THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author.

by David Videcette

  ‘We found empty plastic packaging for ice at the Victoria Park flat, Helen. They bought ready-made ice. It matched up via HOLMES with a receipt that was found close to the seat of the blast where Wasim martyred himself. Using the details on the receipt we went back to the store and looked at the CCTV. Sure enough, Wasim went to Asda in Pudsey at 0520 hours with one of the other bombers on 6 July. They bought fifteen bags of ice that day…’

  ‘Good result. That shows that the system is working then? We’re slowly finding out stuff like this and HOLMES is doing its job?’

  ‘Fantastic. Yes. But… this stuff is only us telling about how. Not why. Not who orchestrated this…’

  ‘We just keep doing the right things, Jake. Follow the evidence.’

  ‘And isn’t it just lovely we have so much to follow?’

  ‘I don’t see your point, Jake.’

  ‘Why did they plan the bombings that day? In all the planning materials we’ve removed from the scenes and the bomb factory, there was no mention of the G8 summit in Scotland, nor the Olympics announcement.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Jake, we’ve not found a single indication anywhere that they planned around any significant event. It was probably just coincidence that the G8 summit was on and the Olympic host city was announced the same week the bombings happened…’

  ‘But maybe they knew that the G8 summit meant that London would be short on security personnel with everyone up in Scotland? Did they even know that the Olympics announcement would be made that week?’

  ‘Well, if they did, none of them documented it,’ replied Helen.

  ‘Yeah, but don’t you think that’s really strange, when they’d planned everything else to the nth degree? Why no mention of it in anything we’ve found? That’s my whole point. There is nothing. There is nothing to follow but packets of ice and tubes of toothpaste.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jake, but I do know that you need to get on with the actions coming out of the MIR – that’s what’s important right now. Don’t get distracted,’ said Helen as she hung up.

  Jake couldn’t fathom any of it. He was starting to believe that no one really knew what was going on.

  26

  Wednesday

  20 July 2005

  1530 hours

  Sullivan House, New Southgate, north London

  Jake found the address that Claire had given him using his police issue Geographia Atlas of London. Battered and bruised just like him, it was one of the few things that had survived the accident two weeks ago in Leeds. Its days were numbered though. Satnav was now being fitted in the faster, marked London police cars. Jake liked his old blue hardback book. He’d liberated it from a marked police car in the rear yard of Brixton station one afternoon several years ago.

  The drive down to London from Leeds that morning had been slower than he had anticipated. There had been a fair few lorries on the two-lane A1, but the lack of traffic police compared to the featureless M1 meant he could get a wriggle on without worrying too much about being pulled over.

  On the journey, he’d reflected on the news Claire had shared with him up in Leeds about the coded messages left following al-Iraqi’s arrest. She’d said she thought one was to Wasim. He guessed that another must have been to the place he was going to look at today. Despite running the phone number and address through all the intelligence databases he could think of, nothing of interest had come back.

  The address Claire had given him corresponded to a sixties-built block of flats on a nondescript, north-London housing estate. The tower block bore over him like a giant as he got out of his car and made his way to the main door. He spotted a bin store directly adjacent to the path. There was no mistaking its horrendous stink; he could make out a strong odour of rotten vegetables. But there was something else – an unexpected chemical smell.

  Inside the brick-built bin store were seven large communal containers. He peered into a couple. Cabbage leaves, carrot peelings and scores of empty bottles of hair dye. Someone obviously had a lot of hairdressing work on.

  The communal entrance door to the flats was ajar. Broken. The sign next to the lift indicated that flat fifty-eight was on the eighth floor. As he walked up the stairs, he remembered that Mrs Rahman had said the front of her son’s hair had turned lighter. The box hedges at Victoria Park – they’d changed colour too. Hydrogen peroxide was a bleaching agent but it could also be used as rocket fuel. It was highly flammable – explosively so if you got rid of the liquid it came in.

  Could someone here be using hair dye to make a bomb? Just like Asif had for 7/7?

  Jesus. These guys had bombs too?

  Jake arrived at the eighth floor and found number fifty-eight. He put his ear to the door and listened. No sound emanated from within. He knocked, intending to use a cover story about looking for a friend, but there was no reply. Jake gently pressured the door. He could tell that just the Yale lock at the top had been applied. He pushed hard against it. The door swung open straight into the living room.

  The place smelled familiar; peppery, spicy, with synthetic undertones.

  He followed his nose to the back wall of the lounge. The stench was at its strongest by a sixties-looking wooden sideboard. It was the sort that had once held a turntable and a decanter of whisky on top, but not now.

  Jake looked underneath it for wires but found none. He gently pulled the sideboard out from the wall before fetching a knife from the kitchen, which he used to prise off the back panel. Inside, he found five large, clear plastic food tubs containing a strong, spicy-smelling yellow goo.

  The stench was blistering now. The sticky yellow mixture looked similar in texture to the substance they’d found on the plates at Victoria Park. This must be where all that highly explosive hair dye had gone. He had to think fast.

  Water. Add water. Make it less concentrated and less flammable, he heard a voice in his head say.

