The Becket Approval

by Falconer, Duncan

  The biker removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his thick, grey hair. It was Aristotle. He climbed off the bike and unclipped a briefcase from the seat.

  ‘I didn’t peg you for a bike man,’ Gunnymede said as he arrived and proceeded to stretch the back of his knees.

  ‘I’m not. It’s a pool bike. I hate London traffic. What do you have planned for the day?’

  ‘Nothing planned. I wait to serve.’

  Aristotle gave him a look and headed into the apartment building.

  ‘Nice to see you too,’ Gunnymede said sarcastically. His phone chirped. ‘There you go,’ he called out. ‘Has to be work. I have no friends.’ He pulled the phone out of his shorts pocket and looked at the screen. ‘Maybe I have one friend,’ he said as he put it to his ear. ‘Bethan.’

  ‘Devon.’

  ‘My Albania buddy.’

  ‘How’s your wound?’

  ‘Fine. Yours?’

  ‘I’m suing you. It’s crooked.’

  ‘Can we settle out of court?’

  ‘Sure. When are you free?’

  ‘Just say where and when.’

  ‘There’s a case I’d like to talk to you about. Are you in London?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What are you doing right now? Can I pick you up?’

  ‘Erm ... sure. Why not?’

  ‘Half an hour?’

  ‘I’ll send you the address.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  He disconnected and stiffly hobbled into the apartment building. Half an hour later, he was on the corner of the street watching oncoming traffic, the collar of his weatherproof jacket turned up against drops of rain that had just begun to fall.

  A car drew up to the kerb, Bethan at the wheel. Gunnymede climbed in and she pulled away.

  She smiled on seeing him. ‘All I could think of while driving here was our adventure in Albania. Probably nothing to you, but it was pretty cool for me.’

  ‘I thought it was pretty cool too,’ he said, buckling in.

  ‘That where you live?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Nice digs.’

  ‘Company flat.’

  ‘Free accommodation on the river. Can’t be bad.’

  She eased the car through traffic as the rain got heavier.

  ‘Where are we going? I’m starving,’ he asked.

  ‘To a farm just north of London.’

  ‘A farm? This is to do with Albania?’

  ‘Kind of, maybe, sort of, possibly. Maybe not.’

  ‘Those are the kind of clues I’m used to working with.’

  ‘So when a case gets cold what we sometimes do is look for relationships with other cases.’

  ‘Connectivity.’

  ‘Exactly. For instance, I’ve got a pool of cases that are all homicides related to British military personnel.’

  ‘Which the Albanian case could possibly fall into.’

  ‘This farm also has a slim chance of a connection so I volunteered to check it out. And I thought it would be a nice opportunity to chat with you.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  ‘I know a cafe on route where we can grab a bite to eat.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  She takes a turn into another busy street.

  ‘There was an assassination in Skopje a week before the Albania shootings,’ she said. ‘Have you ever heard of an Afghan called Mustafa Lamardi?’

  Gunnymede looked at her. Interesting coincidence. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘He was a former Director of Afghan National Security.’

  ‘You just know of him or you knew him personally?’

  ‘I worked in Afghanistan on occasion. Lamardi was a liaison between Afghan and British special operations. What’s his connection?’

  ‘Lamardi was killed by the same Dragunov rifle used to shoot the Albanian border guards,’ she said.

  Gunnymede found that interesting. ‘Same sniper?’

  ‘We don’t know. Possibly. Seven days before the Albanian border killings. Same level of professionalism. I was hoping you might have some knowledge you might share with me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’

  ‘Don’t or won’t?’

  ‘I would tell you if I did.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you. There are things that I would not be obliged to share with you but up until now there’s nothing about the Albanian case that I know and you don’t.’

  ‘Okay. I believe you.’

  ‘I’d tell you if I was lying to you.’

  She glanced at him. ‘I’d tell you if I was lying to you?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  She shook her head in wonder. ‘Amazing... Who’d want to kill Lamardi?’

