The Angel of Whitehall
Lewis Hastings
Contents
By Lewis Hastings
Are you a thriller seeker?
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Hobeck Books – the home of great stories
The Seventh Wave Trilogy
Reader reviews
This edition published in Great Britain in 2020
by Hobeck Books Limited, Unit 14, Sugnall Business Centre, Sugnall, Stafford, Staffordshire, ST21 6NF
www.hobeck.net
Copyright © Lewis Hastings 2020
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in this novel are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Lewis Hastings has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright holder.
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-913-793-12-8 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-913-793-11-1 (ebook)
Cover design by Jem Butcher
http://www.jembutcherdesign.co.uk
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Poem: When the last hand comes aboard by Richard John Scarr
Created with Vellum
By Lewis Hastings
From the Seventh Wave trilogy:
Seventh
Seven Degrees
Seven of Swords
The fourth Jack Cade novel:
The Angel of Whitehall
Autobiography:
Actually, The World Is Enough
Are you a thriller seeker?
Hobeck Books is an independent publisher of crime, thrillers and suspense fiction and we have one aim – to bring you the books you want to read.
For more details about our books, our authors and our future plans, plus the chance to download free novellas, please sign up for our newsletter at www.hobeck.net.
You can also find us on Twitter @hobeckbooks or on Facebook www.facebook.com/hobeckbooks10.
For Thomas Albert Denby RN
26/10/1925 – 14/09/2020
For you Tom, as you cross the bar one last time.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
African Proverb
Prologue
Out of Africa
They met on the quayside. Pink dust everywhere. In a certain light, it was almost orange. Whatever its colour, it was considered a necessary evil. It clung to everything, like influenza clings to lungs and cancer to cells. Contaminated crops withered and died, the water supplies were undrinkable in places, and the children had developed an asthmatic cough that they could not shift. Some of the men of the town claimed it made them impotent. But it made a lot of men very rich.
For a country that was considered to be mid-table in the poorest of African nations, it saw itself as rich compared to its nearest cousins. And they had oil coming soon, and gas, and then the men in suits would make them all rich. And then they could begin to live a better life, a life of not having to watch every penny, of not looking over their shoulders for fear of attack, in a more prosperous town in a country with a brighter future.
The English man that stood on the quayside brushed a thin layer of dust from his clothes, shined his shoes on the back of his trousers, cleared his throat and in his best Oxbridge accent announced to the driver where he wished to go.
“No one goes there, sir. It is not considered safe. Perhaps somewhere else? I can recommend many fine places where you could get an equal bargain.”
“No, thank you, I wish to go there and I wish to go now.” He mopped beads of sweat from his brow, wishing he had worn a more appropriate suit. The white handkerchief was stained with the Bauxite dust, like every other bloody thing in what he saw as a flea-bitten, shit-stained hell hole.
And why he was heading on a long journey in an old Mercedes taxi to meet a boat to take him upriver in a region of West Africa, that was renowned for danger was beyond him.
He was sent. That is why.
And in his line of work, one did as one was told. And he was white, and in this region that meant he stood out like a cockroach on a wedding cake.
The boat trip was memorable. People stared at him along the river bank, some waved, he produced an insincere wave back. He cared not for the people of this land. Not one iota. And he began to question once more why he was there when he could have been at Lords watching the bloody cricket.
His organisation had seen to it that he alone should travel to Africa and make good on his promise to come back with something other than venereal disease. The whole place was awash with it, they said.
‘Watch your back old boy’ the men in high-backed leather chairs had cheered as they slid back into a cigar-filled haze and read The Times or played backgammon or slept, dreaming of their exponential wealth.
A young officer in the British Army, Edward Reddington was a man of some distinction. He’d climbed mountains, walked in the foothills of the Himalayas, crossed oceans and fought in conflicts from a young age. His father was an officer too, and his before him.
With a tuft of dirty blond hair and piercing blue-green eyes, he considered himself a ladies’ man, whilst on tour. And yet here he was in a bloody dug-out canoe making his way upriver to meet a chief – at least he called himself a chief. Bloody savages as far as he was concerned; few morals and even fewer people skills. God, he hated the place.
He draped his hand into the river to cool off, then removed it quickly. He was brave, not stupid. Who knew what lurked just beneath the surface?
But orders were orders, he reminded himself as he swatted yet another
fly hell-bent on crawling across his cheek and adding to his sense of despair.
They arrived, he walked, the people of the village parted as if he were royalty. A woman, somewhere, was crying, a child too. In front of Reddington stood a dark-skinned man, in his thirties with tribal clothing and a small hat that resembled a bucket woven out of reeds and sitting perfectly on his short black hair. He felt resplendent. Reddington thought he looked ridiculous.
The chief smiled a perfect smile.
“Welcome, Mr. Reddington.” His English was better than Reddington’s French, let alone a tribal dialect almost forgotten about.
“It is good to see you again.” They’d met before.
“And you, my friend.” He handed an envelope to the chief. Manilla, large enough to carry a lot of cash.
“You must be hungry?”
“No, thank you. I just need to do my business with you and leave to sail for London. Tonight.” His smile said a polite no. His mind retched at the thought of another grub, lightly warmed for his satisfaction. What he’d give for a boiled egg and toast right now.
“Then so be it. Our stocks are very good at the moment, I have seen to it that you alone will choose only the very best of what the area has to offer. Fresh, healthy stock that will see a fine profit. You can load them onto the ship tonight if you like? Shall we go and look?”
“That would be most ideal. I do need to catch the boat back to London tonight. After you.”
They left the chief’s comparatively palatial quarters and walked through the village until they reached a clearing where he laid eyes on the reason for his visit.
