The Phoenix Series Box Set 2

by Ted Tayler

  “As soon as Athena returns, we will have to discuss the breaking news from Eton Wick,” said Thanatos.

  “Not before time,” said Rusty, “that farmer didn’t deserve to be left like that for too long. Who discovered the bodies?”

  “It seems that the postman had a registered letter to be signed for this morning. He knocked but got no reply,” said Thanatos. “In towns and cities, they merely push a card through the door telling you where you can collect the item. In a few isolated places around the country, the postal staff knows who should be doing what where. This chap thought it odd that there was no activity in the farmyard nor any sign of the farmer. So he looked through the kitchen window and saw what was left of the back of the farmer’s head in front of him. The police were informed and after a few hours on the site, they discovered several bodies, a significant amount of arms and ammunition and a veritable fleet of vehicles. The Met has already identified several of these vehicles as having been used in ram raids in the West Country. As well as a couple that was thought to be present in Clevedon, Cheltenham or Amesbury. Identification of the bodies is ongoing; early reports suggest they were of Eastern European origin. The press conference has just ended on both major news channels and the Met are refusing to speculate on who these men were, or how they died. The police are appealing for witnesses.”

  “Which suggests they haven’t got a clue,” said Rusty.

  “We’ll have to go through all of this again soon,” said Minos, “the two vehicles have returned to HQ. Athena and Phoenix will be joining us shortly no doubt.”

  “No doubt,” said Rusty. “It might be better to let them update us on Erebus and what they found out in Ibiza. Then there will be his funeral to arrange. I would very much like to update you on last week’s investigative visit to the capital too if I can. Covering those items should give enough time for the full extent of the fall-out from Eton Wick to become clear. We need to be on our toes ready to react to any flak coming our way.”

  “Is Artemis settling in alright?” asked Alastor.

  “She’s fine, thank you for asking, she’s learning fast and no doubt Giles has got her collecting intelligence on the Eton Wick business as we speak. I’ll look forward to what he and Henry have to say when they join us later.”

  So at Larcombe Manor, the evening was to be a busy one. Athena and Phoenix arrived in the drawing-room just fifteen minutes after their car had dropped them at the front door. Henry and Giles had been called over from the ice-house by Minos.

  Athena told the team about the Ibiza trip in detail. When she let it be known that Erebus had been poisoned, possibly with cyanide, there were audible gasps around the table.

  “Who would have wanted to kill him?” asked Minos, clearly shaken.

  “Too early to be sure yet,” Athena said.

  Athena and Phoenix had decided in the car on the way home from the airport, that if Gavin was potentially involved, then who could they trust? Erebus had trusted Gavin absolutely, without reservation. If he had been won over to the other side, then perhaps someone at Larcombe was a suspect too. The couple didn’t want to believe it, but until they were sure, then they wanted to keep their cards close to their chest. They didn’t tell them about the clue provided by the crossword.

  “William will be buried alongside Elizabeth and their daughter Helen. We should know the details before the weekend. What’s next on your agenda Minos?”

  “The bodies at Eton Wick have been discovered. The farmhouse and surrounding buildings have been crawling with police for the past six hours. Henry and Giles will have an update for us later. While they make sure we have the very latest information available, perhaps Rusty could give us a brief report on his mission last week.”

  Athena nodded. She was glad the farm and its secrets had not laid undisturbed for too long. There was enough to occupy them at Olympus with the implications of the cause of William’s death. Phoenix had assured her that everything humanly possible had been done to avoid the Eton Wick killings being traced back to Olympus. That was good enough for her.

  The police would thank their lucky stars that the killings of innocent men, women and children were now at an end. Their PR people would sow a few seeds that this was one rival gang wiping out another to confuse matters. Inform the public that they needn’t panic as this was an isolated incident and a very rare occurrence on these shores.

  The usual platitudes would be trotted out. As further cuts bit deeper and deeper into the Met and other forces around the country, hopes of any progress in the fight against crime were set to disappear over the horizon.

  When Athena returned from her daydream, Rusty was doing as instructed and briefly outlining the things he had uncovered.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, Rusty,” she said, “can we identify the most prolific landlords who are exploiting these poor devils?”

  “Yes, Athena,” he replied.

  “Then dispose of them,” she said firmly.

  “What about the victims?” asked Thanatos.

  “The government will have to provide the councils with the resources to cope with re-housing them. If they are sensible, they will move as many as possible away from the south-east. I don’t envy them the task, but they have brought it on themselves. We will merely be removing people prepared to keep families in slum conditions and charge them exorbitant rents for the privilege.”

  Rusty knew that his point had been made and that Athena was keen to move on to hear the latest news from Eton Wick.

  “What intelligence do we have, Giles?” she asked.

  “All the bodies have been removed. The army was called in to remove the cache of arms and check the area was safe. The vehicles are still parked in the garage so far and police officers are staying on duty overnight. Police found an empty safe in one building. The possibility that this was a robbery, that then escalated into a gunfight, is also on their agenda. There appears to be a deal of confusion over how the farmer, Christopher Mellish died. The Met is not sure if it was suicide. They don’t know whether he was killed by the men who are now dead, or by a third party. CCTV images available from Clevedon etcetera weren’t terribly helpful in identifying the gunmen as you will recall; the Met is certain on the other hand that the dead bodies fit gunmen seen in those attacks. As you can tell it’s what Phoenix might call a ‘bugger’s muddle’.”

