by Angie Smith
See you at 9.00 a.m.
When he arrived at the footbridge Barnes was stood waiting.
“I came on the bus,” she said. “I lost the guys trailing me; they need to undertake a proper reconnaissance of that shopping centre, it’s so easy to lose them in there.”
“You look shattered; are you alright?”
“Very tired, but I think I’ve worked it out!”
“I’m listening.”
There was a sudden rustling in the hedgerow and she backed away as Woods froze, focusing on the undergrowth. The rummaging continued until a large fox appeared with a rabbit in its mouth. It sped off down the motorway embankment.
“Phew,” Barnes said, regaining her composure.
“Go on,” Woods encouraged.
“Fredrick Williams is Geoffrey Drummond - Rose Mathewson’s first child. She became pregnant at sixteen and her mother and father adopted the baby and raised him until his mother married Philip Mathewson who she’d met at university. Geoffrey, like his mother and stepfather, went to Cambridge where he studied Russian. . .”
“And no doubt was recruited to the SIS,” he interrupted.
“That’s how it looks. Williams is definitely Drummond; I found an old image on the internet and matched it to the photo Bedford gave me.”
“That makes a great deal of sense. If Williams worked for the SIS, stationed in Russia where he met Crean, and his whole family was wiped out by his employers, there’s no wonder he wants revenge. Together with Crean, he’s hatched a plan to murder eight people.”
“Well maybe you should go and talk to Gerrard?”
He furrowed his brow. “You know where he is?”
She grinned. “I’ve got a good idea. If you remember, Pauline said the kids were having a gap year travelling in Asia.”
He nodded.
“Well, I’ve analysed the data from the Skype calls and they definitely don’t originate from Asia. They’re coming from the Seychelles – the small island of Praslin.”
Woods’ senses were on high alert.
“As you’ll know, there are over one hundred islands in the Seychelles, not all inhabited, and I doubt the calls will have been made from the one they’re living on; but I think I might have narrowed it down to Gecko Island, which coincidentally has Russian sovereignty. It’s where the Russian billionaires hang out.”
“So you think the kids are staying with their father?”
“It’s a strong possibility. Maybe you should take a holiday.”
He rubbed his chin. “I wonder,” he said. “I think you’d need to come with me.”
“I can’t. I don’t have a false passport, and Dudley’s chums are all over me like a rash. If I leave the country they’d know the second I went through border control.”
Woods formed a wry smile. “I’ve got a passport you can use, and you wouldn’t generate the slightest hint of suspicion.”
She frowned.
“How old are you, Maria? Twenty-seven?” he ventured, cringing.
“I’m twenty-eight, if you must know,” she snapped.
“Laura and Holly are nineteen, nearly twenty. You could easily pass for either of them. No-one would raise an eyebrow at Pamela and me going on holiday with one of our daughters.”
Barnes smiled to herself and shook her head. “Something about protocols,” she said.
Chapter 16
Tuesday 5th June – Wednesday 6th June.
Barnes spent three hours with Woods up near the footbridge planning the trip to the Seychelles. Having checked the availability on the next flight out of Manchester, Woods booked three business class seats on Wednesday evening’s 9.05 p.m. Etihad Airways flight to Abu Dhabi, scheduled to land in the UAE on the 7th at 7.20 a.m. local time. They would then depart Abu Dhabi at 9.00 a.m. on an Air Seychelles flight to Mahe, scheduled to land in the Seychelles at 1.35 p.m. local time, finally departing Mahe at 3.00 p.m. on an Air Seychelles flight to Praslin, scheduled to land on the small island fifteen minutes later. A private transfer to the Coco De Mer Hotel would arrive on location around 4.00 p.m. Total journey time, including time zone differences: around nineteen hours. The flights were reserved in the names of Gregory Woods, his wife Pamela and daughter Laura, whose passport Barnes would be using.
