Sui-Lee leaned across to look at the laptop. Cheng pulled up a diagram with several photographs on it. “This is the team currently based at Savile Row police station. The officer who first interviewed Lewis after the journalist got shot is this person here,” he said, pointing at Saul Zeltinger.”
“I met him. He came out to Heathrow to interrogate me. He didn’t get very far.”
“Okay, well these other people are part of his team. Now this woman here,” he said pointing at a different part of the screen, “is a young police constable. She’s Cantonese, born in Hong Kong before marrying a chef who was working for a big hotel chain. They moved to London about two years ago. Her name is Meilin. They have a young daughter, nine months old.”
“Aah,”Sui-Lee said, instantly seeing the direction of Cheng’s thinking, loving the idea for its simplicity. “Such a vulnerable age.”
“Precisely. Take care of the daughter and instantly we have our leverage over Meilin.”
Sui-Lee felt a new wave of excitement pulsing through her. “How quickly can we do it?”
“They live only four blocks from here.”
71
Savile Row Police Station
Saul Zeltinger had wanted to check what vehicles, if any, were registered in Ben Lewis’s name. He was reasonably confident that they would only find just the one, the Honda bike that had caused so much havoc in Hyde Park earlier that morning. It took less than two minutes for a young constable based at Savile Row police station to access the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Authority computers based in Swansea in Wales and confirm the registration details. There was only one previous owner and the bike had been transferred into Lewis’s name earlier that year. He had no other vehicles, cars or motorcycles, registered.
Automated number plate recognition technology, or ANPR as it was commonly known, had transformed police surveillance in many countries around the world, nowhere more so than in the United Kingdom. ANPR cameras were positioned at many locations around major cities and motorways, allowing the progress of suspect drivers and vehicles to be monitored. Because motorbikes only have rear number plates, ANPR cameras locations, such as can be found on some motorway gantries, had to be modified to include both forward and rearward facing cameras.
The national ANPR data centre was located in Hendon in north London, the same location that the Police National Computer systems were also housed. It was to here that all data from various cameras across the country was fed, monitored and stored. Advanced computer interrogation tools that were able to sift through the vast amounts of number plate data gathered allowed police officers to track certain suspicious or wanted vehicles with relative ease.
By the time that Saul Zeltinger was back at his desk in Savile Row at around two-thirty that afternoon, he had been informed that Ben Lewis’s Honda bike had passed through the south eastern suburbs of London earlier that afternoon and currently was on a section of the M2 motorway not far from Maidstone heading in the direction of Canterbury and Dover.
The news brought a smile to Zeltinger’s face.
His hunch had been right after all. Heathrow had been a diversion. Lewis looked as if he might be planning to leave the country after all, but through the Channel ports and not by air. He picked up the phone on his desk.
“I need a fast car and a driver to get me to Dover in a hurry. One of the unmarked cars from the pool. Tell the driver to bring their passport.”
“There’ll be one out the front in five minutes. Is there anything else you need, sir?”
“No thank you, that will be all.”
Zeltinger put the phone down and remembered two things. Firstly, reaching into his desk draw, he rummaged around at the back before finding what he was looking for: his own passport. Secondly, he had promised to call his wife. There was little chance of this case would have blown over by the weekend. Once again he was likely to miss the ritual of Friday evening supper at home, the start of the Jewish Sabbath. His wife, Hattie, was not going to be best pleased about him once again missing this important time with the family.
72
Nr Oxford Street
“Wake up, police bitch. I need you awake and listening to me. Now!” Sui-Lee roughly shook the bedclothes. A frightened and dopey Meilin sat up in bed, finding herself staring down the barrel of the Chinese woman’s gun.
“Listen carefully. Your mother and daughter are going on a short vacation, well away from here. You don’t need to know where. They’ll be safe as long as you don’t do anything stupid. If you or your husband mentions their disappearance to anyone, especially anyone in the police, then they will die. Do I make myself clear?”
Meilin nodded, too numbed and frightened to speak.
“Someone called Cheng will be ringing your cell phone every hour, on the hour. You are going to provide him with the very latest information the police have on the whereabouts of Ben Lewis. Is that clear?”
Again, Meilin simply nodded.
“Don’t be tempted to avoid answering your phone. If Cheng’s calls are not answered within five rings, then the first time it’ll be your mother, the next time your daughter, who will be shot.” Sui-Lee looked at her watch. “It is now two-thirty. Cheng will ring you in thirty minutes. Make sure you have something useful to tell him by then.”
With that, Sui-Lee disappeared, leaving the young policewoman stunned, confused but above all, terrified.
73
Canterbury
The civil servant made their way across Birdcage Walk and into Green Park. The rain had stopped but the pervasive damp meant that the park was devoid of its usual lunchtime crowds. The rendezvous was a bench towards the Buckingham Palace end of the park. The agreed danger signal was a recent copy of the Economist magazine left on the seat.
That afternoon the bench was clear, the meeting still green-lighted. The civil servant sat down and waited, looking at their watch, noting that it was already one minute past the agreed meeting time. That day’s Telegraph had been removed from a raincoat pocket and was now placed deliberately on the bench beside them.
