The Becket Approval

by Falconer, Duncan

  The final turn to the hospital gates eventually came in sight. She took the corner and he opened his door before she came to a halt. Two flashing police vehicles were parked outside the entrance. She braked hard behind them and Gunnymede ran up the ramp to the main entrance.

  A small crowd was gathered in the reception hall, aware something bad was happening. The receptionist saw him and tried to intercept him as he hurried to the double doors.

  ‘She somehow got the keys!’ she called out to him.

  Gunnymede headed along the corridor, towards the congregation room, the only place he’d ever met with Megan. He pushed the entry button and barged the doors open to find the place empty.

  He went back along the corridor to see staff hurrying up a staircase. He tore past them to the next floor, through a set of doors into another corridor. Several police officers and staff were focused on a door, trying to open it. A nurse was banging on it anxiously while another attempted to push a key into the lock.

  Gunnymede arrived and assessed the door. It was solid. A small reinforced window was in its high centre. He leaned over the others to look through it. A white, sterile room, a table and chair. A pair of feet off the floor against the wall, unsupported.

  He stepped back to think quickly. An officer shouldered the door followed by a heavy boot but it didn’t budge. A few feet away, fixed to a wall, Gunnymede saw a fire extinguisher. He grabbed it, raised it as he went back to the door and without a warning slammed it into the small window, smashing it inwards. The officers and nurses jerked back in shock.

  Gunnymede punched the glass until it fell away, reached through with bleeding knuckles and felt for the handle. He found the key in the lock, turned it and the door opened.

  Megan was hanging by her neck, her swollen tongue out, eyes bulging. He lifted her up, knowing she was dead but he had to do something. The officers quickly joined him. A nurse stood on a chair and grabbed at the knot in the cable around her throat, the other end tied to a conduit. She couldn’t untie it. An officer handed her a penknife. She cut furiously, the wires inside the plastic coating making it difficult. With a supreme effort she managed to sever it and they lowered Megan to the floor.

  Her face was blue. Her expression glazed. Gunnymede stared at her in disbelief.

  Nurses elbowed their way through and tried to revive her. It was their duty though all knew it was futile. One of them pushed down on her chest as an oxygen mask was applied to her face. A defibrillator arrived as Gunnymede stepped back. Seconds later someone cried ‘release!’ and the pads were fired.

  Gunnymede knew when the light had left a person’s soul. He’d seen it often enough.

  Bethan stood in the doorway. She’d seen everything since Gunnymede pushed open the door - his pain when he saw her hanging, his despair when she was laid on the floor.

  It was dark by the time Bethan left the hospital in search of Gunnymede. He was sitting on a low wall away from the main entrance.

  She sat a few metres from him.

  ‘Thanks for getting me here,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt awkward.

  ‘We were engaged but the truth is we were never going to get married. I knew we weren’t. She believed we were. I was playing a game of survival. She was the only one to stick by me.’

  He got to his feet. ‘Aunt Grace,’ he said.

  She was confused by the comment.

  ‘You asked me who brought me up. It was my aunt Grace.’

  He walked away.

  Chapter 16

  Gunnymede wore a black jacket, white shirt, black tie, his hair combed neatly, face cleanly shaven. He was part of a small, solemn group of people surrounding an open grave as a priest spoke into it. A shiny wooden coffin lay in the bottom of the hole. Gunnymede hardly took his eyes off it, his thoughts filled with images of a pretty, happy Megan. Laughing. Caressing. Night swims. Sunday runs. A pub lunch by the river. Lying side by side on green grass looking for images in the clouds. The picture he wanted to erase and couldn’t was her hanging by her neck.

  A hand squeezed his arm. He snapped out of his trance to find he was the only one at the grave. Everyone else was walking away. It was Megan’s father, Jack. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said softly as if not to disturb the spirits.

  Gunnymede pulled himself away and walked alongside Jack on a narrow path that meandered through the grounds.

