Face Value: A Wright & Tran Novel

by Ian Andrew

  “Okay Kara,” Dan said into his radio. “These trees are thick all the way back to the road. We can easily put OP5 in here and it’ll have eyes on the garage as well. There’s also a large car parking area in front of the house. Currently got one Mercedes E-Class, a top end Range Rover, a Toyota something, it’s a family looking saloon car, not sure what model, a Mazda MX-5, a Nissan something or other, not sure of the model either but small and sporty, a Ford Mondeo and a VW Scirocco. No sign of Yanina’s Lexus but the garage is big enough to hold two cars so I’ll assume hers is in there.”

  “Roger that. Are we clear to move?” Kara asked.

  “Clear,” Dan said.

  “Clear,” Dinger confirmed.

  “Let’s go then,” Kara said. Neither she nor the four with her moved at all. Their monocular night sights would have been more precarious than valuable in sending them stumbling along in the dark. Dinger came back through the hedge and led Eugene and Tien off to the right and into position at OP1. Once settled in their location, nestled opposite the top right corner of the T-shaped building, the monocular sights would allow them to observe the front right and right side of the house.

  Dan led Sammi and Chaz up to OP5 from where they would monitor the front left and left of the house.

  Eventually Dinger came back and led Kara to OP3, the original point that he and Dan had breached the garden. It sat dead centre rear and allowed her to observe the back of the house and right to where Dinger would be in OP2 and left to Dan in OP4. They in turn had eyes on not only the rear and sides of the house but also the other OPs to their respective fronts. Between the five points they had almost full 360-degree coverage.

  Each OP was set no more than a hundred yards from the target property but each would be completely invisible to the occupants of the house. The team knew they might well have to stay in position for a couple of days and so they used the cover of darkness to prepare their locations thoroughly. The long hours of surveillance were the least glamourous and least advertised of the skills they had all once been trained in, but potentially the most valuable. Certainly in years gone by and now possibly again.

  It didn’t take them too long to get settled and less than any had expected for them to confirm the house was home to Illy and Yanina.

  “From OP5, we have eyes on Tango,” Sammi’s voice came through to them all and even though their military years were behind them, old habits died hard. She had referred to Illy as a Target. “Tango’s in a bathrobe, first floor front, first window on right. Likeness to the photo isn’t bad.”

  “From OP1, we have a female silhouetted in the bathroom window, first floor, right hand side of house, middle window of five. No ID due to glass but fits Yanina’s hair styling, hair colour, height and build,” Eugene said.

  Another ten minutes passed before he spoke again, “From OP1, bathroom light is out.”

  Another five minutes went by.

  “From OP5, we have both Tangos confirmed. First floor, front right window. Designate master bedroom. Copy?”

  All the rest responded that they had copied.

  Another solid half hour passed with no activity and then the whole rear of the garden lit up like a floodlit stadium.

  Dan and Dinger were temporarily blinded in both eyes by the flare of the light in the sights they had been using to observe. Kara suffered the same but only in the one eye that was looking through her mono lens. All three of them shut their eyes quickly and lowered their heads slowly to the ground. There was no calling out and no major movements.

  “Who has eyes?” Kara whispered.

  Chaz’s voice sounded in her ear, “The whole of the rear of the house just lit up with the sodium under-eave lights, but I’ve got no personnel in sight,” he said. Although he and Sammi had identified the lights on the photos of the house they hadn’t been able to assess how effective they were. That had been well and truly answered now.

  “I have movement,” Tien said. “I can see a shadow at rear right of property but no ID on person. Looks like we have at least one heading in your direction.”

  “Dinger, can you see?” Kara asked in hushed tones.

  “Negative. I got complete flare out when the lights went on. I’m a minute or two from even having blur.”

  “Dan?” Kara asked, still hushed.

  “Negative. Same as Dinger.”

  Kara eased her eyes open and the right one was a myriad of bright flashes of light and dark dots floating through her field of vision. It was watering profusely and her left eye was reacting in sympathy for its mate. She concentrated on the garden area and could see a very blurry figure walking down the steps from the pool into the garden. He seemed very big but other than tall and wide she couldn’t make out any other detail.

  “Do you want me to break cover?” Chaz asked with a hint of urgency to his voice.

  “Negative. Negative. We wait for a minute.”

  “Kara, if you’re compromised a minute is too long,” Tien said without a trace of anxiety. Her calmness was infectious.

  Kara’s mind relaxed. She knew her friends would cope, “If I’m compromised I expect you to tear the perpetrator and this house to pieces. But for now, just wait. Wait and consider how fucking stupid we are for not making sure one of Dan, Dinger or me weren’t using sights simultaneously. Lessons people.”

  She slowly blinked her eyes and after a few more seconds the figure, now seventy yards from her began to resolve itself.

  After a few more seconds she could see he wore trousers, a business shirt with a tie and he was raising his hand to his mouth. As she figured out what she was looking out, Tien sounded in her ear again.

  “I can smell cigarette smoke.”

