The Raven's Eye

by Barry Maitland

  Kathy moved out of the crush to Brock’s side and he grinned at her. ‘You did it, Kathy. But how? How the hell did you manage it?’

  ‘Later,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you later.’ She looked around. ‘Kite is the one who needs the ambulance. Where is he?’

  They heard the splutter of a diesel engine starting up and hurried to the railing. Below them thick white smoke from Grace’s engine wreathed the boat as it began moving slowly out into the canal.

  Kathy swore softly. ‘What’s he doing?’

  In painfully slow motion, as if the elderly boat could barely raise the energy to stir, it eased out into the main channel and began to chug away, past the line of other boats, past Ricci Ragonetti’s restaurant on the far bank and on into the foggy darkness beyond.

  Everyone had fallen silent, watching its progress until its lights were no longer visible, only the stubborn throb of its engine signalling its presence. Then that abruptly stopped. There was a moment’s utter stillness before a sudden blinding flash of light and a stunning shockwave seared through the fog and hit the watchers on the bank.

  31

  Brock was watching on the monitor as Kathy was interviewed by two officers from outside the command. She was describing what happened when she and Ollie Kovacs went on board Grace. As they stepped inside, Kathy had seen Suzy Russell sitting on a chair, arms and ankles tied with rope. Ollie immediately took Kite’s arm and guided him to the galley where they could talk. While they were there Kathy examined the bomb beneath Russell’s chair, unfastened the battery terminals and removed the electric blasting cap from the stick of dynamite into which it had been inserted. She moved the cap to a safe distance and then untied Russell. During this time she could hear Kovacs and Kite talking, but couldn’t make out what was being said. They then returned from the galley, Kite looking serious but not objecting to what was taking place. Russell was suffering from stiffness and cramp from her confinement and needed assistance to get off the boat and up the steps, which was Kathy’s first priority. She just assumed that Kite was following them.

  This account obviously didn’t satisfy the questioners, who kept probing her for more detail until finally they gave up and let her go. Brock was waiting for her as she emerged from the room. ‘That was a load of bollocks,’ he murmured to her as they made for the exit.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Have you heard from Bren?’

  ‘He’s at the clinic, implementing a search warrant. The other team caught two men leaving Bragg’s house. Inside they found Bragg’s body, and charged the men with concealing a homicide. Sundeep will do the post-mortem first thing tomorrow, which should tell us more.’

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  She looked exhausted, and he said, ‘You need something to eat. Come on.’

  Later, when they’d finished their steak and chips and she looked somewhat revived, Brock poured her another glass of wine and said, ‘All right, what really happened?’

  Kathy stared down at the red liquid for a moment, and then began her story, choosing her words extremely carefully, so it seemed to Brock. ‘When I spoke to Anne Downey in the Stratford nick she was very tense. I think being arrested had really shaken her, and when I told her what Kite had done she became quite distressed. I asked her if she could help me persuade him to put a stop to it, and after a while she said she had an idea. A document had come into her possession, the minutes of a progress meeting on Project Raven with annotations in Suzy Russell’s own handwriting for action to be taken. It was very explicit in discussing what sorts of people might be microchipped, and if the press got hold of a copy it would be highly embarrassing for the Met, and for Suzy Russell personally. She thought we could use this to persuade Russell to reveal to Kite who had murdered his daughters. When I asked her if she was sure that Russell knew that, she said, “Oh yes, she knows.” But she wanted Ollie Kovacs involved.

  ‘Kovacs is linked to an outfit called Digital Anarchy. According to Anne they’re a bunch of hackers and whistle-blowers who try to expose government and corporate machinations that they don’t approve of. Both Anne and Ned Tisdell have been trying to help them get information about Project Raven.

  ‘Anyway, Anne contacted Kovacs and we went to see him. She persuaded him that Professor Kite’s antics would turn the public against his campaign, and he agreed to use the document as she suggested. So when we went on board the boat, Kovacs showed it to Suzy Russell. It was obvious from her reaction that it was genuine. He offered to let her have it when Freyja and Gudrun’s killers were brought to justice, otherwise he’d make it public. As you can imagine, it was difficult for her, especially with me standing there, but eventually she told them.

