Dead Embers

by Matt Brolly

  ‘It was my role to deflect attention. I’m not proud of it but if I hadn’t done it I would have joined those unfortunate souls beneath.’

  Lambert struggled to understand what he was hearing. He pulled Tillman away and they stepped outside of the room.

  ‘I think he’s telling the truth,’ said Lambert.

  ‘Do you now?’ said Tillman.

  ‘What has he got to lose at this stage? If he survives this he’s going to prison for the rest of his life. And if what he says is true, and what we’ve seen today with Weaver suggests it is, then chances are he’s not long for this world.’

  ‘He knows some names,’ grunted Tillman. ‘There’ll be bodies he’s protected and I intend to find out who they are.’

  ‘You’re only going to get yourself into trouble,’ said Lambert.

  Tillman shrugged and Lambert understood that was unlikely to ever happen.

  ‘Someone knew we were going to question Weaver,’ said Tillman.

  Lambert nodded.

  ‘Aside from McCarthy, the only people who knew about our plan were those who’d gathered at your flat.’

  Lambert had been thinking the same. It was hard to accept but it seemed likely one of the team had given up their plan.

  ‘It has to be Duggan,’ said Tillman. ‘He has a connection to both Sinnott and Weaver.’

  Lambert agreed. He tried to think of reasons why it couldn’t be the man from Anti-Corruption but each time he came up blank. It couldn’t be Matilda, and it seemed highly unlikely Colville and Greene were involved.

  ‘We need to call it in,’ said Lambert. ‘Recover those bodies from Waverley Manor.’

  ‘Once we do that we’ll never find Jardine,’ said Tillman.

  ‘I’ll call Matilda. Get her to track Duggan. Once we have him in our sights I’ll talk to him myself.’

  ‘We should bring him here,’ said Tillman.

  Lambert shook his head. ‘I’m having no more part in this, Glenn. Let me speak to Duggan. Once I have his response we’ll release the information, sort out what’s happening at the Manor and go from there.’ Lambert took out his mobile phone. ‘No signal,’ he said.

  Tillman shook his head. ‘All signal is disabled from within,’ he said. ‘There’s a wired phone on the wall through there.’ He threw Lambert a set of keys. ‘Call Matilda and get to Duggan before it’s too late. I’m going to have a few more words with former police officer Sinnott here before I come and join you.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Matilda answered on the second ring.

  Lambert was standing in a sterile room, the only decoration the fixed phone he held in his hand. The room was airtight. A faint outline of a door was etched into one of the walls but it wasn’t soundproof. From the other room, Lambert heard Sinnott’s cries and hoped Tillman wasn’t going too far. He didn’t agree with what was happening but had to focus all his attention now on finding and speaking to Duggan.

  ‘I’ve been calling you for hours,’ said Matilda. ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘They came out of nowhere. Before we knew what was happening Weaver was gone. Where are you at the moment?’ said Lambert.

  ‘I’m here with DS Colville and DI Greene.’

  Lambert cursed under his breath. ‘Where’s Duggan?’ he said.

  ‘He left for work earlier, said he needed to speak to someone,’ said Matilda. ‘You don’t think…’ she added, obviously coming to the same realisation as Lambert.

  ‘Someone must have notified the killers about Weaver. If it wasn’t one of you three, then it had to be Duggan,’ said Lambert.

  It was Matilda’s turn to curse.

  ‘We need to speak to him. Call him and act as if nothing’s happened. See if he’ll meet you. Back at the flat if possible,’ said Lambert.

  ‘OK, I’ll call him now. When will you be back?’

  ‘Depending on traffic, I should be back within the hour. Let me know as soon as you’ve spoken to him.’ Lambert placed the phone back on the wall and headed back the way he’d came, until he reached the secure area where he’d entered the safe house. One of Tillman’s team guarded the exit. He stared Lambert down, blocking his way.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ said Lambert.

  The man, who dwarfed Lambert in height and width, continued to stare as though he’d spoken a foreign language. He picked up a walkie-talkie and uttered some words. A second later, a buzzing noise preceded the opening of the door. Lambert stepped through, thanking the guard with a mocking nod and headed towards his car.

