No Time to Lose: A Matt Flynn Thriller

by Iain Cameron

  ‘He won’t be attacking anybody else with that thing for a few months,’ Joseph said as he climbed off the inert but moaning figure.

  They walked back to the car. ‘What was all that about?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘I suppose, if it had all gone according to plan and it was them who had us on the deck, instead of the other way round, they would have told us to fuck off and never come back or they’d dish out more of the same.’

  ‘They didn’t have to go to all that bother on my account. I buy all my booze from The Sunday Times Wine Club.’

  THIRTEEN

  Matt was in Soho once again, but this time without Suzy. The hunt to locate Byron Locke was in full swing, with Sikander Khosa and his army of researchers trying to track him down. If Locke owned a holiday house, they would do their best to find it, but the analysts needed all the help they could get. So, Matt decided to supplement the search effort with some good old-fashioned legwork.

  He was in Brewer Street. The street seemed to live up to its name, as he passed numerous restaurants, pubs and wine bars. Matt made a mental note of it, a good place to go whenever he and Suzy were looking for somewhere to spend the evening.

  It was almost a week since David Burke’s kidnap and all those involved in trying to find him were fearing the worst. They still hadn’t heard anything from the kidnappers, no demands or boasts on social media. They had ruled out a ransom demand at an early stage. Whoever had snatched him wasn’t interested in money. They wanted his knowledge. If they had tortured him to find out the security arrangements for the visit of a particular president or prime minister to Lancaster House, it would have taken only a few days, three at most. When they were finished with him, it was unlikely they would return him, nor would he be in any state to be seen by his daughters.

  Their only hope was that he had been seized by someone else for some other purpose. He might have been a double-agent and his chosen foreign power had spirited him back to their country. To explore this further and investigate other scenarios, Matt had left a message at David’s office in MI5. He was still waiting for someone to call him back.

  Gill, as expected with Burke still missing, was like a bull in a china shop, demanding action and poring over any new information the moment it came into his office. He was in receipt of a daily phone call from the prime minister or his Rottweiler, Simon Moore, known officially as the advisor to the prime minister. Moore was prone to using language more profane than the PM, and was not averse to shouting or slamming down the phone when trying to make a point. This didn’t sit well with Gill’s ‘old school’ mannerisms, and he always came away from one of his calls enraged. It was a good job no weapons were stored in his office.

  They’d got everything possible out of their suspects, Karl Tamplin, Jay Thomas, and the Richards brothers. Tamplin and Thomas were below average intelligence, kicked out of school for stealing, and for bullying junior boys in a protection racket. They occupied the bottom rung of the criminal food ladder, muscle for hire, no questions asked.

  Vince Richards was a bit smarter, but not by much. He’d also left school under a cloud, for assaulting a teacher, and only through the steady influence of his older brother did he avoid spending the majority of his 30s and 40s in prison. Don, five years senior, had been persuaded by Vince to change his legit engineering business from making machine parts for the oil industry to the more lucrative trade of producing illegal weapons. If only Don had said no, things might have worked out differently.

  The more Matt talked to them, the more he realised their lack of response about the motive for the kidnapping wasn’t some form of omertà, a criminal code of silence. They didn’t know. This meant, as he’d suspected, the chain of responsibility went higher up the line.

  Matt walked into the Duke of Argyll pub and instantly knew Suzy would love it: polished wooden bar, Chesterfield sofas, several tucked-away snugs, and no music. The only thing missing was brewery adverts on the windows.

  He ordered a pint of Old Brewery Bitter and a pint of Taddy Lager for his companion, who hadn’t yet appeared. Matt took a seat at a table in the corner and waited. He preferred people watching to looking at his phone, and in any case, the pub banned their use, on the grounds that public houses were sociable meeting places and needed to be kept that way.

  Ten minutes later a man walked into the bar and, without looking around, sat down in the chair opposite Matt.

  ‘Hi ya Mr Flynn. Good to see you. Thanks for the drink,’ he said reaching for the cold lager, ‘I’m gasping.’

