by Ted Tayler
Rusty nodded. He had to hand it to Phoenix; he planned these missions so well. Six nasty pieces of work sent packing without any clues leading back to Olympus. Three accidental deaths for the Hounslow crew and a big hint that the slaughter of the Ealing gang was part of a turf war. They should be home by nine tonight. If Artemis had finished her stint in the ice-house they might be able to celebrate sleeping together again for the first time in a week. Happy days.
When they had sat in the back of the car that picked them up from the safe-house, Rusty nodded off before they reached Reading. Phoenix listened to his gentle snoring and thought about ‘Elizabeth’. He wondered whether Athena fancied a trip to the south coast tomorrow.
Friday, August 23rd, 2013
Phoenix and Rusty met up again at the morning meeting. Athena listened to the debrief. Giles updated her on the latest from Hounslow, Ealing, and Wembley. So far, there was nothing to concern Olympus. He would keep a close eye on the situation over the weekend.
“Excellent work you two,” Athena said. Phoenix had received his reward for his efforts last night. He checked out how his mate looked. Yes, the smile on his face suggested he had enjoyed a night in his own bed for a change as well.
“I think we can draw a line under this matter now,” said Athena. “I’ll set the wheels in motion to ensure the tenants are well treated.”
The meeting continued with short, sharp case evidence and decisions for action. Their bogus doctor still attracted attention, with several female patients posting comments on social media sites concerning the treatment they had received for cosmetic surgery. So far, the police didn’t seem either to have been involved or failed to take action when they were. The two deaths that he may be linked to appear to have faded from memory. Athena logged the matter for future discussion.
By eleven o’clock the meeting was brought to a close. The Three Amigos appeared disconcerted. As Athena and Phoenix made to leave Minos spoke: -
“I hoped we three might have had a meeting with you, Athena.”
“One of our regular face to face meetings,” said Alastor.
“Of course, if personal matters are taking priority these days, we understand,” added Thanatos quietly.
“Phoenix and I are going to Lymington to welcome ‘Elizabeth’ home. We need to decide what to do with her. We are hoping to talk with Gavin; just to see if we missed any clues that will lead us to the person who killed Erebus.”
“Don’t worry about the work you’ve been carrying out for Athena in secret,” said Phoenix, “it’s still very important. Yes, I can see by your faces that you didn’t realise I had been brought up to speed. Eton Wick and other matters made it perfectly reasonable for Athena to shield me from your investigations for a while. As a co-leader, I need to be aware of everything in which Olympus is involved. When we return with whatever information we can gather, we’ll update you. As for the meetings regarding the trustworthiness of the people with us at top-level Project meetings, I’ll be happy to discuss your progress together with Athena at any time. Will there be anything further?”
With nothing but silence from the other side of the room, he and Athena returned to their quarters.
“You certainly told them what’s what, Phoenix,” said Athena, giving his hand a squeeze when they were behind closed doors.
“It’s time to be assertive,” he replied. “Now Rusty and I have completed our direct action, we need to concentrate one hundred per cent on internal Olympus matters. Hunting Erebus’s killer and any link to our so-called colleagues in the hierarchy. I want our priority to be uncovering the members of the group conspiring to disrupt the democratic process. What we have may not be perfect, but a dictator put in place by a group of … what’s the word?”
“Plutocrats?”
“If that means a small group of the wealthiest people in the land, then yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“I’m with you totally,” said Athena, “let’s start by driving to Lymington; to see if we can find Gavin.”
Two hours later they had negotiated the A36 and arrived at the Lymington Yacht Haven. Phoenix soon located one of the Haven Masters and was shown where ‘Elizabeth’ was berthed.
“She arrived on the fourteenth, sir, at around ten in the evening. There’s been no one aboard her since as far as I know. The young chap who brought her it hasn’t been back that’s for sure. The berth has been a long-time home for craft belonging to the Hunt family. We receive an annual fee every January via a standing order Sir William set up years ago. We’ve not heard from him since he retired to Ibiza. Is everything alright?”
