by Jack Gatland
Placing the papers to the desk, Frost picked up his phone, dialling a number that he seemed to know by heart.
‘It’s me,’ he said when it answered. ‘We have another problem.’
Billy walked back to his desk, smiling at Frost’s compliment. Now, back at his workstation, he carried on with what he’d been doing before the two women had arrived. On his screen was the Wikipedia page for Brompton Cemetery. Scrolling down, he couldn’t help hearing Frost’s conversation.
‘You know who they’re going to speak to. You should shut her down before she can talk to them.’
Billy typed on his keyboard; Frost, finishing the call, looked over, only to see that Billy was still searching through websites.
‘You can online shop later,’ he joked. Billy smiled, looking over.
‘Still trying to work out what FOB C means,’ he said, ‘I can’t find anything connected to Declan, so I’m going through Kendis’ online articles, seeing if she ever wrote it in a piece.’
‘Diligent,’ Frost nodded as he rose from his chair. ‘Keep it up.’ With that he walked over to Sutcliffe’s office, knocking on the door and then closing it behind him as he entered. Billy, alone in the office, kept searching, pausing as a line on the screen caught his eye.
The Friends of Brompton Cemetery organise Open Days, regular tours, and other public attractions.
Looking back to his pad, he wrote the letters F O B C down one side, while filling in the blanks next to them.
F riends
O f
B rompton
C emetery
There was no way that this was a coincidence. Searching through the records, Billy saw that the Friends of Brompton Cemetery was a group that was independent of the cemetery itself, the official website stating that it preserved the grounds as a model of a historic cemetery with an active role in modern society by restoring and maintaining the cemetery’s buildings, monuments and landscape. Pulling up the membership lists, Billy could see that many of the members had plots on the cemetery; joining the organisation probably gave them opportunities to get in to tidy the plots up when the cemetery wasn’t open.
One name however stood out as he read through it; William Harrison had upper level access to the cemetery because of his family mausoleum being there since 1854. Billy leaned back as he saw this, glancing up to ensure that neither Frost nor Sutcliffe had seen this on his screen. Closing the browser, Billy considered this.
Nobody knew how someone had brought Kendis Taylor’s body into the cemetery once it was closed; but Will Harrison had a bloody key.
All Billy had to do now was work out how to continue this line of investigation, while his superiors chased another subject.
The last thing Will Harrison had expected to see when he emerged into the octagonal entranceway known as the Central Lobby was the smiling face of DS Anjli Kapoor. But there she stood, a grin plastered across her face.
‘Alright, Will?’ Anjli said, waving her warrant card. ‘You remember me, don’t you? DS Kapoor?’ She glanced over at one of the eight sides of the chamber where two BBC journalists were comparing notes on something that had happened earlier that day. Will didn’t know what it was; so many things happened each day in the corridors of power. What he knew though, and the one thing that he knew that DS Kapoor knew, was that the last thing he wanted was the press to gain interest in any of the meetings in the Central Lobby. Especially when they had cameras there.
‘Mister Baker is in late night sessions,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to come back tomorrow.’
‘Who said I was here to see Charles?’
‘Then why are you here?’ Will was still smiling as he spoke, but it strained the lines on his face, an act for anyone watching.
‘We’re hunting a killer,’ DS Kapoor whispered conspiratorially and a little too loudly for Will’s taste. ‘And apparently a terrorist.’
‘I thought DCI Sutcliffe had taken over that case?’ Will asked politely.
‘Oh he is,’ DS Kapoor grinned, ‘but he’s a little distracted, what with being a subversive plant, placed there by someone with an agenda. Allegedly.’
Will nodded as if interested, but secretly wishing this conversation had been in one of the quieter side corridors where he could have called security and had the bloody woman removed, preferably forcibly.
‘Well, you’ll need to take that up with his superior. Bradbury, I believe?’
‘Oh, I will,’ DS Kapoor pulled out a notepad. ‘While I’m hanging around, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?’
‘Very much,’ Will replied. ‘But I don’t really have a choice here, do I?’