  Matt’s companion was an informer by the name of Andy Fairlie. He took a long slug of beer, emptying about a third of the glass. He was mid-forties with a full head of brown hair, kept a little untidy, as if he couldn’t be bothered to have it cut. His complexion and body shape suggested he spent a lot of time indoors, or ate too much junk food. He did both. He was general manager for a small chain of about twenty bookmakers, concentrated around the eastern boroughs of London.

  Matt tapped him for information on a fairly regular basis. He was based at a betting shop in Stepney and was the go-to man to replace any manager who fell ill or was away on holiday. As such, he was a mine of all sorts of useful stuff. Matt was interested in talking to him today as the betting chain was owned by Byron Locke.

  ‘How’s business?’ Matt asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Brick and mortar shops are on the way out, it’s all online nowadays. What’s left is punters who don’t own a computer, and wouldn’t know how to use one if they did. There’s a few others who live alone, or have a nagging partner, and come to us just to hear other people’s voices.’

  ‘This isn’t the time to buy shares in betting shops, then?’

  ‘I reckon we’ll be closed within five years.’

  ‘Does your boss agree with your prognosis?’

  ‘Last I heard, he was advertising for a load of web developers.’

  Andy had nearly finished his lager, while Matt was barely a third through his. He would buy him another in a minute or two.

  ‘I reckon he’s too late to the party,’ Fairlie said. ‘Bet365 and PaddyPower and all the rest have the market all sewn up. Plus, they spend big bucks, and I mean big bucks, advertising during the big footie matches on Sky and BT Sport. I can’t see him having deep enough pockets.’

  ‘What, he doesn’t have the money, or he’s too stingy to spend it?’

  ‘The latter, but you said it, mate, not me. I’ll have another when you’re ready.’

  Matt walked to the bar, busier than it had been earlier. In common with the restaurant he and Suzy had eaten in when they had been in Soho, the trade in places like this ebbed and flowed depending on various factors, such as theatre and movie times. A few minutes later, Matt returned to the table and was pleased to see Andy was still seated. On occasion, he could act like a scared rabbit in the headlights and scarper the minute he spotted someone he recognised.

  ‘How’s the family?’ Matt asked.

  Andy gave him a long spiel about his eldest, now diagnosed with ADHD, and the problems this presented. Matt listened attentively, but was keen to discuss the nub of the issue, his reason for being there tonight. Experience had taught him that Andy would not be rushed. Matt had to wait until he was ready.

  ‘Is your wife still on the antidepressants?’ Matt asked.

  ‘I reckon it’s for life.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘Ach, I don’t want to talk about it, it gets me down. So, what can I do for you Matt?’

  ‘The case I’m working on, you might have seen it in the paper, is about a missing MI5 man.’

  ‘You know me, I read half a dozen papers cover to cover every day. Fuck all else to do in a betting shop some afternoons. Couldn’t miss it.’

  ‘I’m trying to find him. He was a mate of mine.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘The trail has led us to your head honcho, Mr Locke.’

  Andy put his pint down.

  ‘Wha
t would Byron want with an MI5 agent?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like you to tell me.’

  ‘I haven’t heard a dickey bird, plus he’s buggered off abroad. Not the behaviour, I would say, although you would know more about this than me, of a man holding a high-profile prisoner.’

  ‘I’m thinking he might have nabbed him for someone else.’

  Andy looked out at the passing crowds making their way around Soho. ‘Byron is part of a big network, businessmen doing favours for one another. There’s a fine line between the legit and the criminal, and I know he crosses it on occasion.’

  ‘Is this an organised network with rules and procedures?’

  ‘No, it’s more informal. He’s told me about some of the strings he can pull if he needs to. I have to say, it impressed me.’

  ‘That good?’

  ‘He’s also got this group of three or four tough guys he can call on to sort anything that wants fixing.’

  Matt nodded.

  ‘At work, they’re called the Mafiosi, as we don’t know what they do or who pays them, but it doesn’t pay to cross them. I’ll ask around.’

  ‘Discreetly.’