The contact appeared ever so casually about five minutes later, walking with a slow gait, distracted by a cell phone glued to an ear. Seeing a vacant place next to the civil servant, the person sat down, continuing their conversation on the phone, their remaining free hand now positioned on the bench directly on top of the newspaper. The person stayed sitting on the bench for several minutes, all the time talking on the phone. Suddenly the contact got up, taking the Telegraph with them, disappearing back the same way they had come.
The photographer had the long AF-S 300mm f/2.8D lens mounted on a tripod this time. She was also on a bench, but this one was positioned on the north shore of St James’s Park Lake, about three hundred metres away from where the civil servant had been sat.
To an innocent passer by, it would have looked as if she was taking photographs of the swans on the lake, their graceful movement on the water set against the backdrop of a moody London grey sky distinctly photogenic. In point of fact the lens was directed at the civil servant, faithfully recording the entire lunchtime meeting. The Nikon D800’s motor drive had been working overtime as the person on their cell phone had calmly picked up the copy of the Telegraph and had walked casually away.
74
Canterbury
The journey to Canterbury, located in the south eastern corner of the country, takes Lewis two hours due to heavy traffic and wet road conditions. The Honda rides well, Lewis loving the bike’s acceleration and throaty roar. Lewis always has mixed emotions about meeting Holly. She looks, speaks and even behaves at times so much like his ex-wife that meeting her is usually a painful reminder of what had happened on that fateful beach on his honeymoon four years earlier. The key question for today, however, is can he persuade her to let him borrow her car?
When Holly’
s sister, Lewis’s honeymoon bride, had died four years ago, she had left some money that Holly had put towards the purchase of a small property of her own. The house is located in a quiet one-way street off one of Canterbury’s main access roads, less than fifteen minutes walk from the hospital. All the houses in the street are terraced, little more than two up, two downs. None of them have a garage or forecourt. All the parking is on street and directly in front of each property’s front door.
Lewis parks his bike close to Holly’s front door. Given the events of the last few hours he is extra-vigilant, scanning the street thoroughly for signs of anything unusual. Everything seems normal, the street half-deserted: most people are either out or still at work. It is only three-thirty in the afternoon. Leaving the bike keys in the ignition, he walks up to the front door and rings the bell twice, slowly removing his helmet whilst he stands waiting in the small porch. The sound of the doorbell is clear and resonant, something that anyone in the house couldn’t fail to hear. No one comes to the door, nor are there any sounds from within to indicate that it is about to open. He rings a second time, again with no response. Lewis has been half-expecting this: if Holly is on the early shift, she would be finishing sometime in the next hour, probably back home soon thereafter. Time to find a coffee shop and read the paper before trying again.
He turns around and is in the process of putting his helmet back on again when he hears it. The signature is distinct, the low throaty rumble almost blending into the background. It reaches him muffled by nearby brickwork, the sound easily lost amidst the background noise of the city. It is another classy bike engine, quite possibly a two-cylinder model, definitely powerful. He heard something similar earlier that morning on a dark London street. That one was a Yamaha, the MT- 03 whose Chinese rider had then tried to kill him. That had been then been followed by another: a BMW. Driven, if he had pieced all the elements of the puzzle together correctly, by the Russian, Panich. This engine sounds like it could be the latter: a four-stroke in-line two cylinder powerhouse.
Could Panich or one of his agents have followed him down here already or is Lewis becoming paranoid?
Back on his own machine, Lewis works out where the sound is coming from. There is a side alley about thirty metres in front, on the left-hand side of the street. It has fencing all along one side of the alley, the side nearest to him. The front forks of a bike have become visible, protruding from the end of the alleyway into the street. Lewis can also see the outline of a black helmet and visor as well. Whoever it is appears to be watching Lewis and waiting. Lewis fires up the ignition on his machine. He kicks the stand, ready to roll away as soon as he judges the moment to be right.
How could anyone have known that he was coming down here to meet Holly? He only decided himself just over two hours ago. How could they find out who she is, discover that Lewis even knows her or, for that matter, where she lives? As he sits astride his bike, it suddenly dawns on him how easy it could have been. Holly’s social network pages or maybe his mobile phone records: the links between himself and Holly would have been there for the finding for someone determined to go looking.
The killer question now is whether the person on the bike up ahead really is Panich? Assuming that it is, question number two is whether he has yet identified Lewis or not? Lewis only removed his helmet whilst standing on the front porch. From that angle the biker’s vision would have been obscured. It would have been hard, if not impossible, for anyone in the alley to make a positive identification of either Lewis or of his motorbike. Lewis is certain that if they had, by now the bullets would already have been flying. So question number three is this: what would this biker, assuming it is Panich, be doing next? Lewis thinks he knows the answer to that one. He would be waiting. He would be sitting it out, engine on and ready to go. But waiting, either until he is certain it is Lewis or not – or, more likely, waiting until Lewis rides past, allowing Panich to confirm what sort of bike it is. To see whether it is the same make and model that Lewis rode away on earlier that morning. Question number four is probably the easiest: having identified either Lewis or his bike, would Panich shoot Lewis there and then or attempt to follow on his bike? No question, Panich would be using his GSh-18 pistol first and asking questions later. Firing a gun from a moving motorbike was a tough ask – unless you were either a left-hander or ambidextrous. You needed a right hand on the twist grip throttle the whole time and intermittently a left on the clutch.
