by Phil Brett
Seeing us, Bale halted uttering his wise words and unnecessarily looked at the clock on the wall. He knew bloody well what the time was. Yeah, we were late. Grandly, he announced, ‘Ah, good, they’re here. So, comrades, let’s start the meeting. Shall we sit?’
He sounded like he was going to give a sermon. He probably was. Bishop bloody Bale.
Joseph looked across and smiled at Cole. I got barely a glance. Nonetheless, it appeared that was all I'd ever get these days. I seemed to be the proverbial bad smell under his nose. Then again, maybe he could smell the peppers from the food we'd just had. I did, though, get a welcoming look from Gita, or I guessed it was one because I couldn't see a great deal of her wrapped up face. Foxton didn’t bother with any reaction but closed his conversation.
We, Bale’s congregation, duly sat down. Not finding a pulpit, he made do with sitting on the edge of a desk. He turned on the 3D projection which was acting as our hymn board – sorry, incident board. Up came an assortment of images of Olivia, both alive and dead.
Noticeably, Kemal chose not to sit next to us but went over to sit by Asher Joseph.
And then, as if by magic: ‘Ash, could you give us an update on the forensics?’ commanded Bale.
Hmm, so it was straight down to business. No homily, no political introduction. Just straight onto the case. Either that showed the importance of this meeting, or Bale was eager to grab the good grub on offer outside. I certainly didn’t think he’d be interested in the art. For him, that started and finished with software programming.
Asher nodded and just got down to business. My, my, we were being efficient.
‘I’ll start with the body. Like I said before, I’m afraid we’ve found nothing new there. The bullet entered through the right parietal lobe and exited diagonally through the left eye. We can confirm that death was instantaneous and it was by an AA12 hand-gun. And I should add that it is definitely not the one used against Vic. That was destroyed.
‘I did return to the lab and do a few more tests. By using a Biopic scan, we can tell the state of the body before the trauma of the bullet entering and – to cut all the jargon – she was slightly tense, but that’s about all. So that’s no help. There were no signs of struggle or anything which would resemble unusual contact prior to her death.’
So far, it wasn’t that enlightening. But I had thought too soon. Joseph’s face changed and a smile appeared. He had some forensic goodies to share.
‘We have had slightly more luck with the time of death, which we can narrow down to a window of five minutes. Couple that with the time of the CCTV blank-out, and we can say that the killer walked up from behind, fired once and then, without hesitation, turned and left. Quick. Neat. Efficient. That confirms that the killer knew what they were doing.
But this is the important bit – in their smooth turn to get away, they turned on the front part of their right foot. We can tell that from how the glass has been moved. It’s from that displacement that we can estimate a few things: Firstly, the size of the shoe – a seven, half a size either way. Also, from the shape, I would guess that it was made by a woman’s shoe. That said, it is in acceptable limits of percentage possibility that the wearer was male but the shoe size, weight distribution and shape suggests a female. The weight put on the shoe would make them 60kg. Again, that suggests a woman, although it could possibly be a slight male.’
He paused and before anyone else, including Bale, could say anything, Roijin took over talking. Remarkably, her mood had changed. The strop had gone and the stroll had returned: ‘We’ve managed to obtain more video footage from vehicle sensors, shop CCTV, people’s phones etc., which we have managed to get thanks to the fabulous work from Jack and the Battersea comrades.’ She looked at Jack Foxton, who was a little bit surprised to be called to speak.
Clearly, he didn’t understand the game of relay detection which they were playing. ‘Er . . . yeah . . . we managed . . . er . . . to contact the people we know who were there, to ask again if they remembered anything. We got a big fat zero with that, but we did pick up some stray footage from a couple of buses who had their sensors on and who had passed at roughly the time we’re looking at. There was also a delivery at the mini-mart opposite, which had vid-steering on and shows some of the exit. Then there’s bit and pieces of other stuff as well. I dunno if they’re any use, but I passed them onto Glen and—’
Roijin butted in. He’d played his part. Now it was back to her. ‘There is nothing which could be said to give a clear picture. Mostly, it was just backs of heads or ears or arms but we’ve glued them all together and matched them with Asher’s data. If you remember from our last meeting, our first sweep brought us thirty possible images. I think it is fair to say that none of us were overly impressed. But with the forensics, and the more exact timing, we can eliminate most of them and come up with these.’
