Текст книги " In the Dark Places (Abbatoir Blues) "

Автор книги: Peter Robinson

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

“He’s still at home. We’re keeping an eye on him. AC Gervaise is with the CPS as I speak, working on possible charges. I did a bit of research into his known associates and there’s a bloke called Carl Utley looks good for the driver. Muttonchops, usually wears a flat hat. He used to be a long-distance lorry driver but he got fired when he was suspected of being involved in the disappearance of some expensive loads. Nothing proven, but enough to lose him his job. He drifted into nightclub work and that’s when he met Tanner. They’re good mates.”

“Excellent. Follow it up. See if you can have this Utley picked up. No further sign of Michael Lane?”

“No, nothing.”

“Keep at it. And thanks, Gerry. Get back to me as soon as you hear anything from Annie or the CPS.”

Banks ended the call and went on his way, mulling over how he could use what he had just found out against Havers.

It was a dilapidated sixties office building with about as much charm and character as the shoe box it resembled. However well Havers was doing, he hadn’t moved his business into better digs, somewhere nice and trendy down in Dockland, for example. But maybe this was his cover, and maybe it didn’t matter to him. Banks had learned over the years that criminals had some very odd ideas about what was the best thing to do with their ill-gotten gains. Take Ronald Tanner, for example. He probably didn’t make a fortune, but he could have afforded a larger house and a decent car. Instead he seemed to be broke and on benefits all the time. What did he spend his money on? Banks knew one safecracker who spent most of what he earned on expensive women’s clothes, and they weren’t gifts for a girlfriend, either. A cat burglar he had once arrested collected rare vinyl and lived in a small flat in Gipton on a diet of baked beans and toast. He didn’t even own a record player. Maybe with Havers it was still coke, which could be an expensive habit, or the dogs? Or maybe he had a nice little nest egg hidden away offshore, and when the right moment came, he’d vanish to the Caymans for good. Anything was possible.

Banks took the rickety lift to the fifth floor and found the door marked Havers Overseas Investment Solutions Ltd. He’d heard that it was very much a one-man operation, so he wasn’t expecting the receptionist who greeted him when he knocked and entered.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I’d like to see Mr. Havers.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Banks showed her his warrant card.

She picked up the telephone. “If you’d care to—”

But Banks walked straight past her and through the next door, where he found Montague Havers sitting behind a flat-box Staples desk tapping away at a laptop computer. As soon as Havers saw Banks, he closed the lid on the computer and got to his feet. “What is this? You can’t just come barging in like that.”

Banks showed his warrant card again. Havers sat down and smoothed his hair. A funny smile crossed his features. “Well, why didn’t you say? Sit down, sit down. Always happy to help the police in any way I can.”

“I’m very glad to hear it,” said Banks, sitting down on a very uncomfortable hard-backed chair. “It makes my job a lot easier.” The view, he noticed, was of the railway lines at the back of the mainline stations. A trainspotter’s wet dream.

Havers wore his wavy brown hair just a trifle too long for a man of his age, Banks thought. Along with the white shirt and garish bow tie he was wearing, it gave him the air of someone who was desperately trying to look young. Banks wondered, as he peered more closely, if his hair was dyed. Or a rug, even. It looked somehow fake. Maybe that was what he spent his money on: expensive rugs. The rusty mustache on his lip didn’t do much for the youthful effect.

“So what exactly can I do for you, D . . . is it DI Banks?”

“DCI, actually. Am I to call you Malcolm Hackett or Montague Havers?”

“I changed my name legally six years ago to Montague Havers.”

Banks tilted his head. “May I ask why?”

“Let’s just say that in the business I’m in, it helps if you have an educated-sounding name. Malcolm Hackett was just too . . . too comprehensive school.”

“And Montague Havers is more Eton?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but that’s the general idea. Yes.”

Banks looked around the small office, at the crooked blinds, the stained plasterboard walls, the scratched filing cabinets. “And the office?”

“This? Nobody comes here. You’re lucky to find me in. This is just a place to keep records and make phone calls. All my business appointments take place in fine restaurants around Fitzrovia or Marylebone High Street, or at my club. The Athenaeum. Perhaps you know it?”

Banks shook his head. “I never was very clubbable. What exactly is your business?”

“What it says on the door.”

“That sounds like some sort of dodgy tax avoidance scheme to me. Offshore banking. International Investment Solutions.”

