by Nick Louth
Claire found herself having to recalibrate her opinion of this unflappable woman. ‘I think we could do it a different way. We have an inspection camera on a cable that would do the trick. We already used it to explore the septic tank in the library panic room.’
‘As you wish.’
The two women carefully retraced their steps back to the shaft and climbed the ladder. Once they were back inside the chapel, Claire indulged Mary for a ten-minute tour of the various Westgrave luminaries who were buried in the grounds. Mary rounded off her talk from a position by a rather well-tended grave, almost the only one without lichen or algae on the stone. It was marked with fresh red roses in a vase, which Mary casually rearranged. The name on the grave was Captain William Douglas of the Royal Engineers, 1949–82.
* * *
Mary Hill wasn’t in a good mood as she strode back down the main drive of Westgrave Hall and across the road up to her own cottage. She’d soon realised that the DI Mulholland wasn’t really interested in anything she had to tell her. She had watched her eyes glaze over during much of the historical background. She was used to that kind of treatment from the public when she’d been a volunteer for the National Trust, but it still rankled. She had been more surprised that the young woman wasn’t prepared to get her hands dirty by crawling up the passageway, instead proposing to get some technological fix using a camera on a cable.
If even police officers have no backbone, then no wonder the country was going to the dogs.
The moment Mary had pulled her wellingtons off and got inside the kitchen Oswald appeared. He was always quick to sense her arrival and the click of his claws on the kitchen tiles was one of the loveliest sounds in her life. When you’re a dog, hope always triumphs over experience. ‘Hello, you silly boy,’ she said, rubbing the dog’s ears. ‘After more biscuits are we?’ Now she’d said the word ‘biscuits’ she would have to give him some.
She popped the kettle on then sat down at the kitchen table. She rolled up the leg of her slacks and unbuckled the plastic artificial leg at the knee. The NHS leg looked as worn and as false as a Victorian doll, but having bedded in over decades she preferred to keep it rather than wear the more modern prosthetic she had been offered through Help for Heroes.
As she rubbed cream into the stump, she considered the sacrifices she had made for her country. Her hearing and this leg, both damaged beyond repair. Forgotten. Unlike the man who planted the culvert bomb, an IRA bigwig whose name was quite well-known to the security forces. He had been treated as a hero in his community. Immune from prosecution under the Good Friday Agreement, now breeding horses at a farm in Fermanagh and hobnobbing with politicians on both sides of the border. He’d had the sheer audacity to make a claim against the Northern Ireland government for a compensation payment for injuries sustained while he was planting a bomb, one that went off prematurely. There was uproar about it, but it might yet be paid. It would undoubtedly exceed the pittance she had been awarded for her own injuries.
There’s no justice in this world, she thought.
* * *
There was no shortage of police volunteers to search the many sports cars and other top-of-the-range vehicles parked in Westgrave Hall’s showroom-sized garage. These included a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, a Mercedes stretch limo, a Ferrari, a Porsche and a Maserati, and no less than six identical Mitsubishi four-wheel-drives. Claire Mulholland had already locked the keys away in the evidence van on day one, and with Wolf’s help in matching them to the correct vehicle, DC Rainy Macintosh passed them out to the uniformed officers.
‘Och, I feel like a childminder looking after the bairns’ toybox,’ Rainy confided in DC Michelle Tsu, as they watched no fewer than three overweight male coppers scrambling around an orange Ferrari roadster. The largest of the officers squeezed himself into the driving seat, and after a perfunctory feel along the ceiling, moved the gearbox through the gears and held the steering wheel.
‘The only thing missing is the brum-brum noises,’ Michelle replied.
‘I’m sure he hears it in his wee head, the poor hen.’ Rainy turned her head to see Wolf looking nervously across the fleet.
‘What car do you drive, Wolf?’ she asked him.
‘Second-hand Nissan estate. But I would like three-wheel Reliant from Fool and Horse TV show.’ He looked at the amusement scribbled on her face and felt the need to explain. ‘I don’t like fast car. It give me technicolor yawn. Never drive with Oleg, never. Maniac.’