So, how to get out of this one, Marine?
Lewis already knows the answer.
He looks in his mirror. Clear road behind. He checks the road in front. Clear road ahead. Hand on the throttle, foot on the gear lever, visor down. Lewis is ready.
Time to get going.
75
Savile Row Police Station
At three o’clock precisely, Meilin’s mobile phone rang. It actually rang twice before she was able to make her finger move the slider across the screen to allow the caller to be connected. Her hands were shaking badly as she put the phone to her ear.
“This is Cheng. What news is there?”
The man’s lack of rudeness was unexpected.
“What has happened to my baby girl?” Meilin cried out. “What have you done with her?” She couldn’t help herself. It had only been thirty minutes since her ordeal had begun and already it felt like a lifetime.
“She’s safe. Now, I repeat, what news do you have for us?”
Meilin was willingly going to tell the man called Cheng everything, anything he asked. She realised this the moment she heard his voice. Nothing, not her job, her marriage, even her own life if it came to it, not anything was going to stop her from doing all in her power to get her daughter back alive.
“Lewis is on his bike heading through Kent in the general direction we think of the channel ports. Police cameras near Canterbury last recorded the bike’s registration details about ten minutes ago. That’s all we know at the moment.”
“Okay. I’ll call back in one hour exactly. Make sure you have something more specific to report by that stage,” and before Meilin could say anything, the line went dead. She was at her desk at the police station in Savile Row, a ten-minute walk from her flat. She hadn’t been due to come in before her shift started at six that evening. However, she had been desperate to find the latest news on Lewis before Cheng made his first call. With that over, the tide of emotion inside her began to surge and she was unable to hold back tears any longer. The one person she had wanted to talk to was her boss, Saul Zeltinger, someone she trusted to be discrete and understanding. He would have known what to do without a moment’s hesitation. Unfortunately for Meilin, only minutes before she had arrived at Savile Row, he had commandeered a car to take him down to Kent. She would see how the next hour went and then decide for herself whether she felt brave enough to talk to him about this over the phone or not.
Across London in the apartment behind Wigmore Street, Sui-Lee had been listening to Cheng’s call. Meilin’s grandmother and child were locked in an adjacent room.
“I’m going to take the bike and head towards Kent myself,” she told Cheng as soon as he was finished. “You stay here and babysit our two visitors.”
Cheng pulled a face but Sui-Lee was quick to counter. “It was your idea to bring them here. Anyway, I hate motorbikes so don’t think I’ll be having all the fun.”
Cheng handed her the bike keys.
“How much fuel is there?”
“Plenty to get down to the Kent coast and into France if needed.”
“Good.”
“Perhaps you should take a new identity. There is a spare set of documents and cards in the safe.”
“Good thinking.” The safe Cheng referred to was a simple locked box that was kept it in a false cupboard in the bathroom. Sui-Lee went there briefly and swapped over her old cards and ID, removing a stash of E
uro notes before locking and placing the box once more back in its hiding place.
“It may be obvious,” she said once she was back in the room with him, “but I shall be happy if Lewis heads into France. I don’t like being on the UK’s most wanted list. Something tells me that the French police will be less problematic.”
“It’s a bigger country with fewer people,” said Cheng. “More places to hide.”
“Quite so. So long, then my friend,” she said, picking up her bike helmet and gloves from off a side table. “Be safe.”
“You too. Don’t take any prisoners, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve learnt my lesson. Ben Lewis is as good as dead.”
76
Canterbury
Stefan had been thinking along similar lines to Saul Zeltinger about tracing Lewis’s motorbike. His problem was that he wasn’t able to access the UK police’s ANPR database in order to ask the right questions. Such access, similar to all police systems, was highly restricted. Even Moscow’s cyber-hackers had failed to penetrate the UK police’s secure firewalls. A different approach was needed. One that didn’t involve futile attempts using brute force to hack one’s way in from outside.
Located in numerous locations around the world were certain individuals who were known to be Russian sympathisers. These were people willing to help with specific requests or to facilitate certain actions upon request. Many had distant Russian relations or some past associations with the country. A few offered occasional support out of some sense of anger or resentment against their own country. It was to one such individual, a female police despatcher known only by the name of Songbird, that Stefan was able to call to ask for help in tracing Lewis’s Honda bike. Songbird listened in silence to the request made by Stefan over the phone, promising to call back within the hour. In fact, it took her only took a few minutes to retrieve the relevant information from the ANPR system. She rang back with the news that Lewis’s bike had been recorded minutes earlier heading towards Canterbury and the Kent coast on the A2.
The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1) Page 17