‘Not really,’ DS Kapoor looked to the news crew that was now watching them, and gave a little wave. ‘How deep is Baker linked to Rattlestone Securities?’
‘Rattlestone?’ Will shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Come on, his wife was a signatory on the board.’
‘Which means nothing,’ Will replied. ‘What his wife did was nothing to do with Charles. He wasn’t a controlling husband. He kept her away from his business, and we both know why.’
He was implying the conspiracy that had come out a couple of months earlier during the Davies Murder, where it was revealed that as well as having a secret love child, Charles Baker had been blackmailed for over two decades by Pearce Associates, believing during this time that he was the murderer of Victoria Davies, but had blanked it out. DS Kapoor simply nodded at this.
‘Understandable,’ she said. ‘Do you have any connections?’
‘Am I the one under investigation here?’ Will asked, his face sweating a little. He wasn’t the fittest of men at the best of times, but the lobby was hot, and the questions were intrusive.
‘How long have you worked for Baker?’
‘I’ve worked with Charles since the 2010 Election,’ Will replied, emphasising the word with.
‘Ten years then,’ DS Kapoor smiled, but it felt more like a shark testing out their prey. ‘Must be hard to always be in the shadows.’
‘I like the shadows,’ Will replied. ‘Is there anything more?’
‘You get all sorts of advisors here, don’t you?’ DS Kapoor was looking around at the busts as she spoke now. ‘The Thomas Cromwells, the Alistair Campbells, the Dominic Cummings’, all becoming part of the narrative rather than controlling it.’ She looked back to Will. ‘Which one are you? The quiet unknown like Geoffrey Norris, or a soon to be nail in their boss’s coffin one like Cromwell was?’
‘The role of senior advisor is one that—‘
‘Advisors always fall on their swords,’ DS Kapoor interrupted. ‘Do you have a sword?’
‘Does a letter opener count?’ It was a weak attempt at a joke, and DS Kapoor ignored it.
‘So, are you likely to end your days here walking out of the office with a box of your things, or rather executed for high treason?’
The second part of this threw Will, but he didn’t have time to reply.
‘I know Baker sent a text, telling someone to flick the switch, to upload a terrorist dossier on Kendis Taylor onto DCI Monroe’s computer,’ DS Kapoor continued. ‘And the following day, there you both were, visiting us.’ She leaned in.
‘Did you pass the message on?’ she asked. ‘Did you divert it? Maybe tell someone to enter our Crime Unit and attempt to murder our Detective Chief Inspector? Did you order the death of Kendis Taylor?’
By now the news crew were stirring, aware that something was going on in the Lobby, and were setting up their cameras. Will was visibly sweating now, looking around as if hunting for allies.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he snapped. ‘You’ve got nothing on me. You’ll regret this.’ Caught in a corner, Will was feeling light-headed. He wanted to attack back, to shout, to strike, but he couldn’t. Not here.
‘Where were you the night that Donna Baker died?’ DS Kapoor’s tone changed, suddenly conversational. ‘Where was Laurie Hooper?’
; If Kapoor had expected this to be the killing blow, she was sorely mistaken. Will chuckled. He’d expected this one. He’d been told that Kapoor and her partner, DCI Bullman, had taken the crime report and that Laurie Hooper, Donna’s personal assistant, would be their next witness to be questioned.
But that would be difficult.
‘Is that your kill shot?’ he asked. DS Kapoor shrugged.
‘She around?’
‘No,’ Will replied calmly. ‘She’s gone. Left the moment I heard you were starting this witch-hunt.’ He gloated now. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. ‘You thought you were so clever. But you can’t speak to a Government employee on Government property without a warrant.’
‘Oh, I know,’ DS Kapoor smiled, and Will suddenly felt uncertain that he’d scored the goal he believed he had. ‘That’s why we ensured you’d be hearing about us gunning for you. We guessed you’d bundle Miss Hooper into a car and pop her out the back entrance of Portcullis House. Interesting thing, though. The moment they go through the gates, they’re not on Government property anymore.’
