by Nick Louth
Gillard hit pause: ‘That’s the mysterious bloody footprint, right there,’ he said.
He resumed the video, and saw Yelena scramble into the panic room, just as three more shots came. Two of them hit Volkov, one in the back of the head. He managed to kick the door to the panic room closed, as he turned around to face the drone. Then, even his massive body twitched from another shot, and he fell backwards against the door.
‘He was a hero,’ Michelle whispered. ‘I thought they hated each other.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ Hoskins said. ‘We haven’t had Bryn Howell.’
In the thirty-second gap before the bodyguard’s appearance, the drone buzzed back and forth, from Volkov’s body to Talin and back again. The slam of the library door and the slap of ascending footsteps heralded the arrival of Bryn Howell. The drone quietened and set itself down gently on the surface of the fossil, like a miniaturised moon lander.
‘Och, it’s staging a wee ambush,’ Rainy said.
Howell came to the top of the stairs, and stood with both arms straight out, holding a pistol. He called out ‘Mr Volkov?’ but got no reply. He must by then have seen the two bodies, because he let slip just one word: ‘Shit.’ Talin’s body was just twenty yards away and that of his boss right at the other end of the library. Professional that he was, Howell looked for the killer. He turned ninety degrees, legs braced towards the balcony by the window. Then he leaned over the balcony and swept the downstairs area. At this point, the drone motors restarted and it jumped off the fossil and headed straight for Howell. Credit to him, he must have heard or seen because his swivel to target was rapid. But five quick shots from the drone found their mark, and he staggered backwards, discharging his own weapon just once before tumbling backwards down the stairs.
That shot caused the drone to rotate, and the engine note changed.
It stabilised, did a quick 180-degree sweep, then shot off at high speed towards the panic room end of the atrium. It hovered by the skylight control, tapped the button with the gun barrel, then ascended sharply, rising upwards and out of the open skylight. The camera caught the dazzling arc lights as the drone hugged the contours of the roof, and headed north, fast and low across the lake and towards the woods. At some point over the water there was another change of motor tone, and it lost altitude, dropping quickly into a watery darkness.
‘Amazing,’ said Carl Hoskins.
‘But the shooting was manual, I take it?’ Gillard asked.
‘I think so,’ Townsend said. ‘It’s the one thing she had no chance to practise. Recoil was obviously an issue.’
‘I think you’d have to be a really good shot to hit the drone,’ Hoskins said. ‘It’s no bigger than a human head, at least the vital bits are.’
‘Aye, and it’s bobbing and weaving like Ken Buchanan on six bottles of Irn Bru.’
Gillard’s quizzical expression earned an explanation from her. ‘Scotland’s wee flyweight champion. He was my second cousin on my Auntie Myra’s side. He won the world championship in 1971.’
‘You’re a woman of hidden depths,’ Carl Hoskins said admiringly.
At that moment, Gillard got a text. He looked at it and announced, ‘Oleg Volkov and Marcus Dolan have just been arrested after a car chase.’ He stood up. ‘They’ve been taken to Staines police station, so I’m off to interview them. Rainy, why don’t you come with me?’
* * *
Now that he knew he wasn’t in the frame for murder, Oleg Volkov confessed to the firearms offences, involving both the illegal AK47, which had fallen from the back of their truck, and the golden Kahr P380. Oleg admitted that he and Dolan had used an armed drone with the AK47 for target practice in Westgrave Woods but maintained they had never aimed the weapon at any person. Both insisted that the pickup trip to the stables was simply to remove incriminating evidence of the firearms offences. Gillard was inclined to believe them.
‘You really think it was my sister who killed them?’ Oleg asked.
‘Aye,’ said Rainy. ‘She’s skilled with a drone, had plenty of opportunity to practise, and hated her mother. She’s also fled the country. If that’s not a sign of guilt, I don’t know what is.’
Gillard glared at his junior colleague for revealing so much of their thinking.
