Already Dead(99)

‘Well, despite the takeover,’ he said, ‘many of the staff are still there in some departments. Call handlers come and go, but experienced people tend to stay on. They’re better paid, and they might find it more difficult to get the same level of salary elsewhere. Ralph Edge was working in the side of the business providing financial advice. He’s a fraud analyst. He knows what methods of fraud work, and which bring in the largest amount of money with the least risk. In fact, he was in a position to cover up fraud, if he wanted to. A gamekeeper turned poacher.’

‘How did he get away with that?’ asked Fry.

Cooper smiled. ‘How did people get away with losing billions of pounds for the banks? Well, they get put into positions of trust, where they’re left to handle huge amounts of other people’s money every day. As long as everything seems to be going okay, no one asks any questions. It’s only when it all goes wrong that people start saying there ought to be more regulation. And by then it’s too late.’

‘And poor old Glen Turner? Turner was pretty weird. He lived a strange life. But he was getting money from somewhere.’

‘Yes. From Ralph Edge,’ said Cooper. ‘Turner had been roped into his fraudulent money making schemes somehow.’

Fry nodded. ‘He was probably very willing at first. God knows, Turner had little enough excitement in his life. I can just imagine him hugging that secret to himself, knowing he’d broken away from his mother’s expectations of him. Then he bought her the greenhouse with the money.’

‘He sounds a sly beggar on the quiet.’

‘But still weird,’ said Fry.

‘And then I suppose he must have begun to feel he still wasn’t appreciated. He was still getting pushed around and disrespected at work. I bet he resented that even more when he’d just begun to feel he was a cool, edgy sort of guy underneath.’

‘After the incident at the paintballing session that Sunday, it all changed, though.’

‘That incident would have been the last straw for Mr Turner,’ said Cooper. ‘The final humiliation. Not only was he the butt of the joke yet again, but his humiliation was orchestrated by Ralph Edge, who he thought was his friend. Perhaps his only friend. But everybody has a limit. Even Glen Turner could only be pushed so far. I think he told Edge exactly that on Tuesday.’

‘He stood up for himself,’ said Fry. ‘Finally, the worm turned. He probably felt in a stronger position after he’d been to the solicitor, and believed he could sue Edge and Baird, even get them prosecuted for assault. I bet Mr Turner came away from that consultation with Mr Chadburn feeling happier and more confident than he had for a while.’

‘And he went straight off to confront Edge the next day.’

‘No,’ said Fry. ‘First he went and bought himself a fossil.’

Cooper hadn’t known that. ‘It takes all sorts,’ he said. ‘Some people would have gone a for a drink, or a slap-up meal, or bought themselves a box of chocolates, or whatever.’

‘Are we saying that it was feeling better about himself suddenly that got Glen Turner killed. Is that it?’

‘Pretty much,’ said Cooper. ‘Yes, pretty much. I imagine he went to see Mr Edge on Tuesday and told him he was going to pull the plug on the insurance fraud scheme.’

‘Or he demanded a bigger share of the proceeds,’ suggested Fry. ‘So he could buy his mother more presents.’

‘Possibly. Either way, Edge and his associates must have realised they’d misjudged him. Glen Turner wasn’t to be trusted any more.’

‘So they decided to kill him, to get rid of the problem? There must have been an awful lot of money at stake to justify that solution.’

‘Oh, yes, I think there was,’ said Cooper. ‘When you follow up all the cases they were involved in, I bet you’ll find the total just keeps mounting up and up.’

‘It will be the Major Crime Unit who do that,’ said Fry. ‘In fact, I suppose they’re doing it right now.’

She looked at her mug, and realised she’d drunk her coffee without noticing. She put it down empty on the table.

‘And the Gibson brothers …’ she said.

‘The strong-arm boys of the operation. I’m not sure how much control Ralph Edge, or anyone else, ever had over the Gibsons.’ Cooper shook his head. ‘You know, it’s been very strange these past few months. I told you once that I’d been driving around at night, didn’t I? Often I couldn’t remember where I’d been, or what I’d been doing. But I saw that sign one night. A.J. Morton and Sons. And I remembered Ryan Gibson. He was one of the first suspects I ever dealt with when I joined CID. PC Stanley Walker was the bobby with the local knowledge back then. He still is – except, of course, they’ve retired him. That was lucky from my point of view. Old Stan had become just another member of the public. Like me.’