  ‘About a year ago, there was a suggestion that there was a leak at Penney Solutions, and Freyja Kite was suspected. When she was killed, Russell got worried that there had been foul play. She discovered that two employees of the Pewsey Clinic were in Cambridge that night. She monitored their communications and came across some incriminating text messages. And at that point she stopped looking. She convinced herself that the information was circumstantial, but really she just didn’t want to pursue it—it would have meant both the end of the implant program and making it public. But when Ollie Kovacs asked her directly, she admitted that she was sure that those two men had killed both girls to stop their prying into the project and betraying it to Digital Anarchy. She agreed to turn her evidence over to me and I promised Kite that I would follow it up. They’re the two men Bren’s team caught at Bragg’s house, I think, acting as his minders. Once the clinic realised that Bragg had found out what they’d done to him, they decided that he had to be silenced.’

  ‘And you, Kathy?’

  ‘Yes, I think I was next.’

  ‘But Kite? Why did he blow himself up?’

  ‘He seemed in a strange state of mind, not really with us, as if he were in some faraway place inside his head. Maybe he’d been shaken apart by all that had happened, or maybe he was already crazy when I first met him that night in Cambridge a month ago. I think last night he’d made up his mind that he was going to end it all in a way that nobody could ignore or sweep under the carpet, the way we did his daughters’ deaths. From that point of view it was logical to take Suzy Russell with him, but when Ollie said he wasn’t going to leave without her, he relented and let her go, and then went ahead on his own.’

  Brock thought about that. Kathy’s story had raised as many questions as answers in his mind, and he knew her too well not to have recognised the evasions at certain points, when she had turned her eyes away from his and stared at the glass of red wine.

  ‘Well, thank God you’re safe,’ he said. ‘But you know what astonishes me most, Kathy? That you had a major operation this afternoon and it hasn’t slowed you down one bit.’

  She gave him a slightly haunted look. ‘Yes, that’s been bothering me too.’

  ‘I think we need some independent advice.’ He rang Sundeep’s number and they spoke for a while, then rang off. By the time the bill arrived Sundeep was back on the phone. Brock listened, thanked him and turned to Kathy. ‘A friend of his, a specialist, will see you at Guy’s tomorrow morning at eleven.’ He saw the smile of relief cross her face.

  But first she had to face Commander Lynch. They met at eight the following morning in his office at headquarters, Lynch, Brock and Kathy, and Suzy Russell too, looking embattled and subdued. They took the offered coffee and sat around an oval table.

  ‘This meeting will not be minuted,’ Lynch said. He sounded thoroughly pissed off. ‘I’ve had a report from the rescue team. The boat was blown in half, both parts now at the bottom of the canal. They’ve found some human remains—a head.’

  He scowled biliously and cleared his throat. ‘There’ll be an investigation into the whole operation, of course, and before long I dare say we’ll be stood down from any further involvement. In the meantime, we need to act fast to salvage whatever we can from the chaos. Suzy?’

  ‘Sir, the
most important thing is that Raven must be protected. It would be a disaster for the Met if it was compromised because of this.’

  ‘Yes, but how do we do that? He could hardly have chosen a more public way to draw attention to himself. The press are all over it—they’ve already made the connection to Gudrun Kite’s death.’

  ‘It was the action of an unstable old man driven mad by the accidental deaths of his two daughters. End of story.’

  ‘There will be pressure to re-examine Gudrun Kite’s death.’

  ‘I think we should do that and make a public announcement to that effect. But at the end of the day we’ll confirm the coroner’s conclusion—accidental death.’

  Kathy stared at her in astonishment. Lynch noticed the expression on her face. ‘What is it, Kolla?’

  Kathy said to Russell, ‘What about O’Hearn and Ryan?’

  Lynch frowned. ‘Who?’

