by David Smith
‘You can rest assured of that, Inspector.’
*
When Hunter arrived at the police station late on Tuesday morning, I was waiting for him anxiously.
‘Sir, we’ve just found Rohit, he was hiding out in his friend’s house in Coventry, exactly like Lady Flyte said,’ I said as Hunter hobbled into the office. ‘He’s already told the boys who picked him up a bit about his relationship with Mr Nariman. He worked with him night and day for five years but then was cast aside at the advice of one of Nariman’s lieutenants, someone called Khand. No redundancy, no notice, just kicked out to fend for himself. He seemed very sad about it – from the way he spoke he seemed to regard Nariman as some sort of adoptive father. He moved to England to be near Nadia when she came over. He’s very scared; he didn’t want to tell them much. He said he was afraid we would give him away, but we persuaded him to come back to the station in Coventry for his own protection. He’s waiting for you in the interview room there.’
Hunter and I drove as quickly as we could to Coventry police station and went straight down to the room where he was being held. Rohit was there of his own volition and had not yet been cautioned so there was no brief present. Hunter clarified this with Rohit before they started and Rohit indicated that he was happy to cooperate as long as we did not give away where he was hiding.
‘Rohit, I have a number of important questions for you, but before we start on those, what can you tell me about how and why you left Mr Nariman’s employment?’ I was surprised that Rohit hardly hesitated before answering. In fact he spoke very quickly, as if eager to share his troubles and get things off his chest.
‘It wasn’t his choice, that bastard Khand made him do it. I’d been looking into something that had caused Mr Nariman some concern and I got too close. I had always had my doubts about what was going on in his companies, Inspector Hunter. Khand was feeding him a line, misrepresenting completely the position of the company he controlled and at the same time poisoning our friendship and blackening my name. It was a horrible situation for me.’ Hunter could sense the hatred in his voice – he certainly wasn’t holding back, which seemed slightly at odds with the picture that Nadia had painted of a petrified young man. The person in front of him was clearly keen to get his story out.
‘OK, can you tell me more about what you had found out then?’
‘It was chaos. They’d launched a product on the market back in Asia that didn’t even meet basic safety standards, there were accidents, several customers were maimed, and then there was the explosion in the plant in Tamil Nadu. They bribed the local police and investigators to cover it all up. Those poor women and children, they were horribly burned and mutilated and they didn’t get a single rupee in compensation. So I did some more of my own digging. I found out that Khand had been lying about the situation to Mr Nariman for years, the business was losing loads of money, he’d been fiddling the books, and there were payments nobody could explain to politicians and stuff. It was all a web of lies. I got too close and was asking too many questions; that’s why Khand forced him to get rid of me. I’m probably lucky it wasn’t worse than that. That’s why I had to get out, come to England, I warned Mr Nariman that it was too dangerous for him to stay but I never thought…’
‘Now, look here, we have a report from Mr Baxter whose composition classes I believe you attend, saying that you expressed strong interest in his gun collection last Saturday. Do you have anything to say about that?’ Hunter appeared deliberately aggressive in the no-nonsense way that he asked the question, I assumed to try and work out if he was being spun a line. In response, Rohit began to look worried and his body language became notably more defensive.
‘I didn’t mean anything by that. I was just wondering whether I should arm myself given what went on that morning. I don’t know anything about guns and I hate any kind of violence but I suspected I might be next on the list.’
‘So, did you take one of his guns?’ Rohit’s eyes fell to the floor. ‘Well, did you?’
‘Yes, Inspector,’ he replied sorrowfully.
‘And where is that weapon now?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said shaking his head.
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘It’s missing.’
Hunter looked at him sceptically. At this point I was beginning to wonder whether he was just a very clever liar.
‘You are really trying to tell me you stole a gun from Mr Baxter three days ago and now you don’t know where it is?’
