Shadow Line

by Stephen Edger

  ‘I don’t know…to show his power, maybe?’

  ‘What if I told you that the bomb was not a fake; that it should have detonated when he released the trigger switch? It was just dumb luck that he hadn’t attached the wires correctly before leaving home.’

  ‘Hold on, I was led to believe that M.I.5 had disabled the device.’

  ‘Bull shit! They hadn’t tampered with it, I promise you that much. My dad has contacts remember: the bomber wasn’t even on their radar!’

  ‘So his intention was to die that day?’

  Mark nodded, a small grin growing on his face.

  ‘But why? I cannot see a connection between Laboué, a young Muslim, and Nikolai Stratovsky, a Russian gangster. I can’t see how Stratovsky could have won Laboué over to his cause.’

  ‘You’re thinking too literally, Detective; think laterally.’

  Vincent stared blankly at Mark.

  ‘Okay, I’ll tell you,’ he eventually sighed. ‘You’re Laboué, right? You’re a young idealist; you love your Qur’an. You are approached by a fellow believer who starts telling you all about the fight your brothers are enduring against the evil West. He tells you that you need to make a stand, to show that you won’t be pushed over. Over time you start to adapt to this man’s way of thinking; you start to hate the people who run the country you live in, and I mean really hate them. Then one day, the man, now a close confidant, approaches you and says he has a mission for you: an opportunity to support your brothers abroad and take a stand. He tells you he has a suicide vest for you if you’re prepared to listen to Allah’s calling. What do you do?’

  ‘I could never kill hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people.’

  ‘You’re not listening to me, Vincent. You are not you; you are Laboué. What do you do? You hate The West and now you have a chance to send a message.’

  ‘Okay, so I agree to wear the vest; I still don’t see what this has to do with Stratovsky or the case.’

  ‘I’m coming to that. What if the man that approached you, sorry Laboué, worked for Stratovsky?’

  ‘A Muslim patriot in cahoots with a Russian gangster? I don’t think so.’

  Mark reached into his jacket and removed a crumpled A5-sized photograph and handed it to Vincent.

  ‘The man on the left is Mohammed Abdul, he is the underworld boss of Southall and the neighbouring Muslim communities; it’s not just the Russians and Brits that have organised crime, you know? Every little deal in West London has to pass through Abdul, and he gets a cut of any deals struck with neighbouring areas. He is king of the hill in his patch, but he’s still reportable to one above him. Ultimately, someone has to have oversight of crime in the capital. It certainly isn’t the Met police,’ Mark chuckled again.

  ‘You might recognise the man on the right; at least I hope you do.’

  He studied the image. The shot was just head and shoulders and was taken from a side angle, but there was no dispute; it was the face of Nikolai Stratovsky.

  ‘You said Abdul operates in West London, not Southampton.’

  ‘True, but I have seen proof that indicates Abdul has made several trips to the south coast in the last six months.’

  ‘Evidence? What kind of evidence?’

  ‘Some hearsay from the community, and an image of him in the front seat of his car caught speeding by a traffic camera in St. Mary’s.’

  ‘Where would you get information like that?’

  ‘I told you, my dad practised his trade craft for thirty years; you’d be amazed what he has managed to collate in the last twelve months. He has hooks in police databases, the DVLA and access to the network of traffic cameras across the UK. He’s like a one man Interpol!’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘Exactly! Now, I can’t prove one hundred percent that Abdul was Laboué’s handler, but I would be prepared to stake my life on it.’

  ‘Alright, well if I was to accept your theory…and I’m having difficulty in doing that…why would Stratovsky want to destroy West Quay? What would he have to gain?’

  ‘Who was in West Quay that day, Vincent?’

  ‘I don’t know…hundreds of people. Does he have a vendetta against someone there that we don’t know about? Was there another key witness?’

  Mark smiled again, ‘Sort of.’

  Vincent stared blankly back at him. Mark remained quiet but did raise his eyebrows towards Vincent with a slight nod of the head.

  ‘Me? You think Laboué was there to kill me?’

