Sealed With A Death

by James Silvester

  “Anyway,” said Lucie, flustered, “what did you mange to learn from the flashdrive?”

  “More than I thought I would, that’s for sure,” Ismail answered, finishing his coffee and sliding the cup away. “What you and Lake are lacking in gadget-laden spy cars you make up for with software, put it that way.”

  “Glad to be of service.”

  “First of all…” He paused as the chime of the door sounded and a young man with an unshaven face and a fearsome expression trudged in and made his way to the takeaway counter on the far side of the room. Turning back to Lucie, Ismail dropped his voice a notch lower as he continued. “First of all, you can tell your new mate that she’s made it onto the PSL, seems she was already near the top of the list, even before yesterday’s meeting.”

  “First on the list, eh? Good for her, she deserves it.”

  “From the sound of things, I agree with you, but she’s not first on the list.”

  “What do you mean?” Lucie raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “The whole point of yesterday was to get the suppliers in place ahead of the mass recruitment.”

  “That’s what the brochure said,” he nodded, “but that’s not what happened. There’s a supplier in place already that no-one was told about yesterday; been there a few months now too.”

  “Actively?”

  “Yep. And I could have missed it but I can’t see that they ever had to go to tender or pitch in the way everyone did yesterday, it looks like they were just taken straight on. Of course, I might be reading too much into that, they could always have had a relationship with this lot…”

  “So did half the recruiters at yesterday’s meeting,” Lucie mused. “The whole point of this was to refresh the list for the new project. Who are the company?”

  “Augustus Nairn Ltd.”

  “Fancy name. Anything dodgy about them?”

  “For the most part they seem quite reputable, at least as reputable as recruitment companies can get. Augustus Nairn himself is a bit of a curiosity though.”

  “How so?”

  “He doesn’t exist. Never has.”

  Ismail pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly brought up the Augustus Nairn website, handing the device to Lucie.

  “He’s a made-up name, designed to give the company a grand, respectable image. It’s not an uncommon business strategy. What’s more interesting is who really controls things.”

  Lucie looked down the garish page, resplendent with stock photos of professionals in various poses, all appearing frighteningly stiff and smiling unnaturally, and pressed her finger against the menu. Locating the ‘who are we’ tab, she scrolled down until she came across the title of ‘Director’ above an image of a bespectacled older man with a high forehead and thin, greying remnants of what had once been flowing blonde hair.

  “Jarvis Whyte,” Lucie exclaimed, a cynical laugh in her voice. “Giving contracts out to himself, eh? Cheeky bastard.”

  “That’s one way the rich stay rich,” Ismail smiled, matching her cynicism. “But that’s not the bit that concerns me.”

  “Then what is?” Lucie asked, handing back the phone.

  “Since they’ve been on board with the project, Augustus Nairn have focussed exclusively on recruiting for administrative roles, personal assistants and the like.”

  “And?”

  “And, I didn’t see any record of any applications, no interview notes or anything, not even a record of any vacancies the successful candidates had applied for.”

  “Maybe you were looking in the wrong place?”

  “Maybe, but I was pretty careful. And that’s not all. I can’t find any social media footprint for any of the candidates.”

  “Nothing at all?

  “Nothing.” Ismail leant closer still as the door opened again and the surly man exited clutching a large paper cup, while a slow trickle of people shuffled in to replace him, jingling with change and squinting at the menu board as they came.

  “One person with no online presence I could maybe understand, at a pinch two, but that would be rare in this day and age. But there is nothing for any of these people, not even CVs on online job boards, or LinkedIn profiles or anything. There are just copies of offer letters on the WaterWhyte database, confirmation of appointment and immediate posting to the company’s Portsmouth site.”

  Lucie drained then last of her coffee as she processed Ismail’s words.

  “If they had no online presence and there were no formal vacancies to apply for, how could they be recruited in the first place?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Ismail answered, his eyes focussed and unblinking.

  “Something tells me you’ve got the answer.”

  “Maybe,” Ismail nodded, “or maybe it’s just coincidence.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Lucie answered. “Let’s have it.”

  “The jobs all went to women.”

  “Nothing too unusual about that,” Lucie responded. “Women still make up the bulk of administrative staff, whichever the industry.”

  “I agree,” nodded Ismail. “But exclusively women with absolutely no electronic footprint, who all just happened to step out of the ether and accept jobs there’s no record of them applying for, or that were even advertised? I’m not buying it. And then there’s the number of them…”

  “How many?” Lucie quizzed, her stomach beginning to churn and her mind already guessing the answer.

  “Six.”

  Lucie’s eyes dropped to the table and she shook her head, at once excited they now had a lead, and angry with herself for having taken so long to find it.

  “Our women,” she said softly. “You’re sure?”

  “The names don’t tally but look at this.”

  Ismail reached again for his phone, holding it up for Lucie to see. On the screen was a photograph of an attractive, dark haired young woman, one of the missing six; the picture adorning her Facebook profile.

  “You recognise her?”

  “Hagne Pappas,” Lucie answered immediately, the faces and names of each of the women etched across her mind. “Greek, twenty-four years old.”