“I’m afraid he died last month,” said Phoenix, “his crewman Gavin was bringing the yacht home. Sir William’s estate has passed to my partner, who’s sat in the car over there. We’re here to check on ‘Elizabeth’. We need to make a decision on whether to keep her or sell her.”
“Oh, I see. I’m very sorry to hear about the old gentleman’s death, sir, he was a lovely chap. Always had a smile and a friendly word when he came here. He loved the sea, and coming from a family with such a famous naval background, well, when he talked about the sea – you listened, didn’t you?”
“We both miss him very much,” said Phoenix. “So you haven’t seen Gavin since the fourteenth then?”
“Gavin? I haven’t seen him since he sailed away to Ibiza to await Sir William’s arrival, sir. No, the gentleman who moored ‘Elizabeth’ here was a totally different character altogether. A bit obnoxious, full of himself, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Many thanks for your help,” said Phoenix and Athena joined him as they walked to the mooring.
“Interesting,” said Phoenix. “Gavin didn’t sail her home.”
Once onboard, Athena and Phoenix began checking the items that remained. They found the note almost at once.
“Typewritten. Even if we didn’t already know better, that should have rung an alarm bell,” said Athena. “Gavin would have called Larcombe as soon as soon as he got home.”
“That suggests that either Gavin didn’t leave Ibiza or he was killed on the way home,” said Phoenix. “More likely the latter, he was probably buried at sea.”
Athena sat on a bunk.
“Right; that’s another death to be avenged. Who could it have been who sailed her back?”
“An obnoxious, young man who was full of himself,” said Phoenix, “if the Haven Master pegged him right.”
“We’ll get Henry Case and the team to start drawing up a list of likely suspects. Let’s carry on here for a while longer checking for any clues the killer may have left.”
The killer had done a good job, there was very little to suggest anything sinister had occurred on board. Just as they were going to lock up the hatch and drive back to Larcombe, Phoenix spotted a slip of paper. It was tucked into the charts and brochures Gavin used when planning to sail the yacht. He had talked Phoenix through his routine when they chatted on ‘Elizabeth’ in the marina at Santa Eulalia. He slid it out and inspected it closely.
“Hang on, this receipt is for food and drink from a store in Barfleur. It’s dated the thirteenth. Whoever it was, they paid cash. Things in the toolkit looked brand new, did you notice that? This guy knew what to buy; he was sensible enough to take precautions in case he had engine failure. He must have good knowledge of the sea and boats. There are no cash receipts for those more substantial items. We need to get Giles to trace credit card payments in the area on the thirteenth. I wonder whether there’s any CCTV in the store or the local ship chandlers? If we’re in luck, we may get a visual. Someone we recognise.”
“Let’s get back home,” said Athena, “you drive, I’ll call Henry and set the wheels in motion.”
They left ‘Elizabeth’ safely secured at her mooring and travelled back to Bath.
*****
It’s over a week since I got home. Not a dicky-bird from Larcombe about Lymington. They must have a busy schedule. Ah well, there’s nothing on board to
give them a hint as to my involvement. Long may that continue.
If my mother has her way, then it won’t be that long, of course. If I stay in her good books perhaps she’ll let me dispose of Phoenix and Athena. Once the head of the snake is chopped off, the rest of the body will shrivel and die. That’s the way of the world.
Mother will be in London next week. She’ll be checking into the Chelsea Harbour Hotel for three weeks. No doubt she’ll want to get together before she leaves. She’ll bore me to tears no doubt with what she’s doing then until the first week in October. We meet again in London then anyway. I’ll probably get a re-run of the whole sorry saga.
At least she’s never asked me to accompany her on holiday or one of her trips since I was eighteen. God, what a drag that would be. To watch her drool over her latest flame, or suffer one of her legendary tantrums over the simplest thing would be dreadful. I much prefer to be in my office, making lots of money during the day and then spending it on the high life in the evenings. That’s more my style.
