by Matt Brolly
Lambert strummed his fingers on the leather coating of the steering wheel, the rain still battering the car’s windscreen in a constant rhythm. He needed to think, to clear his mind. The Watcher must have access to surveillance equipment. It was possible he was a member of a team, as Lambert had previously thought. He tried to dispel the idea that the Watcher was a member of the police, though it would go some way to explain how he was always one step ahead. Lambert called a colleague in the tech department, Lee Chamberlain, who owed him a favour.
‘I’m going to send you some voice files,’ he told the man. ‘There can be no official blueprint on this.’
‘And what would you like me to do with them?’ asked Chamberlain.
‘I know it’s a huge long shot but try to trace them on the voice database.’
‘That database you speak of is almost non-existent. I can analyse the voice for you. Give you an idea of age, dialect, any peculiarities in speech pattern. That’s the best I can offer.’
‘Can you do it within the next hour?’
‘As a favour I’ll start working on it now but it’s not a simple job.’
‘Just have a listen through, see if you can spot anything unusual.’
‘Okay, I’ll do my best.’
Lambert sent the files and was about to make a second call when his phone rang. Lambert waited for three rings, controlling his breathing and preparing for the conversation. He answered the phone but didn't speak.
‘Moody silences,’ said the Watcher. ‘Let me guess. Sackville finally told you his full story. You think you know who I am.’
‘I know who you are, Neil,’ said Lambert.
The Watcher chuckled, a sound not without genuine mirth.
‘I have to confess that I admire you, Lambert. I’m surprised you’ve pieced it together so quickly. What was it? The files at St Matthew’s?’
‘This can end now, Neil. You’ve got back at those people who hurt you. Let’s just end it here before anyone else gets hurt.’
‘Perhaps you don’t quite understand after all,’ said the Watcher, raising his voice.
‘You were friends with Elaine Jacobson. Eustace and Laura failed you. I understand that, even if I don’t understand what you did to them.’
‘It won’t end until everyone responsible has paid the price.’
‘You mean Curtis Blake?’ said Lambert
‘Who else?’
‘And you think you’re going to get to his family? Now I know what you want Neil, I’ll do anything in my power to stop it. Eustace and Laura didn’t kill Elaine, Neil. They failed you and I understand that but I’m not going to let any more innocent people die.’
Lambert realised there was little point trying to reason with the man. His life had been tainted by what had happened to Elaine Jacobson and a few well-chosen phrases on the phone were never going to undo that damage. But he wanted him to think twice before attacking Blake’s family. He hoped that slight indecision would lead him to make mistakes.
‘I think we’ve come to understand each other, Lambert. You listen to what I have to say and you’ll fully understand.’
Lambert pulled the car over and waited. He tried to control his breathing, his heart hammering in his chest.
‘I know you’ve sent over those voice recordings but I know you haven’t gone official yet with our conversations. But there are contingency plans in place, Lambert. Contingency plans that will affect you directly. If anything happens to me then I’ll be unable to stop them. Do we have an understanding?’
Lambert went to respond but the Watcher continued talking.
‘Remember at the beginning – I said we were alike. That’s not fully true, is it Lambert? You’re still married despite that bastard child. You’re seeing that lovely police woman. You’re not totally alone in this world.’ The Watcher paused. ‘Are you?’ he said, before hanging up.
Lambert took a few minutes to compose himself, the warning from the Watcher specific this time. He didn’t have time to dwell on the conversation. He pulled away, dialling another number.
‘You’re alive then?’ said Sarah May, answering on the second ring.
‘You could say that,’ said Lambert, rubbing his head, trying to organise the million thoughts playing in his mind. ‘I know who the Watcher is.’
‘You don’t sound very pleased,’ said Sarah.
‘The last I know of him he was a ten-year-old boy.’
‘I see.’
‘Are you still in London?’
‘Yes. What is it, Michael? You don’t sound like you.’
‘Listen I need you to do me a favour. It’s probably nothing but I think Sophie might be in danger.’
