Thornwyn

by Laurence Todd

  “Oi, directors only. You can’t park there,” he said sternly as he approached me. “Visitors’ car park’s over there.” He pointed across the car park.

  I showed my ID. “You’re quite sure about that?” I stared him down and he walked away.

  I’d been angry after leaving Gillian Redmond, although the drive had calmed me down slightly. The belief I was some part of a scheme to rob Bartolome had stuck in my throat. Even worse, I was suspected of working with Thornwyn. But I’d been particularly aggrieved to learn MI5 was involved and I was being followed by someone related to Colonel Stimpson.

  It wasn’t rocket science. Bartolome loses confidential information; Thornwyn and Sampson are suspected of involvement; I once served under Thornwyn and, because he’s corrupt and I once worked in his team, and because I visited him in Belmarsh, I must be involved as well, so I end up with the hapless Gillian Redmond on my tail. I’d decided to put my questions about this situation to Jeremy Godfrey himself.

  I saw the sign requiring all visitors to the compound to report to reception, so I entered the main building. I showed ID at reception and asked for Jeremy Godfrey.

  The woman behind the desk looked at me suspiciously. “I think he might be busy just now.”

  “Well, un-busy him,” I suggested firmly. “Tell him it’s very important I see him.”

  Still staring at me as though there was something growing out the side of my head, she made a call, listened, then hung up. I was informed I’d have to leave my mobile phone at reception as no cameras were allowed into the building for security reasons. I did.

  “Take the lift to the fourth floor. You’ll be met there,” she said, handing me a visitor’s lanyard which I slid into my pocket, much to her annoyance.

  As the lift door opened I was met by a man who asked me to follow him. I did. He led me along the corridor and into what I assumed was Godfrey’s office. It was sumptuous and well-furnished but also devoid of occupancy.

  “He’ll be here shortly,” I was assured by my guide.

  After taking in all the fixtures and fittings and trappings of the executive lifestyle, I was standing by the window, looking at the Hertfordshire countryside and seeing if I could spot my car in the car park, when the door behind me opened and, as Jeremy Godfrey entered the room, the other man left. Godfrey was holding a couple of files under his arm, which he dropped onto his desk.

  “Bloody meetings,” he muttered to himself. He then walked across to me and extended his right arm to shake hands. I reciprocated. “Jeremy Godfrey. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

  “Yeah, at your daughter’s house last week.”

  “That’s right.” He nodded his agreement and gestured for me to sit. I did.

  “So, what brings you up here to Bartolome HQ?” he began.

  “I’d like to know why this company hired Gillian Redmond to have me followed,” I said evenly. I sat back in this extremely comfortable chair.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I spoke to her earlier today. I’d already tailed her to your firm’s London offices and the woman I spoke to refused to confirm or deny my claim, so when I caught Redmond earlier today I put it to her she was working for this firm. She confirmed this company hired her agency, DeeCee Inc., to tail me, but she wouldn’t tell me why. So that’s why I’m here. I’d like to know why.”

  He stared at me and nodded, like he was thinking. I waited five seconds.

  “Are you denying it?” I asked.

  “I’m not commenting on it, is what I’m doing.”

  “So you’re agreeing with it.”

  He made no comment. I waited a few moments.

  “How did you know who I was when I was at your daughter’s house last weekend?”

  “Martha must have told me,” he said glibly. “How else would I have known? She said someone was coming to talk to her about Paul.”

  He was lying. She hadn’t, because the first she knew about me was when I arrived at her door. I decided to jump straight in and ascertain his reaction to a few things I’d heard.

  “So, are you any nearer to locating all those confidential documents from R&D you lost? I’m led to believe there’s some sensitive stuff on them.”

  That got his attention. He looked at me with a surprised expression.

  “What about the financial info, you any closer to retrieving that? It’d knock your share price down a bit if information about the company’s precarious financial situation got into the press, wouldn’t it?”

