by Chris Simms
‘We weren’t given a fair go, Rick,' Jon called after him. 'That’s my point in this.’
‘Whatever.’
Jon swivelled back round and picked up his phone. He keyed in the number and his call was picked up almost immediately.
‘Myko Enterprises,’ a female voice said.
Jon pictured the woman somewhere in the basement of the building. The company names must flash up on her console, he thought, letting her route endless calls through to the myriad businesses above. ‘Slavko Mykosowski, please.’
There was a slight hitch in her voice. ‘One moment.’
The line made a series of clicks. After a few seconds, a new voice came on the line. ‘Who is speaking?’
Jon frowned. It was a clear, English accent. ‘I’d like a word with Mr Mykosowski.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Who is this?’ Jon repeated back.
‘Why are you calling this office?’ The voice was young, familiar somehow. ‘You’re in Manchester. I can see your dialling code.’ Suddenly, Jon was back in Euston station, talking to the MI5 officer on the balcony of the pub. He thought about hanging up, but realised it was too late. ‘Officer Soutar, it’s DI Spicer, here. Greater Manchester Police.’
‘Spicer? What the hell are you doing calling this number?’
Jon sat back. ‘We’ve just received some fresh evidence about Myko Enterprises. I . . . I needed to confirm a detail with Mykosowski before passing it on to your good selves. What’s going on?’
‘You were instructed to make no more contact.’ Soutar spoke away from the phone. ‘It’s OK, carry on.’ Immediately several voices began speaking in the background. ‘Detective,’ Soutar continued, ‘do you always ignore orders so blatantly?’
‘What are you lot doing there? Is he under arrest? Did you get the information we sent you about—’
‘I received it. Mykosowski isn’t under arrest. He’s dead.’
‘Dead? When?’
‘The last few hours. I’m looking at him right now.’
‘Garrotted?’
‘No.’
‘What, then?’
‘We’re not sure. He’s lying face down in the middle of the office. There’s no sign of any struggle, apart from the lock to his office being forced. The pathologist thinks it’s a possible broken neck.’
‘Well, at least you’re not having to work with all the windows open.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Usually, they crap their pants as he garrottes them.’
‘You’re assuming this is the work of the man you’re looking for?’
‘We’ve got him on camera boarding a train to London early this morning.’
‘I gather.’
Don’t mention it, Jon thought. It was no problem letting you know. ‘Any sign of him now?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I thought you had the office under surveillance?’ Silence. Ouch, Jon thought. Someone fucked up. ‘You realise we’ve got the name of the ship the murdered Russians were on? It’s registered to Myko Enterprises.’
‘When did you get that?’
‘Just now. Our Chief Super is probably on the phone to your boss right now.’
‘What’s its name?’
‘The Lesya Ukrayinka.’
‘I’ll give you this, Detective. You’re a tenacious bastard, aren’t you?’
Jon felt his mouth open and shut. ‘You knew the ship’s name already, didn't you?’
‘It’s been tracked ever since it left Iraqi waters.’
Jon hunched forward. ‘One of the letters in the paper this morning mentions the Russians were talking about something hidden on the ship. You knew all along that cargo was on it?’
‘We’re in discussions with the Express. Those letters are now putting this entire operation in serious jeopardy.’
No wonder they weren’t returning Rick’s calls, Jon thought. ‘I spoke to the owner of the fishing trawler who found the crew.’
‘What trawler?’
‘The three dead Russians and the killing machine. They were picked up by a fishing trawler off the coast of Wales a fortnight ago. I spoke to the captain of the vessel. Oh, and one of the murder victims – Andriy Bal – texted a number in Russia. We haven’t had much time to look into it, but the number’s registered with Delta Telecom, whose coverage includes the St Petersburg area. That’s where Andriy—’
‘Hang on.’ Soutar’s speech became muffled and Jon strained to hear what was being said. ‘Detective?’ His voice was clear once again. ‘Where are you in Manchester?’
‘Grey Mare Lane – we work out of this station.’
