The two city Police cars were entering the road with blue lights and sirens screaming as they approached the gates. The PC saw the shotgun and dived for cover behind his vehicle as Nicholas hurtled past him out of the gates and away from the advancing cars. He breathed a long sigh of relief as he knew he had only just made it in time. The city cars had no chance of catching him and were updating their Control Room. Now sitting on the cold floor, the PC updated the Metropolitan Police Information Room. The retired marine was updating his supervisor in the Home Office.
*
The Home Secretary was drinking a cup of tea in her office while chatting off the record to Graham as they awaited news. Kathy burst in without knocking as Graham’s mobile started to ring. Kathy updated the Home Secretary as to what had occurred according to the chauffeur and Graham listened as he was brought up to speed by the City Control Room. Both sat in silence as they took in the events relayed. The Home Secretary was the first to speak.
“Kathy. Find out if we have Nicholas’s red box and if so, I want it here asap.”
Kathy swiftly left the room.
Graham called his technicians.
“Where is the phone?”
“At the address. We saw him leave but the phone is still here.”
“Can you get hold of it?”
“We’ll try. We think it is in the Ministerial car.”
“Can you pass your phone to one of the City PCs?”
“Give me a second.”
“Hello sir. PC Tiverton.”
“I’d like you to check if the garage is still open.”
PC Tiverton cut in, “I can confirm the door is up and still open.”
“Good. Please have a discreet look inside. The suspect had to have accessed it from the house. Therefore, I need to know if the adjoining door is still open.”
PC Tiverton said, “Please give me a few seconds sir.”
Graham heard the PC moving and voices in the background. After a short time.
“The door is ajar.”
“That is the only way inside the house. It must not be shut. Can you wedge it?”
“I think I can smell gas sir. Should I go in to check? I would have to open the front door and open some windows to let any fumes escape.”
“I’d hate to delay you averting any explosion. Get on with it and see me when you get back to the city.”
“Yes sir” and the line went dead.
The Home Secretary said to Graham, “How the hell are we going to find him now?”
“The Met has put his number plate as a priority suspect vehicle on the ANPR system. We will know where he is soon enough and the Met has sent up one of its helicopters. Once they latch onto him it will not take long to catch him.”
“Why has he run?”
“There must be something damning in his house. I’ve already asked my deputy to put details together in order that a search warrant can be acquired. Then we can go in and search.”
Kathy knocked, waited, and then entered on command. “The red box is still in the car and the driver is bringing it back here now.”
“Bring it straight to me.”
“We have seen on the news that something has happened to the Chief Constable in Birmingham.”
The Home Secretary turned her TV on with the sound on mute. She often found the rolling news channels had information before she did.
“Thanks Kathy. Any chance of some sandwiches?”
“On way” and she left.
It didn’t take long. The scrolling ‘tic a tape’ reported, Breaking News: The Chief Constable of Birmingham Police has been found dead at his home.
“You may not agree with me Graham, but I think that’s the best bit of news I’ve heard today. I just hope it was a clear case of suicide.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“I don’t intend to ask how you came into possession of all the phones and any involvement you may have had directly or indirectly. I sincerely hope you and any of your colleagues and associates are not going to feature in any enquiry up there.”
“I’m as much in the dark about it as you Minister.”
“Let’s keep it that way. I think we should let any investigation run its course. Then I want you in post and sorting that Constabulary out.”
Kathy was beckoned in after a short rap on the door. “Here’s Nicholas’s red box Minister” and she placed it on the desk.
The Home Secretary opened it.
“He didn’t even lock it.”
All three peered inside. There was a mobile phone. Graham put on a pair of latex gloves and picked it up. It was the one linked to Birmingham with several calls recorded as being made to the singular number.
“That links Nicholas to the lawyer Yusef.”
The Minister saw at least five manila envelopes beneath a few sheaves of Ministerial minutes.
“While you’ve got your gloves on, can you take those envelopes out?”
Graham took the five envelopes out and saw none were sealed.
“Come on Graham, let’s see what’s in them. Don’t dally.”
He shook the papers from the first envelope and the Minister sat back startled in her chair.
“Jesus.”
Kathy said, “Oh dear God.”
Graham said, “What?”
The Home Secretary said, “These are top secret papers that were for the PM’s information in relation to anti-British activities by various hostile embassies and their clandestine employees. Spies if you like. This is information gathered by our security agencies. It’s highly classified. Kathy typed this report at my dictation. Nicholas should not even have been aware of it.”
“How did he get it then?”
They checked the contents of each envelope and they were all the same. Graham watched the two women going paler and then a small mark in the corner of one of the envelopes caught his eye. He picked up the envelope and saw in light pencil a name.
“Excuse me Minister, there is a name here.”
“Let me see.”
She took the envelope using a tissue and the colour drained further from her face. Kathy was looking over her shoulder. She wobbled and held the back of the Minister’s chair.