  * * *

  Tension built in Lambert’s head as he made his way back to the flat. He’d stumbled on something larger than the simple disappearance of Caroline Jardine and, as such, the answers were further from reach than ever.

  Why would Duggan be working with DS Colville if he’d been a member of the Manor all along? Surely, if their powers extended as far as Sinnott seemed to think, Duggan could have closed this investigation down earlier? Maybe he was another pawn, and had been placed by Weaver into Anti-Corruption to protect the Manor’s activities, but it didn’t ring true to Lambert.

  As he joined the South Circular, Matilda called. ‘Duggan’s going to meet us back at the flat,’ she said. ‘He’s coming by car.’

  ‘How did he sound on the phone?’ asked Lambert.

  ‘If I’m honest, he sounded gutted. But it could be that he’s just a great actor. Apparently Weaver’s death is the talk of the office. As you can imagine, there are a number of conspiracy theories. Duggan’s been called to work on the case so he says he can’t stay with us long.’

  ‘He’ll stay as long as we need him,’ said Lambert. ‘We’re going to have to go public about Waverley Manor as soon as we’ve spoken to him. We can’t let it wait any longer.’

  ‘Where’s Glenn?’ said Matilda.

  ‘He’s still talking to Sinnott. Once we’ve cleared this up with Duggan we’ll have to make his arrest official.’

  Matilda began to speak then hesitated. ‘I’ll see you back at the flat,’ she said, hanging up.

  The seasonal rain returned as Lambert reached Clapham. It fell from the sky in sheets, pummelling Lambert’s windscreen and restricting visibility to metres ahead. Lambert wished he had some sort of trace on Duggan. For all he knew, the officer could be miles away, utilising an escape plan.

  Lambert made a mental note to check his archived files, to re-examine them from both a Duggan and a Sinnott perspective. Lambert parked up as Duggan was arriving at the flat, as promised.

  This simple development suggested Lambert was heading down another dead end. Unless Duggan was bluffing, if he was going to present himself for potential interrogation, it seemed highly unlikely he was guilty of being associated with the Manor.

  Lambert sprinted across the street to his flat through the torrent of rain still spewing from the sky. The four officers were assembled in his living room, sitting as if at a wake. Matilda shot him a nervous look as he entered the room. Duggan sat next to her on the Seventies-style sofa within touching distance.

  ‘You all know about Weaver,’ said Lambert, deciding to get straight to the point.

  They all nodded. Sullen, like a group of teenagers.

  Lambert assessed them all for a response. The slightest twitch of guilt. He saved the majority of his attention for Duggan, but the man looked as crestfallen as the rest of his companions.

  ‘I need to ask you all,’ said Lambert, ‘if you shared the information about Weaver with anyone else?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Greene.

  ‘It can’t come as much of a surprise that I’m asking you,’ said Lambert. ‘When we left here earlier this morning only the five of us and Tillman knew about our mission to interrogate Weaver. The only additional person to know was DS McCarthy who is no longer with us. So, I’m suggesting there was a leak and unfortunately the first place I have to look is here. So I’ll ask you all again if any of you shared the information about our mission?’


  ‘Of course not,’ said Greene.

  ‘No,’ said Matilda.

  Colville and Duggan shook their heads.

  ‘You need to think carefully,’ said Lambert, ‘even if it was just a loose word with a colleague. We need to trace this to discover how they knew about Weaver.’

  ‘Oh, come on. This is bullshit,’ said Duggan. ‘You really think one of us would be unprofessional enough to have shared the information?’

  If it was Duggan, he was doing a plausible job of denial.

  ‘OK, well what suggestions do you have for me?’ said Lambert, not pushing things for the time being.

  ‘You mentioned McCarthy,’ said Greene.

  Lambert nodded and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot one of them had brewed.

  ‘He was the driver but he was in on the plan?’ said Greene.

  ‘Yes. Tillman switched him.’