With horror, Will realised why DCI Bullman wasn’t there. DS Kapoor, seeing the realisation cross his face, nodded.
‘Now we’re on the same page,’ she said.
Will looked around, trying to find a way out of this. He couldn’t use his phone, and he couldn’t demand that security removed this bloody woman without cause.
DS Kapoor kept bloody smiling.
‘Shall we start again?’ she said, opening the notebook. ‘Where were you the night Donna died?’
23
Late Night Trading
Outside Fairley House, a small school in Lambeth that was dedicated to students with learning difficulties, Doctor Marcos climbed out of a taxi, finding herself on the junction of Pratt Walk and Lambeth Road, paying the driver in cash and looking across the street at the four storey brown brick and glass building on the corner. Although housing the Metropolitan Police Central Communications Command Centre, it was also the home of the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory, where the body of Kendis Taylor currently resided. It was a Brutalist style police complex with external concrete staircases, brick infill and a large concrete ventilation shaft that protruded out on the street corner, and Doctor Marcos, familiar with both the inside and the outside of the building was not a fan of it.
To the side though, on the other side of Pratt Walk was a sandwich bar and delicatessen called The Sandwich Man; usually closed at this time of night, there was often an unofficial agreement with the police that sometimes the deli would stay open until nine pm some nights. And tonight was one of those nights.
Entering the delicatessen, Doctor Marcos saw it was sparsely filled with police officers, taking a break with a cup of tea, or trying to jolt themselves awake with an espresso or two. At the end though, nodding to her was DC Davey, a foolscap folder in front of her on the table. Ordering a flat white coffee, Doctor Marcos walked over to Davey, sitting opposite her.
‘How is he?’ Davey asked. Marcos shrugged.
‘Sleeping,’ she replied. ‘Hopefully the pressure will ease over the next few hours and he’ll have fewer headaches.’
‘And you’re sure that he’s safe there?’
‘If they do anything while I’m not there, they know they’ll have me to deal with,’ Doctor Marcos smiled; a dark, vicious one that gave no humour. ‘I think he’ll be fine for the moment. What do you have?’
‘I did a second autopsy on Taylor,’ Davey pushed the folder over to Doctor Marcos who, before opening it gratefully accepted the flat white from a waitress. Sipping at the coffee, she finally opened the folder, staring down at the photos within.
‘Anything different from the official one?’ she asked. Davey shook her head.
‘DCI Raghesh did the autopsy, and he seems to have picked up everything,’ she replied. ‘All I did was probe a little more on certain areas.’
‘Like what?’ Doctor Marcos looked up from the photos.
‘Taylor was stabbed with a long, thin blade,’ Davey started. ‘Double sided, about two-and-a-half centimetres wide, half a centimetre in depth at its middle point, and made of Ruthenium. Or at least coated in it.’
‘More likely coated,’ Doctor Marcos muttered as she flicked through the photos, bringing out the original autopsy report. ‘Ruthenium is rare as rocking horse shit, and a blade made of it, although being pointless is a tad expensive. And that killed her? I mean, Ruthenium Oxide is toxic and volatile…’
‘All Ruthenium compounds are regarded as highly toxic and as carcinogenic, so possibly,’ DS Davey read from her notes. ’Apparently Russian-born scientist Karl Ernst Claus discovered the element in 1844 at Kazan State University and named Ruthenium in honour of Russia.’
She looked up. ‘Could this be a Russian murder? Another Salisbury?’
Doctor Marcos shook her head. ‘Ruthenium is mainly mined in North and South America, South Africa and Canada, but sure, let’s blame the Russians.’
DC Davey nodded, looking back to the notes. ‘Well, she suffocated because of the punctured lung, and that killed her,’ she said. ‘But she’d been tasered as well. Burn marks on the upper torso showed the device had six prongs, set in a three and three circular pattern. It was probably one of those stun torches you can buy on eBay, and she most likely fell the moment it hit, as those buggers packs a punch. I couldn’t see any signs of a heart attack, but it wouldn’t have helped.’
‘And the cut on the head?’
