Closer Than Blood

by Paul Grzegorzek

  “What if I go out of signal? It’s patchy at best, some places.”

  “OK. We lose you for more than five minutes, she dies. Got it?”

  “Yeah, got it. Let me ask you one thing, though. What’s so important about this drive?”

  “Important shit.” Andrei tapped the side of his nose. “But secret.”

  I nodded. Andrei came across as a bit of a genial idiot and I’d hoped he might tell me something useful, but it seemed he was smarter than he let on. Either that or scared enough of Svetlana that he knew what would happen if she found out he’d talked.

  Without another word, both men got back in the car and drove away. I memorised the registration as they left, not sure what I’d do with the information but taking it by reflex.

  Alone in the mid-afternoon sunlight, I stood by the white stone arch that separated the road along the side of the park from the main drag down to the seafront, looking out over the sparkling sea below.

  Somewhere, Sally was sat in a small room, injured and at the mercy of people who would kill without compunction. What I did next would mean life or death for her.

  Part of me almost admired the way Svetlana was manipulating me. It was a smart play, and it might still work unless I could do something she didn’t expect. Luckily, I was older and wiser than I looked, or acted, to be fair, and that meant I stood a chance of turning the tables. Had I been the same man that I’d been ten years ago then I would have torn Brighton apart to find Harrison, then found my way back to her with murder on my mind, but years of watching my every move had tempered my wilder urges. More or less.

  Conscious that every second I wasted was hurting Sally, I began to walk towards the nick, thinking up and discarding ideas as I went. I couldn’t just walk in, that would mean Sally’s death, but there had to be a way of getting the help I needed before they threw me in a cell.

  If I’d had my phone I could have sent a text to Jimmy, but Andrei and his companion had taken it off me at Sally’s. It was either still there or, more likely, in a police evidence bag somewhere. I had no idea what the NCA’s procedures were like, but I hoped they were thorough enough to spot the signs of a kidnapping rather than thinking I’d done a runner.

  It would have been a pleasant walk had the circumstances been different. A gentle breeze kept the heat of the sun from being too oppressive, and gulls wheeled and cried overhead as I cut through the back streets towards the centre of the city.

  By the time I reached the police station I still had no clue what I should do. Svetlana would kill both Sally and myself the moment she had what she wanted, and that meant I needed help. The trouble was, talking to the only people who could help would be signing Sally’s death warrant. I considered risking it, hiding the mobile for a few minutes and making a call on a payphone, but I had to assume my voice or certain key words would make the Russians sit up and take notice. No, if I was going to get in contact, I needed someone else to make the call for me.

  I stood on the corner of Carlton Hill and John Street, just outside the towering glass Amex building. Enough people were walking to and fro that I didn’t stand out, and so I stared at the nick across the road and prayed for inspiration.

  It came in the form of a white van. It pulled up on the kerb nearby and the driver got out, then opened the side door and pulled out a stack of newspapers. I watched him for a moment, then began to smile grimly as I worked out my next move.

  Chapter 38

  The offices of The Argus newspaper were in a smart-looking modern-build that stuck out amongst the tatty, faded grandeur of the other buildings on Manchester Street, just a stone’s throw south of the nick in Kemptown.

  I only had to loiter outside for a couple of minutes, timing my entry with the exit of a harried-looking courier to get past the intercom. Once you’re inside a place and face to face with someone, I’ve found, it makes it that much harder for them to say no.

  “Can I help you?” The woman behind the reception desk was in her early twenties, with the keen look of a wannabe reporter. God only knows what she made of my bullet-burned face and split lip, but her smile remained professional.

  “I’m here to see Pete Macarthur,” I replied, scarcely believing those words had come out of my mouth.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, but he’ll want to see me.”

  She picked up a phone and tapped in three digits. “Who should I say is asking for him?”

  “Just tell him it’s about Gareth Bell.”

  I saw a stab of recognition at the name, but the smile held firm as the phone was answered.

  “Hi, Mr Macarthur? I’ve got someone downstairs to see you, he says it’s about Gareth Bell. OK, great.” She hung up and gestured towards a pair of sofas flanking a coffee table at the far end of the room. “Take a seat, he’ll be right down.”

  “Thank you.” I wandered over to the sofas, but didn’t sit, instead passing them and going into the nearby toilet. Once inside I checked both cubicles and locked the door, then looked around for somewhere to hide my phone. There was nowhere obvious, but then I glanced up and saw that the ceiling was made from square tiles set in an aluminium frame. It was the work of moments to hop up on one of the toilets, lift a tile and place the phone inside. Let them listen to people shitting for a while.

  I’d barely made it back out into the lobby when hurried footsteps pattered across the tiled floor from off to my right.

  “You have information about Gareth Bell?” I turned at the voice and allowed myself a small smile of satisfaction as I saw recognition dawn on Macarthur’s face. For a few moments, and probably for the first time ever, he was speechless.

  “I think we should talk privately,” I said before he could recover. “I have some very interesting things to tell you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” he spluttered, taking a step back. “You’re a psychopath.”