  “How on earth do you know about all this?” he gasped as though drowning. “It’s supposed to be top secret.”

  I didn’t answer immediately. I was enjoying his discomfort. The fact of someone knowing the situation inside Bartolome was clearly a source of distress to him. I wasn’t going to tell him it’d been Gillian Redmond. She was just following instructions in tailing me and, whilst I thought she couldn’t even follow goldfish in a bowl successfully, I didn’t want to drop her in it. She was just doing her job.

  “How do you think? I’m a detective; I’m working a case and I’ve spoken to several people and heard things. I asked someone I trust in MI5 why I was being tailed working this case and was told what I’ve just told you. I can’t get to grips with why my doing my job has led to Bartolome putting someone on my tail, so I’d like to know why. What am I supposed to have done to deserve your kind consideration?” Sarcasm abounded. “Or is it your belief I was involved in removing what your firm’s lost?”

  He sat quietly for a few moments, then he stood up quite abruptly. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t talk to you about any of this. You know how important this company is to the UK’s defence effort?”

  “Colonel Stimpson tell you to say that, did he?” I smiled. Fleetingly his expression changed. He was surprised to hear Stimpson’s name, but a split second later he regained his composure. “I don’t know who you mean. Now, you really will have to leave. I’ve nothing to say to you and I’m very busy today,” he blustered.

  I leaned forward slightly. “I hope you’re not planning to follow your son-in-law into politics.”

  He looked confused. “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re a bloody poor liar, Jeremy, that’s why.” I laughed. “You ever wanna be a politician, you gotta learn to spin bullshit a lot better than you’ve just done.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” He looked annoyed.

  I didn’t answer. I got up to leave, then stopped and turned to face him again. “Oh, yeah, before I forget, you alluded to Paul Sampson being gay when I was at your daughter’s house. Why’re you so sure he was?”

  “Because I know he was, that’s why.” He was on firmer ground now, more sure of the facts of the situation. He was back in control. “I could never put my finger on it, but there was always that something about him making me think he was homosexual. I think the modern vogue term is gaydar. I wanted to know, so I put someone on to keeping an eye on him. They followed him for a while and found he had a lovenest near London Bridge, sharing it with some senior civil servant. They’d been an item for some years, I was told.”

  He stopped for a moment. I wondered if he’d used Gillian Redmond.

  “All those nights when he told my daughter he’d be in the House working late and would stay in his London flat,” he sneered, “he was staying with his boyfriend.” He spat out boyfriend like he was chewing something bitter. “That’s what I meant when I told you to ask his boyfriend, because I knew he had one, you see? I knew he was leading a double life. This Geoffrey had even been to my house; came to a barbecue. He was introduced as a work colleague,” he said, disbelievingly.

  “Did Paul know you knew?” I asked.

  “Too bloody right he did,” he said firmly, chest thrusting outwards. “I went to his house soon afterwards when my daughter wasn’t home and confronted him with what the PI I’d put on him had found. After we’d argued for a while, he eventually admitted it was all true. He said he loved this guy, Geo
ffrey whatever his bloody name was. I asked if he intended to leave my daughter but he said no, he was going to stay with her as he wanted to see my granddaughter grow up. I wasn’t happy with that, and I told him so.”

  “What was his response?”

  “Got quite annoyed. Told me to mind my own sodding business and leave his family alone. I told him it was to be my daughter or his manfriend, but he couldn’t have both. I was insistent about that. My daughter’s happiness is everything to me, Inspector, and I wasn’t about to see her be played for a fool by my son-in-law.”

  I didn’t mind being called Inspector, so I didn’t correct him. “I think I might also have said something about getting him kicked off the board of directors if he didn’t make the right decision.” He said this almost as an afterthought. “That really shook him up.”

  “So what then?”

  “Nothing. He resigned a little while later and, well, you know what he did.” He shrugged.

