Deadly Duty Box Set 1 (Sgt Major Crane Crime Thrillers Box Set)

by Wendy Cartmell

  So I say again, there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

  Therefore, I and my Muslim brothers will not go into any other church apart from a Mosque. For all other churches are the meeting places of devils. And the angel of death will come and rip out their souls.

  Day 28

  Crane was returning to the garrison for a team meeting, one he hoped to get to on time, as at the moment he was stuck in the queue of cars at a barrier. The temperature was still high despite it being nearly 17:00 hours, so all the drivers had their windows open, encouraging people to lean out of their vehicles and chat. This in turn bread moans and groans at the absurdity of the situation, along the lines of those Crane heard at the police station. Horns beeped, arms waved and invectives flew from frustrated drivers either trying to get home, back to the office, or complete a delivery. One pedestrian noticed Crane’s identification badge around his neck and proceeded to lean into his car through the open window to berate him.

  Once the cars inched their way to the front of the queue, the soldiers became sitting targets. Insult after moan peppered them and Crane was impressed with the stoicism of the lads, their faces remaining impassive, refusing to rise to the bait.

  Because of the hold up, Crane entered the office at a run. He was greeted by Billy, holding out a cold bottle of water for him, while the remainder of the team settled down around the conference table. Crane stayed standing at the incident boards that he’d been working on. He had moved the four free standing white boards and put them together in a row. The first detailed the investigation into the death of Corporal Simms. The second covered the work done on the death of Corporal McInnes. The third was the thefts from the Aspire Defence stores and finally the fourth covered the information they had gathered on the Afghan officers. Dudley-Jones had already briefed Crane on the Afghans. It seemed the Lance Corporal was making some progress with his observations of the dynamics of the group and had realised a faction of four tended to stay together, centred around an officer called Captain Fahran Popal. Crane had put the four names on the board and asked Dudley-Jones to keep a closer eye on them.

  “Right. What I want,” Crane said, “is for us all to go through the information we have on each of these separate incidents, so we can update each other and make sure all salient points and connections are on the board. So let’s look at the Simms case. Kim, has anything else come in from forensics or statements that we should be aware of?”

  “Um, sir,” Dudley-Jones interrupted. “I thought the death of Corporal Simms had been deemed an accidental death.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, Dudley-Jones. For now, I want to keep it on a board. Kim, anything?”

  “No, sir, nothing. The statements taken from the lads in his battalion show Simms was well liked and a very enthusiastic soldier. It just looks like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No new forensics, only that one black hair.”

  “I went over the statements from those on guard duty with him that night,” Crane said “but didn’t see anything of interest. Billy, did you re-interview them?”

  “Yes, boss. Not one of them noticed anything untoward during any of the times they were on duty at the sports centre.”

  “Oh well, worth a try. Anyone else have anything to add? Right then let’s move on.”

  After going through each whiteboard, Crane said, “Now let’s do it again, but this time looking for links.” Crane ignored the groans. “Come on you lot, any sort of link will do. Billy, you first.”

  “Right, boss. How about Padam Gurung? He has links with both deaths. Seeing someone or something, first around the sports centre and then in the vicinity of the cemetery.”

  “Good,” said Crane, writing the name with a linking arrow to both boards. “Anyone else?”

  “Black hair on both bodies,” called Kim, “which links the deaths to each other.”

  “Um, how about a possible Afghan soldier seen in the vicinity of the cemetery?” Dudley-Jones called, his puce coloured face showing he was anxious, but Crane was pleased he was plucking up the courage to join in.

  “Thanks, Dudley-Jones,” Crane said putting a linking arrow between the Afghan board and the McInnes board.

  “How about linking the Afghan officers with both deaths, because of the black hair?” Sergeant Jones asked.

  “Why not?” Crane agreed, drawing yet another linking line. “By the way, Kim, any further forensic analysis on the hairs?”

  “Sorry, sir, still awaiting DNA and also ethnicity.”

  “Let me know as soon as those come through.” Crane turned back to his boards.