  “Have they found any eyewitnesses?” asked Rusty.

  “Just before we came over here, Artemis traced a call to the local radio station. A lady horse rider called in to say she was surprised the film crew in the area on Sunday morning hadn’t seen or heard anything.”

  “That’s worth chasing up, Giles,” said Athena, “make sure we keep on top of that angle. If you need to spread any misinformation over the airwaves, then feel free. Is there any indication that this lady phoned the police too?”

  “Artemis is monitoring the police frequencies. At this stage, it doesn’t appear that the police are aware of our subterfuge. It might not take them long to join the dots once they pick up the information. We need to be ready to deflect their enquiries. Perhaps I need to create a history for Direct Action Films and show them as being financed from Eastern Europe. A few false trails might lead them to believe that the film crew notices were a decoy and that indeed a rival foreign gang was involved in removing the opposition.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Athena, then added, “Artemis may have found useful input on that front. She understands her previous employers thought processes and their standard procedures; she may be able to supply you with the tools to create the most effective and plausible counter-tactics.”

  “Gamekeeper turned poacher?” said Giles. “That old saying is flipped on its head in this instance, but you’re right. Artemis being on our team should prove invaluable. She’s as sharp as Rusty told you she was. I’m impressed with her acuity even in the few days she’s been with us.”

  Before long the impromptu meeting was brought to a close. Athena
and Phoenix went back to their apartments.

  “We have issues to talk over in the morning Phoenix,” said Athena as she slipped beneath the sheets to join her partner.

  “Our priorities will be defined by other people’s actions,” he replied, “never a great situation it has to be said. Ah well, tomorrow is another day.”

  In the stable block, Rusty and Artemis were similarly reflecting on a day full of action, change, and intrigue.

  “You never met Erebus, did you?” Rusty asked, “he was a real gentleman; one of the old school. Hard as nails, but polite with it. It’s terrible to think that someone might have wanted him dead. Athena was holding something back at the meeting this evening, I’m sure of that. The fallout from the Eton Wick episode is simmering. We may not have heard the last of that either. The only positive to emerge was the green light for direct action against the worst of the slum landlords.”

  Artemis was tired after a long day, she snuggled up to Rusty’s broad chest and began to unwind.

  “Nothing ever stands still in the ice-house, there are thousands of snippets of data flowing through every hour that might prove crucial or irrelevant. How Giles ever keeps track I’ll never know. He’s a genius. Just a word or phrase; even the source of communication can trigger his interest. Simply the time of day that a particular message was sent. Giles Burke is that little boy at the Christmas parties we went to as kids; you know, the one we all hated because he thrust his pudgy little hand into the bran tub and pulled out the coolest present every time.”

  “You love it though, don’t you?” said Rusty, “it’s work at which you excel. We’re both suited to our roles with Olympus; we’re a good fit.”

  “Easy tiger,” whispered Artemis with a yawn, “it’s been a long day.”

  Over a thousand miles away in the marina at Santa Eulalia, Gavin was in his bunk on board ‘Elizabeth’. Everything was ready for his departure in the morning. His time on the island with his elderly employer was at an end. It had been a tremendous experience, and he was sad that it was over so soon. In three weeks he would be bringing the yacht home. He needed to contact Larcombe and inform them he had arranged for a berth in Lymington harbour for her.

  Olympus could arrange to collect William Hunt’s belongings and decide what to do with the elegant craft. Gavin had already put feelers out among his contacts, to find another rich patron who would allow him to continue sailing in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean. The sea was in his blood. Sailing was all he had ever wanted to do.

  The last thing he thought about before he drifted off to sleep was who on earth wanted to kill William? Despite Athena’s insistence that a third party was involved; nothing he had seen convinced him it was anything other than a heart attack. Maybe he had missed something? What had Hayden and Athena been discussing when he was in the toilet? Phoenix had dismissed it as banter, but Gavin resolved to have a quick word with Hayden before he left; just to see if there really was a sinister reason for his employer’s death.

  A few minutes after Gavin dropped off to sleep, the stowaway emerged from his hiding place. Silently he crept towards the bunk. The crewman was awake a second after the cloth was pressed against his nose and mouth. He clawed desperately at the gloved hands that held it so securely, but the weight of his attacker on his chest eliminated any brief hope of escape.

  Gavin lost consciousness without ever getting a proper glimpse of the man who was going to keep him sedated while they sailed out of the harbour in the morning. He would be bound hand and foot when two days out from Ibiza William Hunt’s assassin callously slipped him over the side of the yacht. Then watched him sink below the surface.

  CHAPTER 19

  Thursday, July 25th, 2013

  While events in the Mediterranean unfolded matters being discussed at Larcombe Manor concentrated on circumstances surrounding the death of Erebus. The team there were also considering the aftermath of the battle of Eton Wick. Over at Portishead police headquarters, DS Phil Hounsell sat quietly in his office.

