Keith comes up with nine silver Range Rovers of different sizes. Steve looks over his shoulder at the CCTV.
‘Get them all checked out.’
Keith gets to work with almost immediate results.
‘Lauren’s earlier work has helped with that. Seven are registered to local businesses. One to someone in Greenfield and one to a London address.’
Steve thinks for a minute.
‘OK. I’ll get the team on it. Priority. It might be difficult the track the business owners with it being Sunday, if they’re registered to premises. But we need to find all of these vehicles, and their owners.’
Lauren picks up one of the tasks form the list.
‘I’ll get onto the London one. I can get someone in the Met to go and check on the owner.’
The Met. London Metropolitan Police. My temperature rises at the sound of the words. I’m back there, in my car, roof still down, driving through Camden. The wind in my hair. The sunshine beating down on my bare arms and the sound of my own laughter in between verses of Aerosmith’s Love in an Elevator. Staring into the windows of furniture shops at Moroccan-style throws and wondering if I should buy one. Feeling the glow of contentment as I head for home. Longing for feet up and the chink of ice over whiskey. Dim sums and hot and sour soup. Stopping at traffic lights and watching a woman with a tiny dog crossing the road. Her heels making an impression in the hot waxy surface of the zebra crossing.
Lauren taps me on the shoulder.
‘I’ve made the call. They’re going to run a check on the guy who the car in registered to. They’ll get back to me. You know London, don’t you?’
The sadness hits me. I know London. I know it very well.
‘Yes. Yes I do.’
‘So is King’s Cross central then?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Well that’s where he lives 5a Swinton Street. Glen Wright.’
Steve joins us. He and Keith have arranged for the other eight vehicles to be traced. I stare at Lauren in disbelief.
‘Swinton Street? King’s Cross? That’s really central. What would a car registered there be doing in Greenfield on a Saturday night?’
Something inside me shifts. It doesn’t seem right. Not right at all. But all we can do is, wait. Wait until all the vehicles have been narrowed down to one and then swoop. Steve explains that his backup team will make sure that all the vehicles are traced quickly, probably within half an hour to an hour for the local ones. He pulls me to one side.
‘I’ve had reports from the power plants. Nothing as yet. No sightings.’
His skin is pale and his eyes tired. It’s as if his worry is leaking out of him.
It’s the waiting that’s worst. No one knows what to do, how to just wait, so everyone picks up some aspect of the case and goes over it again. I pick up the notes and wonder how long it will be before we find Maisie. Before we discover who has taken her.
The first call comes in fifteen minutes. Keith opens up the communications portal and we hear the information over speakers.
‘Vehicle’s one and two clear. Owners traced and present with vehicle. Vehicles located and searched.’
Over the next twenty minutes there are five similar calls, leaving just a Range Rover that’s parked in a locked yard and the attending officers are waiting for the boss to arrive with the keys.
Then Lauren’s desk phone rings. Keith grabs the call to speakerphone and DI Patrick Knowles from London Metropolitan Police gives us the rundown. His voice suddenly fills the room.
‘OK. We’ve got a Glen Knight. Aged 25. Address as stated. Registered owner of silver Range Rover registration HT2 4SG. Previous convictions for public disorder and breach of the peace.’
Steve shouts out into the silent room.
‘Any further intelligence?’
Knowles clicks at his keyboard.
‘I’ve just sent an email with his mug shot and some intelligence stills from his file that, have been taken at rallies. He’s been a long-time attender of various events by a number of organisations. We have reason to believe that he’s part of a core gang that turns up at demonstrations and anywhere someone might want a brick through their window. As far as we can see, he’s been in full time education all his life and he’s financed by his parents.’
Keith flashes the email up on his screen, and in a few clicks of his mouse he’s cut and pasted a security picture from Marc Lewis’s company security CCTV of the two intruders who he mentioned in his interview. It’s him. Steve stares at the screen, his watery blue eyes wide and alert.
