Ethereum

by N C Mander

  Each time a car arrived or left the car park, Mo noted the time and information. If it was a new vehicle, he sent it through to Colin but got no response.

  Doug was dozing fitfully in the front seat, and Mo was scrolling on his mobile when Nick said, ‘All right boys, we have movement.’

  ‘Finally,’ Mo said.

  All three of them trained their eyes on the door to number thirteen which had opened. A bearded man appeared and lit a cigarette. A second, clean-shaven man came onto the balcony beside him. The first offered the second the cigarette, who took a drag, breathing the smoke out into the summer evening air. Both men were of Middle Eastern colouring. They spoke sparingly to one another as they shared the cigarette. Barely ten minutes after their appearance on the balcony, both men went back into the flat.

  All three men in the car let out a long sigh.

  ‘Well that was worth waiting for,’ Doug voiced what they were all thinking.

  ‘The flat isn’t supposed to be occupied,’ Mo pointed out.

  ‘Hang on.’ Nick clutched at his partner’s arm and gestured to the apartment. The door had opened again, and the clean-shaven man was heaving three large sacks onto the walkway. He hoisted one onto his shoulder and made for the stairs. The man with the beard added a further three sacks to the pile on the walkway. He, too, shouldered a bag. A third man left the flat. Locking the door behind him, he followed his flatmates.

  They moved to the Ford Transit van and threw their loads into the back.

  ‘Launderers,’ Mo muttered.

  They watched the men make two more trips to the third floor, loading the laundry into the back to the van. They shared another cigarette, leaning against the parked transit. Mo took a few photographs but felt that this was another dead end on what was increasingly becoming fruitless line of enquiry. From what Kat had told him, the man she’d met yesterday at Barinak Holdings had very little grasp of what was going on with the property letting company. Maybe the files weren’t up to date. Maybe these men were letting the property legitimately.

  The clean-shaven man got into the driver’s seat and the other two clambered into the cab on the passenger side. They drove away just as Mo’s phone buzzed in his lap.

  ‘All right, Mo,’ Colin said when he answered. He sounded more relaxed, ‘Sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you on this.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mo said. ‘Have thing’s calmed down a bit?’

  ‘Sort of. Tanya’s back on the Grid but has been holed up in her office all afternoon. The DG, Featherstone, was there for a while. Kat’s just back from the Dunn interview at the Met but was straight in with Tanya the second she got through the door.’

  Mo whistled. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine, mate.’ Colin paused as if he was trying to remember why he’d called, ‘Oh yes, those vehicles. Nothing noteworthy really, except for that Transit.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Mo’s ears pricked up, and he sat up straighter, ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, it was reported stolen from the premises of the laundry company this morning.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Something in that then?’

  ‘Three guys left one of our hot properties in that van ten minutes ago.’

  ‘We can probably track it down on CCTV,’ Colin offered.

  ‘Can you get onto that now?’ Mo replied.

  ‘Ok, I’ll let you know if ANPR picks anything up.’ Colin hung up and Mo relayed the detail of the conversation to his companions.

  ‘Come on then,’ Nick said, starting the engine, ‘let’s track ’em down. How far can they have got?’

  ‘Which way did they go?’ Mo asked. Both Doug and Nick shook their heads. ‘Wild goose chase. Let’s see what the cameras pick up.’

  The three men waited impatiently as five minutes ticked by before Mo’s phone rang again.

  ‘They’ve been picked up on the south side of the Rotherhithe Tunnel,’ Colin said. ‘We tracked them as best we could but lost them somewhere around London Bridge.’

  ‘Bugger.’ The two men in the front of the car looked defeated, knowing they had lost their lead. ‘Thanks, Colin. I’ll come in.’

  ‘Ok, Mo. See you in a bit.’

  Dispirited, Nick, Doug and Mo drove back into the city and said their farewells at Scotland Yard.

  ‘See you in the morning,’ Nick feigned cheeriness.

  ‘At least we’ve made some progress,’ Mo tried to offer a positive light on their day’s endeavours.

  ‘And let the buggers slip through our fingers. It’s two steps forward, one step back in this job,’ Doug growled. ‘I’m going to the pub. Either of you fancy it?’

