by Menon, David
‘Sneak out, you mean’ said Ruby.
‘Get away, sneak out’ said Holly. ‘Whichever way you want to put it. I’m under no illusions’.
Ruby and Dean looked at each other and tried not to laugh. Then Dean went off to get the post and when he returned he dumped it all on Holly’s desk. He sat down at his own desk and looked up immediately when Holly screamed.
‘Holly?’ said Ruby. ‘Whatever is it?’
Dean walked over and lifted up the sheet of paper that Holly had thrown down. It was a sheet of plain white A4 with words stuck onto it, the letters of which had been cut out of newspapers and magazines.
‘What the hell is this?’ Dean exclaimed.
‘ ... Craig Sutherland MP ... you were part of it ... you showed your true colours when it came time to the vote in parliament ... well you’ve offended me and my family and you’re going to pay ... ‘
*
Tim Norris was conducting a briefing with the entire squad and in the presence of Chief Inspector John Hargreaves. The Greater Manchester force was under intense pressure in the days following the bombing of Piccadilly station. But that wasn’t the only crime that demanded their attention.
‘The victim was Melanie Sanders’ said Tim who pinned her picture to the white board. ‘Twenty-four years old. Shot in cold blood and there were no signs of a struggle, leading us to believe that the whole thing happened very quickly and with complete surprise to the victim. Miss Sanders worked on one of the perfume counters in the main Boots store in the Arndale centre. One of three children, her family home is in Wigan. Her parents, brother and sister are naturally distraught and not just at what has happened but at the way it happened’.
‘Did she live with Jackson?’ asked DS Joe Alexander. It had only just turned eight and his bacon sandwich was getting cold. He didn’t like to sit munching away in a briefing. It seemed rude. He was hungry though.
‘Yes, Joe’ said Tim. ‘Her parents confirmed that. She and Jackson had been seeing each other for the last two years. They liked Jackson. They knew the couple were planning to get married and they were happy about that’.
‘What about the Manchester Evening Chronicle, DI Norris?’ Hargreaves asked. ‘What do his bosses say about him?’
‘That he was a good journalist, a team player, knew his brief inside out and held the respect of others in his field. They’re as baffled as anybody as to how this could’ve happened, sir’.
‘Did he have a firearm license?’
‘No, sir’ answered Tim. ‘And no known experience of him being able to use a firearm’
‘What about his family?’
‘Again, ordinary, middle-class, originally from Antigua in the Caribbean. His parents and younger brother have all got good jobs, never been in trouble with the police or anybody else’.
‘And they’ve no idea?’
‘None whatsoever, sir’ said Tim. ‘Now in the opinion of Dr June Hawkins this was a clean kill done by someone who knew exactly what they were doing but, like I say, Jackson has no experience of using a firearm and it seems unlikely in my opinion that he’s our murderer who’s absconded’.
‘Your opinion, DI Norris?’
‘My opinion, sir, is that some third party carried out the murder of Melanie Sanders and either Jackson escaped and is lying low somewhere terrified for his own life, or he was abducted’.
‘And his laptop went with him’ said Hargreaves. ‘Which might suggest that whatever is on his laptop is at the centre of what’s happened here’.
‘It’s as I said to the press, sir’ said Tim. ‘It’s the only conclusion to be drawn at this stage’.
‘And what about our two security guards at Salford University?’ asked Hargreaves.
Tim pinned two more pictures to the board. One was of a man in his late thirties with bags under his eyes and little hair. The other was of a fairly young man with a Mohican style hair cut. Both of them looked like the kind of blokes you wouldn’t mess with on a dark night.
‘Jim Mortimer’ said Tim pointing at the first picture. ‘Married with five children. Ex-army and served time in Iraq. Had a reputation as a no nonsense sort of guy who did his job well. Then there’s Stefan Wright. He had a reputation too but for texting pictures of his enviable endowment to female members of the university staff. He was on a warning about it. Now from where the bodies were found it seems like Wright had let their attacker into the main administration building by simply unlocking the door. After that they were both shot’.
