One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2)

by Mark J Maxwell

  ‘What about Baker?’ Louisa asked. ‘Last time I checked he’d refused a brief.’

  ‘We have the statements from the two security guards confirming Baker as the driver of the Ford Transit,’ Sloan said. ‘However Oversight is still chewing over the history graph request. I think his refusal to accept legal counsel has made them nervous.’

  As an Inspector, it was still possible for Louisa to order a history graph herself, but a major advantage to using Oversight was that its decisions were rarely contested in court. And like it or not, Louisa needed to play safe. She didn’t want Worrell’s case thrown out on a technicality. She turned to Coates. ‘Any luck tracking down the guy who pulled the disappearing act on us?’

  ‘The security guards deactivated the power station’s CCTV prior to the flatbed’s arrival,’ Coates replied. ‘They admitted that Fletcher asked them to. All we have is your first person footage up until the connection went down.’

  Louisa frowned. ‘Why did the network cut out?’

  ‘We’re still working on that. Our subnet failed in a small, localised area the second time. Only you, Sloan, and the armed response unit stationed near the exit were affected.’

  The ARU officers maintained they didn’t see anyone else leave the building. Although they had been stationed a hundred yards away. It was conceivable they’d missed the man. But they reacted fast enough to me leaving. ‘We need to give the committee something more concrete than the guards’ statements,’ Louisa said. ‘The Latvians were loading the weapons into the van. We need proof Baker drove it to the depot.’

  ‘We don’t have CCTV footage from the power station’—DS Sloan snapped her fingers—’but we do have access to the CCTV cameras at the docks. If they used the docks road to get to the power station we might have them driving past.’

  Louisa nodded. ‘Good. Bring it up. Let’s see what we’ve got.’

  Five CCTV videos appeared on the wall screen. Four covered the quays; the fifth offered a clear view of the road.

  ‘What time did the van reach the power station?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘Around five a.m.,’ Coates said.

  Louisa took a seat at an empty console. Coates wound the footage back twenty minutes from five a.m. and hit play. A steady steam of container trucks proceeded to leave the docks at a rate of around one every minute.

  ‘There.’ DS Sloan gestured at the screen.

  Coates froze the footage. The van on the screen looked to be a match for their Ford Transit. He moved the video forward frame by frame until the windscreen came into focus. Although it was dark, there was enough light from the street lamps to make out Killian Baker as the driver. The passenger was also visible. It was the same man Louisa had met in the power station.

  ‘Spencer Harrow is the name of the passenger,’ DS Sloan said. ‘CADET picked out his Portal profile.’

  Louisa smiled in satisfaction. The CCTV footage placed Baker in the vicinity of the power station, the vehicle he drove later loaded with weapons by Fletcher’s men.

  ‘Send the request through to Oversight again. Let them chew on that.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘How did you first meet Arthur Fletcher?’

  Stephen Worrell’s trim physique belonged to a man much younger than his forty-five years, but his eyes betrayed his age, with bulging bags and deep creases at the corners. Louisa got the impression Worrell burned the candle at both ends and the lifestyle was catching up with him. He tilted his head to one side, pursed his lips, and turned his gaze upward. Almost as if he hadn’t been in close consultation with his brief for the past three hours, rehearsing answers to this very question and any others he’d likely be asked.

  ‘Three months ago he came to my warehouse in Basildon,’ Worrell said. ‘He wished to use my connections in mainland Europe to source specialist construction equipment.’

  ‘From then on, how did he contact you?’ Louisa asked.

  Geoffrey Hamilton, Worrell’s brief, leaned forward then and whispered in his client’s ear. Worrell nodded along. The constant interruptions were getting on Louisa’s nerves. Worrell had barely answered a single question without Hamilton’s interference.

  ‘He called into the office at my warehouse,’ Worrell said finally.

  ‘How did Fletcher pay you?’

  ‘In cash.’

  ‘Didn’t it seem odd?’ Louisa slowly shook her head. ‘No phone calls, no exchange of Portal IDs. No Portal communications at all, in fact. And then payment in cash?’