“It’s a complicated world out there, and taxation is only a part of it.”

“What other services do you offer?”

Havers glanced at his watch. “I don’t mean to rush you, but are you interested in becoming a client or are you just making polite small talk?”

“I’d like to know.”

“Very well. I’m part of a larger network of companies, and we offer just about any financial service—legal financial service, mostly investment opportunities—you can imagine.”

“All international?”

“Not all.”

“Is property development investment one of your specialties?”

“We don’t mind investing in property development occasionally, as long as it seems sound. But you have to remember that I’m in the business of investing British money abroad, not in domestic markets, and it’s often difficult to get a clear perspective on overseas properties. The laws can be so complicated. That doesn’t apply to my personal investments, of course.”

“The Drewick airfield shopping center? Does that ring a bell?”

“Yes. I have a middling amount of my own money invested in the project, through a subsidiary.”

“Retail Perfection?”

“That’s the one. You have done your research. Anyway, I have a number of small investments in shopping centers. Can’t go wrong with them in a consumer society like this one.”

“As long as people have the money to spend.”

“Oh come, come. That’s hardly an issue. People will spend whether they have any money or not. That’s the nature of capitalism.”

“Maybe so. But I’m still interested in Drewick. Do you keep up to date on what’s happening there?”

“I trust Venture Properties to keep me informed. As far as I know, there’s been no movement for some time. Some minor problem with zoning laws. We expect it to be settled soon.”

“But Venture would let you know as soon as any impediments to progress were removed?”

“Of course. I should think so.”

“I see.” That meant Havers would be in a good position to switch operations from Drewick to some other location if he did happen to be involved in rural crime. “I understand you visited North Yorkshire recently.”

“My, my, am I under surveillance?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“Well, I very much doubt you’d be here if they didn’t know I know, if you see what I mean.”

“Exactly. So who were you visiting up there?”

“My wife’s brother and his wife live in Richmond.”

“And you stayed with them?”

“Of course.”

“All the time? Sunday to Tuesday?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I happen to get on well with them, and I like the Dales.”

“Did your wife accompany you?”

Havers looked down at his desk. “My wife is dead, Mr. Banks.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s been some years now. But Gordon, Cathy and I have always been close. We still maintain strong family ties. Is there anything else?”

“Were you with them all the time?”

“Of course not. I did a bit of touring around by myself. The weather was bad, though, so that dampened my spirits. Still, it’s a fine part of the world.”

“Did you visit Belderfell Pass?”

“No. I know it, of course, but I’d avoid it in such poor conditions.”

“Visit any farms in Swainsdale?”

“No. I didn’t visit Swainsdale at all. What is it you’re after? I just drove around a bit, went for a pub lunch here and there, looked in a few antique shops—I collect antiques—and I spent some time with my family. We had a trip to Castle Bolton. It’s always been one of my favorite historical spots. Very manageable. What’s your problem with that?”

“I have no problem with Castle Bolton, Mr. Havers. It’s just the timing. Did you meet with a Ronald Tanner, Carl Utley, Michael Lane or Morgan Spencer?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard any of those names.”

“What about John Beddoes?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Are you sure the name John Beddoes doesn’t ring any bells?”

“I’m afraid not. Should it?”

“Indeed it should. You worked with him in the stockbroking business in the mid eighties. You were friends. You socialized together. Snorted coke. Drank champagne from the bottle. Painted the town red.”

“Now hang on a– Just a minute.” Havers snapped his fingers. “Of course! Bedder Beddoes. How could I forget? Yes, I knew him, back in the day. It was a long time ago, though.”

“Bedder Beddoes?”

“Use your imagination, Mr. Banks. We were young and free.”

“A lot of coke gone up the nasal passages since then?”

“That was one mistake. I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.” He patted his chest. “Heart.”

“Are you telling me you have one, or that there’s something wrong with it?”

“Ha-ha. Very funny. I’m saying I’ve had two heart attacks. Cocaine would kill me. I’m allowed two units of wine a day. Do you know how hard that is?”

Banks could only imagine. “So we’ve established that you do know John Beddoes, and you did work with him some years ago, but you didn’t visit him in Yorkshire last week? Did you know he now owns a farm there?”