  ‘Someone would know about that, obviously. Have we looked at the other driver? The one he replaced. Or whoever’s responsible for Weaver’s timetable? That change alone could have alerted lots of bodies.’

  The thought had crossed Lambert’s mind. So had the realisation that it would be almost impossible to check on all of them.

  ‘The case is being treated as a terrorist attack,’ said Duggan out of nowhere. ‘MI5 are handling it for the time being.’

  ‘Great. That’s going to close off all doors of investigation then.’

  ‘What about Sinnott?’ said Duggan.

  ‘We’re going to bring him in shortly. We have to work under the presumption the Manor now know about us.’

  ‘That’s not good,’ said Colville, who sat upright on one of the dining chairs. In the gloom she looked almost like a mannequin.

  Lambert was running out of options. He could take Duggan in and interrogate him officially. But he had more to lose than gain by doing so. He was confident he was not involved.

  Making their investigation into the Manor public would send everything into turmoil, especially considering Weaver’s assassination. It wouldn’t take MI5 long to link the two cases. But they couldn’t sit on it any longer. He doubted the Manor would risk retrieving the bodies from the underground dungeon. But anything was possible at this juncture.

  ‘I’m going to call it in,’ he said. ‘Greene, you go with Matilda to Waverley Manor and supervise everything. We’ll see what the fall-out is once we’ve uncovered the Manor’s little secret.’

  Quiet descended over the room as they thought about the implication of what they were doing and why. As they realised the mystery of Caroline Jardine’s disappearance would probably never get solved.

  Chapter Fifty

  Lambert stayed at the flat as Matilda took charge of events at Waverley Manor. He stared at the accumulation of files on the System, running routines until he felt he could search no longer. Everything returned to Trevor Hodge. Why had he replaced the Jardines with the corpses of Berry and Turner? This was the biggest anomaly to the case. If, like Sinnott had suggested, Hodge had been under instruction by the Manor to eliminate the Jardines, why had he gone against their instructions? He’d sounded genuinely mortified whilst confessing that Marcus Jardine had died. Lambert could only hope this meant he’d tried to keep the Jardines out of harm’s way, for negotiation reasons if nothing else, and that somewhere Caroline was still alive.

  Sarah called and he let it go straight to voicemail. He would have loved to have spoken to her, to share the turmoil he was enduring, but things were complicated. Their last meeting hadn’t gone well. A sense of unease hung over their conversation and their unsaid words suggested things were coming to an end. However, he only waited five minutes before checking her message.

  She sounded hesitant, unsure of herself. ‘We need to talk,’ she said, at the end of the message. ‘Call me when you’re free.’ The words were simple enough but Lambert sensed the hidden meaning.

  He cursed to himself as a light appeared in the corner of his eye, glowing in a haze of blazing shades. Lambert controlled his breathing and let the exhaustion take him. The swarm filled his vision and he closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t sleep for long.

  * * *

  It was dark when he woke. Four am. He showered and changed in a hurry and headed towards Waverley Manor. He checked his voicemail messages on the car’s Bluetooth as he drove. Sarah hadn’t left a message but there was one from Tillman, stating he’d officially charged Sinnott and that they’d moved him to the NCA headquarters. Matilda had also left a couple of messages updating him on progress at the Manor.

  Lambert’s mind once again moved in various directions. After checking in at Waverley Manor, he intended to resume his work on the System. It was possible there was an indication of a link between Hodge and the Manor he’d overlooked, or had simply not been looking for previously.

  Floodlights guided him to his destination. A large police presence was stationed at the perimeter of Waverley Manor. Lambert parked up after showing his warrant to one of the uniforms.

  Matilda had done a great job organising the site. Two uniformed officers guarded the pathway which led to the ruins. One gave Lambert a torch, but the path had already been lit so Lambert took little time reaching first the large clearing, where a second team of officers were congregated, and then the Manor itself.

  Numerous sets of floodlights illuminated the crumbling building and surrounding area of Waverley Manor. In the crisp winter night, the floodlights gave the area an ethereal feel. He could have been dreaming had it not been for the disgruntled face of DS Bickland approaching him.

