Shadow Line

by Stephen Edger

  Detective Inspector Jack Vincent woke with a start. It took barely a moment for him to register that he must have fallen asleep in his office the previous night. Looking out into the Incident Room he could see the first couple of the team arriving. There was nothing ultimately wrong with him spending the night at work, but that didn’t mean he was happy with the team knowing he had done it. He had worn a white shirt to work on Monday, so a change of tie would be enough to disguise the fact he was wearing the same clothes. Reaching into his top drawer, he removed the spare tie he kept for such occasions. It was a lurid green colour, but it would do. He quickly put it on and then stood to stretch his weary muscles.

  A knock at the door announced Kyle Davies had arrived.

  ‘Morning, Guv,’ he chirped cheerfully.

  Vincent ushered him in with a wave of his hand as he stifled a yawn.

  Davies proceeded to tell Vincent what Nina Johnstone had shared the previous evening about the bogus AAIB report. He listened intently before asking the same question that had been floating around Davies’ head all night: why?

  ‘Maybe the airline company bought the AAIB official because they wanted to avoid publicity?’ Davies suggested as all he could come up with.

  ‘You really think that could happen? Who were the suited men carrying out the interviews then? Airline officials? It seems weak, Kyle. Do you trust this friend of yours? You sure she’s not yanking your chain?’

  ‘I trust her,’ he replied, blushing slightly. ‘I don’t see what she would have to gain by lying.’

  Vincent concurred with the last statement.

  ‘What do you think we should do about this information?’ Davies continued.

  It was another good question, and one for which Vincent did not have an immediate answer. His curiosity had been marginally aroused but he did not have the resources available to do any digging. As soon as the AAIB findings had been shared, he had broken up the team investigating the crash, and had reassigned them to look into the Securitas heist. He could speak to the AAIB representative who had completed the report, but there was every chance that he or she would refuse to speak to him; they weren’t answerable to the police.

  ‘Maybe we could pull the pilot in for questioning?’ Davies suggested. ‘I mean, we could only ask him questions, and his presence would have to be voluntary, but if he agreed it could prove to be good intelligence.’

  Vincent shook his head at the idea. ‘The chances are the pilot isn’t local, so I’m not sure where we’d begin to look for him. We could take a statement from your friend, but if we can’t find anybody prepared to corroborate her version of events, what do we have? Nothing, that’s what.’

  ‘It still makes no sense to me, Guv,’ Davies continued. ‘If the pilot did hijack the flight and try to crash it, then why is it being covered up?’

  ‘As callous as it is to say, Kyle, it isn’t our problem. We’ve got plenty of work to keep us busy for now. Your friend is best off forgetting it happened and enjoying the compensation she has been offered.’

  Vincent paused to answer his ringing phone. It was Lauren Smart on the other end, asking if he would meet her at her hotel in an hour for a debrief on all the morning’s updates; God only knew how she had got wind of the Securitas heist. He reluctantly agreed and hung up. He was still angry that his mystery terrorist had been moved out of his custody, but D.C.I. Mercure had been firm when telling him to drop it.

  Davies made his excuses and returned to the Incident Room. As the rest of the team arrived, Vincent welcomed them and then pulled them together for a catch up.

  *

  Near the Police Headquarters building in Southampton are three more than adequate hotels that Smart and her team could have used during their stay. However, she had opted to use the Jury’s Inn about a mile away. As it was raining when he decided to leave the office, Vincent hitched a ride with a couple of uniforms who were heading out on patrol. Traffic up to Charlotte Place, the name of the roundabout where the hotel is located, was heavy. It was nearly ten o’clock but it felt like rush hour. The squad car pulled up just before the hotel, and Vincent thanked his chauffeurs as he climbed out.

  Crossing the road to the building was like playing a game of chicken, and even when the pedestrian crossing indicated for him to cross, he wasn’t certain that the cars whizzing around would stop. The hotel, erected in 2005, with twelve floors, two hundred and seventy rooms available for guests and was within walking distance of the city centre. Smart had told him she was on the top floor and that he should come to her room for privacy.

  He took a lift up to the twelfth floor and easily found her room in the north-east corner of the complex. He was surprised to see an empty bottle of champagne on a tray outside her room with two glass flutes. One of the flutes had lipstick on it but the other was bare; he hoped that, whoever her guest was, they had left the room.

  He knocked on the door and, as she opened it, he caught a glimpse of her thigh through the black kimono she was wearing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he stuttered. ‘I can come back later if you’re not ready.’

  ‘Well, you’re earlier than I expected, but please come in,’ she beckoned.

  The room was larger than he had imagined, and it wasn’t until he was inside that he realised it was a suite, with two bedrooms and an open plan floor space with a small dining table with chairs, and sofas surrounding the flat panel television.

  ‘You must be popular with your bosses to get something this big,’ he commented.

  ‘Oh this,’ she remarked casually, as she wrapped a towel around her wet hair, ‘it’s all they had left at such short notice so my bosses had no choice.’

  She smiled and he was struck by just how friendly she seemed this morning. Maybe she wasn’t the pain in the arse he had encountered when they had first met.