‘I was so worried about Nadia, her texts were becoming increasingly distraught, and so I decided to risk it on Saturday night. I had returned to my flat during the afternoon to hide the gun but then returned again in the evening when it was getting dark. I waited in the bushes in the square watching her window. When the light went out, I climbed on to the balcony of the house two doors down and then made my way across the balconies to the window outside her room and gave our normal signal on the windowpane. I had to be very careful because one of your officers was on guard at the front door just underneath.’
‘Yes, he was supposed to be watching out for people like you.’ Clearly irritated, Hunter made a signal to me to raise this lapse of security with the officer concerned.
‘Anyway, it took a while but eventually she opened the shutters and pulled up the sash to let me in. I spent about an hour there consoling her. I would have stayed longer but we heard more voices downstairs. I crept out onto the balcony as quietly as I could and escaped down the drainpipe again. I felt really bad, unsure whether I should leave her in that state, but there were just too many police around. When I got back to my flat, it had been ransacked, every drawer pulled out, stuff all over the floor, everything upside down. Of course, I checked for the gun but it had gone. I didn’t hang around, that’s when I went to Coventry to stay with a friend of mine. I was really afraid by then.’
‘Can anyone corroborate all this?’
‘Well, Nadia of course, but I don’t want her involved. You can speak to my friend in Coventry if you want.’
Dazzling colourful adagio,
Denoting friendship, vibrant and lustrous,
Vitality with rhythmic audio.
The wife and her lover telling wondrous
Tales to sate their sentiment, rapturous
In conceit of your voice tonight.
You have no idea of time, my amorous
Story-teller. Writing with passion’s sight
Till the stars have risen, and the moon remains light.
We left the interview room and Hunter turned to me.
‘I think this is whole thing is getting very dangerous Penny. This Rohit is an innocent; I don’t believe he’s a murderer. On the other hand this guy Khand seems ruthless. If we could search Sir William’s place I bet we’d find something, but we’ll never get the chief super to get us a warrant. I fear this Khand is too clever, it looks like he’s been covering his tracks every step of the way – the murder of the Tamils, the spotless car, our little interview in the billiard hall, the sudden appearance of various weapons, Rohit’s involvement. I suspect also that Khand is going to be very hard to find, that’s if he’s even still in the country. See what you can do to get more information on him, maybe we can get an arrest warrant. Meanwhile, we need to find a way into the relationship between him and Sir William otherwise I suspect we won’t break this open. The more I think about it the more I think we need something more subtle to smoke these vipers out, some sort of diversion and a sting to catch them off guard, as the jazz singers used to say, a swift, sly suck on a skinny little joint.
‘Vipers, Sir?’
‘Yes, they’ve been one step ahead of us so far. To catch a snake we need to set a snake trap, a dead man’s trap. Something they will never expect so they relax and make a mistake.’
‘You mean a trap for Sir William?’
‘Indeed, and more importantly we need a trap for Khand and his accomplices. I have an idea how to do th
at, something I saw in a film once. It will require a little bit of play-acting though,’ said Hunter. ‘And that could be dangerous. I suspect strongly that we have a spy in the team and until I am sure who that is I can’t afford to use anyone from the regular force for this. How about your ex-army friend, Hugh? He’s in security isn’t he? Do you think he’d be willing to help us?’
‘I’m sure he would and I’m certainly up for it, Sir,’ Already I was feeling a frisson of excitement about this plan but I knew as well as Hunter did that what he was suggesting was well outside of normal operating procedure.
‘This may mean putting you in danger, I’m afraid, Penny. I’ll understand completely if you say no.’
‘No way, I can take care of myself better than anyone else around here,’ I said in a determined voice.
*
Louis-Napoléon built the ‘Jeu de Paume’ in Paris to house his tennis courts. Louis X (the Quarreller), Henry I of Castile, Philip I (the Fair), Charles VIII of France, Arnaud de Montaigne, James I of Scotland and Frederick, Prince of Wales all died of tennis-related injuries. Death by tennis is obviously a much underrated crime.