  Jack sighed and shook his head. ‘What I don’t understand is how she was compos mentis enough to get out of that secure area, get a pair of keys, lock herself inside that room, do all she needed to do to rig the cable and do what she did. She showed no signs of being aware of anything and then she does that. I feel for you too, Devon. There was no-one who could’ve taken your place in her heart. I remember the time you two first met. You were in Hereford on some course or other.’

  ‘Free-fall.’

  ‘That was it. Your first HALO you accidentally pulled on leaving the C130 and spent an hour coming down.’

  ‘Not quite accurate. Someone thought it would be amusing to set my auto height finder to twenty-five thousand feet.’

  ‘A welcome to Hereford. There was a camp bash on one night. Someone’s leaving party.’

  ‘You came with Megan,’ Gunnymede reminded him.

  ‘That’s right. She’d been to the camp a few times with me for the odd bash. She asked me who you were. Someone nearby said, he’s a spy.’ Jack grinned at the memory.

  ‘Jack ... I don’t know if Megan and I would’ve ever made it to where you think we were headed.’

  ‘I know marriage didn’t suit you. Megan always believed you would both end up together. She wouldn’t have given up easily on you. She was patient. She would’ve waited. I also know you loved her. You can’t deny that, right?’

  Gunnymede struggled to answer. ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘What I don’t understand is why you don’t want to do something about it,’ Jack said, his voice growing dark.

  Gunnymede was confused. ‘About what?.’

  ‘Are you just going to keep ignoring it?’

  ‘Ignoring what?’

  ‘She was raped! And the bastard who raped her is still walking this earth!’

  ‘She was found all alone, Jack. No witnesses. No evidence.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘Bollocks. He’s out there somewhere and that’s a fact. Phase one is having the will to do something about it. Phase two is finding out who he is and where he is. Phase three is delivering justice. Jesus Christ, you do it all the time on the job!’

  ‘What you’re talking about is not what we do.’

  ‘It’s exactly what we bloody well do,’ Jack said in a raised voice, stopping to face Gunnymede. ‘It’s what we were designed to do! We do it for our government, our Queen, the people. But they don’t do it for us, do they. Not when we need them to. We can do it for ourselves though, can’t we? Of course we can. We can do it for our bloody selves.’

  ‘If the police knew who it was, they’d be in jail,’ Gunnymede said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘No, I don’t know that. And you were born yesterday if that’s what you believe.’ Jack stared into Gunnymede’s eyes. ‘Do you feel any guilt?’ he asked.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Of course you don’t. Why should you? Because the guilt’s all mine. She’s dead because of me, Devon. Because of me.’

  Jack was highly stressed and walked away.

  As Gunnymede watched him go his phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out to look at the screen. Aristotle.

  ‘Mr Jervis wants to see you?’

  ‘Jervis? I thought you worked for Harlow.’

  ‘Be at Legoland reception for 1700.’

  Aristotle disconnected. Gunnymede checked his watch.

  He looked back towards Megan’s grave. The sadness wouldn’t go away.

  Bethan sat at her desk reading a file from 2004. A former IRA commander mysteriously died in New York C
ity after he left a Fenian pub, shot through the back of the head as he entered his house. She was more than halfway through the unsolved cases and a theme was starting to show signs.

  She put the report down as her thoughts drifted to Gunnymede. His pain had touched her. She looked at her computer screen. Her hands hovered above the keyboard. She pushed herself and went for it, hit a few keys and seconds later a tracking reference for Megan Henderson popped up. Bethan hit the link.

  The preview page of a file appeared. A picture of Megan. Bethan clicked on it and, to her surprise, a banner appeared declaring access to the file contents was denied. She repeated the process with the same result.

  She looked towards Dillon’s office. He was at his desk. She walked over and opened his door. He looked up long enough to see who it was and went back to typing. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  She stepped inside and closed the door. ‘I’m looking at a case related to the British military homicides trend. While I was researching connections I ran into a restricted file.’

  ‘If it’s restricted there’s normally a good reason.’

  ‘What if it’s related to the case?’

  ‘What case?’

  ‘The one I’m looking at. There’s an SAS connection.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense,’ Dillon said, pausing.

