‘That’s the man,’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘It looks like him, even with the shades, and anyway, I could not miss that jacket or that cap.’
‘Good lad,’ the DCC told Adrian. ‘Now, get the images as sharp as you can, then print them out as big as you can. We’ll still have to look at the lot, just in case there is someone else on that flight who’s been to the same bar, but I don’t expect to find him.’
It took twenty minutes to print the images, then to run fruitlessly through the remaining passengers; to the Scots it seemed like much longer, but finally the line ended, and the aircrew were seen to leave, rolling bags behind them. ‘Thanks,’ said Skinner. ‘Now I want to see everybody embarking for Edinburgh, same day, on the twelve-fifteen BA shuttle. Can you do that?’
‘On an internal flight, probably not, but I should be able to find something from the security area.’ He exited the tape and entered a ‘search’ command, with date and time. Seconds later a new location appeared, showing passengers stepping through a metal detector as their carry-on luggage was X-rayed. ‘I’m starting two hours before flight time,’ Adrian explained. ‘Generous, but now that I know who I’m looking for I can run it through fast. Go and get yourselves coffee from our filter, if you like.’
‘I could use some,’ McGuire admitted. ‘Where is it?’
‘In the kitchen, just round the corner. Leave twenty pence in the saucer, like we do.’
‘Leave forty pence and bring me one,’ said Skinner.
‘Actually . . .’ Adrian called out, as McGuire left.
When he found the coffee-maker, the jug was empty, and so he had to brew a fresh batch. There was no change in the saucer, and so he left a pound coin: being Scottish, he poured five cups and carried them back to the work-station on a tray. ‘I put milk in yours, Adrian, okay?’
No reply came: he looked up and saw Skinner and the technician staring at the monitor, at a still figure framed there, clad in a denim jacket and a garish baseball cap, with half of his face hidden by a pair of wrap-round sunglasses.
‘Bugger,’ the DCC whispered.
McGuire laid down the tray and peered at the screen, for thirty seconds or more. ‘Let me see him move,’ he said eventually. Adrian rewound the recording and played it, at normal speed, until the man had moved out of shot, with a flight bag over his shoulder. ‘Again.’ The recording was repeated.
‘What are you thinking?’ Skinner asked.
‘There’s something wrong. I don’t know what it is; maybe it’s the way he moves. Have you called up prints?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Let’s have a look at one; front view only this time.’
Again they waited as Adrian went back to find the best available image of the man, then sharpened it and sent a command to the networked printer. When the picture was ready, he picked it off the output tray and laid it on the desk beside the others.
‘Same build,’ McGuire admitted, ‘same height, same overall appearance. If only he wasn’t wearing those fucking sunglasses.’
‘Exactly,’ said Skinner. ‘It never gets too bright in the departures hall, as I recall.’ He gazed at the images, until ... ‘Hey,’ he exploded suddenly. ‘Do you think that, between calling in on his folks and going to catch the Edinburgh flight, Dražen had time to get married?’
‘What?’
’Look at the pictures. The Dražen who got on the shuttle is wearing a wedding ring; the other one isn’t. That’s not an item you wear as costume jewellery, is it?’
’No, and Dražen isn’t married. We’ve got him,’ McGuire exclaimed.
‘Not quite,’ the DCC replied, bringing them both down to earth in a hurry. ‘That isn’t enough to put to a jury. We haven’t proved anything, until we find out who this man is, and get him to admit being Dražen’s double on the Edinburgh flight.’
‘Damn it, you’re right,’ the chief superintendent conceded. He stared at the second image, as if willing himself to recognise the man; for a moment, he felt a click in his memory, but just as quickly it was gone.
‘It’s a step forward. We do know for sure now, even if we can’t take it forward. Let’s see if Sammy has any more for us.’
He picked up Adrian’s phone once more and dialled Pye; this time he switched on speaker mode so that McGuire could hear. ‘Anything fresh?’ he asked, without preliminaries.
‘Department of Transport have coughed up those photos, sir. Griff and Tarvil both say that one of them is Dražen Boras.’