‘Okay. Do you want me to go and see her?’
Lambert was momentarily taken aback by the easy way Sarah accepted what he said, without hesitation or question.
‘If you don’t mind. If you could just watch her, but don’t let her know you’re watching.’
‘Should I be looking out for anything in particular?’
‘Not really, just anything out of the ordinary. You know the drill. But be careful, Sarah.’
‘I will. Are you sure everything is okay.’
Lambert sighed, making a decision. ‘I’m probably being over-protective, but I think we should move her and everyone from the house. At least until this thing at Blake’s house is over.’
Again, May didn’t question him. ‘I’ll take her and the baby to my hotel. I know this isn’t the time but does she know about us?’
Sarah had met Sophie once. It had been during the Souljacker case. Sarah had been checking up on him and had visited Sophie at her place of work. He hadn’t told Sophie about the last few months with Sarah. Somehow it felt like he’d betrayed Sarah by not telling Sophie. As if she was some kind of dirty secret. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah, I haven’t told her.’
‘Don’t be silly, Michael, that doesn’t matter. Concentrate on the case and be safe.’
He hung up, wishing he could tell her more. With Sophie accounted for, he made his way to Hampstead where the team had set up ready for Blake’s party. He recognised one of the surveillance vans, a blanked out transit favoured by Tillman. He pulled over three streets down and called Tillman. The side door opened as he walked by and Lambert stepped into the van.
Tillman was in the confined space next to Harrogate and his Chief Super, Tyler. Lambert’s arrival had done little to alleviate the palpable tension within. None of the men greeted him as he sat down, only Tillman acknowledging his presence – with a glare brimming with accusation.
‘Kennedy is inside,’ said Harrogate, handing him a set of earphones. ‘She is currently receiving security instructions.’
The sound in the earphones was mainly white noise. Beyond the rattle of general chattering, Lambert made out the voice of a clear, singular voice giving instructions in the background.
‘Not exactly plain sailing. She was searched as she entered,’ said Tillman.
Lambert looked at Tillman whose eyes had narrowed. The microphones she’d been fitted with were small enough to be undetectable but Kennedy had no way of hearing them. ‘Phone?’ asked Lambert.
‘Confiscated.’
‘Shit.’
Lambert sat in the silence of the van listening to the white noise in his earphone, debating whether to share the information he had on Neil Barnes. Harrogate and Tyler were there for another reason altogether. He doubted anything he could tell them now would change their approach. They were hoping for some inroads into Blake’s trafficking operation, and whilst he couldn’t condemn them for that, he feared there was a more pressing concern.
‘I think we should evacuate the party,’ he said.
Chapter 55
Tyler pulled off his earphones. ‘Have you lost your fucking mind?’
Lambert didn’t respond, glancing at Tillman for support.
Tillman unbuttoned his top button. ‘Would you care to divulge why?’ he asked.
Lambert wa
sn’t sure how much he could tell them. The Watcher’s threat had been self-evident. Sophie was in danger if he didn’t get what he wanted. But he had Sarah May watching her, and he couldn’t justify not protecting the hundreds of lives inside.
‘Blake is due to arrive in thirty minutes,’ said Tyler. ‘I am not going to let you fuck up this operation.’
Lambert stared at the man. ‘What operation? This is just a whim surveillance. You’re hoping Blake’s partners – or rivals, you tell me which – are going to turn up. And then what? You think Kennedy is going to overhear something?’
‘One of my officers is dead, Lambert.’
‘Look, I realise that. Still…’
‘Still nothing,’ said Harrogate.
‘Will everyone take a few seconds. Michael, why do you want to evacuate the party?’ asked Tillman.
Lambert looked at each man in turn, and concluded there wasn’t going to be an evacuation. ‘I think Curtis Blake maybe in danger. Or at least, his family.’ He told them about Neil Barnes, and his theory on why Lennox, Moira Sackville and the Dempsey family had been killed.