  He shrugged. ‘I regularly receive trade enquiries through my Basildon office and cash purchases aren’t unknown in the trade.’

  But not unannounced walk-ins off the street, I bet. Worrell’s warehouse was in the middle of an industrial estate, located well outside Basildon.

  Hamilton cleared his throat. ‘Have you any evidence of other forms of communication between my client and the deceased gentleman, Inspector?’ In his mid-fifties, Hamilton’s tailored three-piece navy pinstripe suit concealed a considerable bulk. He had a habit of tilting his head back when he spoke. Perhaps it was an attempt to minimise the shake of the jowls hanging over his collar, but it also gave the impression he was looking down his nose at whomever he addressed.

  Worrell certainly hadn’t skimped on his choice of brief. Hamilton was a senior partner in Layton and Chalmers, a prominent city law firm. At Hamilton’s hourly rate the resulting legal bill would amount to a small fortune. Louisa knew his type. He acted as though his client being caught with a shipment of fully automatic weaponry and Class-A drugs was nothing more than a misunderstanding, easily resolved. In turn, his manner reassured his clients. Worrell was no longer the quivering jellied mass they’d arrested at the power station. Hamilton’s firm specialised in company mergers and acquisitions, not criminal law. If he was out of his depth he hid it well. In fact, Hamilton appeared quite satisfied with himself. No doubt he believed the press briefing he’d scheduled for later in the day would boost his Portal exposure. It wasn’t every day you represented someone accused of smuggling arms.

  ‘Why did you travel to Tilbury power station this morning?’ Louisa asked, changing tack.

  ‘It was an arrangement I had with Mr Fletcher,’ Worrell said. ‘As part payment he offered to pick up and transport my container. Once the shipment arrived I was to meet him at the power station. Fletcher’s supplies were to be unloaded before the container continued onwards to my warehouse.’

  ‘An abandoned power station in the middle of the night is a strange place to be carrying out business.’

  ‘I receive shipments at all hours of the day and night. And the power station is close to the docks. It wasn’t a great imposition on my schedule.’

  ‘Why didn’t you divide the supplies at your warehouse?’

  ‘Fletcher requested we use the station. If you want to discover his motivations perhaps you should ask him.’ Worrell grinned then, and glanced over to his brief. Hamilton didn’t share his client’s amusement. He gave a quick shake of his head. The smile slid from Worrell’s face.

  Hamilton was thinking ahead again. Any resulting trial would have full access to the interview footage, recorded by sense strips lining the walls. Contrary to what the public might have thought, the switch to full sense recording of police interviews had been welcomed by the MET. The old audio recordings had hidden a multitude of suspects’ sins. Any rough edges were normally smoothed over by a smart barrister by the time the case went to trial, but it was hard for the accused to play the innocent in court when the sense footage showed them firing sly and conniving glances at their brief. A jocular defendant definitely wasn’t the image Hamilton wanted to portray. The sense strips were the only permitted means of recording the interview, the room being shielded to prevent anyone within connecting to Portal. On the table before Louisa sat a terminal with a hard-wired connection to Portal.

  ‘When did you become aware the weapons formed part of your shipment?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘Literally minut
es before your officers entered the building, when Fletcher showed me the contents of the crates.’

  ‘What did Fletcher say, exactly?’

  ‘That he’d decided to bring in a different cargo, and he’d pay me twenty thousand pounds for each shipment. Naturally, I protested.’

  ‘Naturally, because up to that point Fletcher had been importing trance, correct?’

  Hamilton perked up. ‘My client knows nothing of any illegal cargo which Mr Fletcher may have been concealing within the container shipments. He has already covered this in his statement.’

  ‘I didn’t know there were any drugs or guns hidden inside the container.’ Worrell prodded the tabletop with his finger. ‘I’m a legitimate businessman. An innocent party to this terrible incident. In fact...I should be thanking you, Inspector.’

  Louisa raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yes?’

