‘No worries mucker – you know I can’t help myself,’ he chuckled.
‘You’re worse than Billy Phish’s dogs when excited.’
‘Ha ha, and just as bloody good if you don’t mind. Now where’s the coffee? Oh and, erm, my fee,’ Jugsy joked, semi-seriously. Sean smirked, shook his head and smiled broadly before sitting down, indicating to Jugsy to do the same.
Jugsy was in his late forties with swathes of grey hair, a thinning but noticeably radiant red face and a prominent nose. His lean, strong figure gave some indication of a fit man who had formerly achieved Special Forces glory with the Special Boat Service – but his active social life was beginning to take its toll.
They sat on the terrace and reminisced about the last few years and what they had both been up to since they had last met.
‘Jugsy, this is a tricky op, mate. I’ll need your thoughts on reference points, so we can narrow the search down. And you can’t mention this job to anyone. It’s not officially sanctioned.’ Jugsy took a sip of coffee as the sun rose above the hotel’s treeline.
‘It’s official enough, mate,’ Jugsy said. ‘I got a job number and a release note direct from MI5 so, as far as my bosses know, it’s official. They always know these jobs are heavily compartmentalised, so they will never hear the detail of the job.’ Jugsy held his arms out wide, palms turned upwards. ‘Use me as you want.’
Sean smiled with approval and quietly talked Jugsy through his plan, using cryptic speech to guard his words against prying ears on the terrace.
‘I’ve brought my new boy’s toy too – a nice, shiny, unmanned air vehicle. A fixed-wing, military-grade UAV fitted with imagery sensors that’ll knock the socks off you mate – Slovenian technology and it’s proper top drawer,’ Jugsy said, smiling. Sean was pleased – he would now be able to get some great overhead imagery to try and find burial sites.
‘Well, we’ll have a couple of hours up at the farm to discuss the search plan and how we can use your Gucci plane to hunt down what we are after. Once you’ve seen the full job you might baulk at it and say “No thanks, I’m off home.”’
Jugsy’s role and profession ensured he pretty much lived out of helicopters or else was flying high-grade drones and UAVs. He was a typical old-school former Royal Marine – loud, gregarious and exceptionally non-politically correct, he used colourful, lucid language and had extreme views on all aspects of life. But he was also a bubbly, effervescent character who lit up the dullest rooms. He was a well-known and well-loved icon in the intelligence community, and had legendary status for getting the job done.
‘What about Billy Phish’s dogs then? What did they find?’ Jugsy asked.
‘They had a big hit in the cottage that Alfie had been using.’
‘What – you mean a dead body?’
‘Yep, and Foz hit on the blood too. Liz has confirmed this morning that it matches Alfie’s blood group, and the DNA matches too. We think he was killed in the cottage and his body moved shortly after that.’
‘Any idea who did it?’
‘Not a clue at this stage. They tried to clean it all up but couldn’t remove all the forensic traces. All we know is that they left in a car, with the body probably in the boot, and made their way up into the hills.’
‘OK. So that’s where I come in I guess?’
‘Yep. We’ve only traced the car so far into the hills, but it gives us a starting point for the hunt.’
‘Have you looked at possible burial sites?’
‘Not in detail yet. We’ll do that this afternoon and look at possible car-parking spots and work on the basis of them not having carried the body too far. I want you to take a look from the air and see what ground markers might lead us into a smaller search area.’
Jugsy nodded. ‘OK, let’s get on with it then. Just like the old days eh?’
They relaxed and finished their breakfast. Sean made a few notes in his pad and looked up and to his left to view the terrace, which was now full of guests.
Natalie caught Sean’s eye fleetingly and smiled, before returning to her laptop.
Five minutes later, Melissa joined Sean and Jugsy at the table.
Chapter 26
Languedoc-Roussillon, 20 April 2016
Sean, Melissa and Jugsy drove to Billy Phish’s farmhouse. Sean had decided to take Melissa with him and noticed it had lessened her edginess by feeding her hunger to get involved. When they arrived, they were greeted by Billy Phish and Liz, who were sitting around the large wooden table in the kitchen which had by now become their office, covered as it was with laptops and notebooks.
