The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)(86)

73





‘I’m a police officer,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘You understand that, of course?’

‘I understand,’ says the Viking. ‘So long as you are not filming me or recording me, we are cool.’

‘Likewise,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Though if you are taping me, not a single word of it would be admissible in court anyway, so you’d be wasting your time.’

‘No one is taping anyone,’ says the Viking. ‘That’s not how I work. You say you need my help?’

Andrew Everton leans forward. ‘I have ten million pounds in various accounts around the world. I currently have no way of retrieving it without questions. I am hoping you might be able to help me.’

‘Ten million? Yes, easy,’ says the Viking. ‘What’s in it for me?’

‘Half a million,’ says Andrew Everton.

The Viking laughs.

‘And a chief constable on your payroll. You look after me, I’ll look after you.’

The Viking nods. ‘I need to know where the money is from. Some money I won’t touch.’

‘A VAT fraud, from about ten years ago. Mobile phones in and out of Dover. Easy money.’

‘Your idea? asks the Viking.

‘Guilty,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I was writing a book. I write, for my sins, and I came up with this scheme, just a plot really. But the more I thought about it, I realized, you know what, I’m not going to put it in the book, I’m going to do it for real.’

‘Clever.’

‘Well, sometimes I use real crimes for my plots. This time I used one of my plots for a real crime.’

‘How did you do it?’ asks the Viking.

‘I wasn’t a chief constable back then, but I knew a few people. Talked to a man called Jack Mason. Ran all sorts of dodgy enterprises, but he was always too smart to get caught. And that’s exactly what I needed. I told him the plan, and we went into business together.’

‘And you made ten million?’

‘Thereabouts,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Why did you stop?’

‘A journalist was looking into it. She was getting a little too close for comfort. Managed to send one of our team to jail, so we backed off.’

‘And did the journalist back off?’

‘Well, no,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘She died.’





74


Joyce





Elizabeth and Viktor look very happy with how this is all going.

You have to hand it to Henrik. ‘Your idea?’ ‘How did you do it?’ ‘You made ten million?’ ‘Why did you stop?’ All the questions that they drummed into him. The perfect confession.

Elizabeth knew Andrew Everton would be completely honest. He needs the Viking to trust him and help him, he has the ego to want credit for his own scheme, and, as he said himself, nothing on the tape could be used in a court of law.

But, of course, it doesn’t have to be. That’s the beauty of Elizabeth’s plan. Andrew Everton will be found guilty long before he sees the inside of a court.

Mike is pacing up and down the kitchen, practising his lines for later.





75





Fiona Clemence has so many messages from concerned friends.

Fi u been hacked

Insta hacked!

Have u seen ur Insta?

Fi, WTF?????



Fiona gets a few influential friends to spread the word.

Guys, @FionaClemClem has been hacked. Don’t watch!

summin weirdz going down on @FionaClemClem.

Some crazy hack.



Before you knew it there were over two hundred and fifty thousand people watching her Instagram Live, with the number rising by the second. And what they were all watching was not Fiona Clemence shopping for make-up, or giving hot yoga tips.

Instead, they were all watching the Chief Constable of Kent Police admitting to a multimillion-pound fraud on a livestreamed video.

You couldn’t see who he was talking to, but he was in some sort of library, and he was talking about mobile phones, and doing deals with criminals. The viewership continues to rise and rise as word is getting out. Insta, Twitter, TikTok, even people’s dads are WhatsApping now. They’re all watching, they’re all commenting, they’re all calling for the head of this Andrew Everton guy.

Even the hair-straightening technician she is with this morning shows Fiona his phone, and says, ‘You seen this?’

Apropos of nothing, Fiona also sees her number of Instagram followers race above four million as the saga unfolds on her ‘hacked’ account. At the moment, the Chief Constable is looking around the room, and you can hear someone tapping on a keyboard. The comments section is going crazy.

That’s all Elizabeth had asked for. The login and password for Fiona’s Instagram. ‘Only for an hour or so, dear,’ she had said. ‘I’m sure you won’t even notice.’





76





Andrew Everton sits patiently while the Viking types something into his laptop. So far, so good. He likes the Viking; the Viking seems to like him. More importantly, he trusts the Viking, and he feels safe in this cosy room, in the middle of nowhere. Andrew Everton gets the feeling he is going to leave here considerably richer than when he entered it.