‘OK. I think that’s who we want. We’ve got one more vehicle query to receive, but I expect that’ll be negative. We’ll go with this one. Can you bring him in? You need to find the location of the car quickly. The evidence so far shows traces of ammonium nitrate.’
There’s a pause. I know Pat. I know he’s frowning hard and saying ‘fuck, fuck, fuck’ under his breath and wondering how he can shut off a part of Central London.
‘Right. Can you confirm that?’
Steve confirms.
‘It’s been signed off by our lab. We don’t know that it’s in an explosive state. There were traces found on material left at the scene when Maisie Lewis was abducted.’
Pat sighs heavily and it’s clearly audible in the room.
‘So we’re not just looking for a missing baby, as if that wasn’t enough, but there might be explosives as well?’
Steve nods to himself.
‘Affirmative.’
I speak now. I push the words out. It’s better he knows.
‘Pat. Hi.’
I can hear the shock in his voice as he realises it’s me.
‘Jan. Jan. That’s you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I’m working with Steve on this. I’d really like to see this guy you’re bringing in. I need to assess him. But it takes two hours minimum to get down there. Do you think one of the investigating officers could wear a headcam? Those new Bodycams? And that we could watch the interrogation of the suspect?’
We can hear his breath on the line. The team think that he’s considering my request, but I know he’s trying to work out how I got to Manchester, and how I’m working on this case. Finally he answers.
‘We'll try it. It’s new technology and I don't know if it'll work. We’ll try to live-stream it through. It’ll be recording in any case. How are you Jan?’
I bow my head. As good as can be expected. OK. Not too bad. What can I say? It’s been a long time since I last came face to face with Pat Knowles.
‘Fine. OK. Good. So we’re all set then? You’ll get a team to go and pick him up when?’
‘As soon as possible. Obviously we’ll have to secure the area, but until we know where that car is…’
‘Understood. I’ll wait for your call for us to tune in.’
My God. I can imagine what Pat has to do now, evacuating a busy London Street, lots of bystanders. They’ll have Glen Wright’s telephone number by now and they’ll have called him, telling him they’re a plumber or a joiner that the landlord has sent round, confirming that he’ll be in. Pat can convene a large team in less than fifteen minutes. Now we’ve told him about potential explosives, less. They’ll be scrambled right now, all making their way to Swinton Street from different locations. Like bees to honey. I can see the street map in my mind, and even spot the convergence point, at Kings Cross Bridge. That’s what I’d do. Traffic stopped, maybe a removal van broken down in the middle of the Kings Cross Road to obscure the view.
We’re all tense. Glen Wright’s picture looms large on the screen, and Keith is scanning the intelligence files. Ten minutes in he’s found it. A grainy picture of Glen at a banking demonstration. Dressed in black cargo pants and a white vest, a black fringed scarf partly covering his face, but slipped away, he’s just thrown a brick and the shot has caught it mid-air. His arm is extended and Keith has focused in on an intricate tattoo on his shoulder. It’s a sunrise with a flock of birds flying away
from it. Underneath is a line and, in Broadway font, the word Magellan.
The last vehicle call comes in now. The owner had unlocked the gate and the officers had him unlock the car. It was full of counterfeit cigarettes and he’d been arrested for customs offences.
We’ve been joined by some of the officers who’ve returned from the Lewis’s now. Steve briefs them and brings them right up to date with the case, and everyone waits around for the phone to ring, and Pat to tell us that the operation is live. I stare are Glen’s face on the huge screen in threefold. He’s a wiry, lithe young man with a wide grin. Above average looks, but not classically handsome. The question is, has he driven up to Manchester, kidnapped a one year old and driven back, all in three days? It’s possible, and anyone with a plan would be able to do it. And the ammonium nitrate? Is it in the car? Is it in his flat?
