Ben walked into the restaurant and sat opposite Lawrence Garner. They shook hands across the table, introducing themselves, and Ben ordered a ‘skinny latte’ from the waitress. The man opposite did indeed appear nervous. Ben supposed that Lawrence’s father would cut a more imposing figure. One doesn’t build a business empire without being made of sterner stuff than Lawrence Garner.
“I expect that we’ll have time to get to know one another better some other time,” Ben said, “but for now, please tell me what’s going on.” The other man took a deep breath and rambled through his explanation. Ignoring the times when Lawrence deviated and had to be brought back to the topic, Ben found the story both simple and worrying.
Lawrence explained that Ashley had received a personal call on her land line at five o’clock yesterday evening, and as soon as she hung up the phone she grabbed her coat and informed her PA she had an urgent family matter to attend to, adding that she would be back in the office this morning. Another member of staff saw her negotiating with a cabbie on the rank before climbing into a black cab and heading off towards the City. She had not been seen since. Lawrence shook as he explained that he was becoming increasingly concerned late last night, but before he could continue his story, his mobile rang. The caller was identified as Ashley on his screen. His eyes widened and he could not hide the relief in his voice.
“Ashley, where are you?” Lawrence switched his phone onto the speaker setting so that they could both hear the conversation. The voice at the other end was not Ashley, but rather it was a threatening and dark male voice.
“Is Fogarty there?” The voice was that of Dennis Grierson. Lawrence frowned with puzzlement, his eyes showing both suspicion and bewilderment as he handed the phone to Ben.
“Hello, Dad. How have you been? I trust the leg is festering nicely,” Ben said, his voice thick with irony. His assertive tone and flippant reference to the painful leg injury clearly rattled the old gangster.
“You won’t be so chirpy when I make your sister pay for your insolence,” Grierson snarled. Lawrence was about to butt in, but Ben held up his hand to stop him speaking.
“Come on, Grierson, I know you were never blessed with a great intellect but ask yourself, just how attached do you think I am to a sister I have never met and didn’t even know about until yesterday?” Lawrence looked shocked but Ben mouthed ‘I know what I’m doing’ and Garner relaxed a little.
“You’re bluffing, you Kiwi sod. I think I’ll just spend the night with your sister and then we’ll see how keen you are to get her back. She’ll be soiled goods by then, of course,” Grierson sniggered.
Ben struggled to remain calm. “Two reasons why you might not want to do that, Den; firstly, she is about fifteen years too old for you, you pervert, and second, my new friend Lawrence and I will rain down a shit storm on you that will obliterate you and your gang of pensioned off gangsters. Understand?” There was a moment when it appeared the connection had been lost, but then they heard Grierson’s voice once again.
“I’ll call you tomorrow with instructions, so you had better be in a more cooperative frame of mind.”
Grierson hung up, and the phone confirmed that the caller had disconnected.
“We need to find Ashley as soon as possible, before tomorrow if at all possible. Who knows what that old sod will do?” There was venom in Ben’s voice but it went unnoticed by Lawrence, who seemed to be overwhelmed by the situation. “Have you any idea where Ashley went when she left the office?” Ben asked.
“No. I was told that she chatted to the driver at the head of the rank and then got into the taxi behind and headed off.” Lawrence fell into a mournful silence again, and Ben considered their options.
“Hold on, Lawrence, I have an idea. I’m going outside to talk to the taxi driver.” Ben left Starbucks and headed towards the taxi at the front of the rank. The driver was sitting reading a tabloid newspaper with his door open. Ben approached and smiled.
“Bloody riots! You know who’ll be paying for this lot, don’t you? Yes, that’s right, you and me, the poor bloody taxpayer!” The taxi driver ranted for a moment, then stopped as he realised he had a potential customer and asked, “How can I help you, Guv?”
Ben asked him whether he remembered seeing Ashley the previous evening. He began to describe her, but there was no need as the cabbie interrupted him.
“I know Mrs Morgan well enough. I’ve got a contract with her company. I pick up a lovely disabled lady here every night at five thirty and take her back home to Richmond. Suits me, as it’s usually my last fare before knocking off and I live in Isleworth.” The cabbie could see that he wasn’t making sense to his new companion. “You know, I drop her at Richmond and I’m at home with my feet up in ten minutes. I don’t have to drive half way across London to knock off.”
“Did you see Mrs Morgan last night?” Ben asked, more hopeful now.
“Oh yes. We would have had a nice chat about the bloody Speaker’s wife signing up for Big Brother, the tart, but she was in a hurry and so I put her in Don’s cab and off she went.”
“Do you have a central booking point where they keep records of where each cab goes and when?” Ben recalled that in New York detective dramas this was often a good way to trace people.
“Nah, we’re all independents, mate. There are some computer taxis but most of us like our independence; we don’t want to be told what to do. When my old dad had to be at work at Billingsgate Fish Market every morning at five....”
Ben interrupted. “How would I get in touch with Don, the other cabbie, then?”
“Don’t rightly know. I know he comes into the City from Basingstoke to work evenings and nights, but I don’t know how to contact him. I just see him around.” Ben was becoming frustrated with the garrulous driver. “Anyway, what do you want with Don?”
