by Chris Simms
Rick was on his feet. ‘You are joking?’
‘Go on. How long can it take?’
Rick bowed his head. ‘Letter six.’
Our second day at sea is almost finished. The winds are growing again and dark clouds fill the sky. I am terrified of what the night will bring. The eastern men have got a bottle one had hidden. Ali says it is the same spirit they drank when in the container.
They are now drunken, their stomachs are empty, they are thirsty and exhausted. Night makes all our fears bigger. The waves are much stronger and the eastern men have started shouting. They believe we will all die in the storm. They are waving at the plastic barrel – they want the food.
Jon sat back. ‘First two lines of the next?’
‘Buchanon and the Chief are waiting for us.’
Jon raised his eyebrows. ‘Come on. Just the opening.’
‘Fuck’s sake.’ Rick looked down again. ‘Letter seven.’
The storm only lost its strength when the sun rose above the horizon. With the day, I could see the horror on everyone’s face. Last night our raft became a place of madness.
‘That’s it, OK?’ He set off across the office. ‘Though I have to say, mate, what’s coming next is bloody dynamite.’
Upstairs, Jon surveyed the small brass placard. Chief Superintendent Gower. My, my, he said to himself, I’m finally going up in the world. He knocked twice.
‘Come in.’
Gower’s gravelly voice, Jon thought. Unmistakable. He opened the door to see Buchanon sitting off to one side of a large desk.
Behind it was the giant of a man in overall charge of the Serious Crime Division, of which the Major Incident Team was just one component. ‘Morning, gents. Take a seat.’
Jon led the way across the large room, giving his immediate boss a quick nod. ‘Sir.’
Buchanon’s expression was grave. ‘Jon.’
Once they were seated, Gower placed his hands on the desk, interlinking fingers that bristled with patches of greying hair.
‘So what have you two been doing, blundering into the set of spooks?’ He let the question hang, before grinning broadly, the gap between his front teeth drawing Jon’s eye. ‘I gather you were accosted at Euston station?’
Jon sat back, relieved at the other man’s famously relaxed attitude. ‘It was a bit odd. I thought they were after pickpocketing us. Made a right tit of myself trying to warn Rick.’
Gower’s eyes were twinkling with amusement. ‘Well, you weren’t to know. I’m just glad you didn’t lay one of them out.’
Jon’s mind went back to the Cheshire Cup some six years before. He had captained Greater Manchester Police’s rugby team to victory in a hard-fought final at Macclesfield’s ground. During one of many off-the-ball incidents, he’d knocked out the opposition’s number eight. The punch had been in plain view of the main stand, and was witnessed by every senior member of Manchester’s police force. Once the match was over and he’d raised the cup, Gower had sought him out and congratulated him on the quality of the punch.
‘No,’ Jon said. ‘They whipped out their badges pretty quick.’
The Chief ’s voice turned serious. ‘Well, I’m afraid they’re using their weight with this one.’
Jon felt a sinking feeling. ‘Meaning what, sir?’
‘It’s their operation and they want it to stay that way. The shipping owner, Myko-whatsisname, is the subject of many days’ surveillance. Your visit wasn’t appreciated. Apparently, they observed the entire thing from a room in premises on the other side of the Thames.’
Jon remembered working his way along the giant windows of Mykosowski’s office. Strange to think, he mused, the whole thing was being watched.
‘It’s serious stuff, Jon,’ Buchanon interjected. ‘If you’d actually followed protocol and taken the trouble to inform the Met you were heading into London to question the guy, they would have told you to steer well clear.’
‘Why are they watching him?’ Rick asked. ‘The MI5 officer wouldn’t say.’
‘They’re not divulging much,’ Gower stated. ‘It relates to a shipment coming out of the Middle East. Obviously not Turkish Delight.’
‘Possibly an arms shipment,’ Buchanon added. ‘The section of MI5 involved is JTAC.’
‘The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre – where they assess international terrorism?’ Rick asked incredulously.
Bloody hell, Jon thought. Was some kind of bomb attack being planned?