  ‘You know me,’ he said, tapping his nose. ‘Now, is there anything else I can do for you, mate? I’ve got to be off home. Her inside is cooking a special meal, our eighteenth anniversary, if you can believe it.’

  ‘One more thing, where exactly is Byron at the moment?’

  ‘Antigua, coming back Thursday.’

  Andy left moments later and Matt did the same a minute or so after. He was hungry and, as much as he was enjoying the beer, he needed some food or the evening would be a write-off. He decided not to eat alone in a restaurant to brood about the events of the last few days and their lack of success. He would buy something from the supermarket near his house and eat it while watching some crap on the box to distract him.

  Walking back down Brewery Street towards Charing Cross tube station, his phone rang. It was a good job it didn’t ring inside the pub as he would have received a severe ticking-off from the bar staff.

  ‘Matt Flynn.’

  ‘Matt, it’s Lauren Yates, MI5.’

  ‘Hi Lauren.’

  ‘You called the office this afternoon and asked to speak to someone about the work David was involved in.’

  ‘Yeah, I did. He’s been missing almost a week and I’ve yet to find anyone with a good reason to hold him.’

  ‘I understand. You and him were friends.’

  ‘Yes, the last time we talked over a beer was about two weeks ago.’

  ‘Might there be a conflict of interest?’

  Matt bristled at the question. Gill had raised it privately with him at the start of this enquiry, but no way could anyone accuse him of approaching this case differently from any other.

  ‘I don’t see how. I’ll shoot whoever is holding him if they resist. I’d do the same if I was a friend of David or not.’

  She laughed. ‘It’s a refreshing approach after all the bullshit we often get from the police about procedures and lines of authority.’

  ‘What’s your role in this?’

  ‘I worked for David, and I have a lot of respect for him. What you are going to get when someone from the department calls you back is some soft-shoeing about how this was all discussed internally and nothing has changed.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I suggest we meet and I can tell you, warts and all, as much as I can about what he was involved in. If, as you say, there isn’t anything more obvious, surely among that lot must be the reason why he was kidnapped.’

  FOURTEEN

  Matt pushed open the double-doors to his floor in the HSA building. He found an empty desk and dumped his gym bag beside it. For appearances’ sake, he pulled out his laptop and several papers and put them on the desk. Rosie wasn’t around, she’d taken yesterday and today off, but he anticipated she would make an appearance the following morning.

  He went back through the double doors and down one flight of stairs. Using his security pass, he entered the Research area, a department that had mushroomed in size over the last few months, with so much HSA work increasingly dependent on intelligence. In the early days of the organisation, Matt had dealt directly with the department’s boss, Sikander Khosa, but as Khosa was now in charge of a thirty-strong unit, he was forever in meetings, like now. Matt looked around for a friendly face.

  He spotted Amos Moore, a protégé of Siki’s, and a guy capable of hacking into any computer, often by deploying programs he’d developed himself.

  ‘Hi Amos, how are you doing?’

  ‘Hiya Matt,’ he said, giving Matt a fist bump. ‘We don’t see many of you agents around since we moved here. It’s all done by email or text nowadays. It feels like we’re still in the basement, even though we aren’t.’

  Matt took a seat opposite the researcher. ‘I don’t know if I’m putting my foot in it, but you’re looking a lot trimmer.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s called not working so close to Siki. If he calls you into a meeting there isn’t just coffee; he’ll have a tray full of doughnuts, pastries, biscuits, you name it. As you would expect, the trays are all empty by the time everyone files out.’

  Matt laughed. ‘The perils of the desk-bound. Can you do something for me?’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘A man I’d like to interview is currently enjoying a holiday in Antigua. He’s due back tomorrow. I don’t know which airline, the time, or the airport, although I suspect Heathrow. I’d like to be there to meet him.’

  ‘When you can be sure he’s not tooled up?’

  ‘You got it, and not accompanied by hired muscle or his lawyer, unless he takes them on holiday with him.’

