Chapter 17: The Corruption Campaign — Part 2
[Moriarty's Flat, Southwark — June 15, 2008, 11:00 AM]
Cooper proved useful in ways James hadn't anticipated.
Over three meetings—two at the George, one at a Costa Coffee near Lewisham station where Cooper felt less exposed—the detective sergeant mapped the internal politics of the Metropolitan Police with the bitter precision of a man who'd spent twelve years studying a system that refused to promote him.
"Vance," Cooper said, stirring sugar into his coffee with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb. "DI Rachel Vance. Serious and Organised Crime Command. Sharp. Ambitious. Probably the best detective in her unit, which is exactly why she'll never make DCI."
"Why not?"
"Because her superintendent is Martin Thwaite, who promotes men who remind him of himself. Vance reminds him of his ex-wife. She's been passed over twice for DCI, both times for blokes with half her close rate." Cooper's spoon clinked against the mug. "She's not dirty. Not even close. But she's angry enough to listen to the right offer."
James filed the information alongside everything else—a mental architecture that was becoming increasingly dense, a map of London's criminal and institutional landscape that would have filled the whiteboard twice over. Vance wasn't Cooper. Cooper had been desperate, transactional—debts eliminated in exchange for information, a simple equation. Vance was different. She wasn't broken. She was frustrated. And frustrated intelligent people required subtlety, not leverage.
"I need a cover identity," James told Priya that afternoon. "Something that gives me legitimate reason to meet a senior police officer. Security consulting. Risk assessment. Something corporate enough to be boring."
Priya built it in three days. Alex Richter, Director of Apex Risk Solutions—a boutique security consultancy with a website, a LinkedIn profile, and a registered business address at a serviced office in Mayfair. The website was template-driven but professional. The LinkedIn connected to a network of fabricated colleagues. The business cards were thick stock, embossed, the kind that announced credibility through texture.
James practiced the identity in the mirror. Different posture—straighter, more corporate, the physical vocabulary of boardroom confidence rather than criminal composure. Different voice—softer accent, the Irish flattened to something mid-Atlantic, the kind of voice that got heard in meeting rooms because it sounded like money.
The old body knew how to do this. The muscle memory wasn't just combat—it was performance. The original Moriarty had worn masks the way other people wore clothes, switching identities with the ease of changing shirts. James found the mechanism still worked, even with a different mind behind it. He could become Alex Richter the way he'd become James Moriarty: by committing to the role until the role became real.
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[Le Café Noir, Marylebone — June 22, 2008, 1:00 PM]
DI Rachel Vance was forty-one, red-haired, and furious about things she was too professional to express in public. The fury lived in her posture—shoulders squared, chin lifted, the bearing of someone perpetually braced for condescension. She wore a dark blazer over a blouse and carried a leather portfolio that she set on the table with the decisive thump of a woman who had learned to take up space because no one was going to offer it.
James—Alex Richter, today—had arranged the meeting through a mutual contact: a retired superintendent who consulted for the kind of private security firms that Alex Richter's fictional company supposedly competed with. Legitimate introduction. Clean channel. Nothing that would trigger internal affairs scrutiny.
"Mr Richter." Vance's handshake was firm, brief, calibrated. She sat without waiting to be invited. "Michael says your firm specialises in organised crime threat assessment for corporate clients."
"That's right. We advise multinational companies on criminal risks to their operations—fraud, theft, infiltration. The kind of work that requires a deep understanding of how organised crime actually functions, not just what makes the newspapers."
"And you want my input."
"I want your expertise. You've spent—" James checked his notes, a prop, since he'd memorised her file completely—"eight years in Serious and Organised Crime. You have an understanding of criminal networks that most academics and consultants can only guess at. I'm offering a consulting arrangement. Periodic briefings on criminal trends, threat landscape assessments, case study analysis. Five thousand per quarter."
