by Robert White
“When was this?” I asked.
“Two weeks ago…maybe more. Anyway, I come here to the house, but Spiros… he’s gone. So, I take a few of our guys and we search his study… everywhere, for this envelope…for anything to do with Goldsmith, but there is nothing. We even check his computer.”
Des took advantage of being out in the open and pulled out his dreadful pipe. He spoke as he prodded tobacco into the small bowl.
“And you don’t think Spiros…your brother…I mean…there’s no possibility he’s just…lost the plot and done one?”
Kostas looked about him for a second time, removed one hand from his pocket and pulled out a small object with wires attached.
“When we search and clean the house, we find this.”
I took it from him, and removed the battery.
Des picked the unit from my hand, held it between thumb and forefinger and took a closer look.
Once he was happy he’d correctly identified the device, he lit his pipe and blew a plume of blue smoke into the night.
“You sure you’ve searched all the house for your brother, Kostas?” he asked.
The Greek gave a withering look. “Positive. My brother is not here.”
Des looked like some kind of stage hypnotist, as he dangled the small black object by its two wires in front of Kostas’s face, I almost expected Debbie McGee to dance down the drive in a fuckin’ leotard.
“Where’d you find this wee baby?” he asked.
Kostas stepped back to regain his personal space. “Inside a cigarette packet… in the trash…the litter bin…in my brother’s study.”
Des eyed him. “You know what it is?”
Kostas turned down the corners of his mouth and gave a trademark Corfiot shrug. “Of course, I know, you think I’m stupid? You think we are amateurs here? It is a bug, a listening device.”
“So,” says Des. “I’m sure the man who planted this wee packet, is looming large on your rather posh CCTV system.”
Kostas waved a hand. “Maybe, you can look, the system is very complicated and need passwords I don’t have.”
Des threw the item to me. I caught it and slipped it into my jeans. They were Diesel, but last season’s cut, as I considered we may end up searching the house ourselves, and I had no intention of ripping my latest pair.
On cue, the Scot confirmed my suspicions. He turned to the Greek. “So, you won’t be minding if we have a look around then, pal?”
Des Cogan’s Story:
I’d never consider myself a detective, or even a run of the mill plod type, but I knew a few basics. I’d had a mate who’d joined the Met after he’d done a nine in the Paras, and he’d swapped a tale or two with us over a pint and a curry when I lived up north.
One thing I did know was that in the event of a missing person, the first job the cops did was search the home address, and I mean, everywhere.
The cellar, the cupboards, wardrobes, loft, you name it, they look. The reasoning being that one in every ten missing persons are found in their own gaff.
Weird eh?
Well, not as weird as you think, as those statistics often involve small children and teenagers. Oh, and dead people.
Under normal circumstances, you would say, Spiros was a grown man, and perfectly capable of looking after himself. Even if he’d been sniffing around where he wasn’t wanted, asking questions about dead gangsters, it wasn’t the end of the world.
In all probability, the most likely explanation for his disappearance was because he’d suffered a massive blow in his life, he’d lost a child, and his head had gone. He was depressed, not receiving medication and vulnerable. Anyone with any common sense would reckon he was entitled to fall apart and do a dusty.
But they’d be wrong though, eh?
The moment I saw the wee gadget the Greek boy was holding in his hand, my heart sank.
That little homemade bug and transmitter gave a whole new meaning to the mystery.
The first time I’d seen one, was in the early eighties. The Det guys used them over the water in Northern Ireland. The Det, otherwise known as 14 Intelligence Company, a unit set up and trained by the SAS to find out what the naughty Irish terrorists were planning next, used these little babies on a daily basis back then.
The boys from 14 Intelligence were recruited from all areas of the armed forces, and were either very brave or very crazy.
They wandered in and out of the most dangerous clubs and bars of Belfast, looking like someone out of Status Quo, and dropping fag packets everywhere.
It was a simple ploy, if you had the balls.
First, nip into the ‘Flying Bottle,’ some PIRA or UFF stronghold, where the jolly locals would kneecap you just for ordering the wrong fucking lager.
Next, insist on zero close military backup, just in case the locals got the jitters.
Then, sidle up to a known player of some repute, casually finish your pint of Harp, and chuck your ‘empty’ fag packet into the ashtray in front of him.
The beauty of the fag packet bug, was its simplicity. The Det guys used to make their own they were so basic.
The things only worked for about twenty minutes, and transmitted barely fifty feet or so. But the beauty was, you could sit outside the boozer in your Vauxhall Cavalier, without any other kit, tune your car radio to medium wave and hear every word the bastards said till the waitress emptied the ashtray or the battery ran out.
So, what did Detective Des deduce from this mine of information?
Well...
Firstly, the Det had long since been disbanded, and any modern spy worth his salt would have far more sophisticated tools at his or her disposal. Therefore, the person in question, the dropper of the bugged cigarette packet, was old school, probably from the developing world of surveillance. At a guess, I’d say, Chechnyan, Serbian, or maybe even Albanian.