‘Sammy,’ the head of CID interrupted, ‘I’d like you to forward them to my e-mail. I can log on from down here.’
‘Okay, sir. I’ll send it right now.’
‘Not it, all three.’
‘Okay. I’m still working on those airfield locations. The plane has the range to make it to Northumberland and back, no problem.’
‘Carry on with that,’ Skinner told him, ‘but send those images first. So long for now.’
They sat for a few minutes, drinking their coffee. As the DCC picked up his second cup, he realised that Adrian was looking at him. ‘I’ve seen you before,’ said the MI5 officer, quietly.
‘I’ll bet you see a hell of a lot of people in the course of your working day.’
‘I mean that I’ve seen you in here, a few months ago, around the time of that business with Rudy Sewell.’ He sighed. ‘Poor old Rudy.’ Skinner looked at him impassively. ‘He was well liked in here, you know.’
‘I’m sure he was,’ the Scot replied. ‘I met him once up in Edinburgh; decent guy. What happened to him?’ His question was a warning and the other man read it correctly. It meant ‘subject closed’.
‘Adrian,’ said McGuire. ‘I’d like to log on to my internal e-mail from here. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘If you give me the IP address I can call up your system, then you can enter your own password.’
The head of CID knew the sequence of numbers off by heart; he recited them then watched as they were keyed in and the force Intranet homepage appeared on screen. The technician rolled his chair back from the desk. ‘It’s all yours,’ he said.
McGuire entered his user name and password, then went straight to his mailbox. It contained several new items, but he went straight to the most recent, from Sammy Pye, at the top of the list, and clicked on it. There was no text, only an attachment, named as ‘Barnes.MOT.zip’. He opened it and saw three small images in a strip. ‘Adrian,’ he asked, without looking round, ‘how do I blow these up to workable size and display them side by side?’ He followed the instructions as they were given, one by one, until three faces, all clearly recognisable, appeared on the big widescreen monitor.
The David Barnes on the right wore a beard, and looked to be at least forty. ‘That’s Dražen on the left,’ said the chief superintendent.
‘Yes,’ Skinner whispered. ‘He’s not a lot like his father, but the look in his eyes gives him away. And what about the one in the middle?’
McGuire looked at the third image, and his mouth fell open. ‘Jesus, we know him! That’s Davor Boras’s driver. And do you know what, boss? He was polishing that windscreen left-handed, and he was wearing a wedding ring. I can see it, clear as a bell.’
Skinner laughed, shattering the library quiet of the room and causing heads to turn. ‘How fucking cute can you get?’ he exclaimed. ‘When Dražen anglicised his name, everybody must have assumed that he chose one with the same initials. But that wasn’t what he was doing. He was taking a new identity that would prove useful to him, copied from someone he knew and who could act as his double when necessary. Adrian,’ he pointed at the centre of the screen, ‘I want to know everything about this David Barnes, family background, address, the lot. I want all his secrets, all his weaknesses.’
‘That’s not what I do, Bob.’
‘But can you do it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then help us with this, please. Call Amanda for authorisation if you must, but do it.’
‘It’s al
l right. I have the clearance. Leave it with me.’
‘Good lad.’ He turned to McGuire, as Adrian resumed his place at the keyboard. ‘We’re getting there, mate.’
‘Could it have been him?’ asked the chief superintendent. ‘Could it have been this guy who went to Wooler?’
‘What about the ring?’
’You said yourself, that’s not conclusive. Maybe Dražen is into wearing gold knuckledusters.’
Skinner frowned, then leaned across the desk, picked up the phone, dialled and waited. ‘Arthur,’ he exclaimed, ‘DCC here. Remember that letterbox in Wooler? The final part of the set-up, looping the wire round the door handle: how difficult was that when you did it? . . . Very? That’s what I hoped you’d say. So, in your opinion, could it have been done by someone who was naturally left-handed? . . . Hah! Thanks.’