Barnes insisted Woods brief her on Laura’s hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes; he also had to provide an in-depth account of the university degree she was currently undertaking. Woods argued this to be unnecessary, as he considered bearing a similar resemblance to Laura was the only essential requirement she needed. Nevertheless she’d persisted and been rewarded with the information.
Woods’ intention was that his twin daughters Holly and Laura would stay with their Aunt Maureen, Pamela’s older sister. It had been agreed that when he dropped them off at Maureen’s house, early tomorrow morning, Barnes would already be there, and would then leave with him, having swapped clothes with Laura, giving the impression to any surveillance officer that Woods had dropped Holly off at the house and was taking Laura away with him. Barnes was confident she could lose anyone following her; in fact her plan was more complicated than Woods’.
Later this afternoon she would see her doctor, saying she felt unwell, completely drained, lethargic and unable to concentrate, blaming the long, stressful working hours, and asking for some time off to recover. She assumed she would have no trouble persuading the doctor to sign a sick-note, because in the past seven years she hadn’t taken a single day’s sick leave; if necessary, she was prepared to exaggerate her symptoms should the doctor require further proof. Once she had the sick-note she would telephone Foster, claiming she was ill and advising him her doctor had insisted she convalesce and re-visit him in two weeks’ time. She intended posting the sick-note to Foster and returning to her flat where she would spend the evening compiling an anonymous detailed dossier.
She would ensure her fingerprints and DNA were not on the document. The dossier would outline the suspicion that the deaths of Rose and Philip Mathewson were a British Secret Service contract murder, undertaken to prevent the Russians increasing their hold over the European energy market and driving up gas prices. It would detail the link between Crean and Freddy Williams, who, it would claim, worked undercover in Russia for the British Secret Service. An unmarked copy of the photograph Bedford had provided would be attached as evidence that Crean and Williams knew one another. The dossier would state that Williams’ true identity was that of Geoffrey Drummond, Rose Mathewson’s first son, who’d been adopted and raised by her parents. The conclusion would be the supposition that together Crean and Williams had hatched a plan to murder eight people: the six already known about, plus two others, with the strong possibility that the person who’d murdered the Mathewson family was one of the remaining two. The suggestion that Jonathan Plant was the agent responsible for that contract killing would be the final paragraph. No mention would be made of the assumption that Crean had faked his own death and was probably in the Seychelles.
Barnes’ intention was to post the dossier to Foster when she covertly left her flat early tomorrow morning, prior to the rendezvous with Woods at his sister-in-law’s house.
In addition, tonight she needed to arrange for Felix to stay with her neighbour, prepare the flat so it appeared she was still in residence, put contingencies in place in case unexpected visitors entered while she was away, and reprogram the entry intercom system so it called her new unregistered mobile. Finally she’d destroy the hard drive used to produce the dossier. All this would take a considerable amount of time; the overriding factor being that it should be completed with precision.
Wednesday 6th June.
Foster was holding an early morning impromptu catch-up meeting in Woods’ office. McLean, Jacobs, West and Dudley were in attendance.
“I’m sorry to inform you that Maria won’t be in for a couple of weeks,” Foster reported. “She spoke to me yesterday evening after visiting the doctor and she’s been advised to rest.”
McLean nodded, “Aye, I knew she was doing too much; she’s been working night and day. You can’t maintain that level of commitment, otherwise you burn yourself out.”
“Did she update you on yesterday’s progress?” Dudley enquired.
Foster was irritated by the question. “She sounded absolutely dreadful. Do you understand that?” he snapped. “I thought it better if I rang her today, after she’s rested.”
“Aye, she told me she’d worked it all out,” McLean said squinting. “Did she not mention anything to you?”
Foster glanced at Dudley, whose appearance suggested he was keen to know the answer. He shook his head. “I knew she’d been to see Bedford on Monday morning. She’d told me about Crean’s involvement with the Russians, the development of shale gas extraction, and the deaths of the two scientists. . .”