  “Top of the class,” Ismail grimaced, scrolling through his phone again for a new picture. “There were very few photographs in the files, at least that I saw, but let me introduce you to Khryseis Angelis.”

  He held up the mobile once more, and Lucie found herself staring at the exact same face. The pose was different, the hair more professionally styled and the features unsmiling and rigid, but it was without doubt the face of Hagne Pappas.

  “Bastards,” whispered Lucie as she took in the image. “They’ve robbed her of herself… what about the rest?”

  “I couldn’t find any more pictures, but the others have to be our women. This is a far bigger operation than we thought.”

  “You’re telling me,” Lucie frowned. “So, whoever is at the top of this tree is using yellow vest knuckle scrapers to kidnap European women they target on social media, pack them along to WaterWhyte Defence via Augustus Nairn under the guise of job applicants, where they get stripped of their identities and disappear to God knows where.”

  “Never to be seen again,” Ismail finished.

  “Well you and me are going to make bloody sure they are seen again, mark my words.”

  Lucie stood to leave as more people began filling the coffee house and the next table became occupied, Ismail following suit.

  “I still don’t understand why it’s only been European women targeted so far,” he mused, “or what the hell the motive could be for two multi-million-pound companies to be involved in people trafficking. And while we’re on the subject, why would a long-standing MP be involved in it all? I mean, I know half the buggers are corrupt, but, trafficking?”

  “And not just trafficking,” Lucie added as they threw on their coats and headed to the door. “Don’t forget about the mystery of the phantom weapons systems too. All in all, there’s something decidedly bloody n
asty going on and Jarvis Whyte is at the centre of it, which means there’s only one place to start.”

  “Will Lake let us go for it?” Ismail queried, pulling open the door and holding it.

  “Don’t worry about him,” she answered as she stepped through. “He’s a bastard but he knows when a lead looks hot. If he’s any sense he’ll let us just get on with it.”

  “And what does ‘getting on with it’ look like?”

  “Well that depends,” Lucie mulled as they set off briskly down the street. “What else did you find in those files?”

  “One or two things of interest,” came the response, “but I also found something of interest in the social media of our missing women, specifically about that group they belonged to; or rather Lake’s team did.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Another member, also a professional European woman under forty.”

  “You think she’s under threat?

  “It’s a reasonable assumption,” Ismail confirmed, “but you should hear the name.”

  “Why?” Lucie asked, instinct telling her that the answer would not be good news and Ismail’s face confirming it as he stopped walking and turned to face her.

  “Monika,” he said. “Monika Barenyi.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Lucie climbed the steps of Crewe House, London’s Saudi embassy, with a professional determination fuelled by the uncooperative and belligerent obstruction of the man she was marching to face. Monika’s membership of the Facebook group, combined with her name appearing on the WaterWhyte list, caused Lucie both further guilt and sufficient concern to place a guard outside the house Monika shared with friends in Shoreditch, while she took the information gathered a step further.

  Ismail’s reading of the files had led not only to revelations about the case, now inextricably linked with the Red Mako inquiries Algers had been wrestling with, but also reaped details of every press release relating to the project since its inception. While most of these didn’t warrant a second glance, the latest entry had pricked Ismail’s attention and presented them with a timely opportunity.

  With the second phase recruitment team now in place and hundreds of roles about to open for application, a press conference had been arranged to herald the new era of independence for Brexit Britain ahead of a black-tie dinner at the Saudi embassy that evening.

  A call to Lake and a hastily arranged press pass later, and Ismail was taking his place in the midst of a grand, parliamentary conference room full of scribblers and hacks, while Lucie sat in the ante-room, watching the spectacle unfold on the monitor alongside a handful of other aides and advisers.

  Eventually, and to a fanfare of clicking cameras and flashes of light, three figures entered the conference room and sat behind the table set up beneath an ancient and impressive tapestry depicting Wellington’s troops driving the Old Guard from the field at Waterloo.

  The figure in the middle of the trio garnered most of the attention, and to any observer of current events it was obvious why. After the latest round of Ministerial resignations saw the government lose its Defence Secretary, the Prime Minister had opted – or some said had been advised by the Hardliners – to promote a junior Minister at the department rather than shuffle someone sideways into the role. In consequence, it was Adam Butcher MP who had sat facing the cameras, dressed in a suit sharper than any Mako’s tooth and wearing the perpetual smirk which had made him infamous in political circles.

  Although Butcher had never been blessed with an over-abundance of intelligence, at least none he had ever displayed, what he lacked in IQ he made up for in raw political cunning. To the extreme Brexiters he had long been the darling of the movement; handsome, despite the persistent sneer, and popular with the media. His charming voice and uncanny ability to twist whatever question he was asked into an opportunity to spout the latest Leaver soundbites, had proved unswervingly attractive to booking managers in TV studios up and down the country. It was a political charm that had taken him to the Cabinet. So too had he garnered support in the country, when the recent tragic suicide of his estranged mother had afforded him the opportunity to show a hitherto untapped emotional side to interviewers.