“I need to know where Mrs Morgan was dropped off yesterday.”
“Oh, I can tell you that.” Ben was incredulous; he began to think the man might be deliberately winding him up. “She asked me to take her to Blackheath, but I couldn’t because I was waiting for my contract run. In any case, it’s miles away, in the wrong direction for me. I live in Isleworth, as you know, and if I’m not home by seven the wife......”
“Did she say where in Blackheath she wanted to go?” Ben interrupted again.
“Of course. She was going to the Princess of Wales pub, overlooking the heath.”
Ben politely took his leave of the talkative cabbie before another conversation could ensue and ran back into Starbucks. Lawrence was texting on his phone.
“I have a lead,” Ben blurted out. “Ashley took a cab to Blackheath, the Princess of Wales pub. Any reason you know of why she might do that?”
“No,” Lawrence answered, looking puzzled. “I don’t recall us ever having been to Blackheath.”
“OK, I’ll take a cab to the Princess of Wales in Blackheath and see what I can find out,” Ben said. “You go to her office and see if you can find any link to Blackheath, maybe check to see if Grierson has any sort of link to Blackheath as well.”
Lawrence left ten pounds on the table and walked out of Starbucks with Ben.
“I’ll call you if I find anything that might help. Be sure to call me, though, if you find her.”
“Will do,” Ben shouted as he stepped into a cab and gave the driver his destination.
***
Forty five minutes and forty pounds later Ben was looking over a huge green space with a white church at its edge. The taxi driver had dropped him at the Princess of Wales pub on the edge of Blackheath common. The pub was plain Georgian design, as was most of Blackheath common, but it had been coated with stucco and was painted white. It looked like a village pub, and indeed the local referred to Blackheath as a village even though it was on the southeast edge of London. Trees overhung a red telephone box and outside groups of adults sat at benches, shaded by patio style umbrellas, drinking lager and cocktails with tiny matching paper umbrellas float
ing beside a cherry.
Ben stepped through the heavy wooden door and approached the bar. A young student with a trendy haircut, beer stained white shirt and dark tie with a huge knot and almost no tail came across to greet him. Ben ordered a pint of shandy and paid the young barman before striking up a conversation.
“Were you serving here last night, Rick?” he asked, deriving the boy’s name from a badge on his shirt.
“Last night and every other night until Uni starts again in October,” he answered in confirmation.
“Did you see a pretty and smart young woman come in? She looks a bit like me; she’s my twin sister.”
Rick looked closely at Ben. “You look familiar, but to be honest I don’t recall seeing anyone like that in here last night, but I’m sometimes called down to the cellar and so I don’t see everyone.”
“Thanks anyway,” Ben said as he sipped his shandy. As he looked around the bar a middle aged man, tough looking, perhaps a manual worker, approached the bar.
“Mine’s a Guinness if you’re buying.” The man was clearly addressing Ben.
“I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you mean,” Ben replied, trying to work out why the man expected a free drink.
“If you want to know where the lady went last night I’d be happy to tell you, but my throat is so parched with this hot weather that....”
“OK, OK, one Guinness coming up.” Ben caught Rick’s attention and made the order. “Now, tell me what you know.”
The two men resiled to a booth near the window and sat opposite one another. After the man raised his glass in salute to his new antipodean benefactor, he told Ben what he knew. According to the man, who introduced himself as Lenny, Ashley had come into the Princess of Wales just before six the previous evening and had ordered a Vodka and tonic. After a short while two men, who ‘looked as though they could handle themselves’ came in, spoke to her for about a minute and she followed them out of the pub.
What the man said was interesting enough, but Ben couldn’t help being distracted by a tiny tattoo of a teardrop under the man’s left eye. The man saw him looking. “Oh, that. The wife and I lost our first. Lovely little girl, never reached three, though. She was a sickly child but when she died I didn’t cope well. I went out one night and got completely drunk. When I woke up, I’d got this keepsake.” Ben didn’t know what to say, and so he picked up his shandy and took a long drink.
“Did you see where they went? Did they get into a car, anything like that?” Ben asked.
“No, I didn’t see where they were headed.” Lenny sipped his Guinness. He studied Ben’s reaction carefully, noting the look of disappointment on his face. He took another mouthful of Guinness, and then added, “But I know where they went.”
“Really? How do you know?” Ben tried not to sound too hopeful.
“Because those two were in and out of the Rectory day and night while the renovations were going on. I was the electrician on the job.”
“And where is the Rectory, Lenny?” Ben asked. Lenny looked out of the window and pointed across the common to a series of buildings probably half a mile away.
“Over there, that’s Blackheath Vale. See those trees? Behind them is the C of E School and beside it is an old brick house. It has four floors; cellars, raised ground floor, first floor and attic rooms. It’s a big old house.”
“Who owns it?”
“Don’t rightly know. It did belong to some property developers but they went bust. Now, who knows? Some rich banker, I expect. Must be worth the neck end of a million around here.”
Ben knew that he had to get a look inside that Rectory. Ashley was in there, he could feel it in his bones.
