Gone Underground

by Phil Brett

  ‘Why?’ I asked, unable to hide my excitement.

  ‘As far as I can see, about his job here – monitoring any possibility of the process contaminating groundwater. He checks for any leaching of methane gas and toxic chemicals. Ever since the Northumberland incident a few years back, they’ve been very hot on this. According to him, there has been not the slightest hint of it, but Ali rang him yesterday evening to check again.’

  ‘Yesterday evening?’

  She nodded. ‘Quite a coincidence, hey?’

  ‘And you think it is? Just a coincidence?’

  ‘No,’ she replied starkly, before instructing the dash phone to make a call.

  Roijin Kemal answered within seconds, with a bemused look on her face. ‘Vic, I should feel flattered. It’s not long since we last spoke.’ She laughed. ‘You’re either falling in love with me or you’re ringing up for a progress report. If it is the former, then sorry, I'm taken. If the latter, then I’m afraid I haven’t got anything to tell you yet.’

  Cole didn't join in the bonhomie. ‘No, Roijin. I’m phoning you because I have another job for you and it is not a very pleasant one.’

  ‘Okay,’ she replied, her tone changing from amusement to apprehension.

  ‘I want you to do a full, level 5, profile check on Youssef Ali.’

  Apprehension just moved to shock. ‘What?’

  ‘Level 5, Roijin. His personal history, finances, family background, political activity, his work, all and any files which can be accessed. All communications.’

  Clearly stunned, she replied, ‘I know what a level 5 is, but I don’t know why you want it or why I should do one!’

  ‘That I can’t tell you. You’ll just have to trust me. It is important and related to the case.’

  Roijin's eyes moved sideways, and she stared at me with mix of distrust and dislike. I was getting the blame here. As if Cole would do anything I wanted? Chance would be a fine thing. But Cole didn’t give her a chance to say anything. She flashed the authorisation from Jackie which gave us access to anything which we requested in the course of the investigation.

  I could almost swear that I saw her gulp. However, there was no opposition or complaint. Instead, she quietly mumbled, ‘Okay.’

  But Cole was not done yet. Boy, when she wanted to be, she could be as hard as steel. ‘You should also look into what he was doing at the time of her murder.’

  Kemal’s eyes beamed pure undiluted hatred at me. Yes siree, it looked like I was getting all the blame for this turn of events. Heaven forbid that Princess Cole would do anything quite so dastardly on her own back.

  17. Cocos nucifera

  By the time we arrived back to London, it was pitch dark, with the temperature dropping faster than European currencies. Both of us sat peering into the dark abyss, mulling over our visit to the South East. It hadn't been the usual of sand, snow globes and candy floss. Ruined trousers and mud-caked brogues were the most obvious. Bone marrow - frozen solid - ran them a close second.

  In total, we had visited three extraction sites, speaking to virtually everyone who was working in them. That wasn’t saying much because, apart from the first, they were pretty well dormant, with only a skeleton maintenance crew and a tiny security detail in place. The latter consisted of basically a man and a dog for each plant. The consensus was that the industry was doomed, so why bother to turn up? Our reception had been cordial but not much warmer than the weather. Indeed, the plant which Olivia had spent so much time in appeared to be a rarity in that it was still fully functioning, the staff were all at work and someone had offered us a warm drink.

  But it was Youssef Ali who was most in my – and, I presumed, Victoria’s – thoughts. He was a leading member. The mud on my trousers wasn’t the only mess I was finding myself in.

  I reflected rather glumly on how simple it had been for Cole to get Roijin Kemal to snoop on him – just with a vid message from Jackie Payne, and off she toddled. Sure, we were treated to a pained expression, but that was about as far as the opposition had gone. I sat worrying whether my fellow investigators had really left their old habits behind. But then, what of me? Just over a year ago, I was an art historian, spending his days wallowing in grief and watching the revolution go by, but who, for all his faults, could boast of decades of loyal party membership – a dedicated, if retired, class fighter. Now look at me – pilled up, and if not reviled, then treated with suspicion, by many. Once again, playing the snoop.