‘I’m a little surprised,’ Oleg said. ‘I saw her on her balcony, the one next to mine, just as the fireworks were coming to a climax.’
‘Aye, but she then went inside,’ Rainy said. Gillard grasped her arm, to stop her saying any more.
‘What is it you want to tell us, Oleg?’ Gillard asked.
‘I saw her in the corridor after the fireworks had finished. She was a bit drunk, and said she’d been sick.’
Gillard’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. I always assumed Jason was the killer.’
‘Aye, but—’
Gillard was just in time to escort Rainy Macintosh into the corridor. ‘You’ve got to put a sock in it, Rainy. Don’t give out information.’ He knew she was about to blurt out that Jason Lefsky was seen on video trying to get into the Volkov Library at the time the shooting was taking place. He clearly couldn’t have been controlling a drone at the same time.
‘Sorry, sir. But if Oleg is correct then Anastasia cannae be our shooter,’ she said.
‘That is a very big if.’
Further conversation was halted by a call on Gillard’s mobile. It was Rob Townsend, in a state of considerable excitement.
‘Sir, you are not going to believe this. I’m at Mount Browne with the electronic specialist team, and we’ve been taking all Dr Cawkwell’s drones apart. They’ve been trying to link together the electronic flight plan created and adapted by her and Anastasia and the actual device that used it. Dr Cawkwell’s drones were mostly standard commercial but we found a couple that had been built around a little computer called a Raspberry Pi. That means they can be controlled by a PlayStation console.’
‘Sorry, Rob, I don’t get where you’re going with all this.’
‘The long and short of it is, sir, that we assumed that Anastatisa’s PlayStation was used to direct the drone. But it’s not true. There is no trace of her PlayStation ID in any of the Raspberry Pi memory files copied to Dr Cawkwell’s hard drive.’
‘Maybe she had a different device.’
‘No, we’ve found the PlayStation in question, in the evidence van. It had been there for a long time, but of course no one looked at it. Firstly because PlayStations are thought of as toys, and secondly because of where it came from.’
‘You’re saying it wasn’t the PlayStation recovered from Anastasia’s bedroom?’
‘No,’ said Townsend. ‘The PlayStation and a load of other computer kit was found in a small bedroom on the second floor of the annexe, one thought barely relevant to the inquiry.’
‘Whose room was that?’
‘The cook, Tatiana. Her fingerprints are all over both devices.’
‘Are you really telling me that Tatiana is our shooter?’
‘It appears that way.’
Gillard’s brow furrowed as he tried to get his head around this revelation. ‘She flew the drone and murdered all three in the library?’
‘That’s what the electronic audit trail appears to show, sir.’
* * *
Gillard abandoned the rest of the interview and with Rainy in the passenger seat blue-lighted it back to Westgrave Hall. As soon as they got on the road, he rang Carl Hoskins on the hands-free, and found him still in the Khazi.
‘Carl, this is one occasion when instead of dragging you out of the kitchen I actually need you to go into there. Straightaway. Find out where Tatiana is, and stop her leaving until we get there. Just make some excuse.’
‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’ He hung up.
‘Och, Carl’s going to be so upset, if she turns out to be the killer.’
‘That’s why I’m keeping him in the dark for now,’ G
illard said.
Gillard arrived to find Tatiana bawling her eyes out in Hoskins’ arms. ‘It’s been awful, I haven’t been able to sleep. I knew you’d come for me. Such a terrible mistake, I’m so sorry.’
The portly constable hadn’t quite managed to make sense of what she seemed to be confessing to.
‘Nah. That’s not possible, sir,’ he said after hearing what Townsend had discovered.
‘I’m afraid it is. And I’m going to ask her myself.’ Gillard told Hoskins to stay outside while he and Rainy interviewed her.
* * *
As they re-entered the room, they saw the ample figure of Tatiana Chumak splayed over the kitchen table weeping, her head in her hands. She had a half full tumbler of what smelled like vodka in front of her, which Rainy quietly moved away as the two officers sat down.
