Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes

by Tayell, Frank

  She spun around as a hand touched her arm. It was Mitchell.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Who are they? Where were they going?” she asked.

  “They were trying to get away.”

  “Away from what?” she asked. “Why did they stay in the car?”

  As he led her away, she saw inside other cars where the windows had been broken, allowing insects to turn corpses to skeletons.

  “I don’t know,” Mitchell said. “It wasn’t radiation. At least I don’t think it was. These weren’t driverless cars. It looks more like a convoy. There were some missiles that were tipped with chemical weapons. As I understand it, the AIs used those when they wanted to kill the people but leave the electronics intact. It might have been that. Or maybe it was mass suicide.”

  “I thought the AIs didn’t care about people,” Ruth said.

  “They didn’t, in the same way that people don’t care about ants until they find them running across the kitchen table. They were busy at their own war, but that didn’t mean people didn’t try to stop them. There were kill switches in power plants that could be turned off, server farms that could be blown up, and fibre optic cables that could be cut. When people tried, they started killing us.”

  “Don’t you worry about them coming back?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “But they’re bringing back radio, aren’t they? For this transatlantic broadcast.”

  Mitchell sighed as he pointed at a side road leading to the south. “This way. Look, don’t think of them as technology. Think of them as people. Dead people. You can’t bring them back. New ones might be created, but maybe this time we’ve learned our lesson. Enough people worry about the mistakes of the past that they won’t be repeated. You just have to hope that the new mistakes we make aren’t quite so catastrophic. Here it is.”

  The track ended at a junkyard where cars were piled one on top of another. Behind it was the ruin of a four-storey concrete block of an odd design Ruth had never seen before. She kicked away the weeds growing up around a scorched sign and saw it identified the place as a leisure centre and swimming pool.

  It wasn’t a junkyard, she thought as she followed Mitchell towards the block. It was a graveyard for the vehicles. Had someone towed them here? Or driven them? There were none of the usual signs that the building was inhabited. No smoke from a cooking fire, no patch of earth filled with lovingly tended vegetables, no squawk of chickens or snuffle of a pig. It was a place completely devoid of life. Then she saw Gregory step out of the shadows, a sawn-off shotgun nestled in his massive paw. He waved in what could have been a warning or a greeting before gesturing towards the shattered glass door behind him.

  “I guess we go inside,” Mitchell said.

  The old lobby had a viewing window from which the pool, empty of water but half full of rubble from the broken roof, was visible. Standing on the lowermost diving board was Isaac. He raised an arm in a lazy salute.

  Ruth followed Mitchell down a long flight of stairs, through a dank, dark changing room, and out into the pool. She saw Riley first, sitting on a bench next to a young boy of around six. A man sat next to the child, and next to him was…

  “That’s Mrs Standage. They caught her!” Ruth exclaimed.

  “Caught? She isn’t a prisoner,” Isaac called back, his voice echoing around the empty chamber. “Didn’t you tell her, Henry?”

  Ruth realised that Standage wasn’t in handcuffs, and Riley seemed indifferent to her presence.

  Ruth turned to Mitchell. “What didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t risk her facing the same fate as Turnbull,” Mitchell said. “We staged the escape.”

  “I took her to Isaac before I went for backup,” Riley said. “I pulled the stitches out from where I’d cut my head when I fell off that horse. The blood did most of the work.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Ruth asked.

  “You didn’t need to know,” Mitchell said. “But things have changed.”

  “Did you go to Dr Gupta’s farm?” Isaac asked.

  “We did,” Mitchell said.

  “He was a good man,” Isaac said. “One of the best. I tried to recruit him. He wasn’t interested.”

  “Good for him,” Mitchell said.

  “Seeing as he’s now dead, I wouldn’t say that,” Isaac replied. “But he was the most thoroughly honest of men. A truly decent man who cared about others over himself. The world needs people like him, and far fewer of the kind who killed him.”

  Ruth glanced over at Riley. The constable looked bored, and that was the only reassurance she had in the cavernous chamber.

  “Do you know why Dr Gupta was killed?” Ruth asked.

  “Yes,” Isaac said. “I believe it was so that you would waste your time asking that question.”

  “That’s no answer at all,” Ruth said. “Why did they do it? Why did they copy the banknotes but not spend them? Why?”

  Isaac smiled, or at least his mouth opened exposing perfectly white teeth, but there was no humour in the expression.

  “Power,” Mitchell said. “It’s what it all comes down to. It’s what it always comes down to.”

  “Power?” Isaac echoed, as he took a step along the diving board. “That is like saying the motive of a robbery is to get rich. Some people prize pain and misery above all else.” He took another step and was at the edge of the diving board. “Fortunately, there are more people who value love, friendship, and…” He waved a hand at Mitchell. “Even justice. But in this case the answer is control.” He bounced back on his heels. “Control of Britain?” He bent his knees and jumped, twisting in the air so he landed with only his toes on the board, his heels over the rubble-filled pool. “Or control of the world? That is the real question.”

  “Cut the theatrics,” Mitchell said. “Tell us what you know.”