  He went to the kitchen. Under the limescale-covered tap, in a stained washing-up bowl, he spotted a selection of glasses which he filled with water and carried back through to the lounge.

  He repeated this until he’d added four glasses of water to each tub. The mixture seemed to suck up the water like a sponge. Was it safe? There was no way of knowing. He had to get out of there. He had to call this in.

  He replaced the back panel of the sideboard, carefully pushed it back against the wall and returned the glasses to the sink. He left the flat, closing the door behind him. It was like he’d never been there.

  Now to tell Claire.

  27

  Wednesday

  20 July 2005

  1626 hours

  Sullivan House, New Southgate, north London

  ‘Claire, it’s Jake.’

  Jake was crouched in a garage forecourt area adjacent to the block of flats he had just left.

  ‘Jake – you OK?’ Claire could hear the unease in his voice.

  ‘No. That address you gave me. I think I just saw explosives in there.’

  ‘You went inside? Are you nuts? I didn’t give you that intelligence for you to go snooping around inside the fucking flat! I asked you what you knew! That information came from the Americans, from the NSA. If they find that out, I’ll go to prison! You said you’d look at it. Not go into the flat!’

  ‘But I’ve found something. I’ve tried to make it safe. I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of peroxide-based explosives.’

  ‘Jake, you’ve got to let this run. You can’t claim the glory for this. Not unless you have some of your own, definitive evidence to lead you there!’ she said angrily before hanging up.

  Jake stood there looking at the blank screen of his phone. It was the second time in two weeks he’d been in this predicament. Did she really think that he was going to do nothing after what had happened on the seventh? W
hich one of them was nuts?

  Jake considered his options. He’d illegally entered a premises using intelligence that he shouldn’t have had. If that substance in the sideboard had been explosive, he hoped it wasn’t any longer thanks to the water he’d added. Jake didn’t even have enough information to go and apply for a search warrant at court. He couldn’t go and speak to the bosses. He was in enough trouble as it was and he’d have to tell them he’d broken in. That was a non-starter.

  Jake called Claire again.

  ‘I can’t fucking believe you went there,’ Claire shouted down the phone as soon as she picked it up. ‘That’s the last time, Jake! You know anything that I give you is for intelligence use only! You don’t tell anyone I’ve told you. You don’t use it or act upon it in isolation. If you do, the trail leads back to me – I go to prison!’

  ‘Claire – I’m sorry. You can’t blame me. Somehow you’ve got to get that place on the radar tonight.’

  ‘It is on the radar. Just low down. You sure it was explosives? Positive?’

  ‘The smell, it’s distinctive. I recognised it from Victoria Park. The substance is gooey just like what we saw there. You said the other day they were learning how to make new substances in Pakistan, Claire. We’ve got to make this official.’

  ‘I can’t just bloody tell them that my friend, DI Flannagan, broke in and illegally searched the place after I breached the Official Secrets Act by passing him the intelligence. Plus, it’s the Yanks’ intelligence. They’d extradite me for less! Look, I’ll do my best. It won’t happen fast – twenty-four hours if we’re lucky. I need to pull in a couple of favours to elevate it without arousing suspicion,’ Claire said, clearly still upset.

  ‘I’m sorry, Claire,’ replied Jake, as the line went dead again.

  28

  Wednesday

  20 July 2005

  1740 hours

  New Scotland Yard, Westminster, London

  Jake drove south to Scotland Yard. He parked underneath the high-rise police headquarters and called his boss. Helen’s answerphone clicked in straight away. He decided against leaving a message.

  He made his way up to the fourteenth floor. Sitting at a computer terminal in the corner of the large office, he spent several hours scouring the police intelligence systems. He was hunting for something that he could legally use to mount an investigation into Sullivan House and the gooey, sticky, peppery substance he’d just discovered.

  There was nothing. The Security Service had not alerted the police. God only knew how long they’d been aware of the people there, he thought.

  His only hope was that Claire would punch something through in the next twenty-four hours. He couldn’t tell a soul. He’d already been in trouble for the extra-curricular work he’d done up in Leeds. Here he was two weeks later, exactly the same. The only difference being that Jake hoped he had messed with their explosive mixture just enough. Perhaps they’d realise it was now inert and abort their plans? It might just give the Security Service enough time to sort themselves out.

  Jake would call Claire tomorrow afternoon. Give her the twenty-four hours she said she needed. Tension was still high at the Yard. Suspicious-package calls had gone through the roof. Everyone was tired, including Jake. He needed sleep.

  He’d not been home in two weeks. He’d run out of clean clothes. Now was a good time to collect supplies.

  It was a gorgeous evening, yet London was deserted. Normally there would be hundreds of people wandering around the city in weather like this, he thought. The windows of his car were wound down, yet there was an eerie silence across the capital, broken only by the sirens of police cars as they hurtled from place to place.

  On arrival back at the sari shop in Whitechapel, Jake unlocked his door and walked into his stiflingly hot and rancid-smelling flat.

  The mouldy washing-up looked like it was about to grow legs and run off. Nice. He opened the windows, got undressed, pushed the pile of clothes from his bed onto the floor and lay down.