‘Sit tight. We’ll be there in less than two hours.’ Jon glanced about. ‘You’re coming here?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Shall I let my boss know?’
‘I would. He’ll probably like to hear all about the Lesya Ukrayinka, too.’
‘You mean you’re going to—’
‘Yes, Detective, we're going to let you know what's going on. And that includes the real identity of Vladimir Yashin – the killing machine, as you like to call him.’
Jon had started to get up when his phone rang again. Sinking back in his seat, he lifted the receiver. ‘DI Spicer.’
‘Jon, it’s Richard Milton.’
‘Richard. How’s things? Are we heading up Chart Toppers, yet?’
‘With what I’m about to tell you? We are the uncontested number one. Not eating lunch, are you?’
‘No,’ Jon replied, realising he was starving. The only breakfast cereal at Rick’s was organic muesli: he’d settled for toast.
‘Good. You must have been tracking the rubber duck letters?’
‘Yup.’
‘So have I. Our three dead Russians. You realise they all showed signs of prolonged exposure to the sun alongside rapid weight loss?’
‘Richard – we’re already pretty certain it’s them.’
‘Who?’
‘The crewmen described in the letters. Other things have come to light which appear to confirm it.’
‘Bloody hell – I knew it!’
‘What did you find?’
‘In the autopsy, I bagged up their stomach and intestinal contents.’
‘I remember you saying. It could give a clue as to where they’d come from.’
‘Correct. Well, I had some time the other day, so I had a rummage around. Stomach contents weren’t much use and all three had evacuated their bowels as they died. But, I found a hard compressed ball in the lower intestine of all three.’
Jon took a breath in. ‘Why do I get the feeling this is going to be utterly gross?’
‘It’s meat, Jon. It often sits in the lower intestine for extended periods. I thought pork. But it’s not. The tests have just confirmed that it’s human.’
Detail of the Géricault painting flashed in Jon's head. The desperation on the faces of the survivors. The corpses sprawled around them on the raft. The barren sea stretching to the far horizon. ‘Oh my God,’ he whispered. ‘Which of the poor bastards did they eat?’
‘Derriford hospital, Plymouth.’
‘Admissions, please.’ Alice said, pacing back and forth across her kitchen.
The line beeped and an elderly sounding man with a West Country lilt spoke. ‘Admissions.’
‘Hello. My name’s Alice Spicer and I’m calling from Refugees Are People – the charity based up in Manchester. We help out with foreign nationals who have no friends or family.’
‘Yes – I’ve heard of you. Hello, Alice.’
‘Hi. I’m trying to trace the patient notes for an asylum-seeker we have up here. Currently, she’s on the mental health unit at Sale General. All we know about her is that she arrived in a taxi that had originally come from Plymouth.’
‘When did she arrive?’
‘On Friday the twenty-second. She was originally taken to the immigration screening unit in Liverpool. Because of her mental state, they referred h
er on to the Royal Liverpool hospital but, due to a lack of beds, she was shipped over here.’
‘In a taxi, you say?’
‘Apparently. I wondered why no ambulance.’
‘Not for that size journey – assuming she wasn’t hooked up to any medical equipment.’
‘No, she wasn’t.’
‘OK – I’m looking through referrals now. Far fewer names than admissions. How old is this woman?’
‘Early twenties, probably. Middle Eastern appearance.’
‘Let’s see . . . nothing for that Friday. Are you OK waiting while I check the days either side?’
‘No problem.’
‘Right you are.’
She listened to the man’s tuneless humming, the occasional pom-pom punctuating the drone. Keeping the phone cradled against her ear, she reached for a cup and turned the kettle on. The water had started to boil when he spoke again. ‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’
That can’t be right, Alice thought. ‘How about adolescents? Are they categorised differently?’
‘No. Everyone goes on to this central database.’
Alice gritted her teeth. The trail can’t go cold now. Please. ‘Well, are you Plymouth’s main hospital? Could she have come from somewhere else?’
‘There’s always the MDHU. They keep separate records to ours.’
‘MDHU?’