‘Great to have you lot together again,’ Sean said. ‘Normal fees apply and I’ve put fifty per cent up front, with final payments into your accounts when the job is done. And I know it doesn’t need saying but enhanced operational security applies right the way through this job, whether here or back in England.’
‘Or Barbados for the posh buggers,’ Jugsy chipped in, pointing at Billy Phish. His comments alleviated the nervous tension.
‘OK, listen up. You all know each other and we all know how we operate. Let me introduce you to Melissa, who will be helping us on this job from here on in. She’s an investigator too.’
Melissa smiled and said ‘Hello’.
‘And a big thanks to Liz too who has cut her holiday short from across the pond.’
Sean rolled the maps out on the table and asked everyone to grab some tea and sit round them. ‘Just a quick reminder, too. This is a sensitive task, and I’m certain that other agencies are looking for Alfie too. You all know the score – let’s keep it tight and make sure we’re thinking OPSEC on all elements of this job going forward.’
These were professional intelligence and forensic operators and he felt comforted by the knowledge that they knew the seriousness of it all, with OPSEC being paramount. Sean noticed that Melissa looked slightly bewildered by it all.
‘OK everyone, settle down. I’m going to start the briefing with Liz’s findings first.’ Sean wanted everyone to hear Liz’s analysis before tasking the team with the next stages. Liz looked pensively at Sean as he stood up while everyone else sat, and then she began.
‘Well, I’ve spent a long time at the cottage doing a full forensic analysis with my portable equipment. I managed to find different types of soil on the carpet in Alfie’s cottage, some fibres and even some pollen residue,’ she said. ‘The most revealing items though seem to be the hairs.’
The team were all leaning forward over the maps, listening intently to Liz’s melodic Scottish accent. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I had to ask Larry the Italian to do some analysis too, and he’s eager to find out what’s happening.’
Liz paused, and the rest of the team glanced at Sean to gauge his reaction. Sean scratched his stubble vigorously, and threw a wry smile. ‘You’ll all be sad to hear Larry won’t be coming out on this job but he’s sending me some of his chemical analysis kit to use if we need it. Glad he’s helped out on the analysis too, Liz. That’s fine.’
‘Well he’s the one who has helped on the hair analysis really. His supercomputers are able to data-mine the reference material so quickly nowadays, and he had the results to me within four hours.’
‘OK Liz, what did you find?’
‘Well, we’ve confirmed from DNA and blood that the body that was in the cottage was Alfie’s. I’ve also managed to eliminate contamination from hairs that were left at the scene by Sean and Billy Phish – but I did find hairs that didn’t belong to Alfie either. Curiously he didn’t seem to have many visitors, and I’m making a bold call here, because the hairs we did find – and analyse – are more than likely those of his killers.’ Liz paused and looked up at Sean.
‘Sadly, I can’t reveal that location to everyone here just yet Liz. I need to verify some other intelligence first.’
Liz nodded. ‘What the chemical analysis of the hairs has shown us is where the killers had recently been in the world. And they haven’t travelled an
ywhere apart from that location in the last year. Except here.’
Sean had spoken with Liz that morning to check what information he wanted Liz to let the team know – and what information he didn’t want to release yet. The human hair analysis had identified someone who had been in the Missouri region of America in the last year. The use of Larry’s chemical forensic database had shown exactly where this person had been during that time – based upon what he or she had been eating and drinking. Modern-day chemical forensics could identify from a person’s hair where they had been in the world based on the food they had eaten. Larry’s chemical analysis was so good it even showed that the individual had drunk microbrewery beer from a specific town in Missouri. There were no traces of food that had been eaten anywhere else in the world.
Liz then explained that some traces of soil, just tiny particles, had been left at the scene. She had also checked Alfie’s shoes to see if any of his footwear matched the soil. It didn’t. It had to have come from his killers.
