Larcombe Manor

by Ted Tayler

  “What better way to deflect the public’s attention from what’s happening at home where they are losing the battle with organised crime?” asked Minos. “Imagine the positive spin they could put on showing ISIS we’re not prepared to be bullied. That we’ve had enough of standing by waiting for them to strike at us on our shores. We’re confident enough to bloody their noses in their own backyard.”

  Athena was dumbstruck.

  “They hope to transform the fortunes of the Government before the Election by taking us into a war in the Middle East. That would be madness.”

  “That is our interpretation of the articles, unguarded comments and opinions expressed by respected politicians,” said Minos. “In the coming weeks, we expect to see an escalation in the warmongering.”

  “What evidence do you have for that?” asked Henry.

  “You are aware of the role of the BBC Monitoring Service?” asked Alastor.

  “I know it started in WWII,” replied Henry, “to give the British Government access to foreign media and propaganda. It provided valuable information, in places where foreign journalists were banned.”

  “That role has continued,” said Minos. “The Monitoring Service played an important role in helping observers keep track of developments during the Cold War, and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s a part of the BBC which monitors and reports on mass media worldwide. They’re based at Caversham Park, Reading. It has overseas bureaux in cities such as Moscow, Cairo, Nairobi and Delhi. They select and translate information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from one hundred and fifty countries in over seventy languages. Reports produced by the service are used as open-source intelligence by elements of the Government and commercial customers.”

  “I understand their role,” said Henry, “but what have they gleaned that has got the Government so agitated?”

  “A series of messages on the web emanating from ISIS-held territory within Syria and Iraq speak of sustained attacks within Europe being escalated,” replied Minos. “They’re designed to create havoc and panic. They also hope to encourage tens of thousands of young men and women to return from Europe to join them.”

  “How can the public expect the presentation and interpretation of the material they have gathered to be impartial?” asked Giles. “Given that the BBC is neither impartial nor neutral.”

  “It has a liberal bias, but not so much a party-political bias,” added Henry. “How could these warmongers guarantee they avoid mixed messages from the BBC?”

  The Two Amigos had stumbled upon something that divided opinions around the table. Athena wished Phoenix and Rusty were here to contribute. Artemis was in the ice-house, ensuring they received up-to-the-minute data on the Northamptonshire mission. Her counsel was always valuable.

  “Athena, should we continue to log what’s being said in favour of conflict?” asked Minos, exasperated at the impasse, “or do you think we’re seeing something that isn’t there?”

  Athena considered for a moment.

  “Please continue, Minos. We would be foolish to ignore any data you gather on our behalf. It may not get used in the short term, but little since Olympus began has been of no use.”

  “I agree,” admitted Henry Case, “this could be significant. The more I consider what Alastor said, the more intriguing it becomes. How could the Government guarantee they received data from the Monitoring Service to support their ‘sabre-rattling’? It would be far more likely the BBC took a polar-opposite stance. These days it’s an urban-based organisation whose numbers are dominated by youth and diversity. Has that mix ever aligned with any idea the Establishment favours?”

  “Never in a million years,” said Giles, “but for the messages to be consistent across the board we need to be talking about the ‘c’ word.”

  That brought a smile to everyone’s face around the table. Not uttering the actual word conspiracy was a legacy from their founder.

  “Olympus has always avoided describing anything like a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful,” said Athena. “Erebus hated ascribing a facile explanation to an event that defied instant explanation. He was a great believer in playing a long game. Watch and wait. The truth will reveal itself, he used to tell me. So, if your suspicions are correct, Henry, it’s vital we continue to watch and wait. If there’s a hidden hand guiding this, we will discover it. It may not even be linked to the Government.”

  *****

  Sandy Nesbitt arrived at the Kettering safe house at last. She looked tired and dishevelled.

  “Apologies for the delay, Phoenix,” she began.

  “I hope it was worth it,”

  Don Donovan couldn’t resist chipping in. Phoenix watched the colour in Sandy’s face spread from her throat to the top of her head. Donovan had hit a nerve.

  “Not to worry,” he said, “you’re here now. Better late than never. Get your gear stowed away. The only bedroom that doesn’t look like a bomb’s hit it. That’s yours. When you’ve showered, changed and are ready to talk, report back. Are you hungry?”

  Sandy nodded as she headed upstairs.

  “After Sandy and I have finished, we’ll eat lunch together. Rusty, can you and Don nip into town to pick up something, please?”

  “Come on, Rusty,” grinned Donovan, “we’ll go shopping. Give the boss alone time with the little woman,”

  When they got outside and into the van, Rusty asked: -

  “Were you born a tosser, or have you had to work at it?”

  “What were you? SAS? Did you work undercover much?” asked Donovan, ignoring the barbed comment.

  Rusty nodded. “Yes, to both,” he replied.

  “I never had the intensity of training you had,” Donovan went on. “I didn’t enlist until my late twenties. I’d studied linguistics at Oxford. My early career was in the same field. Circumstances on the ground in Iraq forced me into hiding behind enemy lines. I got separated from my two companions in a dust storm. I thought if I kept my wits about me I could survive. I was fluent in the local language, which was why I went on that patrol. The Iraqi’s mistreat people with disabilities. But I preferred suffering intolerance as I played the role of a deaf-mute to that of being exposed as a British soldier.”

