by Matthew Dunn
“Ex–military?”
“Could be. But military guys aren’t trained to do this kind of stuff. Not that I know of.”
“So, most likely a hardened criminal who’s learned his trade on the street. A lot of effort just to steal my wedding ring. I wonder if he was hoping to find something more than that.” Roberts sighed. “Okay, we’re not going to catch this guy through forensics. My husband didn’t see his face. The burglar didn’t speak, so voice recognition is out. We just have to hope he burgles another place and makes a mistake.”
“I’m sorry, Katy.”
“So am I.” Roberts left. Her priority was to clean her home and get her husband back when he was recovered. She called Sign and told him what had happened. “I’m probably going to be out of circulation for the next twenty four hours. Apparently the house is a mess. Plus, I need to be close to my husband.”
Sign replied, “Of course. What’s your address?”
Roberts supplied him with details.
“You’re heading there now?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have anything to eat this evening?”
“I… I doubt it. I don’t feel hungry.”
“Hang tight, inspector.” Sign hung up and shouted to Knutsen. “Put on your scruffiest clothes. Make sure your car has a full tank. In one hour we’re leaving. It’s meals on wheels time.” Sign entered the kitchen.
Two hours later, Sign and Knutsen were in Roberts’ house. Knutsen was in jeans and a jumper. Sign was still in his suit.
Roberts was teary as she gestured toward the mess in the lounge. “Look what he’s done to my home. I don’t know where to begin.”
Sign handed her a tray containing two casserole pots. “It’s just basic fare that I knocked up in sixty minutes – beef casserole and wild rice. The casserole will need another hour in your oven. I do hope you’re not vegetarian.”
Roberts shook her head as she placed the dish in the oven. “This is more than I can eat.”
“Good, because you’ve got two hungry labourers at your disposal who are going to need feeding. Mr. Knutsen – this is no longer a crime scene. Let’s get it back in order.” Sign slung his jacket over the sofa where Roberts’ husband had been strangled. He rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s look upstairs.”
Roberts showed them the bedroom and the office.
Sign said to Roberts, “Could you make us a cup of tea?”
When Roberts was downstairs, Sign said to Knutsen, “You know London better than I do. And you know people. Call in some favours.” He wrote on a slip of paper and handed the sheet to Knutsen. “This is what we need. And we need it in the next hour or two. Go.”
When Knutsen was gone, Sign set to work. He cleaned up each room, with Roberts’ assistance, and hauled the ripped mattress into the garden. He vacuum cleaned the house, head to toe, and used cleaning products to eradicate Roberts’ husband’s blood from the sofa. Bed sheets, underwear, and every other piece of linen were in the washing machine. Locks on the doors were checked and applied. Ground level garden lights were turned on. So too other exterior lights. But there was still more to be done that was beyond Sign’s ability.
When Knutsen returned, he was carrying a bottle of wine and scented candles. Next to him were four men. Two of them were carrying an expensive double mattress. The other two had tool belts and other equipment.
Sign smiled at Knudsen. “Good man. I’ve taken it as far as I can. Over to you.”
The men set to work. The mattress was placed on the bed. The old mattress was placed in their transit van. The tool–carrying artisans replaced picture frames, inserted new glass, and hung the pictures back up. Knutsen placed the bottle of white wine in the fridge, lit candles and shook hands with the four men. They left. Knutsen and Sign remained in the house with Roberts.
Roberts asked Knutsen, “How did you arrange this at such short notice? Who were those men?”
“Cutthroats and thieves.” Knutsen laughed. “Something like that. I helped them get on the straight and narrow. They’re good people.”
“Who owed you a favour?”
“In different locations and time frames, individually they tried to kill me. Obviously it didn’t work. They got a bit bruised. I forgave them and marched them off to the Job Centre. I suppose I should have arrested them. What would have been the point? Who else would have repaired your home so well at the drop of a hat?”
