by Iain Cameron
‘Hi, Matt. You don’t look so hot today. Are you feeling okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m still trying to take in the news, to tell you the truth.’
‘You nearly missed it,’ she said, nodding towards the hive of activity about five metres distant. ‘They’re about to take the body away. Apparently there had been a mix-up over the location, and the ambulance was sent to the wrong spot.’
‘It’s easily done around here, with few landmarks, and I imagine the phone service is a bit patchy.’
Matt looked around at the scene, a busy and messy group, looking incongruous against the serenity of the surrounding woodland. He spotted the usual suspects to be found at a homicide crime scene: the SIO, Senior Investigating Officer from Essex Police, SOCOs, scenes of crime officers, a Home Office-appointed pathologist, and a police photographer. He imagined the detective they had met at David’s house in Highgate, DI Jeremy Wates, would soon be involved in a bun-fight with this guy, trying to decide who had jurisdiction over the case. In addition, and close to the main activity, stood three MI5 officers. He knew they were MI5 as Lauren Yates was among them.
They were all standing in a small clearing in a reasonably dense part of the forest, off Banks Lane. This was saying something as Epping Forest wasn’t the massive woodland it sounded, or once had been in medieval times. Parts of it were sparsely wooded, and other sections had been cleared for houses, hamlets, and a motorway: the M11.
The killers had made no attempt to bury or hide David Burke’s body. It had been dumped here, most likely, in the dead of night. This suggested a hasty operation, or the killers weren’t that fussed if somebody found it. In this section of the forest, find it they would. With so many paths and parking places, it was clearly a popular place for hikers and cyclists.
‘How did he die?’ he asked Rosie. ‘Do we know?’
‘Do you want the sanitised version?’
He gave her a stern look.
‘I just thought…you know…’
He shook his head. ‘I need to hear it.’
‘He was shot in the head at close range.’
‘Messy?’
‘You bet.’
‘Mmm. What else?’
‘He had been severely beaten.’
‘Torture?’
‘It looks that way. The mix of bruises suggests he’s been beaten over a sustained period.’
Matt grimaced. ‘I expected as much. Do you think ballistics will tell us anything?’
She shrugged. ‘If they find the bullet. It passed clean through.’
‘If they do, it should tell us if he was shot by a high velocity rifle or a handgun.’
‘What will that tell us?’
‘For most terrorists, and I include the TFF, their weapon of choice is the AK47. It’s cheap, unbelievably reliable, and easily available. If David has suffered significant brain damage, which points to the use of an AK47, it will more or less confirm the involvement of terrorists. As far as I know, not many criminal gangs have them.’
‘This would further implicate the TFF.’
He nodded. ‘If, on the other hand, the analysis suggests something else, we still need to leave a team watching them, and another chasing any ballistics lead.’
‘I know which one you’d like to be working on.’
After the body had been taken away, Lauren Yates walked towards the two HSA officers. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying.
‘I hoped it wouldn’t end like this,’ she said. ‘David was such a lovely man.’
‘He was,’ Matt agreed.
‘I’m Rosie Fox, HSA,’ Rosie said holding out her hand. ‘I work beside Matt.’
‘Lauren Yates, MI5,’ Yates said, shaking it.
‘You and David worked closely together?’ Rosie asked.
‘On a couple of projects. If Five work in a similar way to HSA, and I think we do, you’ll know it’s not simply a ‘complete your shift and go home’ sort of place. If we’re watching suspects or analysing reams of data, we’re in each other’s pockets for twelve, fourteen hours a day. In this closed environment, you really get to know someone.’
‘I agree.’ Rosie nodded.
‘Do you intend scaling back your operations on the other suspected threats we talked about?’ Matt asked.
‘Yep. Everyone who has been out looking for David has done all they can. We’ll leave it to the police to find his killer. Our job now is to determine the potential damage the information they extracted from David will cause.’
‘Are you coming, Lauren?’ One of her MI5 colleagues asked as they walked past. ‘We’re heading back to the office.’
‘Yeah, I’ll be with you in a sec.’
She turned to Matt and stuck out her hand, which he shook.
‘Thanks for all your help, Matt. It was good working with you. It’s a shame it wasn’t in better circumstances.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’
She turned to Rosie. ‘It was good meeting you, too.’
Matt and Rosie stood watching for another two or three minutes before they walked away from the scene and towards their cars.
‘I don’t know about you, Rosie,’ Matt said as they ducked under the crime scene tape, out of earshot of the MI5 team who were about to drive off, ‘but I don’t believe anything coming out of the mouths of anyone from Five. They all speak with forked tongues.’
‘I’m not sure Lauren said anything I would have regarded as contentious.’
‘You think? I can’t see them letting the killers of one of their own go unpunished.’
‘They aren’t. She said they’ll leave it to the police–’
‘Don’t be naïve. You worked for the Met. What chance have they got of finding David’s killer?’
‘As good a chance as any.’
