Iceline

by Martyn Taylor

Malcolm Baker touched a finger to his lips and slid it across his throat as he sat down and lobbed his cap on the desk. Bill Jardine reached under the desk and flicked a switch. “Sound is off.”

  “Thanks.” He unclipped his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.

  Jardine leaned forward and pressed call on the intercom. “Josie, coffee for two, large Thermos, and if anyone asks I’m not”

  “OK Boss.” The speaker crackled and he released the button.

  “I’m imagining all this?”

  “Very lucid dream,” Baker grinned and sat in the buttoned leather chair. Jardine closed the file on his desk and creased the spine with his thumb before he put it away in a drawer. “Out with it then, what’s the problem?

  “Not certain you can help. That’s why I’m doing this quietly.”

  “Seven thirty a.m. and in uniform, wouldn’t call that quietly.”

  “Uniform makes me invisible, so who cares about the time.”

  Josie came in with the coffee on a tray. Two heavy mugs and a two litre pump action Thermos flask; milk and sugar. Jardine pumped the coffee into the mugs, spooned two heavy teaspoons of sugar into one and handed it to Baker who stirred it well.

  “Go on,” Jardine waited until Josie had left the room, “what’s happening.”

  “I have a problem with your old firm, Hoplite; I’m working with Special Branch on their latest project because we think it may have policing possibilities.”

  “Why not take it up with Michael Spear?”

  Baker scratched the side of his head. “That is the problem; he may be implicated. There’s a security breach somewhere in the company and I can’t find it, I have my suspicions but nothing more at the moment.”

  “And you want me to spy on my best mate?” For a moment Jardine’s voice carried the accent of his childhood in the north east. “That’s asking a lot.”

  Baker drank a mouthful of coffee and gave himself time to think. “No, I don’t want you to spy on him, look, I want to help. I can’t really believe that he is tangled up in whatever is going off, but I have to be sure, and for that I need to know more than I do at the present.”

  “Alright, but how can I help?”

  “It may not amount to anything, but if Michael Spear drops in can you talk to him, see what you can prise out of him and persuade him to talk to me at least?”

  “That’s a reasonable possibility; he’s a fairly regular visitor.”

  Baker sat up. “He is!”

  “Yes. He likes to keep an eye on what Jessica gets up to, what father doesn’t.”

  “You know Jessica Spear!”

  Jardine smiled casually. “We call her Jess, but don’t tell her mother, she’d have a dickey fit.”

  “She is particular about that, so how do you get away with it?”

  Jardine leaned back in the chair. “She calls me Uncle Bill, when no one else is around.”

  “Baker raised a hand. “Hang on; do I want to know more?”

  “I’m her godfather Malcolm, you pillock, I was at her christening, her father and I chased Vivienne until she picked him and I became her godfather as a thank you for being big about it. Did you never wonder why I left the company?”

  “Never gave it a thought, sorry Bill.” Baker mumbled half apologetically half surprised.

  “Forget it, it wasn’t the only reason. Michael was always the brains of the outfit, I just took the risks with the testing and the next generation were coming up fast, and they were better than I had ever been, like I said forget it. I made my choice and I’m happy with it.”

  Baker watched Jardine closely and saw nothing to compromise his words. “All right then, but can you help?”

  “Yes, of course, there’s absolutely no problem with that. We may have gone our separate ways commercially but our friendship remains as strong as always. Any other favours while we're at it?”

  Baker finished his coffee and refilled the mug. “Can you watch the site, give it the once over and report back?” He settled back in his seat with the freshly charged mug.

  Jardine leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk; he chewed a thumb nail thoughtfully for a couple of seconds. “I can, there are a few who could handle that reasonably well, but why can’t you put your own people in?”

  “Too much paperwork, I need more to go on before I start a paper chase, however much I value the twinges in my guts the upper echelons of the food chain require more concrete evaluations, especially when the bean counters start muttering.”

  “The good old bottom line,” Jardine chuckled quietly, “as inescapable as the bloody tax man.”

  “Precisely.”

  Jardine picked up his mug and peered into it, disappointed that he’d already drained it and rejected the idea of a refill. He glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the mantelpiece; the loud tick had accompanied their conversation punctuating the occasional silence. The hands rested for a second at five to eight before continuing their relentless round. Outside the French windows the mist had cleared and bright sunlight spilled across the formal garden behind the house.

  Baker caught the drift of Jardine’s thoughts and emptied his mug. “You’re right.” He buttoned his collar and reattached the clip-on tie before he picked up his cap.

  “Leave it with me Malcolm; I’ll get on it as soon as I can.” Jardine stood up. They walked to the front door and Jardine stepped outside. Baker went down the steps and unlocked the dark blue Nissan Primera.

