by Iain Cameron
It was Khouri, driving at a slow pace as if he was experiencing car trouble, but in reality, looking for him. He felt sure a flash of his orange running top, most of it zipped inside his tracksuit top, would look incongruous against the brown and green of the ploughed field, but the tone of the engine didn’t change. Khouri was either a cool customer and, having spotted him, would now wait out of sight around the next bend, or he didn’t notice he was there.
Robinson decided not to take any chances. He abandoned his plan of reaching the road and flagging down a motorist, and instead ran across the field in the opposite direction from the way Khouri was heading, towards a collection of buildings. At the edge of the field, he vaulted a fence, forced his way through a hedgerow, ran across a small road and headed down a track. He was running on adrenalin and fear now, not caring if he was heading into kennels with dozens of dogs on the loose, or a farm with large machinery being operated.
He passed a large sign, which he ignored, so desperate was he to meet a friendly face and speak to someone in authority. The surrounding vegetation disappeared and he walked into a clearing where he stopped for a minute to try and breathe. It was the furthest he had ever run but he didn’t think he could run another step.
It took him several seconds to realise a group of people in front of him were holding chainsaws, like extras in a horror film. It took a while longer to make sense of what they were doing. He walked towards the group, and a bloke in a yellow jacket with ‘Instructor’ printed on the back put his chainsaw down and turned to face him.
‘Can I help you? This is a dangerous area for you to be in. This is a woodcutting class using chainsaws.’
‘Where…am…I?’ he gasped, finding it hard to breathe properly after his non-stop dash to get here.
‘You’re in the grounds of Plumpton College. What are you doing here? Are you lost? You look as though you’ve fallen out of a tree.’
He realised he must have looked a sorry sight, streaks of blood and mud, ripped clothes, hand bandaged as if done by a child, panting with exhaustion, looking like he’s just run a marathon.
‘I was… I was being held against my will… I escaped.’
‘Hang on, I recognise you. You’re the guy in the paper. What happened to your hand?’
‘I had to… damage it to escape. Can I use a telephone?’
‘C’mon, let me take you to the nurse and she’ll take a look at your hand. Afterwards, you can use the telephone.’
He nodded, too exhausted both physically and mentally to resist. He said, ‘Lead on.’
The nurse was a woman aged around forty, with a plain face and slim to a fault, with a busy, can’t-keep-still demeanour. She removed the makeshift bandage from his hand and didn’t wince when she saw the mess. He did, but tried his best not to show it.
She cleaned it up with some stinging fluid before spraying his hand with a freezing agent. She then picked up what looked like a glorified sewing kit, and began stitching the two parts of his hand together. As long as he didn’t look, it didn’t seem to hurt.
‘The cut is ragged and might leave a scar. It’s not like the knife and saw accidents I have to deal with around here, which are often more linear. In your favour is your age, which means it shouldn’t take long to heal. You did it on an old iron bed frame, you say?’
‘Yes, at a rough bit on the frame.’
‘What caused the roughness?’
‘Rust, I suppose. The place where I was being held didn’t have any heating. It felt like it had never been heated for years.’
‘You poor thing. In that case, you’re going to need a tetanus jab.’
He nodded. ‘I thought I might. Where do I get it?’
‘I can do it. I will as soon as I’ve done this. Hold still.’
When she had finished stitching and headed to the fridge to find the vaccine, he inspected her handiwork. She’d done an amazing job and after the swelling and bruising went down, he was confident it wouldn’t leave much of a scar.
After the injection, which hurt more than he expected, she took a look at the injuries to his chest and stomach. She cleaned the wounds, but none of the cuts were deep enough to concern her or require the use of her sewing kit. Instead, she stuck a bandage over the worst of them.
They chatted as she tidied up the surgery. He found out she ran an amateur dramatics society in the village where she lived, but she clammed up when he told her he was a criminal lawyer. It wasn’t an unusual reaction when he told people, particularly if they had been a victim of crime, perhaps believing the criminals apprehended received a more lenient sentence than they deserved.