  Our progress had slowed as the large central London demonstration had prompted re-routing. Despite the conditions, the turnout appeared impressive, with a game attempt at a carnival atmosphere. The celebration was genuine, as was the warmth of the feeling, with only the sub-zero night being the problem. The Portuguese revolution’s flags of green and red were prominent, with a large gold fist in the centre. Slogans in Portuguese and English were almost equal in number. Three dimensional images direct from Lisbon, Braga and Porto lit the London night sky. Tonight, everyone was from southwest Europe.

  The Strand was blocked, so we were forced to park on a side street. Joining one section of the street party, we passed stalls offering meat stews, grilled sardines and an array of dry cod dishes hailing from the country, with drinks to accompany them. Although, I noted, not to be outdone, some hailed from Brazil. To Cole’s obvious annoyance, I had stopped and got myself a Prego sandwich and a plate of sardines, with a good size cup of Vino Verdhi to wash it down. It warmed me up as it went down.

  ‘Go on, Vic. Have some. Loosen up. Look around you. There’s not been this joy since the day we took power. Just lately, it’s been the hard work of defending and consolidating the revolution. We always knew that it wouldn’t be flags and bunting every day but, even so, there’s no denying that it’s been a slog. This gives us hope, Vic. Hope!’

  She tilted her head and, despite the conditions, melted a touch. With a slight grin, she turned to the stall holder and said, ‘I’ll have the same as he’s having.’

  Not to be rude, I finished off mine. ‘And I’ll have another one, please. That’s helped warm me up.’

  We stood watching the march not so much walk as dance past us. It didn't take too long for Victoria to finish hers and announce that we should be off.

  Mumbling through the last of the sandwich, I trotted after her as she marched off to our base in the Courtauld Gallery. Weaving in and out between people, and trying to keep up with her without spilling any food onto my cashmere overcoat, I followed her into the forecourt of Somerset House.

  Whilst not quite as packed as the Strand, there still had to be a couple of hundred in there. Contemporary dance music was playing, but people were, in the main, standing and admiring the art on display by Hua Wong, which was now in the square. She must have come here after we'd left. Shame we had missed her. I had never met Wong, but she had become one of the many artists who had embraced the revolution. She was an interesting woman who had potential. She was clearly inspired by Bruce Nauman, but she was only seventeen; she’d find her own groove.

  The words HOPE, SOLIDARITY, RED, GREEN and WORLD projected in the air above us. Large neon scaffolding flashed steaks of light, clashing with shafts of light across the square. Several large 3D images of the artist's head – upright, upside down and sideways – lined the square; each was quoting texts written by leading British revolutionaries. The cacophony was completed by more images of the Portuguese revolution.

  Cole's face was a picture of polite puzzlement as we entered the building through the grand entrance. There stood Roijin, in front one of the Gauguins which had been collected here. Personally, I wasn’t much of a fan of the artist, finding the semi-clad women posing as ‘natives’ worshipping some fictional religion rather crass. But I knew many people disagreed. I also knew that I wasn’t here to discuss Post-Impressionism.

  Roijin was standing like she meant business, then, possibly, a photo shoot. She was dressed in skin-tight burgundy leather trousers and a loose grey sweater. Her h
air was bunched up into a black cap. Black eye-liner emphasised both her dark eyes and olive skin, which was in contrast to Victoria’s creamy and my pasty ill-looking whiteness. Being quite tall, she did have an air of a model about her. That said, the gun bulging out of her blue five-button jacket was probably not the look that most went for.

  On seeing us she came over, smiled at Cole and ignored me. An air of conspiracy hovered above her. The reason was explained when she quickly got the point as to why she was in reception and not with the others in our makeshift office.

  ‘I want to talk to you about Ali. Let’s go over here, away from these people,’ she whispered.

  She led Victoria to a corner. I followed, like your best friend's annoying pet. The mutt gets on your nerves, but you can’t meet one without the other. When we were suitably away from a group of people who had come in from the celebrations and were enjoying the warmth, she spoke and, for the first time, addressed me. ‘You’re late!’

