The Phoenix Series Books 10-12 (The Phoenix Series Box Set)

by Ted Tayler

  “Were CCTV cameras on this street switched off to save money? Is that why the police didn’t respond to the alarm?”

  “Many of the cameras in this quarter are funded by the business community. The alarm or lack of alarm scenario is still under investigation. I couldn’t possibly comment at this time.”

  Colleen switched off her television. She needn’t worry. Thirty years ago, Tommy and his father would have feared a knock on the door from the Sweeney. They were bigger rogues than the criminals, but they didn’t bother with budgets, inter-service cooperation and media bullshit.

  While this lot remained in charge, Tyrone, the Albanians, and every other gang working for the Grid were as safe as houses.

  *****

  At Larcombe, the morning meeting followed the robbery in Hatton Garden with interest after their mid-morning break for coffee.

  When Athena opened the meeting at nine o’clock, the focus had to be on Portishead and Parkway.

  “What did you manage to do for us, Giles?” asked Athena.

  “I’ll start with what we didn’t do, if I may,” said Giles. “We didn’t bid for the WWII mine in the end. Events elsewhere meant the spotlight shifted. They’ve dismissed the rockfall as just that. There was little activity in the area over the weekend. People stayed away from the cliffs in case there’s a further collapse. The whole headland is considered unstable.”

  “I made an anonymous call to the Immigration people,” said Artemis. “The house in Hanover Street was raided yesterday morning. Police removed twelve illegals. They discovered the body of an Afghani man in the conservatory. The police answered a call this morning and identified him as Musa Iqbal, aged sixty. He ran a wholesale delicatessen supplier in Hanham.”

  “With a sideline in manufacturing IEDs,” said Phoenix. “I wonder how many more are out there not on the security services watch lists?”

  “Several detainees gave the police descriptions of Mansouri and Harrack,” added Giles. “The police are looking for them in connection with Iqbal’s murder.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Henry Case. “After you brought them here via Parkway we buried them in the pet cemetery on Saturday morning. A team of trainees dealt with that while I attended our emergency meeting.”

  “We can leave the police to continue their fruitless search. Lawrence Hill won’t cause us any further headaches. Which leaves us with Parkway,” said Athena.

  “Two more deaths since we last met,” said Artemis, “and doctors fear others in the hospital may not survive. The Prime Minister is due to visit Parkway this afternoon. He’s arriving by car.”

  “Not much choice,” said Rusty, “they won’t be running a normal service this month.”

  “The question remains over the number of bombers,” said Giles, “it may crop up again. I’ll continue monitoring the situation. For now, the Hatton Garden robbery has demoted it in the pecking order.”

  “Thankful for small mercies,” said Phoenix.

  “Not so small,” said Minos, “they say it could amount to well over fifty million.”

  “We prayed for a blockbuster to shift the focus away from Olympus,” said Athena, “and we got it. I’m not complaining.”

  “The robbery bears the hallmarks of the Grid,” said Phoenix, “I told you they would pull off a super crime of some description. This one qualifies as special.”

  “We didn’t get much of a rest this weekend because of Parkway,” said Athena, “apologies for that. I suggest we take this opportunity for a coffee break.”

  As the team mingled by the refreshments table, Phoenix joined Rusty and Artemis.

  “Unless WWIII breaks out, we’re going to Lymington next weekend. I’ll ask for volunteers from the marine boys here to crew ‘Elizabeth’. We’ll sail around the Isle of Wight and back. Please say you’ll join us?”

  “We’d love to,” said Artemis, “will you be bringing Hope with you?”

  “Of course, and Geoffrey would appreciate a change of air too,” said Phoenix

  “Pray for fine weather,” said Rusty.

  “Why? Who’s not got their sea legs?” asked Phoenix.

  Rusty and Artemis pointed at one another. Phoenix laughed.

  “I wanted to say thanks for keeping me sane on Friday afternoon, Artemis. I should have bought you a box of chocolates.”

