The Sentence Is Death

Do all policemen swear? Hawthorne, Grunshaw and now Lofty all had an issue with the English language that bordered on Tourette’s. My ears had pricked up, however. Derek Abbott was the suspected child pornographer that Hawthorne had pushed down a flight of stairs.

‘It was an accident.’ Hawthorne spread his hands and gave him a beatific smile. ‘These things happen.’

‘You were the one who told me to nip out for a cigarette. I thought you were being friendly but you knew what you were doing all along. One fucking smoke and it cost me my job, my pension, my marriage, my whole fucking life.’

‘Marge not with you, then?’

‘Marge dumped me. She went off with a fireman.’

Hawthorne had taken Derek Abbott down to the interview room because he had been in the custody office at the time and there was no one else around. That was when the accident had happened. Abbott had fallen down fourteen concrete steps with his hands cuffed behind him – a flying jump indeed – and as a result Hawthorne had been thrown out of the police force. Lofty was the one who should have escorted Abbott to the interview room. And he had lost his job too.

‘So are you going to tell me about Adrian Lockwood?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘Fifty quid! And if you don’t get a move on, I might change my mind and make it a ton.’

Hawthorne glanced at me. ‘All right. Pay him.’

‘Me?’ But I had no choice in the matter. I took out my wallet. Fortunately, I had just enough cash. I set five £10 notes down on the table and added some change. Lofty swept it all towards him and folded it away.

‘I’m guessing you work for Graham Hain,’ Hawthorne went on.

‘You know him?’

‘We haven’t met – but I know who he is.’

Graham Hain was the forensic accountant who had been hired by Richard Pryce. Stephen Spencer had mentioned him to us. But there was something I didn’t understand. According to Spencer, Hain had been investigating Akira Anno, trying to find the secret income stream that she had refused to declare. In other words, in the Lockwood/Anno divorce, he had been very much on the Lockwood side of the proceedings. So what was Lofty doing, breaking into Lockwood’s office and now lurking outside Leconfield House? Why was he spying on his own client?

‘Lofty is a dustbin diver,’ Hawthorne explained. He glanced across the table. ‘Tell him what that means.’

Lofty was offended. ‘That’s not a term I use,’ he muttered, indignantly. ‘It says “asset trader” on my business card.’

‘You’ve got a business card? You’re definitely going up in the world.’

‘Faster than you, mate.’

‘What’s an asset trader?’ I asked. I was getting a little tired of all this banter.

Lofty took another sip of tea. When he spoke again, he was more authoritative. He might be a wreck of a human being, and I wouldn’t have wanted to enquire into his private life with or without Marge, but he knew what he was talking about. ‘These big divorces, rich bastards, you’ve got no idea! They put their money away all over the place. Jersey and the British Virgin Islands. They’ve got trusts and shell companies and offshore companies full of shadow directors and it’s impossible to work out who owns what. People like me – asset traders, which is what we’re called – help to sort it all out. We find out what’s what.’

‘Ex-cops,’ Hawthorne said. ‘Ex-journalists. Ex-security service. Funny how it always starts with an ex.’

‘I do all right,’ Lofty snapped. ‘I earn a ton more than when I was with your lot.’

‘So tell us about Adrian Lockwood.’

Lofty hesitated, already wishing he’d asked for more money. I could see it in his eyes.

‘You really make me sick, do you know that?’ he said to Hawthorne. Having got that out of his system, he continued more pleasantly: ‘I did some work on the Lockwood divorce. That wife of his, Akira Anno . . . she knew we were on to her. The moment we started sniffing round her finances she got nervous and’ – he flicked his fingers – ‘just like that she rolled over and gave Mr Lockwood everything he wanted. She was terrified we were going to find out just how much money she had in the bank . . . and that bank was probably in Panama or Liechtenstein or somewhere. So it all went hunky-dory. Mr Lockwood was happy. The courts were happy. Job done.

‘Only then something happened. All along, Mr Pryce had been having doubts about his client . . . like he wasn’t being straight with him. And he wasn’t happy about that. Not at all.’

‘You’re talking about Adrian Lockwood,’ I said.

‘That’s right. Mr Pryce knew straight off Mr Lockwood was a villain. I bet half his clients were as crooked as the A157.’

‘The A157? What are you talking about, Lofty?’ Hawthorne said.

‘It’s the road from Louth to Mablethorpe. It’s got a lot of bends.’

I wanted to laugh but Hawthorne just sighed. ‘Get on with it.’