  “No links with the missing stores, boss.” Billy observed.

  Crane thought about that, rubbing his scar and scratching at his beard. “What stuff is actually missing, Kim? Have you got the updated list from Ms Stone yet?”

  “Yes, sir, it came in this morning. I’ve not had time to look at it as I’ve just come on duty. Here it is.”

  Crane took the proffered piece of paper and wrote on the board: bleach, various cleaning materials, a mop and bucket, broom, large rolls of paper and some paint brushes.

  “Sorry, boss, but I still can’t make a connection with these thefts and the other boards,” Billy shook his head in frustration.

  “There must be a connection,” Crane mused, “I just can’t see it at the moment.”

  A ringing telephone interrupted him, followed by a second and then a third. As Kim and Billy rushed to grab the ones on their desks, Crane answered the main office line.

  “Crane.”

  “Ah, Crane, glad it’s you,” said Captain Edwards. “Bit of a problem at New Mons Barracks. Go over and sort it out will you?”

  “What sort of problem, sir?”

  “Missing person.”

  “In that case I’ll just send Sergeant Jones and the Royal Military Police to start with, sir.”

  “Not this time, Crane. I need you to go personally. With your team if possible.”

  “Very well, but may I ask why, sir?” For God’s sake give me a bloody clue, Crane thought. It was like pulling teeth.

  After a pause Edwards answered, “Because the missing person is one of the visiting Afghan officers.”

  Night 28

  The missing man was Captain Azar Niaz. So Crane and Billy were in New Mons Barracks finding out what they could about the last known movements of Niaz. They needed to interview Second Lieutenant Collins, the officer responsible for the exercise on nearby Ash Ranges, which was the last time Niaz was seen. Crane found Collins’ office, knocked and walked in.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir, Sergeant Major Crane, SIB. I need to talk to you about Azar Niaz.”

  The Second Lieutenant, open mouthed and probably about to bawl Crane out for the interruption, closed his mouth and invited Crane and Billy to sit down. Crane silently thanked those who drew up the Army Regulations, giving SIB carte blanche to talk to anyone they needed to, without having to adhere to the rigid army structure of command.

  “What can you tell us about the exercise today please, sir,” Crane said as Billy took out his notebook.

  “Well, Sergeant Major, the group of twelve Afghan officers were split into three groups of four, with their objective being to find and infiltrate an enemy position, without detection. This exercise will then be expanded in several days, with each Afghan officer being expected to lead a team of British soldiers with a similar objective. They were doing really rather well at it...”

  “It’s of no interest to me, sir, how good they were at being officers,” Crane cut in. “Can we please focus on Azar Niaz. Who was he training with?”

  “Um, let me see,” Collins fiddled with his paperwork. “I need to look it up. Perhaps you should be talking to my Sergeant, Sergeant Tomkins. He would know straight away.”

  “That won’t be necessary, sir, if you could just find the information please?”

  “Ah, here it is. The group of four men training together were Fahran Popal, Dehqa
n Khan, Behnam Freed and Azar Niaz. Is that what you wanted to know?” Collins removed his glasses and looked at Crane.

  “Yes, sir, thank you for your time.” With a nod at Billy, they left the office. As they got to the door Crane turned and said, “Did you notice anything unusual about any of the Afghan officers, or about these four in particular, sir?”

  “Good gracious, no, Sergeant Major. Whatever are you suggesting? They are exemplary officers, making the Coldstream Guards extremely proud of them, not to mention their own Afghan Army. I hope you’re not casting doubts about their credentials and reputation?”

  “Of course not, sir, heaven forbid I should criticise an officer,” Crane said as he left, sure that Collins wouldn’t have recognised the sarcasm. Junior officers rarely did. Billy and Crane left the office to find Staff Sergeant Jones, who was conducting a search of Ash Ranges with his Royal Military Police and soldiers from the Coldstream Guards. The least the Guards could do, after losing one of their important visitors, was to help with the search.

  “What do you reckon, boss? Do you think he’s just lost?” Billy asked as they drove from New Mons Barracks, towards Ash Ranges.

