by J B Holman
Julie lay in the empty bath, hugged her pillow and smiled.
11
Ping-Pong and Poison
It was 12.05 on Sunday. Commander Storrington stood unnoticed at the back of the Bodleian as the Prime Minister removed his jacket, ready for an international bout of table tennis. So far so good. It looked like nothing would go wrong today.
His phone blipped. I have news. It was Hoy. Storrington slipped out of public sight and called.
‘What have you got?’
‘The car! We’ve found the car. It’s in Cheltenham.’
‘Good man. Any sign of him?’
‘Not yet, but we think he’s still here. We ‘ve checked for stolen cars in the area. None were taken yesterday. We’re using facial recognition on the CCTV from the railway station and the bus depot, but no sign of him. There’s a good chance he’s still there, in Cheltenham, somewhere. We’ve sent mug-shots to the local police. With a little bit of luck, we’re gonna get him.’
Storrington ended the call and hit Maria on his speed dial.
‘Get the boys to Cheltenham. Pronto.’
‘Yes, sir!’
He returned to the field of play, where he saw the PM score the winning point against his French opponents. The crowd cheered with elation. If only politics was as easy as ping-pong, he thought to himself as he envisioned the victory as an empty allegory for how the Brexit negotiations should have been.
Now all he had to do was keep the PM alive. They went through to lunch, to the speeches and to the long-planned champagne toast.
‘Jesus Christ!’ permeated the door of the bathroom. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Foxx was frantic. The door was flung open. ‘Have you seen what time it is? It’s 1.35. We screwed it. The PM is dead. I know he is. Switch on the telly. Quick!’ He paced the floor, restless, hyperactive, fidgety; like he was on cocaine, but worse. He was desolate, defeated, angry, unbelievably angry with himself. How could he be so stupid? ‘BBC 24! They’ll cover it in detail.’
The television flashed on, Julie flicked to the right channel. He sat to watch, then stood and paced.
The Prime Minister seemed in good spirits when he arrived at the Bodleian in Oxford today. He waved to the crowds showing no concern for his security. Opposition back benchers had taunted him by saying he was invisible and would cancel the engagement. Despite evident protests from his security detail, the PM mingled with the crowds, shook hands and spoke to supporters and hecklers alike.
‘Why aren’t they saying he’s dead? Come on, come on.’ He urged at the large plasma screen in front of him.
The Bodleian is hosting part of the European Table Tennis Championship and the Prime Minister took no time in accepting a challenge from the French team.
‘There! Look! I told you. He’s taking off his jacket. And there – she’s the patsy. She has no idea what she’s about to do. Watch her. Damn, she’s off-camera.’ His agitation increased by the second. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ he said accusingly at Julie. Her reply was a look that said, because you locked me in the bathroom without a clock, but she said nothing.
There was loud applause as the Prime Minister hit home the last shot and secured victory over the French team. The French team captain said: We were being easy on him, but he came back faster than we thought. He won square and fair.
‘Look. There: jacket on, hand in pocket, wait for it . . . Damn! He took them,’ screamed Foxx as the PM brushed a bit of imaginary fluff from his upper lip to conceal the act of self-medication. ‘That’s it, he’s dead now. I can’t watch.’ He sat down, but kept his eyes intent on the screen.
For the first time Julie felt bad, very bad; anxiety and uncertainty kicked in. She had prevented Foxx from going to Oxford, she had prevented him from killing the PM. But what if she was wrong? What if Foxx really did want to save the Prime Minister and her actions had caused the assassin to be successful?
And here is the champagne toast. The champagne was a gift from the French Government.
Oh my god! The French are going to be blamed for killing him! thought Julie. I’ve just started an international incident. The Prime Minister raised his glass and drank. Foxx slapped his hands to his face. He really couldn’t look, but nor could he stop himself.
‘Twenty seconds,’ he said. ‘Twenty seconds and he’ll be dead.’ Those few seconds seemed like a lifetime. They watched the Prime Minister, they focused on his every move. He laughed and joked, then his eyes opened wide. He sat motionless, as if in intense thought, jerked his head to the side, eyes dead in line with the French Foreign Minister’s and froze.