If Makris had some information that one of the aforementioned groups of psychotic gangsters wanted, it meant our Greek forger friend was in the deepest shit
And that was not good.
It took us over two hours to search the house from top to bottom. Finally, we stepped out into the night, sweating and dusty. Rick had managed to get grease on his shirt and was close to breaking point.
He stood a strategic ten feet away from me as I lit up, rubbing his sleeve angrily. The birds had gone to bed and all I could hear was distant traffic.
Rick looked about him, resigned to throwing his hundred and twenty quid designer number in the bin. “He must have taken his little green car,” he said absently.
I inhaled gratefully and tapped my temple with my finger. “We didn’t check the garage…where is the fuckin’ garage anyway?”
Rick turned on his heels. “Around the back.”
This garage was bigger than my fuckin’ house, built out of the same brick as the main building; it sported an impressive slate roof, and boasted not one but three remote-controlled up and over doors.
They were locked and we had no way in.
“I’ll ask Kostas if he has a remote,” said Rick.
Whilst he sought out the brother, I inspected each metal garage door in turn, running my fingers around the edges. Finally, I put my nose to the gap between one door and the brickwork and took a good old sniff.
Taking a step away, and emptying my nostrils as best I could, I managed to keep my spicy pizza down, but only just.
We’d found Spiros alright.
Rick Fuller’s Story:
I clicked the remote with a heavy heart. Kostas stood by my side, his eyes fixed on the heavy, garage door. As we’d suspected, the electric motor slowly whirred to reveal a battered Ford Ka.
I stepped forward. Flies buzzed from somewhere inside the little vehicle, and the smell…well, there is nothing else in the world like it. Death has got its own personal aroma.
Kostas stayed put. His voice about to break. “You…you look, Richard,” he said.
I looked.
Spiros Makris w
as sitting in the driver’s seat, bolt upright, seatbelt fastened. The two front windows of the car were rolled down. The reek of exhaust fumes fought for precedence over the stench of rotting flesh.
I trod ever closer.
Where you find flies, you find maggots.
They take the eyes and the tongue first. It’s their gateway, their roadmap, to your insides, your brain, your lungs, your last meal.
Des joined me and grimaced. “He’s been here a wee while, but no two weeks. It’s been warm for close on a month now. With the temperatures we’ve had, I’d be guessing a week tops.”
I nodded, steeled myself against the stink and pushed my head inside the window. Horrible tiny popping sounds emanated from Spiros’s skull, and I could only imagine what was going on inside.
The little Ford’s keys were in the ignition and had been left in the second position. The car had been running until it ran out of fuel, the battery flattened.
Spiros had indeed been asphyxiated. Even in his state of decomposition, his lips were blue. Everything pointed to a suicide…well, not quite everything.
I stepped toward the fresh air, and pulled on the open, up and over garage door. It didn’t budge.
I had confirmation.
There was no remote on Spiros’s car keys.
Meaning?
Meaning, he couldn’t have closed the garage door without one.
There was an emergency button on the inside of the garage to let you out, but no manual means of closing the doors. I’d just tried it.
It had to be closed by the remote, and Kostas had found that in Spiros’s study.
Therefore, I now knew one thing for certain, Spiros did not die alone.
Another deep breath, and a quick look around his neck and throat for any kind of injury, revealed nothing.
Noting the sound of leather on gravel, I looked up to see Kostas making his way toward the garage.
Without me saying a word, Des stepped away, grabbed Kostas by the arm and led him toward the house. This was not the way to remember your brother.
I had one last look, said goodbye to my friend, and called the cops.
Lauren North’s Story:
I woke with a stiff neck and a banging head. Whatever was in those pills the doctor had given me knocked me out, but left me feeling like I’d had a night on the tiles with the England rugby team.
My phone flashed silently on the bedside cabinet. I opened Rick’s text message.
Dinner’s off for a while. Meet at the office, 0900hrs
Checking my watch, I realised I had three hours.
As my surgeon had suggested, I ran until the pain was too great. That said, I’d managed 10k for the first time since I’d sustained my injuries. The natural endorphins that my body produced during strenuous exercise were better than any drug. I showered, changed, and caught a cab to the city. Even though the workout had made me feel slightly better, the closer I got to our office, the more my stomach tightened. As much as I wanted normality, my head wasn’t going to make this easy.
Following Rick’s very disappointing text, I’d had a short and rather stilted conversation with him. It appeared, due to recent events, our romantic meal for two was most definitely off...for now at least.
He’d given me a quick brief about his and Des’s visit to Hale, and I wasn’t at all impressed.
On my arrival at our office, I found that we’d inherited a dippy receptionist by the name of Estelle.
Des and JJ had figured that leaving a temp in charge of our body-guarding business whilst Rick and I had convalesced was a good idea. This was anything but the case. We’d gone from clearing four grand a week each, to practically zero.
Ours was a hands-on business, clients needed guarding there and then, not next week or next month.
With that in mind, I’d figured it was time to knuckle down, put the past behind us, and concentrate on building what we’d started. It would help the business, our bank balance, and my head.