‘The Ministry of Defence Hospital Unit. We’re home to Europe’s largest naval base here. They closed its hospital back in the mid-nineties and opened the unit here. It has its own facilities, for things like intensive care, physiotherapy, infection control. Shall I put you through?’
‘Please.’
Twenty-Six
Shaking his head, Rick took a bite of his olive bagel then looked at it with a slightly queasy expression. ‘Horrific. You hear about that kind of stuff, sometimes. Wasn’t there that case where the plane crashed in the Andes?’
Jon nodded. ‘A rugby team from Uruguay. Quite a few survived, including some medical students. They ended up eating the dead passengers until the snow thawed enough for them to trek back out. I saw the film.’
‘According to the Lesya’s itinerary, if our lot went overboard off the Spanish coast, they drifted for nearly two weeks before that trawler found them.’
‘Plenty of time to run out of food and start getting really desperate,’ Jon replied.
Rick regarded his bagel again then placed it on the corner of his desk. ‘I can’t wait to hear what this is all really about. Who’s coming, then?’
Jon balled up his sandwich wrapper and pinged it off the inner edge of his bin. He heard it roll to a stop on the bottom. ‘He didn’t say. Obviously the smarmy one with the fringe, Soutar, but I’m not sure who else. You should have seen Buchanon’s face when I told him.’
Rick’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Must have been worth a photo. When do they get here?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Any minute.’
‘You’re a lucky bastard, mate. I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here when I got back.’
‘Just as well I rang you to bring me back a sandwich, then.’
Rick held out a palm. ‘Three quid, now you mention it.’
‘Three? For a ham and pickle sandwich? I keep telling you, that gourmet sandwich bar is a total rip-off. Gregg’s. That’s the place.’
Rick pointed at his bagel. ‘Do they offer this stuff in there? No.’
‘That’s not proper bread.’
‘So what is it?’
‘I don’t know. Mostly air, by the look of it. I bet you prefer Polo mints, too.’ His phone started giving off single rings. Internal call. ‘Jon speaking. OK – let them through, I’m coming down.’ He hung up. ‘They’re here! Give Buchanon a shout – I’ll see you in the main meeting room.’
He bounded down the stairs, hearing a southern accent in the corridor below. Rounding the final flight, he saw three people looking up at him. Soutar and two other men, both tanned. The taller, blond one was in his late thirties and was wearing a dark jacket, pale blue shirt and crumpled chinos. Jon’s eyes went to the second. Younger, Hispanic-looking, also wearing chinos, but with a white T-shirt beneath a green windbreaker.
‘Gentlemen,’ Jon announced, trotting down the remaining steps with his hand out. ‘Welcome to Manchester.’
Soutar’s BlackBerry went off and before taking the call, he turned to the other men. ‘This is him. DI Spicer.’
The blond-haired man’s eyes were pale blue. Grasping Jon’s hand, he smiled, the whiteness of his teeth singing out. ‘Greg Mueller. Detective, you’ve been making some impression with your colleagues down in the capital.’
His American accent was quite strong – elongated vowels preventing Jon from deciphering how much sarcasm was in the comment. There was a cultured air about him. If Soutar is Oxbridge, Jon thought, this guy is Ivy League. ‘Thanks.’ He turned to the other man and saw something in his eyes. The same type of glance he got from members of the opposition just before a rugby match kicked off. Calculating, adversarial. Jon held a hand out and the other man delayed a moment before raising his own.
‘Carl D’Souza.’
‘Detective Inspector,’ Soutar said, returning the device to its leather holder. ‘These gentlemen are with the CIA.’
CIA? Jon tried to keep his expression casual. ‘Are you just over?’
‘A few days ago,’ Mueller replied. ‘We’re staying at our embassy in London. Damn sight more comfortable than Iraq, where we’ve been these last few months.’
Jon thought of the Lesya. Soutar said the vessel had been tracked since it left Iraqi waters. Dying to ask if the cargo had been successfully intercepted, he gestured with his hand. ‘We’re in the main meeting room, next floor up.’
