The Trident Gang Crime Command had got back to their former colleague with some bad news. They had statements, photos and files on the GodZillas, but all of it old. Nothing more recent than seven years ago. Ramirez had been fifteen when he set it up, but as he aged and upped his reputation and moved to Kensington, he disbanded it in favour of more secret squads, bigger scores, and heavier stuff than street brawls. They had ceased to exist, and Ramirez hadn’t been associated with the Bosszilla name in a long time.
According to the CPS, all Ramirez had to do was claim he’d lost the dog tag, and nobody could prove otherwise. Get something meatier, the lawyer had advised. Cooper had even pretended to get cut off so he could call back and talk to another lawyer. A woman this time, with a helpful dislike of gang violence because her sister’s friend’s son took a wandering turf war bullet. But the same grim outlook. Get something meatier and we’ll look at it.
Mac got the feeling he was starting to see their whole case unravel.
Eleven
Karl
Ganglord? Karl clicked the link with a shaking hand.
The wedding again but with a different angle to the coverage. Home & Fashion had the prim and the elderly to please, but this writer didn’t. Here, the cops were not present as security, they were eyeballing the crowd in search of wanted criminals. Many underworld faces had been expected at the wedding of one of Britain’s most notorious crime barons.
Karl typed in the name Ronald Grafton, and his worry rose.
Ronald Grafton: bigshot London criminal with ties to organised crime in Spain. His fingers were in every pie unpalatable to the police: prostitution, drugs, fraud, guns, identity theft. Rumoured to be worth ￡10 million. His nickname was Teflon Ron, and it was quite fitting: five times in the last nine years upholders of law and order had hauled him into court, only to watch him stroll right back out with a shredded prosecution case in his wake. What was then the Serious Organised Crime Agency failed three times to do him for drug smuggling; three years ago, when a former colleague was found in a suitcase floating in a river, he beat a murder charge because the police didn’t act upon information about a second suspect; and a year ago he was acquitted of arranging arson attacks on property owned by alleged rival criminals. He was due in court in a few weeks on a charge of fraud. The story was dated two months ago. Nervous, Karl hit the news tab and got a story that was ten hours old.
LOCAL GANGLORD CLEARED OF FRAUD CHARGES
There was a photo: Ron and Liz atop a set of wide stone steps outside a law court. Holding hands, their other arms raised for a crowd of onlookers. Her left hand, his right, with the paw prints denoting the end of a long journey this time. He wore a white suit. She wore the very dress wrapping her body when Karl nearly crushed her in his van.
A neutral piece of reporting this time. It didn’t say Ronald Grafton was a businessman wrongly accused, and it didn’t say another powerful criminal had beaten the system. It listed facts and handed over to Grafton himself for a quote given to reporters mobbing him like a film star. He said the charges had been absurd, justice had prevailed, now all he wanted to do was go celebrate with his wife and friends – thanks to all who believed in me, thanks to my loving wife who stood by me at every turn, and adios.
He couldn’t be reached for comment and that evening his Kensington home was dark and silent. He was believed to have flown out of the country to celebrate in one of his Spanish homes with his wife and a couple of close friends.
Oh no he hadn’t, Karl thought with a genuine chill on his spine. He’d stayed right here in London, tucked up at some secret hideaway. Maybe the paparazzi couldn’t find him, but others knew where he’d gone. The worst possible kind.
Shit.
It explained everything. Why Liz had used her maiden name, and why she had refused to talk about her husband, and most of all why she had refused to go to the cops after their refuge was attacked. High-level criminals had their own code of justice and didn’t involve the police in anything, be it a stolen pushbike or attempted slaughter at a remote hideaway home. That was why her husband had ordered her to flee and lay low if ever they got attacked by enemies, of which he must have many.
This was serious, of the deadly kind. Nobody stormed the home of a gangland boss unless they were planning to spill blood, and nobody got where Grafton had if enemies were dealt with by a stern telling-off.
Whatever had happened at the cottage, the decor wasn’t going to appeal to Home & Fashion.
Twelve
Mac
Bad news came thick and fast.
First, Ramirez’s solicitor arrived with a disk that he said had been delivered to him right outside the station. A hooded man had approached him as he turned into the car park, slapped the disk against his windscreen, and scarpered. Ramirez hadn’t explained, so three cops and one solicitor watched the film it contained without knowing what was going to be shown. And once it became apparent, someone quickly hit fast forward to spin through the feature as quickly as possible while the others studied the carpet or their fingernails.
So, Ramirez hadn’t phoned his mum, as they’d expected. He’d called one of his boys to bring the video along.
The next piece of bad news: Ramirez’s mum had been informed of developments by one of her son’s friends, and she’d thundered down to the station to raise hell. She was taken to Ramirez’s cell and given five observed minutes, but only after Ramirez promised to placate her and send her on her way, and under no circumstances to discuss the case with her. Clearly someone forgot that this guy was a criminal.
After her five minutes, she got time with the solicitor as she headed for the exit. What was said became clear not long afterwards.
* * *
The main players grouped in the interview room. Lawyer and client conferred in whispers, like lovers. Ramirez was smug when the lawyer said his client wasn’t going to answer questions but would make one statement. Ramirez rolled his shoulders and took a breath, like a guy getting ready for a long and eloquent speech.
‘I lost that dog tag. Like years ago. I ain’t seen it since. If you found that on Grafton’s body, someone’s setting me up. You got nothing on me.’
He went on to explain that his mother had admitted she took a whole bunch of her son’s stuff and got rid of it. The dog tag, she remembered, had gone into a box that had been stored in the attic. Over the years, all sorts of people had been in that attic: builders, family, friends, even the police. And they’d moved house, so the removal guys also had an opportunity to steal.
And that was that. The interview was paused as the detectives went out for a chat.
* * *
Mac met them in the hallway. Gondal was angry: he accused the solicitor of coaching the mother and son in how to discredit a major slice of evidence. Cooper, though, liked Mrs Ramirez’s input: it backed up his idea that someone out to frame Ramirez could have accessed the dog tag. The two detectives started to argue, but Mac shut them down.
‘Let’s forget the dog tag. The CPS wasn’t interested. It’s documented that Ramirez’s silly GodZillas gang is defunct. The tag will still make its way into court as padding, but we can’t rely on it. So, let’s focus on other things. Next step?’
Gondal said they should get the video analysed, just in case there was digital witchcraft involved: anyone planning a triple murder, especially of a man like Grafton, wouldn’t just hope for the best. They’d erect a force field.
Cooper disagreed, instead wanting to pursue Ramirez’s own theory: the set-up. Guys like Ramirez collected many enemies – ‘so let’s start looking at who might prosper with him locked in a cell.’
They looked at Mac to see which side of the fence he’d take.
‘Send the video for analysis,’ he said. ‘You never know. Ask him to clarify how to spell his surname. But wake him at four in the morning to do it, just to give him a headache. I’m going home. Call me if anything important pops up.’