  “Mrs Standage?” Isaac said. “You’re up.”

  The woman stood, nervously. “Um… my son?”

  “Of course. Mr Standage, please take your boy outside. Watch the sunset. We’ll be leaving soon.”

  The man looked at his wife before gathering their son and heading out the door.

  “Mrs Standage?” Mitchell prompted.

  “It was as I was telling your colleague,” she said. “I had no choice. They threatened my son. They came to my house in the middle of the night and said they’d kill him. At first they only wanted to know when the new notes were going to come into circulation.”

  “Who was this?” Mitchell asked.

  “There were three of them. The two that you killed in that shop when you rescued us, and the other… I don’t know his name. He was older, with a scarred face.”

  “Emmitt. When was it?” Mitchell asked.

  “March.”

  “And these new banknotes they were interested in weren’t the twenty-pound notes they forged?” Mitchell asked.

  “No, it’s the ones they were planning to bring in next year,” Standage said.

  “Go on, what happened after you told them?” Mitchell asked.

  “Well, before I could do that, I had to find out the answer. Not many people in the Mint knew the date the new notes were being introduced. It wasn’t something that was openly discussed though everyone knew they were coming. Mr Grammick had even asked my opinions on the design. There’s no monarch on the back, you see. He didn’t like that, but he was overruled by someone in government.”

  “You gave them the information? How?” Mitchell cut in. “Was it in person? A letter?”

  “They said they’d find me, and they did. I was picking Luke up from school. One of them, Carl he said his name was, started walking beside me. I told him that the new notes would enter circulation at the end of January with the announcement made at Christmas. He said thank you and disappeared. I thought it was over, but a week later they broke into the house again, this time while we were having dinner. They didn’t want me. They took my husband away. I thoug
ht they’d kill him, but he came back three days later. They wanted an electric cable laid between a factory and a house. He works for the Electric Company, you see.”

  “It’s the same house we found the printer in,” Riley said.

  “He didn’t know which factory, or where the house was,” Mrs Standage said.

  “And after that?” Mitchell asked.

  “It was about another week, and they wanted a copy of the design for the note. I would have told someone. I would. Except this time, they took David and Luke away. They said they’d be released when I brought them the copy.”

  “And that’s what you did?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. But I gave them the wrong serial numbers. That way I’d be able to see if the notes were used.”

  “These designs were on a computer?” Mitchell asked.

  “An un-networked machine, yes.”

  “How many other people had access?”

  “Mr Grammick, a few technicians. I didn’t. Not really. I had to break in when Mr Grammick was at a meeting.”

  “After you stole the design and gave it to them, was your husband released?”

  “The very next day.”

  “Tell them why you didn’t report it,” Riley said.

  “They had police on their payroll. They said they controlled the entire police force.”

  “And you believed them?” Mitchell asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I did at the time. David didn’t know where this house was and I couldn’t offer much description of the people. We talked about it, about what information we could tell anyone and then, well, we didn’t forget about it, but they didn’t come back.”

  “Until they did,” Mitchell said.

  “Yes. One day I got home, and found it empty except for that man, Carl.”

  “What did they want this time?” Mitchell asked.

  “I… I don’t know. Maybe they wanted David so they could set up a new place to print the money from. They would ask me about the investigation, but I think it was out of curiosity more than anything else. I had to go to that old shop after work, you see. David and Luke weren’t there, not until the night you came… and…” She finally broke down, and sobbed.

  “It’s interesting, isn’t it?” Isaac said. “There are a few details that Mrs Standage has skipped over, but I think she’s covered the salient points. My dear,” he added, turning to the woman, “why don’t you go and join your son and husband. As soon as the sun sets, we’ll take you to a place as safe as anywhere can be on this planet.”

  Ruth waited for Mitchell to object. He didn’t.

  “That’s more or less what I got from her that night we rescued her,” Mitchell said after Mrs Standage had left. “So why did you keep her around?”

  “I thought you might have some more questions for her,” Isaac said. Then he turned to Ruth. “You asked what this was about. Do you know the Prime Minister is stepping down? There are many people waiting to take her place. Why bother with a revolution when you simply need to win a parliamentary rebellion? That is what this is about. Who benefits from a colossal fortune in counterfeit money that is discovered before it can enter circulation? Only someone who wishes to disrupt the status quo. The trade deal, the election, the direction that society is moving; it doesn’t matter which because the cause is the same. At the root of this is the desire to be the one who controls the fate of the people.”

  “A politician?” Ruth asked. “You’re saying an MP is behind this?”

  “What else makes sense? Here is the ability to become the richest person in the country, yet the money was left unspent.”

  “Get to the point,” Mitchell said. “Do you have anything useful for me?”

  “How about the identity of a suspect?” Isaac replied. He walked over to the bench, picked up a metal case, and opened it.

  “That’s a computer!” Ruth said.

  “Indeed,” Isaac said. “Pixels are so much more reliable than ink, and far more dramatic, of course.”

  He tapped at the keyboard until a window appeared. Ruth squinted at the image. There were cars, a lamppost, a building with a wire fence, and a person coming out of a gate.