  ‘A great number of people would be pleased to hear he’s dead.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘He betrayed us; the British military. He used his privileged position to compromise an operation and caused the death of several operators.’

  ‘Military intelligence operators?’

  ‘And Special Forces.’

  ‘Were you involved in the operation?’

  ‘Not directly. I was in country at the time. I was in the ops room when the operation went bad.’

  ‘What happened to Lamardi?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. We discovered his connection months later but couldn’t prove it.’

  ‘How sure are you it was him?’

  ‘The operation was to destroy a large shipment of heroin. We believe Lamardi alerted the Taliban and by doing so got himself into the heroin business.’

  She pulled into the kerb and turned off the ignition. ‘Food.’

  They climbed out and entered the café. Gunnymede chose a table by the window while Bethan went to the counter. Minutes later she returned with two mugs of tea. He emptied a packet of sugar into the mug and took a sip as he looked around the simple, classic greasy spoon, most of the customers wearing overalls. ‘This doesn’t seem like your kind of local.’

  ‘It would be if I lived closer. Great bacon sandwiches. The bad guy in my last case would come here. He’d have a cup of tea, at this same table, looking out the window. He’d cross to that paper shop every morning. I knew he was our man before anyone else did. He was a creature of habit, but not the ones he showed the world. He created a routine but he wasn’t the type to do routine.’

  ‘A creature of habit but not routine?’ Gunnymede queried.

  ‘It can be a habit to not have a routine. He never read the newspaper. The family that owns the shop had a little girl. She was similar to the girls he’d killed before. The morning he didn’t turn up for his paper was the morning we caught him.’

  ‘Did you save her?’ Gunnymede asked.

  ‘Yes. Her body at least. I’m not sure about her mind though. We weren’t quick enough. I wasn’t quick enough. We thought we knew where he was taking her. But being a creature of habit he changed his routine. I didn’t see it coming soon enough.’

  The café owner came over with two bacon sandwiches.

  ‘Classic doorstep,’ Gunnymede declared.

  Bethan covered hers in ketchup and they bit into them. She nodded approval as she chewed. ‘Classic indeed,’ she said with a full mouth as tomato sauce ran down her chin. She stifled a laugh at herself as she wiped her mouth.

  ‘You know how to enjoy your bacon sarnie,’ Gunnymede said, also with a full mouth, grinning at her.

  They settled into their meals as they watched the sodden world outside.

  ‘Tell me about where we’re going,’ he said.

  ‘There was a double homicide in the city last night. Two human rights lawyers. Both heavily involved in the prosecution of British soldiers who served in Iraq. They worked with IHAT, the Iraqi Historic Allegations Team. We’re going to see an old farmer who made death threats to both lawyers.’

  ‘And this is linked to those related cases – British military homicides.’ />
  ‘It smells like it to me.’

  An hour and ten minutes later, Bethan brought the car to a stop at the gate to a farm and turned off the engine.

  She opened the glove compartment in front of Gunnymede, pulled out a double taser gun and checked it was functioning.

  ‘You expecting trouble?’

  ‘Farmers have shotguns.’

  ‘You said he was old.’

  ‘Seventy-three.’

  ‘That would probably kill him,’ he said.

  She thought better of it, returned the taser to the glove compartment and got out of the car. Bethan unlatched the main gate and led the way into the cobbled courtyard.

  A wooden barn in need of repair was opposite an old stone farmhouse. Everything looked run down. There was no sign of any livestock. Not even a dog. An ancient tractor sat rusting. Various pieces of farm machinery lay about, poorly maintained. This was not a going concern.

  Bethan crossed to the front door and knocked on it. There wasn’t a sound from within. The air was quiet.

  She looked at Gunnymede. He had nothing to say.

  She knocked again. This time there was the sound of movement inside. Seconds later the door opened and an old man with a grey pallor stood in the doorway. He didn’t look well as he stared at her.

  ‘Mr Peters. Albert Peters.’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘My name is Bethan Trencher. I’m with Scotland Yard.’