  He looked at the ceiling. This was no life. Fighting everyone. Fighting simply to do the right thing. How could it be that the NSA, CIA and Security Service knew this stuff? Knew that people had died. Knew that there were others, yet didn’t inform the police when they were the only agency that could actually make arrests?

  Sleep found him suddenly, unexpectedly.

  29

  Thursday

  21 July 2005

  1000 hours

  Exhibits office, Kennington, London

  The sun woke Jake, its strong rays breaking through the dusty Venetian blinds in his bedroom. He’d overslept; he was supposed to be back in Leeds.

  He got up, showered and began making the trek across London. On the way he received a call from one of the team, asking him to pick up a copy of an exhibit. The exhibits office was close to the Oval cricket ground. It wasn’t too far out of his way so Jake agreed.

  The place was busy when he arrived. Jake decided to eat breakfast in the canteen whilst he waited for them to retrieve and photocopy a book that had been found at Victoria Park.

  By 1230 hours he was still waiting, so he made his way down the stairs from the canteen to hurry them up. As he entered the office, he hit a wall of commotion. People were frantically grabbing masks and forensic kits and running out of the door.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jake asked one of the exhibits team.

  ‘Another attack! Chemical substance at Oval Tube station,’ replied the exhibits officer, grabbing his stuff.

  Jake followed him as they ran to the car park. They jumped into a waiting unmarked car, which pulled away sharply, Jake in the back seat. Only seconds later, they were getting out again at Oval Tube station. The place was in chaos. People fanned out from the station’s entrance in all directions – some screaming, some crying.

  Jake and a couple of the officers from exhibits leapt the barriers. The escalators had stopped. They ran down as people continued to stream up. At the bottom – on the northern-bound platform – sat a Tube train only partially in the station, its doors open.

  Jake charged onto the Northern Line train and along several carriages. He began to check for dead or injured before it even occurred to him that he might need some personal protective equipment.

  A smell of acrid smoke hung in the air. One of the exhibits team shouted for everyone to be careful.

  Up ahead, located toward the middle of the third carriage, Jake could see a black nylon rucksack with its contents strewn across the carriage. Spilling from a large, clear plastic container was a yellow cake batter which foamed as it hit the floor of the Kennington-bound Tube train.

  Jake recognised it immediately. It was the hydrogen peroxide mixture spewing from one of the food tubs he’d sabotaged at Sullivan House just a day before.

  ‘Stop! We need protective clothing and masks!’ shouted one of the exhibits team.

  Jake’s reply came instinctively, ‘We don’t. It’s inert. I know…’ He stopped himself mid-sentence as he realised what he was saying.

  ‘Move back! You can’t tell from here! It might go off!’ shouted back the senior exhibits officer.

  Jake turned and retreated as cautioned.

  Thank God he’d been to Sullivan House the previous day; there appeared to be no fatalities or seriously wounded.

  They evacuated the station and stopped new people from trying to enter, but it was hard going in all the uproar and confusion – he was in plain clothes. It was always more difficult to convince the public to listen to you when you weren’t in uniform and wore no helmet. He hoped the lids got there soon to organise the crowd control.

  Outside the station there was utter panic. Lunchtime on a Thursday and Clapham Road was heaving.

  Their next most pressing task was to cordon the place off. Jake’s priority was to preserve the crime scene and sort out who among the throngs
of people there needed to be interviewed.

  It was going to be a long day.

  30

  Thursday

  21 July 2005

  1245 hours

  Oval Tube station, Kennington, London

  Jake stood on the corner of Clapham Road. This busy crossroads in the shadow of the Oval cricket ground was completely blocked by emergency response vehicles. The noise was incredible. Sirens wailed from every direction; police cars, fire engines, ambulances – all anxious and wanting to do their bit to help. The suspect or suspects were long gone. Jake had no idea what they looked like or which way they’d taken off. There was no point tearing down a street without knowing who you were looking for in this mayhem. Whoever it was would be caught on CCTV – or so he sincerely hoped.

  Jake gathered himself, ‘Crime scene,’ he said aloud, kicking into action. ‘Sort the scene out!’

  Catching bad guys meant having evidence to put them in prison. The evidence came from what you could prove they’d done at the scene of the crime. Placing them there meant fingerprints, DNA, physical exhibits they’d left behind, fibres from their clothing, explosive residue. He needed to preserve them. There was nothing worse than having the fire and ambulance services trample all over the scene unnecessarily.

  He grabbed two uniformed police officers getting out of a small car and identified himself. They looked young. Both kids. One ginger and tubby, the other skinny and dark.

  Fatty and Skinny had new uniforms, new hats. Their eyes were wide and scared – like rabbits caught in headlights. They were probationers. They’d never forget this day as long as they lived. Jake had no other option – he needed help right now.

  ‘There’s been an attempted attack. There’s a substance on the Tube down there. I need you two to stay up here at the entrance. Make sure you stop any firefighters or paramedics going down onto the platform. There’s no fire and no wounded down there. They can do what they like up here. This is a major crime scene and I don’t want a million boots walking all over it. Tell your control room that information, OK?’