When he opened the door, Rick and Buchanon were already inside. Once introductions were over, everyone took a seat.
‘So,’ Buchanon announced, ‘I’ve had Detectives Spicer and Saville tying up local enquiries on this.’ He uncapped a pen and looked across at his officers.
Taking the cue, Jon slid photocopied sheets across to the three newcomers. ‘Since sending you down the information about the movements of the man calling himself Vladimir Yashin . . .’ He paused, catching the look that bounced between Soutar and CIA agents. Irritation that he still didn’t know the man’s real name made the back of his neck prickle. ‘I then received a call from a man who had lent his phone to the third victim, Andriy Bal.’
‘That was the call that led you to Mykosowski, right?’ Mueller interjected.
Jon gave a nod. ‘The man called me back to say a text message had also been sent on his phone. We’ve made initial enquiries.’ At the head of the table, he saw Buchanon narrow his eyes.
‘The number is registered with a Russian mobile network called Delta Telecom. It mainly serves the north-west region of Russia, including St Petersburg, where the victim claimed to be from.’
‘What did the message say?’ Soutar asked, attention going to his BlackBerry as it pinged again.
Jon referred to his notes. ‘“Lesya left me. Now in the UK. Do not reply, Andriy.” From that, we were able to place the murdered Russians on the Lesya Ukrayinka – a ship registered with Myko Enterprises.’ He paused to allow the visitors a chance to divulge what the cargo actually was. Still they volunteered nothing. Jon continued. ‘And from the description given in the letters found in these rubber ducks, and the Border Agency mug shots, we surmised our prime suspect is the crew member with the throat scars.’
‘Have you the number of that mobile?’ Soutar asked, reading something on his BlackBerry.
‘Yes. You want it?’
Soutar picked up a pen and nodded. Once it was written down, the MI5 officer started typing a message in on his key-board. ‘Carry on.’
Jon looked at him for a moment. You really are an arrogant prick. ‘We then contacted the owner of the fishing trawler who picked the Russians up. By his estimation, they could have been adrift for almost a fortnight.’<
br />
‘On what basis do you assume that?’ D’Souza asked.
‘It being a storm down in the Bay of Biscay that caused them to go overboard in the first place,’ Rick replied. ‘From there, ocean currents and prevailing winds would have carried them in a northerly direction – mostly outside of any shipping lanes – until reaching British coastal waters.’
Mueller smiled appreciatively, eyes twinkling. ‘Anything else you’ve got for us?’
‘That’s about it,’ Jon replied. ‘Except for a call from the pathologist who conducted the autopsies. Each of the dead Russians had a chewed-up ball of human flesh caught in the lower intestine.’
‘Are you serious?’ Buchanon asked.
‘I am, Sir.’ Jon turned to the other three men. ‘You don’t seem particularly surprised.’
Soutar shrugged. ‘We’ve read the final letters. The ones that will be in the Express tomorrow.’
Mueller rubbed at the tear duct of one eye, corner of his mouth rising as he did so. ‘Is it DCI Buchanon?’
Jon watched his senior officer incline his head.
‘You got a great pair of detectives, here.’
‘They’re not bad,’ Buchanon replied.
Jon wanted to laugh.
‘Cost us a very expensive piece of satellite equipment, though.’
Soutar’s voice was cold. ‘And perhaps our entire investigation.’
Buchanon glanced momentarily at Jon. ‘How so?’
Soutar placed his briefcase on the table and entered the combination for the lock. ‘How much do you know about the reconstruction process in Iraq?’
Jon remembered Alice’s outraged reaction to accounts of the National Museum being looted of its treasures while American marines guarded the nearby Oil Ministry with tanks. Electricity blackouts, failing sanitation, a lack of clean water. She had said the country’s infrastructure had been annihilated by the invasion.
‘It could be going better?’
‘That’s one way of putting it. As Agent Mueller will concur, colossal amounts of money have been earmarked – mainly for building projects. Colossal amounts of cash have also been vanishing.’
