Face Value: A Wright & Tran Novel

by Ian Andrew

  Reynolds couldn’t blame him for his tone. If the tables were turned he’d be giving Gary Mason or Moya the benefit of the doubt. “No, I don’t think he tipped her. I can’t see how he would have known. So no. But I do need to talk to him because I have no idea where his sister is and he’s my only real option.”

  “And that’s why you’re here, to lift him?” Sexton said with quite a sad look on his face.

  “No. I’m here to ask you to help me. I don’t want this to be formal. She’s only a person of interest at the minute. We have no proof that she was involved and all I want to do is talk to her. To do that I’m going to need her brother’s help to find her. To do that, I thought we could work together?”

  Sexton seemed to brighten a little, “Oh right. I see. Well then yes, that’s dead on so it is. I’d be happy to. Do you want to go to him or get him to come here?”

  “Where’s he live?”

  “Out in Epsom, about an hour away.”

  “Family?” Reynolds asked trying to determine what would be easier and quicker for him and Moya.

  “Wife, two little kids.”

  “Do you want to ring him and make sure he’s home, then we’ll go to him?” Reynolds asked.

  “No problem,” Sexton said and pulled his mobile phone.

  “But no mention of why we want to talk. We can’t risk him ringing his sister.”

  “Understood.”

  Ten minutes later Tony and Moya were following Sexton to David Wright’s home.

  *

  As the acoustic shock from Kara’s pistol was still reverberating through the workshop and assaulting the ears of all those inside, Dan clamped the duct tape back over the open mouth of the shocked but otherwise unharmed Emilia before she could react. He put his hand completely over the woman’s mouth and nose for added sound-proofing and Eugene lifted her and the chair together. They moved quickly yet quietly to the front of the workshop and out the door being held open by Tien. Crossing the garden to the main house they left the chair and a rapidly blinking Emilia propped against the rear wall. Then they sprinted back to the workshop.

  Sammi and Chaz moved forward and standing where Kara had fired from, sprayed a bag of fake blood across the space. Then reaching into a small bag of shredded offal that the Harrop brothers had bought from the butchery counter in the all night Tesco’s in nearby Baldock, Chaz added substance to the scene. The effect was gruesome and wholly believable.

  As the ringing in her ears was diminishing Kara was joined by Tien, who was barefoot but dressed in an old grey overall.

  “Get me some light. Cut her fucking loose and get that shit out of here,” Kara yelled to no one. After a few seconds all the fluorescent lights in the workshop came on.

  Chaz held out a section of duct tape and Tien ripped at it noisily with a knife. Then she slumped onto the ground in the midst of the blood and bits. The crump of the falling body was convincing. Chaz dragged her messily through the gore and up the length of the workshop.

  Dan and Eugene returned with another dining room chair, dressed with shreds of duct tape hanging from it. They also brought Emilia’s shoes. Leaving one halfway along the smeared trail of blood, they put the other at the foot of the chair that was set quietly back in the space where Emilia had been.

  Sammi took her seat again, Chaz stood behind her. Dan and Eugene returned to outside the workshop and Tien gave a thumbs-up from the door before ducking back out of sight. Kara, with pistol in hand, pulled up the backdrop partition and opened the scene to Anatoly and Uzy, still strapped to their own chairs. Their already wide-eyed expressions widened more as they took in the details of the scene in front of them. The effect was heightened when Dan and Eugene came back in to the workshop and walked its length, wiping red hands on their T-shirts.

  Kara looked at both of the bound men in turn, “Who’s next?”

  She gazed into their eyes, watched their pupils. The small beads of perspiration building on each of their brows. Small twitches in their cheek muscles, the veins popping on their necks, jaws trying to flex under the tension of the duct tape. She turned to Dan and Eugene, “Take the big fella.”