  ‘Better get home,’ Nick replied.

  ‘Ah yes, Mrs Walsh will be waiting for you. Bond?’ Doug turned to Mo hopefully.

  ‘Sorry, got to check in back at base. This is looking pretty ominous don’t you think?’

  *

  2010, Friday 7th July, Thames House, Westminster, London

  Mo scanned through the security doors that opened onto the open-plan floor, where Tanya’s section operated. There were a dozen officers and analysts still working diligently at their desks. He was surprised to find the usually buzzing section in near silence. He scanned the office for Colin and found him leaning over the desk of a graduate analyst – Mo thought her name was Hannah – speaking to her in hushed tones. The young woman looked uneasy. Colin looked up at Mo’s approach. ‘Keep running the ANPR scans, and let me know if anything comes up for that van,’ he instructed the graduate. She placed shaking hands back on her keyboard. Colin nodded to Mo, indicating they should meet in the men’s toilets.

  The door had barely swung shut behind the two men when Mo exploded, ‘What the hell’s been going on here? It’s like a morgue.’

  Colin puffed out his cheeks and let out a long breath. ‘Edison’s gone rogue,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean? Gone rogue?’

  ‘Donald Hughes has been onto the Home Secretary. They’re still best chums, despite everything. Apparently, Edison took it upon himself to go to his home and accuse him of involvement in this operation.’

  ‘What?!’ Mo was absorbing everything that Colin was saying. It had been a very long day, cooped up in the sauna of a surveillance vehicle. ‘Where on earth did he get the idea that Hughes was somehow involved?’

  ‘His wife is invested in the Ethereum fund.’

  ‘There are a lot of people invested in that fund.’

  ‘Exactly, but you know there’s history between Hughes and Edison? Edison blames Hughes for having him kicked out of the Service. And vice versa. We can’t track Edison down,’ Colin went on. He was leaning on the edge of the basin, his head bowed. He looked exhausted. ‘He’s gone completely dark. Somewhere in the Highlands. All that Tanya’s worried about is finding him. I’m lucky I’ve got Helen to pursue the van lead.’

  ‘Helen not Hannah,’ Mo said.

  ‘What?’ Colin lifted his head and looked, via the mirror, at his colleague.

  ‘I thought her name was Hannah.’

  ‘No, it’s Helen,’ Colin seemed irritated by the diversion, ‘and if she hadn’t been working late, I’d have to leave the van – which is well and truly the only real lead we have on HAPSBURG at the moment.’

  The door swung open, and Kat came in. Both men looked nonplussed. ‘This is the men’s,’ Mo pointed out.

  ‘I saw you come in here earlier,’ she explained, her voice deadpan, ‘and maybe, just maybe, she won’t find me in here.’ Kat put her back against the wall, slid down to sit on the floor and put her head in her hands. ‘I’ve never known her to be so unreasonable. Apparently, this is all my fault.’

  ‘How can it possibly be your fault?’ Colin asked. Both men looked at their boss with concern.

  ‘Good question,’ Kat snapped. ‘It was her call to bring Edison in as an agent. It was her risk, and she said she’d run him. I’m not his minder. I’m trying to manage the bigges
t operation of my life. There are three men at large, running around London with Semtex packed into their pockets. We’ve just picked up a hot suspect. I should be interrogating her, not babysitting a rogue agent that I didn’t even recruit.’

  ‘You haven’t heard anything from him?’ Mo said, softly. Kat and Edison’s relationship was an open secret amongst the team.

  All the tension in Kat’s body flooded out of her, and she burst into tears. ‘No,’ she breathed through her tears. ‘I’m so worried.’

  Mo shifted awkwardly from one foot to another, horrified that he’d moved the senior officer to tears. Colin moved over and crouched on his haunches next to Kat’s distraught figure. He placed a tender hand on her shoulder, and Kat leaned into his subtle embrace.

  ‘What do we need to do?’ Colin asked.

  ‘I need to speak to Anna. We need to find that van. And if, whilst we’re doing that, we could also find Edison, well that would be grand.’ Mo, Kat and Colin fell silent as they contemplated the challenge of locating their errant friend and colleague when he clearly didn’t want to be found.

