Stone Cold

by J. D. Weston

  Julios had stood over him and blocked the sun. Harvey felt the temperature on his face drop and the light behind his eyelids fall into shadow.

  “You know what you just did?” Julios had asked.

  “Swam sixty lengths.”

  “Sixty-five lengths, Harvey.”

  “It’s nearly the same.”

  “Be accurate, Harvey. Success is in the details. People who ignore the details fail. Are you a failure, Harvey?”

  “No, Julios.”

  “How far did you swim?”

  “Sixty-five lengths.”

  “And how far do you think sixty-five lengths is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you were to walk it, where would you be when you finished?”

  “Erm, maybe at the little house by the front gates?”

  “Further.”

  “Further?”

  “Further.”

  “Would I be at the top of the lane?”

  “Further still.”

  “Even further than that?” Harvey had opened his eyes and looked up at the large man who loomed above him.

  “Shall I tell you?”

  “Yes, how far away would I be?”

  “Do you know where the pond is in the village? On the village green?”

  “With the ducks?”

  “That’s right, the pond with the ducks.”

  “No way, that’s miles away,” Harvey laughed.

  “The pond with the ducks is exactly one mile from here.”

  “I swam a whole mile?”

  “You did, Harvey. One whole mile. I’m very proud of you.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course I am. I’m also very hungry, shall we eat some lunch?”

  “Oh, I’m so hungry,” said Harvey, moving his arms for the first time and clutching his stomach, “Julios?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you carry me to the kitchen?”

  Julios bent down beside him, and Harvey smiled and laid his arms back out ready to be picked up.

  “You just swam a very long way,” said Julios.

  “It feels like I swam around the earth.”

  “You’re growing into a very strong boy. Do you want to grow strong, Harvey?”

  “Strong like you?”

  “Strong like me.”

  “Yes, I want to be big and strong.”

  “So get yourself up and walk to the kitchen and don't be lazy.” Julios stood, stepped over Harvey and walked to the house.

  Harvey stared at the spot where he had laid. He smiled at the memory and carried on with his walk back to his little house.

  Julios had shaped Harvey into the man he was, and he loved him like no other. Not like a father, not like a friend, but something else. Julios had been a strict mentor. He was stern and his principles were unwavering. Training was difficult and never over. Even during the times that they sat and talked after a run or a swim, Julios would correct Harvey’s way of thinking and steer it onto a path nearer to his own.

  Julios had seldom spoken of his own life, only a few times had he mentioned his home in Portugal, and if he did it would be an anecdote from his childhood in a small village near Santa Luzia. He would tell Harvey about the blue ocean and the fish, the blue sky and the birds. Harvey would listen fascinated at the insight into the mysterious man's life.

  “I would ride my motorcycle through the mountains to the north and along the ocean to the south. Life was free. I was a lot like you are now, Harvey.”

  “Did you have a sister too?”

  “I had a little brother.”

  “So you was the oldest?”

  “Yes, I cared for him, just as Hannah cared for you.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “His name was Adeo. He used to sit behind me on my motorcycle. It was a Royal Enfield, Harvey, and it was deep red, like blood. I saved many months for that motorcycle.”

  “Do you still see him?”

  “Adeo? No, Harvey. He’s with Hannah now.”

  “I’m sorry, Julios.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “How come you live here now if it was so nice there?”

  “I think you’ve learned enough about me today. We can save that conversation for another day.” Julios had closed off.

  3

  The Hunt

  Frank Carver drove in silence. He always preferred to have silence when he was in deep thought, and driving often afforded him the time to think clearly, without the background noise and interruptions of the office building.

  He drove at sixty miles an hour on the M25 motorway and prepared to take the next exit which would lead him onto the M11, then onto the North Circular Road and into Beckton. It was late morning, which meant that the roads were fairly quiet, or at least less busy than mid-morning.

  One of the cases he had been working on was building up. He had a feeling that it was all going to come crashing down soon enough, and in his experience, he would need to be there to ensure the rewards came his way, and the right suspects were locked up. If he left it to anyone else, the lead investigator would settle for prosecuting anybody involved, with no hard strategy. To nail a big fish, you needed a strategy. An infallible plan that produced irrefutable evidence. Anything less and they would sink below the surface of their legitimate operations for a few years until it had all blown over and their smart lawyers had found some kind of loophole. Then they’d commit themselves to another big job somewhere else. They were like that, he thought, criminals. They were all mouth when it comes to the easy money, they get brave and do a big job, then when it goes tits up, they get frightened and hide. He wouldn’t let the Thomson family slip away this time, and he’d take down anyone who stood in his way.

  Frank had been informed of a murder that had taken place in a warehouse in an East London business park. The computer tool that one of his team had designed to sniff for tags in the Metropolitan police database had flagged the case as soon as it was logged. In the old days, links between cases and new information would have been missed, and he’d likely never have heard about it. But these days not a lot was missed. In fact, too many leads were generated, of which only a handful were useful. The trick was to sift through the pile and identify the ones that would lead somewhere.