  Both Uzy and Anatoly moaned through their gags and became as animated as their predicament allowed. The big man started trying to bounce his chair backwards. His bulk and momentum tipped him over. Eugene and Dan dragged him by the legs of the chair and heaved him up into the sitting position. Anatoly’s eyes darted sideways to the chair that sat beside him. The shreds of duct tape still attached to it and red pearls of blood dripping from the frame. Kara dropped the partition back in place, isolating Anatoly from Uzy. The fluorescent lights were switched off by Chaz. The floodlight spot was left as the only illumination.

  “Hello Anatoly,” Kara said.

  The large man blinked in the glare of the lamp.

  “Now you’re probably thinking that if you tell me what you’re female companion wasn’t able to, then Illy, or shall we call him Chekov?” Kara noticed the flicker of surprise in Anatoly’s eyes at the mention of Illy’s name and alias. “Either or, doesn’t matter. You probably think that he will have you killed,” she paused and let the silence sink in.

  “But here’s the thing Anatoly. You and your friend behind there, what’s his name?” She tapped the pistol’s muzzle against her temple as if thinking, “Oh yeah, Uzy, like the gun but different. Well, you and Uzy can always say it was Miss Emilia that told me and you killed her as punishment. Or you can say no one talked and she was killed in crossfire as you tried to escape heroically. Or, you can say whatever the fuck you want to say really. Illy might kill you, he might not. To be honest, who knows? But that is all in the future. All of that is just maybes. None of it is certain. What I can tell you with absolute certainty is this.”

  Kara walked a complete circle around the man, carefully picking her feet up in an exaggerated manner so as not to step in the bloody debris. Anatoly tried to follow her movements as best he could, like a frightened mouse trying to watch the movements of a predatory cat.

  Once back in front of him she continued in a deliberate, almost rhythmic manner, “When I tell my colleagues to remove that tape from your mouth; if the first words out of you; and I mean the very first words; if they are not where you took the Sterlings; then I will do to you; just what I did to Emilia.”

  She looked directly into his eyes, “Now you’re a big fucking lad aren’t you, so it might take two bullets to go through that fucking thick skull of yours, but the end result will be the same. I assure you. Then I shall get Uzy out here and he will tell me and both you and little Emilia will have died for nothing.”

  She waved Dan and Eugene into place, moved to the side and raised her pistol to Anatoly’s head, “Now concentrate and think really hard about your next sentence.” Kara indicated for Dan to remove the duct tape gag.

  Anatoly Maltsev had seen death up close in two war zones and had lost five friends whilst on active service. Two in a gun battle near Gudermes in the Chechen Republic during the later years of the insurgency and another to a suicide bomber in that Republic’s capital, Grozny. The last two comrades fell as a result of friendly fire outside Tskhinvali in Georgia. It was that incident that had taken his best friend since childhood. They had joined up together and Anatoly had cradled him as his life slipped away. The big man had discovered on that hot August day in a grimy field in South Ossetia how desperately he didn’t want to die. He knew it, craved it. Tasted it. Sensed his own weakness and fear and knew that he would do anything to live.

  He’d left the Army as soon as he could after that and it meant he’d avoided going to the Crimea and later the Ukraine, but more of his friends hadn’t been so lucky. Nine of his former comrades were lost in a single engagement in Donbass in 2014. Anatoly was devastated. Big as he was, strong, quick and lethal if necessary, he was sick of the senselessness. His role as Illy’s chief enforcer meant standing at the back, looking aggressive and in the years since he had come to Britain no one had ever challe
nged him. His ability to intimidate was paid for by sheer physical presence but, in truth, the fight had long gone from him. Uzy was more aggressive by far and even he paled in comparison to Emilia. She was the real terrifying force out of the three. Vicious and relentless when called on to administer violence. But it had done her no good in the end, he thought as he looked at her blood, dripping from the chair alongside. Her fate was just one more horror and he wanted none of it. He hadn’t survived this long to die protecting Illy and his sordid business dealings.

  Bound, gagged and helpless for all his size, his only option was to cooperate and pray to whatever God would listen to him, that they let him go, or gave him an opportunity to save himself. His mind was made up even before the female interrogator had asked him her question.