  Kat stood up, crossed to the sinks and examined herself in the mirror, delicately rubbing a smudge of mascara away from the corner of her eye. Her eyes lit up as a thought struck her. ‘Charlie’s on holiday in the Highlands with his kids. Edison told me he was taking a bit of time out to visit him. So, he can help us find Edison.’

  ‘We’re talking thirty thousand square miles, Kat,’ Colin pointed out. ‘How do we know where to tell Charlie to start looking.’

  ‘Hughes’ wife’s family home, the Moniedubh Estate, is near Glencoe – I think the closest village is Ballachulish,’ her tongue struggled round the Gaelic words. ‘What time is it?’

  Mo looked at his watch. ‘Half-past eight.’

  ‘There will be a handful of pubs, and Edison will be in one of them,’ Kat concluded confidently, looking a lot cheerier than she had a little while earlier. Mo and Colin nodded, acknowledging the plan. ‘Ok,’ Kat went on. She gripped the edge of the sink, steeling herself for emerging onto the office floor. ‘I’ll call Charlie.’ She was well and truly back in the zone now, the emotional crisis of the past few minutes carefully boxed and put away in a recess of her mind. ‘When are Colchester’s lot going into the Carpenter’s Road flat?’

  ‘At first light with the bomb squad.’

  ‘Can you be there?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

  ‘In which case, get out of here. It’s late.’ Mo didn’t look like he wanted to go, keen to stick with the team in a moment of crisis. Kat noted his hesitation. ‘Go,’ she insisted. ‘That’s an order.’

  Mo nodded and shuffled off. With the departure of the junior officer, Kat’s veneer of confidence drifted a little. Colin had worked with Kat since she’d joined the Service, and he felt protective toward her. ‘We better get on with it.’

  ‘Kat,’ Colin said, putting an arm around her small frame, ‘you’re doing everything you can. You couldn’t be doing any more.’ He paused as Kat’s dark-rimmed eyes filled with tears again, ‘And Edison is Tanya’s agent. She’s running him.’

  ‘But it’s my investigation,’ Kat protested.

  ‘Then let’s get to the bottom of it.’

  She smiled at him, pulled her shoulders back and walked confidently out the door.

  *

  Kat picked up her mobile and dug out Charlie’s number. She dialled.

  ‘Harrington-Smith,’ a voice answered the phone after a single ring. Charlie sounded distant which, along with the faint hum of an engine, gave away the use of a hands-free set.

  ‘Charlie, it’s Kat.’

  ‘I haven’t found him yet.’ There was an unfamiliar hardness in his tone.

  ‘Who called you?’

  ‘Tanya. An hour and a half ago.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So, Tanya Willis’ world famous open communication is breaking down,’ Charlie went on, his words dripping with sarcasm. ‘I’m going to find him. I should be in Ballachulish in under twenty minutes. I can’t believe this has happened.’

  ‘Listen, Charlie, I can’t get into this. Edison is Tanya’s agent. My only concern is for his safety.’

  ‘I’ll call you when I’ve found him,’ was all Charlie said before he hung up.

  Kat lowered the phone and looked around the office, much emptier than it had been earlier, Colin and Helen were the only people left. ‘Anything on the van?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Helen said and added as an afterthought, ‘yet.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  1826, Friday 7th July, Drovers Arms, Ballachulish, Lochaber

  Edison pulled up outside the Drovers Arms and switched off the engine. In the silence, he sat in the driver’s seat of the little car, collecting his thoughts. His heart was beating fast, and his hands felt clammy as they gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. For all that the conversation with Hughes had left him rattled, bringing back painful memories, it was the news of Jamie’s arrest that gave him the most concern. And Anna … where did the unassuming secretary fit into all of this? She wasn’t the hacker. He knew that much. Edison knew that Jamie had been set up as the scapegoat. He was close to unmasking the true culprit at the bank but not quite. He wanted to get online, smoke him out, but first, he needed a drink. He breathed deeply, picked up his wallet and mobile and got out of the car.

