Complicity Part 5 (2/6) By Nick Quantrill

(1/6), (2/6), (3/6), (4/6), (5/6), (6/6). Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Angry that the person who did this to my family was never brought to justice. Mallory knew that I was setting up this project. I suppose word gets around, especially as the project was initially funded by my parents. They're not poor. They bought the property in Wright Street for me and I was up and running.' 'And Mallory has his eye on your property...' Gale nodded. 'He's always looking for buildings that he can pick up cheap and convert into more profitable business opportunities. He's been harassing me for a while about selling to him. The threats were becoming less and less veiled.' 'Why didn't you tell him you that weren't interested in selling?'

'Because he has something on me...' Coleman looked upwards, cursing his luck and started to pace the small office. 'It's not like you think. One evening in his club he plied me with free drink as we spoke about the ERDAG project. I started to feel...woozy and I don't remember anything more of that evening other than waking up in a hotel room the following day.' 'What happened then?' 'About a week later I received a letter and a photograph from Mallory.'

' It was me, bent over a table, with some drugs spread around me. Mallory explained that he didn't want anything from me, not yet, but that it was always useful to have contacts, who have as he puts it, mutual interests, though we of course see their impact from different viewpoints. I suppose a man like Mallory likes to keep the upper hand on whoever he can.' 'And he was starting to use that to blackmail you into selling your property at a knock-down price to him?' Gale nodded. 'He introduced me to one of his associates, David Peel, a local journalist. That man's a fucking leech, praying on others misery at Mallory's behest.' 'We've met...'

'Mallory started to get heavier and heavier with me and he suggested that Peel might want to run a story on me. You know the sort of thing; high-profile anti-drug worker is a hypocrite, you can picture the sort of thing. It doesn't matter that the photograph is a fake. Who's going to believe it? Publishing it would do the damage. Shit sticks, especially in such a small, insular city as Hull. I can't afford for that to happen, it would jeopardise the whole future of ERDAG. I had no choice...I had to listen to his proposal.' 'Jesus Christ. What a fucking mess. Why didn't you come to us when he started blackmailing you?'

'What would you have done?' spat back Gale. Coleman considered this and concluded that he probably had a fair point. 'Fair enough. So, it's about where we go from here, then. As things stand, I could charge you with, at the very least, attempting to pervert the course of justice and wasting police time. But given the circumstances, it's Mallory I want. Although he didn't force the tablet down Laura's throat, he's complicit in all of this.'

'I agree with you, Sergeant, but what's the point? If I help you to lock him away, several more similar men will appear to take his place. Chances are, they will be even more violent and cause you even more problems. That's the nature of the beast, as you well know. If I give evidence against him, at best he'll ruin me, at worst he'll kill me. He's not going to mess around. Besides, there's no direct trail of evidence back to him. It's his word against mine. You'll never take him down and I'm certainly not going to help you. I'll take my chances with the other charges.

If you charge me, I might be able to eventually shrug it off as being a clumsy attempt to bring about justice. People might forgive and forget that eventually... I'm sorry Sergeant, I really am.' Coleman slammed the door on the way out of the room. He'd let McCormack decide what to do with him. ************

Continued... Next Page (3/6)

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