“She asked me to look at the deaths to see if there was anything suspicious,” Dudley chipped in. “The investigation concluded there’d been a gas leak on the boat, and an explosion caused by an electrical spark.”
Foster turned up his nose; he’d reached the stage where believing anything said by Dudley proved difficult. “On Monday when Maria rang she said the pool car had broken down in Manchester; she’d come back on the train. The funny thing is, when recovery went to fetch it, there was nothing wrong with it.” He turned to Dudley. “You wouldn’t know anything about this would you?”
Dudley looked blank and shrugged his shoulders.
Foster’s glare indicated more annoyance; he was rapidly running out of patience with the detective. “I’ll check with her this afternoon,” he said, then turning to McLean, “I understand you’ve made some progress on the cloned vehicles. Would you care to update us?”
Dudley jumped in. “I’m sorry, I’ll have to go. There’s someone I need to see urgently.” Not bothering to wait for Foster’s acknowledgement, he simply walked straight out of the room.
Foster instantly turned to Jacobs. “Follow him Chris. I want to know where he keeps disappearing off to.”
“No problem,” Jacobs said, standing up and heading to the door. He stopped and checked through the vision panel before exiting out into the Incident Room.
“Sorry,” Foster said, turning back to McLean. “You were going to update me on the cloned vehicles.”
Dudley arrived at the Hepworth Gallery at 9.25 a.m., only to discover it was closed and not due to open until 10.00. He scanned the area outside the complex and spotted Faulkner-Brown sitting on a bench overlooking the river; he went across and joined him.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“In her flat, presumably resting,” Faulkner-Brown replied, looking deadpan. “Why?”
“She told McLean she’d worked it all out.”
Faulkner-Brown raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that.”
“What happened on Monday morning?”
“Twelve vehicles! Can you believe that? Twelve!”
“What?”
“It took twelve vehicles to follow her undetected to Manchester. She parked a mile away from Bedford’s office and was then followed on foot. She constantly checked for a tail, but somehow they managed to remain unseen.” Faulkner-Brown looked over the water. “Then what did they do? They’d worked as a team following her on foot, that’s why she didn’t spot them, but the guy who’d followed her last radioed his partner who came to pick him up and then simply parked right outside the office, waiting for her to come out. Talk about fundamentals; a child could have done better. Of course she spotted them, created a diversion and disappeared. The next trace was when her phone was reconnected in Wakefield.”
“Has Bedford been brought in for questioning?”
Faulkner-Brown sighed and shook his head. “He’s taken to having six bodyguards with him at all times; it’s not as though we can stroll up to him and have a quiet chat. He’ll know what we’ll be planning and he’ll have it covered. A bloodbath on the streets of Manchester is the last thing we need right now.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that she goes off sick after speaking to him, and divulging to McLean she’s finally worked it all out?”
“She’ll be bluffing, trying to throw us off the scent. Bedford doesn’t know everything. Now stop worrying, I’ve got her flat under surveillance and her phones monitored; she can’t move a muscle without me knowing about it.”
“Monitoring her phones didn’t do much good on Monday.”
Faulkner-Brown smiled cynically. “Listen, she’s a professional; I’m tempted to say it’s a pity you’re not. I can’t surreptitiously slip a tracker in her bag or attach it to her clothing; she’s too sharp. She knows what to look for and how to avoid it. That’s why she always uses a pool car. Are you expecting me to place trackers on all of them? If she switches her phone off there’s not a great deal I can do about that, but if she leaves the flat I’ve a team of five covert specialists who’ll follow her. They’re the best there is, she won’t know they’re around.”
“Teething problems was it, on Monday morning?” Dudley sneered.
“Maybe it was a wake-up-call. Now they all know what they’re dealing with, they’ll be more vigilant.”
Dudley stood. “Let’s hope so… For all our sakes.”
Woods arrived at his sister-in-law’s house just after ten; Holly and Laura were with him. He carried a rather large suitcase up to the front door and the trio went inside. Barnes was waiting in the living room. Woods’ daughters said hello and went upstairs with their aunt to unpack.