  The clouds lay heavy and ashen atop the mountains. The village of Ballachulish sat on the edge of the sea loch which, in the early evening light, was reflecting the colour of the sky. When Edison entered the pub, the few men, already installed with pints around the edges of the public bar, looked up to evaluate the new arrival. They offered suspicious glances and muttered to one another before falling back into silence. Edison took a seat at the bar. Having taken his time to finish the conversation with a regular, the publican approached him, his mouth set in a grim scowl.

  ‘What can I get you?’ he growled.

  Edison scanned the bottles behind him and selected one from a nearby distillery. He handed over a large note. The barman handed him the whisky and returned to his conversation without offering him any change.

  Edison opened his mouth to challenge the barman on the price of the dram but the energy for the confrontation deserted him. He studied the golden liquid in his glass, lost in his thoughts. His phone vibrated on the bar. he ignored it. It vibrated again and again and again, the screen lighting up repeatedly as notifications for a day’s worth of messages and missed calls arrived. The pub offered a rare network hotspot, and Edison had been out of signal range since he left Inverness that morning. Edison considered the notifications. Dozens of missed calls from withheld numbers and a couple from Charlie. The final message was from Maria – Edison – it read – Jamie has been arrested. We are worried. Scared they might come after the rest of us. x.

  He gulped down the remainder of the whisky, and the surly barman topped up his glass. Edison nodded and pushed more money in his direction. He glanced back at the phone screen once more as it vibrated on the bar. He saw Charlie’s caller ID flash up just as the screen went black and the battery died.

  He heard the door open to admit another punter.

  ‘Mr Edison,’ a familiar voice said, and he felt a clap on his shoulder, ‘how was tea with the lord of the manor?’

  Edison turned to see the grinning face of Robert Macarthur. Without invitation, the gatekeeper pulled himself onto the vacant bar stool beside Edison. Robert nodded to the barman, ‘Two more, Andy.’

  The publican obliged with two more whiskies and sheepishly pushed a generous handful of change on a small trivet toward Edison. His companion gulped down the double measure and held the glass up to inspect it. ‘They don’t make it like that anywhere else in the world,’ he said. When Robert set the glass down again, the barman poured another substantial measure. ‘Will you have one yourself, Andy?’

  The barman paused long enough to suggest a pretence that he might decline, b
efore saying, ‘Aye, it is Friday after a long week.’ The local he’d been speaking to slunk off to take up a seat elsewhere, and Andy, whisky in one hand, held out his other and said, ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

  Edison shook the proffered hand.

  ‘You look like a man who’s had a rough week. What brings you to meet our honourable laird? You seem a little English compared to his usual guests.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Edison’s curiosity was aroused.

  Andy gave Edison a conspiratorial look, ‘He’s often getting foreign visitors.’

  ‘What kind of foreign?’

  ‘A fair few Russians and some wealthy Arabs.’

  ‘Not that they come in here,’ Robert added, ‘but we see them sweep through in their expensive cars. That’s if they don’t come by helicopter.’

  ‘Do you know what business they have with Sir Donald?’ Edison asked Robert.

  ‘I cannae tell you. But he wines and dines them something proper when they are here.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you recognise any of them?’

  ‘No, not the foreign ones. The Brits I know from the TV. Mr Timothy Johnson for one.’

  ‘The Home Secretary?’

  ‘Aye, but you know that, Mr Edison. They’ve been firm pals for years. You came to a fair few of those parties yourself.’

  Edison drained his glass, toying with this new intelligence.

  ‘But you haven’t told us why you were visiting, Mr Edison,’ Andy pushed him whilst he poured an ever more generous measure of whisky.

  Robert gave his friend a knowing look, ‘Sir Donald and Mr Edison here used to work together.’

  ‘Ohhhh,’ Andy’s eyes lit up, ‘so you’re in the sneaky beaky line of work too then?’

  ‘Used to be,’ Edison said shortly, trying to shut down the exchange as it crept into treacherous waters.

  ‘Did you get booted out too?’ the barman wasn’t going to let it go. ‘Our Sir Hughes, up there on the hill, wears it as some sort of a badge of honour. Wrongfully accused of misdemeanours. Valiantly defending the honour of his friends. Falling on his sword such that others’ livelihoods would not be affected.’