Initial

by S Thomas Thompson

  13

  Back at the offices of Britain Excelsior, Electra had waited long enough. She had given the deputy of the party well over the 20 minutes Augustine had instructed. He was on her back again, and it was now time to gain access to the building. They had no idea what was inside. A last call to the deputy brought no answer, so he asked the police on duty to give her access to the building. The door was secure but no match for the methods of the police. They had been trained in these techniques – there was no use in trying to conduct a raid on a suspected drug den and taking five minutes to open the door. It was off its hinges and on the floor in ten seconds flat and Electra was looking through the entry of the building. It has a CCTV camera pointed at the door, but from the angle it looked like it wouldn’t cover far enough to show the part of the street where Caine was killed, if indeed he was killed on the street. She had been told that they body was being moved and the post-mortem would happen in around an hour and a half at the Freeman Hospital on the edge of the city. Setting aside enough time for traffic, that only gave Electra 25 minutes in the building and to be absolutely sue she wasn’t late. She would have to work quickly.

  After a quick look through the entry, she moved on to the offices. There were no signs or directions but from the look of the office at the end of the corridor on the first floor, Electra guessed that it belonged to Caine. The door handle was brass where the rest were chrome. That looked like the touch of a man who wanted others to know that he was in charge. As he opened the door it felt even more like a place that Jeff Caine would spend time. There were three photographs of people on the wall. One she didn’t recognise, it might have been one of his family, but the other two were plain to see. The first was Enoch Powell, famous for a speech against immigration, and one of Caine shaking hands with Scott Sharpe, the deputy leader of the party whose headquarters she was now stood in. Sharpe was the man she had been trying to get hold of all morning. She had been briefed that Sharpe and Caine were not the best of friends at that time, nor for some time before, so she was a little puzzled as to why the photograph was still there. Sitting in the chair at the desk, she could see why it may have escaped Jeff Caine’s attention. It was obscured by the coat stand when you sat at the desk. Jeff Caine had the photograph of one of his enemies sat looking at him all the time he was working at the desk. The funny thing was that he probably didn’t know.

  Electra could see that time was short, so she tried a few things that usually didn’t work but might shine a slither of light on Caine’s movements and potential killer. She looked in the drawer at the top of the desk to see if his diary was there. Amazingly the drawer was unlocked and the diary was present. Most people who are as busy as Jeff Caine took their diary with them wherever they went, or kept it online so they could access at any time. It appeared that Jeff Caine came from the old school with this, as he kept a physical diary. But there was very little in there of illumination. Electra palmed through the appointments for the last few days. Many of them were initialised; and the ones that were not showed meetings in the office mainly. She bagged it and got ready to take it outside for one of the team to look over.

  Just before she left the office to attend the post mortem, Electra tried one more thing. Now the diary was a long shot, but this was something that just never happened. Electra turned on the PC on the desk to see if she could access it without a password. To her amazement, she could. Not only that, but it immediately came up with the email inbox of the recently deceased Jeff Caine. The first few messages were the usual crap you find in any inbox – reminders about meetings, subscription emails and people trying to sell something. But by now it wasn’t the inbox that had captured Electra’s attention. She saw a folder to one side that had been named ‘Scott Sharpe – evidence.’ She knew at once this was the clue she had been looking for. A few minutes later she was on the phone to Augustine. He then made a call of his own. They wanted to speak to Scott Sharpe urgently.

  14

  The last few minutes of the wait before the gate was called felt like an eternity for Scott Sharpe. He had gone about hiding his face as much as possible for the hours preceding this but all he wanted to do now was to run up to the gate and get in the air. He was one of those people that always felt uneasy about a flight. He never felt comfortable from the moment the doors closed until they opened again at the other end. The worst part of it for him was the landing. If the plane crashed on landing then the last thing he would want was for the last few hours of his life to have been spent cooped up in a small seat on an aeroplane, which in itself followed a few hours pacing up and down a small terminal building waiting for things to happen. If the plane was going to have issues then he would much rather it was on take-off so he didn’t have to endure airline food, airline staff and other airline passengers before his demise. And he’d love to see the headlines the day after. Sharpe always had a thing for wanting to know what others felt of him. The headlines after his death, assuming there were headlines, would be the perfect way to know exactly what people thought of him. Like the story surrounding Alfred Nobel and the negative obituary that prompted him to start the peace prize, Scott wondered if there would be words in there that would make him think he should have changed his ways. He gave up thinking of it all when he remembered that there was nothing he could have done about it.