  Paul Sampson must have spent the last year of his life experiencing the kind of existential angst I couldn’t even begin to get a handle on. His public identity, a prominent Tory MP with a position in Government, a family man married with a small child, director at a large manufacturing company, the very exemplar of a modern Conservative Party success story, contrasted starkly with his private persona . . . involved in a loving homosexual relationship with a senior civil servant, and with a part share in a flat in Borough where he took ecstasy and enjoyed the kind of liberated spiritual freedom his public life could never afford him. Small wonder Thornwyn’s blackmailing had produced such pain in his life.

  If only he and Tilling hadn’t been so brazenly stupid in that car park.

  “We think Paul was being blackmailed before he died,” I said. “You know anything about that?”

  “No, I don’t.” He shook his head. “Who’s supposed to have been blackmailing him?”

  “I don’t know; that’s what I’m trying to discover. That’s why I was at your daughter’s house last week, asking if she had any idea about it.”

  I was a better liar than he was. He bought my story.

  Thanking him for his time, I left and began the drive back to London. I didn’t see Gillian Redmond behind me. I again wondered if it had been her who’d been put on to following Paul Sampson.

  I was cruising back along the A41, thinking about the past few hours. Gillian Redmond had confirmed Bartolome had put a tail on me, and I now knew why, and Jeremy Godfrey had refused to deny I was being tailed on his company’s request because of the suspicion I was involved in the heist of confidential information from the company. It was dispiriting to know it was one of Stimpson’s relatives who’d been following me. Even more dispiriting to know Stimpson had helped put them on to me.

  What did Smitherman know about any of this? Stimpson had to have told him one of his team was under suspicion of being involved in the theft of confidential material from a manufacturer that supplied weaponry and military hardware to the British armed forces. It was just as well Christine Simmons had told me earlier I had Smitherman’s full confidence.

  I was idly thinking about what Gavin Dennison had said about freelancing for Prevental and wondering what I could earn there when my musing was interrupted by the chimes of my mobile phone. I laid it on the front passenger seat and put it on speaker. It was Andy Harris.

  “Mr Jack, I’m just outside the pub in Chalk Farm with my lady friend, we’re watching the racing . . .”

  “Your lady friend?” Harris has a girlfriend? I was so surprised I almost veered across into the traffic in the fast lane. I was intensely curious as to what type of woman could look at Harris and see boyfriend material. Was she in full possession of her critical faculties?

  “Yeah, we come here to watch the racing. The guy I put my bets on with drinks in here. Saves going to the bookies.” He sounded pleased with the arrangement. “Anyway, I’m at the bar just now getting her another G&T – she can’t half bloody put ’em away, you know – when I hears this bloke next to me talking to the landlord. The landlord was asking if he knew where Bernie was as he’s Bernie’s mate and Bernie ain’t been seen in the pub for a while and there’s been a couple of coppers coming round looking for him.”

  I refrained from telling Harris I’d been one of them.

  “Bernie also has a bloody big tab at the bar which he ain’t paid off yet and the landlord was saying he wants his money soon. This geezer next to me says he knows where Bernie is, he’s staying with him ’cause there’s some copper after him who’s threatened to kill him, and he’s scared, so he’s lying low. This bloke was telling the landlord to let him know how much Bernie owed and he’ll see it gets squared away.”

  This was positive news. After the past few hours I needed some. I was definitely interested.

  “Andy, this is very important. Do you know who it was talking about Bernie?”

  “He ain’t a mate or anything but, yeah, I know who he is.” “Who is he?”

  “He’s known as Little Des. He’s always round here.”

  “Where can I find this Little Des character?” I started to increase my speed.

  “He’s still here in the pub, ain’t he?”

  “I’m about fifteen to twenty minutes away from the pub, so keep an eye on this character but don’t make it too obvious. I wanna talk to this bloke. It’s very important I find Bernie.”

  “Okay, Mr Jack, I’ll do that.”

  “Incidentally, is that my money you’re gambling with?” I was indignant.

