Substantial Threat

by Nick Oldham

The roads were busy, but he made good progress in her slow car. He joined the M55 at junction 3 and accelerated down the slip road. He kind of knew there was a heavy goods vehicle in the slow lane travelling alongside him as he began to filter on to the motorway. He expected it to move out to the middle lane to allow him on, but it stayed resolutely on his shoulder.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said, pushing Debbie’s car a little harder, hoping to nip in front of the HGV, but its engine was not designed to outrun anything. It responded sluggishly.

  Then the HGV veered towards him, the driver, unbeknownst to Dix, having dropped asleep at the wheel. Dix braked and tried to avoid the beast. He drove on to the hard shoulder. The HGV slewed right across and collided with the little car.

  Dix remembered nothing more until he found himself regaining consciousness upside down in the car in a field next to the motorway. The HGV was on its side, its load of hardcore having burst out everywhere. Dix shouted for Debbie. He could not see her. She was not there. He got his seat belt open and crawled out of the wreckage, a severe pain in his head and left leg.

  ‘Debbie,’ he yelled.

  Then he saw her. She had been thrown clear of the car and had landed about twenty metres away in a ditch. Her body looked twisted and badly hurt.

  ‘Debbie!’ he screamed, his eyes trying to focus properly, his head hurting badly. ‘Jesus! Oh no!’ he cried at something else he had seen.

  The holdall containing all their cash, which had been in the back seat, had also been ejected from the car. It had ruptured when it walloped against a tree and now the contents of the bag were being blown across the field, towards the motorway. All thoughts of Debbie evaporated from his head as he ran to the holdall and desperately began collecting the money which was scattered everywhere.

  When the police arrived at the scene, they found Debbie still alive in the ditch, no thanks to Dix. The offending driver of the HGV was also alive but trapped in his mangled cab, both legs and pelvis broken. Dix was in the middle of the motorway, chasing his banknotes at the same time as trying to avoid oncoming traffic. He was clutching a few thousand pounds to his chest, but the bulk of almost three hundred thousand pounds had disappeared in the wind.

  Karl Donaldson spent every night for two weeks in London, much to his wife’s annoyance. She was reassured, though, when he promised he would make it up to her in more ways than one.

  It took him that long to get what he needed. It was a complicated process, carried out furtively, and he hated doing it, but he knew he had no choice in the matter.

  On the morning of the fifteenth day he presented himself unannounced in Philippa Bottram’s office.

  She was deep in her work and looked up, startled. ‘Hello, Karl.’ She was always pleased to see him. ‘Do we have a scheduled meeting? I’m sorry, I forgot.’

  ‘No. I just need to chat. Important and urgent.’

  ‘Very well, take a seat.’

  He drew up a chair to her desk, sat down and placed a large buff envelope on the desk.

  ‘Not sure where to begin,’ he admitted. Bottram thought he looked very tired and troubled. ‘Is is about Zeke?’ He nodded. ‘Still preying on your mind. Don’t feel guilty, Karl.’

  ‘It’s not that, but he is still preying on my mind.’ He had a flash of the memory of informing Zeke’s parents of his death and their reaction. It had been very hard to deal with. He had also made it his job to accompany the body back to the States to hand it over to them personally. Their grief had rubbed off on him deeply.

  ‘What can I do for my favourite legal attaché this morning, then? Begin at the beginning,’ Bottram said benignly.

  Donaldson opened the envelope and extracted a large number of photographs which he did not immediately show to Bottram. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time researching Mendoza, his associates, relatives, friends, etc. I’ve pulled together everything we know about him and managed to get photos of many of these people.’ He paused uncertainly. ‘As we know, Mendoza arranges for a lot of people to enter the UK illegally and I’ve spent time analysing what we know about the people connected to him and how they help him – all those sorts of things.’

  ‘Very creditable,’ said Bottram.

  ‘Okay, that’s one prong of my fork, shall we say? The other is that I believe Zeke must have been compromised somehow because, to this day, I do not believe he would have been so unprofessional as to let his guard down.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Where is this going?’

  Donaldson showed her a photograph. ‘Do you know this woman?’

  Bottram looked and gulped. Donaldson could tell she had suddenly gone ice-cold.

  ‘She is married to a Spanish diplomat based in their embassy here,’ she said. ‘I met her once briefly at a function there. Just fleetingly.’ Bottram, who was tanned by means of a sunbed, had lost much of her colour and had gone slightly green.

  ‘Didn’t I see her here?’ Donaldson asked. ‘On the day I learned what had happened to Zeke. Remember, when I showed you those faxes?’

  ‘Ahh, possibly,’ Bottram said vaguely.

  ‘It was her. I checked the visitors’ book, Philippa,’ he said and ploughed on. ‘It turns out that she is related to Mendoza, some distant cousin or other, and that both she and her husband are suspected to be on Mendoza’s payroll. In fact the Spanish police are very close to arresting the husband on corruption charges. She, incidentally, is known to be bi-sexual.’

  ‘What are you getting at, Karl?’

  ‘You really want me to go on, Philippa?’

  She stared hard at him, so he showed her more photographs. ‘I’ve had a metropolitan police surveillance team working for me for the past two weeks. Remember that nice commander who was here a while back, the one dealing with the Yardies? He arranged it for me. I’ve had them watching and following you, Philippa. I’ve also had your phone calls from here monitored?’

  ‘You bastard – on what authority?’ She picked up the photographs and for a moment looked like she was going to hurl them across the office.

  ‘On my own, as an FBI agent investigating the murder of a fellow agent. The photos show you consorting with this woman on several occasions over the last two weeks, because you are bi-sexual too, aren’t you? You’ve been screwing her and she’s been using you, Philippa. Pillow talk. She seduced you and you went along for the ride because you were lonely. Philippa, you’ve been very stupid and it cost two agents their lives.’ He paused for effect. ‘And now I’ve come to get you.’

  One month later, Henry Christie, Kate and their two girls were on holiday in Lanzarote. As he was suspended on full pay, he was determined to take advantage of his free time. The garden at home was now wonderful. The house was in the process of being redecorated. His music collection had expanded and he was spending quality time with his wife and children.

  He was strolling alone, out to buy rolls for their breakfast in their self-catering apartment. He was on the seafront at Playa de los Pocillos, breathing in the fresh air and feeling the hot sun on his face and head. He had the beginnings of a good tan.

  He had heard nothing from the inquiry into his terrible judgement. No one had contacted him, even from a welfare point of view, which did not surprise him. That was the way the organization worked. It purported to be caring, but in reality it wasn’t.

  Yet he felt strangely serene. He should have been stressed, going out of his tiny mind, but he wasn’t. He believed that the inquiry would vindicate him and that he would be reinstated, but would probably return to his original rank of inspector, as opposed to temporary chief inspector and then be transferred – or sidelined – into some nondescript, out-of-harm’s-way job where he could do no damage. But it did not bother him too much. It was fairly obvious that the powers that be did not want him to catch villains any more because they didn’t trust him. He had thought that would have destroyed him, but it didn’t.

  What had happened was that this enforced break had allowed him to re-assess his priorities in life. Now he
knew that his family came first – being a good husband and father – and way back in a poor second place came the job of being a policeman. Beyond that, nothing else really mattered.