  He decided that the best way to kill time was to actually do something, so Scott Sharpe walked to the paltry arcade section and looked for a game to play that would take up some of his time. His grandmother always told him that a watched pot never boiled, and this was the same situation. He was watching time and it barely moved. The plan was to do something that took up time so he could rush to the gate and get on with his new life. He saw a shooting game and thought that might test his skills. It was one of those where you wait for the required images to pop up on the screen and then aim and fire to get rid of them. Every now and again something else popped up that you were not supposed to shoot, usually outlined in green, the colour that supposedly indicated friendliness. These games always choose their baddies and you get to choose from dinosaurs, pirates, monsters, military or something more sedate like animals. On this occasion, it was criminals and Scott played the part of a cop. He didn’t feel at all home in the role and it wasn’t long before he ‘offed’ several of the green-outlined characters that he had been sent to save. The game was over in a few minutes and Scott stood considering whether to put another 50p in the slot and continue, start again or just leave it.

  He decided to leave it. He was never much good with a gun, anyway. A sword was far more his type of weapon. Scott had been part of the fencing team at university and reached a high standard before packing it up with all the rest of his university life after three years. He moved back home, lost the little contact he had with the people he studied with and just got on with his life. It was as though the three years spent at university were just an interlude. But the fencing always stayed in his blood. Whenever the Olympics made their way round on a four-year cycle, he would watch the fencing intently and try to imagine himself as part of the British team. His theory in life was that we can all achieve if we stay at it long enough. As others fall by the wayside and let life get in the way, then those that remain form the backbone of the British team, the Austrian team that he was watching at the last Olympics or any of the other teams. If he had stayed with the fencing then he was sure that he would be on that Olympic team and others that had given up would be watching him. Sharpe had no doubt that he was very skilled with a sword. Back in his university days he could make a hit without the other person even knowing it had happened. He imagined what it would be like if they didn’t wear the protective suits.

  After a few moments of looking at the screen blankly, he heard a voice.

  “Excuse me, mister. Are you going to play on that?”

  He looked down to where the noise was coming from and saw a kid that he estimated around eight years old. The child had unkempt hair and clothes that
he had obviously chosen himself for the day without any parental input. That’s what it was like when travelling with kids. Anything for a quiet life. “No, I’m finished. Are you old enough to play on that?”

  “Yes. I’ve got my money here.”

  Not quite the question he asked, but Scott didn’t want to draw any attention. He looked at his watch and saw that the gate would be displayed soon. Scott left the arcade and looked for the nearest information screen. They flicked between adverts and information so he knew he might have to wait a while. Advertisers were evidently more important than passengers in the modern airport. He wandered across to a screen that he had seen earlier in the darker corners of the terminal, and decided might be the best place to check out the flight times. It was hardly an untouched piece of the terminal, but was much quieter than any other. By that time there was a lot more light shining through as the sun rose overhead, so Scott walked the long way round to ensure there was no attention on him. He felt self-conscious even walking the extended way around when all the other passengers were congregated in the middle of the building, passing through the light and smiling at each other as they prepared for their holidays or trip home. But he wanted to remain as anonymous as possible for the next few minutes until he could feel the wheels of the plane lift from the runway and off into the air.

  The gate was displayed as number 18, and a quick glance to his left told him that it was five minutes away. There were 45 minutes until take-off, so Scott banked on giving it ten minutes and then making his way to the gate. By his rough calculations, this would put him in the middle of the set of passengers and he could sit down while all the fuss of boarding an aeroplane was happening. What he would do at the other end was still up in the air at that time but the first step of the journey was always the hardest.

  Scott walked along the small corridor towards the gate, the plane and his escape. He looked around the terminal one more time before he left the main part of the building and didn’t see any sign that he was being watched. The terminal was now awash with light from above and many of the occupants had donned sunglasses to counter this. Scott thought this was the start of a holiday. The first time you put on sunglasses was when the holiday began; the last time you took them off was when it was all over. People were spending time eating, drinking and shopping rather than looking at the news. One aspect of going on holiday was to get away from it all, and Scott could see people focussed on each other rather than the news they were leaving behind. He took a deep breath and walked on towards the gate. A new life was waiting for him.

  As he showed his boarding pass and passport at the gate to the airline staff, Scott noticed that there were a lot of staff present. He was used to flying in and around Europe and hadn’t seen quite so many staff all in the same place. They were stood behind the gate, just leaning against the wall and chatting to each other. He put it down to the fact that it was a flight over the Atlantic in a bigger plane than he was used to and there were bound to be more people working on that flight. Scott recovered his passport and boarding pass and started to put them into his hand luggage as he walked. He didn’t notice the woman who has taken them from him had turned around and was signalling to the two men chatting that this was the passenger they were looking for. As Scott stepped forward towards the plane, the two men blocked his path.

  “Scott Sharpe, there are a few people who would like to speak to you.” He flashed his badge. Sharpe dropped his bag and thought about running but realised his run was over. He said to the men, “where are we going?” but neither answered. Scott Sharpe took off his sunglasses.

