by Peter James
And a huge chunk of that had gone to the casino’s bank on Thursday night, he thought ruefully. As it had, it seemed, every time he’d been there just recently.
He looked around and back up at the dark windows. Somewhere close by, someone was looking at him. Smiling perhaps, laughing. Savouring his distress.
Already counting the money they were planning to extort from him.
We will see everything you do, and hear everything you say.
No, actually, you won’t, he thought. You’re not quite as clever as you think. No one ever is.
He hurried towards the toilets, entered a cubicle and locked the door. From his inside jacket pocket, he removed the secure encrypted phone he used for all his confidential transactions with banks and clients, and with it, took a photograph of the text message on his normal phone. Then he switched that phone off, detached the back case and, for good measure, removed the SIM card and battery, placing all the parts on the lavatory seat.
He opened the door a fraction and peeped out to make sure no one had followed him in, and quickly checked that all the other cubicles were empty. Then he dialled.
The call was answered by a female.
29
Saturday 12 August
17.00–18.00
Inside the Sussex Police Force Control Room, Keith Ellis was relieved that the immediate crisis was over and the match was continuing. Although he wondered about Roy Grace’s actions, and the inevitable bollocking he would be facing. Whilst the police brass might publicly laud heroes, privately a reckless action by an officer could be a disciplinary offence – though surely they would realize that Roy could have saved a huge number of lives.
He settled into the tall chair at his screened-off and raised command centre, from which he could oversee the whole of his domain. The ground floor and open mezzanine housed a team of eighty people. Some were serving police officers, dressed in black polo shirts, the rest were civilians, identified by their royal blue polo shirts with the words POLICE SUPPORT STAFF embroidered in white on their sleeves. Directly in front of him was a bank of CCTV monitors. Using the toggle on his control panel he could instantly view and move any of the cameras in the county.
To his left was the CCTV area, where all of Sussex’s cameras were monitored around the clock by a rota of four people. The rest of the two floors was filled with rows of desks and computer terminals, each manned by either a radio controller, who would speak directly to any police unit, or an operator handling the emergency calls. It was the operator’s role to grade any of 2,000 emergency calls that came in on an average day into one of four options: Immediate response; Respond within thirty minutes; Respond when possible; Deal with by phone.
Keith was feeling the buzz of excitement he always got during a major incident, as he liaised between the pilot of the helicopter, the Match Commander, PC Balkham and the Explosive Ordnance Division Unit which was under police escort to the stadium.
What could ever possibly replace this adrenaline rush after he retired? He thought about one of his predecessors, and good mate, Andy Kille, telling him over a pint how much he missed the buzz, and that attending local council meetings in a Scottish village and growing olives in Spain might have their moments, but none that matched situations like this.
Suddenly a FLUM – a flash unsolicited message – appeared on his core screen. Then he saw contact handler Grace Holkham signalling urgently to him, and calling out, ‘Sir! Sir!’
‘Yes, Grace?’ He jumped down and hurried over to her.
‘I think we have a kidnap.’
‘What details have you got?’
She filled him in quickly.
‘Kipp Brown?’ he queried.
‘Yes.’
‘Is that the guy in the radio ads, you know the ones, “Trust Kipp”?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
He sat down beside her, pulled on the spare headset and spoke into the microphone. ‘Hello, Mr Brown, this is Inspector Ellis. I understand your fourteen-year-old son has gone missing at the Amex Stadium. You’ve had a text from someone purporting to have abducted or kidnapped him advising you a ransom demand will follow, and you are currently calling from a secure encrypted phone in a toilet in the grounds? Is this correct?’
‘Yes, but listen, they’ve threatened to kill him if I contact the police. Can you keep this completely under wraps?’
A ransom demand indicated to Ellis that this was a kidnap, rather than an abduction, which was at least a positive. Abductions of minors were often for child sexual exploitation purposes and frequently did not end well. But kidnappers had a motive, blackmail. Financial gain with a threat. With kidnappers, there was the ability to negotiate, as kidnappers wanted something.
There were two ways to handle a kidnap: overt, with uniform officers involved, or covert, undercover. With a covert operation, it was crucial not to tip-off the kidnappers that the police were involved. Everything was restricted. Guidelines for any kidnap victim under the age of eighteen were that the operation should be overt, unless circumstances dictated otherwise. But they were just guidelines. Using his judgement from the information available to him at this moment, Ellis opted for covert. Which meant everything was to be restricted to himself and his deputy, otherwise known as Oscar-2. And the report would not, for the time being, be put on the police national computer, because that could mean a zealous uniform police crew in the area turning up at Kipp Brown’s house – which was very likely under surveillance now by the kidnappers, if they were well organized.
‘Mr Brown, for the moment we will run this as a covert operation. I need some details from you, but first, in case we lose contact for any reason, I want to give you a code word for you to use when you call in or we call you, to ensure it’s you, and that you know it’s us.’
‘A code word?’
‘We just need something simple, sir. Shall we say apple?’
‘Apple?’