Hugh had a back door key to the real tennis court in Bedford Street where he had installed the security systems earlier that year. We had decided that the overhead court lighting would be perfect for filming.
‘Hey, you’re hurting me you bastards,’ I complained loudly as I struggled theatrically with Hugh and Eddie. They were both masked and roughly removed my uniform jacket and tie and loosened my blouse. Eddie tied my hands to the wooden pillars of the hazard while Hugh stretched gaffer tape over my mouth. If this had been for real by now it would have been very scary but I was struggling to stop myself giggling during the whole process. Penn was taking the video, Mad Jack was directing.
‘Your turn, Scooby,’ Eddie said to Dan, laughing. ‘And look ferocious.’
‘Stop laughing you lot, and Penny look scared and scream, this is supposed to be realistic isn’t it? Not an Ealing comedy,’ Jack shouted.
And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his hath turn’d his balls to gun stones.
Shakespeare, Henry V
*
In the situation room at the police station, Hunter began the briefing he had organised at short notice. He knew he was taking a huge risk, the piece of theatre he had planned was completely against procedure, but in the circumstances of having a spy in his team, he thought the risk was worth it.
‘OK, as I am sure you all know we have a serious development. DC Dore has been abducted from her flat by two unknown masked men.’ There was a ripple of concern and chatter around the room. Hunter was careful to let this play for a few moments. This was all part of the subterfuge he was crafting, information that he hoped would get back quickly to Khand through the informer, whoever that was.
Next he played them the CCTV footage that appeared to show two men dragging Penny kicking and screaming into a white Transit van with no markings and obscured plates. This was another piece of Mad Jack’s excellent video montage from the afternoon’s filming.
‘Sir, why on earth would anybody abduct a junior DC?’ asked one of the more cynical older officers, somewhat perceptively. Hunter had expected and therefore anticipated this obvious question.
‘DC Dore was attempting to decode some vital new information about the Nariman case that we extracted from Rohit Dhawan’s laptop. We believe she was abducted. That information could hold the key to why Nariman was murdered. We have to find her as soon as possible as her life could be in danger.’
Next Hunter read out a letter he had received (a nice piece of creative cut-out newspaper montage by Penny) and played them the rest of the video footage shot in the tennis court. There was no money involved, the key demand was a face-to-face meeting, and Hunter was expressly requested to go alone with Rohit and his laptop to the old ruins at Guy’s Cliffe. There was the usual warning that nobody else, especially no other police officers, should be present or else the policewoman would be hurt.
‘Sergeant Jones, I need you to come with me and drop us off near to the site and I need an observation team at a safe distance. We can’t afford to spook them.’
‘Sir, you know this is highly unusual. It seems like a trap to me, they just want to lure you there. Why would they be interested in you going personally if they have Constable Dore and the data? It doesn’t make any sense. And using a suspect as bait…’
‘In the circumstances, Sergeant, that’s just a risk that I’ll have to take. I’m responsible for her safety, not you.’
‘Well at least let’s get an armed officer in there as well. And what about your knee and broken arm, Sir? You won’t be able to defend yourself if you’re attacked.’
‘That’s exactly what crutches are for, Sergeant, and I don’t want anyone else within a quarter of a mile, I’m not going to gamble with Penny’s life.’ He closed the meeting, but before he left to get ready, Hunter went to see Rohit, who was hiding out in Hugh’s flat, to explain his plan to him. Rohit grinned and agreed readily to cooperate. Hunter then made one more call to a number in London.
*
Shortly after the meeting had been concluded a conversation was happening not far from the station.
‘Our spy in the crime squad tells us that one of their team, the junior policewoman who’s been sniffing around, has been abducted. They’ve received a video and a request for a meeting. Something to do with information downloaded from Rohit’s computer. I couldn’t find out who the meeting is with. That idiot Hunter is going alone to the old ruins at Guy’s Cliffe with Rohit with no back-up. Do you want me to pick him up again, Mr Khand?’
