by L M Krier
'Isn't it rather a strange moment to take time off, Inspector, in the middle of a case like this?'
'It's not a holiday, I assure you, ma'am,' Ted said hastily. 'There are some strange things going on that I don't entirely understand but I know a man who might. And don't worry, he does have full security clearance for me to discuss things with him.'
'How very mysterious,' the Ice Queen said. 'Apart from asking for covert surveillance of emails, what else is outside your experience?'
Ted hesitated. He wasn't keen on mentioning the break in and the death of the cat to the Ice Queen. He certainly needed to phrase it in such a way that there would be no come back on Kevin if he did.
'We had a break in yesterday, at my home,' he began. 'In and out through the house, in broad daylight. They killed one of our cats, hanged him in the garden. I think it was a warning, and I think it may be related to this case.'
To Ted's surprise, she didn't dismiss his theory out of hand. Instead she said in a measured tone, 'I see. I'm sorry to hear about your poor cat, very distressing. Certainly, take some time away if you need it and if you feel it will advance your enquiries. Your DS Hallam seems competent, I'm sure between him, Inspector Turner and myself we can manage in your absence.'
After leaving the Ice Queen's office, Ted went to see Kevin Turner to let him know he might be going away for a few days.
'How's Trev today?' Kevin asked.
'Gutted,' Ted told him. 'He's taken the day off work. I explained that I couldn't really manage to do the same. Luckily he understands about my job, especially after living with me for eleven years.
'I wanted to let you know I may be going away for a few days, probably next week. There's someone I need to see who may be able to help me with some of this stuff. I just wondered if you could ask some of your lads to keep half an eye on the house, and on Trev, while I'm away?'
'With all the huge manpower resources at my fingertips, eh, Ted?' Kevin said ironically. 'You don't really think he's in any danger, do you? That someone might go after him?'
'I know it's a lot to ask, and I don't know whether I'm just being fanciful, but I really would appreciate it, Kev. It would be a big favour I owe you, one which you can call in at any time,' Ted said.
Kevin sighed resignedly. 'I'll have a quiet word with the lads, see if they can't swing by your place once a day at least. If the Ice Queen should ask I can say we think the dog fighters are starting up again. At least Trev is handy enough to look after himself against your average knuckle-dragging thugs.'
'Trouble is, Kev, I'm not sure that that is all we are up against on this one, which is why I need to go away for a couple of days.'
There was more good news waiting for Ted when he went back up to his office. He had a message to say that a partial print matching one of David Evans had been found on a bedpost in a roomat the Hotel Sorrento. Ted sent young Steve in search of DS Hallam, who was down in one of the interview rooms with Evans, to let him know.
With that and the evidence of the birthmark, if it showed up, they would have another good result today in charging Evans. They had nothing to link him to Aiden but if a search of his computer revealed what Ted expected it to, along with his previous conviction, they had enough to get him sent back down for a long time.
It was another sprat in the net but Ted wanted the mackerel as well and at the moment he didn't know where to begin to haul them in. He made a quick phone call which should both help him and also make sure he was up to the mark for any challenges that still lay ahead.
Mike and Virgil were jubilant when they came back up to the main office later. It was good to see his team members smiling.
'Bingo, sir, Evans has the birthmark,' Mike told him. 'He wasn't a happy bunny when I showed him the photo of him naked in the hotel bedroom with what is clearly an under-age child. I've had him locked up until we know what was found on his computer but I would say we have enough to charge him, whatever shows up.
'He didn't want a solicitor but he is getting more and more insistent that he should speak to you,' Mike added.
'Forget about it, Mike, not going to happen,' Ted told him. 'He's personally known to me, I'm not going to compromise the enquiry by speaking to him. If he wants someone of a senior rank, I'm sure Inspector Turner would be happy to oblige. Good work, both of you. That's a nice result on which to end the day.'
Ted got away as soon as he could, anxious to get home to Trev. He found him sitting on the sofa, watching old films, with the remaining six cats squatting possessively on top of him.