  He took the exit he needed, onto the dreaded A13, the main artery into London from the east, which was notorious for being heavily congested. He then turned off into Beckton at the next exit as the traffic closed up ahead. Frank’s satellite navigation told him the business park was the first turning on the left, so he took the turn and drove slowly down the road, which had been made bumpy by years of heavy lorries driving in and out.

  He didn’t need the annoying woman on the navigation unit to guide him from that point. At the far end of the road, he could see the spinning lights of the local police cars that had been parked to block the way.

  Frank drove up to a bored looking policeman who stood by the traffic cones and roadblock. He hit the button to lower the passenger window. “You’ll have to turn around, sir,” the officer said, with a Manchester twang, “The road’s closed for the morning I’m afraid.” Frank flashed his ID without saying a word and continued to drive forward, squeezing through the small gap between the police car and the curb.

  The murder looked straightforward. In Frank’s mind, it broke down into stages very easily. There was no sign of forced entry, and the victim was Bradley Thomson, son of renowned East End villain Terry Thomson. Bradley had been garrotted with zero mess. There was no blood and no damage to the immediate environment. This all suggested that the killer was old school. These days killers had no style. Too many Hollywood films had made dealing with a messy murder an all too frequent part of the job. But a messy murder leaves clues. This perpetrator was a pro; he had left no traces.

  The victim had then been dragged across the floor and hung from the overhead crane rather pointlessly in Frank’s opinion. It was either to make a statement, like a warning, or a
response to a previous attack. The killer had worn gloves and obviously had a plan.

  It wasn't often that he saw the work of a pro anymore, not in a murder anyway. He hadn't officially worked a murder for years, and he missed the challenge. He’d enjoyed his work back then, cases were open and shut, but didn't leave much room for talk over dinner. Instead, he would listen to his wife rattle on about the neighbour’s dog, or about the local shop being bought out by Asians. Given a chance, he would give everything to hear Jan rattle on about anything right then and there.

  Local police units were hunting for fingerprints on the surrounding environment and footprints in the dust. They spoke of having the body checked for third-party DNA. It was just local investigators following an enquiry template, which left no room for common sense and creativity. It was more like data collection, which somebody lower in rank than themselves would feed into a computer and hope for it to spit out the right answer. It rarely did. Besides, Frank thought it was pointless to hunt for clues on the scene when the killer had been clearly carrying out a job for someone else. Time would be much more efficiently spent hunting the man who gave the order and checking the surrounding areas, where the perpetrator may have been less diligent about leaving traces of evidence. Pros like this were hired men.

  Frank used his phone to take a photo of the abrasions on the neck, and one of the victim’s face before heading back outside. He was out of the warehouse in less than ten minutes.

  He walked past two women who were stood outside crying. It was cold out and they hugged each other for comfort and warmth. Frank discovered that one of them, the elder of the two, had found the body in the morning when she’d opened up. She tried to explain, but Frank had no patience for the emotional blubbering of hysteria, they rarely lead anywhere. He’d get his hands on the report and read that in silence without the snotty sniffs and tears.

  Frank stood outside and looked around. Cameras were fixed to tall poles standing at the entrance of the two rows of identical buildings sitting opposite each other. One more camera was fixed to the side of the building and pointing down the road at the oncoming traffic. But there were no cameras facing into the park. It was as if the security designer has assumed that they weren't needed because all the traffic had to come through the gates. Frank took a walk along the front of the neighbouring units, many of which had people standing outside in the cold, trying to get a look at the commotion.

  Frank walked past them all. He wore jeans and a loose fitting button up shirt under a long jacket that hid the growing paunch he’d been developing for the past few years. People turned and watched him walk by, he didn’t look like police, so he was able to avoid the tedious questions. It was a benefit that had allowed him to fit into many places and remain unseen.

  At the far end of the line of business units stood a small copse of trees with a steel fence marking the perimeter of the business park. It was the type of fence that had two-inch steel bars running vertically every four inches so a person might get their hands between the bars but not much else. At the end of the fence, Frank found a gap. Two bent steel bars had been forced off, probably with a car jack, and were laid on the floor outside the perimeter.

  He stepped through, being careful not to rip his jacket, and walked among the trees until he found himself at the dual carriageway that ran around the back of the estate and up to the North Circular Road. If Frank wanted a way in and out of the park without being seen, he’d come this way.

  A quick glance at the ground and a look at the single tire track told him that the killer had hidden a motorbike there. The print wasn’t very clear close-up, but from a distance, the line that trailed through the soft topsoil was easily visible. Frank laid a ten pound note on the ground and snapped a shot with the camera on his phone. The ten pound note would provide accurate scaling for Tenant, his tech research man to identify the tire tracks.

