Larcombe Manor

by Ted Tayler

  “We’ve got company, coming up fast in the outside lane,”

  “Thanks, Cameron, I’ve got them. Giles, can you see how many?”

  In the ice-house, Giles checked images from cameras on the motorway and from his drone.

  “There are dozens,” he said, “it feels more like an organised group rather than a hit squad. They are re-joining the motorway from the service station.”

  Andy Walters relaxed. This group would be by them in minutes. They had twenty minutes more driving to reach the point where they parted company with this escort.

  Bike after bike roared by. Junction 14 lay four hundred yards ahead.

  Sat behind him, Graham Heath became agitated.

  “Pull off! Pull off! They’ve got guns,” he yelled.

  The escort team leader was confused. He saw nothing threatening as the bikes roared past. In Hugh Fraser’s car, Denzil Cornish’s nerves had been shredded earlier, and he panicked. He swerved up the exit road and tried to remember where the hell he should go to find the best road to Bath.

  Hugh Fraser looked behind him. None of the bikes was chasing them. The rear escort car had been far enough back to copy their manoeuvre. They had lost contact with the rest of the team, but they weren’t alone.

  “You must have been mistaken, Graham,” said Andy.

  “I know what I saw,” the man next to Hugh said. “We should stop and liaise with the guy behind. Then you can get Larcombe to plot a route for us to meet up with their escort team.”

  “There’s a truck lay-by a mile ahead,” said Denzil. “We’ll regroup there.”

  The Tamworth escort team leader watched the miles tick away as they neared Junction 15. That was the end of their involvement. He couldn’t fathom why Andy’s car thought it necessary to veer off the motorway.

  “Can your cameras pick up Andy and Cameron’s cars, Giles?”

  “We’re searching now,” said Giles, “the drone is our best bet. I’m moving it into position.”

  In the truck lay-by, Cameron drove past Andy Walters. All four men still sat inside. A thirty-eight-tonne lorry had already parked in front. Cameron eased into a gap beyond.

  “Busy little spot isn’t it, Freddie?” said Cameron.

  His partner grunted. Freddie was eager to get home. This had turned out to be a waste of time.

  Cameron saw someone walking towards their car.

  “Here we go, Freddie. I wonder why they couldn’t just use the comms to pass the message?”

  Cameron pressed the button to lower his window.

  “So, what’s the plan?” he asked.

  Freddie and Cameron never found out. The gunman’s silenced weapon spat a lethal bullet into each man’s brain.

  Behind the lorry, Andy Walters was getting annoyed.

  “Do you want to wander back, so we can sort out where we’re going?” he called, for the second time.

  Andy wondered why the escort driver didn’t respond to his comms.

  “Have you got your drone re-located yet Giles?” Andy asked. “Is there any reason for a loss of comms out here in the sticks? We can’t raise our colleagues.”

  Giles watched the screen. The drone was now closing on the truck stop. They were too far away yet to get a clear picture.

  “Nothing wrong with comms at our end,” confirmed Giles. “The others are driving to Junction 15 and heading home to Tamworth. You can tell Cameron in the other car he can make his way home any way he chooses. My team from Larcombe are coming to you. Stay where you are until they arrive. Fifteen to twenty minutes tops.”

  Artemis was sat beside Giles. She jabbed him in the ribs,

  “That doesn’t look right,” she said.

  The driver’s window on the escort car was open. The driver slumped over the steering wheel. His passenger hadn’t moved either.

  “You have company, Andy,” shouted Giles. “Someone has taken out the agents in the escort car ahead of you.”

  Graham Heath drew his weapon as soon as he heard the woman’s voice in the background. Hugh reached for his gun, but Heath’s gun pressed against his chest.

  “Sorry about this,” he said.

  The gunman appeared from the near side of the truck in front. He fired through the windscreen and Andy Walters and Denzil Cornish died before they moved.

  “The money was too good to refuse,” said Heath, and pulled the trigger.

  Hugh Fraser’s last thought was of Ambrosia.