‘Now that’s an interesting one,’ Davey leaned forwards. ‘We know she was brought there, placed by the grave, but the cut had small fragments of some kind of ceramic in it. Like she broke a vase when she struck it with her skull.’
‘The graves nearby?’ Doctor Marcos rubbed at her eyes. ‘She fell, maybe hit something holding flowers?’
‘Possibly, but this feels like it was higher. If it was on the floor, we’d have found a different impact shape. And, we found contaminates in the wound, like stone dust from where it hit the floor.’
Doctor Marcos considered this for a moment.
‘Some mausoleums have shelves, and all of them have stone floors.’
DC Davey thought about this for a moment. ‘So she was killed in the cemetery, just not where she was found?’
Doctor Marcos nodded as she flicked through a series of images on her phone. ‘I think we’re narrowing this down,’ she replied. ‘And the moment we do, we’ll nail the bastards for this and Monroe’s attack.’ She stopped at an image.
’You got something?’ DC Davey asked. Doctor Marcos turned the phone to show her assistant.
‘Google search Ruthenium Blade and you get a few hits,’ she said. ‘Seventh one is this. A Montblanc Letter Opener in metal Ruthenium, plated with inlay in black soft calfskin leather.’ She carried on scrolling. ‘This letter opener has been crafted out of metal with a Ruthenium-coated finish.’
‘Montblanc is expensive,’ DC Davey replied. ‘There are easier and cheaper options to use when killing someone.’
‘Unless they picked it for a reason,’ Doctor Marcos rose from the table, taking the folders as she did so. ‘A two to three hundred pound letter opener isn’t something you buy if you’re worried about the rent. Get hold of one. See if it matches the entry wound, and whether the composition matches.’
She paused before leaving.
‘And find out if there’s a way to see who owns one of the bloody things.’
The Globe Town Boxing Club wasn’t usually open around ten pm on a weekday, but when all was said and done, the Globe Town Boxing Club wasn’t a normal club, neither.
The two men who climbed out of the black SUV didn’t know any different. To them, it was simply another location to enter and extract from. Their last extraction had gone badly; the taller of the two, an older, stockier man with grey temples and dark, thinning hair now had a vicious-looking scar, stitched together and covered with a dressing on his right temple, from
an unfortunate impact with an SLR camera, swung at speed by a terrorist earlier that day.
The other man, a younger yet bald man, with a slighter frame than his friend, checked that the pistol that he had under his bomber jacket was still hidden.
‘I don’t see why I can’t have my gun,’ the stockier man moaned.
‘Mate, you shot a guy in the head,’ the bald man replied. ‘They don’t just let you carry guns after that.’
‘They did in Afghanistan,’ the stockier man muttered sullenly as they entered the club.
There were two painters, currently priming one wall when the two men walked through the boxing club.
‘Anyone here?’ the stockier man shouted. ‘Wakey wakey!’
There was movement from the back of the club and Johnny Lucas emerged, wiping his hands with a towel.
‘We’re closed, lads,’ he said, relaxed and with an air of calm. Both men reached into their pockets and pulled out warrant cards. Waving them momentarily in Johnny’s direction, they placed them away.
‘We understand you might have a fugitive staying here,’ the bald man said.
‘And which fugitive is that?’ Johnny asked causally. ‘I have so many pass through.’
‘Alex Monroe and Rosanna Marcos.’
‘I thought that DCI Monroe was a victim?’ Johnny asked, slowly moving towards the two men. ‘Can I see your IDs again?’
‘Why?’ the stockier man asked.
‘Because you didn’t tell me your names,’ Johnny replied. ‘And coppers always give their names and ranks when meeting for the first time. I think it’s taught in copper school.’ He stopped only a couple of feet from the two men.
‘And that makes me think you didn’t go to copper school.’
The stockier man pulled out his card, showing it to Johnny before placing it away again. Johnny nodded, walking back to the door that he’d emerged from.
‘They’re excellent forgeries,’ he said. ‘But I’ve seen better. Hell, I’ve made better. I’m guessing you’re part of Rattlestone then?’