Up came eight computerised people. The computer agreed with Asher that our killer was probably female, because six of the possibles were women. They were of the height and weight presumed from the movement of the glass on the car park floor. I was tempted to ask what would be the case if the killer had just done a few dance moves, maybe a Paso doble: would that confuse things? What about if they were a male wearing female shoes? And weren't we rather gender stereotyping here? But I decided it was best not to. I could just imagine how Joseph and Kemal would react to that. They'd dance on my head.
An ethnically diverse cross section of society appeared. I smiled. I presumed that this was an ex-police computer programme we had inherited. Whilst it was politically correct in race, it wasn’t quite so in gender, with every one of the women looking as if they were about to go for a job interview at a bank: Full make up, business haircut and dressed in a skirt suit. The two men were both had short hair. One looked white, the other slightly darker in skin tone. That one had a beard. They were pretty stereotypical as well. Supposedly, the cop-computer calculated any male who would be slight in stature would be camp and pouting, so that’s how they appeared. It was as if they were straight from 1970s central casting.
‘Recognise anyone?’ Bale asked.
None of us did; all of us did. The problem with this was that if you looked hard enough you could see anyone in anything. For each picture, I could assign half a dozen people I knew. One did look like Youssef Ali, but the same figure could equally be the soap star that had just fled the country.
Roijin wasn’t put off by our blank looks. She was enjoying herself. She had another trick up her sleeve. ‘If I filter in the more substantive eyewitness statements from the route and time which we are now sure the killer took, including those who say that they saw people “walking with a purpose”, then we can refine the pictures and this happens.’
The clothes changed and it became less of a business line-up and more real-life. Some of the races disappeared and we were left with four whites – three women and one unidentifiable in gender – one slightly Mediterranean-looking male, one Chinese female, one Asian male and a woman of Caribbean heritage. They ranged from early twenties to late fifties. Most were tall. Hair colour ranged from blond to black. The faces became slightly less identikit but still, they could be thousands of people who looked like them.
‘We can work on this further and refine it because I am pretty sure that our killer is one of these eight people. We need to identify who these people are and look into them. And we are still hopeful of collecting more video footage,’ Roijin said, in a voice popping with positivity.
Joseph spoke again. ‘We found glass fragments from the car by the nearest stairwell and we matched them with Olivia’s car, but nothing much else. That isn’t that unusual on the first sweep, so we’ll keep looking.’
I was stopped from jumping to my feet and giving her a standing ovation when Roijin quickly added, ‘I should have said that I inputted the photo-fits to those taken at the extraction plant. There were a few points of correspondence but not, so far, enough to point to anyone specifically.’
>
Bale nodded wisely. Why, I had no idea. ‘Thanks. Have we anything else from the car park?’
He received the negative. ‘Okay, then. Vic and Pete, could you fill us in with your visit to the extraction plant?’
I let Cole do the honours because, as far as I could see, we didn’t have too much to say either. Judging by her conciseness, nor did she. She was keen to make it sound a joint venture but her two stooges, Kemal and Joseph, only had eyes for her. On the odd occasion that I was asked to grunt or sniff, they gave me a look like you might do to a wet dog taking up a seat on a train – you’re not happy about it being there, but you choose not say anything. On ending her report, she suggested that those workers at the plant to whom we had not had a chance to speak should be contacted as soon as possible.
‘Perhaps, Jack, you could arrange that?’ Bale suggested.
Jack didn’t look overjoyed about it. He wasn’t a natural at this detection game. ‘Hmm, okay,’ he muttered.