“Were you followed?” Barnes asked.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone.”
She sighed. “I told you they’re using multiple vehicles; they follow for a short period, drop back and another one picks up your tail. I’ll keep watching on the way back to your house.”
“Don’t you think this is a bit over the top?” Woods asked, then, realising his mistake, quickly added, “by the way, I like your hair; you’ve had it restyled.”
“It’s a wig!” Barnes snapped. “To match Laura’s style.”
“Oh, I see,” Woods replied awkwardly. “Do you need to go swap clothes with her?”
She nodded and headed upstairs.
Jacobs walked nonchalantly back into the Incident Room sipping a carton of coffee. He looked across and acknowledged Dudley who was sitting eating the cheese and onion pasties he’d bought from the bakery on the way back up from the Hepworth. Jacobs had deliberately waited ten minutes after following Dudley before coming into the building; he had then called in at the canteen, grabbed a coffee and come upstairs. He now ambled over to the office, knocked on the door and went inside.
“Where did he go?” Foster asked.
“The Hepworth.”
Foster scowled.
“He met a guy.”
“Can you describe him?”
Jacobs smiled. “Short, stout guy, wearing a garish suit, sitting on one of the seats overlooking the river; looked a bit like Coco the Clown,” he laughed. “Never mind, I got a photo,” he said, handing over his iPhone.
Foster looked at the picture. “How do you make this bigger?”
Jacobs reached across and enlarged the image.
“Faulkner-Brown,” Foster said, rubbing his chin.
“Who’s he?”
Foster didn’t answer; he gazed out of the window lost in thought. Finally he turned to Jacobs. “Ask McLean to join us; I need to explain a few things.”
Jacobs creased his brow. “Has this something to do with the guys who were following me in France?”
Foster nodded.
On the journey back to Woods’ house Barnes was sitting in the passenger seat. She’d stuck a cheap rear-view mirror in front of her on the windscreen and adjusted her door mirror so she could monitor following traffic. She’d bought the low-priced mirror earlier at a motorist discount centre. After ten miles she was confident they were not being followed.
“We need to destroy the phones and the sims we’ve been
using,” she said.
“Have they been compromised?”
“You booked the flights on yours. When they finally work out I’m not in the flat they’ll start digging into everything. Eventually they’ll uncover how you booked the flights, then they’ll look at the texts to and from the number. They’ll discover we’re working together and then look at the CCTV from the airport.”
“And all they’ll see is Pamela, Laura and I going on holiday,” Woods pointed out.
“That’s the plan, but we still need to stay in touch while we’re in the Seychelles, so I purchased these.” She took a couple of new phones out of her pocket and placed one in the centre console. “We’ll use the second set of sims; I’ve already got mine set up.”
“How will they know you’re not in the flat?”
“I’ve rigged it so it appears I am, and I’ve programed my intercom to ring this number,” she held up her mobile, “but sooner or later they’ll break in. There’s a limit to how long they’ll be fooled. They’ll discover I’m not there, and then they’ll start looking for me.”
Woods frowned.
“They might check on Holly and discover Laura’s with her,” Barnes said.
“Fingers crossed then.”
She shook her head slowly, and sighed purposely. “Crossing your fingers is about as much use as hoping for the best. Anyway, I’ve spoken to the girls and advised them on how to give the impression there’s only one of them staying with their aunt.”
“You told them not to be seen together and to stay inside as much as possible.”
“Amongst other things,” Barnes said, smiling to herself.
They reached Woods’ house and he drove up the drive and parked next to the back door. Barnes jumped out and went straight in, leaving him trailing behind. When he joined her in the kitchen she was smiling. “That’s what Laura would’ve done. She wouldn’t have waited to be shown in. You’ll have to get used to me acting in character, particularly at the airport when we’re being filmed on CCTV.”