He froze for two dread seconds.
Then he stood, demanding attention. In his best school boy French, he proposed a toast to the French Table Tennis Team and thanked them for a fair and exciting game, then added a wish that the French Government in the Brexit negotiations should do la même chose; the same thing.
The audience laughed, the diners clapped and the French Minister smiled sardonically as the salt of victory was rubbed into his defeated ping-pong wounds. The PM was clearly enjoying the moment. The TV report cut to an hour and a half later as the Prime Minister left the building and addressed the assembly of reporters.
Foxx was stunned; motionless for the first time since he’d woken up - relieved, incredulous, confused.
‘He’s not dead,’ he said quietly, more to himself than to his companion.
‘No,’ said an equally relieved Julie. ‘He’s not.’
Captain Maria de la Casa stood in a squad room at the back of Cheltenham police station facing the six men in her life. She spoke with authority.
‘We wait. Foxx is in this town somewhere. We will find him. When we go, we get it right. No heroes, no loners, no mavericks. We keep it tight, keep to formation, by the book. The Chief wants him back alive, so I do too. But mostly I want you guys back alive, so if he gets tricky, put him down. I will take the rap; it’s on me. If you have to put him down, don’t think twice, just do it.’
‘Yes, sir,’ they said in a single voice. She smiled. She liked being referred to as sir, she insisted on it and never tired of it.
‘Now, Number Two,’ she addressed them by number not name. ‘Special assignment for you. See if you can rustle up a decent cup of tea in this place. Take Four with you.’
‘Yes captain, will do.’
The Prime Minister was feeling buoyant as he addressed an informal gathering of press and public outside the Bodlian. They had questions, he had answers. There were many exchanges but, like the ping-pong, he won. With game set and match in his pocket, he strode confidently to the car.
An abrupt microphone was thrust in his face accompanied by an abrasive volley of questions on the subject of a document that had been leaked about Housing Benefit Reforms. The Prime Minister skilfully defended its apparent extremist views.
‘That document was one of the far-reaching proposals being considered by an internal think tank on improving the fairness and efficiency of the Housing Benefit system. Some of the content was more radical, but this Government is one that weighs up all the options before acting. Thank you, Thank you.’
He waved, smiled and got into the car.
‘Get me that bloody document,’ he said to his Private Secretary once safely away from the crowds. ‘What the hell is it and who the hell wrote it? ’
Foxx clicked off the television. Silence hung in the room, awkward and uneasy. His elation would have to wait for his confusion to pass. He looked at her hard, hoping to read her heart and her head. His thoughts remained unspoken: You did this. Somehow you messed with my alarm. You wanted the PM dead.
She looked at him, confirming her silent beliefs and strengthening her resolve. No, the PM is not dead, for one reason and one reason only, because you were here with me, asleep, not in Oxford carrying out your plan. Round One to me.
Julie’s internal triumph was short-lived, as she felt the discomfort of the atmosphere cut through her. The silence hung motionless above her. She had to break it.
‘How?’ said Foxx, his mind still very much on the events and non-events of the morning.
‘I need to get hold of the SNGS and see what they know.’
‘SNGS? Who are they?’
‘It’s a top secret organisation. You can only join by invitation. It has the best information in the whole of the Secret Service and is always right. It puts MI5 and MI6 in the shade.’
‘I’ve never heard of it. And it’s called SNGS?’
‘Yes: the Secretarial Network for Gossip and Slander. I’ve worked a while in the Civil Service, so I know a few people who might be able to help. Some of us started together a long way back.’
‘Like who?’
‘Well, no one special, I suppose. I don’t mix as much as I used to, but I do know the PM’s Under-Secretary, and I’m godmother to the child of DPM’s Assistant Private Secretary. I trained all the PA team for SSS and shared a flat with the Cabinet Secretary’s daughter . . . oh yes, and I . . .’
‘OK, I get the idea. Yes, you can use your phone, but stay in ear-shot. No text messages. I will check your phone after. Any mistakes and it will cost your mum and your friends dearly.’
