The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [133]
Gooding falls silent, glancing at Luca from the corner of his eye. Each time he blinks his eyelashes rest for an instant on his cheeks.
“Did you call the police?” asks Luca.
“What would I tell them?”
“What about his wife?”
“I left a message on her answering machine. She’s the daughter of the former chairman, Alistair Bach. Nobody can get close to her.”
“You didn’t want to get involved?”
“That’s unfair.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Luca tries to think it through. Richard North’s job was to investigate suspicious transactions and approve new accounts at Mersey Fidelity. If the bank was involved in laundering illegal funds, he should have known about it.
“We need someone at the bank who’ll talk.”
“Good luck with that.”
“North must have had a secretary.”
“Why would she speak to us?”
“Her boss is missing. His car has just been found. She’ll be worried or scared or angry. It can go a lot of different ways.”
“I’ll get you a name and address.”
15
LONDON
The only access to this stretch of the river is via a strip of waste ground behind a row of factories that are crumbling from neglect. The padlocked gates have been opened and two police cars block the entrance.
“Jesus wept,” says Campbell Smith as TV cameras and photographers surround his car. Questions are shouted through the closed windows. Bodies are jostled aside. Bleached of color by the bright lights, Campbell’s face looks like a white balloon bobbing on his shoulders, ready to drift loose and float into the night.
“Who leaked this?” he barks. “I want to know. And get someone down here from the media unit.”
White spots float behind Ruiz’s closed lids as he shields his face from the flashguns. The car pulls up next to an old railway line, the silver ribbons disappearing into the darkness.
Above the factories and warehouses, the Olympic stadium is a white exoskeleton rising in concentric circles like a giant spaceship descending from the night sky. The River Lea ripples in the breeze, black as ink in the shadows. Spotlights have been set up on gantries and a portable generator provides a droning soundtrack. The only other noise comes from a news chopper flying above them, aiming a spotlight on to a floating dredger moored in the center of the river.
“I want them out of here!” bellows Campbell. “This is a fucking crime scene, not a reality show.”
A security guard is waiting on the edge of the light. Dressed in heavy boots, Levi’s and a company shirt, he stands with his legs spread like a man who enjoys being the center of attention. A tattooed serpent curls along his forearm and around his wrist.
“Dredger came through today,” he tells Campbell. “I thought the car was going to be an old wreck, until they lifted it out of the water. Looks like a brand-new Beemer. Fucked now.
“You can see the tire tracks across the way,” he motions to the far bank. “The fence is down. Tree fell on it. Council never bothered sending out a work crew.”
“Jesus, what’s that smell?” asks Campbell, wadding his handkerchief and holding it over his nose.
“The Deepham Sewage Works is north of here,” says the security guard. “Pumps out a quarter of a million cubic meters of treated sewage every day.”
“Is that why they’re dredging?” asks Ruiz.
“That’s the theory. This whole area is being done up for the Olympics. Dredging the river, re-vegetation, new towpaths… They don’t want any of them IOC dignitaries coming here and having to smell London’s shit.”
Two police divers are standing on the deck of the dredger, peering into the water. Neither looks keen to get wet. They’ll wait till morning when the sediment has settled.
Gerard Noonan is already at work lifting aluminum boxes from the van. “Whatever happened to Sunday being a day of rest?” he says.
“I didn’t take you for a religious man,” says Ruiz.
“Oh, yeah, I do my praying on my sofa watching Match of the Day.”
“Who are you praying for?