  ‘I was just in the shower,’ she continued. ‘I had a late one last night, which is why I am not dressed now. I’ve ordered some food from room service so if it’s okay with you, I’ll finish getting ready once we’ve spoken?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he answered uncomfortably, admiring her figure through the silk gown she was wearing. He swallowed audibly and looked away as he realised he had been staring at her for too long.

  ‘Are you married, Jack?’ she casually enquired.

  ‘Err…me…married? No…erm, no I’m not…married, that is. You?’

  ‘Married to the job right? Me too. Not sure a man could put up with the hours I work,’ she laughed. ‘Please take a seat.’

  He sat down at the small table while she answered the door to the man who had brought the room service up. The uniformed bellboy placed a large tray of coffee and pastries on the table in front of Vincent, and, accepting a small handful of coins, thanked Smart and left the room.

  ‘Have you eaten yet? I’m famished.’

  He hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before but the smell of the pastries was making his stomach turn.

  ‘I have, yes,’ he lied.

  ‘Oh well, she replied, selecting a croissant and nibbling the end, ‘If you fancy anything, just help yourself.’

  Vincent felt suddenly warm and pulled his tie down slightly in an attempt to cool down. He wanted to take his suit jacket off but didn’t want her to see how creased the shirt underneath it was.

  ‘It’s quite warm in here,’ he remarked. ‘Any chance we could open a window?’

  Smart put the croissant down and adjusted the controls on the air conditioning panel on the wall.

  ‘That should cool you down a bit.’

  He thanked her and chastised himself for behaving so childishly; she was attractive, but the chance of anything happening between them was nil. He needed to get a grip.

  ‘You look tense, Jack,’ she hummed, sensing his discomfort.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he replied quickly. ‘Just a bit tired, that’s all.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ she replied as she sat down on the seat next to him. As she crossed her
legs the kimono slipped, revealing the flesh of her calf. Vincent forced his eyes away.

  ‘You’re really sweating, Jack,’ she warned. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Could you get me a glass of water?’ he asked. ‘From the bathroom tap will be fine,’ he added as she stood and moved to the minibar in the corner of the room. She opened the small fridge and withdrew a small bottle of mineral water and passed it to him. He yanked off the plastic lid and drank deeply.

  A mobile phone on the bedside table started to vibrate, indicating a call. Smart quickly scooped up the phone and headed to the bathroom.

  ‘I just need to take this,’ she told him, and he was grateful for the break.

  He walked across to the wall where the air conditioner was pumping out cool air. He was so embarrassed at how unprofessionally he was behaving but could not control it. So far, Smart had not questioned his attitude, which meant there was a chance she hadn’t noticed. He suspected she probably had, which meant that she was undoubtedly revelling in his discomfort. After all, who attends an official de-brief in a silk kimono?

  He heard her say goodbye to whomever she was speaking to and he quickly dashed back to his chair.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he heard her say as she sat back down.

  ‘Where is my bomb suspect?’ he asked, eager to take control of the meeting.

  ‘I assumed D.C.I. Mercure would have told you; he is in a safe house.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ he replied evenly, ‘but where is this safe house,, and what made you take him there so suddenly yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘With respect, Detective Inspector Vincent, I do not have to justify my actions to you.’

  The playful and friendly tone was gone, replaced by an opposing icy front.

  ‘However,’ she continued, ‘out of courtesy for a fellow law enforcement officer, I will tell you.’

  She took a sip of her coffee.

  ‘We received intelligence that your bomber is part of a far larger cell than we first suspected, and that the cell were planning steps to tie up that particular loose end.’

  ‘Hold on, hold on,’ Vincent interrupted. ‘We hadn’t even identified that he was part of any cell. Hell, no group has come forward to accept responsibility yet have they? Where are you getting your information from?’

  Smart paused as if she was weighing up an answer in her mind.

  ‘What I am about to tell you is highly classified, we have been monitoring your terrorist and his cohorts for some time. I have an operative undercover in a linked cell who is supplying us with our intelligence. We know a lot about this man and what he is capable of.’

  ‘You mean you knew that he was going to be in the shopping centre on Saturday? You knew he was planning to detonate a bomb?’ Vincent was exasperated.

  ‘No! We knew that there were a couple of targets in Southampton, and that he was likely to make a move on Saturday but we didn’t know where’

  ‘Well you dropped the ball on that one, didn’t you?’ he fired back.

  ‘You think it was an accident the vest did not go off?’ she shouted back. ‘We don’t leave these things to chance, you know.’

  Vincent remembered back to when Davies had tackled the bomber to the floor. The suspect had been sure that his vest would detonate. Was it possible that Smart’s operative had managed to disable the vest beforehand? He had no idea but knew it was feasible.

  ‘When were you going to share this information with my team?’ Vincent eventually asked.

  ‘Probably never,’ she admitted. ‘You and your team have enough on your plates without worrying about cleaning up our mess. The plan was always to take the suspect into our custody in an effort to turn him.’

  ‘So all that bumph you fed Mercure about having oversight of my investigation was just…’

  ‘Bull shit,’ Smart finished for him. ‘In fairness, I do have a genuine interest in how your other cases are developing, but my primary focus was on lifting him.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Vincent suddenly asked. ‘Who is he? Why did he think it was okay to set off a bomb in my city?’