Julie turned on her phone and through apparently casual conversation found out all she wanted to know.
‘Morgan-Tenby. People say his name is only hyphenated because his mum wasn’t sure who his dad was. Oh yes, a real slime bag. Kind of guy that likes his whisky older than his girlfriends. You know you can describe men by the sound you make in your head when you realise you are going to sleep with them; some are Oh! Oooh! Ah! Eh? Awwww! Or even Yay! He is a Yieeew! Just one big showboat. Pretty house, pretty car, pretty wife, pretty useless!’
‘Storrington. One scary dude. You wouldn’t mess with him. People say he can kill a man with no more than his thumb. I could believe that.’
‘Foxx. I’d let him in my hen pen for sure. Good-looking guy, but a loner. Apparently killed 23 guards in an Azerbaijani prison, annihilated a whole police force in a town in Georgia, gutted a live bear in Norway and swam 50 kilometres from Kaliningrad to the Baltic Straits in winter.’ ‘Baltiysk Straits’ corrected Julie in her mind. ‘He’s a legend. Our own Kent Clark.’ More corrections ran through Julie’s mind.
Tenby. Yeah the story is, when he dies he wants his ashes turned to diamonds. Apparently you can put the carbon remains under high pressure and make diamonds. But the office tag line is that he is so soft that they could never make diamonds; pencil lead would the best he could manage. But even the lead in his pencil is too soft; that’s why they call him 10-B!’
‘Hoy. Too good to be true. He’s a little darling. Always busy, like a manic beaver building a never-ending dam. Nice enough guy though. Thinks he’s American. No, I didn’t know he had four months off before he joined. I wonder what he was doing.’
Brekkenfield. He used to be such fun. Tough as old boots, but a good sense of humour. I have known him for twenty years. I blame his wife. He looks permanently miserable, poor guy. Good at his job though.’
She clicked off after her fifth call and handed her phone to Foxx. He checked it.
Previously, allowing the man in her life access to her phone, and having access to his, would have been a milestone in the relationship. This didn’t feel like it.
‘So what did you find out?’ asked Foxx, putting down her personal phone next to his work phone. ‘Just edited highlights, I don’t need all the gossip.’
‘OK,’ said Julie, being as concise and organised as Serafina is known to be. ‘Hoy is Head of Investigations; a swotty school boy and very much in the Commander’s good books, but there’s a four-month gap in his CV before he took this job. No one I spoke to knows why or knows where he was.
Brekkenfield is glummer than ever after being laid up in hospital for three weeks, St Mary’s in Paddington, so that might put him in the clear.’
‘Or be a well-crafted alibi,’ he said. She nodded.
‘Nickolas Tenby is twice the slime ball I ever thought he was, like a durian fruit - prickly on the outside and a real stinker on the inside. Self-promoting, two-faced. His wife is nice, but a bit dim and loose-lipped; sits in the office sometimes waiting for him, reading celebrity gossip magazines, trying to do the puzzles in the back. She likes puzzles. Bit of a trophy. He keeps her hidden away most of the time.’
‘She’s dim, but she likes puzzle books?’
‘So they say, but remember these are puzzles in the back of trashy magazines. Hardly Mensa.’ She continued with her summary. ‘Storrington is interesting. He has had secret meetings with the Defence Chiefs. Laura, my friend, took the minutes. They’re very unhappy, I mean very unhappy about the Defence Deal that the PM is doing with Europe. It leaves them hopelessly exposed and severely weakened. And, get this: he said to three of them in private sessions that he would ‘sort it out.’ They asked him how, but he wouldn’t say.’
‘So you think he’s our man, then?’
‘Not really,’ said Serafina. ‘I know it looks that way at the moment, but no, I don’t think he is.’
‘But,’ challenged Foxx, ‘the evidence is good.’
‘Yes, but it’s not perfect,’ she refuted.
‘But it never is,’ countered Foxx. ‘I say Storrington is a definite possibility, but I’m suspicious about Hoy. We need to investigate the investigator.’