“Who is he?”
Kathy said, “He is the top spy chief for the Russian Federation. If he got his hands on this, it would set us back decades.”
Graham found a faint name written on each envelope. As he read them out, Kathy sat down. The Home Secretary looked as though she was about to be sick. If each envelope was passed to the named person, the potential damage to the British Government was horrendous. If Nicholas intended to sell them, he could have commanded an exorbitant fee.
Graham found himself asking again, “How did he get a copy?”
151
Monday 20th June 2011
As soon as he was on the street outside the Ministry building, Graham called his technicians who were already back at their base. They confirmed that the Met helicopter had picked up Nicholas travelling on main roads parallel to the M1. It was obvious to all that he could easily have been stopped if he had used the motorway. He was already approaching Rutland and the constabulary units being directed by the helicopter were having trouble either catching up or intercepting him. None wanted to be responsible for causing him to crash at the speed he was travelling as death would be inevitable.
The Home Secretary phoned the PM. Both set their phones to scramble the conversation.
“I don’t know how he’s done it, but he has a complete copy of my report to you and it looks like he was going to sell it to all our main protagonists. It would have been disastrous for us as a party and more importantly, the country as a whole. In addition, all our efforts to clean up the Midlands have been scuppered by him. When the press gets hold of this: and they will sooner or later, we will be crucified.”
“Can you find out how he got a copy of that report?”
“If we get our people in to run security checks, someone will le
t the cat out of the bag and the press will be on us like a swarm of locusts.”
“Something must be done, we can’t have any potential leaks.”
“Daines seems to have access to various experts who get things done and keep their mouths shut.”
“If you think he can be trusted, have a word with him.”
“He’s just left. I’ll get him back.”
The PM put his scrambler phone back on its cradle. He was thoughtful. In his six years as PM he had not considered the option that was now foremost in his mind. It was something that he had been told by a security officer shortly after his elevation to the highest office. Once every three months, he was contacted by the same security officer who checked the phone lines were still working. Now he knew that the time had eventually arrived when he was going to utilise the facility.
Pulling a thin gel pad towards him he put a sheet of paper on top of it. On the paper, he wrote down his dead dog’s name and the year it died followed by his daughter’s two Christian names and date of birth. Whatever he wrote could not be ascertained by forensic examination of the gel pad. The paper would be destroyed later via a special shredder. Unlocking one of his top drawers, he took out a small black book. On the second page, he found the number he wanted. Using an unscrambled phone, he dialled the number.
“Yes?”
“My reference is” and he then read the numbers and letters off in reverse order.
“Call third number on scrambler” and the line cut off.
Checking his black book, he rang the third number from a list of ten on his scrambler phone.
“Password.”
The PM was ready.
“Churchill1066.”
“Yes Sir. What can I do for you?”
“Nicholas Boon is on the move somewhere North of London. Can you identify if he is wearing a lapel pin?”
“Wait one moment please.”
There was silence for over thirty seconds.
“He has two lapel pins. His Government one and a Home Office one. The Government one is stationary at his HA (home address). The Home Office one is approaching Leicester.”
“Please activate the Home Office pin urgently.”
“Yes Sir. Is that all?”
“Yes.”
The line cut off.
Nicholas was aware of the helicopter and believed that if he could avoid being followed by mobile units, it was only a matter of time before the helicopter would need refuelling. One thing he knew nothing about was ANPR cameras and their capabilities. He’d fired his shotgun once at the helicopter which ensured it kept at a respectful distance. It also alerted other officers to the fact he was willing to shoot if they got too close to him. They in turn were waiting for him to run short of fuel. The excessive speed he was maintaining on his machine good as guaranteed no one in a car could keep up, and the dangerous manner of his riding reinforced it.
In an office at MI5 a senior officer who had replied to the PM’s call, manipulated a strange keyboard below a standalone terminal connected to an individual roof top aerial. He double checked the code number of the lapel pin. He was one hundred percent certain it was correct before he triggered the enter key followed within an obligatory five seconds by a key marked ‘Confirm’. Nicholas was still wearing his tatty suit jacket under his motorcycle coat with the lapel pin in situ. A small cloud of gas escaped from it and drifted upwards towards his crash helmet. Some stuck temporarily to his clothes and a miniscule amount crept under his helmet and into his nostrils.
Within ten seconds, Nicholas’s eyes watered and then his vision blurred through to blindness. His lungs were heaving and his breathing started to speed up and then he felt as though they were failing through lack of air. At ninety plus miles an hour, he had little chance. He took both hands from the handlebars and tried to rip his helmet off to get air into his lungs and clear his eyes. The machine started to wobble violently. It was impossible for him to stop it as it careered across the road into the front of a delivery van which propelled him into the air and across the small pavement and face down into a stream.