  Mark nodded.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Vincent laughed. ‘If Stratovsky wanted me dead he could just have easily shot me…or stabbed me…or poisoned my food. There is no way he would have gone to that length to murder me!’

  ‘Wake up, Vincent! In the past week you were nearly killed by a terrorist bomb in West Quay, you survived an armed attack on a supposed M.I.5 safe house and then your unconscious body was dragged from the remains of your bombed flat. Three attempts on your life and you still don’t see what is happening? How the hell did you ever make it to Detective Inspector?’

  ‘How would they have known I would be in West Quay on that day? I’m hardly a slave to fashion. The only time I had been in the shopping centre prior to Saturday in the last six months was to buy a new radio. My trips to the shopping centre are so infrequent that nobody could have predicted I would be there on that day at that time!’

  ‘You make a fair point, Vincent, but my challenge to you would be: had you told anybody you would be there that day? Maybe somebody could have been threatened into disclosing where you were?’

  ‘Nobody knew; not even my colleagues at work.’

  ‘And you didn’t post it on the internet anywhere? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn?’

  Vincent laughed uproariously, ‘Do you really think I have time for social networking? I hate all kinds of chat-rooms and the like.’

  ‘Okay, let’s look at this another way; what were you doing in town on Saturday?’

  ‘I was meeting a friend…’ Vincent stopped short as a thought struck him.

  ‘Okay, so you were meeting a friend. Who was this friend?’

  Vincent sat back down on the bed as his mind worked through what now seemed so obvious.

  ‘I was supposed to be meeting a woman I met on a dating website. She lives in Bournemouth but was insistent that we meet in Southampton at a neutral restaurant and so we agreed on Pizza Hut. She was due to arrive at half twelve but didn’t show…I assumed she had become nervous and changed her mind…but now…’

  ‘Have you spoken to this woman since?’

  ‘No…I sent a couple of emails, and tried to phone her, but the number she gave me is dead and there is no response to the emails. Oh God, do you think..?

  ‘I don’t like to kick a man when he’s down, but yes, I do think it was probably a set up. The internet is a dangerous tool. If someone in Stratovsky’s organisation learned that you were using a dating website, there is every reason to suspect that they set up the date to have you in Laboué’s path on Saturday.’

  Vincent felt like he had just been stabbed in the heart again. He had still been clinging to the hope that Helen would get back in touch with him, apologise for standing him up and they would go on to have a relationship. Not that it would have lasted too long given the news he had received the night before.

  ‘It’s all a bit circumstantial. I mean, it wouldn’t stick in court.’

  ‘That’s the point, Vincent. You said that Stratovsky could have sent a man to kill you with a gun or a knife but then it would look like he had sent someone to get you. I mentioned earlier, people like Stratovsky walk between the raindrops without getting wet. We have seen, with how he tried to kill me and how he managed to kill Mike, he does it in a way that won’t get back to him; but I assure you he is definitely the ringmaster!’

  The two men sat in silence for several minutes before Mark said he would leave Vincent to get some sleep and to take in what they had discuss
ed.

  ‘What are the next steps?’ Vincent asked, assuming Mark and his father had a plan to achieve their goals.

  Mark smiled, ‘That all depends on you. I want to see justice served. I want to know that Nikolai Stratovsky will not be able to subject anybody else to the misery that he has inflicted on me and those close to me.’

  ‘But you said the trial is falling apart. What can I do to ensure it remains intact?’

  Mark shrugged his shoulders. ‘There’s probably nothing you can do to save the C.P.S.’s case. Even if they decide to continue, their evidence has taken a massive hit. Mike McGee was key to linking them to what happened to me. Without his evidence, I will come across as a bitter ex-convict with little more than my word against theirs.’

  ‘But I can corroborate your story.’

  ‘Really? How? You weren’t present at any of Ali’s meetings with them. You didn’t hear any of the meetings she had with Saunders where she explained what she had learned. All you can say is that you knew she was working undercover. I’m sorry to be blunt here, but your evidence is worth shit. You are just a loose end to these people; a fly in the ointment. Stratovsky is going to walk away from this, and all of Ali’s hard work, her life sacrifice will count for nothing.’