‘So, you see, it may be useful for us if we assume one of the killers wore the same shoes when he undertook his reconnaissance on the moors to see where to hide the body. That soil ended up in Alfie’s hallway. Unbelievably, but very luckily for us, the soil samples could only have come from a certain part of the Pyrenees. The map trace is here and shows the area the soil could have come from.’
Liz pushed the A3 piece of paper across the table. It showed a balloon-shaped shaded area right in the centre of the Languedoc hills.
‘I then looked at some pollen particles. It was slightly more difficult to pinpoint where they were from, mainly because some of the traces could be from many areas of Southern France and Languedoc.’
‘However,’ she said, pausing to cough and clear her throat, ‘some of the peat particles I looked at came from a certain part of the Pyrenees, and a particularly precise location of about four to six square kilometres or so.’
The team could immediately see on her map the small area of the Pyrenees she was referring to. Sean enjoyed watching the team’s reactions to this revelation. He knew that Liz’s high-tech equipment and her databases on soils, pollens and grains could provide very precise geographic forensics based on decades of global research on the subject.
‘None of this is perfect,’ Sean said. ‘And you can see some of the issues we have with confirming the analysis. But I’m happy it gives us a steer to begin searching these areas in earnest. It means I can use Jugsy and some imagery analysis next before we target certain areas for Mike to have a go at. I’ll use Larry’s chemical equipment when we get a little closer but for now we’ll all stay here and let Jugsy do his stuff.’
Sean had drawn a map showing the various overlays of the dogs’ scent trails. This showed some large shaded bubbles of the soil and peat analyses and some circles he had previously drawn on the map indicating potential drop-off sites for vehicle access.
The map now showed they had closed in on a specific area of the Languedoc Pyrenees. It was still huge, but they were narrowing the search down using geoforensic methods. They had gone from hundreds of square miles down to a few square miles, and had identified specific areas of interest they could exploit further.
Liz returned to the UK that morning and Jugsy set off to launch his UAV with Billy Phish at a predetermined site high on the hills. That left Sean and Melissa alone at the farm. Sean decided a walk with Mike and Foz would help Melissa to adjust and relax before they sat down to chat again to try to recall the many conversations she had had with Alfie.
*
Jugsy returned with Billy Phish just after 3pm having collected the overhead imagery of the zones they had decided to check. Sean stood in the kitchen watching Jugsy set to work on four separate seventeen-inch laptops. He watched as Jugsy zoomed in on incredible detail using the high-resolution imagery and started to look at small tufts of peat and major geographical features. He labelled large granite rocks, horse tracks and the occasional small paths, as well as zooming in on potential burial sites. It was Jugsy’s trained eye that would identify the crucial intelligence that Sean required. He started to look for any change in the terrain and for signs of shallow graves.
Sean left Jugsy alone for a couple of hours and returned to see the images that Jugsy had cropped and annotated with black letters to show the key marker points.
He showed Sean two major features that he had named. Target 1 was a very small waterfall and was around ninety-five metres from the road. ‘Looks like a great area that sits in a hollow, so they could easily dig without anyone seeing them,’ Jugsy said. ‘It would concern me though that the car would stick out and could be seen for miles around, so I’m not sure I’d want that. It’s quite easy to track your way back to this area after doing your initial recce to see where you’d bury the body, though.’
‘They must have recced where they were going to bury him first,’ Sean said. ‘These guys were experts. Have they got the right type of cover and reference points do you think?’
‘The main reference points are the waterfall and this huge granite rock, Target 2. They could easily relocate themselves back to this location. I think when we get on the ground we could look for another marker from these points. You know – another distant object that’s reasonably obvious so they can move from one point to the other.’
Sean nodded. He then pointed to another area further beyond the waterfall.
‘What about these areas Jugsy?’ he asked. Jugsy looked at Billy Phish, with an expression suggesting they had both discussed this area. Billy Phish took his pencil from behind his ear before pointing accurately to what looked like small runnels, each running perpendicular to each other and up to the plateau. ‘This is a remote area – especially the waterfall area. These runnels are about three metres high and quite narrow, so you could stand up in them and no one would see you at all if they were looking from a distance away. It could take less than twenty minutes to dig a body in there.’
