by Parker Bilal
As he was reaching for his phone he spotted Fast Eddie waving him over.
‘There he is, the elusive caped crusader. Where’ve you been?’
‘You missed me.’
‘Steady on. I wouldn’t go that far. I did have something for you, though.’ Fast Eddie was struggling into his Teletubby outfit. ‘Thermite.’
‘What about it?’
‘We think we may have traced where it came from.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘Actually, it wasn’t all that difficult. Thermite consists of a combination of ferric and aluminium oxides. The percentage varies, both from manufacturers and when it was made. There have been changes over time, you see.’
‘Cut to the chase, Eddie.’
‘Right, well, we know where it was made and when. A military ordnance manufacturer in Wales. We contacted them, asked them to check their supply lists. Turns out that particular combination is no longer used. The last batch was sent out to Afghanistan three years ago.’
‘So where did this come from?’
‘Well, that’s the thing.’ Fast Eddie glanced over his shoulder. ‘I started poking around. Thermite is not something you come across every day. I had to go back eight years to find a record of it coming up. That was in a raid on a Kosovo Albanian gang in Brentwood. God knows how they got hold of it, or what they wanted to do with it.’ Eddie paused. ‘The point being that it was recorded as being destroyed.’
‘Wait a second. You’re telling me that this stuff was on our records as being destroyed?’
‘Weird, right?’ Eddie held up his face mask. ‘All of this is above and beyond the call of duty. I hope you appreciate that.’
‘Thanks, Eddie.’
‘Just don’t mention it.’ Eddie pulled up his mask and walked over to the body.
Drake waved Milo over.
‘Seen Doctor Crane?’
‘I thought she was off the case, boss? Actually, I thought you were off the case. I wasn’t even sure it was right to call you.’ Milo fidgeted, as he always did when he was away from his desk. The real world made him uncomfortable in a way that cyberspace never did.
‘You did the right thing,’ Drake sniffed. ‘How’s it going with Pryce?’
‘I’m persona non grata.’ Milo studied the mud under his shoes. ‘I don’t mean officially, of course, they just ignore me. He doesn’t seem to trust me for some reason, so I’m out in the cold. Do you want me to call Doctor Crane?’
‘No, don’t worry, I’ll do it. Did you manage to get anywhere with the text messages?’
Milo shook his head. ‘I had to drop everything to get here.’
‘Where is Pryce, by the way? Why isn’t he here?’
‘Some high-level anti-terror meeting, as I understand it.’ Milo was not happy. ‘It’s unfair. I mean, we do all the hard work, Kelly gets stabbed in the line of duty and now Pryce and his team sweep in to take over? It’s not right.’
‘Did nobody ever tell you that life is never fair?’
Milo nodded over Drake’s shoulder. ‘I think he’s arrived.’
Drake spotted a pair of SUVs rolling up. ‘Okay, so, I’m guessing that he’s going to want me off the crime scene double quick, which means he’s going to give me some bullshit task to take me elsewhere.’
‘Sounds about right,’ nodded Milo glumly. ‘Oh, by the way, that name you gave me, the security guy?’
‘Flinders?’
‘Do you have any idea how many middle names people in this country have? What is that all about?’
‘Insecurity. People want to cover all the bases, that and a fanatical devotion to football.’
‘Okay, M. Flinders. No first name, thank you very much.’ Milo was flipping through his notebook. Out of the corner of his eye, Drake saw that Pryce had noticed him. He was already leaning over to the WPC next to him, who then looked directly at Drake.
‘Better get a move on, Milo.’
‘Tattoo of a panther on back of right hand corresponds to insignia of the Light Brigade. Nobody by the name of Flinders was registered as serving with them in Iraq. To check middle names I had to request birth certificates.’ Milo glanced up to see if Drake understood what a mammoth task this was.
‘Superlative work so far, but you really need to speed it up.’
Out of the corner of his eye Drake could see the WPC marching with determined strides towards them.
‘I remembered Kelly joking that people get tattoos all the time.’ Milo smiled. ‘So, I was thinking this could be pointless.’
‘But it wasn’t?’
‘DS Drake?’
Drake ignored her. ‘What was the name, Milo?’
‘I found one birth certificate where the name Flinders appeared as maternal surname. A Brian Patrick Hicks.’
‘Well done, Milo.’
‘Detective Seargant Drake, I have to ask you to leave the crime scene immediately.’
Close up, the WPC was younger than she had appeared. He recognized the look of determination on her face. The conviction of the inexperienced. Milo glanced at her before finishing what he had to say.
‘There’s only one problem.’
‘He’s dead,’ said Drake.
Milo’s face fell. ‘You knew? How could you know that?’ It was hard to tell if Milo was impressed, or annoyed. The WPC stepped closer.
‘I have to insist. DCI Pryce wants me to let you know that this is an MIU crime scene and you have no right to be here.’
Drake held his hands up in surrender. ‘It’s fine, I’m leaving. Look, here I go.’ He turned to Milo as he left. ‘I take it you checked all records for Hicks.’