  ‘So what are you proposing? How do you envisage seeking your justice?’

  Mark fixed him with a stare. ‘I intend to kill Nikolai Stratovsky.’

  Vincent stifled a laugh, ‘For a minute there I thought you were being serious.’

  ‘I am deadly serious. Men like Stratovsky know only one way of settling disagreements. If this trial ends…wait, let me rephrase…when this trial ends, and he walks away a free man, he will be more powerful than ever. Any attempt by the police to question him for purported crimes will be met with a counterclaim of harassment. This was the C.P.S.’s one shot at bringing him to account. But that has now gone.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what you are saying? I am a serving police officer; your admission compels me to take you into custody.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Mark snorted. ‘I have disappeared before, it would be just as easy to repeat the feat.’

  ‘You have spent the last hour professing your innocence, and now you are claiming to be capable of killing another man! Which is it, Mark? Killer or innocent man? I mean, do you have any idea how difficult it is to kill somebody? It’s even more difficult when it is pre-meditated. I’ve seen perfectly normal men crack up under the pressure; guilt can do funny things to people.’

  ‘My conscience can cope, don’t you worry,’ Mark challenged back. ‘I have spent the last two years thinking about what I would do to the person that ruined my life. I was a different person back then; naïve even. He took my life, my friends and my family. I can’t walk down a street in the UK without looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to realise who I really am and put a gun to my head. My father cannot call me by the name he gave me. My mother and brother believe I am dead, and worse still, they believe I died a killer and a thief. That’s hard to live with! Exacting revenge on the fucker who caused it will be easy!’

  He watched as Mark paced the room, spitting out his thoughts about why Stratovsky deserved to die. He couldn’t help but pity him; how one man could have such hatred towards another was difficult to understand. One thing he had said was true: this was not the same man that he had arrested two years ago. That Mark Baines had been arrogant and naive. This one was bitter and something in his eyes made Vincent acutely aware that he meant every word he was saying.

  ‘And that’s why I need your help?’ Mark said at the end of his rant.

  ‘My help?’ Vincent replied, alarmed. ‘What do you think I can do?’

  ‘I need a wing man to be there when I pull the trigger. You are the only person who knows the truth.’

  ‘I don’t think so! You might want revenge on Stratovsky, but I don’t! I’m no killer.’

  ‘So you’d rather he go free and continue his reign of terror? What if that bomb had gone off in West Quay, huh? All those people killed just so he could stop you testifying against him. Would you still think he deserved to live after that? What if the pilot hadn’t changed his mind? What about the eighty-one innocent people on that flight? Would it be okay if he still lived after that?’

  ‘We have no right to take a man’s life because he has killed others! We cannot be judge, jury and executioner. There are laws in place for a reason. Think about the couple you were convicted of killing. What if they had friends or relatives who decided you deserved to die because of them? Sure, you know you’re innocent, but they don’t. Would it have been okay for them to kill you?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. The two situations are totally different. I didn’t kill them; he has killed people.’

  ‘But how do you know that. I appreciate you believe he is this kingpin who dictates who lives and who dies, but you don’t have any proof that he has done it. We had proof that suggested you had killed that couple but the proof was wrong. How do you know your belief is so right?’

  ‘Because I know!’ Mark shouted. ‘And you know it too, you’re just scared to admit it! Jesus Christ, Vincent! He has tried to kill you three times, why are you being so passive? What about Ali? He didn’t pull the trigger but he might as well have. If he hadn’t been holding my father, Ali and I would never have been at the hotel; she would still be alive today.’

  ‘Ali knew the risks when she went undercover. Her life would have been in just as much danger if she had been undercover on a different case.’

  ‘Don’t defend him!’ Mark bellowed. ‘Take your fucking rose-tinted spectacles off and see the truth for what it is. Stratovsky caused all of this mess and he has to pay!’