‘Or anything else that would be easy for you to remember.’
‘Apple is fine.’
‘Right, when did you last see your son?’
‘About two hours ago, when we arrived here at the Amex.’ Brown went on hastily to explain the circumstances. Then as requested by Ellis he read out the text he had received and added, ‘Please get him back. Look, the text is very clear about my not contacting the police – if I want to see my son alive again. Perhaps I shouldn’t have contacted you, do you think?’
‘Sir, you have done exactly the right thing.’
‘Have I?’
30
Saturday 12 August
17.30–18.30
Followed by two stewards and two uniformed police officers, Roy Grace limped across the concourse. He’d pulled a muscle in his right thigh and it was really painful, but that was the least of his concerns at this moment. He was anxious to get back to Bruno, and he wanted to see what the EOD found when they arrived and examined the camera.
As he reached the top of the aisle in the stand, again mopping his face, he could see Bruno, absorbed in the game. His job phone began vibrating in his pocket.
He pulled it out and glanced at the display. No caller ID.
‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.
A thunderous roar from the crowd drowned out the voice at the other end, as everyone rose to their feet.
‘Hang on!’ he said, and retreated down the steps into the exit tunnel, where it was quieter. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I can hear you now.’
‘Guv, it’s Keith Ellis. Gather you are quite the man. Glad to know you are a live hero and not a dead one.’
‘Yup, well I’m quite glad, too. I’ve spoken to the Match Commander and he’s taking control of dealing with the suspect device.’
‘Which hasn’t yet detonated, despite all your best efforts.’
‘Haha.’
In a change of tone to one more serious, Ellis said, ‘We have another situation. I have you down as the on-call SIO, is that correct?’
‘Yes,
tell me?’
‘Looks like we’ve got a kidnap, guv. A man at the Amex arrived with his fourteen-year-old son before the start of the game, and his boy went missing shortly after. He’s now received a text warning him not to speak to the police if he wants to see the boy alive again, and that he’ll be getting a ransom demand. The boy’s under eighteen, so guidelines say this should be run as overt, but my view is we should start covert, though it’s up to you and Gold.’
Kidnap. Grace thought fast. He’d done the kidnap negotiator course some years back, and handled a number since. Most reported kidnaps turned out to be scuzzy low-life on low-life jobs over small drugs debts. The last one he’d handled, just a few weeks ago, had been someone kidnapped and beaten for a fifty-pound debt. It had been over within four hours.
Another recent one, that turned out not to be a kidnap at all, was a 999 phone call from a woman in the nearby town of Burgess Hill, who had reported seeing a man bundled into a car and driven off. They were four drug dealers who had gone to the house of a fellow dealer who had ripped them off for a couple of thousand pounds, intending to give him a beating. But he’d set on them with a baseball bat, knocking one of them senseless and badly hurting two of the others. They’d pulled their unconscious accomplice into the car and raced off.
However, something about this felt more serious.
Grace’s immediate thought processes were, firstly, what kind of kidnap was this? And, secondly, what were the pros and cons of handling this covertly or overtly? Thirdly, and critically, was to ask himself the question: What is my job here?
A question to which he already knew the answer.
To recover the boy safely.
Fourthly, he mentally fast-forwarded to a potential inquest in the Coroner’s Court in eighteen months’ time. And the grilling that could face him in the dock.
Detective Superintendent, you knew a child’s life was at risk if the police were involved. Yet you ignored the request to make this a covert operation?
Policy was a generalization, just that. Policy stated that police officers should not put their lives in danger. But as earlier with the camera, sometimes tough, spur-of-the-moment decisions had to be made. The only thing ultimately that mattered, regarding breaking policy, was that you could justify your actions.
The guidelines were clearly spelled out. If the person taken was below the age of eighteen, the operation needed to be overt, rather than covert – but depending on overall circumstances. In addition, there was an established Child Rescue Alert procedure. If that button was pressed, the media would instantly begin to report it. Did he have enough resources in place to cope with the information, much of it from the public, that would flood in? The appeal would go out on local newsflashes, radio stations, advertising hoardings. Once the button was pushed, it was near impossible to stop the chain of events that would be set in motion.
But if he did that, for sure the kidnappers would know the victim’s father had gone against their explicit instruction – and in any event, he didn’t have enough information on the boy and his disappearance to instigate the process.
This had to be – for now at least – a covert operation, and he would explain his actions later if he got hauled over the coals – as was likely, knowing his boss, ACC Cassian Pewe.
One of his first priorities was to eliminate any possibility of a hoax. And his immediate thought was whether there was a connection between the bomb threat that was happening here, now, and the missing boy.
He thought it through, rapidly. What were good reasons to link the bomb threat to the kidnap?
One, the Amex had never before had a bomb threat.
Two, there had never before been a kidnap here at the Amex.
Now there was both a bomb scare and a kidnap on the same day.
They had to be connected, surely? Was the bomb scare intended to create a smokescreen for the kidnap? But something about that did not make sense to him.