  ‘His name is Youssef Laboué; he is a student in the city but, as I said earlier, he has extensive links with a larger terrorist network that we have been trying to get someone into. You don’t realise what a coup this is for us.’

  22

  Vincent opened the manila envelope which contained his notes. He withdrew the two pieces of paper and placed them on the table in front of him. Smart had spent the last twenty minutes dressing and drying her hair, and was now much more appropriately attired to discuss the three open cases.

  He took his time as he explained the working motive for Daniel Simpson’s shooting at the IPSA building was revenge. He told her that the shooter’s mounting debt issues, the fact that the company had demoted him after years of dedicated service, and a breakdown in his relationship with his wife, all pointed to revenge. When Capshaw and Taylor had visited Mrs Simpson on Monday afternoon she had confessed that ‘things had not been right in the bedroom for some time’ and she had been having an affair with another man. She told them that she hadn’t thought her husband had been aware of the affair, but if he had, it could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  When questioned about the large regular withdrawals that her husband had been making, Mrs Simpson had reacted angrily, as she had had no idea how much debt they were in nor why he would be withdrawing money. She was adamant that he didn’t have a drug problem because ‘he wasn’t the type’ who would touch narcotics. She described him as a ‘whisky-man not a frisky man’ by which she inferred his chosen vice was alcohol.

  Vincent added that Beth Taylor had used her Family Liaison training to gain Mrs Simpson’s trust, and that the widow had been more than happy for them to search the late Mr Simpson’s laptop for clues as to motive. They had been primarily searching for any kind of explanatory note, or video clip, common breadcrumbs in cases like these. However, there was nothing obvious. A search of Simpson’s internet history revealed he had a penchant for PVC porn, and there were several such sites he had visited in the days leading up to his death. Mrs Simpson had not been surprised and if anything was relieved that he had found his own form of sexual solace. Taylor had mentioned this probably made her feel less guilty about her own indiscretions.

  The internet history also showed that he was a regular visitor to several online casinos, and a little digging back at the office confirmed that he was a member of five different online casino websites, roulette being his favourite game. The team had reached the conclusion that if he spent this much time gambling online, there was every chance that he also frequented offline casinos too, and were due to contact the local venues to see if he was a member. Smart agreed that a gambling habit would explain the large withdrawals. She congratulated him on his team’s quick work.

  Vincent brought forward his second page of notes and began to recite the intelligence they had gathered on the heist gang. The two thieves who had entered the building dressed as security guards had been identified as Ray Sampson and Alex Grundy, two Portsmouth-based known offenders. Vincent had been in contact with his counterpart in Portsmouth who had reluctantly agreed to support the operation to locate the assailants. Vincent had arranged for the four members of his team to work out of the Portsmouth office for a few days to make full use of local police intelligence there. Sampson was evidently a former boxer, whose brief athletic career had ended when he had been excluded for taking banned stimulants. He had claimed they were some sleeping pills his wife had given him to calm stress, but his appeal against the decision had been thrown out. As he had left school at sixteen with no qualifications, and only dreams of a glittering career in boxing, the ban had hit him hard and had led to him falling in with some local hoods who believed his muscle could prove useful. This in turn had led to him being linked to a couple of post office robberies in the early nineties swiftly followed by a five year stretch at Her Majest
y’s pleasure.

  Grundy, by contrast, was as rotten as they came. Frequently in trouble as an adolescent, he had spent his formative years in a young offender’s institute and, so it was claimed, had never done a legal day’s work his whole life. He was linked with local drugs, weapons transportation and a slew of offences that had led to him being pulled in for questioning at least once a month for the last year. The team in Portsmouth saw him as small fry and were targeting those above Grundy, with suspicions that he had ties with several ‘families’ in Central London.

  Dawn raids had been undertaken on Grundy’s and Sampson’s known residences and hang-outs with no trace of either man being discovered. They had left the B&Q car park in mocked up police vehicles, carrying false plates. No trace of the vehicles had been found as of yet, despite helicopter searches across Hampshire since. Portsmouth CID were asking questions of their local snitches but so far the whereabouts of the men were still unknown, as were the identities of the other three men involved in the heist.

  Parker, the manager of the depository, had been more than helpful in sharing CCTV footage and allowing officers the time to interview his staff members. They had two possible suspects based on background checks and known acquaintances, and these leads were being followed up. Smart agreed with Parker’s assessment that there had to have been an insider on the job, based on the ease with which the operation was carried out.

  He then withdrew the notes page that referenced the crashed plane from Thursday night. He had scrawled ‘AAIB report a fake?’ in big capital letters at the top.

  ‘Have you read the AAIB’s report into Thursday night’s plane crash yet?’ he enquired.

  ‘I’ve not read it but I’m aware they’ve ruled it a mechanical failure. I guess that ties up any involvement for you and your team then?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Vincent replied cautiously. ‘We have reason to believe that there may be an alternative cause for the plane to have come down in the unexpected way.’

  ‘Really?’ Smart asked.