  Frank returned to the investigation and found the inspector in charge, who was at the time requesting the camera footage from an African security guard in an ill-fitting, bright yellow, high-visibility jacket.

  “A word in your ear,” said Frank in his soft Scottish accent, hinting that the guard should leave them to talk. “Those cameras won't show anything. That’s a waste of time.” Frank turned and nodded in the direction he’d just come from, “He came from that way, there's a gap in the fence and a motorbike track in the dirt. You can dust the fence for prints, you won't find any, but send me through the results of the track analysis as soon as you have them. I’ll need a list of motorbikes that tire might belong to.” He handed the bemused inspector his card. “I’ll be waiting for your email,” said Frank, as he stepped away from the scene.

  Frank hadn't mentioned that he knew who the victim was, the investigator would waste precious time figuring that out, and Frank would be well ahead by the time he had. Besides, being that Bradley was the heir to the throne, as it were, the case would probably just be handed over to Frank and his team anyway, who were, after all, organised crime specialists.

  He returned to his car, sent the photos to his small team and drove around the roadblocks once more to head back to his office. Frank knew one thing for sure, there was definitely more than meets the eye in that murder.

  His phone rang over the car’s Bluetooth system.

  “Carver,” answered Frank.

  “Sir, we received your photos,” said Mills, his lead investigator, “you’re on loudspeaker with myself, Tenant and Cox, did you find anything useful?”

  “Did you see the victim?” asked Frank.

  “We did, sir, not sure what to think of that.”

  “Things are about to get messy, Mills,” replied Frank, “are you able to identify the bike from the picture of the tire track?”

  “I can try, sir,” said Reg Tenant, the team’s tech guru, “I can probably get a list of bikes that might fit the bill, it’d give us a starting point.”

  “Good, can we have it ready by the time I get back to the office?”

  “I’m on it now, sir.”

  “Mills?”

  “Sir?”

  “Research, we need eyes and ears on the ground, who do we have out there that owes us favours?”

  “I have someone in mind, sir. Did the job look pro?”

  “Clean as a baby’s arse, Mills.”

  “Looked like a garrotting from the photos, am I right?” asked Mills.

  “Spot on. Neat job, would have been over in seconds.”

  “We’ll pull up all the garrottings then, maybe there’s a link somewhere.”

  “Good, we need to know what the Thomsons are involved in right now, and what they’re planning. Whoever did this is either stupid or has some serious balls.”

  “There’s only two real main players, sir, the Stimsons and the Cartwrights,” said Melody, “killing is not the Stimsons’ style, but let’s not write them off.”

  “Agreed,” said Frank, “but for John Cartwright to have a go at Thomson would be like poking a sleeping bear, he doesn’t have the men to back up a move like that.”

  “Need a big stick to poke that particular bear, sir.”

  “You would, even then you’d be asking for trouble. See what sticks Cartwright currently has in his arsenal, see if there’s one big enough to take out Bradley Thomson.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “Oh, and Mills?”

  “Sir?”

  “Have Cox sort out that van, I can see this going mobile,” said Frank. “Plan for a recce out in the sticks, find out where Cartwright is, and where Thomson is holed up these days.”

  “I’m right here, sir,” said Cox.

  Denver Cox wasn’t an investigator or a tech research guru. He was an engineer assigned to the unit and came with a certain set of skills that had come in handy on numerous occasions. Denver was a first-class rally driver, trained by the best. He’d also gone on to obtain his private pilot’s license and CAA approved helicopter license, which gave him a leg up over the other
drivers and engineers, and meant that Frank was loathed to let him be seconded to other units. There had been a few times when Frank had to step in and block a request for Denver’s time, much to the annoyance of the younger lead investigators.

  “Good,” said Frank, “we need that van up and running, you’re going to be busy over the next few days, and we can’t have it just sitting on the side of a road somewhere.” The van had been a nuisance, but funds for a replacement had been slow. Budget cuts, Frank had been told.

  “The van’s golden, sir,” said Denver, “won’t be an issue.”

  “Good stuff.”

  “And Stimson, sir?” asked Melody, “you want me to bother with them? Or do you want me to concentrate on Cartwright? Process of elimination.”

  “The mythological Stimson? See what you can find, but don't hold your breath, I haven't seen him in the thirty years I’ve been on the job. Chances are you’ll find people that work for him and they’ll have their mouths tightly shut, but you won’t get no further than that. Better to find our big stick.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “I know, have that report ready for when I get back,” said Frank, “and find me that big stick, that’s the key to this one.”

  “Big stick, sir.”

  “Big stick, Mills.”

  4

  Best Made Plans

  Sergio woke, as he did each morning, early and with the soprano melody of Strauss’ Epheu. The crisp tones from the ceiling speakers flowed through his small but lavish apartment. The hardwood floors gave resonance to the sound. Sergio smiled at the dexterity of the vocalist and slid from the smooth, black, silk sheets into the cold bite of the air-conditioning.