  “Keep me informed.” He eased himself behind the wheel and closed the door. Jardine watched the car motor down the gravel drive to the road gate three hundred yards away. The narrow gravel ribbon threaded its way through a large copse and just visible above the tree tops was the chimney stack of the Porter’s Lodge, King’s Shilling. The car was out of sight before it reached the lodge.

  Jardine went inside and headed for the front office. Josie Burke looked up from her desk. “Hello Boss, how can I help?”

  Her bright character was a bonus at this time in the morning but she had enjoyed more sleep than he had last night. The regular guests to the Grange were being shuffled around to accommodate a top priority booking scheduled for four weeks’ time and some of them were irritated, especially the established repeats. Josie Burke was diplomatically handling the commercial guests and keeping them as happy as she could. “How are the negotiations going?”

  She smiled. “Excellently, the majority of the guests due over the dates required are established repeats, and they have heard whispers of our “other” work, I think one or two of them are actually enjoying it, grabbing a whiff of the old cloak and dagger.”

  “Absolutely, and the smell is getting stronger,” he said, “Can you find me the files on Hoplite, documents, maps, drawings and photographs, anything we have?”

  “Where do you want them, the office?”

  “No, drop them off at King’s Shilling, and can you get Steel and Langhers to join me when they finally crawl out of bed, in time for breakfast would be nice, but if they can make it for lunch that will be OK.”

  “I’ll do that, but I think they were both out late last night.” Josie said.

  “Red Lion?”

  “No, Ten Acre, they were out with a picked team from the guests working with the night vision gear we bought recently.”

  “Oh, did it go well?”

  “Looks like it, they were out until well after two, maybe three o’clock.” Josie was clearing away the clutter of paperwork on her desk.

  “Are you OK leaving that for a while?” Jardine asked.

  “Yes, no trouble, the dates have been cleared; I just have to despatch the letters confirming the date changes and any discounts that they may have for their inconvenience. One of the others can deal with that. The information is on the machine already,” She nodded at the laptop on her desk, “and they know what they are doing.”

  “Good, I’ll leave it with you then. Could you get me that Hoplite stuff as soon as?”

/>   “Yes, you should have it within half an hour, most of it is archived downstairs, but it should be easy enough to find and bring it out. I’ll bring it down myself.” She closed the lid of the computer as it finished shutting down; locked it in a drawer and scribbled a note for Hannah Brown.

  Josie straightened up and smoothed the creases out of her skirt, a simple grey sheath that hugged her figure and tucked in her blouse. The duck egg blue cotton seemed to go with her eyes and Auburn hair and although he couldn’t see them he knew they were green flecked with gold and smiled as much as her mouth did. She smiled as she lifted her head. “Anything else Boss?”

  She rarely said Sir when they were out of earshot of others, but she had never called him Bill while they were at the Grange.

  “No, nothing else for the moment, but if you manage to gather up Steel and Langhers and bring them with the papers I would appreciate that.”

  “I can guarantee the papers, no more.”

  Josie was as good as her word, the papers arrived at King’s Shilling less than ten minutes after Jardine. She came in through the front door and called out from the hall. He appeared around the corner of the upstairs landing. “I’ll be with you in a minute, put them in the living room would you?”

  She turned left and disappeared through an open doorway. Jardine finished off his walk through upstairs and joined her a few minutes later. She was perched on the edge of the settee flicking through the documents and checking them against the table of contents on the cover. “They’re all here,” she said without looking up, “would you like me to stay?”

  “No need; I’ll bring you up to date later, when I have a clearer picture myself.”

  “Mister Spear isn’t in trouble is he?”

  “No more than usual and he’s usually in a tangle over something, but no, this may be happening at the company and he may not know about it.”

  She seemed relieved and as she went out of the door Jardine stopped her short. “Oh, Josie, can you find out when Jess is likely to be here again and how long for?”

  “I think she may be here tomorrow, or at the latest Saturday morning. I don’t think she’s staying for the weekend.”

  “She’ll not be staying; Vivienne’s big event is on Saturday night, let me know when she arrives I’d like to have a chat with her.”

  “I’ll do that, right I’ll see you later, oh, and I’ve left wake up calls with Langhers and Steel, they should be here soon.”

  “They weren’t too annoyed?”

  “At having their beauty sleep disturbed, not really, anyway it’s wasted on them.”

  “Whereas you just don’t need it?”