Pat Knowles would be thinking the same things. The mere mention of explosive chemicals in central London would have sent his already spot-on reactions into overdrive. It’s the Met’s worst nightmare. Then there’s reputation. Pat’s a proud man, good at his job. He wouldn’t want anything going wrong with the recovery of a child from an abductor. Not on his patch.
But one thing that Pat Knowles wouldn’t be wondering was whether Glen would be interested in paper dolls? Would he have driven to Manchester and cut out some dolls to post through the doors of his victims? Or even cut them out in his flat before he went? The criminal mind is a mystery, but this young man, who seemingly loves to disrupt and, by the joyful look on his face, to throw bricks through windows, doesn’t strike me as the paper doll type. I call out to Keith.
‘Those pictures of the suspect. Any more tattoos?’
It’s worth a shot. If he was so obsessed with paper dolls that he cut them out, and doodled them, then perhaps he would have inked them into his identity. Keith flashes up some images. A tribal band around his wrist. ‘Mum’ tattooed on the inside of his arm. Lauren sighs and I read her. She’s wondering how someone who could be involved in a plan to take a child could love his mother.
There are no doll tattoos. But by looking at the pictures in his intelligence file I’m seeing someone who likes to incite. In many of them he’s standing in the background with another man, the other face on Marc’s security camera watching, while other people commit various criminal acts. He’s ever smiling, ever laughing, his wide grin belied only by his cold eyes.
‘What’s he studying, Keith?’
He taps in another query.
‘Environmental science at City University. Been there four years. It’s his second degree. First one, Chemistry. But he didn’t finish it.’
Steve hasn’t spoken since I ended the call with Pat. His eyes are on the clock. It’s five past two. Maisie’s been missing for eighteen hours. Part of me wishes I could be in London, banging on Glen’s door, backed by two armed officers, calling for him to come outside. My plan would be to get him out then to go in. I know that Pat would do it differently, despite what I recommended. He’d push his way in and detain the suspect inside the property. To confused. Too much room for error. That was part of the reason Lando went on so long. And part of the reason that another part of me, the larger part, never wants to go back to London.
In my mind’s eye I can see the Pat’s team making their way up to the suspect’s residence. The streets will be clear of people and all access nearby sealed off. I catch my breath when I think of the back alleyways and stone walls, so many places for people to access a scenario. But Pat will have it sealed off. He won’t take any chances. He’ll have called in the explosives team and just about now they’ll be moving into position. I check my phone to synch the time with the clock on the wall.
A phone rings out over the speakers and a slightly shaky video image flashes onto the screen.
Chapter Nine.
Pat Knowles appears on the screen.
‘As you can see we’ve got an officer set up with a body cam. I’ve been patched into your comms so I can hear any comments you have. We’ve got a full explosives team on standby and a team ready to go to the vehicle. We know he’s in there. We’ve called the property and he’s waiting for a visit from his landlord.’
I check the background behind him. Swindon Street is all residential buildings with cars parked either side of the street. 5a is the third house from a busy road junction with a large hotel at the end of it. I can just see uniformed police officers outside the hotel doors, preventing anyone from leaving. Traffic cones everywhere. A gas van, for credibility. Nice work.
My gaze strays to Pat, now in profile and my heart jumps. I scan his familiar face and feel the emotions flood back.
The road cordoned off and two police vans at the junction blocking the view of any one in nearby buildings. Several officers standing at the end of the street and four of them turn off, and go towards the back of the property as I’m watching. Not much movement at all. He turns around and the body cam turns toward 5A Swindon Street. Three officers approach the property and one of them bangs on the door. Another signals for someone to cover the back alleyway at both ends. No one answers the door.
‘Glen Wright. Open the door, Mr Wright.’
Nothing. I glance around the SMIT suite. There are thirty officers glued to the footage. The room is completely silent. Keith pulls up Sky News on the oversized TV and although there’s no sound I can see the reporter pointing at the front of King’s Cross Railway station, and St Pancras, and crowds of people being herded up York Way. Away from the cordoned off area. They’ve shut the underground and the railway station.