‘I notice there is a Humvee parked around the back in the garage with the quad bikes, but you haven’t given me the key,’ she said.
Wolf shrugged. ‘Sometimes I have, sometimes not. This is Oleg’s most loved possession, maybe after his penis. He doesn’t like anyone else to play with it, especially his sister.’
Rainy fought the incestuous image the Georgian had inadvertently planted in her head. Leaving the uniformed officers in their playpen, she picked up the keys and headed off up to the second floor to Oleg’s suite, which had been marked as searched yesterday. She had the full evidence list on her iPad, supposedly organised by room and category, but she wanted to see it with her own eyes.
She unlocked it and went in.
Oleg had three large rooms, gutted and modernised at some cost to their original grace. One wall of the lounge had mounted on it probably the biggest TV screen she ever seen outside the Glasgow Odeon Luxe. The place was otherwise untidy, with plenty of evidence that the last time he’d been here he had shared the place with a girlfriend. The plastic square in the middle of the bedroom floor contained a pair of polished shoes, hightop trainers, and a bundle of hundred-dollar bills in a billfold. There was a video camera, which had been marked as checked and downloaded, an Xbox console, and various other bits of video paraphernalia. There was also a bunch of keys.
She checked on the iPad and saw that they had been marked as house keys, although the largest key on it was clearly for a vehicle; it had a remote locking fob and a keyring with the not-very-subtle Humvee logo on a leather tag. Cackling to herself, Rainy left the room, relocked the door and hurried down to the workshop. There she found a couple of disconsolate uniforms, working their way around the three quad bikes and a jet ski on a trailer.
‘Hello boys, look what I’ve found!’ She dangled the keys at them, and they gathered round her like labradors at dinnertime.
* * *
The Premier Inn where MI5 had chosen to brief Gillard was a low-slung concrete-fronted slab, tucked behind a slip road from a petrol station near the junction of the A3 and the M25. Gillard slid the unmarked Vauxhall into a parking space near the entrance and, as he was leaving the car, noticed a flash of headlights from a black BMW parked opposite. He made his way over and saw DCS Geoffrey Corrigan behind the wheel. Corrigan leaned across and pushed open the passenger-side door. As Gillard slipped inside, he was aware of someone else lurking in the back. Probably Haldane.
‘Morning, Craig,’ Corrigan began. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Not too bad. Would have been better had you not pinched my notebook and digital recorder.’
There was a slight chuckle from the back of the car. ‘That’s a terrible accusation to make, detective chief inspector. Terrible.’ Haldane’s voice was soft, and slightly sibilant, a trace of a speech impediment.
‘So what can you tell me, gentleman, to aid the cause of justice?’ Gillard said.
‘Justice? Now that’s an interesting concept,’ said Haldane.
‘Yes, it’s what I do for a living. Bringing bad guys to justice. I hope you’re going to help me. We’re missing a murder weapon and a culprit as well as the other items.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve got any of those things,’ Haldane said.
‘You took my witness, Ms Yalinsky. I want to know what she told you.’
Corrigan spoke. ‘Come on Craig, you got to speak to her yourself in Geneva just last night. I’m sure she answered your questions with the same truthfulness as she answered ou
rs.’
‘Quite.’ With no truthfulness at all. ‘I don’t know what your interest in her is, and I don’t expect you to tell me, but it’s important that we get a result in this investigation.’
‘We know your reputation, Craig, and we don’t want to get under your feet,’ Corrigan said. ‘But we are entirely satisfied that Ms Yalinsky was not present during the shooting and did not witness a significant portion of it.’
‘Right.’ Gillard tried to keep the surprise out of his voice.
‘So you’ll have to look elsewhere for clues,’ Haldane said softly.
