by S G Read
Something was nagging him so he walked back and unlocked the back door to the house. He walked through to the front and stopped. Then back to the back door again. He walked outside, took several breaths and repeated the walk through the house again. This time it came to him, a faint smell he recognised. It was Winfield’s aftershave!
John opened his mouth to speak as was his way but thought twice about it. The place was probably bugged and the phone lines tapped. It was only luck that he had taken Ralf, his computer with him or there was no doubt that Winfield would have been privy to everything they knew. He put his things back into his car ready to go and opened the garage door. He thought about putting a match to the place to burn all the bugs, if any had been fitted but relented. He would sell the house, using Lorna’s aunt’s house as a base. Assuming Winfield had not found that one as well!
He drove out of the house and closed the garage doors to make sure anyone going in had to break in. He had to assume there was a watch on the house and drove to his own house, parking the car from the other house in his second garage. He did not care what they thought about him arriving with a different car, they had no way to know if it was usually parked at the other house.
He walked through the garage into the house and locked the door after him, he did not want any company tonight! He was not a happy man!
Chapter 6
John was in work early the next morning. He did not go anywhere near Lorna’s aunt’s house, he needed to know that her house had not been compromised but there was nothing there to direct them to the brothers. But there was enough information to set them on the right track and if they were as good as John they could end up being blown up, now that the car was going to be replaced.
He spent the day in the office, catching up on the work he had missed while he was gone. He knew Winfield would want all the information but he did suspect that if he listened into any phone calls, or read the emails leaving the other house he might find out and therefore not have to ask!
Winfield was back on the job now after his bout of gastro enteritis and the restaurant had somehow burnt down over one night with the owner still inside. An electrical fault had been blamed in the end and John had to say that Winfield’s workers were quite thorough.
Victor was sought by all the agencies as a spy for a terrorist cell. No one had seen him since he had walked out of the hotel in Brighton and even Interpol had been informed. It made John angry, wasting all that man power when Winfield knew exactly what had happened to him.
He was right when he thought that Winfield would not bother him during his first day, he never came near him. John was happy enough as Winfield was not his favourite person at that moment in time. When it was time to go home he remained at work, sending emails, filling in information on Lorna’s computer so that she was not as far behind when she returned. He did not want to go home yet and he did not want to go to Lorna’s aunt’s house, until he had relaxed and was at the top of his game. He worked while the cleaners cleaned his office and he wondered what sort of vetting process the cleaners went through before they were allowed in to do the cleaning or was it just the company that did the vetting?
He finally went home after writing a memo to himself to check on the cleaning company to make sure Winfield did not know they were a possible leak and therefore a way out of any trouble for him by blaming them! Winfield was a slippery snake of a man.
He drove home and cooked a late meal, then spent the rest of the evening watching films on television. In the morning Lorna’s postcard from France arrived on his mat. She had posted it on her way through France to Belgium and it had taken this long to arrive. He read it before he put it on to his mantelpiece so that he could read it again later, then hurried off to work.
It was a different routine now with Lorna away, he worked longer hours and ate at a restaurant both at lunch time and in the evening. It was three days before he went into his shed to listen to music. Now he employed the camera he had installed to watch the rear of his house. While he listened to his classical music the camera was recording what went on there for him to scrutinise the next day while the camera was recording again.
The next night while he listened to his classical music he watched the rear of the house and saw no one at all. No dog walkers, no late night joggers, no drunks staggering along and certainly not any of Winfield’s men.
When the next night was the same he decided to go to Lorna’s aunt’s house the next evening. He left work at the normal time and cooked a meal before retiring to his shed and going out through the back of it. The house they had found, his safe house, had the same type of fence but no shed in the back garden, just overhanging trees to give him cover when he came in. He hoped the shed would persuade them that the same thing could not be done there.
He took his bicycle and rode to Lorna’s aunt’s house. He had Ralf with him as he needed to put it in a safe place which made riding the bike to the house harder than usual. He went through the back fence and up to the house. The first thing he did was to take a deep breath when he went inside but all he could smell was Lorna’s lingering perfume. He turned on the computer and did a diagnostic search on it to find out if it had been tampered with. The answer was no but he still had other tests to carry out and when they showed no tampering he stood the bag with Ralf in it on the floor.
Now he could sell the other house without any signs going up and with the estate agent showing prospective clients around. Winfield would order any bugs removed as soon as the estate agent started showing clients around and John decided that he would live there while it was on the market to make it even more difficult for Winfield’s men to retrieve them. It made him smile when he decided to live there, all this time he had owned it and now he might just get to know his neighbours.