He thanked her for all her help, and meant it. He was fortunate to stumble into Plumpton College. He imagined the nurse was more experienced at dealing with this type of wound than a general hospital, what with students falling out of trees, being cut by a chainsaw, or having their hand sliced by a bandsaw.
‘Can I make a phone call? I’d like to get back to Brighton.’
‘No need, your transport awaits.’
‘What?’
‘Take a look outside.’
His trepidation returned like a big wave smacking the side of a boat. Had Khouri found out where he was, and was now parked outside waiting for him? Had he duped these nice people with charm and fine promises to look after him?
He looked out of the window and scanned the area, but he couldn’t see the Porsche, only a police patrol vehicle.
‘The police?’
‘Yes, Geoff, the instructor, the guy you met when you first walked in, called them to tell them you were here. Big search parties have been out looking for you, in case you didn’t know. Don’t worry, Trevor, you’re safe now.’
FORTY-FOUR
Henderson parked the car with an oblique view of the house owned by Hassan Khouri in Hove. It was early afternoon, not the time he would normally choose to start a surveillance operation, but he had no option in the matter. It looked a quiet residential street and no doubt the presence of a police car would vex some of the inhabitants. If so, there would be high anxiety and indignant letters to The Argus if they realised the innocuous blue van contained five officers, each armed with Heckler and Koch carbines and handguns.
A savvy copper from John Street, Celia Warren, had brought Trevor Robinson straight to the DI’s office this morning. Warren’s boss would probably give her a dressing down for this unauthorised use of her initiative. It didn’t give him his place in the sun in front of the nation’s cameras, his arm around the shoulders of the missing man. This was a minor consideration if half of what Robinson had told him was true.
The kidnapping of Trevor Robinson was sufficient grounds for mounting today’s surveillance operation, but if the rest of what Robinson said survived close scrutiny, Khouri was also involved in the murder of Martin Turner and Alex Vincent. A little research had helped to fill in some blanks. Over the last year, Raymond Schofield had been orchestrating a hate campaign against Hassan Khouri on social media, which on occasion leaked over into the tabloids.
This, as Schofield saw it, was for Khouri botching up a nose operation on his former wife, and embarking on an affair with her. This wasn’t a salacious rumour dreamt up by a bored tabloid editor or trolls on social media, as pictures of Khouri with Rebecca Schofield on his arm, had appeared in the gossip pages of magazines, and were now on the web. Henderson didn’t know what Schofield was on about as there looked to be nothing wrong with her nose, or anything else for that matter.
In addition, a serious allegation of negligence had been brought against Khouri; this time it wouldn’t be played out in the press or social media, but in court. The case, brought by a fashion model, was being handled by the Medical Litigation team at Jonas Baines, and according to Robinson it wasn’t only the divorce team that lost client data on the night of the intruder break-in, they did too.
Putting two and two together and perhaps making five, Robinson believed Khouri broke into Jonas Baines to remove incrimina
ting evidence contained in the Medical Litigation file, which included original documents that couldn’t be replicated. While he was there, he did the same to the divorce file of Rebecca Schofield. Robinson believed this was either to put a spanner in the works by delaying their divorce, or perhaps Khouri got wind of the schedule detailing the ‘missing’ millions from Rebecca. With this in his possession, he could publish details on social media and expose Schofield as a liar and a cheat.
However, if Khouri did break into Jonas Baines, he wouldn’t be aware that Schofield’s fixer, Pete Hammond, had been there a few days before and removed the incriminating schedule. A re-examination of the CCTV pictures of Martin Turner and Alex Vincent’s killers weren’t conclusive, but now with Khouri’s profile to add to the mix, Henderson believed he was a much better fit, down to the neat Roman nose. He was certainly a better fit than either Schofield or Hammond.