  Russell sighed. ‘Kite was obsessed with finding his daughters’ murderers, so I gave him a couple of names—Troy O’Hearn and Bennie Ryan, two security men at Pewsey. I told him that I had evidence against them, which I would pass over to DI Kolla to charge them with.’

  ‘Neither of you mentioned this in your debriefing.’

  ‘No, sir. It was a necessary deception to make him agree to release us, and it worked.’

  ‘So there was no truth in it?’

  ‘It was circumstantial. We can’t seriously pursue it. If it were true, it would make things impossible for Pewsey, and for us.’

  Brock was watching the emotions flicker almost imperceptibly across Kathy’s face—disbelief, anger, then nothing.

  ‘But there was a witness,’ Kathy said in a neutral tone, ‘apart from me.’

  Russell frowned. ‘Yes, Kovacs was present. He is a problem, sir. We now believe he is the link to Digital Anarchy. In the confusion last night he slipped away before we could stop him. I’ve issued a priority arrest order, but he hasn’t been picked up yet.’

  ‘What about that document he had?’ Kathy asked coolly.

  ‘Document?’ Lynch stared at Russell.

  ‘He had a copy of the minutes of one of the Raven working party meetings. He said he would make it public if we didn’t do as we’d promised Kite.’

  ‘Jesus! How would he have got hold of that?’

  ‘The copy had been ticked to Montague at Pewsey. Anne Downey used to work there. I think it probably came from her. We have her in custody, as you know.’

  ‘And what was in these minutes?’

  Russell hesitated. ‘A lot about Raven. Nothing about the Kite girls.’

  Lynch put a hand to his forehead, the other tapping impatiently on the table. He badly needed a cigarette, Brock thought, and said, ‘We’re holding O’Hearn and Ryan over the death of Jack Bragg. They have a lot of questions to answer—the abduction of DI Kolla, for instance, and how Bragg was able to move about freely. We should have plenty to charge them with. They may want to do a deal, give us information about the Kite girls.’

  ‘No!’ They all looked at Superintendent Russell, who had half risen to her feet. She sat down again slowly and spoke to Lynch. ‘Sir, can I have a word with you in private?’

  Lynch nodded to Brock and Kathy, who got up and left the room. They went through the secretary’s office, followed by her suspicious frown, and out into the corridor, which was deserted.

  ‘I hate this,’ Kathy said bitterly. ‘She’s going to fix things, make Lynch do what she wants, bury the whole nasty mess. Once they find Kovacs he’ll probably have a fatal accident like Freyja and Gudrun, and there’ll be no stopping her.’

  ‘Then we’d better find him first, Kathy.’ He frowned, pondering. ‘What I don’t understand is that if Kovacs had that incriminating document all the time, why hadn’t he already made it public?’

  Kathy met his eyes for a moment. ‘Who knows?’ she said.

  Lynch’s secretary put her head out into the corridor and called to them. ‘The commander will see you now.’

  They filed back inside and sat down.

  Lynch spoke. ‘It’s essential that we act swiftly and decisively to clear up this mess. I shall set up an independent investigating team under my direct command to review recent events at both the canal basin and the Pewsey Clinic and recommend actions, including the laying of criminal charges where appropriate.

  ‘Neither DiSTaF, Suzy, nor your unit, Brock, can be directly involved, though of course you’ll be interviewed and your input will be considered.’

  ‘Hm . . .’ Russell stared at her nails. ‘All the same, you’ll need someone on the team who understands how things work. How about Mickey Schaeffer? He’s familiar with both our groups without having been involved in “the mess”.’

  Lynch raised an eyebrow at Brock, who nodded his agreement.

  ‘DI Kolla,’ Lynch said, ‘you in particular have to stand clear of what happens now. You’ve been too closely involved in things since day one, as both an investigator and a victim. You’re on sick leave, right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So make yourself available for interview, but otherwise stay well away.’

  ‘Sir.’