  ‘I was here all night,’ he announced.

  ‘You know why we’re here.’

  ‘Those bastard lawyers were on the news.’

  ‘It’s been on television?’

  ‘Internet,’ he said. ‘I expected you lot to be along soon enough. They as good as murdered my boy. They got what was coming to them. What do you want with me? I was here all night.’

  ‘Yes, you said. You sent them several death threats, Mr Peters.’

  ‘So, what of it?’

  ‘Do you know who murdered them?’

  ‘If I did, I’d buy him a pint.’

  ‘Did the internet say it was a he, and only one he?’

  ‘A wild guess.’

  He moved towards her. She stepped back as if he was going to hurt her. He had no such intentions and stepped past her into the courtyard.

  ‘That’s where my boy hung ’imself,’ he said, pointing towards the barn. ‘In there. He stood on a chair, tied the rope around his neck and kicked the chair away. That’s how I found him.’ A quiver of emotion ran through him as he relived the moment. ‘He left a note telling me he was sorry he’d failed me. I was at the cemetery that morning, putting flowers on his mum’s grave. I haven’t been able to work the farm for some years now. Tom left the army when he got back from Iraq and took the place on full time.’

  Peters faced Bethan, looking into her eyes. ‘He was a strong lad, but he was more like his mother emotionally. And those bastards stitched him up. He never tortured anyone, let alone a bunch of filthy terrorists. Those lawyers caused us to go bankrupt.’ He started to cough but brought it under control. ‘They’ve paid for it now,’ he stuttered.

  He started to cough again, but this time couldn’t control it. He moved past Bethan holding his mouth and went back into the house. He disappeared inside and they could hear him coughing violently.

  Bethan stepped into the doorway, concerned for him. ‘Mr Peters?’

  She could hear the continuous coughing and headed inside. She found him in the kitchen, struggling to open a bottle of pills which he dropped on the stone floor. She picked them up and unscrewed the cap while he continued his coughing fit. She filled a cup with water and held it and the pills out to him. Peters grabbed the water with a shaking hand, took a tablet, shoved it into his mouth and washed it down. He took a deep breath and continued his fight to control the coughing.

  Gunnymede walked in. Bethan looked around the room that hadn’t been cleaned in a while. A pile of dirty clothing on the floor in front of a full washing machine. The sink jammed with soiled plates and pots, as was the draining board. The bin overflowing with empty tins. Empty beer and wine bottles littered the place. There wasn’t a clean surface anywhere.

  Gunnymede caught her eye and indicated a wall out of view from where she was standing. She stepped to where she could see several pieces of military memorabilia. One of them was an SAS plaque with an inscription. ‘Albert Peters ‘B’ Squadron 22 SAS’.

  Beside it hung an old fawn beret with the famous winged dagger cap badge. A vertical row of framed black and white photographs showed a motley collection of white men with several Omanis, all grubby, some with guns, smiling and pally. A young Albert Peters was amongst them. On the bottom of one of the pictures was the inscription ‘The Battle of Mirbat, Dhofar War, July 1972’.

  A dagger hung beside the pictures.

  Peters finally managed to stop coughing, unaware they were inspecting his artefacts. ‘There are some crimes the law can’t do anything about,’ he said. ‘But what are we supposed to do? Let bastards like those get away with it? Most people have to. But sometimes justice prevails. You can’t complain about that, can you?’ He coughed a couple more times but brought it under control. ‘I would’ve taken an iron bar to them myself if I had the strength.’

  Bethan looked at the old man whose sullen eyes were set on hers. ‘Details of the weapon were not released.’

  Peters realised his error but smirked anyway. ‘I’m just an old fool, aren’t I. Arrest me if you like. I don’t care about anything anymore.’

  Gunnymede left the room. Bethan joined him outside and closed the front door. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. She did the same and walked on.

  They climbed into the car. She started the engine and drove away.

