum ten the Crown Court likes.”
“Need it in writing,” Duncan said.
Judy shoved three copies toward the burly man. “We’d need you to sign them all.”
Duncan handed them to his barrister.
“My client and I will need time to study the offer,” the lawyer said.
“Got it,” Alan said. “You gentlemen need tea or coffee?”
“I already choked on that swill you call tea,” Duncan said with a growl. “I’ll try your coffee.”
“I’ll get by with a bottle of water, if you don’t mind,” said the barrister, probably taking in consideration Duncan’s critique yet figuring the coffee might be worse.
“Back in ten,” Alan said.
The two coppers filed out of the interrogation room.
“Think they’ll go for it?” Judy said as Alan watched her prepare the refreshments.
He didn’t mind the cakes, but he agreed with Sam about the tea. He would also make do with coffee, although that was a gamble as well.
“Document’s still about minimum sentences, but two years is a lot better than ten. If I were Sam Duncan, I’d go for it.”
“Unless the buyers have threatened him already. You know: Grass on us, and we’ll kill you.”
“Sam’s company is still a going concern, and he can run it from jail. I doubt he gives a rat’s ass about buyers and their threats.”
“Unless they really are ISIS. That ugly head wouldn’t look too good atop a pike.”
Alan smiled. Judy could be as gritty as he was sometimes.
“I’m imagining a middleman who sells to London gangs. The Yard is seeing more and more guns since Covid. They’re coming from somewhere. I’m betting old Sam is the first link in a chain. Bringing the weapons in from the south, east, or west coasts for that middleman.”
“We’re not able to go after all the gangs, but you’re looking for the middleman?”
“Yes. And whoever works for the scrote.” Alan looked at his watch. “Time to continue our little chinwag.”
***
When they reentered the room, the barrister handed Judy all three copies. “Signed and dated by Mr. Duncan, and initialed by me.”
Judy waved a hand to the tech behind the one-way window. “Please state, Mr. Duncan, that you signed these documents with no coercion from us and upon being advised by your legal council to do so.”
“I signed without any coercion from you coppers, following my barrister’s advice.”
“To close the deal then,” said Alan. “Where do you keep your records for your little smuggling business?”
“My sister-in-law’s place. She lets me use one of her bedrooms as a second office. They’re in a safe there.”
“Is she involved in the smuggling?”
“No. I pay her rent for that office. Works for me; works for her, ’cause she’s a bit cash-poor since my brother passed on. She thinks I’m just doing normal record-keeping there.”
“I’m sorry for her loss,” Judy said.
“She’s not. My little brother was a violent little weasel.”
And he’s not? thought Alan. “Okay. Let’s have the combination to the safe then. We’ll also need you to okay a visit to that office since you lease it from her. I assume she’ll let us in?”
“If I say so.”
Alan sent two detective constables to the sister-in-law’s place. They brought back four boxes filled with orders and invoices. The safe had actually been a heavy steel filing cabinet with a combination, like one might find for Top Secret documents at MI5 or MI6, something limited local police funding didn’t permit.
He called a team meeting to divide up the paperwork load and put Judy on closing the case with Sam Duncan. He saw the dour man being led out by two uniformed constables who would be taking him to jail. Alan waved and smiled; Sam glared at him. The lawyer just stared ahead. Probably trying to figure out how to up his fee? Or even get paid? The barrister had been on Sam’s retainer; he wasn’t Crown Court appointed, so someone paid for him. Someone besides Sam? Alan put that question on the back burner. He didn’t trust the lawyer, so Alan would give one of the team the job of finding more about him.
Alan and Jay spent their time deciding on how to proceed once they knew who the buyers were. The DCI wanted to bring in other London stations’ teams but mentioned he’d prefer to keep the Yard’s special groups and MI5 out of it for now. Before Alan said anything that he would have regretted—Alan hated working with the young ladder-climber—his moby saved him.
“Bad news?” Jay said after hearing a series of nos and yeses and seeing bad faces from Alan.
“Sam Duncan is dead! Got to go.”
“Wait! How? He just left on his way to jail.”
“The two constables taking him are wounded and in the hospital, but Duncan is dead. I’m heading for the crime scene.”
“Okay. Take Judy. I’ll handle things here.”
While Alan feared the consequences of Jay’s help, there wasn’t much he could do. “DS Benson, you’re with me!” he yelled to Judy as he passed through the open-plan area of the station where most CID members were located.
Chapter Three
Patrol cars surrounded the crime scene on the motorway, their lights turning the fog into a diffuse, blue, eye-watering cloud. Judy and Alan rushed over to the pathologist’s tent where they could see his shadow crouching by the still shadow of a body.
“Stay here and sort things with the constable crew,” he told Judy as he pulled on the required PPE, more to protect bio-evidence than him. He entered the tent.
“Ah, the inimitable Inspector Galbraith,” the pathologist said. “We meet again.”
“Save it, Joseph.” He knelt and studied the corpse, doing an ungainly Cossack dance to circle the remains while trying to stay out of the old pathologist’s way, who was doing his own dance. Sam Duncan looked uglier in death than he had in life, but the man who’d been on his way to jail hadn’t deserved this brutal end.