He hung up and turned back to McGuire. ‘I quote the mad Dorward: it would have been impossible to do it left-handed unless you were standing on your head: you’d have had to reach too far through the letterbox.’ He shifted impatiently in his seat, then stood. ‘Get back on to Sammy: see how he’s done, whether he has anything fresh. I’m going upstairs. Adrian, what’s the pass-code to get back in?’
‘That’s classified.’
‘Son, it’s changed every fucking week. I know that.’
The man sighed. ‘Okay. It’s one seven zero eight.’
The DCC left the unit and took the lift back to the top floor, where the director general’s imperious secretary, a holdover from her predecessor’s time, granted him admission to her office. ‘Do you have what you need?’ Dennis asked.
’Most of it. I’m on the way to knowing how Dražen killed Ballester and Stevie, and why. It wasn’t just about revenge: he also wiped out any information he might have had on Boras’s operation.’
‘Knowing is one thing, Bob. Proving . . .’
‘Teach your granddad, love,’ he said, and winked. ‘I’ll bet you have this conversation wiped from the tape. To prove it, I need to lift someone; I could use the Met to do it, but that would get messy. I’d need to take him to one of their stations, but that would be on the record and all sorts of questions would be asked.’
She laughed. ‘You are a master of manipulation,’ she exclaimed. ‘What’s the man’s name?’
‘David Barnes.’
‘David . . . Isn’t that . . .?’
’Dražen’s alias; that’s right. The other David is Boras’s driver. It’s a nice arrangement, I’d guess, if Dražen ever needs to be in two places at once. Wherever Davor is, his driver will be, and since he never seems to stray far from his inner sanctum in the City, you should be able to pick him up from the garage below it. He’ll probably be polishing the boss’s Roller.’
‘Okay. There’s a house we use in Clapton; you can interrogate him there, but please leave him in one piece.’
‘We’ll have to; with a bit of luck his boss will never know he’s been gone.’
‘I’ll get it under way.’ She smiled as he rose to leave. ‘About the tape: one thing that people in intelligence learned from Richard Nixon was to be sure you have an off switch.’
Skinner was still smiling as he made his way back to Adrian’s desk. ‘There you are,’ said the operative, holding out a two-page document. ‘David Barnes, his life and loves. Memorise it, then shred it, please. It can’t leave the building.’
‘I know. Thanks.’ He turned to McGuire. ‘Any more from Sammy?
‘Well, he says that Ray Wilding’s a happy boy: he’s just arrived back from the airport with Becky Stallings. He tells me she’s looking pretty pleased with herself too.’
‘Which flight did she catch?’
‘The first one. It’s taken them two and a half hours to get back to the office.’
‘I don’t want to know. Apart from that?’
‘He’s found an airfield. It’s just west of the A1 north of Newcastle; it’s a wartime RAF place that reverted to the farm from which it was requisitioned. It was kept in operational condition and the present owner runs it commercially. It’s called Walkdean.’
‘How far from Wooler?’
‘Forty-five minutes by car, Sammy says.’
‘Would the Beechcraft be able to land there?’
‘Easy.’
‘But how the hell would he get a car? They didn’t have time to get one there, and a hire vehicle would be traceable.’ Skinner scratched his chin. ‘You know, Mario,’ he murmured, ‘I reckon it’s time to let our friends in the north in on a bit of what’s happening.’
Seventy-seven
Deputy Chief Constable Les Cairns smiled as the Land Rover edged along the narrow road. He was a countryman at heart, and so he snapped up any excuse to escape from the city, and from his office in Ponteland.
He liked a bit of mystery too. Much earlier in his police career, he had been a detective constable in Special Branch, and he had enjoyed the cachet that the posting gave him among his professional peers. Since attaining command rank, he had been confined to the office; he was envious of people like Bob Skinner, mavericks who had the balls to write their own job descriptions once they had made it to the heights.
Actually, when he thought about it, there was only one Bob Skinner. Even in England he was legendary, although in some eyes notorious, for his ability to delegate and yet still manage to stay involved. Cairns had seen the man for himself a few days before, and he had to admit, he had an air about him, a compelling friendliness, yet with menace close to the surface.