‘So now you think Blake is a potential victim, not the killer?’ said Harrogate. The man’s voice was laced with sarcasm, and Lambert was seconds from dragging him from the van regardless of the senior officers present.
‘Where are we on tracing Neil Barnes?’ asked Tillman, ignoring the squabbling.
Lambert shrugged. ‘The trace goes cold in his teens.’
‘Jesus,’ said Tyler. ‘You expect us to evacuate Blake’s house, declare that we’ve been monitoring him, on this half-baked theory? Where do you get them from, Tillman?’
Tillman was motionless. Lambert could tell Tyler was getting to his superior, but he also knew Tillman would examine the situation and reach his own conclusions regardless of allegiances. Telling them about his conversations with the Watcher may have been enough to sway Tillman, but he couldn’t risk sharing that information. The Watcher’s warning had been clear on that point.
‘I’m sorry, Michael. There’s not enough here to take such a step, you must know that?’
Lambert agreed. If someone else had proposed the idea, he would have derailed it. Even if he told them about his conversations with the Watcher, he doubted he would have been able to sway them. He pulled his earphones back on and listened to Matilda Kennedy talking to a companion within the house, at the same time updating them on the situation.
‘It’s a lot bigger than I’d expected,’ said Kennedy.
‘Yeah, huge,’ said her female companion, clearly underwhelmed.
‘This main room must sit nearly two hundred people.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Have you noticed the guards?’
‘Noticed them, one of them practically touched me up on the way in. I’ll be speaking to the agency when I get back, double time or not.’
‘Have you seen the way they guard each entry to the main hall, and they are stationed at each of the doors in the house. At the bottom of the main staircase, by the toilets,’ said Kennedy, ignoring her companion.
‘Yeah,’ said the woman, momentarily coming to life. ‘Now you mention it, it’s a bit weird.’
‘I wonder if they’re armed,’ said Kennedy.
‘Guns, you mean?’ said the woman, panicked.
‘Just wondered,’ said Matilda. She paused, signalling that she thought they were carrying. ‘I’m only kidding. They wouldn’t be allowed, would they?’
Tillman was listening intently and glanced over at Lambert at the mention of guns. ‘We’ve two armed response units ready,’ he whispered, as if it would provide Lambert with some comfort.
As Kennedy continued her running commentary, Lambert logged onto The System and began scanning the copious notes from the case, desperate to find a link to Neil Barnes. He looked at profiles for Charles Robinson, and Noel Whitfield. He scanned through other names. Prue McKenzie, Moira Sackville’s best friend. Sandra Levinson, the librarian Moira had worked with. Lucy Marshall, Laura Dempsey’s colleague from the hospital. Mia Helmer, Eustace Sackville’s boss at the newspaper.
When nothing clicked, he began searching the uploaded files of the orphans and children from St Matthew’s. Photos of Elaine Jacobson and the other lost souls played before him, including Melissa Brady who Kennedy had interviewed.
A picture of Neil Barnes appeared on the screen. The Watcher as a ten-year-old, his life about to change irrevocably by the death of Elaine Jacobson, the sister he never had.
In his ear, Kennedy was talking to one of the security guards. ‘Who are you expecting, the royal family?’ she asked.
‘Please leave me to my job, ma’am,’ said the man, with the patient authority of a trained soldier.
An absurd notion came to Lambert as he listened. The voice of the soldier reminded him of the authority he’d heard from another of the people he’d interviewed. It wasn’t the voice itself, more the general cadence and speech pattern.
He uploaded the file of the former police officer DS Lindsay. He recalled the meeting in Leicester Square, the dignified way Lindsay described his troubled time in the force. The corruption he’d witnessed first-hand with his superior, DI Lennox. Like many officers his age, Lindsay had worked in the armed forces before joining the force. He was a former Royal Marine who’d spent five years in active service before returning to civilian life.