Gower gave an appreciative nod. ‘Correct, DS Saville.’
‘Which involves personnel from both the police and security services,’ Rick added. ‘So why are we being shut out?’
Gower shrugged. ‘Who knows. Everyone’s very touchy in the current climate. I have to instruct you to back off, though. Sorry, lads.’
Jon sat up. ‘What about SOCA? Can’t we plead an involvement through them?’
‘The case is deemed to involve issues of national security and counter-terrorism. So it’s MI5’s area, not the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s,’ Gower answered. ‘Which places it beyond my reach.’
Jon glanced at Rick, then Buchanon, in exasperation. Both men met his eyes with resigned expressions. ‘But, sir,’ Jon turned back to the Chief. ‘We have three bodies up here. I’m lead officer.’
Buchanon held up a hand. ‘It’s not going to affect our syndicate’s clear-up rate, Jon. These are exceptional circumstances.’
I don’t care about the whiteboard, Jon thought. Bollocks to it. I want to catch the bastard who’s killing people. He searched for another angle. ‘The dead men probably have families. Kids, maybe. People who’ll need to know what’s happened. We have an obligation here.’
Gower sighed.
He’s wobbling, Jon thought, pressing his point home. ‘Plus, we’ve got a psychopath killing pretty much as he pleases. On our patch. A prime suspect whose prints and DNA will, I’m certain, be found at the crime scenes. Christ, the MI5 people told us garrotting is his preferred MO.’
‘Jon, calm down,’ Buchanon said. ‘You work for my syndicate and this investigation gets put on hold. End of story.’
‘They know who he is,’ Jon said. ‘You realise that? They’ve got a file on him. They have his bloody name.’
‘I know. My request to search Interpol’s and Europol’s finger-print databases bounced back with a referral to MI5.’ Buchanon’s voice was cold.
Jon tapped a finger on the arm of his chair. The doors were all slamming. There was no way forward. ‘What about if more evidence about our prime suspect comes to light? We’re expected to hand that on to MI5 like good little plodders?’
‘They aren’t overly concerned with these murders, Jon,’ Gower announced. ‘Finding the cargo is what interests them. This Yashin person is wanted purely in connection with what he might know about that. I imagine if they find him, we’ll be able to add the murder charges to whatever else he’s been up to.’
‘So I can continue with our investigation?’ Jon’s look bounced between his senior officers.
Gower stared at Jon for a moment as he considered the request.
‘Tie up your local enquiries only. Report anything you find to DCI Buchanon and we’ll wait for more word from London.’
‘In the meantime,’ Buchanon added. ‘I need you on other cases.’
Jon glanced about in disbelief. ‘So, in reality, you want us to mothball an investigation into three murders?’
Gower closed the file on his desk. ‘Yes.’
Jon slumped with his legs thrust straight out, one foot banging repetitively against the side of his desk. ‘Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.’
Rick shrugged. ‘Out of our hands.’
Jon thought about the smug-faced MI5 officer. The little prick. He really did have the clout to pull the plug on my case. He banged his foot against the desk harder.
‘Give it a rest, will you?’ Rick scowled.
Jon crossed his ankles and leaned his head on the chair’s back- re
st. ‘Well, I’m in no hurry to pick anything else up. Read us the rest of those letters, will you?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Rick replied, reaching for the paper. ‘Right, letter six was dusk, second day on the raft. The Chinese or whoever they are had drunk a bottle of spirits and were demanding all the food.’
Jon laced his fingers across his stomach in readiness for the next revelations.
‘Letter seven.’ Rick snapped the pages of the newspaper tight and started to read.
The storm only lost its strength when the sun rose above the horizon. With the day, I could see the horror on everyone’s face. Last night our raft became a place of madness.
Before night came, an army of waves advanced on us, each lifting us high then throwing us down. The eastern men began to gulp from their bottle, screaming at the sea. Then the one mad with pain from the jellyfish tried to take the drum of food. All order vanished immediately.