Jugsy jumped back into the conversation. ‘I have a lot of work to do tonight to see if we can see any obvious changes to the terrain or any ground that has sunk, possibly showing a shallow grave. I’ll look for signs of digging and potential shallow graves by checking the old imagery against the new. I reckon it will take me a good six hours to try and find anything obvious. I’ll get on the phone to our man Larry the geologist too. Just to ask his thoughts about the geology and body deposition indicators.’ Jugsy looked for Sean’s approval of his thoughts and plan.
Sean tapped him on the shoulder, at the same time as standing up. ‘Great work – get to it, mate.’ He picked up his map and lifted it in front of him. ‘You know, we still have a vast area to search here: each of these areas is massive. I think Mike will cover the ground fast to home us in. We’ll get up there tomorrow at daybreak, while Jugsy continues his analysis here. It’s time to let Mike loose.’
Billy Phish, Sean and Melissa would head to the Pyrenees as soon as the sun was up.
Chapter 27
The Pyrenees, 21 April 2016
It was drizzling, and the Pyrenean moor looked bleak, cold and mysterious. The mist was lying low, with sporadic pockets rising from the ground as the dreary first light began to break. Sean could smell the peat bog and he caught the lingering aroma of recent rain in every breath. He sensed this would be a long tiring day, and that it would be very wet underfoot.
He and Melissa were up and gone from the hotel by 5am. They joined Billy Phish and left the farm in his pickup truck with Mike and Foz at 5.25am. Sean only saw one other vehicle on the road at that time in the morning on their way to Target 1, high on the hills. The team were kitted out with small rucksacks, Thermos flasks and wet weather gear. They arrived at Target 1 at 5.50am.
Sean knew that the team’s map analysis could only count for so much. There was no substitute for getting down and dirty on the ground. This was where he could really tune in his thoughts by getting into the minds of the killers. He would see the obvious reference point
s, the obvious terrain they would want to use to conceal a body and the best drop-off point to remain discreet whilst they conducted their burial. This was when he would get a feel for the case – when he was in the remote parts of the hills. Could he out-think the killers? Or were they smart enough to have concealed the body in a way that would defeat his techniques? He wouldn’t know until he had spent some time on the moors and he was itching to start.
There were no fences to cross before getting onto the hills, just small undefined tracks leading off and down into the two shallow valleys. Billy Phish let Mike off the lead and shepherded him around the drop-off site, in case he picked up any scent immediately. Sean then looked at the natural fold of the terrain down into the lower hills, where the stream branched off into two valleys. Mentally, a person would be drawn into taking this route, he thought. Mike was revelling in this unexpected exercise – he ran crazily everywhere, most of the time thirty or forty metres away from Billy Phish. He darted into small peat recesses, smelt the ground vigorously, then looked up for ‘Dad’ again, before scurrying off, head in the air, smelling the wafts of swirling wind to try and find what he had been trained to hunt down: a dead body. Sean marvelled at the grace and tenacity of this amazing canine in action as he searched for the scent of death.
Billy Phish steered Mike to where he wanted him to search but at times the dog was out of sight, hidden amongst the many varied high peat hillocks. Mike would always pop up though – all the time making sure Dad was still there. He was like a small vulnerable child, happily playing away in the distance but wanting to have the comfort of a parent close by.
Sean could now see the waterfall and he meandered around the area looking for any natural feature that might act as another location marker. He spotted a series of large rocks and a very distinctive runnel. He looked in the runnel and pulled at the peat recess to see how easy it would be to excavate and dig. The grassy tufts pulled away easily and he used his hands to dig a small hole. The peat was deep black, and seeping with water. He then replaced the peat and tufts, which moulded themselves back into position, leaving no trace of their disturbance. This was a massive area to search and everywhere was too easy to dig and hide a body.
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