The Conspiracy Theorist

by Mark Raven

  I pressed his sorry little head against the wall, wanting to smash it out of its pointless existence. But I just held him there, my thumb in his sternal notch, his pulse racing away under the skin, and whispered in his ear. I told him this was the turning point everyone told him about. This was it. He would not get another chance. I could kill him tonight or let him go. He had a choice. If I let him go, he had to change. He knew how to change, didn’t he? People had told him that. People he knew. They were the people he should talk to. Not the guy who had run away. He had left him to die. That was his choice. I increased the pressure and felt him fade, his pulse flutter. This was the choice, I said, right now. This was the time of choice.

  I went on like that for some time. He trembled and wet himself. So I picked up my wallet and left him there. I had no hope he would change. Or that once the adrenalin stopped flowing, it would not mean anything more to him than yet another disaster in his short pitiful life. Just another lie to tell himself.

  As I said, it meant nothing to me at all. But, at least, I felt better.

  Mat Janovitz’s death had hit me hard. It was just so undeserved. Despite all my criticisms of him—he was in the wrong job, he was playing at it, you could not do this work at a distance, from a computer, it was in your face, dirty and real—it was not his fault he was killed. Besides, the same critique could be applied to me these days. I was the one who did not want be drawn in. I was the moth to the flame. What did Carstairs say? Janovitz was my collateral damage.

  The fact that someone, according to DS Singh, had gone into his room at Chichester hospital and administered a lethal dose of something or other meant they were worried about a positive ID. And this also meant they would be after me, too.

  So I had left my flat and the new mobile phone just in case they had a trace on that by now, and gone up to London. I thought about going to Littlemore’s place to retrieve the disk but then I thought it would be better to leave it with him for the time being. Hopefully the trail did not lead to him as well. I didn’t want another death on my conscience.

  There was no reason why they would think I would go to Meg’s. I just wanted to be with her. To turn up and see what happened. But I couldn’t do it. To see her meant I would have to explain the state I was in. So I found myself in New Cross, pretending to investigate something, but all the time looking for someone stupid enough to take on the mood that flowed through my veins like battery acid.

  I caught the overground to central London and checked into the same chain of budget hotels as the one I used in Chichester. It even had the same acrylic sunflower prints on the wall. The only difference was the London version was twice the price. Breakfast was the same however. But, in morning, I still had no appetite—for continental or full English.

  I walked along the Embankment, past the London Eye and crossed Westminster Bridge. The Houses of Parliament stood before me. I thought about my dream of a few days before, the truncated and strangely bandaged Big Ben, glad that I wasn’t a prophet, after all. So many people had dreamt of towers falling or of planes hitting skyscrapers just before 9/11. But then I suppose people do that all the time. It is only when an event actually occurs, that you get a sense of déjà vu.

  That’s just broken my dream, we say.

  The offices of Hawesworth and Breckenridge LLP were on Victoria Street. I walked past the entrance three or four times before realising they were located in a new office block just along from Microsoft’s HQ. The building was ex-government, half empty according to the board in reception, and there were the usual efficient and directive East European receptionists on the front desk. I rather expected a more old fashioned setting for Sir Simeon Marchant’s solicitors, but that just shows you should never trust your assumptions.

  I was surprised that Miles Breckenridge was prepared to see me at all. I really should start paying Anthony Carstairs a retainer, I thought, as I took the lift up to the third floor—stairs were not an option. It was the sort of place that your pass programmed the lift to let you off at one floor and one floor only. The sort of security that put up the costs and kept half the building untenanted. But also an indication of the sort of legal practice I was dealing with. No one wandering off the street to be dealt with by interns here.

  Miles Breckenridge was younger than what I had in my mind. Grey suit, white shirt, blue tie, black shoes—the very model of a corporate clone. I knew it would upset him but I had to check if he was personally dealing with Sir Simeon Marchant’s affairs. He smiled as if he had heard it all before.

  ‘You think I’m too young,’ he said.

  ‘You’re just not what I expected.’

  ‘And in your job you are used to being fobbed off with the help?’

  Again the sort of smile that suggested he was about as far from ‘the help’ as could be achieved. I suspected that Miles Breckenridge had never been the help, and had a lot of help not to be.

  ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just I expected someone more Sir Simeon’s vintage.’

  ‘Most people of his vintage have retired by now, or passed away.’

  He sounded regretful but it left nothing on him. There were no traces of regret. No lines at the corners of his eyes. It was like staring at an amiable mask. His eyes twinkled with amusement as he looked at me. I suddenly felt very shabby and worn in my black suit. I had managed to get most of the signs of last night’s tussle out of it, but I still felt dirty.

  ‘So, you work for Anthony Carstairs?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I work with him. I'm freelance. This case has nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Except his chambers were burgled last night I understand?’ he said, in the manner of one who had just won a trick at some card game I hadn’t heard of. ‘And that had something to do with this case?’

  There was no point in arguing.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Mrs Forbes-Marchant engaged you to retrieve payment for her father’s boat. A feat I understand you achieved with some aplomb. Remarkable, in fact.’

  ‘Indeed. It did distract me for a while.’