  Josie grinned and with a mumbled “cheeky,” slipped out. Jardine heard the front door close and the click of the Yale behind her. He would have to get up to let anyone in but that suited him. He wouldn’t be disturbed and that was the beauty of the old Lodge, there was an internal phone line to the Grange and another to the outside world. He spread the documents out across a long rectangular coffee table between the settee and armchairs and worked his way through them page by page rebuilding the memories.

  Jardine picked up a map of the old airfield occupied by Hoplite. The hangars and station buildings and the runways laid north east and south west across the flat countryside and outside the perimeter to the North West lay the old gravel pits. There was a note somewhere, five acres of pits flooded to an average depth of fifteen metres, maximum twenty two. A thin screen of trees lined the edge of the pits and the airfield marking a perimeter rather than a definite boundary; although the trees would be fifteen perhaps eighteen years older now so the boundary would be more defined. The pictures were stronger now and memories flooded back. Jardine smiled at them and was beginning to piece together an idea when his mobile rang. He swiped his finger across the touch screen a couple of times before he managed to unlock it and answer the call.

  “Boss, Steel here, we’re a minute or so up the drive, any chance of letting us in?”

  “I’ll be there.” Jardine ended the call and opened the door as Steel raised his hand to knock. “Morning Boss, you wanted to see us?”

  “Yes, go into the living room, I’ll be with you in a minute, coffee, either of you?”

  “Yes please,” Kurt Langhers smiled, “as black and strong as you can make it?”

  “Same for me,” Steel pushed open the living room door. Langhers followed him in and Jardine headed for the kitchen.

  They were both engrossed in the documents on the coffee table when Jardine brought the coffee in, as promised strong and black and with a handful of wrapped sugar lumps on the tray beside the mugs. Langhers shared out the lumps and dumped the lot in the coffee. Jardine outlined the gist of his earlier conversation with Baker over the clink of stirring spoons. It didn’t take him long and they shifted their attention to the papers strewn about the table. Steel and Langhers focussed on the photographs and maps backing up their observations with questions and references to the drawings and other documents. Half an hour of intense concentration and three mugs of coffee later they re-filed the papers and Steel stood up stretching the tension in his legs. The short cropped beard he wore had a ragged edge on his cheek where scar tissue broke the line and the bristles scratched his hand as he rubbed his chin. He yawned hugely. “It’s pretty vague Boss, we’ve got absolutely bugger all to work with, the stuff you have is fine but what exactly are we looking for?”

  “I can’t say, and I’m not asking you to go there to find out anything, but Michael Spear, Hoplite and I go back a long way, way before the Grange was even an idea, and if he is in trouble I’d like to think there were a couple of people in the area that he could call on for assistance.”

  “Fair do, I can’t argue with that, can you Steel?”

  Steel shook his head and Langhers picked up the map of the airfield and was comparing it with an aerial photograph downloaded from Google, “how recent are these satellite images?”

  “They’re just standard Google Earth print off.”

  “Anything up to a couple of years old then?” Langhers dropped the photograph and checked the date of the map and laid it alongside the satellite image.

  “Problem?” Jardine was leaning over his shoulder studying the papers with him.

  “No, they’re helpful, I have a rough idea of the layout, OK, so we’re in but you’ll have to find cover for this weekend, we’re both due to take the guests out on the field and they want a play off at the end of the day against a staff team.”

  The paintball wars were a popular element among the corporate guests who came in for the weekend, usually unofficial company groups, the lads, and occasionally lasses out for the craic and the regular guests made a habit of taking on the staff when the opportunity arose.

  “I’ll find cover but I think the sooner you are watching Hoplite the better.” Jardine straightened and looked at Steel who was still kneading the muscle in the back of his thigh.

  “Are you alright?”

  Steel nodded. “Yes, just stiff, I went arse over tit in the dark last night, and I think I wrenched it.”

  “See Doc Harcourt before you leave, and I want you to have a word with Smith in supply. I want the wet and dry crew bus packed for the pair of you.”

  “Where are we going then?”

  Jardine leaned over the photograph and tapped his finger against the gravel pits. “There, I want you to set up a working base, you two will be there full time, and if needed I’ll send some of the others across and they can dive the pits, if anyone asks, you’re checking them out for Hoplite, and you have been asked by a developer to explore their commercial potential.”

  “Twenty two metres max, average depth fifteen, five acres of surface area, I’m sure I can make that sound convincing.”

  “You always could bullshit mate,” Langhers smiled, “and thank god, it’s bloody useful. When do we leave?”

  Jardine looked at his watch. “Talk to Smithy, get the bus kitted and provisioned and be
ready to leave tomorrow.”

  “That will give us chance to finish off what we are working with the guests at the moment.”

  *****

  Chapter Two.

  (Thursday A.M.)