His call had come entirely out of the blue, and it had been intriguing. His request was simple, investigate and report, to be carried out by someone with Special Branch clearance, with nothing on paper. The temptation had been too much to resist and, anyway, the place was not all that far from HQ. He had called up his favourite car and driver, harbouring a strong feeling that Skinner had guessed he would.
He gazed ahead until, around a slow right curve, he saw an old finger-pointing road sign that read ‘Walkdean’. ‘That’s us,’ he murmured.
His driver turned off the road and into a track that led through a copse and opened out into flat countryside. Around half a mile away, Cairns could see a line of grey wooden huts, two tall hangars and what appeared to be a parking area for cars and microlight aircraft. Beyond, rising above them all, there was a control tower, and to the right, on the other side of the landing strip, two squat round tanks, which he assumed contained aviation fuel. ‘Find the office,’ he instructed.
It was easy enough. As they drew closer he saw a sign fixed to the side of the first hut: ‘Walkdean Airfield. Leisure flying and general aviation. Enquire within.’ They pulled up at the door, and the deputy chief stepped out, buttoning the tweed jacket that he had picked up on the way out to disguise what was clearly a uniform shirt.
Two steps led up to a door marked ‘office’. He opened it and went inside.
‘Morning,’ a woman greeted him brightly. ‘Welcome to Walkdean. I’m Chloë Ritter, proprietor. How can I help you?’
‘Les Cairns,’ he said, shaking her hand and finding her grip as strong as his. ‘Northumbria Constabulary.’
‘What have we done?’
‘Nothing, I hope,’ he replied, the police-punter cliché conversation. ‘I’d like to ask you a couple of questions, that’s all.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Thanks. What sort of traffic do you get through here?
‘It varies; it’s mostly hobby flying, but we do get some commercial landings. There are a few swish resort hotels in the area and they use us when guests want to fly in, for golfing weekends or whatever. I keep hoping that a helicopter firm will decide to base itself here but, to be honest, I think we’re on the wrong side of Newcastle for that.’
‘Did you have anyone land last Saturday?’
She nodded. ‘The usual swarm of microlights, Mr Alexander in his Piper and, oh, yes, the Beechcraft.’
‘What was that?’ Cairns asked.
; ‘A Beechcraft Bonanza, twin-prop; a cracking little plane, although it’s bigger than it looks in terms of payload.’
‘Were you expecting it?’
‘No, it wasn’t booked in. He came on radio asking for landing clearance and my husband gave him the okay; he was in the control tower at the time.’
‘Family business?’
‘Yes. We own all the land around here, but the farming operation is all tenanted now. This is what we like doing.’
‘Did you see the pilot?’
‘Yes, I did. As soon as he had parked and offloaded his motorcycle he came across, paid his landing fee, and roared off. We’re a cash-only business,’ she added.
‘His motorcycle?’
‘Yes. I’ve seen that before. People fly in from other cities, land here and then bike it into Newcastle. Some even use pedal cycles.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘I’m afraid not. I never saw his face close up. He was wearing his crash helmet when he came in here, and when he came back, it was my turn to be up in the control tower, shepherding the microlights.’
‘Would your husband have seen him?’
‘I doubt it. The guy rode straight up to the plane, loaded the bike, up its little ramp, then climbed inside. He had to wait for take-off clearance, in the queue with the flying sewing-machines, but he got off all right.’
‘He didn’t refuel?’
‘Obviously he didn’t need to. Bonanzas have a range of around eight hundred miles with a low payload, as this chap had.’
‘Right,’ said Cairns. ‘That’ll be all, Mrs Ritter. You’ve been very helpful.’
‘My pleasure, but can you tell me what it’s all about? Has he crashed, or was he doing something illegal?’
He would have answered her question, but he knew no more than she did, and so instead he shook his head and fed her another cliché. ‘No, no, nothing like that; purely routine.’ He gave her a brief salute and stepped outside.
Seventy-eight
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