He shook his head. ‘I doubt they’ve got any ballistics, and if the killers have been thorough with gloves and the like, no forensics either. To all intents and purposes, it has all the hallmarks of a random incident. We’re all great detectives when it comes to a domestic murder or a street brawl, when we’ve got the gun, forensic detail or an eye witness. In cases with an unknown and unrelated assailant, no one has a clue where to start.’
‘I don’t know if you’re planning something unofficial, Matt, but I would forget about it if I were you, before you dig yourself into a big hole.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said as they reached Rosie’s car. ‘Are you heading back to the office?’
‘Yeah, you?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll be in tomorrow. See you then.’
TWENTY-TWO
Matt walked back to his car. He’d parked further down the road from where the bulk of the police and MI5 vehicles were located. It was a warm morning, the early sun shining through the trees and spilling dappled light all around him. Perfect weather for hiking in the woods; he saw several cars, some containing dogs, others with bikes on the roof, driving slowly, looking for a place to park.
He spotted a woman walking towards him, which struck him as odd, as he couldn’t recall seeing many houses nearby when he arrived. They were both making their way along a narrow country road with no pavements, the occasional boy-racer or salesman late for an appointment whizzing past.
As she approached, Matt stepped to one side to allow her to pass. Instead, she stopped in front of him.
‘Are you police?’ she said, her voice sounding breathless from the exertion of walking.
Matt’s first reaction was to say no, not wanting to hear about her broken window or stolen recycling bin, but he relented; it would provide some form of distraction to hear about someone else’s misfortune. He also remembered there were still some coppers working at the crime scene, so if her question became too tedious, or was out of his area of expertise, she could be directed to them.
‘Yes.’
‘The detective investigating the shooting in the woods up there?’
‘How do you know about a shooting?
Did you hear or see it?’
‘No, I didn’t see it. My neighbour’s the one who reported finding the body. I comforted her until, you know, you lot arrived.’
Matt could have asked her how her neighbour had found the body, if she’d heard something and investigated, or if she had been out walking her dog when she spotted the corpse, but the detail would be captured in a police report, a copy of which he would ask to see. He would put money on it being a dog. Most breeds were naturally inquisitive, and with a sense of smell fifty to a hundred times more sensitive than a human. Instead, he said, ‘I see.’
‘My boy thinks he saw something.’
This was now getting more serious, and Matt had to think how best to handle it. He was sure that while he was walking back to his car, he’d seen the bald detective, the guy he believed to be the SIO in this case, drive away.
‘Where is your boy now?’
‘Patrick? He’s back at the house. He’s not feeling too chipper this morning, so I haven’t sent him to school.’
‘Can I come and speak to him?’
‘Silly,’ she said, punching him playfully on the shoulder. ‘That’s the reason why I came here to find someone. C’mon.’
They set off at a brisk pace. Fifty metres on, they turned down a narrow lane, one which he must have passed earlier but failed to notice. It was wide enough for a car, and rutted, meaning anyone driving along here would need to take it slowly. After a few minutes of walking, they came upon a row of houses, nestled deep in the woods, looking like a good setting for a grisly horror story.
‘My house is the one at the end. Next door is Jenna, the woman who found the body when she was out taking her Spaniel, Teddy, for a walk. She knew he’d been shot, as she used to be a nurse.’
‘Right.’
She opened the door and led him into a small but clean as a pin house. In fact, it looked and smelled as if it had been cleaned that very morning. If he was still a detective, this would have raised his suspicion antenna straight away; was she trying to hide something? However, today it was someone else’s problem.
‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked.
Matt was desperate for a coffee, but as he felt he was there under false pretences, he said, ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’
‘I’ll take you up to his room, but I must warn you,’ she said, putting her arm on his, ‘he’s an unusual boy.’
Matt waited for more, but she simply set off up the stairs. He followed.
For some reason, Matt was expecting to see an eight- or ten-year-old kid, his nose red from blowing it and a bucket close by in case he puked. This lad was sitting in an easy chair in his bedroom and looked fine. Judging by the books and posters, he was around fifteen-years-old, but he looked as tall and as heavy as Matt.
‘Patrick, this is the detective from the murder thingy up the road.’
‘Scene,’ the boy said in a loud voice.
‘Okay if I sit here?’ Matt asked, pointing at the neatly made bed. It was a shame to spoil it, but he couldn’t see anywhere else except the floor.
‘I suppose.’
Matt took out his notebook and pen and tried at least to look the part of a detective. ‘Your mum said you saw something.’
‘I saw a van, last night, in the middle of the night.’
A van travelling along a narrow forest road in the middle of the night, why? It might have been a team of house clearers or builders looking for a deserted place to fly-tip, only to realise it wasn’t an abandoned farm track, but an access road to a row of houses. On the other hand…
‘He doesn’t sleep well, you see, Detective. He’s often up in the middle of the night. He either reads a book or sits and stares out of the window. Nothing much happens around here, so when it does, he remembers it.’
‘What time do you think you saw this van last night? An approximate time will do.’
‘Three-oh-seven,’ he said emphatically. ‘It was driving slow like they were looking for something.’ He reached down, picked up a water bottle, and took a drink. It was not unlike the one Matt took to the gym.