Vance's expression didn't change. But her hands—which had been flat on the table, controlled—moved. Fingers interlaced. The briefest calculation: five thousand, four times a year, twenty thousand annually. Tax-free, presumably, since Alex Richter's firm probably paid in ways that didn't generate P60s.
"What kind of information?"
"General patterns. What types of organised crime are expanding? Which networks are active? Where are investigations being directed? Nothing case-specific. Nothing that compromises active operations. I'm interested in trends, not details."
It was, James knew, a lie precise enough to be almost true. The information he wanted was exactly the kind Vance could provide while maintaining plausible deniability. Investigation priorities. Resource allocation. Where the Met was looking—and, critically, where it wasn't.
"I'd need to clear this with my superintendent," Vance said.
"Of course. Many officers take consulting roles. It's standard practice." It wasn't—not like this—but the statement was true enough that Vance wouldn't check.
She picked up the menu. Ordered a salad and a sparkling water. James ordered the same, mirroring her choices, a social technique that built unconscious rapport through behavioural similarity.
Over lunch, the conversation shifted. Vance talked about her work—carefully at first, then with increasing candour as the questions James asked demonstrated genuine understanding of criminal methodology. He asked about network structures. She explained how the Met mapped them. He asked about intelligence gaps. She described the frustration of knowing operations existed but lacking the resources to investigate them.
"The promotions process," James said, when the plates had been cleared and coffee ordered. "Michael mentioned you'd been passed over."
Vance's jaw tightened. "Twice. Both times for candidates with lower close rates and better connections. The Met promotes networking, not competence."
"That must be frustrating."
"Frustrating is a word for it." She stirred her coffee. The spoon moved in tight, controlled circles. "I've made my peace with it."
She hadn't. The anger was right there, in the set of her shoulders and the precision of her speech and the way she aligned her cutlery on the plate with military exactness. James recognised it because he'd seen it before—in Cooper, in Moran, in every person who'd been failed by the institution they'd served and was waiting, consciously or not, for someone to acknowledge the injustice.
"Well," James said. "In my experience, competence tends to find its reward. Sometimes the path is just less direct than it should be."
Vance looked at him. For a moment, something flickered behind the professional mask—not gratitude, exactly. Recognition. The awareness of being seen by someone who wasn't trying to manage her.
"Five thousand per quarter," she said. "We'll try one session. If the questions stay general, we continue."
"Agreed."
They shook hands. James paid the bill—Richter's expense account, which was actually Moriarty's operational fund, which was actually the accumulated proceeds of arson, espionage, drug brokerage, and jewel theft. The money changed character with each transaction, like light passing through a prism.
He walked three blocks before removing the Alex Richter business card from his pocket and studying it. The name felt lighter than Moriarty. Less weighted. A useful mask for a man who was already wearing one.
Priya rang as he reached the Tube station. "How'd it go?"
"First payment approved. Five thousand for quarterly intelligence briefings. She thinks she's consulting for a security firm."
"And when she finds out she isn't?"
"She won't. The line between consulting and corruption is exactly as wide as the person standing on it believes it to be. As long as she can rationalise, she'll stay."
"That's either brilliant or horrifying."
"Usually those are the same thing. I need you to set up payment through a clean channel—Richter's company to Vance's personal account. Documented as consulting fees. Legitimate on paper."
"Done. And Jim—Cooper called. He wants to meet."
"Tell him Thursday. Same place."
James descended into the Underground. The escalator carried him down into London's belly, the tunnel walls lined with advertisements for things he'd never buy and shows he'd never see. Above ground, Alex Richter was a security consultant with a Mayfair address and a LinkedIn profile. Below ground, James Moriarty was building a corruption network that would, within months, give him eyes inside the institution tasked with catching him.
The duality should have been exhausting. Instead, it felt natural. The same way the Westwood suit had felt natural. The same way the Irish accent had felt natural. The same way this life—this impossible, stolen, reconstructed life—was starting to feel like the only one he'd ever lived.
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