  ‘Heads up would have been nice, sir,’ said the junior officer, in his south-western drawl.

  ‘Things have been moving at an incredible speed, Sergeant,’ said Lambert. ‘Where’s Kennedy?’

  ‘Down in the depths. You’ll need a SOCO uniform if you want to go down there.’

  ‘Tell her I’m here,’ said Lambert, not keen to explore the labyrinth again any time soon.

  Bickland headed off and Lambert paced the area, watching the officers at work. More officers would join the teams tomorrow. Aside from the complicated search beneath ground, the whole area would be turned upside down. Lambert was convinced more bodies would be found, and by the time they’d finished there wouldn’t be an inch of land untouched.

  ‘This is going to look great on your record,’ said a voice from the shadows.

  Lambert moved towards the sound. ‘DCI Barnes,’ he said, as the face of Caroline Jardine’s boss revealed itself.

  ‘Not going to help find my officer though, is it?’ said Barnes, ignoring Lambert’s offer of a greeting.

  ‘I haven’t given up hope yet.’

  ‘You’re more a fool than I realised then,’ said Barnes. ‘You were involved in Sinnott’s arrest?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lambert, ignoring the accusatory jibe.

  Barnes shook his head, eyes facing the ground. ‘He was never any good. Never had any respect for the man, and never met anyone who did, but this? Shit, if anything I’m amazed he had the balls for it.’

  Lambert wasn’t about to share any information with Barnes, however much he was clearly angling for it. He remained silent and let the DCI continue.

  ‘And that MP prick. Weaver? Jesus Christ, what had Caroline stumbled onto?’

  ‘I don’t suppose she ever shared any information with you?’ said Lambert.

  Barnes looked up from his study of the earth as if surprised Lambert was there. ‘Your DS gave me some background on what you’ve been looking at. I knew about Alistair Newlyn’s suicide way back, but thought that was old news. I’m surprised Caroline had time to continue looking into this. If only she’d come to me about it.’

  Matilda rescued him from Barnes’ regret. She approached like a ghost, wearing the white overalls of the SOCO team and her headgear under her arm. ‘Kennedy,’ said Lambert.

  ‘Sir,’ said Matilda. ‘Sir,’ she repeated to Barnes.

  Barnes ignored her. Lambert understood hi
s frustration. He shared it, but knew words would not suffice in the current situation.

  ‘You’ll keep me updated,’ said Barnes to Lambert, as if Matilda wasn’t there.

  ‘Of course,’ said Lambert, as Barnes headed down the floodlit pathway back to the clearing.

  * * *

  A stepladder had been placed at the entrance of the trap-door. Lambert made his way down, LED lights reflecting against his SOCO uniform.

  Matilda had limited the amount of officers allowed into the underground cavern. She had assigned one pair to each tunnel. Lambert followed her down the third pathway, where they’d initially discovered the pile of bones. Battery-powered lights flooded the area with illumination, but that did little to alleviate the horror of the place. If anything, it highlighted the terror of what had occurred.

  Lambert saw clearly the patches of blood, and the various instruments hammered into the walls. The area where the bones were collected had been cordoned off. One of the SOCOs was filming from every conceivable angle and would continue to do so for some time before they even contemplated moving the evidence.

  ‘Through here, sir,’ said Matilda, pointing to an area to the left of the room they hadn’t noticed the previous evening.

  With the floodlights in place it seemed inconceivable they had missed it. It was a second trap-door which had been propped open by one of the team.

  ‘We’ve three officers down there now,’ said Matilda.

  ‘Dare I ask?’ said Lambert.

  ‘It’s just one room. Smaller than this but piled high with remains.’

  Disbelief almost overcame Lambert as he edged down the second stepladder into a circular room, again lit by powerful beams.

  One of the hooded figures of the SOCO team turned to look at him and, through the plastic visor, Lambert recognised the face of Lindsey Harrington.

  ‘You’ve certainly stumbled on something here,’ she said, her words muffled by the face protection.

  Lambert remained silent, words failing him.