“Bedder? No. I didn’t even know he lived there. We were good mates once, it’s true. But you know how it goes. You drift apart over time. And those times, well, they were heady indeed. Fueled by coke and champagne, as you say. The memory tends to fade quickly, if indeed it registers at all. It went by in a whirl, I’m afraid. I’m only lucky I still had my wits left when the bubble burst. I was able to get into international banking. That’s where I learned most of what I know about overseas investments.”

“So if we were to dig into your financial affairs, the financial affairs of your company and your movements over the past while, we wouldn’t find any sort of intersection with John Beddoes and his interests?”

“I couldn’t guarantee that, but they would be none that I’m aware of. He’s not a client, if that’s what you mean.”

Havers sounded nervous at the prospect. It was obvious that he was lying, but Banks didn’t think he was going to get any further with him. By denying that he knew Beddoes, though, Havers had unintentionally told Banks a lot. Why deny it unless Beddoes was involved? Or unless Havers himself was involved? Havers had pulled himself out of the hole quickly, but not quickly enough to convince Banks that he had forgotten “Bedder” Beddoes’s existence. No doubt he had lied about other things, too. He wasn’t going to admit to knowing any of the others, thugs like Tanner and Spencer, or to using the hangar at the airfield as a loading bay for stolen farm equipment. But by talking to him, and by letting him know that he knew, Banks thought he might just have ruffled things up enough that Havers, or someone in the organization, would make a mistake. He still didn’t know how deeply Beddoes was involved—after all, it was his expensive tractor that had been reported stolen—but these two old friends certainly had the knowledge between them to run a sideline in stolen farm equipment. Beddoes knew something about farming, and he lived in a large rural area; he had also been a merchant banker, so he knew about financing. All they needed were connections to the illegal trade routes, and Havers’s international contacts might easily have supplied those, according to what Joanna MacDonald had said. Banks decided to lay his cards on the table before leaving.

“Mr. Havers, I believe you’re part of a group, or call it a gang, a criminal organization, involved in rural crime in a big way, and a part of your operation made a nasty mess on my patch. I believe you’ve been using the abandoned airfield and hangar at Drewick because it’s a convenient transfer point for stolen goods from the north, and because you knew it was in limbo for the time being. Your men wouldn’t be disturbed. Last Sunday, one of your underlings, Morgan Spencer, was murdered there, killed by a penetrating bolt pistol to the head. Either you wanted rid of him for some reason or some rival gang was muscling in. We don’t know yet why he was killed. Either way, I believe you know something about it.”

“This is ridiculous,” protested Havers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t even—”

“In the area at the time? How do you know what time it took place? I didn’t tell you.”

“Oh, very clever. The old ‘how could you have known’ trick. Now you’re putting words in my mouth.”

“Well, how could you?”

“Because it was on the news on Monday, while I was still at my brother-in-law’s. Ask him. They said it took place on Sunday morning. I didn’t get to Richmond until Sunday afternoon, as you well know.”

As far as Banks was aware, the media didn’t know on Monday that the murder had taken place in the hangar on Sunday morning, but he decided he would keep that point in reserve until he had done a thorough check on Havers, including a visit to his brother-in-law. “Exactly,” said Banks. “So where were you before then? How do I know you didn’t find a way to foil Operation Hawk and the ANPR cameras and sneak up to the airfield earlier, for example?”

“This is absurd,” said Havers. “I have nothing more to say to you. If you plan on continuing this charade I want my lawyer present.”

Banks stood up to leave. “You’d hardly need a lawyer if it were a charade, Monty,” he said. Then he paused at the door. “You know,” he went, “if I were you, I’d take this as an omen, a bad omen. If I were you, I’d back off for a while, lie low and take stock. Disappear from the radar. No matter what you think, things aren’t going to get any easier for you from now on.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s reality, Monty. The threats come later.”

Banks closed the door gently behind him. The secretary scowled at him as he left.

13

SO YOU DIDN’T NOTICE ANYTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT Mr. Ross when he came to pick up here on Tuesday?” Winsome asked. She was at the last farm on her list, the last place Caleb Ross had visited before heading for the Belderfell Pass and his death, and she had found out nothing new. He had arrived at a quarter to one and left just after one, so Mr. Wythers said. Some of the farmers thought Caleb was a bit distracted, in a hurry, whereas others thought his behavior just the same as usual.

Mr. Wythers, owner of Garsley Farm, had invited her in for a cup of tea, and Winsome was grateful for it. She felt as if it had been a long day, though it was still only midafternoon, and she had not stopped for lunch. The slice of Battenberg cake Mr. Wythers gave her with her tea reminded her how hungry she was. It would be back to the station, a quick report, then home for an early dinner followed by an early night.