  Heath got out of the car and joined the gunman.

  “Let’s get out of here, Paul,” he said, “the cavalry is on its way.”

  Paul Heath, his twin brother, turned and returned to his cab.

  “Spotting that biker group outing scheduled for today was genius,” said Graham, as he swung himself up into the passenger seat beside Paul. “After that, it was pure timing.”

  “A short drive to the M48 services at Aust and we can lose this truck,” laughed Paul. “I’ve got us both a change of clothes in the back. We’ll park the truck, change in the toilets and make our way to the bike one at a time. With full-face helmets and leathers, we’ll throw them off the scent. By the time the Larcombe teams search the truck and the Moto services, we’ll be miles away.”

  “I love it when a plan comes together,” said Graham.

  “Twins who followed two different paths in life,” said Paul, “that helped. You were always the one wearing the white hat. I preferred to wear black. When the word was put out about the money on offer for this hit, it was a no-brainer. You were the only bloke who could help me do it. A man on the inside; what more did I need?”

  “A man totally in synch with your way of thinking,” said Graham. “You may be eight minutes older than me, but we get an equal share of the cash for this job.”

  “I’ve got no problem with that, bruv,” grinned Paul. “You’ll be looking for a new job now, do you want me to put a good word in with my boss?”

  “I’ll be a marked man after this,” Graham said, shaking his head, “no, I’m off to Spain and the Costa del Crime. You should join me as we look so alike. Olympus might kill you thinking you were me.”

  “It’s a thought,” agreed Paul, “what would we do though? I’m not sure I’m ready to retire yet.”

  “How about a tribute act, a duo like Bros?” suggested Graham.

  “Can you sing?” asked Paul, who thought what he’d said, and then added, “OK, point taken, it never stopped them.”

  Giles and Artemis were powerless in the ice-house. They had watched the images from the drone grow closer and sharper. Olympus had been betrayed by one of its own once more. The second gunman had worn a hoodie, with a bandana covering the bottom half of his face. Apart from noting a similarity in height and build between the two killers, they had no other clues.

  Giles wanted to send the drone in pursuit of the truck, but Artemis pointed to the clock. They had run out of time.

  “We’ll land it as close to the escort team as possible,” said Giles, “they can bring it home. I’ve turned the M4 drone around already. Hugh Fraser won’t need its help now.”

  “I’ll advise our team leader it’s become a clean-up mission,” said Artemis. “I take it we’ll bring the bodies here?”

  “Without a doubt,” said Giles. “The police will arrive at the truck stop soon. If our people have time, they should set the cars alight. The car from Andy Walters’s team could still be matched with the crime scene in Yorkshire. With luck, the police will assume they were both involved, and the criminals abandoned them before escaping in another vehicle.”

  “Is there anything we’ve overlooked?” asked Artemis.

  Giles paused for a moment, sighed, and said: -

  “We can’t do much more for now. I must inform Athena and the others of the tragedy. She will have the unenviable task of notifying Zeus and the others.”

  “Heaven knows how Ambrosia will react,” said Artemis.

  “Phoenix has lost his logistics man too, which loads extra pressure o
n his shoulders.”

  “As if he didn’t have enough to cope with this week,” said Artemis.

  “The Grid is winning every battle at present,” said Giles. “We’ve been outthought and outnumbered at every stage this weekend.”

  *****

  In Kilburn, Callum Wood had spent the morning with Dinesh Parvati, the Acting Sergeant at the local Metropolitan police station. The set-up reminded Callum of his first posting in a small town near Bath. A handful of uniformed officers in a building on the High Street. Plenty to cope with the low level of crime they experienced.

  Fast forward twenty-five years and Kilburn had two thousand reported crimes in a year. The patch he served back then had a bad year if they hit two hundred. Dinesh knew the borough he covered and the people in it. He knew the numbers to call when the shit hit the fan, when the detectives, the forensics, and the top brass needed to be called.

  “How often do you make those calls, Dinesh?” he asked.