Nicholas was dead before he hit the van. The gas had dissipated completely from his lungs but left an insignificant trace in the corner of each eye. A pathologist would never spot it unless he knew what to look for. Unfortunately, Nicholas was the proud owner of so many broken bones, smashed internal organs and a shattered brain that no pathologists would bother to look any further. The helicopter crew reported they saw Nicholas lose control of the motor cycle and crash. Having videoed the whole time they had been in pursuit, the images confirmed that fact.
The gas was colourless and odourless and was invisible to the helicopter crew or their cameras.
Graham was sitting in the Home Secretary’s office when Kathy walked straight in without knocking.
“The Metropolitan Police have just informed me that Nicholas has crashed. He’s dead.”
The Home Secretary looked furious.
“The bastard has got away from us again. Now we don’t have any chance to find out what else he’s been up to or how he got hold of my report.”
Graham didn’t care either way about his death. Thoughtfully he commented, “The advantage if there is one, is that he won’t be able to tell anyone else what he’s been up to.”
Both the Minister and Kathy looked quizzically at Graham but neither tried validating what he meant.
The Home Secretary asked both Kathy and Graham to wait in the anti-room while she phoned the PM.
“Hello Prime Minister. I have some news about Nicholas.”
“Go on?”
“Apparently he has had a fatal crash near Leicester. The helicopter crew that was following him reports he lost control of his motor bike at speed and hit a van.”
“That is unfortunate. Now we shall never know the full extent of his corruption. I suppose the only silver lining in this sorry saga is that he can’t tell anyone else.”
“That’s what Daines said.”
“We need to tell the press something. May I advocate that you say he has had some sort of mental breakdown and the Police were trying to stop him for his own safety?”
“That was what I was thinking. The Police were alerted as he had documents in his possession of a secret nature. They will say that because it is true.”
“Has a search warrant of his home been executed yet?”
“No, I don’t believe it has.”
“That needs to be furthered as a matter of urgency. Can you get Daines to expedite the matter?”
“I shall.”
“Is it likely that Nicholas was working with anyone else?”
“Please: Prime Minister: I can’t take the thought of that.”
“It’s something that must be considered. I will instruct that security in all Ministries be updated and all personnel be re-vetted. That way, nothing can be specifically attributed to your department.”
“Thankyou.”
“By the by Catherine, I still have confidence in the way you are running your department, and your tenure there is safe.”
“Thank you, Prime Minister.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow after the cabinet briefing.”
152
Monday 20th June 2011
The two officers who had interviewed Deborah walked into the office. It was crowded. The CC and Prodow had featured already on the news and some had seen it on the TV in the conference room and others on their smart phones.
Their entrance was spotted by Paul who shouted, “Quiet folks. We need to hear this.”
Doreen was making teas and coffees for all and had dispatched a young woman PC to collect some extra cups. She tottered in carrying a chinking tray full of cups and a carton of milk supplied by the lady in the canteen.
The CC sitting behind Paul’s desk saw her enter and said, “Put them on here.”
The sergeant who led the interview started speaking. Everyone was listening.
“I’ll precis as best I can. Th
e tapes we have can be transcribed later. Deborah was Sally’s unexpected daughter from a brief first marriage. She was not wanted nor loved as she curtailed Sally’s carousing and general good time attitude. Jean, Sally’s Mother, took it upon herself to raise the child who lived with her and her husband from birth till about fourteen years old. Gradually, Deborah became recalcitrant, belligerent and confrontational and Jean asked her to leave.”
Prodow said, “What about Jean’s husband?”
“He died when Deborah was eleven.”
“Right.”
“Then Deborah moved from one man to another and from place to place. Occasionally she would stay with Sally at the house in Birdham. Apparently, one night when she was there, she wanted a glass of water and went downstairs to get it. She overheard Sally and Gary talking about an old lady and saw them filling a small jar with the poison. They were talking about putting her out of her misery as they had got enough money from her.”
Prodow interrupted again.
“Did she hear how they got the money?”
“Yes. Sally had managed to get the woman to sign some cheques and she had stolen her bank card.”
“Simple enough. Gary has told us that was one method.”
“Deborah didn’t know what to do and decided to keep quiet. Time moved on and she met her current boyfriend, Haskland, in a squat in Brighton. Then she saw an article in a paper about Armstrong winning the chess competition and a picture of him. She told us he was the spitting image of Jean.”
A slight murmur grew and faded just as quickly. The sergeant waited for silence.
“Jean had told her that during the war, she had been with her Father, Archie, on a train that got bombed. Her memory was clear with one fact, she had been told at the time he had been killed. She did not know where she had been going or where she had come from, other than London. Then Jean was fostered by a local clergyman and his wife here in Chichester. When Deborah showed Jean the picture, she dismissed it as her Father out of hand. The article referred to Armstrong having survived being on a train during the war which had been bombed. Deborah got it into her head it was Jean’s Father using an alias for whatever reason he may have had.”
An Urgent Murder Page 49