'Sorry I had to leave you,' Ted said as he kissed him. 'Do you want me to cook you something?'
'Thai green curry?' Trev asked with a wan smile. Ted's culinary repertoire was a bit limited and that was about as imaginative as it got. 'I'd like that, if you're not too tired. How was your day?'
'Not bad, as it goes. We have David Evans in custody,' Ted told him.
Trev sat upright and looked at him. 'Wow,' he said. 'No more nightmares?'
Ted smiled back. 'No more nightmares – hopefully.'
CHAPTER Thirty-one
Ted found time to have a quiet word with Rob before the start of the day, to ask him how he was getting on with the counselling he was receiving. The DC certainly looked a lot happier, almost back to his old self, but Ted wanted to check that it was not just bravado on his part.
'It's going well, sir,' Rob told him, as the two of them sat in Ted's office. 'I never thought it would, I was very sceptical about it but I'm glad you sorted it for me. It really has helped. I thought it might be a bit touchy-feely, role-play sort of stuff, and I would have run a mile. But it's just talking, and I've never found the strength to talk about a lot of it before.'
'I'm pleased it's working. I needed to ask if you feel up to doing some of the paperwork on the case now? But please feel free to say no if it's too soon. I may have to go away for a few days next week, and I want to make sure the file on Evans is absolutely right for the CPS.'
'It's fine, boss, I can do that,' Rob assured him. 'It's amazing the difference it's made to me. I'm back on good terms with my mother for the first time in years. When I was a kid I blamed her for putting me into a situation where I got abused. Crazy, I know now. She was very ill, she had no choice.
'But she's much better now and we're in contact again. In fact, I have some good news for her,' Rob said with a smile. 'I haven't told anyone else yet, boss, but I'm going to propose to the girlfriend this weekend. I think now I've got rid of some of the stuff from the past, I may be ready to make a commitment.'
Ted smiled and shook his hand. 'Congratulations, Rob, I'm really pleased for you. Just don't push yourself too far, too soon, please, and remember you can back away from this case at any time you need to.'
Virgil's phone rang while he was working at his desk. He didn't recognise the caller ID on his screen so just said a non-committal 'Hello' as he answered.
'Do they still call you Mr Tibbs?' asked a voice.
Virgil realised at once who it was but searched in vain for the man's real name so instead joked, 'And do they still call you Dickhead?'
The man laughed. 'The word on the street is that you were looking for me. I have to tell you that you were not the only one.'
Virgil immediately became serious. 'Care to tell me more?' he asked.
'I would be happy to do so over a cup of coffee.' He named a supermarket near the town centre and Virgil arranged to meet him there in quarter of an hour, rather surprised at the choice of venue.
Virgil put his head round the boss's door before leaving. 'Just had a call from that homeless man who saw the taxi driver shooting, boss. I left him my card to get in touch and he just did. I'm off to meet up with him in town, see what he has to say.'
Virgil was even more surprised when he arrived at the supermarket. He was looking round the foyer for the unkempt homeless man he remembered from before. Instead he was approached by a smart, cleanly-shaven man in the supermarket's uniform, wearing a badge which an
nounced his name as Nat.
'Good morning, sir, my name is Nat and I am here to help you,' he said, with a broad grin, clearly his scripted speech for supermarket customers. 'This is my break time. Let's get that coffee and I will treat you, in recognition of your kindness to me on our last meeting. Of course, I get staff discount so the offer doesn't amount to much, but it's all I can do at the moment.'
They chose their drinks and took a seat in a quiet corner of the café.
'I have fifteen minutes, so we'd best make it quick,' Nat told him. 'After you spoke to me and left, I went to the nearest coffee place, armed with your kind donation, to thaw out a bit. There's one close by that doesn't refuse admission to the homeless, from where I could keep an eye on my pitch and my pathetic possessions.