Gillard had assumed that MI5 would have had access to the evidence now on the HOLMES computer, if not directly then at least through Corrigan as head of Special Branch. The bloody footprint from a woman’s shoe immediately in front of the panic room door and the fibres from the mink caught by a bullet halfway along the balcony completely destroyed Yelena’s initial assertion of not having witnessed the killing. Of course, the significance of those two findings would only be apparent to those who had seen the evidence map and cross-referenced the findings from HOLMES. There were two possibilities. One was that MI5 had other fish to fry, more important than the murder. The other, of course, was that they were lying to him and were perfectly aware that Yelena had witnessed the killing. Either way, it seemed they were trying to protect her, and he didn’t know why.
‘Who do you think fired the fatal shots?’ Gillard asked.
‘Oh, that’s for you to establish, and we wouldn’t dream of interfering,’ said Haldane.
‘You already have. For example, can I ask you if it was you who planted a USB stick on the computer in Wolf’s secure office—’
Corrigan interrupted. ‘—Actually, we do have our own suspicions. There is a person of interest we have been monitoring for some time who is employed at Westgrave Hall.’
‘Who is that?’
A sheaf of photographs was passed forward from the back seat. They were close-up telephoto surveillance shots of a handsome, craggy-jawed man with a blond ponytail. In one, he was wearing evening dress and opening a car door for somebody, his gaze elsewhere and a spiral wire visible going up to an earpiece. In another he was dressed down in a puffa jacket and woolly hat, walking along an urban street. In a third, he was in a business suit escorting a pale young woman into a central London hotel. The man had poise and style and the pictures would not have disgraced GQ magazine.
‘I recognise him. He’s one of the Westgrave security men.’ Gillard pulled out his notebook and riffled through, looking for the name.
‘I’ll save you the trouble,’ Haldane said. ‘His name is Jason Lefsky. Polish, aged thirty-eight, employed as a personal protection officer, currently assigned to Volkov’s daughter Anastasia.’
‘Ah, that’s her going into the hotel,’ Gillard said, indicating the pale woman.
‘Yes. It’s a good cover; the daughter is the heiress to billions and an obvious target for kidnapping. Lefsky isn’t actually Polish. He’s a Russian agent, son of a retired Russian military intelligence head. The father is no longer supposedly working for the GRU, but the Kremlin still has uses for him. Chasing down enemies—’
‘Before we go any further, Craig,’ Corrigan said. ‘I’d just like to remind you that we have a copy of your signature on the Official Secrets Act. Nothing we tell you here will be repeated. Not even to your colleagues.’
Gillard nodded. He remembered being required to sign the Act several years previously when he was shown the confidential toxicology report into the death of Boris Berezovsky. It hadn’t been his case, but he had done some of the interviewing of witnesses.
‘My lips are sealed,’ Gillard said. ‘However, as far as this guy is concerned, he couldn’t have been involved in the Volkov shooting, because we have video evidence showing him outside the library at the time it took place.’
Corrigan nodded. ‘We know. That’s why we are leaning towards the conclusion that the Kremlin was not involved in this one. If they were, Lefsky would have been the man to do the job, and it would have been done far more neatly than this, and surely not at a party with all those other people present.’
‘In which case, if he is unconnected with the murder of Volkov and Talin, this whole thing must be unwelcome attention for him.’
‘Well, yes and no,’ Haldane said. ‘It may have been his own good fortune that the video of a Russian TV crew and the witness statements of half a dozen other people, including a British Appeal Court judge, put him clearly outside the library at the crucial moment. It’s a good alibi. On the other hand he will be aware that a lot of digging will be done, and other things may get uncovered by accident.’
‘Digging by Surrey Police, you mean, as well as by you?’
‘Indeed,’ Corrigan said. ‘That is why we are sharing rather more information with you than would normally be the case. I want you to keep your eyes open for any evidence that may implicate him, not so much in this killing, as in any others.’
‘What others?’
This time it was Haldane. ‘Lefsky has a hit-list. It’s the usual suspects from the Kremlin’s point of view. Loud-mouth émigré businessmen, exiled journalists, dissidents. Many of these people are amazingly brave.’
‘I agree. One of them has already been to visit me.’
‘Yes, plucky Daniel Levin. We fear for him,’ Haldane said.