He checked all the emails on the computer there and proceeded to remove the hard drive from Ralf. It would go in the post to the same post office box that everything else was sent to when Lorna returned, until then it went into a hiding place. There was no note anywhere on any computer of the address, Lorna did not memorise anything, it was not her thing. She had a note which told her what it was, not directly but in her type of cryptic clue, one that you had to be Lorna to work out. The address was always written by hand on the parcel, so that there were no impressions on anything that might give it away. John was never present when she wrote the address and posted the files off, sometimes at a post office and other times into a post box if they fitted. They were playing a dangerous game and they knew it. John had no idea how to access the post office box and as far as he knew Lorna was the only person who could. It was arranged like that just in case John was drugged and made to tell the truth. His mind was a wealth of information, which in the wrong hands could be dangerous but without the knowledge where the backup files were, they could not be sure of stopping them coming to light.
When John went into the office the next morning the Prime Minister was waiting there. He was pacing up and down in John’s office waiting for him to arrive. The fact that John was in work early was lost on the Prime Minister.
‘Good morning John, I want you to head up this Victor Thompson debacle. Winfield has as much admitted that he has no idea where he went and I want to know where he went, what happened to him and what he found out!’ The Prime Minister declared.
‘Of course Prime Minister, shall I report directly to you?’ John asked, hoping to get Winfield out of the equation.
‘Yes but report to Winfield and I want the truth. This whole thing stinks!’ The Prime Minister answered. ‘I have instructed Winfield to give you everything he knows and if he does not play ball, you let me know.’
‘I will start at Brighton at the hotel by reviewing the tapes.’ John replied unhappily.
Nothing went through to the Prime Minister that would do John any disservice.
‘Winfield has already done that and he says that they offer no possible clues.’ The Prime Minister retorted.
‘A f
resh set of eyes will look at the tapes from a different perspective.’ John replied.
‘I certainly hope so.’ The Prime Minister exclaimed.
‘It is possible that Winfield was cleaning up his own dirty linen.’ John added slyly.
‘You think so? Surely not? If that was so the file would not reach me. Bring it to me personally on this one but let Winfield have a copy!’ The Prime Minister spluttered, wrote out an order for full cooperation, signed it and walked out.
John allowed himself a big smile after the Prime Minister had gone, he was sure Winfield had replaced the bugs in his office again and had heard the conversation word for word. Now the cat and mouse game took on a new meaning.
Winfield sat in his office, his face was glowing red. This was a problem! He knew that John would keep going until he found out what happened and that the copy would arrive either at the same time that John was presenting the original to the Prime Minister or just after. He walked back into his office and slammed the door.
John sorted through the post, this time putting the unanswered letters on Lorna’s desk in the ‘in’ tray. He answered all he was going to answer and then closed the office door on the way out. He could picture Winfield squirming and the squirming would get worse the longer he was investigating the disappearance. It gave him a good feeling, this time he had been able to put a wedge between the Prime Minister and Winfield.
The investigation was going to be a big sham as he already knew what happened to Victor but he had to be seen to investigate. His inside information and knowing Winfield’s methods would aid him to find out the truth about Victor’s disappearance.
He left the office as soon as he had done all he had to do. He expected Winfield to accost him on the way down to his car but there was no sign of him. For once he let the parking attendant bring his car round to the front, even though it was too close to home really for a bomb to be planted.
The car arrived and he drove away. Taking a route which would allow him to park fairly soon and then he went over the car with a fine toothed comb to make sure there was not a timed bomb. While he did it the car which was following him was watching his every move. For John this was a message to Winfield, as he knew very well that the man would be watching.
When he was satisfied that there was no bomb in or under the car he drove on to Brighton, being followed all the way. He met Victor’s replacement at the hotel and ordered the video footage from all cameras.
‘I will have to check with Mr. Winfield.’ The operative answered.
‘This goes above Winfield Babbage.’ John answered and held out the paper, allowing Babbage to read it but not hold it. ‘Do as I say or you will be out of a job.’
Babbage did what he was told without further argument and they both watched the tapes as they played commenting on people who came into the hotel. Sometimes disparaging, sometimes respectful but always watching for anything out of the order.
John recognised Charles as he walked in the front door and asked something at the desk, he looked directly at the camera and then walked out again. He did not mention it to Babbage as they had no idea who it was. It was a few minutes later when Clementine or a Clementine lookalike came into the hotel, walked straight into the lift and the lift doors closed.
It was then when Victor had ordered her arrest. They continued to watch and saw the lift stop at the first floor. Four minutes later a man came out of the lower stair door and walked out. John recognised him as Pierre and knew something was going down. The sight of Clementine sent Victor running for the rear entrance and John knew there would be a welcoming committee waiting there for him.
‘I’ll take the tapes with me and then I will go and see which route Victor would have taken.’ John ordered.