‘Why do you say it was Wright who let them in?’
‘Jim Mortimer had been shot in both hands, sir. His blood was all over the small security office just off the main road and a trail of it led from there to the main entry door. I believe that was to stop Mortimer from raising the alarm and to put the fear of God into Wright so he’d do as he was told. All CCTV cameras were suddenly switched off at 11.23 pm. We don’t have any pictures of the attacker or to show if there was more than one. Mortimer and Wright were then shot dead just inside the admin building’.
‘Clean shots again?’
‘Just like in the case of Melanie Sanders, sir, although Mortimer of course must’ve already been in absolute agony. There are no residential houses or flats with a direct view of the university entrance, sir but there are a couple of CCTV cameras on the office buildings across the road’.
‘And?’
‘They’d been disabled, sir’ Tim replied. ‘From the outside’.
‘My God these people know what they’re doing’ said Hargreaves. ‘I’ll give you everything I’ve got and more, DI Norris. But I want answers and I want them fast’.
*
Nina Barry wondered if she should carry on sleeping with her lover Alec Heath now that she was married but the fact was that he was the best bloody fuck she’d ever had and that on its own would be very hard for any modern discerning woman to give up.
But she also needed Alec for something even better than sex. Alec was a journalist at the Manchester Evening Chronicle and he and Nina fed each other information which they thought the other would find useful in their respective fields. Nina knew that Alec looked upon her as his ‘Labour party source’. They helped each other and Nina was able to sometimes use what she learned from Alec to undermine her colleagues. Nina never passed up the opportunity to make herself look like the jewel on top of the slag heap. It was how she furthered her career. She was highly regarded in the party for being one of the best organisers in the country and she quietly courted those who might be useful to her whilst ignoring those who wouldn’t be. But none of them had caught on to just how manipulative she was.
‘Feel better after that, madam?’ asked Alec. They were lying in his bed and had both lit up a cigarette.
‘It’ll do for now I suppose’ said Nina, smiling.
‘Cheeky bitch’.
‘So come on then’ she said. ‘Now I’ve let you have your wicked way I need something for it or else my conscience will be haunting me’.
‘You’d have to find your conscience first’ said Alec. ‘And that would need David Attenborough’.
Nina elbowed him in the side of his torso. ‘That’s not very nice’.
‘Well you’re not a very nice girl‘.
‘True, so what have you got for me?’
Despite his teasing of her, Alec was always pleased that Nina got straight down to business after they’d fucked. They shouldn’t be doing it now that she was married. But then again he’d been one of the first people she’d called when she came back off her honeymoon. She was so focused on her job. He felt quite sorry for her husband. The poor sod would know he hadn’t found himself a virgin Queen but maybe he didn’t realise just how much of a slapper his wife could be. He turned over onto his side to look at her.
‘Aren’t you going to ask about my friend and colleague Robert Jackson who’s gone missing after his girlfriend was found dead in his flat?’
‘Why is that of interest to me?’
&
nbsp; ‘Well I don’t know ... but it might be’.
‘Will you get promoted because of the situation?’
‘Well how did you guess? You’re now looking at the new acting political editor of the Manchester Evening Chronicle’.
‘And you say I’m ruthless?’
‘I’ve got nothing on you sweetheart’.
‘So why only acting?’
‘The editor has got a soft spot for Rob Jackson and doesn’t want to give up on him until whatever fat lady sings’ said Rob. ‘And I agree. Rob is a mate of mine too and I’m not going to jump into his grave like you politicos would’.
‘So what do you think happened with Jackson?’
‘I don’t know’ Alec admitted. ‘I’ve been calling his mobile but it goes straight to voicemail every time. It’s so fucking weird. He’s a bloody good journalist but he’s also a bloody good human being. Everybody likes him at the paper. He wouldn’t be the sort to ... to shoot someone, especially a woman in cold blood. It just doesn’t make any fucking sense’.
