The Robert Finlay Trilogy

by Matt Johnson

  One of the women spoke enough English to explain that the room in which they were found was their living quarters. They had four single mattresses between them and no bed linen. The mattresses were old, stained and smelled of urine. They shared one toilet and a bath with a single tap that only produced cold water. All the other rooms were for entertaining clients.

  According to the woman, the men who ran the brothel had fled about an hour before the raid. They had ordered the women to hide in the second house and keep quiet. If it hadn’t been for one of the women being unable to get through the hole in the brick wall due to a back injury, they might not have been discovered.

  The DCI made arrangements for the women to be looked after by local uniformed officers and two detectives from the divisional domestic violence unit were called in from home. They would arrange physical examinations, taking of statements and temporary accommodation. It was going to be a long night.

  A large number of passports were found in an understairs cupboard. Some of them belonged to the girls who had been living at the house, but many more bore details of other women – as likely as not those working as sex slaves in similar houses elsewhere in the capital. The girls had one thing in common that we quickly picked up on: they were all from Eastern Europe.

  It looked like the houses had, at one time, been converted for student accommodation. All the ‘entertainment’ rooms had a double bed, a sink and heavy curtains. There were no carpets. The lower rooms had large rugs in front of the fireplaces, which partly covered the floorboards and offered a small amount of comfort to the occupant. In some rooms there was a single, central ceiling light, but in most the power was turned off at the mains circuit board. The men in charge of the houses even controlled the electricity supply.

  One room did have working power points; it was set up with a camera tripod and lights and was cleaner than the others. Beneath the bed and in cupboards the detective allocated to search the room found sex toys, condoms, outfits and sado-masochistic equipment. It didn’t take a lot to work out what was filmed in this improvised studio.

  I sent Nina a text; I knew she would want to be involved in interviewing the women. She was starting to build up a decent network of contacts and knowledgeable interpreters. It might well be that the women would know things that might help in identifying Relia’s killers. Whether they would be willing to talk was another question. As Nina had explained when I first met her, in their home countries these women were used to a police force that either turned a blind eye to the slave trade or was actively involved in it. Persuading them to trust anyone in authority was nigh-on impossible.

  For me and the other members of the AMIT team, our role at the houses ended at gone four in the morning when the forensic team arrived to undertake a more thorough search.

  It was six o’clock when I finally made it home.

  The house was quiet.

  I crept upstairs, sneaked a peek at Becky and then undressed in the spare room. As I crawled into our bed, Jenny was breathing gently. Beneath the duvet, the bed felt warm and welcoming.

  She stirred, her arms reached out for me. As we pressed together she shivered briefly. I kissed her cheek.

  ‘You’re cold,’ she said.

  ‘And knackered,’ I whispered.

  ‘I missed you this morning. I had something to show you.’

  ‘Something nice?’

  ‘I think so. It’s some estate agent blurb. There’s a couple of nice ones.’

  ‘Can I look at it in the morning?’

  ‘It’s already morning. I’m up soon to go and see mum, remember?’

  I was vaguely aware of Jenny saying something more but it didn’t sink in. Exhaustion got the better of me. I was quickly asleep.

  Chapter 58

  MI5 office, New Scotland Yard

  Nell was in danger of turning their research into a race. Toni smiled as she saw the focussed way her researcher applied herself to her work. They both knew there was more to find, especially now that they suspected Howard Green to be a common factor.

  The coincidence had set Toni thinking. On the train journey home the previous night, and even as she had settled down to sleep, it had dominated her thoughts. The meetings, the warning not to get involved, his interest in Robert Finlay; it all added up to something. It was just a question of what.

  There was one other thing that kept her awake, one factor that she hadn’t dared share with Nell. Her concern regarding the security pass and the one occasion it had been out of her control. Dave Batey had scoffed at the notion someone in MI6 may have been responsible. But now, if they found anything else to implicate Howard Green, the coincidences would be mounting up, even to the point of conspiracy.