  Having already piloted the trial ‘Legalisation of Sexual Premises Act’ through the Commons, and now having taken the Defence Portfolio, to many on the government benches he was ideally positioned to take the keys to Number Ten whenever Damocles’ sword may fall on the PM, a prospect that looked increasingly likely.

  To Butcher’s right sat the apparently emotionless Bandeer Al-Khatani, a representative of the Saudi government whose immaculate white thobes and keffiyeh provided a neat and respectable contrast to the sartorial peacock display preferred by his two companions. Lucie had known nothing of Al-Khatani, other than his role as the Butcher’s counterpart in the Saudi government, which the press release had spoken of. But it was the third figure at the table that held Lucie’s focused attention.

  It was Jarvis Whyte himself who sat to Butcher’s left, sweat glistening on his high forehead as he reached for the jug of water before him and poured himself a generous measure. It had been obvious to Lucie that Whyte was not relishing this appearance. A career back-bencher, he was renowned in Westminster for preferring to stand just adjacent to the limelight rather than in its glare, focussing his energies on increasing his millions through business rather than political interests. In fact it was a known character trait of the politician that he quickly grew bored of the day-to-day handling of his many projects, preferring instead to get the ball rolling on the latest scheme before handing over the reins and taking a back seat to count his money. Never the most attentive of constituency MPs, politics had always been more of a hobby to him than a career, and his parliamentary longevity owed more to the inherent safety of his seat and the colour of his rosette than it did any tireless commitment to his constituents. Despite his natural reticence though, he had duly taken his place at the table, dressed in a suit that rivalled Butcher’s own for bite. His black framed glasses were pushed up to his nose, his face pale and uncertain in front of the camera flashes and rows of journalists before him.

  As predicted, it had been Butcher who had opened the conference, so passionately extolling the glorious future he predicted for Brexit Britain that even some of his more ardent press supporters had stifled embarrassed murmurs. The Red Mako, he said, would be the symbol of the new Britain, unconstrained by Europe and showing the world that Britannia once more ruled the waves. The flicker of embarrassment on Al-Khatani’s face at Butcher’s choice of words had been brief but obvious to Lucie, and it had been the Saudi Minister’s quiet cough that informed the Defence Secretary his speech should come to a close. Al-Khatani himself had spoken only briefly, to praise the Saudi-British collaboration on the project and express his thanks to Butcher for his work, and to Whyte, whose company would facilitate it. In response, Whyte had merely given a shallow nod, a quiet ‘thank you’ pushing its way through his thin lips.

  It was when the floor had been opened to questions that Ismail had come into his own, Lucie watching with a satisfied smile as he played his part to perfection. Sitting three rows from the front, far enough away from the cameras to not be picked up by them, Ismail had waited while the usual suspects made their comments and the planted queries were raised, everything being directed towards Butcher, who answered with his usual mix of pleasantry and soundbite. After several minutes of this Ismail’s hand was picked out and he had stood to voice his question, only to address Whyte, who looked back in wide-eyed shock and reached at once for the water.

  “Mr Whyte,” Ismail had begun, “Mr Butcher has been keen to talk about the prestige of the project and what a boost it will be for the post-Brexit economy that all the Red Mako’s component parts will be produced in Britain, coincidentally by companies which all exist under the WaterWhyte Defence umbrella…”

  “The, er, the tender process was entirely above board and…” Whyte had stuttered, what little colour there was in
his cheeks noticeably draining as he spoke.

  “I’m sure,” Ismail had interjected in apparent sincerity. “But perhaps you could explain why the weapons systems are being produced entirely in Saudi Arabia?”

  Whyte had simply stared at his inquisitor, blinking and speechless, his mouth wordlessly opening and closing as though his vocal cords had stalled. Lucie had thought he might stay like that indefinitely before he was rescued by Butcher, who clarified that certain parts of the platform were being constructed by the Saudis directly, and the only contracts issued had gone to British companies so there was no reliance on European supply chains.

  Undeterred, Ismail had followed up by quizzing how another of Whyte’s companies, Augustus Nairn, had been able to source and employ administrative staff for vacancies which had apparently never been formally released to open application. Again, the perspiring MP had mumbled something about targeted headhunting for ‘particular roles’, before Butcher again interjected.

  “I think you’ve had your turn,” he said in a professionally jocular tone, “let’s give someone else a go,” before pointing to a friendly face in the crowd and fielding a question about the significance of the new boat’s colour scheme.

  Whyte’s reaction had been everything Lucie had expected, and she was not about to relieve the pressure now. The press conference was to be followed that evening by a reception and dinner at the Saudi embassy whose steps she now climbed, her jeans black, her overcoat buttoned tight and a modest black scarf respectfully cradling her head. Each Member of Parliament had receive an invitation to the Ambassador’s reception, though it was expected that many, the indisposed Kasper Algers included, would politely – or not so politely - decline. A quiet word in diplomatic ears ensured that his invitation was re-issued in Lucie’s name, and she wordlessly presented it to the embassy guards as she entered, refusing to allow her focus to be distracted by small talk or polite conversation as she scanned the splendour of the function room for her prey.