  Hamilton leaned forward then and cleared his throat. Worrell ignored him. ‘Who knows what Fletcher would have done after I refused to participate in his criminal endeavour? If it weren’t for your good officers, I may have been viewed as a threat.’ A shocked look crossed his face. ‘They might have killed me.’ Worrell definitely wasn’t nervous any more. He was revelling in his new role as an innocent victim.

  ‘There was something else in the shipment,’ Louisa said. ‘It attacked one of Fletcher’s men and was heading in your direction before Fletcher stopped it.’

  Worrell turned uncertain. ‘I don’t know what that was. My shipment contained construction equipment, nothing else.’

  Sense footage of the arrest had been made available to all the solicitors. Hamilton had likely shown it to his client. She understood his unease. She’d watched it a few more times herself. Forensics had yet to discover where the cubes came from, let alone work out how the things functioned. ‘There were two other men in the power station with you this morning, apart from Fletcher and his men. Who were they?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You never met them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We have one of the men in custody. Like you, he is being interviewed. He may yet present a contradictory version of events.’

  ‘That may be, Inspector,’ Hamilton said before Worrell had a chance to reply. ‘I imagine these criminals will offer any number of contrivances to save their skins. My client will be happy to answer any questions forthcoming from their interviews. He is not, however, required to respond to conjecture.’

  *

  Hamilton requested a moment to confer with his client after Louisa called an end to the interview. She took them to a room off the block of cells, set aside for consultations between suspects and their briefs. They had the right to confer in private, so the room was devoid of strips. She notified the custody officer and left them to it.

  The first round of interviews was taking place purely to review statements. With a brief like Hamilton, poking holes in Worrell’s statement was always going to prove difficult. The problem was they were running out of time to charge him. She could hold Worrell for twenty-four hours on her authority without charge, plus another twelve hours on the authority of a superintendent. Louisa hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Superintendents took a dim view of being dragged into court at a later date to explain why they’d granted the extension, especially if it produced nothing noteworthy. They were in the process of obtaining a warrant to search Worrell’s warehouse. Not arresting Worrell there had been a blow. It would have conferred an automatic right to search the premises. Louisa thought it unlikely they’d find anything incriminating there, but Worrell might keep a sizeable amount of hard currency at the warehouse if Fletcher regularly paid him in cash. And if Worrell couldn’t provide documentation on how he’d earned the money, seizing it as suspected proceeds from crime might take the wind out of his sails, especially if he was counting on it to pay Hamilton.

  ‘Inspector Bennett. So good to see you again.’

  The speaker had come up behind her unawares. Louisa turned to find Ian Backus grinning at her. Her stomach responded with the same uneasy churn she’d experienced when she first met him at Victor Korehkov’s trial. Tall and lean, with a bloodless pallor and slicked-back hair, the man was straight out of an old black and white horror film. He extended a hand. Louisa left him hanging. Hamilton might be an unprincipled opportunist, but Backus was in another league entirely. A stereotypical gutter-brief. Loose of morals and possessing a consummate knowledge of English criminal law. He’d made a career from representing prominent gangland figures. In Louisa’s eyes he stood little higher than the reprobates he defended.

  Backus’ smile didn’t slip one jot as he lowered his arm. It would take more than a casual slight to rattle him. He was here to represent Vanags, who stood behind Backus, with DS Allen at his side. No-one knew how much Backus charged his clients. Louisa suspected it wasn’t much less than Hamilton. And since Vanags didn’t strike her as the type to have ten grand lying around for lawyer’s fees, Fletcher likely had Backus on a prearranged retainer, and the Latvian was calling it in.

  After what happened at the power station Allen was keeping a close eye on Vanags. Not that Louisa considered him much of a threat. The blood loss from his bullet wound had left him paler than Backus. Luckily for Vanags, the bullet from Fletcher’s rifle had passed through his calf muscle and hadn’t nicked any arteries. A few months on crutches and he’d be right as rain. Vanags’ statement had been short and to the point, leaving little room for cross-examination to produce anything noteworthy. He asserted Fletcher hired him to transport and unload the container, and apparently knew nothing of its contents.

  ‘I wonder, Mr Backus,’ Louisa said, ‘how different your client’s statement would be if Arthur Fletcher was still with us.’