  “Oh come on, Pete,” I said in disgust, beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake in coming here. “Drop the fucking act. You and I both know you only spin that line because it sells stories. You’ve probably hurt more people than I have with that scaremongering you call journalism.”

  “Did you just come here to insult me? Because if you did I can just make a phone call and have you arrested. I have it on good authority that you’re a wanted man.”

  “Oh really? And how did you come by that particular gem, you been hiding near the smoking area again?” About six months before, he’d been caught lurking on the back steps of the nick, the ones that led up from William Street and into the rear yard near the designated smoking area. He’d been ridiculed for it but no formal action had been taken. He took the bait, turning a shade that was somewhere between red and purple.

  “I have contacts in the police. I hear all sorts of things, and I make sure that anyone bringing me information on you is well rewar …” He stopped, suddenly remembering who he was talking to.

  “Great,” I said with a smile. “So now that you’ve admitted to offering police officers money for confidential information, how about we go somewhere less public and you actually listen to what I have to say? Or did you still want to make that call?”

  “Fine, this way. But it better be good, and I’m leaving the office door open.”

  He turned and led me through a security gate, then up a flight of stairs and into what I guess would be called a bullpen. A dozen men and women hurried to and fro or worked feverishly at computers, not one looking in our direction as we crossed to a small office on the far side.

  Gesturing me in with a look over his shoulder, Macarthur began to close the door, then remembered himself and left it half open. Inside, he took the chair behind the paperwork-littered desk and pointed at the other.

  I sat, looking around the room. It was no bigger than my kitchen at home, and every surface was piled with files, which in turn had individual papers scattered on top of them. On his desk, an all-in-one computer and monitor rose like a monolith
above the clouds of paperwork, and he looked at me suspiciously over the top of it.

  “Go on then, say your piece.”

  “How would you like,” I said slowly, picking my words with care, “an exclusive on the most explosive story to happen in Brighton since Rob Steele foiled that attack on the American Express building?”

  “And why would you want to give me that? Has it got something to do with your arrest warrant?”

  “Yes, but not directly. Let me be honest with you, Pete. You think I’m a psychopath and I think you’re a leech who preys on people’s fears. You’re the very last person I would come to for anything, ever. If I’m here, how important do you think this is?”

  He considered that for a minute, and when he began to nod I knew I had him.

  “OK, go on.”

  “What if I told you that my ex-wife was being held against her will by the same group of Russian gangsters who killed my brother yesterday?”

  He straightened and leaned forwards, eyes widening. “What?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s all a bit convoluted but the short version is that my brother stole something belonging to them, and they’ll kill, have killed, to get it back. That’s why my dad has armed officers watching him. They’ve threatened to kill everyone I care about unless I find what they’re looking for.”

  “And you’ll give me the whole story? In exchange for what?”

  “Two things. First, I need you to phone an Inspector by the name of Jimmy Holdsworth on a mobile number I’ll give you. I have a list of instructions I need him to follow, so you’d better write them down. They won’t make much sense but that’s because there are certain things that can’t be said to him openly on the phone. My name, for one.”

  “And second?”

  “We need to go back downstairs and you need to come and meet me again, only this time we need to make it sound like I’m offering you money to find someone called Craig Harrison.”

  “And what good will that do?”

  “Once I’ve retrieved the phone I hid, hopefully it’ll convince the Russians I’m still following their orders.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to. Do we have a deal?”

  He hesitated for all of ten seconds before nodding. “We do.”

  “Then give me two minutes and come back down, and for the love of God don’t mention anything more about the police until after we’ve met with Jimmy. If you do, they’ll kill Sally and you don’t want to know what I’ll do to you if that happens.”

  He shrank back in his chair, then shook himself and stood.

  “And you say you’re not a psychopath,” he muttered, grabbing his notepad and ushering me out of his office.

  Chapter 39

  I chose to meet at a café called Molly’s at the Beach in Rottingdean, a few minutes’ drive to the East of Brighton. I chose it because the café is, as the name suggests, right on the beach under the cliffs and about as hard to surveil as anywhere I could think of.

  I was fairly confident that I’d seen Svetlana’s whole crew now, so if they did have me under physical surveillance then they’d have to show out.

  Pete and I sat just inside, drinking tea in silence as dog walkers popped in for coffee, cake and a rest on the sunny patio outside.

  “Shouldn’t he be here by now?” Pete said finally.

  “He’s your contact,” I said, nodding towards the phone that sat on the table. “You should know.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, leaning towards the phone and speaking in a confident tone that sounded like a fifties radio presenter. “He should be here soon, my contact.”

  He gave me a nod as if to say, ‘that’ll do it’, and it was all I could do not to bury my head in my hands. Of all the reporters in the world, I wondered how I’d ended up with one who couldn’t even get a clandestine meeting right.

  “Well if he doesn’t know where Harrison is then neither of you are getting paid,” I said quickly to cover his idiocy. “So he’d better be worth the wait.”