  Mark strode over to the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Whether he had stepped away to cool down or he just needed to relieve himself was unclear, but Vincent was glad of the space. In a way, he could understand why Mark was so angry and how killing Stratovsky would feel like a good outcome, but where would the world be if that approach was adopted? How many people would have to die until the stupidity of the action was seen?

  He thought about Ali Jacobs. The silly thing was that if she hadn’t fallen in love with Mark, she would probably still be alive today. It was a point he was tempted to make to counter the angry man’s attitude, but he feared it would push him further over the edge. There was some truth in it: he had spent so much time and energy on protecting the world, locking up criminals, but the world was no better for it. For every criminal incarcerated, another would pop up to take his or her place. It was a battle that the police were losing and if Mark was right, and Stratovsky walked, it would be yet another miscarriage of justice: not that the press would see it that way.

  In the last two years, he had witnessed Ali’s final moments on the planet in a fight against evil and he had also seen one of his most promising officers, Erin Cooke, also struck down in the prime of her life. At least Cookie’s killer had been brought to justice but it didn’t make the pain any easier to swallow. He was starting to wonder if what Mark was saying made a bit of sense when the younger man returned from the bathroom.

  ‘Look,’ Mark began calmly, ‘I’m sorry for losing it just now. I understand that killing someone, regardless of how evil they are, is against your police code. I didn’t expect you to agree with me, but I want you to think seriously about what I am proposing. I don’t want you to kill him; that pleasure will be mine. I just need someone to watch out for me; help me get him alone and make sure we are not disturbed. I know that you cared for Ali as well, and I am sure that if the shoe were on the other foot, she would want to avenge you. All I am asking is that you think about it, Detective.’

  ‘There is no point in me thinking about it,’ Vincent replied calmly, ‘I cannot be part of what you are suggesting. I’ll do you one small favour: I won’t report what you have told me. That should ensure that the police aren’t watching you.’

  Mark put his coat on and moved to
the door.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said without looking over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

  40

  Vincent was already walking to the bathroom when he realised he needed to hurry. He just made it to the toilet bowl before throwing up the undigested contents of his stomach. He stood back up and looked at his face in the bathroom mirror. His moustache looked unkempt, it hadn’t been trimmed in several days, his skin looked pale and leathery and his cheek bones seemed to be protruding more than usual giving him a gaunt and haunted look. He had to admit, he did not look well, and suddenly the doctor’s prognosis of six to eight weeks seemed optimistic; he looked like he wouldn’t last more than a fortnight.

  Retreating to the hotel bed, he carefully climbed in, conscious of what lay beneath his bandages, and he did what he could to force sleep. His mind was a whir of thought and imagined meetings. He could picture Stratovsky carefully planning his way out of prison and it sickened him. As he lay in the darkness, he felt a lone tear roll down his cheek as he thought about the Damocles sword now dangling perilously above his head.

  His upper body ached. Was this what it was going to be like for his remaining weeks? Days spent bent over in pain, too nauseous to manage three meals a day? It was just so unfair. As he lay in the hotel bed he began to contemplate a world without Jack Vincent. What hurt the most was the feeling that the world wouldn’t change without him; it would continue to turn as if nothing had happened.

  His detection methods may have been questionable over the years, and even he would admit that he had been prone to jumping to the wrong conclusion about suspects: allowing his passion for fighting crime to get the better of his judgement. Just look at the Mark Baines case: he had been adamant they had caught the right person. The investigation into Mark’s supposed criminal behaviour had been largely started by an anonymous phone call at the station naming Mark as the killer of the couple whose home in Chilworth he had invaded. That dawn raid had gone so smoothly. Mark had been arrested and detained, and the bodies had been discovered in the property’s basement as the anonymous caller had stated they would be. It had only been once they had started interrogating him and speaking to his colleagues that the details of his involvement in a massive money laundering scam had come out. The various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle had slotted into place one by one, and it had been one of the easiest operations he had experienced. He had assumed it was just because his detective skills had reached their peak after years of practising. It was only now that he realised just how wrong he had been. There was still something he didn’t like about Mark, but the more he thought about what had happened two years ago, the more he began to believe that Mark really had been an innocent man.