  “You can buy chocolates at any time,” she replied, “the chance to spend a weekend on a luxury yacht is rare. I might learn something.”

  “You keep telling me you know everything,” said Rusty, “I reckon Phoenix would say you know everything you need to. A subtle difference, but an important one.”

  “Are you ready to carry on with the agenda?” asked Athena, joining them.

  “Saved by the bell,” muttered Phoenix.

  Minos turned the TV to the news channel and listened to the Police Commissioner’s interview.

  “Have they found any clues yet?” asked Henry.

  “If you listen to this chap, it’s hard to know whether the police are even inside the building,” said Minos. “He’s the same as every politician and senior civil servant there’s ever been. They never answer a question.”

  “This gang were a professional outfit,” said Henry Case, “in and out, no clues left behind.”

  “Let’s analyse what we learned from the media reports,” said Alastor. “They haven’t allowed cameras inside the bank, but there was mention of an inside job. That suggests they saw detailed plans of the exterior and interior of the building, the alarm systems, and the vault itself. That enabled them to find a weakness in the external security of the bank.”

  “Why not say they found a door that opened without the alarm alerting the bank’s security and the police?” said Phoenix.

  “Sorry, I was listening to the Commissioner for too long. I caught the bug; they got in with ease. The vault door wasn’t an issue. We’ve heard they tunnelled through the wall to gain access. They knew the floor area they had available. They only needed enough inside that could work without getting under each other’s feet. I’ve been in vaults such as that, and four is the absolute maximum. Two or three would be far better.”

  “That’s sensible,” said Rusty, “but how much weight are we talking for fifty to sixty million. Could two or three men carry it out? Where did they park the getaway car?”

  “Giles, Artemis, you’ve got clues to follow,” said Athena, “start the search for the gang. If we add to the list, we’ll send the details to you.”

  Giles and Artemis returned to the ice-house.

  “If this team belongs to the Grid, who are the likely candidates?” asked Athena.

  “I think we can confine the search to London,” said Minos, “they had access to the informant, didn’t have trouble finding a parking space, and knew the district well.”

  “You’ve got several candidates,” said Alastor, “either British White, or Black. The Yardies are a distinct possibility. The Eastern Europeans stick to arms, drugs, and people trafficking. The Bulgarian Mafia turn their hand to anything if it has violence attached. I’m not sure that the Chinese, Vietnamese, or Bangladeshi gangs would be keen to get involved in a bank caper.”

  “So, we could want three men, black or white, in the area between five o’clock on Saturday and nine o’clock Monday?” asked Rusty.

  “We haven’t narrowed the search, have we?” said Henry.

  “How long do the police reckon they worked inside the bank?” asked Phoenix.

  “Giles and Artemis can tell us when there was activity near the bank on Sunday,” said Rusty. “They would have taken time to get in, cut the alarms, and tunnel through the wall. Once inside the vault, they had to get the boxes open. Then they had to transfer what they wanted to keep into bags and jettison the rest. How many boxes did they open?”

  “The police haven’t mentioned a number yet,” said Alastor, “nor did the spokeswoman for the bank.”

  “Who provided the estimated haul of over fifty million?�
� asked Phoenix.

  “The spokeswoman,” said Minos, referring to the notes he made earlier.

  “That’s fair enough,” said Phoenix, “I reckon that means we’re talking close to a hundred boxes.”

  “With three men working flat out, the earliest anybody would be on the street outside is eleven in the morning,” said Rusty. “We need Giles to make eleven the start points for the search.”

  “How long for?” asked Henry.

  “Until they spot them,” said Rusty.

  *****

  While the morning meeting was in progress, it was the start of a new week for Orion. Life at Larcombe Manor proved to be every bit as interesting as he hoped. The outlook from his office window wasn’t as picturesque as the rest of the estate, but he got more work done as a result. Hayden Vincent was a good boss. He passed Orion a folder every Monday morning at nine o’clock. On Friday, he expected a similar folder with reports on closed cases, and progress reports on those outstanding.