  “Roger, I can see enough of him now. You’re right, he’s smoking,” Kara confirmed. She blinked more and the fine details began to resolve. The man’s shoes were dark and the high shine glinted in the harshness of the sodium lights. As she continued to blink and he continued to pace back and forward in the garden her right eye began to relax from the shock of the flare and her left stopped watering. The man, now walking around in circles, was big. Kara reckoned he must have been about six feet six inches tall and somewhere near the eighteen or even twenty stone mark. But he wasn’t fat. He was solid. As he turned back on himself again and took the last draw from the cigarette, Kara’s eyes properly refocused. His path turned him sideways onto her and she realised that over his business shirt he wore a shoulder holster.

  She spoke as gently as she could, “All. One male, armed with pistol, left shoulder holster. Pacing back and forward in rear garden. Smoking. Nil threat. Dan, Dinger, relax he hasn’t seen us. Are you functional again?”

  “Just, but don’t ask me to shoot anything for a few more minutes. He’s still a bit of a blur but I can see him,” Dan whispered.

  “Me too. He’s a big son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Dinger said.

  “Yep. What shall we call him?” Kara asked.

  Each time the team encountered a new person on a surveillance operation they would assign them a name. It made it easier than trying to refer to them as numbers or by their description. It was also a necessity that long ago they had turned into a competition.

  “Nicolai,” said Dan.

  “Okay,” Kara said hesitantly, “why’s that?”

  Eugene’s gentle chuckle sounded over the radio, “Big Russian heavyweight boxer, seven foot tall. They called him the Beast from the East. His name was Nicolai.”

  “Don’t think our boy’s that big, but Nicolai it is,” Kara said.

  Dan, Kara and Dinger, their eyes fully adjusted, watched and waited. Dinger took a couple of photos of the big security guard before Nicolai plodded his way back up the pool steps and in through the window-doors. He put latches in top and bottom and then drew the curtains. The floodlights extinguished and the garden was plunged into blackness.

  “Do we have anything?” Kara asked.

  All of the team reported in turn. There were no lights and no
movement visible in the house.

  “Okay, sort your shifts out people and get some sleep. Dinger, Dan I’ll take the first two hours. Who’s up next?”

  “I’ll take it,” said Dinger.

  “Okay. Dawn’s at five. I want a full visual half an hour before to make sure we aren’t poking anything out in the breeze. Copy?”

  All the OPs copied and the team settled into their surveillance.

  *

  At 04:30, as the first glimmer of light began to illuminate their surroundings the team made buddy-buddy checks on their respective OPs. Situating them in the dark was the most practical but darkness could also hide the obvious that showed up plainly in the day.

  Other than a minor repositioning of the cover to the front of Sammi and Chaz the five locations were all but invisible to the naked eye.

  “So all we have to hope for is that no one in the house possesses an IR camera,” said Tien.

  “Let’s be fair Tien, not everyone’s as technically adept as you and most aren’t as security-paranoid,” Dinger answered her.

  “Well, see Dinger. Look what happens if you’re not. Seven strangers come and lie down in your garden,” Tien said with mock indignation.

  “I feel like Snow White,” Dan said.

  “Lol,” Chaz said.

  “Seriously, did you just say Lol?” Dinger asked.

  “Yes mate. I’m cool and hip,” Chaz responded in a broad version of his Manchester accent.

  “Fucking replacement hip more like,” Dan chimed in.

  “Oh boy, I forgot what you lot were like. This is going to be a long day,” Eugene said and laughed softly.

  Chapter 23

  Friday Morning. Cambridgeshire

  Tony Reynolds tried to keep to his morning routine as much as he could manage. Up at 05:00 he would splash enough water to clear the sleep away and try to stop his unruly brown hair from frightening any other early risers. Then he’d don cross-trainers, shorts and singlet, head down the flight of stairs from his first floor apartment and out onto the narrow Church Lane that ran past his front door.

  Turning left, away from the centre of the village, he would set off south on a gentle jog. A mile later he turned left into the car park of the Old Ferry Boat Inn and having long before gained permission from the landlord, cut through it to a gap in the trees. The gap led to a small field that was no more than fifty yards across. Through another gap in the tress on the far side, he joined a private track that again, long ago, he had got permission to use. A mile more, heading almost due east he came out at the bottom of the quaintly named Overcote Lane. Another mile angling back north west and he came into the Village’s rather grandly, if a bit over ambitiously, named High Street. Two quick left turns and he was back at his front door. It was just over three miles in an almost exact triangle and he loved it.

  He tried to do it every morning regardless of weather for in some strange way it summed up the purpose of his work for him. The three miles led him past the site of an ancient well, three small nursery gardens, a boat marina on the Great Ouse, a scattering of private houses, three pubs, two churches and a war memorial that despite the number of times he passed it staggered him for the amount of names it included. The village was small now and Tony always wondered how it had given up so many when it must have been so much smaller in 1914. The sense of community encapsulated by the variety of the buildings and structures he ran past seemed to him to be a microcosm of the Cambridgeshire he loved and which he served to protect.