  ‘The speed at which they coughed up? Bellwethers wasn’t it?’

  ‘That and the whole business of the boat. It was never about the boat except in one small respect.’

  ‘Being?’

  ‘Being the fact that someone was spying on Sir Simeon Marchant.’

  ‘Spying?’

  ‘Under surveillance. You see, at first I thought it was Sunny Prajapati that was being bugged. Industrial espionage, perhaps even a matrimonial, but then I realised the fittings were too old for that. Even if a boat were bashed about like the Cassandra, the wood would not fade that quickly. That was the mistake Janovitz made at first, but I think he realised later.’

  ‘Janovitz?’

  ‘He was the PI employed by Prajapati to check up on his wife. He was attacked with me in Chichester. They went back and finished the job.’

  I watched Miles Breckenridge. This was the point he should have told me I was mad and that he was calling Jerzy, the Polish security guard. But he didn’t. His eyes stopped twinkling, though. It was a result of sorts.

  ‘Do you know what an iconoclast is, Mr Becket?’

  ‘Someone who smashes icons?’

  ‘Yes, a good example of your iconoclasm, that. You go round smashing other people’s preconceptions, their dogmas. Am I right? That is your modus operandi.’

  ‘I’ve never thought of it that way.’

  ‘Well, it’s a thought, as they say.’ He paused as if suddenly bored by the conversation. ‘So how does this involve Hawesworth and Breckenridge?’

  ‘Sir Simeon Marchant came to see you the day before he was killed. I wondered what that was about.’

  ‘You know I can’t divulge that sort of information, Mr Becket.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you what I think it was about...’

  ‘More iconoclasm!’ he laughed. ‘No, no, please go on.’

  ‘I think it was about two things: one, arra
ngements for his marriage to Maike Breytenbach, which involved things like her sister’s visa, and his will, and a new house and Jacob’s business; two, that someone was following him, or bugging him, and perhaps they had even killed poor Mr Prajapati thinking it was him out in the Looe Channel alone. He was probably wrong on that point—I think he read too much into things, he was a conspiracy theorist, after all—but the overall assumption was proved to be correct. Someone was after him. The question was who? Who would benefit from his death? Cui bono?’

  ‘Mr Becket, now it is you that sounds like the conspiracy theorist.’

  I ignored this.

  ‘He might have even told you, Mr Breckenridge, that he was going to engage a bloke called Becket to find out. He told other people...’

  His eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch. I went on.

  ‘And when I ask myself the cui bono question, I think of Sir Simeon’s daughter and the son he was afraid of.’

  ‘Somewhat preposterous, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  I shrugged as if I didn’t mind at all.

  ‘I know you can’t do anything about it. Not until his inquest declares the nature of his death...’

  ‘No, no,’ he interrupted. ‘What is preposterous is like a lot of iconoclasts or conspiracy theorists, Mr Becket, you just don’t check your facts...’

  I interrupted him, ‘Sooner or later, Mr Breckenridge, someone will come asking questions and client confidentiality will not come into it. Was Sir Simeon Marchant scared of someone? Who did he think was targeting him? Was it his own son?’

  I was shouting now—not very seemly—and he was yelling back as if addressing an aged relative or mental defective.

  ‘Mr Becket, check your facts! Sir Simeon Marchant cannot have been threatened by his son because he does not have a son!’

  And with that the conversation was over.

  When I had calmed down two coffees later, I went online at Starbucks and emailed Kat Persaud explaining I didn’t have a phone, but to send the file over when she had a chance. Moments later she replied.

  Dear Supersleuth, please find attached the research you requested. As I said the University of Londinium usually charges my services out at £960 per day + VAT. However as it is you and you bought me a pizza I have decided to waive said fee in lieu of the sterling assistance you did to my research. Besides I have enjoyed looking into the background of Mr X—never put on an email what you would not put on a postcard—and have decided, like Mr Snowden, that it is in the public interest.

  Hope GCHQ isn’t reading this email! If so you will probably find me in working in Starbucks the next time you decide to call me. That is if you ever get yourself a new ‘burner’—sorry too much watching of The Wire! Your ’umble savant, KP.

  I smiled and read the attachment, thinking how attractive Kat Persaud was and, regretfully, how young too. About the same age as Miles Breckenridge, in fact. But such different personalities. What would happen if they met and married or lived together or whatever people did these days? How would it change both of them?

  I was about to send her a reply when Littlemore waddled in. While he was ordering his customary soup-bowl of coffee, I borrowed his phone and punched in a number.

  ‘I was just thinking of you,’ I said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘You were thinking of yourself?’

  Meg laughed, ‘Of course.’

  ‘What did you do yesterday?’

  ‘Double shift, as it turned out. Washing-up left in the sink by Thomas A Becket. Messages to Becket from strange South African women. No phone calls from Becket.’

  ‘Sorry about that. Phone problems.’

  ‘Where are you, Thomas? Sounds like a laundrette.’

  ‘Starbucks, Victoria Street.’

  ‘London? Look, I'm off today. Come over, we need to talk.’

  ‘Meg, have you heard of a drug called Exelon?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I saw it in Sir Simeon Marchant’s study. It was prescribed for him.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ Meg said. ‘I thought it was for you.’