'That's when I noticed the motor bike again. Of course, I can't be sure if it was the same bike but it was a big red bike, with two people on it, and it was cruising around the arches, near to the place where I and the others hang out. That's when I decided it was time to find another pitch.'
'Can you tell me anything else at all that might help us?' Virgil asked him. 'It was in daylight this time, I imagine, so could you tell the make of bike or any other distinguishing features?'
'Sadly, as I told you before, bikes were never my thing. Sports cars, yes, I could tell you the make, model and year of manufacture but bikes are a bit too boys' toys for my taste.
'I can tell you that there were two people on the bike. The rider was taller than the pillion passenger, on both occasions, and it was the pillion passenger who shot the man in the taxi. Other than that, I can't tell you any more than I did last time. Dark helmets, dark leathers, and in daylight I could see the visors were dark too.
'That's it, really, I just wanted to tell you that they had come back and were sniffing around after you'd gone. That's what led me to move on, which in turn led to an extraordinary set of circumstances, resulting in the startling metamorphosis you see before you.'
Nat told him that the return of the bike and its riders had made him nervous enough to move to a pitch on the other side of town. On his way there, he had bumped into someone he had known from his previous life but had long since lost touch with. That old friend was shortly leaving to work abroad for a year and had been delighted to let Nat use his flat while he was away, in return for him keeping it in good order and looking after his tropical fish.
'With an address of my own once again, I could take a step back into the world of normality. First I could sign on, then I started job hunting and now I spend my days welcoming people into a supermarket, helping to pack their bags and sometimes carrying the bags back to their cars. So much responsibility!'
He laughed. 'A few years ago, I was handling millions of pounds, every day. Now I work for the minimum wage, I live in a flat I don't own, and won't be able to stay in forever, but strangely I feel happier than I have done in a long time.'
'Well, you certainly look very different from the last time we spoke,' Virgil told him. 'If there really is someone out there looking for you, they're not going to find you easy to recognise.'
'And now my tea break is over, I must get back to my meet and greet duties.' Nat shook Virgil's hand. 'Good luck with your case, Mr Tibbs, I hope you catch the villains.'
Virgil headed back to the office with the latest news for the boss. Ted didn't like the development.
'Do you think this Nat is safe now?' he asked Virgil.
'I didn't recognise him and I'd spoken to him,' he replied. 'With luck, if it really was the same bike again, they were just cruising round to see if there had been any witnesses, and hopefully scare them off. No one could have known I had spoken to him.'
'Unless they were watching while you did. But surely they would have made a clean getaway while they could, rather than hanging around?'
Sal was at his desk in the outer office so Ted went to the door and called him in. There was only one spare chair in the small space so Sal perched on the edge of the boss's desk. There was never any need to stand on ceremony in Ted's presence.
'This is asking a lot, after what happened to the driver, Sal, but we need to try to find out if anyone else knows anything at all about what was going on. If anyone had any idea of what the driver … what was his name?'
'Mohnid Ahmadi,' Sal told him.
'What Mr Ahmadi was up to, where his money was coming from, who his contacts were. Anything. Without putting either yourself or your cousin in danger, Sal, can you find out anything that might give us a lead?'
'I could go in, as a driver …' Sal began but Ted shook his head firmly.
'We've been over this before, Sal. Not yet, not until we know a lot more about who we're dealing with. The more I hear about these people, the more uneasy it makes me. Just find out what you can, without putting yourself or anyone else in danger.'
CHAPTER Thirty-two
There was only one other vehicle in the remote and windswept car park in the Brecon Beacons when Ted pulled up in his Renault, a battered-looking ex-army Land Rover. The man he had come to meet was leaning nonchalantly against it, arms folded.
His only form of greeting to Ted was, 'Leave your mobile in your car or I'll smash it,' closely followed by, 'there's your bergen, Gayboy. Let me know if you need any help picking it up.'