‘Maybe you don’t all know him as well as you think you do?’
‘No’ said Alec. ‘That has crossed my mind but I don’t think it’s the case’.
‘What are the police saying?’
‘Nothing. They’ve interviewed us all at the paper but all they’re saying is that they don’t necessarily think that Alec is the killer’.
‘The police are probably clueless’ said Nina. ‘But look, now that you’re political editor, sorry, acting political editor, of the largest regional daily in the country, we’re going to be even more useful to each other’.
‘Which brings me to Craig Sutherland and the nasty letter he received’.
‘Well of course publicly the party is deeply concerned’ said Nina. ‘Privately I couldn’t give a toss. He’s been on my hit list for a while’.
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s a maverick who’s becoming a bit of an irritant’.
‘He’s a conviction politician and the Labour party machine can’t handle those’.
‘That’s about the size of it, yeah’.
‘I thought you’d gone past the whole Mandelson control freak shit?’
‘Are you having a laugh? It’s a question of he’s a wanker but he’s our wanker and he’s better than the wanker we would’ve got if we didn’t have him. Craig Sutherland used to be our wanker but he isn’t anymore’.
‘Poor bastard’.
‘He’ll survive’ said Nina, nonchalantly. She then slipped her hand under the duvet and felt Alec’s cock get hard to her touch. ‘You’re just as much of a slut as me’.
‘Yeah, but I’m a man so I get away with it’.
‘Oh you think so?’
‘Oh I know so’ said Alec. ‘It’s what you feminists will never learn’.
Nina stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table then she turned over and straddled him. He was just hard enough for it to make it worth her while.
‘So who can you tell me about that I can place firmly in the shit?’
‘It isn’t one of yours we’re keeping our eye on’.
‘So who are you keeping your eye on?’ she asked as she leaned down and licked his hard nipples. He’d never been able to resist that and felt his cock gain its full hardness inside her.
‘He’ll keep’ he breathed as she began to ride him up and down.
SIX
James Henderson had been editor of the Manchester Evening Chronicle for the past six years and for all that time he’d taken risks. It was the stock in trade of any journalist when he was reaching out for the story that was burning a hole in his consciousness. But this story was bringing Henderson out in a sweat. Following the disappearance of his chief political reporter, Robert Jackson, he and the rest of the staff at the Chronicle had been interviewed by the police but only Henderson knew that he’d held back a piece of potentially vital information about Jackson’s movements on that Saturday afternoon when he went missing. It had been stupid of him, he knew that, and the longer Jackson remained missing the more Henderson felt haunted by it.
Robert Jackson was a star in the firmament of the Chronicle. Since he went missing the atmosphere amongst the staff had been tense. Usually a newspaper reported on the news but when its political editor goes AWOL after his girlfriend has been found dead in his apartment, the paper becomes part of the news and that’s not a comfortable position for the staff to be in. James Henderson was struggling to separate himself from it. Robert Jackson was a close friend, close enough for Henderson to look upon him almost as a son. He’d championed his promotion to political editor at the paper despite the owners not wanting a ‘black man’ to be in such a senior position. Jackson had never given him any cause to worry or fret about how he worked or who he was talking to in order to get a story. He’d just always delivered the goods.
Henderson’s office was on the third floor of the Manchester Evening Chronicle building on Quay Street, just down from where the iconic Granada TV studios used to be before they moved to the Media city complex at Salford Quays. It was just the kind of high profile building that any potential terrorists would be tempted by and for that reason the Chronicle had been visited by the anti-terrorist squad to make sure it was doing all it could to minimise the risks. Access through the city by its citizens and visitors was being subject to security checks at various random places. It was inconvenient. But everyone was co-operating, including the Chronicle itself. Airport style security systems were now installed in the foyer of the building.
Alec Heath went into Henderson’s office and told him all about what the Labour party machine were planning to do to Craig Sutherland.
‘Is this what your Labour party snout tells you?’ Henderson asked, smirking.