We always keep in touch while she’s away. I have lots of staff around the country who are prepared to work overtime. They tell me what she said and I interpret it using our secret code. I’ve received many messages telling me to do something illegal on her behalf, without anyone being any the wiser. The public is so gullible. A superior mind will outwit them every time. I owe my intellect to my mother.
*****
Rusty and Artemis walked across the lawns from the far end of the estate. They had been for a swim. They had a few hours of leisure time before Giles Burke needed Artemis in the ice-house for a twelve-hour shift. They arrived at the stable block and were walking along the corridor to their quarters when Rusty’s phone rang.
“Damn,” he said, “it’s Phoenix; they’re back from Lymington. I’m needed in the main house. I’m sorry.”
Artemis kissed him hard.
“Just in case you forget what you’re missing, mister,” she said, with a chuckle. “I’ll have to make do with the memories of last night won’t I?”
“Do you know what Giles has got in store for you?”
“Not a clue; we’ve completed the installation of the new system. We need to have something meaty on which to test it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Rusty was leaving, but then he doubled back.
“Look, I’ll talk to Athena and see whether she can give you access to a few more places at Larcombe. You’ve become invaluable to Giles, from his comments at morning meetings. Athena might have intended to review matters after three months, but she may be persuaded to bring things forward.”
“I’m happy enough with things as they are Rusty, honestly,” said Artemis. “I could do with spending more time with you, but we see each other more now than when I was still in the police force.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Like a hole in the head. Why?”
“If Athena does agree to you becoming more integrated, then there’s no going back. You will learn facts that can never leave Larcombe in the possession of someone who isn’t one hundred per cent committed to the cause.”
Artemis blinked rapidly. There were traces of her past that couldn’t be shed. She pushed her glasses back up her nose and breathed a huge sigh.
“Gosh,” she said, “does this mean I’ll uncover the truth about the identity of Phoenix?”
“Do you really want that?” asked Rusty.
“As long as we’re together, Rusty; his secret’s safe with me, I promise.”
CHAPTER 9
Athena had come to accept the hectic nature of things at Larcombe Manor since Erebus had retired. Phoenix and her agents had been involved in mission after mission, sometimes overlapping; so when the lull after the landlord’s mission stretched into September it concerned her.
After she and her partner had returned from Lymington everything had simply become less frantic. She recalled the words that Erebus had used a year ago. He compared it to the ‘phoney war’ his father had experienced in WWII. She knew something was coming that would challenge them more strongly than anything they had ever faced; she just didn’t know where or when.
Giles Burke had followed up on the till receipt discarded by the killer on ‘Elizabeth’. The store’s CCTV history was located and analysed. The chandler in Barfleur that supplied engine parts and tools for the cross-channel journey was also identified. Their CCTV was limited and concentrated on the high-value parts in stock on the shelves, and the car park. Giles only discovered one image to fit the time-frame they sought.
Their assassin, if the image they had was indeed that of the man who killed Erebus, showed a well-dressed young man wearing a baseball cap.
“He’s aware of the camera,” said Artemis as she inspected it with Giles.
“The cap is pulled over his face, and he’s turning away as much as he can to avoid a clear picture. We can only confirm what the Haven Master told Phoenix. Our man is in his thirties, and of average height and build.”
“Why don’t I go to Lymington?” suggested Artemis. “I can find the Master that Phoenix talked with and confirm this to be the man who delivered the yacht. Then I could use our new system’s updated EvoFIT package. I used it at Durham when it was in its infancy; it’s improved since then. We reckoned at Portishead that three times out of four our picture led us to the criminal.”
Artemis had driven to Lymington on Friday, August the thirtieth. She introduced herself as ‘a colleague of DI Hounsell, of Avon & Somerset police’. The Haven Master confirmed the CCTV image from the Barfleur store was indeed the yachtsman who delivered ‘Elizabeth’.