“No one else”, said Sign. “You made them good men. A superb judgement call. Mrs. Roberts – would you object if I played mum and served up food and wine? Your home is once again beautiful and untarnished. While we eat and drink, I will regale you of an adventure I had in Paris that involved my discovery of a white severed arm clutching a black severed arm.” He walked into the kitchen.
Roberts was emotional as she whispered to Knutsen. “Thank you both so much for doing this.”
Knurtsen smiled. “We had no other plans this evening.”
“What did you make of Mrs. Archer?”
“Sign agrees with you that she’s holding something back.” He gave her details of the meeting.
“What’s Sign going to do next?”
Knutsen shrugged. “No idea. But I know what I’ve got to do next.” He checked his watch. “Later tonight I’ve got to meet a man about a gun.”
At eleven PM, Knutsen was in a south London motorcycle shop that was in a converted railway bridge arch. Above the shop, day and night, long and short distance trains passed over the premises, producing noise and vibrations. The noise suited the proprietor. He didn’t want complaints when tuning and revving his bikes. But there was another reason that the noise was his friend.
The proprietor – Jerry Logan – was a small, middle age man, bald, who had an aroma of metal and grease. Tonight he was wearing blue overalls that were splattered with oil. His face and calloused hands were dirty. He said, “I’d shake hands, but,” he held up his palms, “I’ve been stripping down and reassembling an old Ducati. I’m hoping to sell it for a song. Haven’t seen you in a while, Tom. How are things?”
Knutsen was cautious. Logan was a hardened criminal who’d done stints in prison. Three years ago, for reasons that weren’t clear, he’d agreed to work with the police in an undercover sting. The targets were major drug dealers. He enabled Knutsen to meet the dealers. The sting went wrong. At the final meeting with them, Logan pulled out his mobile phone, pretended to read a text message, and shouted, “Shit! This guy’s a cop. You’re about to be busted!” The dealers fell for Logan’s sleight of hand and ran, leaving a stash of drugs behind. Pointing a gun at Knutsen, Logan picked up drugs with a street value of half a million quid, and smiled. “They won’t talk. You can’t talk because you’ll blow your cover. And I don’t need to talk. See you sometime, pal.” He later sold the drugs and bought the shop and some very rare bikes. His business had been booming ever since. But he wasn’t completely legit these days. He still kept one foot in the criminal underworld by supplying discerning customers with weapons. Knutsen knew that.
“I’m out of the police. Doing a bit of private detective work.”
Logan picked up a large wrench. “If you’ve got eyes on me, you’re wasting your time.” He lied, “I threw the drugs in the Thames. Can’t have that crap on our fine streets, can we?”
“I’m not here about that. I need your help.”
Logan used the wrench to tighten bolts on the Ducati. He placed the tool down and wiped his hands on a towel. “You want a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Loud and proud? Or fuck–them–up small?”
The former meaning a shotgun, machine gun, or rifle. The latter meaning a handgun.
“A pistol, plus at least four spare magazines. Deniable, of course.”
Logan said, “Step into my office.” He led Knutsen to the back of the shop and into a small shooting range. At the end of the range was a target of a man. The only other items in the range were an eight foot metal cabinet and a desk. Both were flush against the righ
t–hand–side wall. Logan opened the cabinet. There was an array of weapons inside. He withdrew four pistols and laid them on the desk. “Browning 9mm. Bit old school and kicks like a mule. But, one bullet makes a severe mess. A Makarov. Good for rapid firing, plus needs less maintenance compared to the Browning. The bullets sting like fuck, but a leg shot won’t kill you unless you’re lucky. A Sig Sauer P320–45. This will hit you like a rhino. And it’s accurate. But it’s loud. And” he prodded a finger on the last weapon, “a Sig Sauer P226. They come in a variety of calibres. This one’s 9mm.”
Knutsen looked at the weapons. “Where do you get these?”
Logan turned to him, his face filled with aggression. “It’ll go bad for both of us if you’re wearing a wire!”