  If there was a resource required to complete a case, he only had to add a request to an item, and it would arrive at the start of the following week. Between nine o’clock on Monday, and five o’clock on Friday, Hayden didn’t bother him. Orion wished he had bosses like that during those decades he’d spent in the police force. There were always budget restrictions, new initiatives, and those mind-numbing internal consultations.

  Orion tried to remember whether anything produced by those consultations ever amounted to much. A glossy brochure with promises of positive change, and that was that. He assisted in concerted drives at reducing crime, protecting the victims, making people feel safe in their homes, to no avail. Nothing changed. Nobody had to account for the failure. How could they? They were tied up in meetings discussing the latest hot topic and wouldn’t be available for comment.

  That malaise wasn’t confined solely to the police. It was present across the board. The authorities showered the public with promises things would be different. Then, by adding more glossy brochures to the growing pile hoped they would get blind acceptance, those at the bottom had been a success. Orion smiled at a memory from his days at Portishead.

  He had always wanted a French saying on his office wall. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose. Things were so much different here at Olympus. For them, change was continuous. Things got done. He delivered positive results every week except with the hunt for what happened to Fiona Grant-Nicholls.

  Orion had researched everything on the young Fiona before her marriage to James Grant-Nicholls in 1982. He found little out of the ordinary, considering her background. It was unusual for someone such as him, born to parents who never thought themselves to be other than working-class. It was typical for the only daughter of a well-to-do Cambridgeshire family who lived in the same country house for eight generations.

  Fiona had attended a girl's fee-paying preparatory school in Cambridge, aged eight. At thirteen, she moved to a mixed-sex public school in South Norfolk. That introduced her to a world that included boys. Her parents soon discovered the Pony Club was a less attractive leisure pursuit for Fiona than it had been since she was six. Her school reports mentioned her caught smoking, drinking, and engaging in activities unbecoming a young lady. These admonishments never resulted in expulsion for Fiona, but her squeaky-clean image became tarnished.

  Fiona scraped the grades necessary to earn a place at university. There was no question of it being Oxford or Cambridge as her parents had hoped. She studied Art history at Essex University. Perhaps, studied might be stretching a point. The attractions of the social side of university life proved more compelling. The smoking continued, more cannabis than tobacco as the three years progressed. Her drinking increased too, and with her inhibitions impaired by alcohol, her fellow male undergraduates had a field day.

  Fiona thought she met James at a party in Chichester in April 1981. He believed they had been introduced by mutual friends on New Year’s Eve 1980, in Trafalgar Square. Whichever it was, the sexual attraction had been immediate. James was inexperienced, Fiona was legendary, based on conversations Orion had with her contemporaries.

  “She couldn’t get enough,” one flatmate told him, “anyone, anytime, anywhere.”

  “James was lovely,” said another, “He thought he had died and gone to heaven when someone showed him affection.”

  “James was thirty years old. He was making great strides in the world of business,” one of his work colleagues told Orion. “James was one of London’s most eligible bachelors. Fiona was twenty-one, wasting her chances of a decent degree, and sleeping around. I didn’t see the attraction. Between you and me, I’d had her months before they hooked up together. She was too easy to count as being memorable.”

  Orion struggled to understand why what should have been a brief fling survived until 1982. Let alone that it ended in a marriage that year. The wedding photos showed nothing unusual. The bride was radiant, and the groom smiled in every picture. Both sets of parents looked overjoyed. The bridesmaids gazed longingly at the handsome James, or his brother Cameron, the best man. The answers didn’t appear to lie there.

  What happened between the wedding and September 2013? Had there been thirty-one years of wedded bliss? Orion searched the internet for evidence. He found nothing. James Grant-Nicholls continued to rise the corporate ladder. He became the archetypal captain of industry; he received a knighthood. Every newspaper article and every media appearance featured James. Fiona earned a mention from time to time; but, in her own right, she never appeared in print or person. It was as if she had become a non-person.