  Okay, it wasn’t an emotional welcome or one that might lead onto roses and chocolates, but it was at least acknowledgment that I existed. Possibly fearing a snarky reply, Cole didn’t allow me to say anything. Instead, she hastily apologised.

  Thankfully, Roijin didn't smell the fine food and drink on our lips – or if she did, she ignored it. She also appeared to accept her leader’s apology. Speaking in a hushed, urgent tone, she told us what was so secret. ‘I’ll be brief, because the meeting was supposed to start twenty minutes ago. Basically, I haven’t had much time for an in-depth look into Ali, but I have to say that there is very little which looks suspicious. There has never been a hint of anything which could be seen as treasonous. Quite the contrary: he is regarded as a hard-working, conscientious and thoughtful comrade.

  ‘Equally, I cannot find anything suspicious in his international contacts. I haven’t had time to investigate these in depth but, at a glance, they look pretty normal and what you would expect from someone making links with the international labour movement in the water industry. The frequency and duration of such contacts has increased, especially to the USA and India, but – and again, I should stress I have only had time to look at them briefly – they look pretty much concerned with the upcoming environmental conference: preservation, recycling, efficient usage cleanliness and so forth.’

  She hesitated, and I noticed that her hands clenched together, as if in prayer. She held Cole in high regard but surely not as a deity! Her forefinger of her right hand stroked the back of her left. ‘Kalder,’ she said, ‘I did notice that you had examined his bank balances back during the Wiltshire investigation. Your hacking left bloody great trails across his data, so if he is MI5 or 6, I would have thought that he would have spotted it straight away and beefed up his cyber walls. However, his security procedures, such that they are, have remained the same for three years. But yes, you were right: he was, for a period of time, receiving regular amounts of money paid in from his father back in Turkey. And yes, you were also correct in that his father was a former employee of the state security force.’

  Her hands clenched, and I detected that I was not going to have a ringing endorsement.

  ‘He was based, by coincidence, not far from where I was born. I know the buildings very well.’ She stopped, and in a voice dripping with sarcasm, said, ‘I should add, comrade, before you suspect me of being a spy as well – I know that you find that very easy to do – I know the buildings, because my school was across the road. But, returning to Ali's father, he reached the position of – and I can only translate approximately – Senior Internal Manager of Resource Appropriation and Nurturing. By his salary, I should say it was a fairly high position.’

  She unclenched her hands and unbuttoned her jacket. Much as she no doubt wanted to, it was not her gun which she was going for, but her phone. She took it out and laid it on her rather long fingers. ‘I won’t put it on projection because we are in a public place, but I will show you this. It’s his final summary of duties when he was promoted, five years before retiring. It gives a clear description of his role.’

  A typed document appeared, which, as you would expect, was in Turkish, and which was signed and countersigned several times. With each there was an over-stamp, which I assumed was that of the security agency.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I will skip the preamble, which – you will be interested in knowing – does swear him to the equivalent of the Official Secrets Act and commits him to fulfilling his duties to the best of his ability for the good of the Turkish Republic. It is the standard preamble, but it is here that we get to the crux of the document.’

  She tapped the screen with her left thumb. ‘It is here which outlines his central role.’ She stopped. Was she expecting a drum roll? A fly-by? What was with all this melodrama?

  Not getting the adulation, she spoke in one long breath: ‘He was in charge of the purchase and upkeep of all the internal flora of the buildings and the maintenance of their grounds. In short, Kalder, you discovered that he was the head gardener. He purchased the office pot plants. No doubt, he had a crack team watering them. I can even show some of the fine flowers he purchased.’

  With a potent cocktail of annoyance, anger and glee at my stupidity, she did so. She did likewise for the external grounds of the offices, which – speaking as someone who likes the odd bit of gardening – I could appreciate for their fine mowing and use of architectural plants to shape the borders.

  ‘He could be using this as camouflage,’ I replied. It was a lame joke and one that was met with a cold hard stare.