  We lapsed back into silence, broken only by the waitress coming to see if we wanted more tea. I ordered another, and just as it arrived the door opened and Jimmy walked in. He looked around for a moment, then saw us and came over, his face uncharacteristically serious. As instructed he was in plain clothes, which consisted of blue jeans and a short sleeved shirt. That meant, I knew, that he was wired up. Jimmy never wore shirts off duty, but his usual t-shirts couldn’t hide a covert airwave kit.

  He stopped a couple of feet away and looked at me questioningly. I gave him a thumbs up and in response saw his hand clench three times around a hidden pressel.

  The door opened again behind him and a pair of women came in, walking past our table on the way to one at the back of the café.

  Had I not been expecting it, I wouldn’t have seen the nearest one take my phone and carry it away from us, allowing us to converse in private without anyone in the café, should they have someone following me, realising that I couldn’t be listened to.

  Jimmy sat, remaining silent until the women were far enough away. As soon as they sat down, he leaned forward, keeping his voice low.

  “Gareth, what the fuck is going on? ‘There’s a Ding at Molly’s in Rottingdean,’ he said. I nearly put the phone down on him then and there.” He nodded at Pete who looked hurt. To his credit he’d followed my instructions to the letter, passing my requirements on with a mishmash of old surveillance code and references that only Jimmy would understand.

  “The Russians have Sally.”

  “Fuck.” His face drained of colour. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. They grabbed us from her place this morning after she called Patterson for me. They’ve hurt her, Jimmy, and they’ll let her die unless I find this flash drive.”

  “What flash drive? And why is he here?” He nodded at Macarthur, who was frantically scribbling in his notepad.

  “Because I couldn’t risk calling you myself and he’s the last person I’d go to for anything, which means there’s no chance his phone was tapped. Speaking of which, did you follow the instructions about the radios?”

  “Yup.” He nodded and touched his pocket. “All NCA kit, no airwave, but I’d like to know why.”

  “They’ve hacked our IT. You make a call on a work phone and they can listen in, same goes for airwave. Christ, they even knew what I was looking at on my PC.”

  “And you didn’t think to share this earlier? You can be a real prick sometimes, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I do actually. So, what did Patterson have to say?”

  “He says he needs to hear the full story, then he’ll decide.”

  “We don’t have time for that! I’ve wasted enough already just getting to this point. We need to find Harrison, get the USB off him and find a way to exchange it for her.”

  “Which he won’t do unless he knows everything. You know the drill, Gareth. Full disclosure is the only way to make sure nothing gets missed.”

  “Excuse me,” Macarthur butted in, “but who is Patterson?”

  “Are you still here?” Jimmy frowned at him. “How about you piss off outside for some fresh air and let us talk?”

  “I was promised an exclusive,” he bristled, but stopped when I laid a hand on his arm.

  “Pete,” I said gently, “you’ll get what I said you would, but right now I need to talk about some stuff that can’t be printed anyway, so you may as well give us five minutes. Please.”

  He grumbled to himself but stood, then walked slowly outside as if hoping to hear something before he left. As soon as he was gone, Jimmy continued.

  “I get that time is tight, but Patterson is listening to us right now over my radio. Just tell me and I’ll relay any response.”

  So I told the tale for the second time that day, only leaving out the finer details of my trip to Simmonds’ office. When I’d finished, Jimmy’s face was grave.

  “You know,” he said, taking my mug and drink
ing from it, “I think you’ve got this magnetic aura that drags shit towards you. There’s no other way to explain it. It’s just unfortunate that other people get caught up in it, because I can’t help thinking that you deserve everything you bloody get.”

  “That’s a bit harsh.”

  “True though. You should have called it in the second they left your flat.”

  “If I had, they would have started killing people. They were already listening to me by then.”

  “But you didn’t know that. Anyway, why would they have killed anyone if you’d blown the whistle? There’d be nothing to gain.”

  “And what did they gain from killing Jake?” My voice rose on the last two words and I stopped, forced the anger back down and walled it off. “They shot him because he stole from them. They’re all about hard lessons and reputation, and I don’t want to be responsible for any more deaths. I can’t be.”

  I shut my mouth abruptly as one of the women who’d taken the phone came over. She pointed to my mouth and then the phone, telling me I should say something.

  “If he’s not here in another five minutes, we’re going,” I said, “I haven’t got time to dick about waiting all day.”

  Jimmy grunted something in a fair approximation of Macarthur’s voice and the woman turned and took the phone away once more.

  “This is fucking ridiculous,” I watched her sit back down. “How am I meant to operate with them overhearing every bloody word?”

  “Carefully, I guess.” Jimmy tilted his head to one side, listening. “Hang on.”

  I waited, watching Jimmy’s face for some sign of what was being said.

  “Right,” he said eventually. “Patterson says that if you give him the code to unlock Jake’s phone, he’ll track Harrison and let you take point, but from here on in you have a surveillance team on you wherever you go.”

  “They’d better be good then,” I warned, “because Sally’s dead if they get spotted.”