  “How long did you have to keep up the pretence?” asked Rusty.

  “Forty-seven days,” Donovan replied. “The longest forty-seven days of my life. An armoured patrol came into the village before dawn. I had been forced to sleep outside on the outskirts. When they stopped close by I heard voices in an accent I recognised for the first time in six and a half weeks. I whistled the theme tune from ‘When The Boat Comes In’ and a squaddie from Tyneside joined in the chorus. He was suspicious. Thought I might lure him into a trap. I stood up and walked towards him with my hands in the air. He took one look at the rags I wore, the scraggly beard and long hair. Guess what he said?”

  “Go on,” said Rusty.

  “Fuck me, Donovan, we thought you were dead, man.”

  “Did it take long to get over that?” asked Rusty.

  “Who says I did?” replied Donovan. “My smart mouth remarks are a way of hiding what’s scratching away inside my head.”

  Rusty knew Phoenix would never appreciate what this guy went through. He did, and he must tell his friend to give Donovan slack.

  “Right, let’s get that food,” he said and drove the van towards the town centre.

  Back at the safe house, Sandy came downstairs and found Phoenix in the lounge. She looked a good deal fresher. Her hair was brushed and the chunky sweater looked good on her. He wasn’t sure the scarf was necessary indoors. The central heating was in good working order. What did he know? Maybe it was the fashion these days for thirty-something females?

  “I’ve paired you with Don Donovan,” he said, “though not by choice. If he gives you any trouble, let me know. He’ll be off the mission and out of his new accommodation in no time flat.

  Phoenix sho
wed her the background file and took her through what was required of the pair once they arrived in Northampton.

  “Anything else you need, just ask,” he said.

  “Can I explain why I was late?” said Sandy, that redness in her face Phoenix had noticed earlier climbed again.

  “Did you get delayed in Wexford?” he asked.

  “The flight over to Ireland went fine. It wasn’t the first time I’d carried dead or dying passengers. I saw enough of that in Helmand. Fintan arranged for the chopper to be collected from the field where we landed. Nothing official, just a vast open patch of heathland a mile from his house. We called into his place for a spell while we waited for the tide to turn.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Phoenix. “He cooked for you and you washed it down with a glass of Jameson’s?”

  Sandy Nesbitt still blushed.

  “How did you know?”

  “Fintan entertained me too, but I’m guessing he had an ulterior motive in your case?”

  “I was due to be driven to Waterford, to get a flight home,” said Sandy. “Fintan suggested I crossed to South Wales on the fishing boat. He offered to travel onboard to keep me company and be there when they buried Les Biggar at sea. He thought it only right someone Biggles knew was there.”

  “Fintan always planned to be on that boat,” said Phoenix, with a grin. “He wanted an excuse to be with you on a long sea journey.”

  “Well, you know what a charmer he is,” said Sandy. “It’s been a long time since anyone paid me so many compliments. I couldn’t resist that animal magnetism.”

  “You needn’t join the dots,” said Phoenix, “and it explains the scarf.”

  Her bright red face filled in the dots, regardless.

  “Two people, one bunk, on a boat gently rocking on a calm sea. I thought I might never see him again. What the hell?”

  “Then, when you reached the Welsh coast, you had the problem of getting from the back of beyond to civilisation,” said Phoenix. “I can sympathise. It took me longer to negotiate that stretch than to get from there to Bath.”

  “I got a train to Cardiff from Haverford West, found a park bench to sleep on, and caught a train here first thing this morning. Six hours of agony. I was knackered, ached from head to foot and needed a shower.”

  “I can confirm you definitely needed a shower when you arrived,” said Phoenix. “As for being tired and weary, much of that was self-inflicted.”

  “Mmm,” said Sandy, the distant look in her eye told Phoenix that self-inflicted or not, there were no regrets.

  Outside the house, they both heard the van return. Rusty and Don Donovan walked indoors. The food smelled delicious.

  Sandy’s stomach rumbled.

  “I take it you didn’t get breakfast at this park bench hotel?” asked Phoenix.

  “No, I didn’t, and I’d worked up such an appetite. Still, I can put that right now.”

  “Sorry, Phoenix,” said Rusty. “We couldn’t find a store with a healthy option today. You’ll have to suffer a burger.”

  “I could eat a horse,” said Phoenix.

  “There are several racecourses in the area,” said Donovan, “it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”

  Sandy laughed.

  “If they dish up horse meat, it won’t be on the plate fur long,” she cried.

  “We’re going to have trouble with these two,” groaned Rusty, as he brought plates through from the kitchen. “Tuck in, you need to be in Castle Ward and we have a date with someone in Wellingborough this evening.”

  After they had eaten, Rusty drove the odd couple off to the county town. Don and Sandy had dressed down for the occasion. Their clothes, hair and features were now more appropriate for the homeless people they portrayed. It wasn’t difficult to get the look right. They both had experience.

  “They’ll blend into the scenery within minutes,” said Rusty on his return. “Have we heard from the others yet?”