  Exelon is the trade name of drug called Rivastigmine, which is used in the early treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Meg told me that Exelon was one of three brands that slowed the deterioration of nerve cells. Current NHS guidance was to prescribe whatever was cheapest at the time. So there was no way of knowing how severe Sir Simeon’s condition was other than it was mild to moderate.

  ‘Still pretty bad, then?’ I asked.

  ‘Still pretty bad.’

  I told Meg I would ring later with my ETA.

  Littlemore sat down opposite me with a rich waft of BO. He put a long-lens camera on the table and handed over a compact disc. On this he had amusingly inscribed: ‘Chez Becket’.

  ‘There’s nothing else on here is there, Littlemore?’

  He shook his head vigorously, tears welling in his eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Can I make another call?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Sit over there, then. It’s private.’

  Littlemore picked up the camera and shuffled over to a stool by the window. There he slumped like a sulky child and gloomily looked out. I took a few deep breaths to reoxygenate myself and rang Rosenberg. He said he had a name for me. Mark Marchant had entered the UK on a flight from South Africa, using the passport of one ‘Lukas Merweville’. He spelled it out for me and, with a note of finality, rang off. For once there were no aircraft in the background.

  I called Dr Kat Persaud and thanked her for the research.

  ‘Was it difficult to find?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really. We have a whole team working on the Cold War here. Externally funded research. Like gold dust. Funders go all dewy eyed and sentimental about the bad old days when life was simple.’

  ‘Can you check out a couple of other names for me?’

  ‘Do I get another pizza?’

  Again that shiver of recognition—I was talking to Clara—before she added, ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Hawesworth and Breckenridge, that’s one...’

  ‘Sounds like two to me.’

  ‘It’s a legal firm. Victoria Street.’

  ‘Intriguing. And the second?’

  I spelled it out for her.

  ‘Lukas with a K,’ she repeated. ‘Same pack drill?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I email you?’

  ‘If you could, thanks.’

  ‘Okay I will try and squeeze it in around irritating things like students. I keep telling them to go away but they keep a-coming back...’

  This time Richie was only too pleased to see me. I had said just two words into Littlemore’s phone and he told me to come and see him at once. This time he headed me off outside New Scotland Yard, as if he didn’t want to contaminate the building with my presence. We passed St James’s Park Tube, the Home Office and crossed the road into the park. It was bright and Richie was wearing aviator specs, which seemed to accentuate how small his head was. In a certain light, he resembled an insect, and not a particularly bright one either.

  We sat on a bench overlooking the stream. Families took photographs of each other, on the bridge, with Buckingham Palace as their Disneyland backdrop. It was in this very area that, earlier in the year, a Cabinet minister had been photographed putting his meeting papers in a rubbish bin. Nowhere is private these days. Everyone has a camera to hand. But at least all the people around us looked like tourists, especially the toddlers. Despite all this, Richie seemed nervous, and who could blame him? Things had got out of control. Things I had warned him about. But he hadn’t listened. And now he was paying for it. I felt like gloating, but he got in first.

  ‘What bucket of shit have you stirred up now, Becket?’

  ‘I assume you know what happened in Canterbury, then?’

  ‘Heard? Yes it has gone right to the top and the slap has come all the way down
to yours truly. Satisfied?’

  I shrugged. I didn’t particularly care who got slapped in the Met.

  ‘Well...’

  ‘How did you find out, Becket?’

  ‘He was clumsy. A kid took his photo on the Euston Road before Sir Simeon was killed. I checked it out against flight arrivals at Gatwick. It would appear that sometimes he comes into the UK as Mark Marchant, sometimes as Lukas Merweville. Poor bloke must have an identity crisis.’

  ‘That was because we threatened to pull his passport.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Why don’t we do anything? Orders.’

  ‘He’s still operational?’

  ‘Must be. But not for us, he’s not.’

  ‘By ‘us’ you mean the Met?’

  ‘Or SOCA, as far as I know. What Box is up to, or what else is going on within the NCA, I will soon no doubt find out. Or not.’

  ‘It will be in the next room.’

  ‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘All I know is there’s an unholy row going on. The Commissioner made it clear that he could not use that ID on the UK mainland. But the Commissioner’s no longer the boss. The head of the NCA outranks him on such matters.’

  He took a packet of chewing gum from his pocket and folded a stick into his mouth.

  ‘That’s why I didn’t want you involved, Becket. It was bigger than both of us.’

  ‘And I would think it was you,’ I said. ‘Because of your past.’

  ‘That too. And the fact I didn’t really want to believe he was involved in the death of Sir Simeon.’

  ‘You were told to back off.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And we did. We couldn’t even do those little cunts from the Alconbury for aiding and abetting. That hurt. Even the Coroner’s Court was a pain in the arse’

  ‘You got the second PM, then?’

  ‘Yes, injuries consistent with the use of baseball bats,’ he said dryly. ‘Usually a strong indication of premeditation. Not much baseball played in North London.’

  He laughed sourly. I had a sense of humour deficit around Richie.

  ‘Haloperidol in his bloods?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep.’