  “Only every day, detective,” he grinned.

  The two officers had walked from the station to the spot where the Wishing Well café had stood. Charred stonework and scaffolding showed work continued repairing the buildings on either side. The last skips of rubble that remained after the café was demolished were on the High Road.

  “Two people died, Dinesh,” said Callum.

  “Bridie was a lovely lady,” said Dinesh, “she baked delicious cakes. Look at my waistline. I couldn’t resist. Now she’s gone I’ve lost half a stone since early November.”

  “Did you meet the man she lived with?” asked Callum.

  “Only once,” said Dinesh. “He was a former policeman, among other things, I believe? Bridie was fond of him.”

  “Did they salvage much from here after the fire?”

  Dinesh shook his head.

  “The people who started the fire didn’t want survivors,” he said. “I hoped to repay Bridie by finding her killers, but it was hopeless.”

  “Do you find it difficult to find witnesses prepared to give a statement around here?” asked Callum. “Even though Bridie was so well respected?”

  “People would have spoken out in this case,” said Dinesh, “but my gut tells me the killers were long gone. Not just from the borough. They returned to Europe.”

  “What makes you think they were foreigners?” asked Callum, wondering if he’d stumbled on a lead.

  “A piece of jewellery was offered around by an Albanian fellow, only days after that Hatton Garden robbery. His fellow-countrymen were thought to be involved in that case and with the cash stolen from the compound servicing the ATM’s across the city.”

  “I hadn’t realised the two crimes were linked,” said Callum.

  Dinesh gave a wry smile.

  “Your bosses didn’t think so either,” said Callum.

  “What is it you say? Horses for courses. If you enjoy a good curry as I do, you visit an Indian restaurant. If you want a bank or jewel heist carried out to perfection, you get the Albanians to do it. If that piece of bling came from Hatton Garden, it explains the fire here. The ex-policeman saw something.”

  Dinesh spread his hands.

  “Wayne had to be silenced,” said Callum.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dinesh.

  “No, you’ve helped me,” said Callum. “I thought my case was connected to Wayne Sangster’s death. It wasn’t. That means I need to look elsewhere closer to home for the killer of my former DI.”

  “It hurts more when it’s someone you know, doesn’t it?”

  “It does when you’ve been friends for twenty years. What I need to investigate now is what it was he did in the last few months that got him killed.”

  “Good luck with your quest,” said Dinesh, “let’s walk back to the station. Did you spot the bakery on the corner? I’ll treat you to lunch. We both need cheering up.”

  Less than five miles away from where the two policemen stood, Tyrone and Colleen O’Riordan celebrated the news from Paul Heath. They were jubilant. The contrast in emotions couldn’t have been starker.

  “I knew the offer of a small fortune would bring the desired result,” crowed Tyrone.

  “Perhaps you were lucky Leeds to Bath is a long journey by road,” said his mother. “If that man had visited someone in Cardiff you would have been stuffed.”

  Tyrone knew his mother found it hard to be positive. Years of being downtrodden when his father had been alive had left its mark. He joined her on the settee and put an arm around her shoulder.

  “We planned to get rid of three key people associated with the Olympus Project this weekend. Vasiliev got greedy and tried to screw us over. He paid for that misjudgement, but his men did kill two of the targets. The twins who called just now will be paid for finishing the job. So, it was a success, wasn’t it?”

  “How can you be sure these three were key people?” asked Colleen. “They might have been bit players in the organisation.”

  “Think of it this way. Every time we take one of their people out of the game it’s like that party game, Jenga. It doesn’t matter how unimportant the first few blocks are the overall structure is weakened. In time, it only takes one block to bring the rest crashing to the floor. The helicopter pilot flew people to and from Larcombe. He may have been part of the Project. He may have been hired help. It doesn’t matter. These people have emotions. We see that in everything they do. They will grieve the loss of their friends. That makes them weak. While that weakness is exposed we could strike again.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” asked Colleen.