  When they stepped out into Victoria Street, Kathy said, ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘The first and most important thing is getting you well again, Kathy. We’re going to keep your appointment at Guy’s.’ He put out his hand to an oncoming taxi and they climbed in.

  32

  The specialist looked weary, Kathy thought, as if he’d been up half the night on an operation, and in his white coat gave the impression that he might have to dash off again at any moment. But Sundeep had said that, when it came to thoracic and cardiac surgery, he was the best there was and a personal friend.

  ‘Sundeep said this was an unusual case, Ms Kolla. Tell me about it.’

  So she did, watching his eyes widen and his face set in a determined attempt not to show incredulity. When she finished he examined her back.

  ‘So,’ he said carefully, ‘you believe that the doctors at Pewsey implanted you with some kind of device while they were operating on your shoulder?’

  ‘Yes, me and another man. He had a chest MRI taken later, which I saw. It showed the implant quite clearly, about the size of a grain of rice, right next to his heart.’

  ‘And where is he now, this other man?’

  ‘On Sundeep’s table. His post-mortem is this morning.’

  The doctor blinked. ‘And why would the Pewsey people do that to you both?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘And then they removed it?’

  ‘That’s what they told me. I’d like you to check that they didn’t cause any damage while they were doing it.’

  ‘Hm . . . well, I think we’d better have you X-rayed straight away.’

  Fifteen minutes later she was back in his room watching him examine three X-ray images on a light panel.

  Finally he said, ‘You know, if Sundeep hadn’t spoken of you in such glowing terms I’d have sent you straight upstairs to Psychiatric Services. But you were right, they did put an implant into your chest—they didn’t take it out, though. It’s still there.’

  Kathy felt her heart give a skitter as he beckoned her over and pointed it out, a small white oval against the grey shadows of her organs. ‘It’s lodged against the pericardial sac that contains the heart, at the point where the left pulmonary artery emerges. Can’t you tell me anything about it?’

  ‘I think it contains a microchip, probably for tracking the person who’s carrying it.’

  ‘Ah. But why in such an inaccessible place?’

  ‘I believe that was the point, to make it difficult for the person to have it removed.’

  ‘Really?’ He considered that, examining the films with a magnifying lens. ‘I have read about an experimental human microchip that was designed to emit a signal,’ he said at last, ‘drawing its energy from the pulse of blood in its host. That might be the case here.

/>   ‘Well!’ He turned to Kathy with a bright smile. ‘I thought today was going to be rather dull. How wrong I was. So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Take it out. Can you do that?’

  ‘It will be difficult. There will be risks. What did this other man die from?’

  ‘Possibly from their attempt to remove his chip.’

  ‘Then I’d better see if Sundeep can shed any light.’

  He dialled a number and began a long conversation during which Sundeep did most of the talking. Finally the surgeon rang off and turned back to Kathy.

  ‘Yes, your friend appears to have died of cardiac arrest while undergoing a rather drastic piece of surgery. His implant is no longer there.’

  My friend, Kathy thought. She couldn’t grieve for Jack Bragg, but she wished he hadn’t died like that, when she was faced with the same thing.

  ‘Please, Doctor,’ she said, ‘if you think it’s at all feasible, I want it out. I can’t go around with that inside me for the rest of my life.’

  The doctor nodded. ‘Let me think about it. I’ll go over to the mortuary and examine the body for myself, and in the meantime we’ll make some more detailed scans of your chest.’

  He got on the phone, making arrangements and reorganising his appointments for the day. Then he looked up. ‘Did you come with anyone, Kathy?’

  ‘Yes, my boss. He’s also a good friend.’

  ‘Fine. This will be a difficult decision. You should talk it over with your family or those closest to you.’

  After MRI and CT scans, Kathy made her way back to the room where Brock was waiting. He got to his feet, looking worried. ‘It’s still there,’ she told him as they made their way out. ‘They didn’t remove it. They just made it look as if they’d carried out a successful operation so that Bragg would agree to it. But apparently Sundeep thinks he died of cardiac arrest, which wouldn’t necessarily support a murder charge.’