  On a flip chart, Nell was drawing up a list of facts. Nell didn’t really like theories, they relied too much on imagination. She was happy to leave the creative thinking to Toni.

  And the facts had started to stack up. Nell had already recorded that Robert Finlay and Kevin Jones had similar gaps in their army service records from late in 1980 through to 1984. Toni had looked through them in some detail. There were training reports, expense claims, a disciplinary matter and other small clues that put them both in the UK for a part of the time. But there was no information on overseas deployments. Either someone had removed it or it had never been recorded.

  The Falklands conflict had taken place in early 1982. With so many Special Forces soldiers having been involved and quite a few being killed, Nell had queried why there was no mention of either Finlay or Jones on any paperwork relating to SAS operations at the time. Where had they been, she asked?

  Toni checked on the two policemen who had been killed in the recent London attacks: Bridges – who they now knew had been in Afghanistan; and Skinner. Both had left the Army in late 1980. Both had joined the police force several years later: 1984 in the case of Bridges, ’85 for Skinner. No records for the interim period.

  When Nell discovered files in the name of Iain Blackwood, a picture started to form. Blackwood had also left the army towards the end of 1980.

  And there were two other soldiers who had left with Skinner and Bridges: Brian McNeil and Chris Grady. McNeil had been mentioned in reports as working as a security operator and was last heard of in Iraq. Grady had dropped off the radar.

  So, Toni asked, as they broke off for a coffee and to review their progress, what had happened in the early 1980s to prompt five Special Forces soldiers to leave the army and then for all their records to show similar gaps? And why were there similar breaks in the service records for Finlay and Jones?

  Nell mentioned the missing Federal Intelligence report from Pakistan, which had led her down a blind alley. It dealt with the rendition of a terrorist suspect from Pakistan by the CIA. There were no names on the report but the details of the flight, the departure point and the destination told Nell what it was.

  Toni suggested they switch focus to men who had left the SAS at about the same time as the others – in the early 1980s. They found there were twelve of them. Hunched over the computer, Nell searched military records, salary payments, newspaper articles and all manner of sources in an attempt to trace any common link.

  It was when Nell decided to check pension and life insurance records that her efforts bore fruit. In ten cases, the immediate dependants of the men who had left both the SAS and the army between April 1980 and February 1981 had claimed on life-insurance policies. All had paid out.

  So, ten out of the twelve who left the SAS between 1980 and 1981 were dead. The only ones alive were Grady and McNeil. Nell wrote in red ink on the flip chart, underlining her words.

  Toni started searching names but produced nothing of note. It was as if the men had disappeared off the face of the earth between 1981 and 1984. There weren’t even any social security claims. Nell in the meantime beavered away at Government databases. She, of course, came up trumps. She had switched tack to regular outgoings – the kind of thing that everyone pays: car insurance, nationa
l insurance, even income tax.

  By tracking the sources of the national insurance payments, Nell was able to identify bank accounts. Most were now closed, but two were still open. They were joint accounts shared with surviving partners. Within a few minutes she had details on her screen of two accounts that bore the names of deceased soldiers. Both had received salary payments. Both from a company called Black Suit Travel, listed as BST on the bank statements. Nell checked Companies House. There was no such organisation listed.

  Dead end.

  She started on Bridges, Skinner and Blackwood again. All had changed accounts, but the banks were thorough and kept detailed records going back for decades. It wasn’t long before Nell found what she was looking for. BST had been paymaster to all three throughout the important years.

  It was the same for McNeil and the others.

  Bingo.

  With the exception of Chris Grady. For him there were no NI payments, no benefits claims, no bank account, no records. Chris Grady had disappeared from the electronic world.

  Then, as Nell added to her fact list, a thought occurred to Toni. Something Finlay had said about the Cyclone book, which, she remembered, was also set in the early 1980s. She saw that Stuart had left the office copy on his desk. She picked it up and, returning to the comfort of her chair, opened the front cover.

