Chapter 2

Albert held out his hand as he rose to his feet, and Ash tossed him the remote control for the laptop. Generally Albert had little knowledge or understanding of IT, but he'd taken to PowerPoint presentations like a natural and now stood in the middle of the rug with his hands on his lapels, exuding all the learned panache of a Harvard lecturer. "William Henry Forgan," he announced, flourishing the remote, and a huge black and white photograph filled the wall behind his head.

Emma stared up at the fleshy jowls, bristling black eyebrows and scarred, pockmarked skin of their intended target. "That's truly hideous," she announced.

"And he's just as attractive on the inside," Albert said, looking up at the picture with dislike. "Originally a native of Belfast, but arrived on these fair shores when he made his home town too hot to hold him. Owner of a property company called New Horizons. He began by dealing in second homes in Spain and France, but over the last ten years he's done very nicely for himself in the buy-to-let market."

A flick of the remote and the picture changed to show a composite image of a Victorian house converted into flats and a villa by a wide stretch of blue sea. Albert looked across at Mickey.

"I've been to several branches of New Horizons and it appears he has two main areas of clientele," Mickey took up the tale. "On the one hand, they sell badly-built second homes to wealthy retired couples, and on the other, they specialise in private rentals to low-income families and people on the poverty line. Basically, they buy a place, divide it into flats, do it up to a basic standard and then pack in as many people as they can."

"So he's ripping off rich people and fleecing poor ones," Sean summarised. "So far, so property magnate, right?"

"Yeah – but that's not the whole story," Ash chimed in. "I asked around a bit and it seems he runs deals on the side, using his contacts on the continent. He's not fussy – anything a bit bent and he'll put his fingers in it. It's got worse the longer he's gone on - he started off importing illegal booze, counterfeit fags, moved onto drugs… and the latest one is people." The screen behind his head flickered and the picture now showed a bigger shot of the Victorian house at night. The door was half-open and the figure of a man could be seen entering the house. "Forgan's got agents all over Eastern Europe looking for young women and signing them up. They think they're coming over here to be models, nannies, whatever. They charge these girls big sums in cash to be shipped across – in lorries, mostly, though some come over in private cars. Then when they get them here they tell them they need more money; which, of course, the girls ain't got."

"So they put them to work," Emma finished, anger in her voice.

"That's about the size of it," Ash agreed grimly. "New Horizons has properties all over the country, so they move the girls in, set them up as hookers, tell them they've got to work till they've paid off what they owe. The girls can't leave; they've got no passports, no way of claiming benefit, don't speak the language."

Mickey stood up, hands in his pockets, and prowled across to stand by Albert. "The difficult part is that Forgan's a criminal," he said. "The police have to abide by certain rules, but he doesn't. If we go after him and he realises what we're doing we'll leave ourselves wide open." He looked searchingly around at the group. Ash pulled a "been there, seen it, bought the t-shirt" face, whilst Emma shrugged and Sean looked uncertain. "The good news," Mickey went on, "is that in many ways it's an easy job. Forgan's complacent, he's arrogant and he's got any number of vices we could exploit. If we want to, we can roll him over without even breaking a sweat. We just have to decide whether the game is worth the candle."

A silence fell as they considered Mickey's words.

"How did you hit on this guy, Albert?" Ash asked suddenly. "You didn't meet this one in a club or get his name off a hotel doorman, did'ja?"

"Nooo…" Albert admitted slowly, seeming to come to a decision. "There's a little more to the story that I need to share with you." He waved his remote again and a new picture appeared on the screen. This one showed a young man in a suit and tie with his arm round the shoulders of a dark-haired girl.

"Janis Balodis," Albert said. "I met him in prison; he came in a few weeks before I left."

"He's not your usual Category D inmate, is he?" Mickey remarked in a thoughtful tone, shooting Albert a sharp look before, turning round to study the picture carefully.

"He was there serving the last few months of his sentence," Albert explained. "He was working in the prison library while he was inside; that's how we made our acquaintance. Before he became a guest of Her Majesty he worked for Forgan as an agent, travelling between Latvia and the UK and recruiting "clients". There was a break in the chain somewhere along the line, and the police came very close to pulling Forgan in. Someone had to be the fall guy…" he looked up at the picture regretfully. "He isn't a bad kid – just foolish. Thought that he owed Forgan for the opportunities he'd given him. They'd cut a deal – he'd take the fall for Forgan, Forgan would use some contacts to make sure Janis served a short sentence, and he'd see him right when he came out."

"So obviously it all went horribly wrong," Emma crossed her legs and folded her hands around her knee. "What happened?"

"I had a message to call Janis a week ago," Albert said. "He was distraught. Apparently some new evidence against him has been found, his request for parole was turned down and he's been moved back into a category B prison whilst he's being investigated for "related offences." And that's not all." He pointed upward. "The young lady in the picture is his sister, Alise. She came over to the UK when Janis was first arrested, and she visited him every week."