Milo confirmed. ‘I checked everything, including international databases. He was reported dead in Syria five years ago. Nothing anywhere since then.’
‘Well done, Milo. Leave this one with me, okay?’
‘If you say so, boss.’
Back in the car, Drake sat and watched Pryce. He seemed to be in a hurry. He was talking on the phone and issuing orders as he walked about. Busy man. Cal felt annoyed with himself for having lost charge of the case. It was a reminder that the problems between him and Pryce were not about to be resolved any time soon.
Instead he tried to turn his mind to the scene before him. This was the closest he felt they had come to the guide Waleed had mentioned. He had to be the person behind this. There was a hint of panic about this murder. The speed for one thing. No time for planning. So he had improvised. Cutting Hakim’s hands off at the wrist was meant to tie it in to the sharia theme established at Magnolia Quays. This should have been proof that Hakim was connected to the previous murders. Somehow he suspected that wouldn’t be enough to convince Pryce to give Cal another chance. Probably the opposite. Now he would want to solve the whole thing himself.
Drake reached for his phone. Through the windscreen, he watched Archie, standing off to one side, begin to go through his pockets.
‘Can you speak?’
‘Ah, our elusive scapegoat.’ Archie rocked back on his heels.
‘I’m guessing Pryce asked you not to speak to me.’
‘That would be correct.’
‘I need to know about the insects.’
‘Yes, curious feature that.’
‘Hakim went missing yesterday. Am I right in thinking that that leaves barely enough gestation time for those worms?’
‘Ah, so not everything I’ve said over the years has fallen on deaf ears.’
Despite the loss of Hakim, Drake felt elated. He was sure that this was the break they had needed. The killer was beginning to reveal himself. Through the window Drake could see Pryce walking towards the coroner.
‘You have company. Perhaps I could drop by later?’
‘Late being the operative word,’ Archie said before snapping off his phone and turning to address Pryce.
CHAPTER 42
When she got the call she had been waiting for, Crane had no idea what to expect. The caller tersely relayed a time
and place before hanging up. The degree of cloak and dagger tactics struck her as being mildly ridiculous. On the other hand, what choice did she have? She wanted answers and for that she was willing to play along. Still, she would happily have owned up to feeling a little jumpy when she arrived at the deserted car park in Greenwich. It was empty but for a dark saloon that she was sure she had seen earlier in the day. Nerves, or had the driver been tailing her for a time before agreeing where to meet? You never knew with these military types. And this was one of Mason’s contacts, which meant you could expect anything.
The figure who stepped out of the Audi had all the hallmarks of a military man. Tall, straight backed, head shaven so that his scalp glinted in the low sunlight. He wore a pea coat that he buttoned as he came towards her.
‘Doctor Crane? Doctor Rayhana Crane?’
‘Who wants to know?’
The smile suggested he was bemused by the fact that she answered his question with one of her own. He gave a roll of his shoulders, as if the coat wasn’t sitting right and nodded to his left.
‘Let’s walk, shall we?’
He led off, walking up the incline without hesitation. Crane followed. He moved at a good pace and didn’t speak or even look up until they had reached the top of the hill. There he paused to draw breath as he surveyed the view of the city, emitting a little grunt of satisfaction.
‘Always loved the view from up here. Been coming here since I was a boy.’
The view from Greenwich Hill was, she had to concede, remarkable, but she wasn’t in the mood for sightseeing or small talk.
‘I don’t want to appear rude, but I didn’t come here for the view.’
‘Of course not.’ There was no trace of warmth in his smile. ‘Stewart said you weren’t one to beat about the bush.’ He glanced back the way they had come, as if the mention of the man made him suddenly question his surroundings. ‘The list you sent me was an interesting one.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way.’
‘I am not really sure how this connects to the investigation.’
‘That’s not clear yet, but it’s possible there is a link between the murders and a kidnapping that happened ten years ago.’
‘You think the killer is motivated by some desire for revenge?’
‘I’m trying to get my head around the possibilities.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then I go to the police and present my case. Whether they act on it or not is another matter entirely.’
‘I see.’ The man seemed to weigh this up and come down on her side. ‘Okay, well, from the list you sent me there is one that stands out: Brian Hicks.’
‘Is he one of yours?’
‘One of ours?’
‘I mean, with Hawkestone?’
The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘We no longer operate under that name.’
‘So I heard. Can I ask, why the change of name?’
‘Moving with the times.’ He gave another shrug, this time non-committal. ‘It’s a marketing thing.’
‘Right, so not trying to keep ahead of the scandal?’
‘What scandal would that be?’ He nodded towards a coffee van parked further along. ‘Do you mind?’
She followed along and waited for him to order a double espresso. She watched him pouring sugar in and stirring. The smell of the coffee cleared her head. She wasn’t tempted to ask for one herself. Her throat was dry and there was an air of death about this man, in the blank sheen of his eyes. She needed to keep her focus.
‘It’s inevitable, I suppose. Every now and then you get a bad apple.’ He sipped his coffee, staring off at the horizon. ‘Maybe that’s unfair. I don’t think people set out to go bad. Whatever our opinion of the war, a lot of brave men and women found the courage to join the fight.’