‘Can’t you protect him?’
There was a heavy sigh from the back seat. ‘We’d obviously love to protect everyone who has chosen Britain as their refuge from tyrants, bullies and autocrats. But there is a resource issue.’ Gillard could almost hear the washing of hands. ‘We have occasionally fed Levin information that might keep him safe.’
‘The poor guy is living in his car!’ Gillard said. ‘He’s terrified of this man, the Ghost. Is that him? Is Jason the Ghost?’
There was a soft chuckle from the back seat. ‘We don’t believe in ghosts.’
* * *
By the time Gillard got back to his vehicle, the spooks had driven off. He watched their BMW X5 drive off on a small service road he hadn’t previously noticed behind the filling station. It was clever. They didn’t trust him not to check ANPR to see where they were heading or where they had come from. By not arriving from the M25 or returning to it they were making that task harder for him.
He felt profoundly dissatisfied by the meeting. MI5 could clearly see everything he was doing, probably through access to HOLMES. They were undoubtedly in a position to help the inquiry, yet didn’t deign to do so. They were certainly protecting Yelena Yalinsky, though he didn’t know why. In fact, he had only the vaguest idea of what their objectives were, beyond tracking Jason Lefsky. He strongly suspected they were using Daniel Levin as bait, to entrap their quarry. If so, it was cruel and heartless. The one thing they had told him, right at the end of the interview, was that Jason had now disappeared. The fact they knew that meant they must have their own eyes and ears on the ground at Westgrave Hall. The comings and goings of minor witnesses would not have been recorded on the police computer.
Making his way back to Surrey on the A3, he got a call from DC Rainy Macintosh.
‘Sir, you are going to be so excited when you hear what we’ve discovered.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s a gun. One of the uniforms found it in the driver-side door pocket of Oleg Volkov’s Humvee.’
‘Great work. What you need to do now is send—’
‘—it to ballistics? Aye, it’s being couriered there as we speak. I made a note of all the technical details before I did so and rang our wee genius Neville Tufton. He says that the make of the gun is compatible with the marks on the bullets we found in the library. But he says he’ll need to fire a test shot or two and compare the marks on those bullets with the ones we have to be sure.’
‘I’m very impressed, Rainy. That’s quick work.’
‘Och, thank you, sir. But it doesnae solve our main problem. The wee bampot Oleg may we
ll have been choking to slaughter his parents. But he was seen in Westgrave Hall on his balcony taking pictures of the fireworks at the time of the shooting.’
‘If it was his gun, we’re halfway there,’ Gillard said. ‘He’s got access to enough money to get someone else, perhaps a professional, to do the dirty deed. I agree that we are still trying to figure out exactly how it was done. But once I’ve got Oleg Volkov sitting in our grimmest basement interview room, I’ll be able to ask him.’
‘Aye. But it’s still pretty odd if you hire a professional assassin and have to lend him your own gun.’
Gillard chuckled. ‘That’s a good point. I’ll bear it in mind.’ He cut the call and rang Claire Mulholland. When she answered he could hear traffic noise.
‘Hi Craig, I’m on my way to Knightsbridge to interview Oleg Volkov. The surveillance team says he finally showed up at his apartment.’
The Metropolitan Police had at Gillard’s request been staking out the young man’s flat for the last two days. They were pretty sure he had not left the country.
‘Would you like to come? I’d appreciate your company.’
‘More than happy to,’ Gillard said. Volkov’s errant son, already known to the police for a whole series of traffic infringements, now looked like being a more major element in the inquiry following the discovery of the gun.
‘The Met have gone in. He’s agreed to stay there while we talk to him. I gather his lawyer will be there too.’
‘Surprise, surprise.’
Half an hour later, the two detectives met at Acton Town tube station to complete the journey by public transport. As they waited for the Piccadilly Line train, they each checked their phones for messages, hoping that the NBIS had received its precious golden gun and had found the time to fire it. Nothing so far. Still, they had enough to pull Oleg Volkov in anyway.