"Oh, let me guess." Mickey was frowning now. "She's stopped visiting."

Albert nodded. "He hasn't seen or heard from her in a month."

"Wait!" Sean was sitting bolt upright in his seat. "You're telling me Forgan stiffed this guy and now he's run off with his sister?"

"That's about the size of it," agreed Albert.

"But…" Sean objected, "You've had us looking into this bloke for two or three days and we thought he was just a businessman with some very dodgy sidelines. Why didn't you tell us all this other stuff in the first place?"

"Because you'd have felt morally obligated into agreeing to do the con before you understood the true nature of what we're up against." Turning off the projector Albert sat down. "Conning greedy businessmen is one thing. Conning crooks is another. It's dangerous. It takes us into a world with very little room for manoeuvre, and we need to be sure that if we do this, we do it with our eyes open to all the risks."

"Well, it's a no-brainer, isn't it?" Ash looked round at the others as he spoke and Emma and Sean nodded their support. "This kid Janis is an idiot, but he don't deserve what's happened to him and nor does the sister. Forgan's a manipulative, immoral arsewipe who needs taking down a peg or three. I say we do it."

"Me too." Sean said firmly.

"Yep," Emma agreed. "There but for the grace of God, you know?"

Mickey looked troubled. "Emma, you'll be right in the front line with this one. Are you absolutely sure you want to go ahead with it?"

"Look." Emma sat forward a little in her seat. "When Albert first mentioned Forgan the other day he said we needed a way to get to a guy who was into motorbikes, violence, drugs and women. Nobody's volunteering to get beaten up, the drugs thing would be really dodgy – and all due respect, Ash, but I don't think your F650 is going to cut the mustard in the petrolhead department. The honey-trap's the obvious way to go."

There was a second little silence during which all four of the men tried to find fault with Emma's reasoning, and failed.

"Very well, then," Mickey said at last. "Forgan's our mark. Emma's the lure, and I'll work the inside as her contact. We need to come up with some sort of deal which Forgan will want to buy into, so that's our next priority."

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"Good afternoon!" the appearance of the well-dressed, elderly American gentleman in the reception area of New Horizons' main branch caused heads to go up like hounds on the scent. Albert watched a rash of plastic smiles break out around the sales room as he ambled toward the front desk. "I wonder if you can help me, my dear?" he said to the middle-aged saleswoman whose badge identified her as Eileen. "I'm looking for a retirement home, somewhere warm and away from this infernal British weather." He gave a theatrical little shiver and leaned over the desk. "I'm given to understand that you're the people to talk to."

Eileen's smile threatened to crack her foundation as she stretched it even wider. "Indeed we are, Mr…"

"Waverley," Albert supplied without hesitiation.

"Mr Waverley." Eileen drew out a silver pen and handed him a cardboard portfolio with a flourish worthy of a magician at a children's party. "What exactly are you looking for?"

If only she knew, thought Albert, and settled to his task of charming her socks off.

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Back at the hotel, Ash had his phone in one hand and was tapping at the keys of on his laptop with the other. Jamming the phone into the crook of his neck he scrolled down a page with a quick sweep and double-clicked on a picture to see a zoom view. He pulled a dubious face. "It looks okay, mate, but I'm not sure it's quite what I'm after. How big's the back office? Is that metres or… yeah, gotcha. What about upstairs? Nah, just storage… tell you what, I'll give you my e-mail address and you send me the other pictures, yeah?

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Mickey handed Emma her glass and swung himself into the seat opposite, taking a swig from the bottle in his hand as he did so. He was sporting a trendy, if slightly dubious-looking goatee beard and an earring and was wearing a T-shirt and a heavy gold chain under his very expensive jacket. Emma, whose lipstick was a little redder and hemline a little higher than was strictly necessary, ran her finger over the condensation on the outside of the glass and licked it off. Mickey wished very much that she'd stop that particular habit.

"Where's your brother?" he asked her in a casual undertone.

"By the bar with his new best friends," she replied, taking a drink. "Are we staying here all day?"

Mickey shook his head. "We'll move on in a minute," he said. "This is Forgan's manor, so we need to make ourselves as conspicuous as possible without actually ruffling anyone's feathers. You did remind Sean about not drinking…"

"He didn't need reminding!" Emma sipped at her glass again and grinned. "He's still getting over the embarrassment of that first time!" Letting her gaze wander casually around the room she saw Sean place a comradely arm around the shoulders of a thin, pimply youth, the pair of them bellowing with laughter. "Dear God, has he no shame?"

Mickey followed the direction of her stare and chuckled. "He suffers for his art, that boy. One day we'll give him a pretty girl to chat up instead of a bar-full of sweaty rental agents."

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By the evening, they had accrued a detailed knowledge of the internal structure of New Horizons, found premises to work from, gained an intimate understanding of the way Billy Forgan dealt with his competition, and laid a successful foundation for the edifice they were about to create.

With their raw materials assembled, the crew's next step was to build the first layer of their creation – Forgan was ready for roping.