All things considered, it now made Khouri his number one suspect, and a man with plenty of serious questions to answer.
‘I don’t think he’ll be coming back,’ Walters said beside him.
‘Why not? He went to the cottage in Plumpton with the express aim of killing Robinson. Once he’d finished the job, he would return to Brighton and carry on with his life as he did before. He wouldn’t have taken anything extra with him to help him escape: no clothes, laptop, food, phone charger. Sure, you can go far with only a credit card in your pocket, but if you’re on the run and you don’t want anyone knowing where you are, it’s the last thing you want to be using.’
‘I agree.’
‘Also, consider what he knows about this situation. Robinson escaped, but with no money or phone as Khouri had taken them. In addition, as Robinson said himself, he didn’t have a clue where he was, and even if someone told him, he doesn’t know that part of Sussex well. It was only through good fortune he managed to stagger into Plumpton College. He could have fallen into a ditch and broken his ankle, or ended up walking around in circles for hours. It’s possible Khouri still thinks he’s out there.’
‘Even if Robinson made it back to civilisation, there was no guarantee he would come straight to us.’
‘That was another stroke of luck,’ Henderson said. ‘If he hadn’t reached Plumpton College and instead, he’d been picked up by some upstanding citizen and, given his condition, would have been taken to the Royal Sussex or the Princess Royal in Haywards Heath. If they’d put him under sedation, we wouldn’t have had any inkling about his story for at least 24 hours.’
‘By which time Khouri would have had time to pack, and in all probability, jetted back to the Middle East. If so, it would have been the last time we would hear about him.’
‘It’s a smart house,’ he said. ‘There’s obviously money in cosmetic surgery.’
‘Big money, I think. I reckon he’s knocked down the traditional house that once stood there; I assume it looked like the one next door. What he’s replaced it with looks like something from Grand Designs.’
‘All that glass. I would be frightened I would forget to close the curtains and expose myself to all and sundry, like that scene from Life of Brian.’
The radio crackled. ‘Blue Porsche heading in your direction.’
‘Roger and out,’ Walters replied. She turned to Henderson, ‘We’re on,’
They sat in silence, their eyes focussed on the top of Mallory Road. The Porsche didn’t just appear, it roared into sight. It raced along the road, braked hard and swung into the driveway at the front of his house. A man Henderson assumed to be Khouri, left the car in the driveway and sprinted towards the front door.
Henderson allowed him to enter the house before he called the ARU van. The driver gunned the van’s engine and it sprinted up the road, stopping directly at the back of the Porsche, blocking its exit. As the officers decanted from the van, Henderson and Walters exited their car and ran over to join them.
‘Armed Police!’ the lead officer shouted as they entered the house, the two detectives right behind them. They didn’t have to bash the door down, as Khouri had been in such a rush he hadn’t bothered to shut it.
The house was large, too big for one man, open-plan, with glass all around. The downstairs area contained all manner of rooms appropriate for a single man: large lounge with sophisticated television and sound system, cinema room, modern-looking study with large Apple desktop, easy-to-use kitchen, and games room including a classic Space Invaders cabinet console.
Upstairs, it was more conventional. All bedrooms were spacious and every one had an en-suite bathroom. None of the doors were closed, and they peered into each before reaching the last one. This was the master bedroom and occupied a space across the width of the house with floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the rear garden. A half-packed leather bag lay on the bed, with some clothes and toiletry items beside it.
Henderson grabbed it and looked inside. It contained clothes, and underneath, a laptop, some cables and a wad of cash. ‘It looks like he was packing up when we spooked him.’
‘Must have heard the movement of the van,’ Walters said.
Henderson turned to the ARU officers. ‘He’s around here somewhere. Find him.’
The officers headed off to search inside wardrobes and to look under beds. Henderson looked around the main bedroom before spotting a small balcony outside, overlooking the garden. He searched for a way out. He found a handle, turned the already inserted key, pulled the handle and the patio door glided effortlessly on well-lubricated bearings.