‘Yes, indeed’.
‘Was there fucking involved?’
‘You know me, boss’ said Alec. ‘Who am I to turn a girl down if she really wants it?’
Henderson laughed. ‘Yeah, well, super stud, we’ve got bigger fish to fry than Craig Sutherland’. He waved his hand over the stack of recent editions of the paper that were on his desk. ‘We’ll get to Sutherland once this lot is over’.
‘TERRORIST OUTRAGE BLAMED ON MUSLIM EXTREMISTS’ and ‘MUSLIMS NO LONGER FEEL SAFE IN THEIR OWN HOMES’ were two of the headlines along with, ‘ALL HALAL BUTCHERS HIRING SECURITY AFTER THREE WERE FIREBOMBED’ and ‘MUSLIM BOY, 8, KICKED TO DEATH ON HIS WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL’.
‘I’ve never known a time in the city like this, boss’ said Alec.
‘You’re right there’ said Henderson, sighing.
‘It reminds me of the bloody Balkans back in the nineties’ said Alec who’d done his formative training reporting on the war in Kosovo. ‘Everybody looking round for the next outrage and focusing their hatred on one section of the community. But this is not the Balkans. This is Manchester in the early 21st century and all these daily security alerts should not be happening. It’s wrong’.
‘They think there’s going to be another attack on the city and they think it’s all to do with the G20 summit next month’ said Henderson. ‘But putting that to one side too, Jackson emailed me some very interesting information from Houston’. He handed Heath half a dozen sheets of A4 on which he’d printed out everything that Jackson had sent him. ‘I’m putting it out in a series of editorials. Not because I want to steal Rob’s glory but because I don’t think it would be right to put Rob’s name to it whilst he’s out there missing’.
Alec began looking it all over. Jackson had found out that right-wing Texas Senator Cheryl-Ann Bainbridge was involved in a secret political relationship with the former British foreign secretary Nicholas Trent who was MP for Cheshire Central. Her Christian Zionists movement were planning to fund the election campaigns of about fifty Tory candidates at the next election, as long as they sign up to her Christian Zionist agenda, and it was part of her plan to spread the message of her movement in preparation for her bid for the presidency in 2016.
‘Senator Bainbridge and her Christian Zionists have been funding illegal settlement building on the West Bank and virtually paying American Jews to go and live there. They believe that if they amass as many Jews as possible in the Holy land then the world will see a second coming of Christ’.
‘And what are the Palestinians supposed to do when all their land has been taken?’
‘She and her followers don’t care about that’ said Henderson. ‘They’re part of the propaganda machine that labels them all as terrorists. Now, she wants her people in our Conservative party because, if she comes to power in the US and the Tories win here, she’ll be able to use them to support her barely disguised opinion that the entire Muslim world is the enemy of what she calls freedom. And if the mad bitch does become President then God help us all because she wants to fight a crusade that the Christians, or rather her tribe of Christian Zionists, must win. She’ll wage a war to end all wars. We’ll have seen nothing like it’.
‘It’s fucking barking’.
‘And would be funny if it wasn’t true’.
‘Boss, do you think this has something to do with what happened to Melanie and why Rob has disappeared?’
Henderson looked grave. ‘The fact that his laptop has gone missing with him is no coincidence, Alec. Somebody doesn’t want the rest of us to know what’s on it’.
‘Do you think they know about the emails he sent from Houston?’
‘I don’t know’ said Henderson. ‘Because they still don’t tell me everything’.
‘Boss?’
‘The last time I spoke to him on the phone he said that the last piece of the jigsaw was so hot and so sensitive that he wasn’t going to risk putting it down in an email. He wanted to tell me about it face to face when he got back. He never got the chance’.
‘And this has to do with Senator Bainbridge and Nicholas Trent?’
‘As far as I know’.
Alec rubbed his chin. ‘Fuck’s sake. But look, can I ask you something, boss?’
‘Ask away’.