  Never the fastest runner the jog normally took him just on twenty-five minutes. He knew he could probably go faster but it was enough for him to get up and go. He also knew that doing it at all was driven by a casual vanity. He was happy that nature and genetics had allowed him to keep enough hair for it still to be unruly in the morning. There was little he could do to claim credit for that, but he could work to stave off a belly that would betray the fact he was well into his forties.

  After showering, shaving and dressing in his standard suit and tie, with a fresh shirt that he always ironed the previous evening, he’d make a quick breakfast of toast and coffee and be out the door again by 06:20. He was on schedule if he caught the ‘Review of the Papers’ segment on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s Breakfast Show.

  The eight-mile drive to the Police Station took no more than twenty minutes, even on a bad day when he got caught by every set of lights. He quite liked those type of mornings. Over the years he had come to value the time he shared with the various presenters of the Breakfast Radio Show. The present incumbent was a bubbly and charismatic woman called Dotty. He liked her style and invariably she made him smile on his way to work. He had a much more hit and miss connection to the evening presenters because he never really knew when he’d end up driving home, but the Breakfast Show was a touchstone for him. Just after 06:30 he would get the travel and main news headlines from a variety of correspondents that again he felt he knew. Sandwiched between these would be the weather forecast more often than not delivered by a lady called Elena who made even the worst weather conditions sound pleasant and manageable.

  So it was this morning when she warned Tony that a band of heavy rain was heading south across the whole country. A bright and reasonable start would turn overcast with drizzle, followed by light rain building to heavy downpours later. Eventually easing it would clear completely to reveal a pleasant and warm evening. As he pulled into the road approaching the Police Station car park his windscreen testified to the accuracy of the prediction. He flicked his wipers on and smeared the drizzle.

  As he came into the station a uniformed Sergeant was waiting for him.

  “Morning Sir.”

  “Morning Colin, you’re looking serious, what’s up?”

  “There’s a Mister Carpenter waiting for you in Interview Suite-1. He arrived about ten minutes ago. I didn’t call because I knew you’d be on your way in.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “Says he’s here to alibi the Costa girl.”

  Chapter 24

  Friday Morning. Hayes, London

  Other than the addition of a very small garage to the left of the house and a relatively small porch projecting to the front, the semi-detached property listed as Diane Worrell’s home address looked so much like Paul Harris’ house in Huntingdon as to be quite surreal.

  “Not much imagination going on in house design back when these were built, was there?” Anna said as she got out of the car and stretched her back muscles.

  Moya, doing the same, looked around at the neat street lined with neat semi-detached houses and probably once neat gardens mostly surrendered now to paving for car parking. “I suppose they were all too busy simply building replacements to worry about the design.”

  Anna looked a little surprised, “How do you mean?”

  “The war. London lost over a million houses alone,” Moya said it somewhat perplexed that Anna hadn’t automatically known.

  “Oh yeah. The war. I suppose.”

  Moya bit her lip. A quarter to seven in the morning was not the time to lose her temper with the young constable. But she felt genuinely disappointed at the lack of awareness.

  “Yeah, the war, I suppose,” Moya said quite sarcastically. “Probably want to bear that in mind sometimes Anna. Lots of people still alive that remember it.”

  Anna might have been a little unaware about history but she was fully aware when her Sergeant was miffed. Moya saw her nod meekly in response.

  “Okay, let’s go do this. After you,” Moya said and waved Anna up to the door.

  They had left Huntingdon at five in the morning in an effort to catch Diane Worrell before she left for work. Moya was keen to talk to her in isolation and not get into the middle of whatever potential domestic circumstance was going on. The goal was to identify the PI. Nothing else.

  The early start meant the traffic had been light for most of the distance. It had only taken an hour and three quarters against the two and a half hours Moya
had allowed for in her head. She had even managed to phone the Duty Sergeant on the Metropolitan Police liaison desk and inform him what they were up to.

  Anna pressed the bell fitted to the left of the door and was greeted by the Westminster Chimes playing loudly in the porch come hallway. They waited patiently given the early hour and after a few minutes a woman’s head appeared in the small glass panel of the door. Her hair was wrapped in a towel and she was looking at them with a rather concerned expression.

  Anna raised her warrant card and held it open to the glass, “Police, Ma’am. May we have a word please?”

  The locks were thrown and the woman opened the door. She was dwarfed by Anna but was about the same height as Moya. Wrapped in a towelling robe and in her bare feet she stepped back and ushered them into the house.

  “Go straight through and on your right,” she said in a definite London accent but one that was without any estuary edge to it.

  Moya and Anna walked into a tastefully furnished lounge-diner whose dining room wall had been half knocked out to open up the kitchen area and form a breakfast bar. Overall the open plan was surprising in a house of this age yet Moya thought it really worked. As per their strategy, agreed on the way down, Anna took a seat and Moya stayed standing.