  “Well, Billy, as I see it we have to try and determine whether Niaz is simply lost, or has disappeared on purpose. If the latter is the case, he constitutes a threat.”

  “A threat, sir?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Billy, wake up man. With two dead soldiers already, it isn’t difficult to leap to the conclusion that Niaz could pose a terrorist threat. Why else would the bloody man go missing? Is he the person who killed them? What the hell is he plotting? What surprise does he have up his sleeve for us?” Crane punched the steering wheel. “So many fucking questions and absolutely no bloody answers.”

  Billy was quiet for the rest of the journey, no doubt smarting, but Crane didn’t much care.

  Kim was already hard at work when Crane arrived back at the barracks after dropping Billy at Ash Ranges, striding in and issuing orders as he took off his suit jacket.

  “Right, Kim, make arrangements for Niaz’s picture to be given to the soldiers at each of the barriers in and out of the garrison. Oh and include that artist’s impression - the one of a suspect drawn from the information provided by Padam Gurung.”

  As he finished speaking Kim began obeying the orders, but he was very much afraid it was a case of bolting the stable door. Crane went into his office to answer his ringing phone.

  “Ah good evening, Crane, Major Brownlow here, Coldstream Guards.”

  “Yes, sir, how can I help you?” Crane began to loosen his tie with one hand, the other clutching the phone.

  “It’s more a case of how I can help you, Sergeant Major. Just wanted to let you know we’ve had an informal chat with the remaining three Afghan officers.”

  “Really, sir?”

  “Yes, Crane, thought it might be better coming from us, rather than you lot in SIB.”

  “Really, sir?”

  “Don’t be difficult, Sergeant Major. Anyway, it seems they have no knowledge or understanding of where or when they saw their colleague last. So there’s no need for you to interview them. Anyway it’s a bit difficult with the language barrier you know.”

  “No I don’t actually. I distinctly remember seeing all four Afghan officers conversing with their English colleagues at the Officers’ Mess. So I’m somewhat surprised that they now seem to have lost both their memory and their ability to speak English.”

  “Crane,” Major Brownlow rumbled a warning.

  “Also, sir,” Crane emphasised the ‘sir’, “I have other information that you are unaware of. I have been closely monitoring the activities of this particular group as they have been seen behaving suspiciously. So thank you for your input, sir, but I will be interviewing them tomorrow, with an interpreter present, of course.”

  Crane replaced the receiver with exaggerated care, cutting off the Major in mid-sentence.

  Day 29

  Before Crane began interviewing the Afghan officers with Dudley-Jones, he read through the background information the Intelligence Corp had on them. All four came from the same region in Afghanistan and joined the army in their mid-20’s. There was precious little information on their activities before joining up.

  “There’s not much to go on in here,” Crane said to Dudley-Jones, throwing down the file in his hand and reaching for the photograph of Azar Niaz. “He looks uncannily like the description that Padam Gurung gave us.” He passed the photo to Dudley-Jones.

  “Yes, I see what you mean, sir, but then, so do the rest of the four.” Dudley-Jones spread out all four photographs for Crane to compare.

  “You’re right. They all have olive skin, swept back dark hair and a moustache. Shit. Is the interpreter here?”

  “Yes, sir, waiting outside.”

  “Okay, but remember, don’t let on you understand any Pashtu. I want to see if you can catch anything they say that perhaps the interpreter misses or misinterprets.”

  “Don’t you trust him?” Dudley-Jones asked in surprise.

  “I don’t trust anyone, Lance Corporal. I’ve always found that to be the best policy.”

  “Oh, right, sir. Are we interviewing Fahran Popal first?”

  “No, if he really is in charge of this little cell, he’ll be the hardest to get information from. So I want to start with the other two.”

  The ‘other two’ gave Crane nothing. They sat sweating in the stark interview room that was hotter than the 80-degree heat outside and insisted they knew nothing. Had seen nothing and had no idea where Niaz might be, or what he might be doing. Both men had shifting eyes that didn’t keep still. Neither really looked at Crane, but mostly at the interpreter, whom they fixated on, as though they were adrift at sea, in danger of drowning and he was a lifesaving plank of wood.