  15

  The car journey to the police station was slow going. It was July and there was summer roadworks everywhere. All the local councils got their new budget in April and were afraid that if they didn’t spend all they were allocated the year before then they would see funding cut. So, the summer was always the time of year when the streets were littered with patched up holes and men sat by the side of the road reading a newspaper in a transit van. Getting the road budget spent early was a priority. This was only matched in March at the end of the year when councils were frantically trying to use up the last pieces of cash on small projects. Where they went the rest of the year Scott had no idea. Curiously for the situation he was in, his main concern seemed to be what had happened to his luggage. Even though he had just thrown anything in the suitcase, he didn’t like the idea that the case and its contents were making the trip to the Bahamas that he was supposed to go on. He asked the driver several times but the only answer he got was that it was taken care of. Sharpe hadn’t a clue what that meant. It felt like he was getting the silent treatment. He had been on enough training courses to know that people like the police and interviewers used the power of silence to prompt the other side to fill the holes in the conversation with chatter. The idea was that they would offer up information more easily if it wasn’t directly sought. The police left little to chance with this. Neuro Linguistic Programming and other specialists were hired to train their officers to use their words (and lack of words) to elicit the answers they needed. In the modern world of measures, getting a confession half an hour earlier would free up at least 2 officers to carry out other tasks in that half an hour. Every minute counted. Scott Sharpe wasn’t about to play their games and decided to get some rest.

  Once inside the station, he went through the routine of having his pockets emptied and his belt taken away from him before being escorted to a cell. The desk sergeant asked him for the name of his solicitor ad he paused for a few seconds before naming the solicitor who was on the board of Britain Excelsior. His ties with the organisation were shaky to say the least, and he had no idea what Jeff Caine had been saying about him behind his back but he had known Cal Green for a long time and thought he could trust him. The desk sergeant made a call and then told Scott he would have to wait for a while. Once in the cell, Scott sat on the edge of the seat to think about what to say to the police. He wasn’t sure he wanted to give them anything.

  16

  Augustine Boyle had been told that the suspect was in custody and that he would soon be able to speak to him. Augustine didn’t work well when he was hungry so he decided to go and get

  something to eat while waiting for the solicitor to arrive. He had dealt with Cal Green in the past and wanted to be totally ready for the tricks he was capable of. Cal Green wasn’t corrupt, as far as Augustine was aware, but he didn’t make it easy for the police to get the information they needed. Augustine was going to have to be on top of his game.

  He went over the road from the station to a small café that many in the force used in the Galleries. In fact, it was so frequented that criminals were known to avoid it just in case they spilled some information to a whole bunch of police officers all at once. Augustine knew that many of the people in there switched off when they were not on duty. The conversation was about the football match the night before, the latest events in the Big Brother house or what they were eating rather than any conversation about the crimes they were investigating. Augustine liked it as a place to get away from his work for a short while.

  “August, come and sit with us,” called a voice from the back of the café and Augustine placed his order at the counter before joining the voice. There was a table of three. One face he recognised immediately, while the other two were new to him. The face that he recognised matched the voice that he thought he heard. Augustine didn’t want to sit with him but he was one to keep the peace. He had dealt with him before and, although he was an arsehole, he was harmless enough. Most of the crap that came out of the mouth of the cocky colleagues was like water off a duck’s back. Augustine sat down and waited for his food. He wasn’t going to start a conversation here, but he wouldn’t avoid one. That might get the voice thinking that he had something to hide. Then he would never shut up.

  “You two,” started the voice, “have you heard of August? He’s the one that takes on all these cases and then has to let them g
o. He thinks he can solve the biggest cases on the force but has to crawl back into his shell when he realises that it is above him. Do you know why he is called August? That’s because August is the time of year when he first solves one of his cases!”

  Augustine wasn’t bothered what the voice thought. He couldn’t even remember his name, let alone what he did. He just treated it as banter and came back with something that he hoped would defuse the situation.

  “Nice one. Is that your one joke for the year?” Augustine replied. He didn’t want to get into anything too deep with this prick. He still had Cal Green to deal with and thought this was best approached with his powder dry. If the two new recruits were dumb enough to listen to this guy then they get all they deserve, Augustine thought. “Don’t you have work to do? If you are better at this crime-solving business than me, then don’t you have people to arrest?” Augustine could see that the voice was a little pissed off with this and was working out what to say in reply. The slight tension that was building was taken away as Augustine’s food was brought over. He put his head down and tucked into his lunch. He pictured the voice looking puzzled and working through his repertoire for a response but if he had managed one, then it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the faint music from the radio behind the counter and the light conversation of the rest of the room. Augustine could feel the three others at the table sit back and then return to whatever banalities they were discussing before his arrival. Much of it was punctuated with the voice telling the other two that they should follow him if they wanted to get on. Augustine managed a smile as he fed ham, egg and chips to his stomach. He washed it down with a cup of tea before rising and returning to the station without any further interaction with the rest of his table. He could be like that when he wanted. He had bigger things on his mind. As he walked over the road back to the station, he could see Cal Green get out of his car and walk to the front desk. He knew it was time to talk.