  He spoke as clearly as his fear and his heavy Russian accent would allow, “We took them to office. They are still there. I swear.”

  Kara managed not to smirk as she lowered the pistol and sat down in her original chair, “What office?”

  “In the Waltham Cross, small, near river. I show you.”

  “Well that would be nice, wouldn’t it? A little daytrip out. Is that what you’re thinking? Me and you on a jaunt into the countryside?

  Anatoly looked confused. He repeated himself, “I show you where they are.”

  “You can show me on a map Anatoly, but we’re not going to be going for a drive together.”

  As it happened, Kara was wrong.

  *

  David Wright was showered and dressed. He had decided that if his boss was coming out to talk to him about some unspecified issue and bringing some visiting Cambridge police with him, it might be a good idea not to be lying on his sofa wearing just boxers and a dressing gown.

  The Saturday mornings when he wasn’t on weekend duty cover were alternately swapped with Alice in taking the kids to the local pool for their swimming lessons. It allowed her one or two Saturday mornings a month to do what she wanted and one or two for him to do the same. Albeit their ideas of a relaxing morning were somewhat different. On her free-Saturdays Alice would normally go food shopping, or spend the morning cleaning the house or very, very occasionally meet up with some of her girlfriends for coffee. David invariably slept late, got up, had a casual and relaxed breakfast, fed scraps of bacon to the family’s pet Chihuahua, then settled down on the sofa with the little dog lying next to him, watched some recorded TV he hadn’t seen during the week and generally lazed about until almost midday. Then he’d have a quick shower, tidy away the breakfast debris and be sitting back in front of the TV when Alice and the kids returned.

  Now he was in the kitchen making coffee and trying not to be pissed off at the disturbance to his Saturday routine. He was also trying, and failing, not to worry about what the hell was going on. Sexton coming to see him was unusual enough. A unique occurrence in fact. Bringing extra police was simply adding to the dread. The only saving grace was that on a Saturday, heading out of London to Epsom, the journey wouldn’t take that long and so he should be put out of his misery sooner rather than later.

  It was approaching 11:30 when the doorbell rang and the furious, albeit ambitious, barking of the pint-sized Chihuahua greeted his guests. After the usual formalities and an offered and accepted round of coffees, they all sat at the dining room table.

  It took Tony Reynolds less than ten minutes to outline the case and highlight Kara’s potential as a witness. Reynolds didn’t mention that they had raided Kara’s home and office, nor did he mention she was actually a suspect. They needed David’s help to find his sister, not give him reasons to be obstructive.

  For his part David knew they were holding something back. Had it been as simple as he was being told they could have just asked him for Kara’s number when they phoned him earlier. He surmised they hadn’t told him until they got here so that he had no opportunity to warn her. That meant Kara was potentially in trouble. A lot of trouble. But Reynolds and Sexton had played it well. He had no choice now but to give them her number. He made to hand his mobile over.

  “No David, I’d prefer if you could ring her. Then you can let her know who I am and that I want a word. Is that okay?” Reynolds asked.

  “Certainly,” David said. He ignored the pounding he could feel in his chest. He tried to remember all those tricks Kara had struggled to teach him about staying calm, especially in the face of aggressive questioning but the hammering of his heart continued unabated. He called her number.

  *

  Tien had wiped her ‘bloody’ feet on the grass, stripped off the overalls and walked, dressed only in her underwear, past the bemused Emilia and in to the house. She used the Sterling’s en-suite and when clean, dressed in jeans and T-shirt. By the time she was finished, Toby was guarding Emilia, who had been brought into the conservatory and Jacob was babysitting the still tethered Anatoly and Uzy who remained in the workshop. The rest of the team had also washed and changed before gathering in the Sterling’s bright and spacious kitchen.

  Various tablets and laptops were open on the bench and imagery of the office that Anatoly had described was up on each of the devices. Sammi was shaking her head, “There’s no way we make that approach in daylight without being seen.”