‘We can agree on that,’ said Ray, sticking her hands into the pockets of her jacket. ‘Even though I’m sure we wouldn’t see eye to eye on the war itself.’
The man gave a little snort. ‘Sure, I hear you. The point I’m trying to make is that there are things in here,’ he tapped the side of his head, ‘that defy all logic.’
‘I’ve seen his medical record.’
‘Course you have.’ He glanced away briefly. ‘You treated him for PTSD.’
‘We were researching the way in which servicemen and women went off script. That was basically the remit.’
‘Interesting.’ He sipped his coffee like a connoisseur. ‘What did you find?’
‘That some people are wholly unsuited to the task of having an automatic weapon put in their hands and being sent off to a foreign country with a licence to kill.’
That brought the smile back. ‘And that’s what you concluded on Hicks?’
‘He overstepped the line. He beat and tortured a number of civilians. They drummed him out for that. So he went into the private sector, where they are not so picky. He joined Hawkestone.’
‘So you say.’
‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
He rocked back on his heels and tilted his head back to look at the sky. ‘With some people the problems always come back around.’
‘And so they did in his case. What went wrong?’
‘Bad business, for everyone.’ Hawkestone Man, as she now thought of him, fell silent.
‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’
There was a long pause. He finished his coffee, crushed the cup and dropped it into a bin.
‘June fifteenth, 2008. We were hired by Howard Thwaite. The money was no guarantee of safe release. These guys, the kidnappers, were unpredictable. Angry and resentful towards Westerners. They saw us all as part of the occupying forces who had taken their country from them. We were hired to go in and get the hostages out. Hicks and his unit located them just south of Tikrit. A typical local house built around a central yard. The kidnappers weren’t worried about being caught. They had the authorities in their pocket. Military. Police. Local government. They were all family and friends. Tribal allegiance is big in that part of the world. So most were sympathetic or expected to get a good kickback.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘The third hostage was a young American woman named Janet Avery. Twenty-seven years old. A volunteer with one of the aid organizations. They found her stripped, tied to a bed and covered in encrusted blood, semen and her own waste and bodily fluids. They’d been at her for ten days. It’s understandable that the men were shocked.’
‘I thought they were trained to be professional.’
‘You know how it goes. The best training in the world doesn’t prepare you for something like that.’
‘Sounds like you think they were justified.’
‘Two of our men, Hicks and Reese, lost it. They took one look at Avery and turned on her captors, two young men and their father, a former guard from one of Saddam’s prisons. They mutilated them all, made the father watch as they tortured his sons. I have never seen so much blood. Sliced their faces, cut off their hands, and let them bleed. They cut off their heads.’
‘How did Janet Avery die?’
‘A stray bullet. One of ours.’ Hawkestone Man took a deep breath. ‘We ask men to do terrible things, and then we are surprised by what they are capable of. I’m not passing judgement.’
‘They were trained. Disciplined.’
‘No amount of training can prepare you for some things.’
‘You were there at the time.’
Hawkestone Man nodded. ‘We were standing by in case they needed support. We came in on helicopters to clean up the mess. It was horrible.’
‘When you debriefed them afterwards, what did they say?’
‘Reese blamed Hicks. Said he was the ringleader. Said he just went along. Reese was more scared of Hicks than anything else.’
‘What happened to Reese?’
‘He killed himself a year after he came home.’
‘How long have you known all of this?’
‘I knew the details of the raid and what had gone wr
ong.’
It was starting to rain again, soft light drizzle that pushed them in under the trees where they could hear it hissing through the leaves.
‘Hawkestone was never prosecuted,’ said Crane. ‘It was all hushed up. The government knew public opinion was against military involvement, so they were keen on farming the work out to private contractors. Best to avoid a scandal and military contractors are private citizens and so not liable under military law.’
‘It wasn’t the proudest moment of my career,’ he said, turning to gaze out over the landscape. ‘But when you sign on to a firm like this you can’t pick and choose. You’re all in. The killing spree was kept quiet. They demolished the house in a controlled explosion to cover up the evidence. The whole thing vanished, as if it had never happened.’
‘Hicks was guilt-stricken. I think he wanted to be punished.’
‘You were treating him.’
Crane nodded. ‘He was part of a group I was charged with debriefing.’
‘As far as I can tell he kind of went to pieces,’ said Hawkestone Man. ‘After your call I made some enquiries. He was drinking heavily after he came back, and developed an addiction to painkillers.’
‘He murdered those people.’
‘He was being paid to fight for a country that didn’t want him there, against fanatics who made up for their lack of training with religious devotion. Soldiers are trained to obey orders without question. Not to start asking existentialist questions. That’s where the problems start.’
‘We’re too sensitive?’ Ray lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
‘If you want to put it like that, then yes.’
‘I get the feeling you don’t entirely blame Hicks for what he did.’
‘It’s a war. The lines get blurred.’
‘What happened to Hicks in the end?’ Crane asked. The rain was getting more intense. Hard, stinging darts against her face.