  ‘I’m looking at a rape victim with an SAS connection.’

  ‘The trending pool I sent you is homicide not rape.’

  ‘This one’s not in the pool. It should be though. The victim died a few weeks after the rape. It was a motivated suicide, so that makes it a homicide.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Recent.’

  ‘None of the cases in the pool I sent you were recent.’

  ‘A woman was raped and committed suicide. Her father was SAS. That pool you sent me, most if not all of the perpetrators are or could be British special forces.’

  ‘That doesn’t quite fit, does it? She’s a victim whose father is military while the other cases are victims killed by military.’

  ‘Most of those cases were revenge where British Special Forces were possibly the avengers. This rape could be the catalyst to the next revenge.’

  ‘You’re talking about a future victim?’

  ‘Isn’t that what profile analysts are supposed to do, predict? The trend relationship is that all the victims were murdered because they somehow escaped justice for one reason or another. Mostly due to lack of evidence. What I’m saying is, if the man who raped this SAS soldier’s daughter avoids justice then he could become a victim.’

  ‘Has he avoided justice?’

  ‘Now you’re all caught up. That’s what I tried to find out. But when I tried to access the file I ran into access denied.’

  ‘I see – what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Pretend you’re my boss and help me.’

  ‘And now we come back to the beginning. It’s restricted for a reason. I don’t suppose you could get me a coffee, could you?’

  ‘The rape suicide victim was a twenty-six year old. Her name was Megan Henderson. She’s a former girlfriend of Devon Gunnymede. Gunnymede also knew Lamardi, the Afghan national security director who was murdered in Skopje with the same rifle that killed the Albanian border police.’

  Dillon studied her while the revelations sunk home. ‘Pure coincidence,’ he decided.

  ‘My father said there’s no such thing as coincidences.’

  ‘He never said anything like that to me. Of course there are coincidences. I warned you about having conspiracy theories and now you have a Secret Service conspiracy theory.’

  She fought to manage her frustration. ‘You can’t ignore this. If I’m wrong then we have nothing to lose. But if I’m right we have a chance at opening up these cases. Maybe all of them.’

  He sighed heavily. She could see she was getting through to him.

  ‘Do you know anything about the rapist?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. Maybe he hasn’t been found. Maybe he’s dead already. Maybe it’s a gang or a cult. Why is the file access denied? It would be nice to know.’

  Dillon considered something. ‘Why do you think MI6 wanted one of their people to go to Albania with you?’

  ‘I have no idea. I’m certain Gunnymede knows more than he’s telling us. But then he’s a spy.’

  ‘Do you know who placed the restriction on the file?’

  ‘No.’

  He took a few seconds more to absorb it all before facing his monitor. ‘Spell the name?’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘The rape victim.’

  ‘Me-gan Hen-der-son.’

  A new screen appeared. He accessed the file register. A moment later the file appeared with the same restriction banner. He typed an access code and another window appeared with the restrictor’s code. ‘S C & O 19.’

  ‘The UCs.’

  ‘I’ll talk with them.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  She wasn’t satisfied, but it was the best she was going to get.

  His mobile phone beeped. He looked at the message and got to his feet. ‘Got to go,’ he said as he left the room, holding the door open for her.

  Before he walked away something occurred to him. ‘Are you seeing Gunnymede again?’

  ‘No plans to,’ she said.

  ‘Be wise to keep it that way, don’t you think,’ he said and walked away.

  She watched him go thoughtfully.

  Gunnymede walked through the main entrance to the MI6 building and encountered the first layer of substance detectors. On completion, he made his way to a reception counter and, after providing his details, was asked to wait in the foyer.

  Two minutes later an intelligent looking young man in a blazer arrived on the other side of the internal security barrier and signalled for Gunnymede to come through. Gunnymede stepped into the secondary security layer, this time an array of more sensitive scanners. When he emerged on the other side, the young man greeted him. ‘Hello Mr Gunnymede. My name’s Bowden. I’m Mr Simons’ assistant.’

  Gunnymede forced a brief smile.