Henderson headed outside. It took him only a few seconds to realise where Khouri had gone. He had climbed the wall at the end of the balcony and walked across the garage roof. He would have dropped a metre or so on to a low wall at the side of the garage. He then had the choice of jumping into the garden next door or running to the end of his own and climbing over a low wall at its border.
It was impossible for him to escape through the front of the house, as fences blocked access to the rear on both sides, and two cops were stationed there. In reverse, Khouri’s escape route looked to be a good access route for a burglar, but then the balcony door would be locked, the house alarmed, and the CCTV camera above the balcony would be operating.
Henderson left the balcony and dashed downstairs, taking the steps and the movement of the open staircase as fast as he dared. He opened the door at the back of the lounge with the key in the lock, and dashed out to the rear patio with Walters hot on his tail. He ran to the end of the garden and stood scanning the trees, trying to spot the fleeing man. He stood there for a couple of minutes, but he saw no movement. No sign of Hassan Khouri.
‘I can’t see him,’ Walters said.
‘I think he’s gone,’ Henderson said. ‘Our slippery plastic surgeon has flown.’
FORTY-FIVE
‘You lost him? How the hell did you lose him?’ Chief Inspector Houghton yelled. They were both standing in Henderson’s office. Henderson had explained the situation, but nothing he said seemed to have any effect on his anger.
‘What have you done to find him?’
‘We searched the area and found evidence he escaped through a neighbour’s garden. We’ve put out an appeal which will appear in this afternoon’s Argus and on social media. I’ve issued an all-ports alert, and patrol crews have been briefed and they have his picture. On the plus side, he’s out there with only the clothes on his back, he doesn’t have a car, he can’t go back to his business as it’s being watched, and if he uses his phone or credit card, we’ll find him.’
‘I hope so, for your sake.’
Houghton stormed out. Henderson didn’t know what was eating him. Yes, they had lost a suspect, one with a clear escape route in mind which he didn’t hesitate to use. His escape route was confirmed, as a neighbour reported seeing him dashing through her garden. Henderson was more phlegmatic about the failed operation than his boss, as the only thing Khouri was being accused of at the moment was the kidnapping of Trevor Robinson. This wasn’t in doubt, as they had
found the house where Robinson had been held and there was plenty of forensic evidence to back up the charge. What was in doubt was Robinson’s claim that Khouri had also murdered Martin Turner and Alex Vincent.
Henderson made himself a coffee in the Detectives’ brew room and returned to his office. Feeling calmer, he loaded Google and spent the next half-hour researching the background of Hassan Khouri. In essence, he had received a similar number of complaints as any typical doctor or cosmetic surgeon working with rich and demanding clients; no more, no less. It was just unfortunate that one of his clients happened to be the wife of Raymond Schofield.
Schofield had gone to town on the man, resorting to using Facebook and Twitter when newspapers had got tired of publishing his accusations. He not only accused Khouri of being a terrible surgeon, he cast doubt on the legitimacy of the man’s qualifications, alleged he’d abused Rebecca during their affair, and paid some of the surgeon’s ex-girlfriends to blacken his name.
Khouri didn’t hold back but responded in kind, and in many ways he was a nastier son of a bitch than Schofield. He dragged up anything he could find about him: his string of girlfriends while still married to Rebecca, bullying and sexual impropriety accusations made by Raybeck staff, suggestions that he had misappropriated company money, and of course, hints that he had indeed murdered Allan Blake.
With a number of different pictures of Khouri now at his disposal, he pulled up the CCTV pictures of the intruder at Jonas Baines. He believed there was a resemblance when he looked at it before, but now he felt sure it was him. It wasn’t so definite he would testify in court, but good enough to put in front of Khouri when they caught up with him. With this thought in mind, he headed into the Detectives’ Room to see how the hunt was progressing.