  Chapter 59

  I woke up late.

  At least, it might have been called late on a normal day. As the alarm wrenched me from a deep slumber, I had been in bed for just three hours.

  Staggering towards the shower, I noticed a note on the chest of drawers next to the bedroom door. It was from Jenny. I was not to be too late home from work. I smiled. Chance would be a fine thing.

  The DCI had suggested we get into the office by noon. Josh proposed we meet in the canteen for a brew before starting work. We would both need the caffeine to kick-start our brains.

  I could have easily succumbed to temptation and spent another couple of hours under the duvet, but I had an appointment to keep.

  Rupert Reid was now back at work and fully recovered. I had sent him a text while we had been waiting for SO19 to turn over the Romanian house, asking him if he could look at something for me.

  Despite the unusual hour, Rupert had replied almost immediately. My instructions were to attend his office on the sixteenth floor, Scotland Yard, Room 1604 at 10.30. It would be great to see the old guy again. The last time that we had spoken was just before he had warned me not to trust either MI5 or Nial Monaghan. How right he had been. The bomb that went off beneath my car had been just far enough away from him to spare his life.

  I arrived at Rupert’s office just as his clock showed ten-thirty.

  There were two mugs of coffee waiting ready near the kettle. A huge bear hug and much hand-shaking later, I showed Rupert why I needed his help.

  As I laid out the contents of the yellow folder on an empty desk, I could see from Rupert’s facial expression that there was going to be a problem.

  ‘It’s Arabic, Bob,’ he commented, as he donned tortoiseshell-framed reading glasses and leaned heavily over the desk for a closer look.

  ‘Which is why I came to you, Rupert,’ I replied.

  He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he flicked over the sheets of paper. ‘I don’t read Arabic as well as I speak it, but I can tell you what it’s from.’

  ‘That’s a start. Can you work out what it says?’

  ‘Well…’ he paused. ‘It looks like it might be something from a collection of Islamic works called Mawsu’at al-Jihad, the ‘Encyclopaedia of Jihad’ … but it’s not a section I have ever seen before.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘After your time, Finlay. We first came across sections of the Mawsu’at in the late 1980s. It was written by people working for a man called Abdullah Azzam. Your extract seems to be slightly different; it’s called “Encyclopaedia of Political Jihad” – maybe a localised version?’

  ‘Political Holy War?’ I asked.

  ‘Not Holy War. It’s a misconception that “jihad” means “holy war”. It actually translates as “struggle or effort in the name of Islam”, so what we have here is something about political struggle.’

  I sat down. My lack of sleep was already starting to catch up with me. Rupert stopped talking for a moment, walked across the office and returned with one of the mugs of black coffee. ‘Here, get this down you,’ he said. ‘This could take a while.’

  I sat and listened as Rupert continued to browse the documents. Here and there he could pick out words he knew – signs and names that were familiar. Azzam, he explained had been a co-founder of the Palestinian Hamas organisation. He had commissioned the ‘Encyclopaedia’ as a means to teach Mujahideen how to resist the Soviet invaders.

  ‘Sounds like a nice bloke,’ I commented.

  ‘Not really. He’s widely reported as having been responsible for persuading Bin Laden to travel to Afghanistan and get involved in what he called the “global jihad”. Azzam met Osama Bin Laden in Saudi when he taught him at the university. Bin Laden fell under his spell.’

  ‘The same Bin Laden that they say is behind 9/11?’

  ‘The very same. Azzam recruited him.’

  ‘He’ll be high on a CIA hit list then?’

  ‘Not anymore, Finlay. Late 1989, Azzam was driving his father and brother to prayers when they were taken out by a roadside bomb.’

  ‘CIA got him?’

