NATIONAL TREASURE by Barry Faulkner (life books to read .TXT) 📗

we made our way back across them and stepped off into the outer office, where a distraught secretary was sitting with a WPC giving a statement. We ignored each other; not the time for any ribald banter.

I’d managed just four hours sleep when Clancy had rung me at ten that morning. Cohen’s secretary had arrived for work and found him like this. The local force had gone in and secured the building, and when Cohen’s name was checked on the computer it had flagged up that the Organised Crime Unit had an interest in him and Clancy was alerted. We both got there about the same time. He hadn’t mentioned anything about Romania yet.

‘You didn’t say much about your Romanian trip when you landed last night. All go to plan, did it?’ He raised his eyebrows at me.

‘Yes, pretty well – in and out. We weren’t expected.’

‘You didn’t upset the Bogdan family so much that this is the result then?’ He nodded towards Cohen.

‘Well, they’d be upset that they’d lost their bargaining chip with Janie gone.’

Clancy nodded in agreement. ‘And they obviously thought Cohen had something to do with it and wasn’t of any further use to them.’

The pathologist wandered over. ‘Pretty basic hit, single 9mm shot to the temple.’

‘Well, at least he didn’t suffer long,’ said Clancy.

‘He may have – he was tortured by the look of it.’

‘Really?’

The pathologist referred to his notes. ‘Burn marks on his forehead – looks like somebody stubbed out a cigarette on him.’

There are some nasty people around.

 ***************************************

I rang Gold and arranged to meet her at the concourse cafe on Charing Cross Station. We use it a lot when a job’s in operation, you can take a window seat and see everybody approaching; you can’t do that in my office, and I thought it wise to give the office a wide berth as Cohen would have told his killers all about me, no doubt. If they didn’t know I was involved before, they damn well would now, and there were still four Bogdan brothers to worry about. Although with a bit of luck a couple of them were amongst the bodies we’d left in Romania.

‘You’re not supposed to do that,’ I admonished Gold as she poured herself a coffee from a thermos. ‘You’re supposed to buy it here.’

‘If I make it myself, I know it’s coffee and not dishwater. I don’t know how you can drink that.’ She nodded towards my cup of British Rail dishwater. She took a sip of her coffee. ‘Lovely. Right, what happened at Cohen’s then?’

‘Well, I think we stirred up the family so much yesterday that they decided to attack hard. I don’t know why they killed Cohen, he wouldn’t offer any threat – I’d have thought they’d have gone to Marcia’s house. Pretty obvious that’s where Janie would be.’

‘Or her flat.’

I hadn’t thought of that – obvious, eh? ‘Of course, her flat – Cohen would have given them her address. I bet there’s a welcoming party waiting there.’

‘Wanna check it out?’

‘Later, leave them there for a few hours so they get bored and drop their guard. No rush.’

‘Okay.’ Gold cleared some space on the table. ‘In the meantime I’ve been busy online this morning and calling in favours. Some interesting stuff.’ She pulled a folder from her shoulder bag and put a paper from it in front of me. ‘Harry Cohen’s phone calls for the last two weeks – lots to Marcia and quite a few to Club Bucharest, and four to Romania.’

‘Interesting – seems Harry was playing both sides.’

‘His bank statement is even more interesting.’ She flipped another paper in front of me. ‘In the last six months Harry Cohen’s little agency has moved three million through its account – bank transfers from Romania have come in regularly and gone out again pretty quickly to Belgium and Mexico.’

‘Narco capitals.’

‘Yes.’

I was getting the picture. ‘So Randall was using Cohen’s legitimate UK business account to get in the Bogdans’ money for drug deals, then sending it by bank transfer to his suppliers in Mexico and Belgium to pay them once delivery was made.’

‘Yes, and the timelines match – each amount coming in goes out about three weeks later with a shortfall of twelve percent, exactly twelve percent each time.’

It was all making sense. ‘The three weeks being the time it takes for the drugs to be delivered, and the twelve percent skim being Randall’s commission.’

Gold nodded. ‘I’d agree with that – and then the twelve percent goes to an offshore account of a business registered in the Isle of Man.’

‘Tax rate ten percent maximum.’

‘Correct, so Randall’s twelve percent of the three million transferred over the period is three hundred and sixty thousand pounds, of which he loses just thirty-six thousand in Manx tax, and everything is laundered and legal.’

‘And no bundles of cash changing hands and splashing around being washed.’

‘No, just a few clicks of the laptop keyboard. But there’s an open ending which ties nicely in with what’s going on. The last amount of a million in Cohen’s account didn’t go out to Mexico or Belgium, it went straight to the Isle of Man account.’

‘Have you got the dates it came in and went out?’

‘Of course. I’m ahead of you, Ben.’ She smiled. ‘The money came in to Harry Cohen’s account from Romania before Randall was killed, and went out to the Isle of Man a good seven weeks afterwards.’

‘This is all making sense. The Bogdans paid in advance for a consignment – the consignment that was supposed to be dropped from a small plane in Epping Forest – but when that went wrong and Randall was killed they didn’t get their drugs, and somebody took the opportunity a few weeks later to transfer all the money into the Isle of