She pointed to an image in front of us. ‘Look at the timeline. She goes to the Thames Estuary Wind Farm. She says she's going there because it gives her the space to prep for the conference. Whilst there, something, and we don't know what, gets her to travel to the South Downs Fracking plant. There, she interviews everyone. Why? She's a busy woman, why does she feel the need to do that? I think the fact that she did so is telling. Something got her there, made it important that she spend time talking to people. Then she ups and goes to Battersea, to some small, unimportant sub-station. Again, why? With so much on her plate, why is she spending time on this?’
Cole stopped and, as if a random thought had just occurred to her, turned to Jack Foxton. ‘And Jack, did you find out who Olivia was meeting that morning and why?’
The boy Foxton could easily have shuffled his feet, put his arms behind his back and whistled, he looked so comically guilty. He stuttered a reply. ‘Er . . . I phoned the . . . er . . . but no one seemed to know anything . . . it . . . er . . . took me a while to find anyone who had heard of her but they didn’t know. I, erm, was told to ring back, but I kind of forgot.’
Cole glared. ‘I thought I asked you to visit there in person. This should have been the first thing which you did. Jesus! Jack!’
Naughty Jack.
‘How could you forget to ring them back?’ she demanded.
He didn’t have an answer. Maybe that the dog had eaten it. It was plain that Cole wanted to tear several strips off him but was using all her self-control not to. ‘O-kay,’ she said, elucidating every syllable, ‘tomorrow, your first job is to go there and not to leave until you find out who she met, why she met them, and how long she was there for. We need to know why she left the fracking plant and went to the Battersea power sub-station.’
In the old days, she would have delivered such a rebuke to a spotty kid in his shiny new police cadet uniform. He would have barked, ‘Yes, ma’am!’ Here, Jack stroked his beard and sullenly nodded.
Cole didn't look convinced that he actually would do as he was told. Nonetheless, she let it alone and turned her attention to Roijin. ‘Okay, no problem. Back to the fracking centre. Roj, have you had a chance to check with the drone to see if we can confirm that those who say that they were there at the time of the murder actually were there?’
With synthetic apologies, Roijin said she hadn’t. Her workload was considerable. The emphasis was so heavy on ‘workload’ that it almost dropped through the floor. Call me Philip Marlowe, but that workload might have something to do with having to snoop on one Youssef Ali, but she didn't elaborate. Stoically, she said that she hoped to do so as soon as possible.
Cole was near to exploding with frustration. Bale chipped in, changing from His Highness the Pope to a shining knight in armour, and saying that she was not to worry because he would do that.
‘Great. Okay, we also need to check every person’s story for the time of the murder. So, if they say they were at the supermarket – we check it.’
This time, Bale kindly volunteered Gita to coordinate. He really was the gift that just kept giving. But she didn’t protest. Wrapped in her coat, she seemed quite relaxed and chirpily agreed to his request.
Foxton stroked his well-kept beard. ‘So, we think that this fracking plant has something to do with Harrison’s murder?’
Why did men with beards always stroke them? Was it a security thing? Vanity? Wondering if there were any crumbs from lunch stuck in it? Perhaps it was to detract from him having just asked a bloody stupid question. After all, Olivia had spent two days incommunicado there. We had gone to the effort to visit and interview everyone, so yes kid, we did think there may be a link. Cole concentrated on not beating him to death.
‘Possibly comrade.’ With super human calm, Cole replied to his question. ‘Something there made her return, and lie about where she was. So, it’s worth looking into it.’
Joseph joined in. He hadn’t done so for quite a while and might have been feeling left out. ‘Is there any way that we could look into the backgrounds of everyone working there?’
Bale shook his head. ‘No chance. As you know, before the prime minister and his bastard cronies fled the country, they trashed government records. We’ve been trying to piece together what we can from what’s left, but it’s minimal.’
Not surprised by the answer, Joseph tried another one: ‘Were the workers at the fracking plant vetted by us?’