We beat them back, but night made it impossible to see. The raft was rearing up and down when they attacked us again. Only their voices let us tell them apart. Lightning showed me the crewman breaking one of their necks. They threw Khadom from the raft. I tried to reach his arm, but the sea carried him off. Again the eastern men retreated.
They stayed at the end of the raft and we didn’t know what they would do next. My imagination created such terrible fears. Lightning revealed they were undoing the ropes which secured our raft, trying to kill us all. We attacked them. Fingers dug at my eyes. Water pushed me from the raft and I held a rope. I felt someone slide over me, his screams moving far away.
Ali dragged me back and we stayed close. Whenever the wind dropped, we could only hear one of the eastern men. Hours passed and the need to sleep was so strong. I knew to stay awake, but my eyes could not remain open. I dreamed of our garden in Baghdad, helping my mother to gather pink roses from our bushes. If Ali did not hold me, I would have fallen into the sea.
Daylight revealed only eight of us. Ali, Parviz, Jîno, the old couple from China, myself and the crewman. Qais and Khadom are gone and so is the brother of Parviz, Mehdi.
The back of Ali’s leg has been badly bitten. Also, the old lady’s arm is injured and her husband talks to himself all the time.
At the other end of the raft only one eastern man remains. He is lying with his legs in the water, weeping and begging forgiveness.
The drum containing all the dates and the bottles of Coke is gone – lost during the night.
Parviz just spotted the eastern man pulling at the ropes once again. They threw him from the raft and he sank without a fight.
Jon lifted his head to stare at his partner. ‘This is a bloody horror story. What does the next one say?’
‘Letter eight,’ Rick lowered his eyes.
This, our third day at sea, has been all pain. The sky is cloudy but the wind is warm. Now our numbers are seven, the raft floats so only larger waves wet us. The sea has made the skin below my knees swell and it causes the wound on Ali’s leg to burn. I only wish to lie down.
Salt has also turned all our hair and clothes to cardboard. Thirst and hunger are constantly with us. When food was given out, Jîno and I ate our biscuits slowly, like mouses. The men swallowed theirs quickly, hoping to make their stomachs feel full. All of us licked every dot from our fingers.
We drift, without control, sometimes slowly turning.
Everyone’s eyes are closing and heads falling to the side. The only sound is water at the sides of our raft. How can there be no ships?
When the sun was low the old man suddenly cried out. He had seen one of the lifeboats, far away. We all looked. There are still many ducks around us, but no one could see a boat. He became most angry.
I also have seen things today. A harbour, its wall lined with the ships that sailed along the Tigris. What is dreaming and what is real are changing places in my head. The weak cannot survive. The arm of the old lady is bad – she holds it like a baby and she no longer knows where she is. The boy is full of despair, and I can only hug him to me. Parviz stares at the sea. This desert of water we are trapped in.
The crewman and Ali have such energy. All day they have secured the ropes the drunken men made loose. Maybe it is work that keeps them strong.
I fear the night and what it brings. My mind makes terrible pictures when it has nothing to see. The wind has stayed away and I pray there will be no more storms.
He looked at Jon. ‘How grim is that?’
‘Doesn’t bear thinking about. How could nothing spot them?’ His mind raced forward. ‘You said the Express reckons they’ve got the final letter?’
‘So they claim.’
‘Well, surely that must mean they didn’t survive. If a ship found them, they wouldn’t be calling it the final letter. Sounds too much like the end, to me.’
‘We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.’ Rick folded the paper and placed it to his side.
‘So, gentlemen, here’s what you’ve got.’
Jon looked at the incident room’s allocator as he approached their desks. In his hand was a printout. ‘Fast-track actions were completed by Parks’s syndicate who were on shift last night.’
‘What is it?’ Jon asked, wearily raising a hand.
‘Attack on a cannabis factory,’ the allocator responded, lowering the paper into Jon’s fingers. ‘Big house in Didsbury.’
Jon screwed his eyes shut and rubbed the knuckles of his free hand against them. Bursts of purple filled his head. ‘Why isn’t Narcotics on it?’