“Caleb never said much,” Mr. Wythers was saying. “I don’t mean he was rude or anything, but we weren’t mates, if you know what I mean. He was just a man doing his job, and I was the one who paid him for it. It was just like that. Businesslike, but polite, friendly, you know. I even asked him in for a cup of tea and a piece of cake, just like I did you, but he said he’d just had his lunch. We didn’t chat or gossip or owt, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about him.”

“That’s all right,” said Winsome. “I’m just collecting whatever bits and pieces I can to try to build up a picture of his last day.”

“It’s a terrible thing, what happened,” said Wythers. “That pass has claimed more than one victim in my time here, that’s for certain. And you couldn’t see it coming. When he left here it was clear as anything. Clouds, aye, but there’s nowt odd about that. Came like a bolt from the blue, it did. Weather’s like that in these parts and it can be awful bleak out here. It pays to be careful, lass.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Winsome. “But I think I’m just about done now.” She ate the last small piece of cake, one of the pink bits with a marzipan border, washed it down with the last of her tea and stood up.

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help, lass,” said Wythers, walking her to the door. “Stay, boy,” he said to the excited young collie who had started to accompany them. The dog sat down by the hearth. “Stay. There’s a good lad.”

Winsome said good-bye and stepped into the farmyard. She had seen, and smelled, enough farmyards over the past few days to last her a lifetime, she thought, but at least she hadn’t drawn Annie’s unenviable task of checking out the abattoirs. Still, Annie had come up with a viable lead in the stolen bolt gun and dismissed workers, and Winsome had come up with nothing except the possibility that Caleb Ross might have had something on his mind the day he died. Whatever it was, she guessed that it had lain at the other side of Belderfell Pass, and he had never reached it.

She started the car and headed back up the long drive to the B road. Instead of turning right to get back to the Swainshead and Helmthorpe road to Eastvale, she turned left toward the high moorland. She remembered this part of the dale well because the potholing club had visited it often. The hills that loomed ahead of her were riddled by one of the largest cave systems in Europe, with miles of underground passages linking huge chambers, some as large as the inside of a cathedral.

Thinking about her potholing days took her mind back to Terry Gilchrist. She still felt embarrassed about the previous evening. He had rung her that morning, before work, and asked her if she would see him, just to talk. Reluctantly—mostly because of her embarrassment, not lack of interest—she had agreed to have lunch with him on Saturday. How long could she go on behaving like a flirtatious virgin around him? Not that she would jump into bed with him—it was only lunch, after all—but she would make good on that kiss she had promised herself last night. It had been a long time since she had been romantically and physically involved with a man, that was all. It would take a little practice.

Beyond Wythers’s farm, which was right on the edge of the high Pennines, the land wasn’t much use for farming and was practically uninhabited. Sheep grazed there, of course, but that was about all. The road turned a sharp left toward Belderfell Pass, and Winsome could see it snaking up the hillside ahead. She pulled over in a passing place and got out to admire the distant view. She probably wasn’t that far from the Lancashire border, she thought, or perhaps she was even far enough north to be neighboring on Cumbria, where the wild fells and moorlands of the Yorkshire Dales would slowly morph into the older, more rounded hills of the Lake District. It was a panoramic but desolate view before her, that was for certain, two or three large hills like long flat anvils, a disused quarry, stretches of moor and marsh. She got her binoculars from the boot and scanned the distance. There were one or two isolated hunters’ lodges, owned by private clubs and used during the grouse season, but that was about all. She was already beyond the source of the river Swain, above Swainshead, and though becks and small waterfalls cascaded from the steep hillsides and meandered through the moorland, there were no rivers or tarns to be seen.

Shivering in the sudden chill breeze, she got back in her car and decided to take the long way back to Eastvale, over Belderfell Pass. Remembering Wythers’s warnings about the weather, she scanned the sky as she made her way up the winding, unfenced road. Before long, she could feel her ears blocking and ringing, the way they did in airplanes at takeoff and landing. She yawned and felt them crack and clear. The pass wound its way high above the valley bottom over to the next dale. She got about halfway when she encountered the first signs of the accident, the dots of the investigators still working at the scene way below. She could see scatterings of black plastic bags. She slowed down as she rounded a promontory and stopped for a moment to watch the men below, but the perspective gave her vertigo. She never usually had a problem with heights, but even the hardiest of souls had been known to tremble at Belderfell Pass. Going the other way was a lot easier, of course. Then you hugged the hillside all the way. But in the direction she was going, the direction Caleb Ross had taken, there was nothing between her and the sheer drop.