‘Where’s the father now, Keith?’ he asked.
‘Currently in a toilet in the South Stand, nervous of being seen with the police. He’s called us on a second, encrypted phone, that he says he has for business purposes.’
‘We need an urgent trace on the phone number the text came from, Keith.’
A loud voice right beside him startled Grace.
‘What up, Roy – what’s going on?’
He turned to see the tall, burly figure of police Crime Scene Photographer Peter Allen standing in the tunnel entrance.
‘Hold on one sec, Keith,’ he said, then turned to the CSI. ‘Peter, I’ve got an urgent situation. My son, Bruno, is five rows down. Can you tell him I’ve been called away – and run him home after the game?’
‘Sure, Roy. I was just going out for a pee. I’m sitting only a few rows behind with my boys, I know where he is.’
Grace thanked him, then turned his focus back to the Oscar-1 Inspector. ‘OK, Keith, what information do you have on the father – who is he?’
‘His name’s Kipp Brown.’
‘Kipp Brown?’ Grace frowned. ‘As in “Trust Kipp”?’
‘Dunno, but it’s an unusual name.’
‘And this kidnap sounds real to you?’
‘Very real.’
‘I’ve met Brown before, he’s a piece of work. This could be embarrassing.’
‘Oh?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Guv, we’re using the code word apple for identification.’
Grace hurried to the South Stand toilets. Entering the gents, he wrinkled his nose at the strong stench of urine and disinfectant. All the cubicle doors except for one were open. He walked up to it, hoping he wasn’t in the wrong place, and called out, ‘Hello? Mr Brown?’
‘Who is that?’ said a deep, suspicious voice with the faintest trace of a Kiwi accent.
‘Apple,’ Grace said first. Then, ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, sir.’
‘You’ve come fast.’
‘I was already in the grounds, watching the game.’
The door opened a crack. A tall, good-looking man, with black hair swept back, greeted him. He reminded Grace, he realized, of the actor Alec Baldwin.
‘We’ve met before,’ Brown said, tersely. He looked deeply worried and on edge.
‘Yes, we have, back in April.’
There was an awkward moment of silence between them. In April, Brown had briefly been arrested on suspicion of murder, after being incorrectly identified as a suspect, and then released. Brown had been rude and arrogant, Grace remembered.
‘Just so you know,’ Brown said, coldly, ‘I haven’t murdered my son.’
‘Shall we put the past behind us and focus on now?’ Grace suggested.
Brown nodded.
‘So, can you give me a recap of what’s happened?’ He pulled out his Dictaphone and began recording.
The Independent Financial Advisor quickly summarized, and showed him the text on his phone. Grace took a photograph of it. ‘You’ve tried texting back?’
‘Yes. It’s blocked. The thing is, Detective Superintendent, I don’t know what to do – I can’t risk Mungo’s life by involving you openly.’
‘Without looking into all the facts, sir, there seems to be a pretty clear kidnap motive here. You are very high profile in this city, known to be wealthy, and whoever sent this has stated there’ll be a ransom. The absolute priority is to get your son back safe. Don’t try to deal with this alone, whatever your views on the police. We will deal with this covertly for as long as we can.’
‘What if these people kill him?’
‘The text you’ve been sent is unambiguous: whoever has taken Mungo is after your money, that’s what this appears to be about, not harming your son. Would you be prepared to pay a ransom? We would do our best to protect your money and recover it, but it could need an initial outlay.’
‘Ordinarily, yes. But a ransom could be a problem at the moment.’
‘I
n what way, sir?’
‘I have a bit of a cash-flow issue.’
‘How much could you raise in a hurry, if you had to?’
‘Not a lot. Look, this is confidential, right?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I’ve been going through a bad time – bit of a run of bad luck. My marriage is rocky, I’ve not been focused on work and I’ve lost some big clients. I’m mortgaged up to the hilt, I’m on my overdraft limit and my cards are all maxed out.’
‘And whoever has taken Mungo is not going to believe that, sir, right?’
‘Nope.’
‘Are you able to lay your hands on any cash?’
Brown blushed. ‘Not legally, quickly, no.’
‘Legally?’
‘I have a client account containing substantial funds, but I can’t touch that.’
‘Understood. OK, we have a team of kidnap negotiators and set procedures that work very effectively, and confidentially, but you’re going to have to trust us.’ Grace looked him in the eye.
‘Doesn’t seem I have much option,’ Brown said.
‘The text warns you not to contact the police. But your son was missing for some time before you got this text. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that before receiving it you would have asked stewards and the police here if anyone had seen your son.’
‘I guess,’ Brown said, reluctantly.
‘When exactly did you last see Mungo?’
‘About five minutes after we arrived – we were late because of the traffic. Just as we were heading towards the reception he saw a friend and started chatting.’
‘Which reception area?’
‘The one for the South Stand.’
‘Do you know this friend?’
‘Not very well – I’ve heard him mention his name, Aleksander, he’s one of his online gaming pals at Brighton College with him.’