When the cook showed no signs of sitting up, Gillard rested a hand on her arm and said: ‘I’m going to ask you directly, Tatiana. Were you controlling the drone which shot Alexander Volkov, Maxim Talin and Bryn Howell?’
Tatiana nodded, still crying, her fist jammed in her mouth.
‘Why, may I ask?’
‘I could never forgive her.’
‘But wasn’t it over with Yelena?’ Gillard asked. ‘Volkov had taken you on, at a higher salary. Wasn’t it all in the past?’
‘No, not everything. She killed Ibrahim.’
‘Sorry, who’s he?’
‘Ibrahim Kone worked with me in her kitchen in Paris, a lovely man who could sing such songs, with a smile that lifted everyone’s heart. She treated him like a dog, because he was black. When I was fired, so was he, but she twisted the knife for him. She reported him to the immigration authorities, said he was a thief, and he was deported back to Bamako.’
‘Was he the man who died in prison?’ Gillard remembered him from the divorce coverage.
‘Yes. He was no thief, but in Bamako they beat him, every day.’
The story that poured from Tatiana’s lips over the next hour made perfect sense. She showed Gillard all the letters she had received from Ibrahim, and wept freely. ‘He said that the prison authorities knew he’d worked for a wealthy woman and would free him if he paid a hundred thousand euros. I had no money but went straight to Sasha and he said, “Of course, I will pay it for you. Your love must be free.” There was no hesitation from him. But when we paid, we heard nothing. Sasha made enquiries for me and discovered Ibrahim had died after a beating a week earlier. His kidneys failed. He was the love of my life and he was gone for ever.’ She began to sob again. ‘Do you know what Bryn said to me when he heard?’
‘Do tell,’ Gillard said.
‘He saw me crying and said, “Never mind. He probably only wanted you for a passport”.’
‘Och, he wasnae a diplomat, that’s for sure,’ Rainy said.
At the end of the interview, Gillard arranged for her to be taken to Farnborough police station and formally charged. The hard part was walking out of the room to tell Carl Hoskins.
Hoskins looked shocked. ‘How did she learn how to fly the drone?’ he asked.
‘It helps that she was a qualified computer technician and was skilled with the Raspberry Pi. She wrote a navigation program for Anastasia on a drone borrowed from Dr Cawkwell, and went out to Westgrave Woods with her on numerous occasions to fly it. Tatiana then borrowed it to practise with on her own, then claimed it had fallen into the lake. Sophie apparently just wrote it off. Tatiana’s own desktop computer history showed she had looked at the various videos on Oleg’s Instagram account, and saw how to adapt drones to carry guns on them.’
‘How did she get the gun, sir, or the keys to Oleg’s Humvee?’
‘That was easy, by her account. Seeing as she was running a constant room service both to the control room and Oleg’s bedroom, she was able to access any of the keys, at least if she picked her moment. She also admitted that it was her that Mary Hill saw early on Boxing Day morning, rowing in the lake trying to find Oleg’s golden gun. Mary described a broad figure with a ponytail, and we assumed it was Jason.’
‘I suppose with enough clothing and a hat she might look male.’ Hoskins looked crestfallen. ‘But I can’t really believe it.’
‘Her original idea was to hide the recovered gun in Oleg’s room. But he was still there when she first tried, so she managed to get it in his car instead. Her frequent appearances on the CCTV were never suspicious, as she always seemed to be carrying food about. That was her cover for placing the drone in the library’s ground floor meeting room on the afternoon of the party. She had gone in to clear away the buffet she’d set out for Dr Cawkwell at lunch. The drone was, as we saw, placed under a big table, and stayed there until she activated it from her room at midnight.’
Hoskins shook his head. ‘She mentioned Ibrahim to me, and showed me his photograph when I searched her room. I just thought they had simply broken up.’
‘She said she’d planned her revenge months ago, as soon as Wolf told her Yelena was on the guest list.’
‘She’s a chef, why didn’t she just poison her?’