Soon she realized she had started on the slow and winding descent into the tiny village of Ramsghyll, nestled at the bottom of the hill and famous for its pub, the Coach and Horses, which boasted real ale and gourmet food. Hungry as she was, Winsome didn’t stop, but carried on through the village’s narrow high street, past the pub and onto the road that, beyond Helmthorpe and Fortford, would take her eventually back to Eastvale. Perhaps it had been a wasted journey, she thought as she drove along admiring the scenery in the lengthening shadows, and perhaps it had been a wasted assignment altogether, but she still couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that the answer to Caleb Ross’s role in Morgan Spencer’s murder lay somewhere in the landscape she had just left behind. She was too tired and confused to do anything about it today, or even to know what to do, but she would approach the problem afresh tomorrow morning and work out just what it was that was niggling away at the edge of her consciousness.

THE DUCK and Drake was a popular old pub on Frith Street, in the heart of Soho, just a stone’s throw from Ronnie Scott’s. Banks had been there many times before, both when he worked in the West End and when he visited London or went down on business. Like this afternoon. The after-work crowd usually started congregating early, and there were already a few people standing outside smoking and quaffing pints when Banks got there at four. It was a small pub, long and narrow. Banks walked past the crowded bar through to the back room, which was furnished with a few ancient wooden tables and chairs, and found the person he was looking for right at the back table, scaring prospective punters away with his churlish expression.

Detective Chief Superintendent Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess stood up and beckoned Banks over, shaking hands vigorously. “Banksy, it’s good to see you again. How’s it hanging?”

Banks cringed. Burgess was the first person to call him Banksy since his school days. Not that he didn’t admire the artist’s work, but the nickname still rankled. Back at school there hadn’t been the “other” Banksy.

Burgess had worked for just about every law enforcement agency there had been, every acronym imaginable, had been involved in counterterrorism, drugs, people trafficking, airport security, homicide and organized crime. Now he was high up in the new National Crime Agency, the NCA, which had been working on Operation Hawk with the local forces. Though Burgess wasn’t the go-to man for rural crime, he oversaw a variety of operations, and Banks was willing to bet he knew as much about what was going on there as the team that had been assigned to it.

“I’m fine,” said Banks, squeezing himself into the small space on a wobbly chair.

“I noticed the bar was getting busy,” said Burgess, “so I took the liberty of getting the drinks in. Lager for me, of course, and one of those fancy real ale things for you. Can’t remember what it’s called—Codswallop or Cock-a-doodle-doo or some such thing—but the delightful young lady at the bar recommended it.”

“Thank you,” said Banks, and took a sip. It tasted good. Hoppy and full-bodied.

“So you got my message?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Banks had received a phone call from Joanna MacDonald just after he had left Havers’s office, telling him that she had been speaking with the NCA about his visit. They wanted to talk to him while he was in London and see if they could share information. She had no idea it was going to be Burgess who turned up. Banks doubted that she even knew him. But Banks wasn’t greatly surprised. Burgess had a habit of turning up when you least expected him—which was, perhaps, when you should most expect him. He and Banks had many points of difference, but they got along well and never let a good argument get in the way of the job.

He had also received a call from Gerry Masterson to inform him that DC Cabbot and Doug had got two names of possible bolt gun thieves out of Stirwall’s—Ulf Bengtsson and Kieran Welles. Annie believed that Welles was their best bet, but the team was working on tracking both of them down.

Gerry also informed him that the Kent police had phoned to report that Morgan Spencer’s removal van had been found on some waste-land on the outskirts of Dover. Inside were a Yamaha motorcycle and a Deutz-Fahr Agrotron tractor. Both intact. The whole lot was being shipped up to North Yorkshire as soon as the locals could get transport organized. That came as a shock to Banks, but he filed it away for later.

“Well, it’s good to see you down here again,” said Burgess. “It’s been too long. When was the last time? That gay spook murder, wasn’t it?”

“Probably,” said Banks. “I forget the exact occasion. You’re well, I take it?”