‘Not yet, but this is bizarre, it sounds like a complete cock-and-bull story to me. Just follow him for now; I want to find out what he’s up to. I smell a rat, but I want to be really certain what game he’s playing before we decide to do anything. I hope Sir William isn’t playing games with us.’
From the station at Warwick we took a carriage driven by an old coachman who knew the history of the place and was glad to talk about it. He took us to Guy’s Cliffe, the site of one of the famous Crusader stories of England and the home of the Percy family.
Grace King, Memories of a Southern Woman of Letters
Guy’s Cliffe has been occupied since Saxon times and derives its name from the legendary Guy of Warwick. Guy is supposed to have retired to a hermitage on the site, this legend led to the founding of a chantry. The chantry was established in 1423 as the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene and the rock-carved stables and storehouses still remain. The house dates from 1751 and was started by Samuel Greatheed, a West Indian merchant and MP for Coventry 1747 – 1761, whose family were local landowners.
Guy’s Cliffe House was sold in 1947 with the intention of converting it into a hotel, but these plans came to nothing and the house fell into disrepair. In 1955, the house was purchased by Aldwyn Porter and the chapel leased to the Freemasons, establishing a connection with the Masons that remains today. The roof had fallen in by 1966. In 1992 during the filming of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (The Last Vampyre) a fire scene got out of control and seriously damaged the building…
Based on Wikipedia, Guy’s Cliffe
*
The unmarked car driven by Detective Sergeant Jones parked at the end of the long drive that led up from the Warwick–Kenilworth road on the way to the old ruined house. Hunter had only ever been there once before as part of a guided tour organised by the local historical society, but he could roughly remember the layout. He pulled his crutches out of the back seat of the Discovery and swung a rucksack onto his back, indicating to Jones that he should wait for Rohit and himself in the car park at the end of the drive, and even if a car came past toward the house he should do nothing but wait. By now it was late afternoon and the shadows were lengthening rapidly in the September sun. The heavy rain the previous day had left the ground somewhat treacherous in places. Hunter was slightly nervous but also excited to see how hi
s plan would pan out. Although highly unusual he felt it was a risk worth taking to smoke Khand out, but if it went wrong or the chief found out prematurely he knew he would be for the high jump.
He struggled on his crutches past the remains of the picturesque ruin, past the chapel and function rooms used by the Freemasons near the sandy overgrown path that led down toward the banks of the River Avon. He had already noticed a flash of light, a telltale sign of someone watching him with binoculars from the ruins that were normally out of bounds to visitors. This was exactly what he wanted. He dropped the backpack; it was only a few seconds until he heard the sound of a Range Rover making its way up the drive into the wide courtyard.
‘Bingo!’ he whispered to Rohit. A wiry but smartly dressed man got out of the car and walked towards them.
‘Sir William.’
‘What’s this all about, Hunter? Why have you dragged me back from London to this godforsaken place, and what’s that no-good rogue doing here for God’s sake? Are you mad?’
Hunter noticed the shadow of a man passing behind one of the ruined windows of the old house. Yes, he’s wearing a turban he had been right about that. He signalled surreptitiously toward the door to the mason’s chapel where two masked men were holding Penny. She was blindfolded and bound and they were holding a gun to her head. Hunter pulled a laptop from the rucksack and passed it to Sir William.
*
‘What is all this about Hunter? I need an explanation now. NOW DAMN IT!’ I heard Sir William shout.
Eddie fired and Rohit fell to the ground. ‘Watch out!’ I screamed from my hiding place. At this point I was still wearing the blindfold but had managed to squint through a gap in the binding.
‘What on earth?’ I then heard Sir William swear. But it appeared he did not wait for an answer, instead I heard his footsteps on the gravel as he ran as quickly as he could back to the car. Hearing the shot, his driver had already started the vehicle and as soon as Sir William was in the car it accelerated and swerved violently out of the car park and down the road as fast as the man could drive.