  “I said we could,” said Tyrone, “but we need to watch. The police have two significant crime scenes to investigate. The incident on the M1 where Olympus had to abandon three cars on the motorway will yield valuable clues. In Gloucestershire, two cars and five bodies are waiting for the police to arrive. That will need explaining. When they find our third target’s body in one of the cars, it will create all kinds of problems for Olympus.”

  “Earlier, you said Olympus would have such elaborate smokescreens it would take forever for the police to find their way to Larcombe Manor. Why will this be any different?”

  “It probably won’t,” shrugged Tyrone, “but it’s time-consuming. While you’re covering your tracks and burying your dead, you can’t be concentrating on what your enemy is doing.”

  Tyrone’s mobile phone rang.

  “They’ve finished cleaning my place,” he told Colleen after he’d listened to the message.

  “I can cook for us tonight if you wish,” offered Colleen, “then I’ll drive you home.”

  “We can treat ourselves to a night out, can’t we?” said Tyrone. “We’ve had a good weekend.”

  Tyrone kissed his mother on the forehead.

  “Get your glad rags on, we’re going up west to a swanky restaurant,”

  “You’ll have a sore head in the morning,” said Colleen.

  *****

  Monday, 12th January 2015

  “I can’t remember such a terrible weekend for Olympus,” said Athena, as she began the morning meeting at nine o’clock. Minos and Alastor were there, so too Henry Case and Artemis. “You can appreciate that my phone conversation with Zeus last night was one which neither of us wishes to repeat. The loss of lives was horrendous.”

  “Giles has remained in the ice-house,” said Artemis. “The clean-up near Thornbury was completed before the emergency services arrived. But the aftermath of events in both the North and the West will need his close attention over the coming days.”

  “To bring the rest of you up to speed,” said Athena, “Phoenix and Rusty had notified me of their plans for the scheduled actions this week minutes before Giles told us the dreadful news. The Grid’s assassins had caught up with Hugh Fraser and his escorts.”

  “We planned our way out of the mess from the failed attempt near Sheffield,” said Artemis. “Andy Walters had almost reached the final handover point. He had been allocated a three-car escort team
from Tamworth.”

  “Two men from the Tamworth team were slaughtered within minutes of them leaving the motorway,” Athena continued, “The reason for that was not clear. Andy Walters and one of his closest friends, Denzil Cornish died in the same car as Hugh Fraser.”

  “There were four people in the car driven by Cornish,” said Artemis. “Giles and I watched events from a distance via a drone we had deployed to watch for any attack. There was nothing suspicious until a gunman appeared from a thirty-eight-tonne truck in the lay-by. We believed that was a convenient spot to regroup after whatever spooked them was dismissed as a threat. Everything up to that point suggested Hugh was one handover from returning to Larcombe safe and sound.”

  “We didn’t count on a second gunman,” said Athena, “Hugh Fraser was killed by one of our own.”

  This news was greeted with stunned silence by the senior agents.

  “After our own escort crews raced to the scene, they removed the murdered agents, and both cars were set alight,” said Artemis. “When police and paramedics reached the lay-by, there was nothing to see, except two burnt-out wrecks. We now know the missing agent was Graham Heath. He’s been with Olympus for three years. His record was spotless, there was no clue he might be turned. Giles looked into his family background and he has a twin brother.”

  “The second gunman?” asked Henry.

  “Without a doubt,” said Artemis. “The Heath brothers share many things in common. They are the same height, the same build, blond hair and blue eyes. Where we believed they differed was their chosen career path. Graham came to Olympus via the Royal Marines. There were no red flags. Paul, on the other hand, has been associated with a criminal gang based in the Midlands for a decade. There was no sign the two brothers had been in contact since Graham joined us.”

  “Money is a powerful motivator,” said Alastor. “The Grid must have offered a huge sum for a successful outcome. That goes some way to excuse the shambles yesterday morning. That attack smacked of having been thrown together in five minutes. With a big pay-day on offer they attracted criminals who would try anything to get their hands on the cash.”