Read The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller for Free Online

was a hidden code in the message, letting him know that playing games would do no good here. “Not really that much, now,” he replied.
     
         “Oh?” The eyebrows of the law were raised, including Ginger’s shaggy ones.
     
          “Not competitively anymore. I just concentrate on problems.”
     
         “Isn’t that a little lonely?”
     
         “Not for me. It’s known in the trade as home cooking.”
     
         The moustache grinned thinly while Ginger flexed his whole frame as if desperate to go into action braying someone’s head in. It didn’t take much to guess whose. The moustache looked at the board again. “What’s this problem?” he asked, still trying to get Jack’s measure.
     
        “Well, it’s a pawn problem really, although it might not look it. You’ve got a black bishop which can take the knight on f3 and open up the king side and you’ve got an isolated white pawn on d4. Your move? Where do you go?”
     
         The moustache studied it for a moment and said, “I’d tend to do the unorthodox and move the rook to c5.”
     
         Jack nodded. “You think that’s unorthodox? You’d lose five moves later. The bishop would take the knight on f3.”
     
         “It would be a sacrifice because the pawn on g2 would take the bishop.”
     
          “And the black queen side rook would then move to d8. You’re now four moves from checkmate.”
     
         “I can’t see it.” He shook his head and beads of perspiration had broken out on his forehead.
     
         “Play it.”
     
         “I‘d love to…but.”
     
          “Gerry?”
     
         He nodded, looking at Jack with renewed respect. “He's disappeared, gone to ground, lost without trace.” He shook his head again as if annoyed with the perceived incompetence which had allowed it to happen. “Temporarily, I'm sure. But that just adds to the riddle. You see, we've suspected Gerry was a security risk for some time. We think he’s been hands on in corrupting witnesses for some of his clients.” He twirled his fingers, making air signs of ironic quotation marks. “He’s been successful in big trials and let’s say there’s been a common theme running through some of them at least of witnesses changing evidence at the last minute. Then he got out. It was almost as if he knew the net was closing in."
     
         “Well, interviewing witnesses isn’t his job, is it? He’s the trial lawyer so he’s not going to be doing the interfering.”
     
         “There has to be a brain behind every muscle action,” the moustache replied. “Those pieces don’t move by themselves.” He indicated the board.
     
         "I'm afraid I can't help you," Jack said, "maybe he needed a holiday?"
     
         "Oh bollocks man," Ginger said angrily, "I’m fed up with your skirmishing. You're not seriously asking us to believe that you lent him fifty grand without even a who's your Aunt Fanny?"
     
        “Except for the absence of an aunt Fanny or any other aunt, come to that, that’s exactly what I did do. I trust him. This might be a difficult concept for you to take in.”
     
         "Talking about taking in, he's taken you right in. In fact he’s taken off with your dough, mate," Ginger seemed to enjoy the idea. The moustache pursed his lips again and he studied Jack thoughtfully. Ginger stood behind him, scowling menacingly, clenching and unclenching his fists like a comic book heavy. At length the moustache spoke; he’d been weighing up the pros and cons of taking Jack into his confidence. “We’ve been watching certain police officers for some time. We’ve now got a clear case that these officers have been passing inside information to Gerry. On top of that in the recent trial of a major drug dealer he was party to bribing witnesses, using Triads to threaten others. We believe he’s into all sorts of corruption.”
     
         Jack was sceptical,