  Chapter 15

  The sun dropped out of sight as Gunnymede and Bethan drove into London.

  ‘Do you have any plans for this evening?’ she asked.

  He wasn’t sure about his answer.

  ‘I’m not hitting on you,’ she said. ‘Well, maybe a bit. I find you interesting.’

  ‘I’m not playing hard to get,’ he said. ‘My hesitation is a sign of a complicated life at the moment.’

  ‘That’s code for you have someone I suppose.’

  ‘As I say, it’s complicated.’

  She turned off the North Circular. ‘How long’ve you been in the job?’ she asked.

  ‘Nine years. On and off – you?’

  ‘Not counting college and training, three and a half.’

  ‘You don’t have to take me all the way home,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Any underground will do.’

  ‘Whatever you want.’

  He glanced at her, considering something. ‘Do you want to grab something to eat?’

  ‘Sure. Actually, I’m not far from here. I could knock something up?’

  ‘That would be nice. You don’t mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I’d love a home cooked meal.’

  ‘It won’t be anything elaborate.’

  ‘A homemade sandwich would be more than perfect.’

  Twenty minutes later they were walking into her house.

  He closed the door behind him and took off his coat. ‘Nice neighbourhood.’

  ‘A gift from my parents.’

  ‘Very generous.’

  ‘What I mean is they died. I’m an only child.’

  She went into the kitchen while he looked around the simple but tasteful furnishings. A picture of a man in senior police uniform sat on a bookshelf that contained some high-brow books on philosophy and art. ‘Is this your father?’

  ‘Deputy assistant commissioner.’

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘He might’ve gone all the way if the big C hadn’t got him.’

  ‘Was that long ago?’

  ‘Five years now. Mum died three years before that.’

  ‘Was he why you joined?’

  ‘I suppo
se so. Bit of a family tradition. Granddad made chief superintendent.’ She came in with a couple of glasses of scotch and handed him one. ‘I’ve upgraded your sandwich to chicken and broccoli pasta. Is that okay?’ she asked as she went back into the kitchen.

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Where are you from? You sound London-ish.’

  ‘That’s where it all started. Mother was Scottish. My father was military.’

  ‘They still around?’

  ‘Mother left him, and me, for a richer, younger model when I was three. Father then went and got himself killed when I was six.’

  She paused to look at him. ‘That’s very dramatic. Did your mother take over when your father died?’

  ‘Nope. I haven’t seen her since she left. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.’

  ‘You were never curious enough to look for her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How’d he die?’

  ‘He was killed in Lebanon while serving.’

  ‘So who brought you up?’

  His phone signalled a message. His expression darkened as he read it. ‘I have to go. Where’s the nearest underground?’

  ‘About a mile. Where do you need to get to?’

  ‘Hammersmith and Fulham hospital.’

  She could sense his deep stress as he grabbed his coat.

  ‘I can take you.’

  ‘I have to go now.’

  She hurried into the kitchen, turned everything off, grabbed her coat and headed for the front door. Within a minute they were in her car, speeding up the narrow residential street where she lived to a busy commercial road.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, calmly but firmly.

  She gritted her teeth as she pushed her way into a gap. Gunnymede grew impatient with the congestion and reached for a switch he’d identified earlier. A siren burst into life along with an array of concealed strobe lights around the vehicle. ‘Go,’ he commanded. ‘They’ll get out of your way.’

  The situation unnerved her but she put her foot down and swerved into the oncoming cars.

  ‘I’ve never done this outside of training,’ she said over the sirens. And she wasn’t comfortable with it then, either. The first oncoming car veered out of her way, mounting the pavement. The car that followed turned sharply while hitting the brakes and its back end slid round. Bethan swerved an ‘S’ turn to avoid them all and accelerated away. She was at the peak of her abilities and barely holding it together. Once past the congestion, she returned to her side of the road and accelerated into her next overtake position. Traffic lights ahead turned red but she didn’t ease her aggression as she pushed into the junction. Cars either side stopped hard as she sped through.