  He laughed. ‘Imagine having some big bruiser lying beside your sun lounger. Mind you, being away from your neighbourhood is a good opportunity for a rival to take a pop. What’s his name?’

  Matt lifted a piece of scrap paper and wrote it down.

  ‘Byron Locke,’ Amos said, looking at it. ‘It has a nice ring to it. Catchy.’

  ‘It needs to be done today, for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Got it. I’ll call you when I get a hit.’

  ‘Cheers, Amos,’ he said standing. ‘Catch you later.’

  Matt walked upstairs, grabbed his gym bag, headed over to the lift and rode down to the basement. In the locker rooms he changed into his gym gear before heading into the medical centre.

  ‘Take a seat, Matt. I’ll be with you in a sec,’ the doctor said without looking round.

  Matt had been to the medical centre several times before, for regular check-ups like this one, and ongoing care for a long-term injury. Doctor Jason Webb was late forties and knew a thing or two about bullet and shrapnel wounds, having served in Afghanistan. It was a ‘specialism’ of which he said few UK-trained doctors had any experience. Therefore, in the wake of a major terrorist attack, Webb and others like him were often drafted into hospitals where the wounded were being taken to lend their unique expertise.

  There was little natural light in the basement; not a healthy atmosphere to work in. However, the doc also had an office on the second floor, meaning he wasn’t confined to a vampire’s existence.

  ‘Right,’ Doctor Webb said, turning round and rubbing his hands together, not expressing his joy at the prospect of prodding and pulling Matt, but more likely to warm them. ‘Let’s make a start.’

  ‘Fine by me.’

  ‘First up, as I’m sure you know from your last time here, will be the medical examination, followed by some physical exercises and, finally, a questionnaire. Any questions at this stage?’ He paused.

  Matt had none.

  ‘No? Then we’ll begin.’

  The doc took a blood sample, tested his blood pressure, measured his height and weight, checked hearing, eyesight, and teeth, before conducting a battery of tests which Matt hoped would conclude he was fighting fit. He went to the gym as often as the job allowed, averaging tw
ice a week. Weather and workload permitting, he also went running at least three times a week.

  The doc chatted to him while he worked, asking Matt about the case he was working on and how he thought it would pan out. Matt had no problem being frank with a ‘civilian’, not because he was a doctor and bound by the Hippocratic Oath, but because everyone working at HSA had signed an internal confidentiality agreement and the Official Secrets Act. Breaching any of the terms wouldn’t land the transgressor with a verbal warning and a £200 fine, instead it carried a lengthy jail term.

  The time Matt had spent in the gym was helpful in the next series of activities. They moved into the well-appointed gym, one he visited now and again when time constraints prevented him from reaching his local one in Clapham. This part of the assessment concentrated on aerobic fitness and utilised the running machine, bike, and cross trainer. With each activity, while wearing a breathing mask and a chest strap, he was instructed to run, cycle, and step fast enough for the needle in the meter the doc was holding to hit a red marker. He was ordered to keep it there until told to stop.

  The exercises started out gently, but this didn’t last. The doc gradually increased the rate of knots until it felt like he was a 400-metre runner sprinting for the line, furiously pedalling for the last 100 metres of a Tour de France time trial, and running up the side of a mountain like a fell runner. By the time Matt had finished all the tests, he’d completed a half-hour workout comparable to a one-and-a-half-hour gym session. When the break came for him to shower and change, he couldn’t get there fast enough.

  Feeling more refreshed after a good soak, Matt took a seat at the table, at a right-angle to the doc. Webb opened the medical questionnaire in front of him.

  ‘Firstly, did you fill out the food diary I asked for?’

  ‘I’ve done most of it,’ Matt said, handing a folded piece of paper to him. ‘Some days are less chaotic than others.’

  ‘So I’m discovering. I have experience of several branches of the security services, but what I am about to say applies to any agency involved in dealing with emergencies. I know it’s hard to eat healthily when you’re out on a case. However, when you do stop to refuel, it’s better for you to make choices which will do your body some good, and not fill it with sugar and leave you hungry half an hour later. Does that make sense?’