Practised in Benin and Togo and Ghana, many people had tried to stop it. Tried to make it appear unfitting for a country that was trying to develop.
He looked around him. They were everywhere, the fruit of the land and all as described by the chief. Young and fit, some as young as six, virgin girls sent to the Troxovi shrines as payment to the gods to make amends for the wrongdoing of a family member. Sent, abandoned by their family into a life of servitude. And life meant just that. And the debt was never considered paid off. When the girl died, she was replaced by the next in line. Either that or be struck down with a curse worse than death.
The villagers knew that the gods would search for them anyway, so why not just hand the girls over? Girls like Enyonam, seven years old with conker-brown and frightened eyes and tightly plaited hair, were committed to a lifetime of slavery and sexual abuse. They called it Trokosi – tro meaning fetish, kosi meaning slave.
The United Nations had worked tirelessly to rid the region of the problem, even encouraging Ghana to make the tradition illegal. And yet upwards of thirty to forty thousand girls were known to be living to pay off debts, to offer unpaid labour and for all intents condoning legalised prostitution of girls as young as ten.
They hated it. Felt sick to their stomach, but were trapped in a lifetime of slavery where the priests lived off the profits and gave nothing, not even food, in return.
Western countries hid from the fact that the term existed, let alone the practice, which they saw as a flagrant violation of the women's and children’s rights.
What rights? The chiefs and the priests agreed, said it was an honour for the girls to belong to them – better still, the gods, and they could not understand anyone who thought differently. It was their culture.
To the chiefs, the girls were theirs for life. If they produced children, those children would be the responsibility of the girl’s family.
Trokosi. Whatever it really meant, Reddington knew that none of the girls from seven to seventy were happy, so why was it such a bad thing that he bought them, took them to a better place, where admittedly they would still in effect be slaves?
It was a better place. It was England. A proud country where standards were set hundreds of years ago; not some backwater bloody hovel where middle-aged men preyed on young girls.
The girls were given a chance to earn a fee, one that could be paid to the chief to release them from servitude and their families from a lifetime of fear, a pity that the chiefs set the bar so high that they knew none of the girls would ever be able to afford the extortionate amount required.
But they knew the sweating man in the dark suit with the dusty shoes, white hair and blue-green eyes could. And he did, each time he visited.
“Two of those. Six of those – they look good. Three dozen of the older ones – you decide, and I’ll take her too and her sister, that makes fifty if my maths is correct.” It was as if he was choosing vegetables for his Sunday lunch.
They were rounded up, crying, and led to boats where the journey to the quayside began. They had never heard stories from the girls that went before them, but surely life could only improve from here on in?
Only a few hours later he was back on board the freight ship.
“Captain Reddington. All ready when you are, sir. The cargo is loaded and all passengers are present and correct. With your permission we need to cast off or we’ll be here in this Godforsaken hole another night and I don’t know about you but I need a decent drink and a bath.”
Both men knew that what they were doing was wrong, but they both followed orders and the trafficking of people had been overlooked for generations, and now, right now, Britain needed workers, and other trades were only too willing to snap up the girls who were willing in every possible way.
If the British people knew what was happening there would be an outcry, slavery had been abolished long ago, hadn’t it?
Reddington watched as the freighter eased out into the channel and slowly put the West African country behind it, hopefully for the last time. As a gambler returns to the tables, he knew that such trips were not only necessary; they were personally profitable. Every man in the syndicate thought the same. Blind eyes could and would be turned.
He turned to the officer on the bridge. “In your hands from here on in Denby.”
“I have a name, captain, and I’d thank you for using it. Worst case call me chief.”
The army officer pointed to a diminishing shoreline. “Denby, I’ve had it up to here with bloody chiefs just lately and as for respect, you gave up any right to that the first time you set sail from that festering place to England. Now, if you don’t mind, I shall head to my cabin for a well-earned rest. Get your people to send my meal to me, would you? Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” He waited until Reddington was long gone, before shaking his head with the rest of the naval crew. They didn’t like the army at the best of times, often called them by their colloquial name of pongoes. Where the army goes, the pong goes. And as far as the navy were concerned, they were the Senior Service.
But in part he had given up the right to say he was a part of the Royal Navy, since he had first set sail on a clandestine voyage under the banner of something they referred to in hushed briefings as ‘Griffin’.
He stepped outside onto the bridge wing and wished he smoked. He could be alone here, exposed to the elements but close to the bridge if needed. What he needed was a moment alone, to ponder his past and his future. He wiped a tear from his eye. How much longer would he have to endure his own servitude?
There had to be a way to help these poor people, these poor children?
As the moon danced around the stern and its pure-white reflection flickered among the discreet waves that the aging freighter created, he made a decision.
“This can’t go on forever. One day I’ll make good on my promise and all this will be behind us.” He looked up to the night sky which was velvety black and smothered in white glimpses of hope – a night sky like no other.
“One day.” He tossed a coin into the ocean and hoped it landed on heads.
Down in the depths of the ship a young girl cried too, the tears running across the scar on her left cheek that marked her out as a slave.
One day she hoped to be free.
Chapter One
Many years later
They had boarded
the old black-and-red and anonymous steamer late at night, under a moonless sky, so dark that only the stars of the northern hemisphere served as a reminder that they were still alive.
The witching hour, they sometimes called it. That uncertain time between people staying up and making the most of what was left of the day, and the early hours of the next morning, when legend has it bad things can happen.
A time when here and there people began to rise and head off to wherever they were going. Creatures of habit.
Everywhere was quiet. Not a sound, unless you stood and allowed yourself to become one with nature. And only then would you feel their presence, occasionally hear them. Wild and partly domesticated animals moving around the outskirts of the town and down on the quayside, the hunters and the hunted.
The Angel of Whitehall Page 1