As the four of us settled into a room I’d previously used to interview our clients, Estelle brought coffee and croissants. It was the first time she’d seen Rick, and I noticed her eye him appreciatively as she handed him his black Americano.
I smiled at her and waited until she had closed the door.
“Pretty girl,” I commented.
None of the boys answered. They just munched away and slurped their Neros.
Feeling slightly stupid at my immature comment, and realising I wasn’t going to get a response, I changed the subject to the matter at hand, the reason we had been summoned.
The unexplained death of Spiros Makris.
“So, you didn’t stay around until the police came?” I asked.
“Nah,” said Des, “I had the CCTV module away, and we were on our toes like.”
I found it hard to hide my irritation.
“Don’t you think stealing the CCTV unit was a bad idea? I mean, wouldn’t whatever was on that hard drive be better in the hands of the law…in the hands of the people that are paid to investigate this kind of thing?”
Des immediately fed on my exasperation, his tone sharp and dismissive. “We didnae steal the unit, Lauren, Kostas wanted us to take it. It’s him that wants us to look into this…this, wee incident.
And he’s paying a very healthy fee for the privilege too, I may add.”
“Well isn’t that nice,” I said rather too bitterly. “We certainly need the money, looking at our books.”
JJ was calm. “This can be fixed, Lauren, now we are all together again, we can build things, yes?”
I didn’t know what was coming over me, but I was unable to control myself. My anger boiled.
“Okay, Spiros may have been Rick’s friend, and Kostas is paying us well, but we have a business here. We can’t expect to make a profit, and just run it as and when we feel like it. I mean, what exactly are we? Are we a body-guarding business, or are we private investigators?”
I found myself waving my arms around like a demented TV chef. Maybe I should have taken my meds before I set off.
“I’ll tell you what I think. Well, I don’t think, I know this for a fact.” I pointed. “You lot… can’t let it this shit go, can you? You can’t leave it alone for one fucking second…any of you.
You crave the guns, the bombs, the bullets…”
I added a good dose of sarcasm to my tone. I was going overboard and I knew it, but I just couldn’t stop.
“Well you aren’t Special Forces anymore, boys. You are civilians, just like me.”
Des squirmed in his seat holding his tongue, whereas my mouth ran away with itself.
“As for you, Rick, all those big ideas back in Abu Dhabi, it was just bollocks, wasn’t it? As soon as the opportunity arrived, it was any excuse to get the Glock out, play soldier again, and fuck the consequences.”
I grabbed my croissant from the table and tore into it. My hands were shaking.
“And this.” I spat flakes onto the table. “This whole business now…If you want my opinion…well it’s just another fucking revenge mission.”
I felt a hollow laugh emanate from my throat.
“And you are so into those, aren’t you, Rick?”
Rick drained his coffee and caught my eye. Those beautiful chocolate pools of colour were flat and lifeless. I’d seen the look before. That night in Belfast, the night we went to the Nest bar across the street from the Merchant Hotel. The night of the, ‘I’m not Cathy’ conversation.
I felt a prick of conscience.
There was menace somewhere inside him, and I got the impression that had I been male, I would have been a bloody mess on the carpet.
Silence fell on the group, a tight, uncomfortable silence, nobody willing to break it.
Finally, Rick laid his hands flat on the table and took a deep breath.
Everyone else released theirs.
“Okay, okay, we all know what’s going on here. Just sit back a minute, Lauren, just take a breath. We know, y
ou’re struggling.”
He addressed JJ and Des in turn. “And we’ve all been through it… eh, boys?”
Both nodded.
I felt a bead of sweat drip down my back.
Des did his best. “They used to call it ‘shell shock,’ in the first war,” he babbled. “Fuck me, they shot dozens of lads at the battle of the Somme thinking…”
“We know your problem, Lauren, and we want to help,” chipped JJ.
Rick leaned in. “We have all been touched by this…this disease, this syndrome, whatever you want to call it. What about me, eh?” He pointed at his chest. “Yeah, me, you know I was there, in that fucking horrible dark place. You of all people know I had the dreams, the flashbacks…. Look, what I’m trying to say is…stop fighting us. We want to help you get to the other side.”
Lifting his cup to his lips, he realised he’d finished it already and dropped it on the table. Rick spread his palms, exasperation in his voice.
“Look, are we… are we all okay here?”
My heart raced so hard I could feel each beat in my head. Finally, I managed,
“…Yes…sorry…we are okay…but can I ask one thing?”
Rick eyed me suspiciously. “Go on.”
“Do you think the cops will come to the same conclusion as you? The conclusion that Spiros was murdered?”
Rick paused. “No.”
“And why is that?” I asked.
He held his chin and stared at the table in front of him.
“Because someone doesn’t want them to.”
I raised a quizzical eyebrow. “And that someone…is who we’re looking for?”
As was his wont, Rick ignored my question and instead addressed us all.
“I believe Spiros Makris was murdered, because he found evidence that Stephan Goldsmith is still alive.”