  “Nothing since the check-in message via our comms when you delivered them to their patch. It’s early days.”

  “Have you talked to Larcombe?”

  “I spoke to both Athena and Giles first thing. Artemis was on duty this morning while Giles attended the meeting. I’m hoping for news on that from Giles later.

  “When you’re ready, it’s only a twenty-minute drive from here,” said Rusty.

  “He won’t get there until six,” said Phoenix.

  “It will be dark before then, why wait? He doesn’t deserve the extra hours.”

  The two agents changed into dark clothing, checked their weapons and left the safe house. The sooner this was over the better.

  Glenn Cornell was thirty-eight years old. He had worked as a personal trainer for twelve years in total and had spent the past four years in Wellingborough. Although it fitted its description as a market town in the last century, it now had a population of fifty thousand. The town was part of a sprawling borough that increased the number of residents to seventy thousand.

  What had attracted Cornell to the area was the borough intended to grow even larger as it spread towards Milton Keynes. It looked an ideal place to set up his business. Cornell hunted female victims who wanted to keep fit. Young ones who wanted to look their best to attract a mate. The young marrieds that wanted to lose the extra pounds they had put on after having kids. The older ones desperately trying to recapture their youth. They were fair game to Glenn Cornell. As Wellingborough grew, so did his number of potential victims.

  Cornell was meeting a new client at six, outside the local library. She had called him and insisted on meeting on neutral territory. Glenn Cornell tried to put her mind at rest over the phone. He assured her his premises over an estate agency were perfectly safe. He had group sessions there three evenings a week. She could attend those until she felt comfortable enough to make a solo booking.

  Individual sessions could be booked on the other two evenings. Each session lasted an hour. Any client who wanted a home visit during the day could also be accommodated. Cornell kept his weekends free, officially, but he’d made exceptions for several clients in the past four years.

  Artemis had listened to Cornell’s voice as he coaxed and cajoled her to attend a taster session. He had a way with words. She wasn’t fooled but understood how other women succumbed to the flattery. As instructed by Phoenix, she insisted on setting the ground rules for this first meeting. Rusty had thought there was a risk he wouldn’t accept, but Artemis reckoned his record suggested he would see her as a challenge. With his macho image, a challenge he couldn’t resist.

  Artemis had been right. Cornell was fascinated by her voice over the phone. It told him she wasn’t a teenager or an old biddy. He imagined her to be a few years younger than himself. He always hoped they were attractive, but it didn’t matter. They had to be persuaded to book an individual session.

  Cornell kept himself in excellent physical shape and made sure his clients got a good view while they trained. He watched for the signs. When he realised their interest in something other than keeping fit had been sparked, he made his move. The secret cameras on the premises gave him ammunition for blackmail.

  On home visits, the holdall he carried his gear in contained another recording device. Cornell was a devious predator. He never attacked someone at random. What got him aroused were the various stages of the game. That initial spark at a group training session. A negotiation over whether they met there, or at the client’s home. Cornell tried to guess whether the client would make the first move, or he had to force the pace.

  It was better if they came on to him. That gave him the edge when he revealed what he’d recorded. Not that it was money he was after. He wanted to fix the date and time when they met again. That was where Glenn Cornell uncovered his darker side. The sex became much more physical and often violent. He got off on almost strangling them and beating them around the body. He left bruises that could be hidden from boyfriends, partners, or husbands. Cornell took great care
not to mark them anywhere visible.

  Cornell had an overriding need to dominate. It didn’t work for him otherwise. If a client enjoyed the rough sex, encouraged it even, it spurred him on to a physical assault. They had to be submissive, there could be no equals in this relationship. If they then complained, he shrugged and reminded them of the filmed evidence he held. He could produce that at any time and prove their sex had been consensual.

  A handful of women had dared come forward with their story. Giles and Artemis discovered messages on a social media site. When they trawled deeper on the web, they found evidence of Cornell being involved in the same sordid routine at premises he leased before moving to Wellingborough. Not all his victims would ever surface, but the trail led back to North London, Aldershot and Torquay.

  The predator moved on when the number of victims grew too large in any one location. As soon as Cornell sensed a client was about to go to the police, he closed his business and moved on to explore fresh fields. He was adept at covering his tracks. He left his reputation behind him. It was baggage he didn’t need. Cornell had played this game for years.

  Phoenix parked the van opposite the library, thirty yards from the nearest street light. They saw everything they needed to see, but Cornell wouldn’t know they watched him.

  “There he is,” said Rusty, “hooded jacket, beanie and shorts. Even in January. A typical sporting jock. Can’t resist showing off the gastrocnemius and the soleus muscles.”

  “If you say so, Rusty,” said Phoenix.

  They watched Cornell pacing the pavement outside the library. He looked impatient. The personal trainer took his mobile phone from his jacket pocket and made a call. In the ice-house back at Larcombe Manor Artemis let it ring for a while before answering: -

  “I’m running late,” she said, sounding breathless, “please wait. Just two minutes. Look for a red Mini Cooper.”

  Cornell moved to the edge of the pavement, looking left and right.

  “Which direction are you coming from?” he asked.