He waited while Babbage put the tapes into a carrier bag and then followed the route which would take him to the back of the hotel and down to the car park level quickest. He stopped at the lift to consider if Victor would have used the lift. There was a camera in the lift so he returned to the security office to watch that tape. From the time that Clementine walked in to the time John arrived at the back door there was no sign of Victor.
‘He ran down the stairs then for speed, he knew he was in trouble and Clementine really spooked him.’ John exclaimed and walked back to the stairs.
Without seeing where he touched, any fingerprints could be too old so he ignored that idea and went down the stairs, slowly, studying the wall, the floor and the steps as he went. When he reached the garage level he looked through the door and saw tell tale drag marks which someone had tried to eradicate but failed. The fact that Winfield insisted on shiny black shoes all the time meant there would have been black drag marks which were now gone but there was still sign if you looked closely. He took out his phone.
‘Marion I am on an assignment for the PM and I need you or one of your people down in Brighton now!’ He ordered when Marion answered.
‘Brighton John!’ Marion answered. ‘I am on my way, any reason to get out of this place.’
‘I am at the Excelsior hotel on the garage level. I will wait here for you in case someone else has a go at removing the evidence!’ John informed her.
‘I will use my blue lights then.’ Marion cried. ‘The day is just getting better and better!’
John sat on the railing nearby to wait, he did not want the scene compromised any more than it already had been. With his photographic mind he remembered the clues to the crossword in the morning paper and started do the crossword in his head. He sent anyone wishing to come through the crime scene another way, he could remember the routes to the garage as well.
By the time Marion drove into the garage the crossword was history and he was working on the Sudoku in the same paper. He waved when he saw her car and she drove over to where he was sitting and abandoned the car in her normal fashion.
‘Someone has tried to eradicate the drag marks where Victor was dragged away, might be blood as well if they shot him.’ He explained when she walked up and pointed to the marks he meant.
‘I see what you mean but there is something to work with. Use this tape and cordon off this area and the lift with it down and open. They usually forget to look in the lift doorway.’ Marion ordered and John did as he was told.
He watched as Marion and her three helpers worked, while still warding off would be passers through or just onlookers who might contaminate the scene. He had his badge and his very manner moved most on without asking to see a badge.
Marion took samples and labeled them as she stored them away to work on in her laboratory later. She took extra samples, labeled them and John put them in his pocket after signing for them. She did not trust Winfield and the thought that he might come into the lab and remove the samples. That was one way of making sure she had some samples to work on, just in case.
When she finished with the lift and in that area they followed the trail of drag marks until the stopped, taking more samples as they went and picking up anything they found. John did not let on who had taken and almost certainly killed Victor but he would let the investigation run its full course. If there was evidence linking the triplets and they were clever enough to consult samples from dead donors and find it, so be it.
It would mean that Winfield would know that Clementine was still being assisted and that it must be at least a twin. If they took it one more step then they would have all the information John had when he was searching for the triplet, but with the car gone that avenue of tracing them was removed.
He reflected on that. Would he have actually found them if he had not found the car outside the farmhouse on the street map? He thought about and was deeply engrossed when Marion spoke.
‘Are you going to take this or not?’ She asked.
‘Oh sorry, I was far away.’ John answered and pocketed the sample.
He signed the paper to say he had a spare copy and passed it back to her.
‘I found a partial shoe print when they lifted him int
o the boot but I think he was probably hit with a Taser, rather than shot. There is no blood anywhere but the small marks on the floor are similar to the wires from a Taser.’ She explained. ‘Here is the backup photo evidence from the scene which you can keep hold of, just in case mine do not come out.’
It was not what she meant but John knew exactly what she meant and took the memory card. He slipped it into his pocket with the rest of the evidence and signed again. Although the chain of evidence was important, in this case it was vital as Winfield would squirm and wriggle to get out of a charge of ordering one of his own men killed to protect his job! John had to present it to the Prime Minister as an open and shut case or the Prime Minister would say that it was inconclusive and merely reprimand Winfield. And that would not do!
‘Watch your back on this one, and by the way your office and the mortuary are bugged.’ John said quietly.
‘Again!’ Marion complained. ‘I will swing for that man one day.’
When the scene had been fully documented and Marion had swabs of everything she wanted, she threw the bag with the samples in the boot, closed the lid and the four of them drove away. John walked back to the security room as it seemed like good manners to let the operative in there know that he was going. As he walked in the operative put the phone down quickly, too quickly.
‘I have seen all I need to.’ John announced.
‘Any ideas where he is Mr. Fairchild?’ The operative asked.
‘Oh yes, I have ideas.’ John answered and left him to it.
He walked to the lift and pushed the button but took out his phone before he went into the lift despite it arriving more or less immediately. He scrolled through the numbers and then selected the one he wanted and waited for an answer.
‘Marion?’ He asked.
‘Why John, are you missing me already?’ Marion asked.
‘Of course but there might be trouble coming your way.’