***
The New Zealander walked across the great expanse of green and headed towards the Rectory, feeling somewhat exposed. The good thing was that the Rectory was shrouded in its summer foliage and no one looking out would be able to see as far as the common.
When he reached Duke Humphrey Road he turned left, away from the Rectory and towards two Georgian red brick semi detached houses that also had three floors above ground. Between these houses and the Rectory stood a modern building which housed a school. It was deserted, as it was August. Ben walked around it, in the hope that he could find a way into the Rectory from the rear, but he soon determined that there was no direct access to the property other than from the front.
Concealed by the school and the trees for the most part, Ben stealthily worked his way to the Rectory. There was a brick wall with a gap where a gate had once hung and a path leading to five concrete steps up to the front door. Ben stood in concealment for a full five minutes before deciding that no one was looking out of the front windows. He darted in through the gate and ran to the left hand side of the house, where he was now under the cover of more dense foliage. A gate into the rear garden stood open, and so he deftly slipped through it, making no noise. He was now at the back of the house overlooking a huge private garden, which seemed out of place on the edge of the metropolis. A quick look showed him that a kitchen door and French windows at the back of the house were closed, but some of the windows were open. It was, after all, a hot summer’s day.
Ben sneaked towards one of the open windows and crouched beneath the sill. He flapped away the wasp buzzing around his head. He could hear voices clearly now, drifting out into the still, hot air. Certain that he could not be seen, he peeked in through the window. The room was some form of formal sitting room with heavy furnishings and period decorations. Bingo!” he thought, as he watched the proceedings inside the room. A seated Dennis Grierson groped his twin sister in a way a father never should. Pulling Ashley towards him, Grierson pulled her head down and kissed her passionately as she tried to recoil. As she pulled away, Grierson grabbed her hair and pulled her head down towards his groin, reaching for his zipper.
“That’s enough, Grierson!” Ben recognised the tremulous voice which was tinged with fear and loathing. “I’ve done what you asked. Let Ashley go.” Grierson laughed as Lawrence Garner moved into Ben’s field of view to take his wife’s hand.
“Shit!” Ben muttered as he realised his schoolboy error. He turned to his right to see Lenny looking at him and grinning.
“Thanks for the drink, mate,” Lenny scoffed as he fired the taser into Ben’s chest.
Chapter 18
New Scotland Yard, London.
Tuesday 16th August 2011, 6pm.
DCI Coombes and DS Scott had been invited to the six o’clock meeting in the special operations room on the ground floor. The decor was trendy Metropolitan Police chic, with pale blue walls and inoffensive light blue carpeting. The furniture was uniformly light grey with dark blue upholstery, the briefing desk and lectern were the same style but they were finished in an oak coloured veneer rather than the grey melamine on the other tables.
The walls were liberally covered with full colour posters, their messages ranging from bleak warnings about contracting Hepatitis B and Aids from concealed needles to motivational posters showing fully uniformed policemen walking into some brighter tomorrow. Every poster was branded with the Metropolitan Police logo.
“We could have another five hundred police in London if we didn’t have to pay Saatchi and Saatchi for these useless posters,” DCI Coombes observed as the room filled. Scott and Coombes were sitting at the back of the room in the section reserved for observers, and to amplify the point a young man in a suit placed a card on the table in front of them that read ‘OBSERVERS’. He smiled at them somewhat absently as he whizzed off to his next important assignment. DCI Coombes groaned audibly, and Scott shook with restrained laughter.
The room was filling with plain-clothes police officers from the Drugs squad and the London Gangs Initiative. On the screen was a PowerPoint presentation that scrolled through the Met’s mission statements relating to ‘empowering communities’, ‘Substance Free London’ and ‘Protecting the marginalised in a multicultural society.’ Currently the slide showed a blue Metropo
litan Police master slide with a statement in white text.
“The MPS Drug Strategy 2010-13 'Confident, Safe and secure' has now been launched. This sets out our strategic aims and supporting delivery plan to tackle the threat and harm caused by drugs across London. It provides a framework in which our resources can be used to tackle the demand posed by drugs.”
“Bloody hell! Did you notice, Scott, not a single mention of policing on the slide?”
The next slide slid in from the side of the screen.
“Our performance in achieving the strategic objectives across the key activity areas will be measured through the level of public confidence and satisfaction within our communities.”
“Please start the briefing, before we all die from jargon poisoning,” Coombes begged, and almost immediately he was granted his wish as three uniformed officers walked into the room in order of time served. Each carried an identical blue folder. All three were Assistant Commissioners; the two women headed up Specialist Crime and Special Operations, whilst their male counterpart was responsible for Territorial Policing.
The most senior officer, AC Penelope Thomas, sat in the centre, flanked by her two colleagues. Sitting down to address the gathering of around fifty male and female police officers, AC Thomas read from a prepared script.
“Colleagues, since the early 1980s we have faced problems policing the large development that became known as the Broadwater Farm Estate. Whilst I was not in the service at the time, as a University student I was aware that there had been errors of judgement in the way the area was policed. Many of those mistakes have been officially recorded and apologies made, and now we have a strong link with the communities in the area.
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