asked how you were. I told her you’d give her a call when you got the chance.’
‘Cool,’ James nodded. ‘I’ll ring her after she’s finished lessons.’
Millie put the boys’ mugs on the table and sat herself down. James read his mug before his first mouthful: Metropolitan Police Squash Club, written beneath two crossed rackets.
‘OK,’ John said, gently rapping his hand on the table to get everyone looking his way. ‘First of all, good work last night, lads. I know there was a hefty chunk of luck involved in your discovery, but you deserved a break after doing such a bang-up job getting yourselves involved with the natives.
‘I passed the casino data on to MI5. They had some difficulty with the accounting software, but I got their initial report through twenty minutes ago. I’ve also asked to be sent all of the documentation on the Golden Sun Casino robbery. It should be coming over from Abbey Wood serious crime squad within the next couple of hours. Now, I’ve only had a few hours to get cracking, but I’ll run you through everything we’ve discovered so far.
‘First off, there’s the discrepancy between the amount of money Leon made and the amount that was stolen from the casino. I spoke to the inspector in serious crime at Abbey Wood. The Golden Sun Casino only has a licence for fifteen table games and thirty slot machines. However, the police believe that a lot of illegal high-stakes baccarat gets played in two suites on the upper floors that aren’t licensed for gaming.
‘The amount stolen from the casino was probably much greater than the ninety grand that got reported to the police, but the casino owners couldn’t report having a larger amount of cash on the premises without running the risk of losing their gaming licence. I can also confirm that it was an inside job. The thieves knew the code for the burglar alarm and the combination of two safes.
‘Secondly, the data James e-mailed to campus contained a full membership list for the Golden Sun. Leon and Sacha Tarasov were both members. Leon’s account showed that he owed the casino over six thousand pounds when the records were stolen on May sixteenth last year. He was briefly investigated in connection with the robbery.’
‘How come the cops didn’t make any link to Leon?’ James asked.
John shrugged. ‘The Golden Sun had over a thousand members, seventy or eighty staff and a few hundred others who’ve worked there in the past. It would have taken a team of a dozen officers more than a month to track down and investigate every single suspect. The police just don’t have that sort of manpower. Abbey Wood serious crime squad has four or five officers and they probably deal with two or three incidents per week. They might have pulled up Leon’s criminal record at some point, but it’s featherweight. There’s nothing there that makes him look like a suspect in a major robbery.’
James smiled. ‘On TV you always see a whole roomful of officers investigating one crime.’
Millie nodded. ‘That’s right James. But in real life – unless you’re talking about something like murder or child abduction – you’re more likely to find one or two officers investigating dozens of cases. At Palm Hill we’re twelve officers short and we don’t even have enough vehicles to go around. You have to book them out weeks in advance.’
John resumed his briefing. ‘Thirdly, MI5 are still analysing the data, but they believe the two passwords written on the CD belonged to employees called Eric Crisp – a part-time security guard – and Patricia Patel who is a croupier.’
Millie looked like she’d been hit by a rock. ‘John, are you winding me up?’
John straightened up in his chair and looked mildly offended. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Patricia Patel is married to Michael Patel, the officer who thumped James on Saturday night. Pat Pat is Michael’s nickname for her. I’d never even heard of the Golden Sun until this morning, but I knew she worked nights as a casino dealer. I baby-sat their daughter a couple of times last year when Patricia’s mum was sick.
‘I also had an officer called Eric Crisp on my squad. He moved out to Battersea when he got promoted to Sergeant a couple of years back. He was best man at Michael’s wedding. Then he picked up a nasty back injury and got invalided off the force.’
Everyone around the table exchanged shocked glances.
‘Oh-kayyy,’ John said, drawing a sharp breath. ‘I