  “Well, you know how it is, Mr Jack, you gotta speculate to accumulate, ain’t ya?” He laughed inanely. I rang off, hit the siren and pulled out into the fast lane.

  Twelve minutes later I pulled up in Prince of Wales Road, around the corner from the pub. I phoned Harris. He answered.

  I leapt straight in. “Andy, don’t speak, just listen. Is this guy still there? If he is, cough.”

  He coughed. He sounded like a seal with a sore throat.

  “Okay, I’m gonna come in. Don’t talk to me when you see me and don’t take what’s gonna happen personally.”

  “Huh, what—”

  I rang off.

  I went into the pub. There were some people gathered by the television watching the racing and a few solitary drinkers by the counter. I saw Harris and his lady friend sitting in the corner. My interest in knowing what kind of woman would want anything to do with Harris had to take second place for the moment, so I avoided looking at her.

  “Harris, you slimy little bastard, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” I called out when I was about twenty feet away from him. As I approached his table he looked like a rabbit caught in oncoming headlights, unsure of exactly what was about to happen.

  I grabbed his jacket collar and pulled him out of his seat and pushed him against the wall. I put my face close to his. “What did I tell you about nicking stuff from the market, eh? Didn’t I tell you about that?” I prodded him a couple of times. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from there?” I said in a firm loud voice, then I quickly whispered, “Which one is he?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you did, I’m sorry,” he stammered nervously, then he quietly said, “It’s ’im by the bar, with the glasses.”

  “I tried getting that stall holder to press charges but he doesn’t want to, so you’re off the hook for now, but I find out you’ve been nicking again, Harris, I’m gonna shit all over you from a great height, you understand that?” I shoved him against the wall roughly.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry,” he mumbled meekly.

  I turned and walked towards the door. Everyone in the pub was looking at me, including the man Harris had identified, so, in the few seconds it took me to leave the premises, I was able to clock what he looked like. I felt mildly guilty about how I’d treated Andy, but it was all in a good cause. And he had been using my money to gamble. I returned to the car to wait.

  The man left the pub not long afterwards. I saw him walking away and, from a sa
fe distance, I followed him on foot. Why he was called Little Des was obvious as he was not much taller than five foot.

  We walked along a couple of streets, then he turned left into Kentish Town Road and headed north. I crossed over occasionally so, if he was to turn, he’d not see the same person behind him, especially someone he’d just seen rousing a customer in a pub. But he had no reason to suspect he was being followed by anyone, so following him was easy.

  I tailed him for fifteen minutes. By Kentish Town tube station, he went into a newsagent’s and came out a minute later, then turned right into Islip Street. I ran to the corner and saw him cross over and stop outside a house. He produced a key and opened the door.

  Noting the number, I took out my police radio and called it in, requesting a couple of uniforms to come to the address I’d given to affect an arrest. A few minutes later a squad car arrived and two uniforms got out. I identified myself.

  “That house there,” I said, nodding to where I’d seen the man I was following enter, “there’s a guy called Bernie Rayes and Special Branch wants to talk to him, so I want you to go in and take him to the nearest police station. I’ll join you there. Where’s the nearest station to here, incidentally?”

  “That way,” one uniform said, pointing back to the main road, “just over there. Holmes Road.”

  “What’s he supposed to have done anyway?” the other one asked.

  “He’s a known drug dealer. That’ll do for starters.”

  “Okay, skipper.” He nodded.

  They went to the house and knocked. The door opened and, after talking to whoever had opened it for a few seconds, they entered. Several seconds later Bernie ran out the door and turned left. I crossed the road and chased after him. He was running haphazardly, arms swinging wildly like he was unused to running. As I drew closer to him I could hear him wheezing and gasping. He was unfit. We ran across a patch of grass and I rugby-tackled him, my left shoulder hitting his right thigh square on. I wrapped both arms around his legs and he hit the ground heavily. The two officers caught up, dragged him to his feet and put him into the back of the squad car for transport to the station.