  The research Orion had received from last year indicated the couple had no children. There were no details; except that Fiona couldn’t have them. That was said to weigh on her mind, and she drank to blot out the misery. Everything was anecdotal. There was no medical evidence to confirm why she failed to conceive. There were no convictions for drink-driving. He found no photos in the press of her falling out of a nightclub at four in the morning.

  Orion read the report’s suggestion that Sir James took out injunctions to keep Fiona’s troubles out of the press. The instances of drinking, drug abuse, and affairs with men and women certainly sounded things celebrities paid to suppress. There were plenty of examples of that in the recent past. If only he could find corroborating statements out there.

  He traced friends, family, and neighbours of the couple. People from all walks of life in both England and Scotland. Nobody had a bad word to say about Fiona. From 1982 to 2002, nothing supported the theory that the couple drifted apart, because of her behaviour. Someone had talked to the writers of this report. Who had that been? Was it Sir James? Did they swallow what he told them without checking the facts? It didn’t represent typical Olympus handiwork. Compared to every other case he’d handled since his arrival this sounded shoddy.

  Orion had checked the couple’s financial status. Sir James was more than wealthy; he was filthy rich. He had provided Fiona with a monthly allowance after they separated in 2002. Before that, they had a joint account, but Fiona had no restrictions imposed on her. She liked to spend money, but there were no apparent signs that her expenditure was out of control. Orion had seen enough examples of the spending habits of people with an addiction to drink, drugs, or gambling. He couldn’t see it between 1982 and 2002 in the financial history of Fiona Grant-Nicholls.

  When he dug deeper into her circumstances after the separation, he saw a different pattern. The monthly allowance didn’t always arrive in her account on time, or she only received part-payment. That didn’t tally with her husband’s wealth. The amounts may have been high in Orion’s eye, but they were small beer to Sir James.

  It had to be deliberate. Sir James made his wife suffer for having walked out on him. That led to her so-called mountain of debt. In the court case, a year after the separation, she had been charged with driving under the influence. Orion checked the official court report, word for word, rather than the sensational version in the press. He
wondered whether a payment to a reporter spiced up things.

  There was no disputing the fact Fiona was under the influence. Yet, she carried prescription drugs at the time of her arrest. Orion checked the list of items in her handbag. A competent solicitor would have checked to find whether the opiate-based drugs aggravated the roadside reading in her possession. Orion didn’t know whether she had smoked cannabis that day, or snorted cocaine. What he did know was she had taken tramadol for severe pain for ages.

  If only he could find Fiona and talk to her. How long was James abusing you? That would be his first question. Did it start straight after the wedding? Or, was it after you found you couldn’t give him children? Which bones did he break that still cause you intolerable pain?

  On February the twentieth in 2004 Fiona went to Musselburgh. Orion thought what courage that must have taken, given what he now believed. She faced the lion in his lair. James said Fiona wanted more money, and he had refused. They argued, she left, and the lassie at the off-licence says she sold her a large bottle of vodka. That was the last time anyone saw Fiona alive.

  Orion knew the passage of time was against him. Over ten years had elapsed since that sighting in the off-licence. He would struggle to find the female assistant, and good luck trying to get her to recall one distraught middle-aged customer from that far back. He wished he still had Wayne Sangster to use as a sounding board. His partner at Hounsell Security Services didn’t always know the answer, but he listened. That was often enough for Orion to come up with the solution himself.

  Wayne lived in the flat above the Wishing Well café on the Kilburn High Road, Camden. He had plucked up the courage to contact café owner Bridie Carragher, at last. She took a shine to the big man when they hunted for Carrie Ditchburn. That hunt didn’t end well, but the Galway girl still wanted to give Wayne more than her famous Guinness cake. It just took longer for them to get together than it should.