‘I asked that. But as she says, it’s too obvious who might have done it, apart from the fact Yelena ate virtually nothing.’
‘But Tatiana’s such a kind woman,’ Hoskins said.
‘Perhaps, and she told me she nearly didn’t go through with it. She finished her shift two hours before the fireworks and hit the bottle. It was only because she was drunk that she regained the nerve to go through with it. She’d copied the flight plan into the stolen drone days earlier.’
‘She adored Volkov,’ Hoskins said.
‘You heard her say how she bitterly regrets killing him. She was aiming for Yelena, that’s what she says. It makes sense, when Volkov got in the way she went for Talin, someone Yelena loved. And Bryn, who said such cruel things about her lover.’
‘I noticed she’d been drinking a lot after the killings. I thought it was grief.’
‘Well, it was grief. And guilt. She’d probably have confessed off her own bat eventually.’
Hoskins shook his head ruefully.
‘She’s going down for a long time, Carl. You know that.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Hoskins said. ‘I now realise she used me, to find out what was going on in the inquiry.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, she always brought me food when I was working, and probably got to see the whiteboards as well. I got too relaxed to bother covering them up every time.’
‘She admits trying to break in to the Khazi, too,’ Gillard said. ‘Well, there’s something for all of us to learn in this. You did a Simon Woodbridge, Carl. You got too close.’
Hoskins nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll be keeping my distance in future.’
Epilogue
At her Old Bailey trial Tatiana Chumak pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and one of manslaughter for the shootings in the Volkov Library. She was sentenced to life, with deportation back to Ukraine at the end of the minimum twenty-five-year term. As she was taken down, she stared at Carl Hoskins, who was in the public gallery.
Mary Hill’s terrorism trial followed a similar course. She made no plea of mitigation and was sentenced to life with a minimum tariff of twenty years, a verdict she took with a ramrod straight back and no discernible expression. She would be ninety-three on expected release. Husband Colin, blinking back tears, said he would stand by her. ‘For better, for worse, that’s the promise I made back in 1985 when I married Mary,’ he told the Daily Mail in its front page exclusive. A book deal is hotly anticipated.
Marcus Dolan was jailed for six months for his attack on PC Butterfield. He and Oleg Volkov received five-year suspended sentences for their firearms offences, and were each fined five thousand pounds. Oleg laughed at the fine. He spent more than that on aftershave.
Westgrave Hall is up for sale, price on application. Oleg Volkov entertained a delegation from Steeple Risby who pleaded with him to donate the site to the National Trust, though he h
as yet to make up his mind. Dr Sophie Cawkwell, who reputedly inherited half a billion pounds from the Volkov will, has put in a bid to buy the library and turn it into a permanent natural history museum, open to the public. She disclosed in a TV interview that she had received over a thousand offers of marriage since news of her fiancé’s murder, but has decided to re-marry Paul, her former husband. ‘That will make for a stable home environment for little Sasha, who is due in April,’ she said. A Hello! magazine deal for her story was signed within two days of that revelation.
PC Zoe Butterfield has been making regular visits to hospital to see Wolf. With enough willpower and physiotherapy, the Westgrave Hall security chief is likely to be able to walk again and has floated the idea of buying the Fox and Hounds pub in Steeple Risby with his pay-off from the Volkov organisation. Zoe is considering his offer of marriage.
A month after Anastasia’s speedy escape to Moscow, Gillard got the expected letter from Interpol saying that his extradition request had been turned down by the Russian authorities. Moscow passed on copies of documents from Kazakhstan to show that she had been granted diplomatic immunity because of links to her maternal grandfather, the former finance minister.
* * *
It was three p.m. on New Year’s Eve when Gillard made his last trip to Westgrave Hall. Charges had been preferred against the various suspects. The trials were many months in the future, but there were still checks to be made on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service for any overlooked evidence. Gillard and DS Vikram Singh had thoroughly checked the evidence van, and Gillard had then given him permission to drive it away and go home. He then finished removing the final evidence bags and documentation which had been stored in the Khazi.