He wasn’t overly concerned that she hadn’t given him a name, or shown an ID card. Well, she had been a colleague; and until September Phil Hounsell was still officially a policeman. Artemis crossed her fingers and hoped it didn’t count as a proper lie.
“That’s him, miss, he looked the part didn’t he?” said the Haven Master. Artemis took him step-by-step through the process of getting a good likeness using the application on her laptop.
“You’re going to see dozens of images. I want to rebuild your memory of the few minutes you spent together while dealing with the paperwork after he’d moored the yacht. This programme is a new system of facial composition that’s revolutionising the way we analyse witness descriptions and assemble images of suspects.”
After nearly an hour working through countless screens of faces, they had managed to reach an approximation of the killer by ‘evolving’ a face relying on his hidden memories. Traditional facial composite systems operated by asking victims and witnesses to remember key features such as the nose and eyes in isolation. EvoFIT was underwritten by research that indicated that unconsciously we remember faces as a whole, rather than features in isolation.
“That’s the chap I reckon,” said the Haven Master, looking pleased with his work, “what happens now?”
“I’ll report back to my superiors. We need to put a name to this yachtsman. He may be able to help us with our enquiries. We want to know why Gavin didn’t sail the yacht home himself as scheduled and to discover his present whereabouts. There have been no confirmed sightings of him for two months,”
“Right you are, miss, good luck and if you need anything else, just give me a call.”
With that, the Haven Master gave her a card and trotted off to welcome another boat into the Lymington Marina.
Artemis had driven back to Bath and shown the likeness to Giles Burke first thing on Saturday morning.
“I know who it reminds me of, but I must admit it’s a surprise,” he said.
“Who does it look like?” asked Artemis.
“That chap off the TV, the one who does those cheesy ads for the mobile phone company.”
“Does that mean we’ve hit a dead-end Giles?” said Artemis, deflated. “The Haven Master may have watched TV before I spoke with him and caught a commercial break. He might just be projecting the freshest image he had in his head.”
“We can search through the data banks we have for a close match to this image. It’s likely more credible suspects are out there. You said yourself that the system is seventy-five per cent accurate at best. We’re not beaten yet, but it’s all we’ve got.”
Giles and Artemis carried on trying over the next two weeks to match the image to faces from the vast database held by the ice-house. By Friday the thirteenth of September, they had found eleven close matches. Three were discounted straight away as they had been in prison at the time. Six were eliminated because of height and weight.
The two that remained were a thief who specialized in antiques from country houses and a former soldier. A thug who had just completed a seven-year stretch in Winchester prison for manslaughter. Neither man had any sea-going experience.
“We’re not making much progress, are we?” asked Artemis, “maybe we need to get today out of the way. I always hate Friday the thirteenth, don’t you? I’m not superstitious about thirteen as a number on its own; but over the years if something was going to spoil my day, it happened when those days and dates coincided.”
Giles grimaced.
“I used to carry a lucky charm, but it never did me any good. As for making progress, it appears not,” replied Giles. “I suggest we run what we’ve got past Henry Case. If he thinks it’s worth taking to the morning meeting, we’ll let him carry it forward. There’s very little more we can contribute I’m afraid.”
“Are you feeling okay, Giles?” asked Artemis.
“Frankly? I’m feeling shit,” replied Giles. He looked as white as a sheet and clearly in pain.
“You’re in the right place,” said Artemis, with a grin, “who would have thought I could ever be saying that. We’re several metres underground in a highly secret environment. The best place for you is the medical centre. I’ll get someone to collect you straightaway. This needs diagnosing at once. If you have something contagious, everyone on this floor is at risk. If it’s specific to you, it can be treated without waiting for weeks for a doctor’s appointment; or hanging around for hours in A&E in Royal United. Olympus needs you back here, fit and well, as soon as possible. Where does it hurt?”