  He checked his in-tray. He was either getting extremely efficient in his old age, or he wasn’t being forwarded so many items these past few days. It lay almost empty. He knew it to be the latter. Phil could pinpoint the exact moment that caused the usual constant flow of reports and requests to dwindle to a trickle.

  His differences of opinion with senior officers had been an ever-present part of his career. Stretching right back to his days as a police constable in Bordesley Green, the inner-city district in Birmingham, his hometown.

  Phil Hounsell recalled many fiery arguments too that took place in London when he worked with SOCA a decade ago. What a disaster that had been. Hundreds of decent enough officers from different forces around the country thrown together without any trace of dynamic leadership. If they had put a character in charge, every man respected and was prepared to follow into battle, then maybe, they could have been successful.

  In a few short months, the broken wheel on the waggon was due to be replaced by the NCA. Only three letters to remember this time; that might help the wooden tops who they put at the helm. Why it took three years to get off a new initiative off the ground was anyone’s guess. Phil Hounsell thought of last Friday’s attack in Amesbury and little Kassie Paget. Might she have been alive today if SOCA had been effective or if this NCA outfit had been mobilised quicker?

  The NCA was set to become the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking, cyber-crime and economic crime that goes across regional and international borders. It would absorb the body that handled child exploitation and online protection. It had a lot of strings to its bow; yet in these austere days, its budget was already rumoured to be half of that of the agencies and bodies it replaced.

  Happy days for the criminals; they would be laughing all the way to their Swiss banks. Phil twisted around in his chair and found a file in the filing cabinet behind him. He checked a figure. Over five thousand known organised crime groups in the UK and around thirty thousand gang members. Who did they think would to prosper?

  The news of the discovery of the bodies of an Eastern European gang at Eton Wick in Berkshire yesterday was plastered over the media today. Phil should have been elated. Not much more than a week ago he had told his Divisional Commander that patrols and ANPR checks on the M5 would be next to useless. He told them where he believed the gang was going to be based, he even suggested that they had probably been involved in other crimes as well. That measured insight based on years of being a detective, and a good one at that, had been met with scorn.

  Phil’s in-tray diminished day by day from that moment on. Everything panned out as he had imagined in that meeting. He had let his mind run free and built a scenario that made sense given the facts in front of them. It fell on deaf ears.

  What they needed now was to discover which crew took over the businesses run by the now-deceased foreign gang. If they left clues, then the Met might find them, arrest them and get them to court in time. What happened after that would be a lottery.

  As for the situation here in the West Country, well the patrols had been suspended over the weekend to save money and were reinstated on Monday morning. Nothing turned up, of course, because they were searching in the wrong place. But the ACC believed it important to be seen to be doing something. The public would be reassured by their presence, he said at the Tuesday morning briefing.

  In the real world, the public was more concerned with the attack in Amesbury. Much more horrified at the deaths of so many innocent people than police cars pootling up and down the M5. Not long after the press started asking pointed questions about why this resource wasn’t being used for more urgent tasks. Such as helping the Wiltshire police hunt for these vicious killers.

  The ACC didn’t handle pressure well, and his TV appearance on Tuesday evening had been an unmitigated PR disaster. Wednesday’s local newspapers and one or two of the nationals gave him terrible stick about the handling of the case. As readers caugh
t up with that story, the Met began to uncover the carnage at the remote farmhouse. When that news reached the media the relatively small local story took on a life of its own.

  Naturally, the public was relieved that the threat to their daily lives had been removed. They could go to the bank or building society, trot around Tesco with a trolley to their heart’s content. Wander to the pub for a cold pint in the evening again. Without someone wanting to blow off their head.

  Other quarters of the media concentrated on the gang warfare aspect. How can gangs of thugs be allowed to drive around unchallenged only fifteen minutes away from Windsor Castle? How can a remake of ‘The Gunfight at the OK Corral’ takes place on a Sunday morning and nobody raises the alarm?

  Here and there the ACC still received an unwanted name-check. Calls for his resignation were scattered throughout newspaper articles and news bulletins. Phil knew the blame for this would be laid at his door. It was the way of the world. The man might be useless, but he had the high ground with his seniority, and he would be frantically searching for a scapegoat; someone he could point to and say he had been badly advised. Phil was pretty sure in which direction he’d point.

  The Divisional Commander turned out to be the man sent to deliver the message. Phil had barely returned from lunch when there was a knock at the door. The DC came in and closed the door behind him.

  “Good afternoon, Sir,” said Phil, anticipating that it was anything but good.

  “A messy business, Hounsell,” said the Commander. “It’s like this, you’ve got plenty of time served and with the budget being trimmed year on year, we are looking for volunteers. You’ll be doing someone a favour. We won’t have to force someone to leave. Well, the thing is, the ACC thinks you are a bad influence on younger officers. We need to be marching together in the same direction, do you follow me? You always seem to be slightly out of step or dare I say it, walking towards us as opposed to with us. What do you say?”