‘Open the door, Mr Wright. This is a final warning.’
Thirty seconds tick away on the clock and then the body cam swings round to show Pat give the command. We see two officers ram the door open and a stream of men with body armour flash by and into the flat.
The camera follows Pat into the lounge where Glen Wright is pulling on a pair of jeans. Next to him is an overflowing ashtray and two glasses of what appears to be whiskey or brandy. A woman stands in the doorway in her underwear. Her hair is tousled and she’s crying loudly. One of the officers grabs a throw from the sofa and pulls it around her shoulders. Pat approaches Glen Wright. He’s suddenly standing nose to nose with him.
‘Glen Wright. Are you the owner of a silver Range Rover? Registration number HT2 4SG?’
Glen stops stock still and looks at the four officers flanking him.
‘Yes. It’s that what is this about?’
Pat sucks in his lips. When he does that he looks like he’s going to explode any second. But he doesn’t. He speaks quietly.
‘Where’s the vehicle, Glen?’
Glen’s grinning the wide grin we’ve seen so many times before in the intelligence photos. The cold grin, devoid of humour. My first impression is that he’s a narcissist. He’s arrogant and very aware of himself.
‘Round the back. There’s the key on the table. I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately.’ He nods at the girl and straightens to full height. ‘The car’s parked round the back, out of the way, on the grass verge in the alleyway.’
An officer wearing a stab jacket takes the keys and hurries away. Pat doesn’t move. He stares at Glen for a second.
‘What’s in the car, Glen?’
At that moment one of the officers comes into the lounge. Other officers are pulling apart the sofa, turning out drawers. In the background is the crashing of plates and pans as the kitchen is fully searched. Pat continues to stare at Glen, cool and calm, but speaks to the officer.
‘What is it, Pete?’
The officer shows him the cardboard box he’s holding. He shows it to the body cam. There are bags of powder, and some paperwork. Pat picks up the paperwork and takes what seems like an age to read it. Then he pulls on some white protective gloves, which I know he always keeps in his pocket just as I do, and picks up the bag. He shows the label to the bodycam lens. Ammonium nitrate.
‘Seems like it’s what we’ve been looking for,
boss. Some delivery notes for chemicals. Ammonium nitrate. Pure sodium. Bicarbonate of soda. There’s some more out the back.’
Glen looks around the room for an escape route. I see his pupils dilate and all the muscles in his sinewy body tense as he prepares to make a run for it. He makes a tiny move towards the doorway and one of the officers blocks his route.
Pat Knowles matches Glen’s grin. I’ve seen that before. It means trouble. If the body cam wasn’t running everything would be different. But as it is, Pat is calm and collected. He moves his lips close to Glen’s ear.
‘Glen Wright, I’m arresting you on suspicion of terrorism, you do not have to say anything but it may damage your defence if you do not mention anything that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Two of the officers struggle to cuff him. The grin has gone, replaced by confusion.
‘Terrorism? What the fuck?’
Pat sits down on the sofa. The body cam scans the room for the benefit of the record. It’s a smart flat, nicely decorated, a rack of CD’s and a large TV. Pat flicks on the TV and selects Sky News. The reporter is standing at the end of Pentonville Road, with a vantage point of both the station and the cordon at the bottom of King’s Cross Road. Pat turns up the volume.
‘…And a police spokesman says that the area may be cordoned off for some time to come. The official line is that there’s a large gas leak at the junction of King’s Cross Road and Swindon Street. The stations remain closed until further notice. Anyone travelling…’
He reduces the volume and looks at Glen.
‘So you see, we’ve got all day. So, two things Glen, before we take you in. I’m going to give you the opportunity to explain to us, in the comfort of your own home, on camera, where Maisie Lewis is and why you have the components to make a bomb in your flat.’
What I Left Behind (The gripping prequel to the DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series) Page 8