Alan stood, backed off, and watched a bit more, in a slow burn. Now they would have to go through all those invoices again, looking for a potential murderer, someone who had paid Sam back for grassing on them.
His rage wasn’t for that, though. It was more in self-incrimination because he knew the deal they’d made with Duncan had caused his murder.
“Can I make a guess at who initiated this, Guv?” Judy said later back in their unmarked car.
“Go ahead, lass. I’m still stewing over Duncan. Hell, they beat him to a pulp. ‘Course, if they were ISIS, they could have beheaded him. We’ll have to get the sister-in-law to confirm ID.”
“Really?” He nodded. “Damn formalities. Anyway, my guess it was the barrister.”
“Maybe. Good as any suspect for now. But Sam probably informed his employees too. Any one of them could’ve told the arms buyers. One thing is clear: Those buyers mean business.” He eyed her. “Sometimes I hate being a plod, lass. Now I’ll have to suck up to Jay again so he’ll keep me on the case. He’s already mentioned bringing other stations’ teams onboard, and I wouldn’t put it past him to bring the NCA in, just to win some political points.”
“And you want the focus to be to nick the scrotes who did Duncan in,” she said.
“Damn right! Nothing more we can do here. Let’s return to the station to see how the team is sorting all Duncan’s invoices.”
***
The DCI sat in on the team’s brainstorming session.
“Any joy with Sam’s invoices?” Alan said in a tired voice.
DC Hiram Jones fielded that question. “We also got the ‘official records’ and compared in order to eliminate the legal invoices from the illegal ones in the safe.” Alan nodded. Smart move. “Most of the illegal invoices not reported to the government are for J&M Enterprises, Limited.”
“And there’s no J&M, I suppose,” Jay said.
“Correct,” Hiram said. “All marked paid but not with a stamp and without Duncan’s or anyone else’s signature. We’re guessing that Sam just used those illegal invoices to keep tabs on his illegal activities.”
“Which we’d already nicked him for,” Judy said.”
“Could be material for future blackmail he planned too,” Alan said. “Go on.”
“We’re trying our best now to find out who J&M are.”
“Probably no one, just code for someone or some group,” Alan said. “I know someone who knows a lot about the illegal arms trade in Europe.” He turned to his DCI. “Permission to query him, sir?”
“Who is it?” Jay said.
“Bloke named Hal Leonard. Ex-Interpol agent who now consults with MI5 and DGSI.”
“Both of them?”
Alan shrugged. “Guess he’s in demand.”
“I hate to get MI5 involved,” Jay said.
“They might have to be eventually, but he’s just a consultant. For now, I don’t need to go near MI5.”
“Go for it then.”
“Thanks. Onward. What about wrapping up the Sam Duncan case?” Alan looked around his team’s attentive faces.
DC Donna Stevenson fielded that one. “We were making steady progress, but now there’ll be a lot more paperwork to do. We’ll need a bit more time, Guv.”
“Okay. We have one critical problem left to solve still in that regard.” He was remembering Judy’s comment in the car and winked at her. “How in the hell did whoever killed Duncan find out he’d given up his records to us? Judy’s first guess is the lawyer, and I agree with her.”
“It just makes sense,” Judy said, after which Jay nodded sagely. “The buyers might not have known he even had those invoices otherwise, but the barrister certainly knew.”
“I’ll let you put the screws to him, lass. Keep me posted. I want to contact my expert on the illegal arms trade.”
***
The Honorable Lester Knowlton, Duncan’s sleazy barrister, had decided to keep Judy waiting. She did…for all of five minutes, after which she barged into his office. Just in case he’d forgotten who she was, she showed him her warrant card and sat down in front of him.
He’d been reading the Times, but now his white, pasty face had turned bright red. “How dare you barge in here like this! I shall speak to your superiors.”
“They will say exactly what I’m saying now: We don’t have time to wait for a lawyer’s stalling tactics. If you don’t hear me out now, I’ll arrange for you to hear me out in the same ugly interrogation room you know so well.”
The redness faded. “Let’s not be hasty, Inspector.”
“Detective Sergeant Judy Benson.”
“Okay, Sergeant. Why are you here? My client is dead.”
“And you made a call soon after you left to give him company on his trip to jail. I’ll quote the constable who was with you; you said: ‘I need to make a call to begin the appeal process.'”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Not if what you told the constable was the truth. But it wasn’t. Phone records show that it was to a number corresponding to a non-traceable mobile phone. You were calling the arms buyers, weren’t you? To continue with what the constable now thought he heard you say: ‘He gave up the invoices to get a lighter sentence.'”
Knowlton smiled. “Nothing wrong with that. To appeal, the person I talked to would need that information.”
“J&M Enterprises would like to get it even more.”
Knowlton now frowned. “You can’t prove that.”
“No, we can’t.” She gestured by putting two fingers to her eyes and then pointing them towards the barrister. “But we will make your life hell in any way we can in the future. Do you understand?”
She stormed out of the office. In her car, she called Alan. “He was the one who informed the buyers, no doubt about it. He’s a lousy liar. His eyes gave away that he was lying.”
“Can we prove anything against him?”
“No, not unless J&M had him on retainer too, and we find out about it. We need to find the arms buyer.”
“Good work. See you back at the station. I’m meeting with Leonard.”
***
Comments are always welcome.
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