  ‘Follow me, if you would,’ he said, setting off towards a glass barrier.

  Gunnymede looked around as he walked through the lobby, deciding not much had changed other than a cluster of sci-fi looking probes in the ceiling.

  Bowden used a pin code to access an elevator. They stepped inside and it descended.

  ‘How’s your day been so far?’ Bowden asked.

  ‘Delightful,’ Gunnymede said, trying not to sound sarcastic.

  ‘Warmer than normal for this time of year, wouldn’t you say?’

  Gunnymede decided not to keep silent.

  The doors opened and the young officer led the way along a corridor to a metal door where he navigated through another personal identification system before they were permitted into a sterile room. The door automatically locked behind them.

  ‘Remove any metal,’ Bowden said. ‘Watch, phone, pen, coins, everything. Do you have a metal zipper?’

  Gunnymede started to check and then remembered his trousers had plastic zippers. He removed his stuff and placed them in the tray. Bowden touched a button, a partition moved aside to expose a steel door with large, robust hinges.

  ‘Bowden and Devon Gunnymede,’ Bowden said out loud.

  There was a soft clunk and the steel door opened towards the men. This revealed another similar door. A very fancy bubble room. The inner door opened into a large room with a glass conference table on one side, the other dedicated to several monitors. Jervis and Simons were the only occupants, Jervis talking into a phone. Bowden left, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Gunnymede. Good to see you again,’ Simons said wearing a professional smile. ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea, please,’ Gunnymede decided.

  Simons poured the tea from a flask into a china cup balanced on a delicate saucer, adding a few drops of milk and offering
it to Gunnymede.

  ‘Any sugar?’ Gunnymede asked.

  Simons handed him some.

  Jervis put down the phone. ‘There ’e is,’ he said in his south London accent with a hint of enforced posh developed over the years. ‘Been a while since we last met, Mr Gunnymede. You two have met?’

  ‘We have indeed, Mr Jervis.’

  ‘How was your time in jail?’ Jervis asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Gunnymede replied.

  ‘A new experience for you.’

  Gunnymede smiled politely.

  ‘I’ll have another cuppa, if you don’t mind, Mr Simons,’ Jervis said.

  Simons complied dutifully.

  ‘Hear you had some fun in Syria,’ Jervis said, accepting the fresh tea from Simons.

  Jervis had always fascinated Gunnymede. It was probably his cockney accent that was the most interesting thing about him, so out of place among the upper class accents of the other SIS mandarins he’d met.

  Gunnymede had heard the usual stories about Jervis when he joined SIS ops. Jervis was one of the few mongrels that had made it into the inner circle. A feat indeed. There were doubtless many in the firm who didn’t care for the commoner, not just because of his accent. He had a dubious pedigree. Jervis was a common city fox but with some special qualities. His earliest years, his birth to his teens, were shrouded in mystery, the most popular theory being that he came from gypsies and had a criminal record. The reason why no-one could uncover the truth about Jervis’s early life was because all documentation of it no longer existed, the result of either catastrophic bureaucratic failure or deliberate intervention by a highly placed government official. The most popular rumour on that subject was that his predecessor and mentor, Sir Anthony Jewel, RIP, was the one who’d removed Jervis’s records. Sir Anthony had plans for his favourite pupil and clearly didn’t want the man’s past to interfere with his future. Jervis found his way into the Secret Service via the army. The Intelligence Corps to be specific. Way before Gunnymede’s time in the Corps. His first documented proof of existence was on operations in Northern Ireland as a tout-maker, creating and managing informants using bribery, threats or money. It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the field in those days and where he first displayed his rare gifts. He had a photographic memory, was exceptionally clever and as courageous as he was ruthless. It wasn’t long before he was recruited by MI6 and brought to London where his skills were applied to the post-Cold War counterespionage program. After his success in managing a particularly complicated task he came under the gaze of Sir Anthony, who was the current operations director. Jervis spent some twenty years working under Sir Anthony and when the man retired, Jervis took his place. Gunnymede wondered if Simons had taken on the role of heir to the throne.