Knutsen held up his hands. “Jerry – I’m here to make a purchase. I don’t want anyone, least of all the police, to know I’ve been here.”
“You’d better be telling me the fucking truth. What do you need the gun for?”
“At this stage, I don’t know.”
“Human target?”
“Come on, Jerry.”
“Yeah, fair point. Urban or rural?”
“I genuinely don’t know. Could be both.”
Logan brushed his hand over the guns. “I get a lot of my weapons from soldiers who return from places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, other places. Many of them are on their uppers. I give them a few hundred quid. It pays for their rent in a bedsit for a month or two. Or gives them a night out on the booze and coke. They’re trophy weapons taken from their enemies, or they’re nicked from their unit’s armouries. But I also have other sources. The key thing is I don’t buy or sell anything unless I think it’s serviceable. I strip down every gun; sometimes I have to reconstruct them with new workings.” He gestured toward his shop. “Just like my Ducati motorbike.” He slammed his hand on the table. “Best you test all four and see what you think. Prices vary.”
Knutsen picked up the Browning. “My father carried one of these.” He got into a shooting stance and aimed the gun at the target.
“Wait!” Logan checked his watch. “Anytime now. Anytime now.” A train passed overhead; the noise was easily sufficient to drown out gunshots. “You’ve got five seconds max. Go now!”
Knutsen fired three shots. My goodness, Logan was right. It kicked like a mule. But the target was shredded. “I’ll take this.”
“You sure? The others are more advanced.”
“I know, but this one feels good in my hands.”
“That’s all that matters. Just remember, your Browning bullets will go through someone and won’t stop until they’ve done with death.”
“I’ll need at least four spare magazines.”
“I’ll give you six for a total price of one thousand pounds.”
Knutsen nodded. “Deal.” He handed over cash and took the gun and magazines, which he secreted in his fleece jacket. He shook hands with Logan, not caring that engine oil made his hands mucky. “You inherited wealth from an obscure relative who lived in Latin America. It enabled you to finance this shop. That’s the line. Get rid of the guns. You don’t need them anymore. It’s time to go legit.” Knutsen walked out.
CHAPTER 10
It was eight AM. On the south bank of the Thames, Sign walked behind a man who was smartly dressed and holding a rolled–up umbrella. The man was approximately the same age as Sign. A few tourists were braving the cold air. Everyone else was office workers going to work. Still, the ordinarily bustling pathway was sparse of pedestrians.
Sign walked alongside the man he’d been following and matched his pace. “Thanks for agreeing to talk.”
“I agreed to this meeting. But, we have less than a mile to cover whatever it is that’s of interest to you. After that I walk into the temple. I understand that you no longer have a security pass to get in.”
Colin Parker was referring to the MI6 headquarters in Vauxhall Cross. He worked there as head of counter–espionage. Despite being a senior posting, and a sexy–sounding title, it was a role that required him to sit in London and analyse files. Though Parker had entered the service out of Cambridge as a fast–stream spy, he knew that his current job was a career killer.
Sign knew that as well. “I wanted to talk to you about Mark Archer.”
“His death?”
“What led up to his death.”
Parker laughed as he carried on walking. “Who knows?”
“Why is the service being uncooperative with the police?”
“We haven’t been uncooperative. On the contrary, we invited senior Met detectives to come into HQ to discuss Archer’s death. They told us point blank that there was no doubt he committed suicide. What they wanted were two things: first to know if there were any skeletons in the closet; second, to know how to handle the media if it was leaked that Archer was MI6, rather than a diplomat.”
“Were there any skeletons in the closet?”
Parker stopped walking. “Come on Ben. You of all people should know how this works. I’m only privy to matters that cross my desk – a Chinese spy tries to blackmail one of our officers, the Russians have set up an eavesdropping station in Pimlico, that kind of thing. What I’m not privy to is the machinations of our officers’ private lives. You’d have to talk to security about that. And they won’t talk to you or me. Their job is so dull that they’ve developed a them–and–us syndrome. Everyone in security realises they’ve been marginalised because of their mediocre performance as operators. You won’t find a single friend there.”