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Stupid me. I know one of his assistants. She works closely with him. I’m sure I have her number.’ She leant over, picked up her phone and turned it back on.
It took Foxx only seconds to notice. Alarm struck him like a lightning bolt. She had picked up his phone; not his burner phone, but his work phone. It was just lighting up.
‘Jesus, woman!’ he said, grabbing it. ‘What are you trying to do? Get us shot?’ He killed the phone and looked at her like she was an imbecile.
The implication of what she had just done sat on the periphery of her brain, then slowly and insidiously sunk in.
Storrington smiled, a brief, thin smile. The first for as long as he could remember.
12
Home Invasion
‘Progress?’ demanded Commander Storrington, as he strode from the squad car across Jurors’ Road to where Captain Maria Santiago Olivia de la Casa was standing waiting for him.
‘We didn’t get an exact trace. It was only on for a second, but that gave us a 200 metre radius. We’ve searched the houses, swept that block, Grand Rise, bottom to top. It’s all geriatrics so I left the team in the van so as not to alarm the residents. That only leaves Berkeley Heights. The exits have been covered since the pandas got here. There’s one front door and one service exit at the back. He’s in there, Chief. He’s in Berkeley Heights.’
‘Time to bring him out. Get the van up to the service door. We want to keep this discreet.’
‘OK, Chief.’ She turned to address the team. They had just decanted from a SWAT mini-bus.
‘Right, lads. This is it. This is Foxx’s burrow. Remember what I said?’ They nodded. ‘OK, let’s get it done.’ They turned and the invasion began.
It took but moments to sweep the ground-floor flats. All the residents were in. They searched the rooms, the cupboards, under the beds. No sign of a Foxx. They moved up to the first floor: three residents were in; one door gave no reply. The concierge was summoned to bring the keys.
‘One and Five, stay here. Watch that door. The rest of you with me.’ Maria led her troops up to the second floor. She could almost feel Storrington’s breath on the back of her neck. They moved silently as they approached the door to Flat 10. Storrington clicked his fingers and pointed at Number 9.
‘He’s in there,’ he whispered to the captain.
‘How d’you know?’
He pointed to the kick mark high up on the door, level with the lock. ‘I just do.’
>
Six was about to knock on the door. Her hand signal stopped him. She turned to the policeman standing on the stairs and beckoned him up, battering ram in hand. She signalled to bring One and Five into play.
‘Formation,’ she said quietly to the troops and counted down from three on her fingers.
One hit of the ram and the door flew open. A gas canister was thrown in. Maria and two men burst in after it.
‘Clear!’ she shouted as she left the hall. Two more men followed her in; two held position at the door. With military precision, they invaded the lounge, the kitchen, the bedroom.
‘Clear!’
It was clear that Foxx and his accomplice were in the bathroom. She assembled her men in a new formation and gently tried the handle. It was locked. She had him like a rat in a trap. He was there for the taking; but was he armed? Did he have an automatic rifle pointed at the door? How was she to bring him out alive? Storrington arrived. She was working. She gave him a clear and decisive hand signal to leave. This was her operation. This was a military zone and he was not combat-ready. He left.
‘Foxx, we know you’re in there. We need you to come out with nothing more than your dick in your hand. Put down your weapons. You know how this works. Open the door gently and show us your hands and you live. Ignore me and you die in a storm of bullets. Let’s not mess up this nice lady’s flat.’
Silence.
‘Is she in there with you?’
Silence.
‘C’mon, Foxx. You know we don’t do hostage negotiations. We’ve come for you and we’re taking you. You have one minute to think this through and open the door.’ At that moment she gave the order for the ram to smash open the door. It struck hard, the door shattered. The bomb detonated. She was thrown back by a god almighty white flash and an ear-numbing explosion that ripped out of the bathroom. Dazed, dizzy and deafened, the men were floored, but retrained their guns on the bathroom door, supported from behind by the two door guards. Slowly the smoke cleared, the haze evaporated. They could see into the bathroom. No one. Number Five went in, gun first. Nothing. Nobody. No pieces of body, no guns. Just the remnants of a rapidly made, home constructed, almost harmless, flash bomb.