Burgess looked more gaunt than usual, the belly that had been hanging over his belt the last time they met trimmed down, and the extra flab gone from his face, making his cheeks look hollow.

“Don’t let appearances deceive you, old mate. I’ve been working out at the gym. Given up the evil weed—Tom Thumbs, that is—and cut back on the demon alcohol. A little. You should try it. I had a minor health scare a while back, meant they had to shove a camera up my arse on a stick. I must say, though, with the drugs they give you if you go private, you can’t feel a thing. You can imagine my surprise when I found a note stuffed in my shoe afterward saying, ‘I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.’ Still, such is life.”

“It was a false alarm?”

“It wasn’t the big C, if that’s what you mean. A small operation soon put things right, and now it’s the healthy life for me.” He knocked back some lager.

Banks felt relieved to hear that Burgess’s problem wasn’t serious, and he realized that the man sitting opposite him was one of his few remaining friends, one of the few people he cared about, though he would never admit it. “It’s that stuff’ll kill you,” he said, pointing to Burgess’s quickly vanishing pint of lager. “All chemicals. You want something like this.” He held up his own pint. “Organic. Good for you. Or red wine.”

“Same old Banksy, it’s good to see.” Burgess clapped his hands together. “Anyway, enough of this banter. Let’s get down to brass tacks, as you lot say up north.”

Banks hadn’t heard anyone say that for a long time, except on television satires of northern life, but he let it go by. It was best to do that with many of the things Burgess said, he usually found. “Montague Havers?” Banks said.

“Yes, good old Monty.”

“Why is he still walking around free?”

“Because he’s a devious bastard,” said Burgess. “All right, I know. I’ll say it before you do. I’m a devious bastard, too, and not above bending the rules when it suits my purposes. You and I, we’re from the same side of the tracks. We should understand each other. Thing is, Monty is, too.”

“But he’s a crook. And he changed his name because he thought it sounded more posh.”

“It was a business decision. Monty grew up in the East End, like me, when it really was the East End, if you know what I mean. Thing is, when Thatcher started putting the economy to rights and commies like you went off feeling sorry for the poor fucking miners and electricians and factory workers, some of us knew a gift horse when it kicked us in the face, and we took our opportunities where we found them. There were billion-pound privatizations, hostile takeovers, corporate raids, asset stripping. And very few rules. Great times, and open to all. You didn’t have to be from Eton and Oxbridge to make it back then. All you had to do was throw out your lefty social conscience—something you could never do, old mate. Those City lads were practically printing money, and they came from the same place as you and me. The mean streets. Shitty council estates. Comprehensives. If I hadn’t already been busy climbing the greasy pole of policing, I might have been one of them, myself.”

“I’m sure you would have made a lot more money. But things have changed.”

“Tell me about it. Bunch of wankers we’ve got in there nowadays couldn’t manage a kid’s piggy bank, let alone a fucking economy. But that’s not our concern. If you want to understand people like Monty Havers, you’ve got to understand people like me. The barrow boys made good. We were young, we were quick-witted and we were cocky. Not a shade of shit different from the criminal classes you might say, and you’d be right. But we had vim and vision and stamina and, by God, that’s what the country needed. We got things done. So what happened to them when the dream ended? Well, I imagine some of them were damaged for good by the lifestyles of excess, same way as the hippies who’d taken too much LSD. But the others, like Havers, wormed their way into legitimate businesses, like specialized banking, and learned the ropes and how to get around them. Like I said, we were bright and the rule book was out of the window. Now, if you ask me, there’s not a hell of a lot of difference between most of your merchant banks and organized crime, so it shouldn’t come as such a big surprise that Havers is bent. Thing is, he’s learned his tradecraft. He knows intimately the ins and outs of money laundering, invisible transfers, hidden accounts, offshore shelters, shell companies and so forth. He’s always one step ahead of the legislation. That’s why we know him only by his contacts, and by what they do. Some of them do very unsavory things, but Havers never puts his name to anything that can get back to him, never gets his hands dirty. He knows the people who can ship you anything anywhere anytime, for a price. He knows where you can get your hands on fake passports, phony bills of lading, thirteen-year-old virgins, you name it. He knows which palms need to be greased, and he might supply the funds—from somewhere squeaky clean—but he doesn’t do the greasing. See what I mean? He stays out of the world he helps to run, even socially. You’ll find him at the Athenaeum, not some dive in a Soho basement.”