Lambert scrolled through the man’s records, only to reach a blank aged eighteen. He’d enrolled with the Navy on his eighteenth birthday, but there was no record, at least not present, of his life prior to this date. Lambert called Devlin. ‘I want you to find out everything you can on Lindsay before he joined the Navy. I need school records, ideally a copy of his birth certificate. And get a car to his place immediately. I want him in for questioning, but be discreet and polite about it.’
It was a long shot, and it was possible he was being guided by thoughts of the Souljacker case, but at this point there was nothing to lose.
Tillman signalled him outside. Lambert’s eyes took a couple of seconds to adjust to the sunlight as Tillman pulled the side door shut.
‘What the hell is going on?’ asked Tillman.
‘I could ask you the same thing.’
The heat of the van had clearly got to Tillman. His tight fitting shirt was soaked with perspiration. ‘I seem to spend half my working life giving you the benefit of the doubt, Lambert. This Neil Barnes thing, you really buy it?’
‘What’s not to buy? It explains everything, revenge killings mirroring Elaine Jacobson’s apparent suicide.’
‘What about Jacobson’s family?’
‘Orphaned from birth.’
‘What about the original owners of the children’s home? The guardians or carers or whatever the fuck they were?’
‘All accounted for, mainly no longer with us.’
‘And you think Barnes wants Blake next?’
‘It would be the natural conclusion.’
‘But if he is following the same MO then he will go for Blake’s family.’
‘I believe so, but maybe he’ll single out Blake for special attention.’
‘Jesus, this sort of shit just follows you about, Lambert. I thought this would be a simple murder case, now we have multiple victims and a dead policeman.’
Lambert went to protest, the policeman’s death was nothing to do with his investigation, but the energy had left him.
‘You think Kennedy’s in danger?’ asked Tillman, a subtle change to his voice.
‘What’s going on between you two, Glenn?’
Tillman shook his head, resigned. ‘I should have known you would find out.’
‘It’s not just me. Walker wants to report you.’
‘Don’t worry about that jumped-up prick. I have enough dirt on him.’
‘Be careful, Glenn.’
‘Don’t worry about me. What was that you were saying to Devlin?’
‘Lindsay. He was Lennox’s junior officer. We have no f
amily information on him prior to him turning eighteen and joining the Navy. I don’t think anything will come of it but I’m sure if we find Neil Barnes, we find the killer, and Lindsay may know more than he’s letting on.’
The van door opened. Harrogate stuck out his head. ‘Blake has left his hotel. He should be here in the next twenty to thirty minutes.’
Chapter 56
There was a shift of atmosphere within the house. One of the agency staff summoned all the workers together into the kitchen and informed them that Blake and his wife were due within the next thirty minutes. The party was supposed to be a surprise, but until Blake’s arrival the guests were to be served drinks. Matilda was handed a tray of champagne flutes and sent out into the dining area.
She listened in to the conversations, desperate for a sign that her role there was not pointless. No one sounded concerned about the heightened security. They were too busy enjoying the free champagne.
Blake’s children were out in the hallway, growing increasingly excited by the imminent arrival of their parents. She knew their names from her files. Jessica, aged fifteen. Mitchell, aged twelve. Josh, aged seven, and Melody aged five. All four glowed with anticipation. The children were oblivious to their father’s crimes, at least for now, and for a second Matilda felt like an intruder gate-crashing a joyous family moment.
One of the security staff tore her from her regret. ‘You, back in there,’ said the man. From the files, she recognised him as Atkinson, Blake’s head of security.
‘Sorry, got lost,’ she said.
Atkinson kept his eyes on her as she returned to the main hall. She felt his gaze lingering as she turned away and served more champagne to the guests, who treated her as if she were invisible. ‘I guess Mr Blake will soon be here,’ she said to her colleague back in the kitchen area, for the benefit of her real colleagues who were hopefully still listening.
‘Sooner this is over, the better,’ said the woman. ‘These guys give me the creeps. Anyone even said thank you, yet?’
‘Nope,’ said Matilda. ‘I wonder what this Blake guy does. I presume all the guests are family and friends. No one looks out of place.’