  ‘Inspector Bennett,’ Backus chided, ‘there would of course be no divergence. If there is any illegality with regard to Mr Worrell’s shipment, I assure you my client knew nothing of it.’

  ‘That appears to be the prevailing opinion. Although Killian Baker has yet to make a statement.’

  The solicitor’s smile faltered. Then it returned quick as a flash. DS Bolton was questioning Baker now. If a weak link in the circle of innocents existed, Louisa suspected it lay with Baker, and Backus thought so too.

  *

  DCI Lenihan was waiting for Louisa at Custody Central. He stood before a wall screen displaying a sense grid of the detention cells and interview rooms. Two of the interview rooms were in use. DC Allen in one with Backus and Vanags and DS Bolton and DC Jenkins in the other with Killian Baker. DC Hargreaves was still at the hospital, keeping an eye on Dukurs in case he regained consciousness.

  ‘What are your thoughts on Worrell?’ the DCI asked.

  ‘He’s working toward an Oscar winning performance.’

  ‘I don’t believe him for a second either but until we find evidence to the contrary his story will stick. What about the security guards?’

  ‘They provided access to the power station and nothing else. Hired help.’ Louisa had no reason to doubt the two guards’ statements. And the fact they were relying on a duty solicitor spoke volumes. ‘Is there any word on Drew Carter?’ The NCA liaison hadn’t been in the MIR when she returned with DS Sloan. She hadn’t heard from him since.

  The DCI frowned. ‘No.’

  ‘The NCA knows more than they’re telling us.’

  ‘That may be. It’s all the more reason to ensure we’re running everything by the book. No history graphs without explicit sign-off from Oversight.’

  Louisa nodded in silent agreement. She’d left similar instructions with Sloan. Not that the detective would order a graph without Louisa’s explicit consent. Louisa saw a lot of herself in Sloan—competent, ambitious, but the detective was reluctant take chances given the opportunity. Louisa smiled. In that respect they were poles apart, but it suited her having an officer she could depend on not to go rogue. Given her own history of insubordination, she tactfully chose to ignore the hypocrisy.

&nbs
p; On the sense footage DS Bolton left the interview room, Baker’s interview having been suspended. Jenkins remained behind. A few seconds later Bolton joined Louisa and the DCI.

  ‘Is Baker responding to questioning?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘Responding?’ Bolton laughed. ‘Ma’am, we can’t shut the guy up!’ He eyed the wall screen. ‘Have a listen.’

  The MET Subnet offered various interaction options including video projection, audio feed, and full immersion. Louisa chose the audio feed.

  ‘It isn’t simply the moral underpinning of our society which is under attack,’ Baker was saying, ‘our very essence is at risk.’

  ‘Sir,’ Jenkins pleaded, ‘the formal interview has been suspended, but I have to warn you that what you are saying is still being recorded. I urge you to remain silent.’

  ‘That’s just it!’ Baker’s face split in a grin, a wild look entering his eyes. He gesticulated, agitated. ‘Waves of light capture our presence. Our voices sampled too, determined by minute disturbances in the air molecules around us. Our thoughts, even, discerned by our cranial implants. And where does this quantification of our essence end up? Portal.’ Baker spread his hands, palms upward. ‘He speaks through you, even if you are unaware of his guidance.’

  ‘He’s been going on like this for the past twenty minutes,’ Bolton said. ‘Complete gibberish for the most part, interlaced with anti-Portal rhetoric.’

  ‘Any indication to whom he’s referring?’ Louisa asked.

  Bolton’s look was half doubt, half amusement. ‘He kept on mentioning someone he calls the Prophet.’

  Louisa pursed her lips. The Prophet? ‘And he still refuses to give a statement?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I believe he refused on the grounds his “introspection would merge with the mass quantification aggregation”. He’s either nuts, or he’s one of the anti-Portal brigade.’

  *

  ‘Your problem, Officer, is that you don’t appreciate, as a conscious being, what you have been…’ Baker paused mid-flow as Louisa entered the room. He fixed her with a wide smile.