  But Captain Fahran Popal was different. Crane could feel it as he entered the room. Popal had an arrogant way about him and Crane watched him relaxing in the chair with a slightly quizzical expression on his face, making Crane feel Popal was laughing at them. But his manner was polite, if not deferential.

  “Do you have any idea why Niaz would disappear?” Crane demanded.

  The interpreter offered a negative reply.

  “When did you last see him?”

  The interpreter said Captain Popal couldn’t remember in the confusion of the exercise.

  “I find that rather strange,” Crane said. “In the British Army it is vital that we work together as a team. Each team member must be aware of where the others are at all times and trust that they are watching your back.”

  The interpreter indicated that Popal didn’t understand the term ‘watching your back’.

  Stifling a sarcastic comment, something along the lines of in that case the Coldstream Guards weren’t doing a very good job, he instead said, “being there to support you”.

  The interpreter said that Captain Popal and his fellow countrymen found the exercise very confusing, which was probably why they failed to notice Niaz wasn’t there.

  “What do you think has happened to Niaz?”

  Popal simply shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at Crane.

  “Does he know anyone else in this country?”

  Again the shrug.

  “Captain Popal, any information you can give us about Niaz and his background may help us find him. Are you sure there is nothing you can tell us?”

  The interpreter relayed Popal’s apologies and his sorrow that he couldn’t help, not having known Niaz before coming to Aldershot. But Crane noted the slight smile playing around Popal’s mouth. His eyes held none of the sorrow he was professing to feel and instead of his gaze sliding away in shame, he continued to hold Crane’s stare. Feeling he’d get nothing more from the man, Crane ended the interview.

  Leaving the boiling hot room, Crane pulled Dudley-Jones into his office and closed the door. He’d rather have gone outside for a chat and a cigarette, but needed privacy for their conversation.


  “Well?” he demanded of the Lance Corporal.

  “Arrogant bastard.”

  The reply took Crane by surprise.

  “That’s a bit strong for you, Dudley-Jones.”

  “Well, sir, I don’t much like being called scum, even by a superior officer.” Crane watched Dudley-Jones throw his files and notes on the desk.

  Crane laughed, “Well he’s not exactly a superior officer, but I know what you mean. Scum, eh? Interesting. The interpreter never mentioned that bit.”

  “No, sir. It was when he was introduced to us. Popal asked why an officer was being interviewed by lower rank scum and it was explained to him that you were in the Special Investigations Branch and I was in the Intelligence Corp and that we had the authority to interview any rank, even those above us. What a creep!” Dudley-Jones sat in the chair by Crane’s desk.

  Crane walked around the office to his own chair. “Yes, he was arrogant and a bit smarmy with it and I’m not just talking about the amount of oil in his hair. You’d think he’d be more concerned about his fellow officer wouldn’t you?”

  “Any normal person would, but I don’t think he’s normal.”

  “No, Dudley-Jones, neither do I. Get Intelligence to dig up as much background information on those four as they can. Surely someone on the ground in Afghanistan can fill us in. We need to know what they did before they joined up and also need to know if there’s any evidence they knew each other before coming to Aldershot.”

  “Yes, sir, but it may take a few days.”

  “I realise that, which is why you need to get onto it right away. Oh and I also want a voice analysis done against Captain Popal’s interview today and that tape your boys made of the mobile phone conversation. See if it’s the same voice.”

  “But Popal hardly spoke, sir.”

  “Yes, Dudley-Jones I did notice. I wonder why that was?”

  Day 30

  Padam packed the precious letter away in his plastic carrier bag. It had arrived that morning and he wanted to open it when he was alone. He was planning to try to see his friends in the Royal Military Police as he should tell them about the bundle the smudge was carrying. But that was before the letter arrived. So Padam decided he would firstly go and read his letter and then see the Royal Military Police later.