  ‘And you are sure of this?’ Cole asked, attempting to deflect the fire.

  ‘Yes, Vic. I'm certain. We have some contacts in the building who quickly confirmed it.’

  No one-liner came to hand.

  Victoria, who appeared to be doing her best to support me, did not appear to be that perturbed. ‘Okay, Roijin. Thank you. So, that answers that. We never considered that to be the most worrying thing anyway. So, have you tracked down his movements in the past few days?’

  Kemal’s tongue ran over her teeth and she slid her phone back into her inside pocket in one smooth movement, which emanated unhappiness. Sighing, she told us that she had a provisional confirmation of an alibi for the time of the killing but she did want to follow that up.

  Finishing, she did, almost reluctantly, admit that she had found out something interesting about Ali. He himself had been doing a bit of detective work of his own, trying to trace the movements of Olivia over the previous few days. But then, as she said, it could be that he wanted to know who the bastard was that had killed his best friend.

  Nodding, Cole agreed that was the probably the case, but she asked if Roijin could continue with the investigation and find anyone who could back up his alibi. She also wanted to find out more about what he had been doing.

  Silence met Cole for a tense moment or two, until, through gritted teeth, Roijin agreed, but the she added, ‘I’ll do it because it’s you who have asked me. I trust that you know what you are doing. But, Vic, I want you to know that I don’t like doing this. It’s not right. It’s deceitful. It is uncomradely, and it is plain wrong. And you should know that I don’t trust him!’ She pointed one of her long fingers at me. ‘Not after what happened last time. I do not have any confidence in his integrity and certainly not in his concept of what goes on in the real world.’

  At this point, I was hoping that Cole would jump in with an eloquent espousal of my qualities. But she just stood there. At least she wasn’t nodding.

  ‘Vic,’ Roijin continued, ‘he almost got you killed last time and got me to lie for him. I will not—’

  Cole quickly put her finger to her lips as an elderly pair wandered up to admire the painting behind us. To be honest, I doubted if they would be able to hear us even if we had been using megaphones, and I suspected that she was merely doing this to stop Kemal from going any further.

  ‘We’ll talk about this later, Roijin. Your concerns have been noted. But y
ou should remember that Jackie Payne has personally instructed both Pete and me to investigate this, seeing it as a high priority, so please do the follow ups on Ali and report back to me.’

  Then I spoke. Well, it would have been rude not to. ‘That's right, comrade. Jackie has asked Victoria and myself to look into this. That's why you are here: to help us. And if I remember correctly, I have been co-opted onto the President's staff and thus am actually here to oversee you and Victoria.’

  Kemal's eyes blazed. I could expect a pistol whipping at any moment.

  I kept her gaze. ‘Isn't that correct Victoria?’

  She all but mumbled a reply. ‘Er, yes, actually, yes it is.’ She then found sanctuary in the time and pointed to her watch. ‘And we need to get going to this meeting.’

  I followed her down the stairs, with a sullen Kemal behind me, probably pondering the option of pushing me down them.

  On entering the rooms, we heard the buzz of conversation and the intonations of Glen Bale. They were all there, this hotchpotch of misfits posing as detectives. Bale was pontificating on the international situation, whilst wearing the most ridiculous pair of oversized corduroy trousers I had ever seen, topped off with a tatty blue checked shirt. Asher Joseph was standing in front of him, sporting some nice woollens and doing well to get a word in edgeways from time to time. The same couldn’t be said of Gita, who just appeared to be standing there listening. She looked like a cartoon Inuit in her large knee-length parka, which all but engulfed head and body, thick woollen black leggings and large brown boots. She was using his hot air to warm herself up from the cold she was feeling.

  Our gang was completed by Jack Foxton. Standing in what had to be said was a fine three-piece blue suit, he had the demeanour of a ten-year-old attending a wedding and waiting for his pals. His well-trimmed beard slightly spoiled the image. He wasn’t having any interaction with the others but was quietly speaking to someone on his tablet.