Sign had expected this response. “Were there any rumours about Archer, even if it’s just unsubstantiated tittle–tattle?”
Parker continued walking. “If there were rumours, I wasn’t privy to them. Service personnel don’t gossip to me. They worry what I’d do with that information.”
“Who were Archer’s friends in The Office?”
“You know us lot, Ben. None of us like each other.”
Sign saw the MI6 HQ ahead. “How well did you know Archer?”
“Not that well at all. Different departments; different postings.”
“But your paths crossed?”
“Fleetingly.”
“Have you been to his house?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Do you know his wife?”
Parker shook his head. “I heard she was a school teacher assistant before Archer swept her off her feet and made her feel like lady of the manor on overseas postings. You know how being a diplomat’s spouse goes to some people’s heads.”
“She came from a humble background?”
Parker laughed. “Nothing wrong with that.” He stood opposite the headquarters. “They were kindred spirits. Mark Archer had a brain and good education, though he too came from working class stock. Marrying a working class girl was his two fingers up to the establishment, is my guess.” He frowned. “So you’re now playing private detective?”
“I’m an advisor, currently to the Metropolitan Police.”
“Needs must.” Parker looked sympathetic as he said, “Personally, I thought you were the best candidate for chief.”
“I thought I was the worst – people like us are bred and trained to run people and make them sacrifice their lives in hostile territories; we’re not designed to manage an organisation.”
Parker glanced at the temple. “It’s turned into a feeding frenzy in there. Sharks turning on sharks. Your departure has created a void that can’t be filled.”
“That’s no longer my problem, Colin.”
“Soon, it won’t be mine either. In six months, I’m out of here. My partner and I want to retire to our home in Normandy. I’ve had enough of this game.”
Parker was about to leave, but Sign placed a hand on his arm. “Archer’s home is way beyond his pay packet. I wondered if he or his wife had inherited the money to buy it. From what you’ve said about their backgrounds, that seems highly unlikely.”
“We all accrue cash expenses on po
stings.”
“A few thousand pounds here and there, yes. But Archer’s house is worth at least one or two million.”
Parker was motionless. “I did briefly meet his wife once. But not at their home. The Archers had laid on a barge trip down the Thames to celebrate their daughter’s acceptance into university. Ten of us from the service were invited. God knows why. Probably just to make up numbers.”
“A few people dropped out at the last minute?”
“There’s no other explanation. The event was a bit tedious. Aside from Mark Archer, who I didn’t really know, the only other people I knew at the event were my colleagues, and I barely knew them. But there was an odd thing.”
Sign said nothing.
“It was the champagne. I know you don’t have kids. I do. But if you did have kids and your daughter got into uni I’m guessing that, like me, you’d flatter her by laying on a few bottles of Prosecco and a two hundred pound plate of sarnies. Nothing less, nothing more. But here’s the thing – Mark Archer had an on board personal chef who cooked lobster with caviar, truffles, and Wagyu beef that had been flown in from Japan. And there must have been a hundred bottles of Veuve Clicqout Brut flowing.”
“Where did he get that money from?”
“My colleagues and I thought it must have been down to a soppy dad squirreling his cash away for his daughter’s send off.”
Sign shook his head. “It was a cry for help. You and others were invited to his daughter’s celebration because you needed to be witnesses to his despair. But, you didn’t pick up on that or help him.”
“Help him?”
“Put him out of his misery.” Sign spun around. Over the road was the motorcycle shop that Knutsen had visited last night. It amused him that Logan’s gun range was so close to the epicentre of the world’s most successful intelligence organisation. “Archer was on the take. The only explanation is that he was being paid good sums by a foreign intelligence organisation that wanted our secrets. He was a double agent. Towards the end, he wanted a way out. He wanted to be caught.” Sign turned back to Parker. “This falls bang into the centre of your remit as head of counter–intelligence. Do some snooping for me, will you Colin?”