‘I know all the cars and vans that drive around here. It came from somewhere else, not here.’
‘What sort of van was it?’
‘A 2019 White Ford Transit Custom Limited L1H1 2.0 EcoBlue 130 ps.’
Matt was scrabbling to write that down. Despite having faith in Patrick’s powers of observation, he had just described the best-selling van in the UK. Essex Police were going to love searching for this one, especially as it might have come from anywhere.
‘Did the van have any distinguishing features, such as a sign on the side, or had it been modified in some way?’
‘I saw its license plate.’
‘You did?’
‘CH19 HLY.’
TWENTY-THREE
Matt finished his workout in the gym and headed for the showers. He knew he was putting off the inevitable; he would need to go into the office at some point. He would have to face Gill and be reassigned to some other project. He couldn’t think up a good enough reason to stay on the David Burke case; being a ‘friend’ no longer cut any ice with HSA’s no-nonsense director.
Matt had been tempted to keep the information given to him by Patrick to himself, but once discovered, it would reflect badly on him for behaving unprofessionally. Plus, it would raise questions about his motives for doing so. Instead, he’d handed it to Amos in the Research Department and instructed him to try to find out the van’s owner and its location, and to inform the SIO of the David Burke murder case.
He left the gym and walked over to a nearby café where he bought a large coffee, his first of the day. He needed it this morning; he had drunk plenty of water in the gym and now required something with a little more bite.
It was a fine morning, warm with little wind; ideal running conditions. Despite having just completed a strenuous gym routine, he was tempted, but like a teenager practicing his guitar when he should have been studying, it was just another excuse to postpone the inevitable.
On the way back to his house, his phone rang.
‘Hey Matt, my man. How’re you hanging this fine morning?’
‘I’m good, Amos, yourself?’
‘I heard about David Burke. You have my condolences, man.’
‘Thanks, Amos. Appreciated.’
‘I hope I can cheer you up with some good news. I got a hit on the van.’
‘You did? Brilliant. Where is it?’
Minutes later, Matt dumped his untouched coffee into a waste bin and set off at a brisk pace towards his house where his car was parked.
When he arrived home, he grabbed everything he thought he would need, before dashing out to the car. He programmed the satnav with the details given to him by Amos and drove off.
He didn’t call Rosie or anyone else; he was now officially off-piste. He had instructed Amos to take his time telling the other agencies involved in the hunt for David Burke’s killer, but to keep Matt’s involvement from the prying eyes of his colleagues in HSA. If Gill or Rosie knew what he was doing, Matt’s phone would start ringing.
The address which Amos had given him was for a garage in Stockwell. To most people, garages ranged from top-notch dealers of big continental marques, to small local outfits selling ten-year-old bangers for less than the price of a new laptop. Garages like the one he was now heading towards, didn’t appear anywhere on this spectrum.
From the outside, it would be pokey, dirty, and completely unappealing to the casual browser, but inside it would be an Aladdin’s cave of the most up-to-the-minute electronic gear and equipment. They’d have machines to wind back a car’s odometer, sophisticated paint shops to change a vehicle’s colour, and a device to tweak the ECU, the electronic unit controlling most of the vehicle’s systems, to increase power output of a car, allowing it to outrun police patrol cars. For those happy with the performance and exterior of their vehicle, powerful industrial vacuums and power-washers would be deployed to deep
-cleanse and remove any DNA traces and other forensic information.
Matt knew this not because he’d been involved in the past with LVR of Stockwell, Len’s Vehicle Repairs. He’d never been inside, but similar operations were dotted around London and the South-East. The Met, in one of many initiatives to reduce car theft and the selling on of stolen vehicles, had closed several, but in the space of a couple of months, they would pop-up somewhere else under different ownership. A decision was subsequently taken, sensibly in Matt’s opinion, to leave them alone and instead carry out periodic checks of their operations and keep tabs on their customers.
Like everything else, those good intentions had fallen by the wayside due to successive tightening of budgets and reassigning of priorities. It was Amos’s analysis of ANPR images, and the sharp eyes of a passing off-duty cop that had given Matt this new lead, not any intelligence provided by the Motor Theft Unit.
It was important for him to arrive at LVR before the police did, as he wanted HSA to have custody of any suspects. He would only inform Gill about what he was doing once he had the suspects. To do so sooner, would see the whole surveillance operation passed to Essex Police.
In HSA’s interview rooms, suspects wouldn’t be questioned in a nice, warm police station with a cup of tea and everyone abiding by the procedures laid out in PACE, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. If the people connected to the van were not David Burke’s killers, Matt would hang them upside down from the top of the building until they told him who was. If they had killed David, it would take a huge amount of self-restraint on his part not to let them fall.
He had every confidence he would arrive before any police team. Before a police raid could take place, approval would be needed from on-high. Next, they would need to find a number of bodies not committed to other cases, and have their overtime approved. A detailed briefing would be conducted, after which a risk-assessment would be sketched out. He doubted they would be ready to move before tonight, and even then, it would probably be delayed until the following morning to guarantee the garage would be open.