  Eugene, Dan and Chaz were all nodding in agreement. Kara reckoned Toby and Jacob would have agreed too had they been there.

  Tien leant over to look at the images. The office was a former administration building for a plumbing company. It was housed in a small brick-built unit located on the light industrial estate next to the Lea River in Waltham Cross. Only a mile from the office of the modelling agency and so in some ways its location made sense. The problem was it sat right on the edge of the estate. There was a small parking area to the front of the office but it was approached by a main road that ran for a straight one hundred yards to left and right. The rear of the building backed onto a towpath that ran alongside the river.

  The office had a single door at the front and one large, half-height window next to it. The rear wall of the building wasn’t visible on the imagery but according to the layout told to them by Anatoly it had a single rear door that led into a small yard, less than ten feet deep. That yard, perhaps the best option for a clandestine approach, was impossible to get into during the day as it was surrounded by a corrugated fence that looked to be at least ten feet in height and would only be scalable from the towpath. That towpath was also a footpath and a cycleway which on any day might be busy but on a sunny July Saturday such as they had, it would be packed.

  “And we can’t leave it until dark as Illy will miss his nightshift before then and the alarm bells will sound,” Sammi continued.

  Tien sat up on the kitchen stool and continued to gaze at the Google Earth image of the plumbing office building.

  “Time to call in the cops?” asked Dan.

  “I’d love to but we don’t have any evidence other than the word of some folk we’ve,” Kara paused trying to find a word.

  “Slightly coerced with tenderness?” Eugene offered.

  They laughed but soon fell quiet, looking at the images, trying to figure how they would get in to the office.

  After a few minutes Tien broke the silence, “Sammi’s right,” she said. “We don’t approach that without being seen. So we get seen. Anatoly said there’s a main room to the front, a smaller office, kitchenette and bathroom to the rear. If we believe him that there’s only one or two guards on site then the answer is to drive straight up. If we do it right then they’ll see what they expect to see. Everybody does. So we give them something easy and they’ll do our work for us.”

  Kara’s phone began to ring. She indicated for them to continue planning as she walked outside to take the call.

  “Hi Sis, how’s you?”

  “I’m good, but in the middle of something, ‘sup?”

  “Nothing, but I’ve got a detective from Cambridgeshire with me who wants to talk to you.”

  Kara guessed she was about to talk to th
e man she had watched authorise the use of door rams this morning. She checked her watch and reckoned he hadn’t wasted much time in getting to David. Saying no to talking to him would send the wrong signal and she wanted to begin the process of dominating their interactions. Taking a breath she reminded herself that she knew nothing.

  “Fine by me, want to put him on speaker?”

  “Sure. There’s a couple of others here too. My boss DCI Matt Sexton, and a Detective Sergeant Little from Cambridgeshire.”

  “The more the merrier David.”

  There was a small delay as David selected speaker and set the phone down.

  “Hello Miss Wright.”

  “Hello Mr Wrong.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Never mind. Who are you and what do you want?”

  “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Tony Reynolds from the Tri-County Major Crimes Unit. Where are you Miss Wright?”

  “Okay, enough with the Miss. Call me Kara. And I’m currently in the middle of a job. Why do you want to know?”

  “I’d like to meet you so I can ask you some questions.”

  “Tony, you don’t mind if I call you Tony?” She didn’t pause for his answer, “Good, so Tony, what do you want to talk to me about?”

  “I’d rather keep that until we meet Miss Wr-, I mean Kara.”

  “Nice. So you can surprise me? Is that it?” Again she didn’t wait for his answer. “Listen, I’ll come see you if you want, not a problem, even if you do want to possibly ambush me, but, for now I really am quite busy so you’re going to have to wait.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.”

  “Really? Am I under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can insist all you like Tony, but I’ll come in and talk to you when I’m good and ready. Now, I’m sorry but I have a job to do, so you give your number to my brother and I’ll ring you as soon as I can, I promise.”

  “That’s not a smart move Kara,” Reynolds said calmly.