  “Where is it?” Mitchell asked.

  “It’s a recording taken from a CCTV camera in the staff car park of a prison on the Isle of Wight,” Isaac said. “But the more pertinent question is when, and the answer is six days before The Blackout.”

  “How did you get it?” Ruth asked.

  “The feed was simultaneously sent to the surveillance room in the prison and to a secure archive which I gained control of some years ago,” Isaac said. “Leave the rest of your questions until later,” he added, and pressed another key. The image began to move. Ruth watched a woman walk from the gate to a car. The short clip stopped as she reached it.

  “I can’t make out her face,” Mitchell said.

  “There’s no need. For some reason, none of the AIs thought to fire a missile into the data centre for the DVLA. The register of car owners is just one of many databases I rescued from damp and decay. You see, I started with the address of Mr Anderson, which led me to the prison. The prison led me to a house on the same street on which Mr Anderson lived. That gave me the car, and that returned me to the prison, and to this footage.”

  “The name,” Mitchell prompted.

  “Let us start with Mr Anderson. His real name is Charles Carmichael, and he is named after his father, who, at the time of The Blackout, was imprisoned on the Isle of Wight.” He pointed at the screen. “At which prison, that woman ran a rehabilitation programme attended by Mr Carmichael Senior. About two months after she started working there, she moved into a house on Spring Close, six doors up from the Carmichael family. An odd thing to do, don’t you think?”

  “I’d say it’s highly suspicious. What’s her name?” Mitchell asked.

  “Patience. Watch.” He tapped at the keyboard. The image changed. Another clip began to play. This one showed the woman, and a man still wearing prisoner garb, run from the building as smoke billowed from a burning car at the edge of the frame. The clip stopped, with the two figures halfway across the car park.

  “This was taken eight hours after The Blackout,” Isaac said. “It ends at the moment that power was cut to the island.”

  “I know that woman,” Mitchell said. “Play it again.”

  “If you want,” Isaac said. “Or I could tell you that it was Weaver.”

  “Weaver?” Ruth asked. “You mean Captain Weaver?”

  “The very same,” Isaac said. “And the man in that footage is Mr Charles Carmichael Senior.”

  “It’s a coincidence,” Riley said.

  “You’ve seen it?” Mitchell asked.

  “And it doesn’t prove anything,” the constable said.

  “She knew what Clipton and Emmitt looked like,” Ruth said. “And well enough to give a description for them to print drawings in the newspaper. How else do you explain it?”

  “You don’t,” Mitchell said. “She knew what they looked like because she knew Anderson. Presumably she knows the others as well. She’s the insider in the police. She must have staged Clipton and Gupta’s murders, and she’d have had access to Turnbull. I thought she was quick getting to the house where the printer was, well, this explains how. She knew exactly where to go. It was clever of her to bring Marines rather than police to the crime scene, what better way to ensure that the evidence was trampled into the dirt?”

  “It doesn’t explain why she did it,” Riley said.

  “I suspect that she is working for someone else,” Isaac said.

  “Who?” Ruth asked.

  “Oh, I’ve no idea,” Isaac said. “Probably someone in the opposition, since exposure of the counterfeiting would bring down the government. Beyond that, any name I gave would be a guess.”

  “And there’s no point speculating,” Mitchell said. “Let’s go and ask her.”

  “Let me do that,” Isaac said. “Gregory doesn’t say much, bu
t he’s rather good at getting answers.”

  “This is a police matter,” Mitchell said.

  “Oh, don’t start that self-righteous babbling,” Isaac snapped. “Where is your warrant? Where is your writ? Where is your right? You may carry a badge, but there’s no more authority in that than there is in my gun, and at least I don’t pretend otherwise.”

  “There’s a line, Isaac, one that I won’t cross. It’s why I have the badge, and why you have this.” He waved his hand to take in the desolate decaying building.

  “I see,” Isaac said, and all pretence at good humour was gone from his voice. “And will you be taking her with you?”

  It took Ruth a moment to realise that Isaac meant her.

  “She’s safer by my side. But if you want to help, go back to Southampton. Search that house in which we found Clipton’s body. See if there’re any bugs or other surveillance equipment.”

  “That sounds like make-work, Henry.”

  Mitchell shrugged and walked back towards the stairs.

  Chapter 14

  The Informant

  There were a dozen freshly oiled bicycles in a rack behind the leisure centre. They took three and travelled back to the city as dusk settled around them.

  “Sir, where are we going?” Ruth asked.

  “Weaver’s house,” Mitchell said.

  “And then what will we do?”

  “We’ll get her to confess,” he said.

  Ruth knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that. “How?” she asked. “I mean, are you going to torture her?”

  Mitchell slowed, but didn’t stop. His answer was long in coming and short on detail. “No.”

  “Then what are you going to do?” Ruth asked.

  There was another agonisingly long pause. “Fine,” he said, though she wasn’t sure to what he was agreeing. “We’ll search her house. There will be some clue. I’m not sure what, but we’ll find something that will lead us to whoever is behind all this.”