‘Body in the upstairs bedroom. Blunt trauma wounds to the head.’
‘Nationality?’ Jon opened his eyes and watched the bursts of colour fade to green then yellow.
‘South-east Asian.’
‘Vietnamese?’
‘Prior experience would suggest so.’
‘Here illegally?’
‘I wouldn’t like to wager otherwise.’
Jon sat up. The dead man would have been the farmer, paid a nominal sum by the gang who’d actually rented the property. His job would have been to cultivate the crop of cannabis plants and take all responsibility should the police discover it. What his job description wouldn’t have included was having his head stoved in when a rival gang decided to raid the house.
‘Witnesses?’
‘Nope.’
‘Any decent forensics?’
‘The house was stripped bare, the entire crop taken.’
‘Bollocks.’
The allocator smiled. ‘Another hard-to-do murder goes to Spicer and Saville.’
Jon sat up in his seat. ‘Yeah. Cheers, mate.’
The allocator paused in the act of turning away. ‘Actually, you might have something to go on.’
‘What?’ Jon asked, placing the piece of paper on his desk and scanning the top lines. Incident number. Name of officer that called it in. Time of arrival at the scene.
A scrap of paper landed across it. ‘Phone number of the man in the house opposite. He saw a four-wheel drive vehicle parked outside the house in the early hours. A group of men were piling bin bags into the boot.’
‘Really? Did he clock the registration?’
‘No. But he recognised the make. Nissan Navara. Those bloody great things with a huge loading compartment at the back.’
Jon nodded. ‘I know. For people who have mistakenly come to believe they’re living on a half-million-acre cattle ranch out in America.’
The allocator chuckled. ‘Can’t be too many of those things on the road.’
‘Maybe not.’ Jon turned his computer on then logged on to the Police National Computer’s database of stolen or abandoned vehicles. He selected the overnight numbers for the north-west and started searching the list on the off chance the vehicle had only just been stolen for the raid. Audis, BMWs, a Subaru, Hondas, a Lexus, a few Mercedes. Another Audi. His eyes stopped halfway down. ‘Rick! Guess what’s been dumped on the forecourt of the Avis place by Piccadilly station?’
‘Don’t tell me: a stolen
Navaro? Surely we can’t have that kind of luck.’
‘No. A red Mini Metro. Registration ends in the letter X.’
‘The car we parked next to out in Runcorn?’
‘Precisely,’ Jon grinned, standing up and reaching for his jacket.
‘And if he dumped it on the forecourt, chances are there’ll be CCTV footage.’
‘Hang on.’ Rick glanced nervously towards Buchanon’s office. ‘What about this cannabis farm?’
‘Fuck that. I’m sure the murder victim won’t mind waiting for us.’
‘But, we’ve been told, Jon. The Chief Super himself—’
‘Said to tie up any local enquiries,’ Jon said. ‘You coming?’
Alice pointed to the desk by the water cooler. ‘Is this free?’
A woman with multicoloured beads at the ends of her braided hair paused from stacking files in the cabinet next to it. ‘Think so.’
‘Great.’ Alice placed her handbag on the carpet, sat down and turned on the ancient-looking computer. As it slowly cranked itself to life, she looked around the office of Refugees Are People. Men and women were bustling around, gathering up documents for clients waiting in the interview rooms that ran the length of the main corridor.
Once the screen settled down, she opened up Google, typed in ‘Royal Liverpool University Hospital’ and clicked on the website. The UK’s largest Accident and Emergency centre. Clicking on the tabs for wards, she scrolled down to P. Psychiatry provided by another specialist unit. Damn. She scrolled back up to C then selected Casualty. Psychiatric clinic provided as part of the Casualty Unit. That’ll do for starters, she thought, picking up the phone and keying in the number.
It rang for a full minute before the call was answered.
‘Casualty.’
‘Hello. I’m phoning from a charity called Refugees Are People, over in Manchester. I’m trying to trace the records of a foreign national currently in the mental health unit at Sale—’
‘You’ve come through to the nurses’ station. I’ll try to put you through to the front desk.’