This time, it was Gita who spoke: ‘Nah, not really. Me, Emily Messager and Olivia took turns visiting them and holding meetings to judge the mood. Occasionally, we might check into someone’s background, but that was pretty rare. And very loosely. Like Glen said, there's not much to check. Usually, that was only if someone new was starting. Let’s face it, comrade, we aren’t going to stop someone working just because they disagree with us. That would go against freedom of speech.’
‘Hmm, shame,’ Joseph muttered.
My mouth opened before I knew it. ‘Yeah, this workers’ democracy is a real bummer.’
I hadn’t intended to be confrontational or, indeed, to speak at all. I had been feeling quite mellow and fuzzy after the food and drink. My intention had been to just sit and listen. But the atmosphere in here wasn’t conducive to such and the electricity flying about was about as calming as a cop’s taser. And being told upstairs that I was deceitful and unhinged didn’t help either. My diplomatic skills were vulnerable at the best of times.
Asher Joseph would have preferred if I had stayed like that and not spoken. ‘Leave it out, Kalder. We’re trying to be professional here. Keep the nasty comments to yourself. You know full well that I meant that our job would have been easier if we would access their personal backgrounds. I meant nothing else. And I would go further. It is a shame that the security files are gone, because if they had been salvaged, then perhaps Olivia would still be alive.’
Yeah, I knew I should have stayed quiet, but again I couldn’t. ‘Such are the problems of smashing the state. So much easier to have new owners and redecorate, rather than tear it all down.’
‘Oh, piss off!’ Joseph’s venom surprised at least some of us in the room. Foxton stopped caressing his beard and genuinely appeared startled. Likewise Gita, although sitting in her over-sized coat, she looked more hostile than taken aback. She was like an angry owl awakened from a nap. That was pleasing, because her wrath was clearly aimed at him rather than at me. I had one fan then.
Not Roijin, though. She was far from shocked at Kemal’s outburst, and instead saw another chance to partake in the game of “make Kalder the coconut shy”. Throwing as hard as she could, she said, ‘For your information, Pete, it was the security agencies themselves which erased their files. Unlike you, comrade, Ash and I were at the battle of the MI6 building, trying to stop them and their army pals from blowing up the place. They’d turned the place into a fortress. You talk a good talk, but we actually fought in it. We lost some good people there. When they blew it up, it took some close friends of mine.’
&n
bsp; Save me from pompous newly-joins and their redder-than-thou sermons. ‘Were you in the building wiping clean your HR files? Or had you decided to be outside with the revolution?’
Gita laid her hand on my arm, and whispered, ‘Pete.’
We all knew that the headquarters of MI6 was now just rubble. When the SAS and state security had detonated the explosives, it had destroyed much of the building. No longer did it stand like the bastard son of a car park and a Babylonian palace looming over the river. Only a third of the structure remained. Very soon, work would begin to knock the whole monstrosity down and replace it with housing. The people killed by the bobs had been mainly ours, the workers’ militia trapped inside had had little chance of surviving. This was the case of vermin, being the ones setting the trap. They had escaped through underground tunnels.
But I had wound up the clockwork cop and off she went. ‘We were actually in one of the boats on the Thames, which were trying to breach it from the river. You probably don't know but they had set up automated weapons which were able to sense and predict our every move. Whilst you were in your padded cell, we were risking our lives! Many good friends and comrades died that day!’
‘Now, hold on!’ barked Gita, who clearly was on my side. ‘We’ll have none of that crap about padded—’
‘COMRADES!’ yelled Bale, rising to his feet, trying to exert his authority – always a giggle to see. ‘Can we please have some decorum here? Let me remind you that we have been asked to investigate the brutal murder of a comrade and friend, and not to act like we’re in a playground. Pete, stop your petty jibes – we are all comrades here. What we were before the revolution does not matter.’
Did he really say decorum? Was this Pride and Prejudice?
I opened my mouth to speak, but his face, resembling a rabid stoat, virtually snarled at me. ‘No! Enough! And you, Roijin and Asher, do likewise! Pete was a party member before I was. He was building the movement when the organisation numbered only a few thousand, so treat him with some respect!’
