The Payback Read Online Free PDF Page A

governments, leading to the resignations of a number of senior figures for corruption. Then, the summer before last, Tina had approached him with a tape recording she’d made of a senior politician directly incriminating a shadowy gangland figure called Paul Wise in a plot to cover up a murder. Wise, a man with suspected links to drug smuggling, prostitution, terrorism and, most sickening of all, paedophilia, had long been Tina’s nemesis, and with this tape she’d seen an opportunity to bring him to justice.
    The politician had been killed before he had a chance to repeat the allegations in court, and Tina had feared that if she gave the tape to the Crown Prosecution Service then it was possible it would disappear, given the number of friends Wise seemed to have within the establishment. Tina might not have agreed with his politics, but she trusted Penny completely, and he’d repaid hertrust by getting the
Guardian
to print the transcript of the tape in full, even though it had been made illegally.
    At first it had looked like Wise was finally going to be brought to justice. The British government had formally asked for his extradition, even though an extradition treaty didn’t exist with northern Cyprus. But Wise had not survived as long as he had by giving up easily, and using the financial resources at his disposal, he’d fought back hard. Appointing a team of top lawyers, he’d sued for libel the
Guardian
, Nick Penny himself and, most controversially, the estate of the government minister who’d made the allegations in the first place.
    It was a clever move. Britain has some of the most draconian libel laws in the developed world, and within weeks the minister’s son had announced publicly that he didn’t believe the voice on the tape was that of his father. The writ against the estate for libel was dropped soon afterwards. Then a court in northern Cyprus had thrown out the British extradition case, citing lack of evidence. Finally, the British government began to backtrack as it became clear that the taped confession alone (even if it was proved genuine) wouldn’t be enough to convict Wise, and that there was nothing else connecting him to the plot, or any of the other criminal activities he was suspected of.
    Penny had been sacked from the paper as its owners tried to distance themselves from the affair, and by the time Tina had returned from an extended holiday in central America the story had long since disappeared from the front pages. Wise had not only remained free, he was actually in a stronger position than he’d ever been, since there were now very few people willing to take him on.
    It was just after one p.m., almost two hours after the phone call from DS Weale, when Tina parked her car outside the two-storeyprefab unit in the far corner of a half-empty industrial estate where Nick Penny had kept his office. Since his sacking, it had been the base for what freelance journalism work he could get (which hadn’t been a great deal). It was also the place from where he was undertaking his unofficial investigation into Paul Wise’s activities, trying to find some chink in his armour – an investigation which Tina had been helping with, as much as she was able.
    Penny had claimed that he couldn’t work properly in the idyllic little cottage a few miles away near Great Dunmow that he shared with his wife and two young children, because of the noise, but Tina had always thought he’d been mad setting up somewhere like this. It was an ugly, lonely place, and worse than that, it wasn’t safe for a man doing what he’d been doing, as had now been proved. There was no security at the gate, and the majority of the office lots were vacant – a hangover from the recession – so it wouldn’t have been difficult to take him out without any witnesses. She’d warned him about this but he’d told her he was being extremely careful. ‘And anyway,’ he’d said, in one of their last conversations, ‘it’d