  ‘One of many suspects. Serious money is on Bin Laden taking out his old mentor when they started to head in different directions. Sure as eggs are eggs, if Azzam was alive today then it would be him in charge of Al Q’aeda, or whatever it might have become.’

  ‘The King is dead, long live the King. Bin Laden takes out his biggest rival leaving the path clear?’

  ‘Got it in one, Finlay. Makes you wonder who taught those guys how to make bombs like that.’ His eyebrows raised, Rupert looked hard at me over the top of his reading glasses. He knew what I would be thinking. I paused for a moment before answering him.

  ‘I know what you’re saying. We did, mostly … me and a few others. We had quite a few of them over here in the eighties. Mostly up in Scotland. We taught them a lot of ways to kill Russians.’

  ‘It’s a murky world. I saw that Collins lad on TV last weekend. He’s stirred up a real hornets’ nest. I had a feeling when I looked through the book that some of your lads might have been involved … but I didn’t think you were a munitions specialist?’

  ‘I’m not, I was sent up there to train them on missiles. First it was the Milan, but they couldn’t get the hang of the wire guidance system. A year or so later the Americans managed to sort out some Stingers. The Afghans were much better with that. Fire it, forget it.’

  ‘And once they got the Stinger, Russian air immunity was defunct.’

  ‘Exactly. And, like Beaky wrote in his book, war games for the Americans.’

  ‘Beaky?’

  ‘Chas Collins, the author you’re referring to. Me and Kevin knew him. He was on Goon troop for a while before he quit to work the circuit.’

  ‘So, he was SAS then? That TV programme at the weekend made out he was fake…’

  ‘No, Rupert. He told some porkies and paid the price. Beaky wasn’t badged; he never passed selection.’

  ‘Hardest course in the army.’

  I laughed. ‘No, that’s the one run by the Catering Corps. Nobody’s ever passed it.’

  We laughed together. It was an old joke.

  Rupert continued to mull over the papers, making notes on a jotting pad as he slowly worked his way through them. After about twenty minutes, he admitted defeat. Slamming his pencil onto the notepad he swore under his breath.

  ‘It’s got me, Finlay,’ he said. ‘The text is confusing. Some parts I can work out, then, in the middle of a sentence the language seems to change. It’s really odd. Like it’s been put together by several different people.’

  �
�That might be the case if it is what you think. I doubt if Azzam wrote it all himself.’

  ‘Can you wait a minute while I “phone a friend”, so to speak?’

  I readily agreed. While Rupert headed off to his desk in the corner of the room, I stared out of the window.

  It was a grey October day. In the street below, hundreds of people were going about their working lives. Not far away, the River Thames was visible as it cut through the heart of the city on its way to the sea. A small boat was struggling eastwards against the flow of water. Somewhere out there, I thought, Jenny was shopping for our new home.

  I had an idea what she would be looking for. I had seen the latest estate agent blurb on the kitchen table before I’d left that morning. Over the preceding weeks, there had been piles of property listings arriving in the post. I had scanned through them but none seemed to excite me. The listing that had been sitting on the kitchen table for the last few days was different, though. Quiet, rural and with roses around the door, the house was described as having nice views and no neighbours. Jenny didn’t like having neighbours; it was a trait that we shared.

  A few moments later, Rupert returned.

  ‘Good news. A mate of mine who works over at the Ministry of Defence will have a look at it for you. He’s a top-drawer translator; bit of an oddball, but great with languages. One of the few blokes in the UK who can debate the Quran with a Muslim cleric without getting into a heated argument.’

  I hesitated for a moment. The idea of allowing an MOD employee to have the file troubled me. I had promised Gayle Bridges some answers and I didn’t plan to get us all in the mire by having it handed over to the Ministry of Defence.

  ‘Can he be trusted … I mean, can he work without the MOD knowing what’s in the file?’ I asked.

  ‘If that’s what you want. He might work for the Government, but he’s discreet. If you want a private job done then I can vouch for him.’

  ‘OK, what’s his name?’