Then he set off in the familiar loose-kneed, rolling gait Ted knew to his cost that the man was capable of keeping up for long hours at a time. Ted lifted the backpack he had left for him, wincing at its weight. It contained far more than the two of them would need for the two to three day training hike Ted had asked for. He strongly suspected there were a couple of house bricks in there as well, to make up the weight, which was probably pushing up above the hundred pound mark.
Ted had first met the man, whose name he knew as Marty Green, when he was a specialist firearms officer, training for a particularly difficult role. Green's job was to teach Ted and other SFOs the basics of survival techniques and also of krav maga. He was the highest-graded instructor of the martial art in Britain. He practised it far beyond its self-defence application to that of deadly unarmed combat. He was also a crack shot with a sniper rifle.
He was ex-SAS and had undertaken all kinds of undercover missions around the world, according to the legends that surrounded him He was always in high demand for special operations because he spoke fluent Russian and Hebrew. Ted, in reality, knew very little for sure about him, and suspected Marty Green was not his real name.
In his training role he showed no respect for anyone of any rank. Ted knew that by comparison with other names he used, his own nickname of Gayboy was so mild as to be almost affectionate. Ted had seen him reduce senior officers of both police and armed forces to tears with his punishing regimes.
Inevitably, on the training courses he'd been on with him, Ted had always been the smallest there and the only gay. He went in with the advantage of already holding several martial arts black belts, including krav maga and he had once, but only once, had Green on the ground with a lucky tackle. He suspected both of these factors contributed to the tiny amount of respect that the man sometimes showed him.
Martial arts gave Ted the safety valve he needed when work became too hard to handle. It was usually krav maga he turned to in order to release the most tension. From time to time he needed to put his body under extreme physical stress, so that his brain could work to its maximum level of efficiency.
This was one of those times and that's what this short training session was all about. That, and the chance to pick the brain of the one person he knew who would probably have at least a good idea of what was going on, possibly even who was involved.
Conversation would be impossible until Green stopped for the night, if indeed he chose to. No matter how hard Ted pushed himself under the energy-sapping weight of the backpack, he seldom got within a few hundred yards of his trainer. He had no choice but to keep on going as he was starting to lose all sense of direction, which he knew was part of the plan.
Finally, just as he was convinced he could go no further and would have to drop to his knees in the damp heather and scattered sheep droppings, Ted crested a small hill and saw ahead of him his trainer-turned-torturer sitting on a large rock, waiting for him.
'What kept you, Gayboy?' was his only comment as Ted staggered up and sank on to a nearby rock, chest heaving He was ready to sob with relief as the rock took the weight of his backpack.
'You said you wanted some serious training,' Marty said dryly. 'I took you at your word.'
Ted nodded, still too out of breath to speak.
'Come on, Gayboy, get the bergen off and the kettle on, then you can tell me what this trip is really all about and what you need to know.'
Freed from the weight of the rucksack, Ted felt trembly all over but got the pack open and broke out the high-speed gas cooker that was conveniently near the top. He'd taken the precaution of stuffing a fistful of his green teabags in his pocket, knowing he would need them.
Over tea, he told Green of his current case. He knew his security clearance was of the highest order so had no concerns about doing so. When he got to the part of describing the break-in at his house and the hanging of the cat, Green let out a snort of derision.
'Bloody theatrical. Something as flashy as that has Spooks written all over it.'
'Security Service?' Ted queried incredulously. 'You really think they're involved?'
'Wake up, Gayboy. You've got a distant royal as a suspect. Who did you think would be watching his back and clearing up behind him, the Brownies?'
'I imagined it was a warning to me to back off, but I wasn't sure who from. Do you think Trevor might be in danger?'
Again, a scornful noise from Green. 'You clearly don't as you've come out here playing soldiers with me and left him on his own. What do you think they might do to your boyfriend? Kill him? Then what hold would they have over you? Kidnap him? They would know it's not in your power to back off from a case like this. I'd say he's safe enough until you get back to hold his hand. Although looking at the soft state you've let yourself get into, we've got an awful lot of work to do, before you are of any real use to him or to anyone else. I thought you kept up your training?'