‘You got it spot on,’ Welsby said. ‘Smart piece of work. We got a lot out of him. We’d have got more. We’d have brought down Boyle. Maybe even Kerridge eventually.’
She noted the past tense. ‘You think this has ballsed up the Boyle case?’
‘For the moment,’ Welsby said. ‘Can’t see the CPS progressing with it unless we pull something else out of the shit.’
‘Why we’re here,’ Salter said. ‘We’ve been digging around in the excrement. See what we can find.’
She felt, at least at first, a surge of relief. Her second response was anger – that, for them, Morton’s killing was simply an operational inconvenience.
‘I’m privileged to be part of the excrement, then,’ she said, keeping her voice steady. ‘How did this happen, anyway? Surely Morton’s security was top-level?’ Given the hints Salter had dropped, she wasn’t sure she wanted the full story. But Jake had given his life trying to help them nail Boyle and Kerridge. Whatever she might think or feel, she had an obligation to get involved.
Salter glanced at Welsby. ‘Someone messed up,’ he said. ‘We don’t know who or how – yet.’
‘Someone exposed him?’
‘Must have done. Either by accident or on purpose.’
‘No one would be that careless, surely.’
Welsby shifted back in his chair. ‘Easy to be careless, lass. One slip . . .’ His voice was toneless. Marie looked across at him, wondering whether some response was expected of her.
‘In any case,’ Salter said, ‘the alternative is worse.’
It occurred to her for the first time that there was a tension between the two men, things they weren’t saying. Someone had exposed Jake, and no one knew who. If someone was leaking intelligence, they were all potentially compromised. And no one was more vulnerable than she was.
‘So what happened?’ she said.
‘He had a visit,’ Welsby said quietly. His mouth moved rhythmically around the gum. ‘Middle of the night.’
‘Jesus.’ Marie pushed herself up from the table and strode over to the window, trying to repress the turmoil of emotion. More guilt. Loss. Fear. Above all, fear. She stood for a moment, staring at the half-empty car park, the blur of cars on the motorway, trying to find words that wouldn’t leave her exposed. ‘This was our one bloody chance,’ she said finally. ‘Our one chance to nail those bastards.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ Salter said. ‘Morton gave us a lot. Copies of paperwork, documents. Helped us get surveillance devices in there . . .’
She didn’t want to be reminded how courageous Morton must have been in those last weeks. She still didn’t know what had really motivated him. She’d known he wanted to cut his ties with Kerridge, but there seemed to be something stronger driving him.
They normally kept Chinese walls between informants and undercover operatives to minimize the risk of leakage, so she’d heard only secondhand reports. At first, they told her, he’d been like every other intelligence source, warily feeding out titbits, constantly suspicious, scared of his own shadow at each meeting with his handler. But once he’d learned the ropes, found out who to trust, his attitude had changed. He seemed to have a mission to bring down the world he’d been part of. With no prompting, he’d offered himself as a prosecution witness in any case that they might bring, and had reinforced the offer by producing file after file of incriminating material.
She knew from Salter that Morton’s behaviour had worried them at first. They thought he’d either lost the plot, or was playing some complicated double bluff. But after a while they’d concluded that he was serious. It could go on for only so long, but it gave them time to dig some real dirt. A month later, they arrested Pete Boyle, with Morton scheduled to be the key prosecution witness. Another day or two and they’d have taken him into witness protection. Another day or two. Just a question of getting the fucking paperwork in order.
She turned back from the window. ‘These visitors. What did they do?’
Salter hesitated. ‘They killed him. Eventually.’
‘Christ.’
‘What they did wasn’t nice,’ Salter said. ‘Punishment. Pour encourager les autres.’
‘As we used to say down the nick,’ Welsby said. ‘And we reckon they were trying to find out how much he’d told us.’ He sat, chewing silently for a moment. ‘And whether he knew anything he hadn’t told us yet.’
Marie sat down and took a sip of her coffee. Cold and bitter. Appropriate enough. ‘You think he did?’
‘He’d more or less told us so,’ Welsby said. ‘Stuff he wouldn’t hand over till nearer the trial.’ He paused. ‘He still didn’t trust us. Not entirely.’
‘Sounds like he was on the button,’ Marie said tartly. ‘As it turned out.’
Welsby leaned forwards and picked up one of the biscuits. He regarded it suspiciously, as if unsure of its provenance, then thrust it whole into his mouth. He chewed briefly before speaking, untroubled by the shower of crumbs across his shirt front.
‘True enough,’ he said. ‘Whoever got to Morton knew what they were up to right enough.’
‘You think Kerridge has someone on the inside?’
Welsby shrugged. ‘It’s possible. Or some poor bugger fell asleep at the wheel. Bastards like Kerridge hoover up every bit of intelligence out there, wherever it comes from.’ He made a play of swallowing the last of the biscuit, then reached for another.
Salter had risen from the table and was busy, in a halfhearted manner, exploring the interior of the room, pulling open drawers, flicking absently through the bowl of coffee and sugar sachets on the hospitality tray, peering into the built-in wardrobe. It wasn’t clear what, if anything, he was looking for. They all wanted to be out of this box-like room, Marie thought.
‘Poor bastard should have just told us everything,’ Salter muttered, his voice angry. ‘He’d have been safer that way.’
‘Not much,’ Marie pointed out. ‘But it would have made your life easier.’
‘Yeah. Inconsiderate bastard.’ He withdrew his head from the wardrobe. ‘So what did he do with it? The other stuff, I mean.’
‘You don’t think they got it?’ she said.
‘Depends,’ Salter said. ‘I mean, in his shoes, I’d have spilled everything I fucking knew. But I don’t know that Morton thought like that. What d’you reckon, sis?’
There was an edge to his voice, but she couldn’t interpret it. She picked up the coffee pot and slowly poured herself a second cup, giving herself time to think. She made a point, this time, of not offering coffee to the others.
‘Difficult for me to say,’ she said finally. ‘But you’re probably right. Whatever else he was, he was a stubborn bugger.’
That was true enough. It was one of the things that had attracted her to him. He said what he thought, stuck to his guns. Miles away from the usual sycophants around Kerridge. It was one of the reasons Kerridge rated Morton. Kerridge lapped up the attention from the yes-men, but was smart enough not to be taken in by it.
‘You knew him better than we did,’ Welsby said. ‘You knew what made him tick.’
Welsby’s face was as uncommunicative as ever, his mouth contorted as he strove to extract some crumb of biscuit from his teeth.
She had the sense that she was being probed, or perhaps tested. Was it because they had some suspicions about her relationship with Jake? Did they think that Jake had shared his evidence with her?
‘I only knew him in a work context,