A Narrow Trajectory

by Faith Martin

  Roland Sale thought of himself as a good and experienced police officer, but he was also an innately honest one, and that included being honest with himself. And right now, he was very willing to concede that he was glad that both Acting Chief Superintendent Steven Crayle would be there, and in the background Hillary Greene too. As a superior officer and one who was – technically at least – still the commanding officer of the CRT – at least for the next three days – if anything did go wrong, he knew that Steven would take the flack, which might not have been very noble of him, but at least it had enabled him to get some sleep.

  And as for Hillary Greene, he had no trouble acknowledging that she could almost be considered an old hand at this sort of thing. Her own career had been far more varied than his. She not only had a medal for valour, but had also been shot in the line of duty. And even after retiring and coming back to work for the CRT she had, along with the old but canny ex-sergeant Jimmy Jessop, confronted and disarmed a seriously deranged stalker.

  So no doubt about it – if anything did go wrong at the public library later, she was a good ally to have by your side.

  He sighed now as he finished his sandwich, and hid a smile as the young man opposite him tried to eat a few more bites of his own meal. Whilst Rollo understood and appreciated the effort that Jake Barnes was making to appear cool and collected, he was, nevertheless, still miserably aware that Barnes was very much a civilian. Not even a fully-fledged copper. And one thing was for sure. If anything bad did happen, and for some reason Darren Chivnor let loose with a knife and Jake, or even worse, another member of public was hurt, the media would have a field day.

  It helped a little to know that the library staff had been well briefed, and that long before the meeting was due, all members of the reading public would have been asked to leave the room in question. And that, after Chivnor had arrived, no other readers would be let in. Even so, Chivnor had to enter and exit via the main doors, and there was no way they could cordon off the lobby without arousing his suspicions. So at some point he was bound to rub shoulders with unsuspecting members of the public, coming and going, most probably on the main staircase – and even though it was hugely unlikely that Darren would suddenly go berserk, the thought was enough to give him ulcers.

  And to think that he’d thought applying to be head of the CRT would be a nice, reasonably challenging but ultimately stress-free way of winding down his career. Ah well. Rollo gave a small, wry smile.

  Still, once Steven’s last few days in harness at the CRT were over, and this particular case was passed over to him and his new team to continue and conclude, he was hopeful that things would quickly settle down.

  All things considered Rollo had a feeling that his new posting was going to suit him well enough. The more he worked with Hillary Greene, the more he came to like and respect her. And he could certainly see why both Commander Donleavy and Steven rated her so highly.

  And he had no problems with Jimmy Jessop, either. Like most senior men, Rollo Sale appreciated a good, experienced sergeant. And even though his colleagues might consider working with old and formerly retired coppers hardly ideal, Rollo didn’t have any issues with it.

  Of course, the inexperienced kids that CRT was also forced to work with could present problems. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the young woman who came to work looking like an extra from a horror film, for instance. But, by and large, they were always going to be Hillary’s problem anyway. It was part of her remit to see if any of the young volunteers might make decent coppers and to try and keep them out of trouble and usefully engaged even if it became clear that they weren’t.

  Rollo sighed once more, glanced at his watch, and nodded. ‘Right then. We’d best be off,’ he said briskly, but with an encouraging smile for the clearly nervous multi-millionaire. ‘We want you in position a good hour before you’re due to meet Darren. Just to do a few system checks and make sure that the security arrangements are all that we asked for.’

  Jake swallowed hard, but nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’ He felt sick, and wished he hadn’t eaten even the few bites that he had. He didn’t want to let Hillary or the rest of the team down by messing things up now. Above all else, though, he was miserably aware that within a few hours he would probably know what had happened to his sister.

  He wasn’t sure just how well he would be able to cope if the news was to be as bad as everyone thought that it might be.

  Hope wasn’t the last thing left in Pandora’s box for no reason and he couldn’t help but feel, stubbornly and against all the odds, a vague but persistent belief that maybe, just maybe the news might turn out to be good.

  After all, there was just a chance it could be good. Right?

  An hour later, Hillary, Steven and Rollo were all seated in a small office just across from one of the public library’s reading rooms, and were concentrating intensely on the monitor that was sitting on the plain pine desk in front of them. A group of secretaries and clerks had been made temporarily homeless in order to accommodate them, and a sound and digital recording expert sat at another smaller desk, earphones on and concentrating on the live feed coming in from the room opposite.

  The security arrangements that Rollo had mentioned had all been inspected and found adequate. The reading room was now littered with people, but two of them were library staff who’d volunteered to man the desk, and the rest were all plain-clothes police officers. As Jake had been assured, three of them were young and fit, thickset men, bearing the legend of an Oxford student rugby team on their sweatshirts. And all of them were armed with concealed tasers, a weapon that was still somewhat controversial, but given Chivnor’s record with a knife, had been sanctioned for use by the top brass.

  The surveillance experts had already been in and had set up a truly excellent operation. Tiny cameras had been placed on the surrounding shelves, and one had been concealed in the spine of a book resting on the table where Jake Barnes was currently sitting, pretending to read a newspaper. This camera was capable of extreme close ups and was giving them a clear picture, in full colour that was also being recorded. Watching it, Hillary was glad to see that she could see every detail of Jake’s face. Even the fact that he was sweating slightly. It wasn’t the state of the young man’s nerves that interested her, but the fact that the quality of the picture was so fine that she might just as well have been sitting at the table herself.

  The closest she’d ever been to Darren Chivnor was one night over a week ago, when she’d seen him coming out of a gent’s toilet block in the park on a dark and cold night. On that occasion, he’d had a knife in his hand, and she had seen him largely in profile.

  Now, hopefully, in this one-on-one meeting, she’d be able to get a proper feel for the man they were dealing with. And to do that she needed to be able to read his body language, watch his face, his eyes, and listen to his voice.

  Beside her, Steven was thinking much the same thing. One of Hillary’s many talents, he well knew, was her prowess in the interview room. She had a way of getting quickly into a suspect or witness’s mind and drawing out information from them before they were even aware of what she was doing. She was also very good at reading characters, and could probably ace a psychology course, should she ever decide to take one. All her knowledge had been learned on the job and, right now, he could feel her almost quivering at his side, like a whippet on a racecourse just waiting for the trap to open.

  He glanced across at her, noting the glitter in her beautiful, sherry-coloured eyes, the calm but tense set of her shoulders, and felt a pang of pride and desire lance through him. He wanted to reach out and touch her hand, but of course, he didn’t. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.

  On his other side Rollo Sale looked pale, but composed. He could tell Sale wasn’t one hundred per cent happy with the scenario, and he could sympathize with him. Not yet a month since accepting the job, he was having a proper baptism of fire. So much was riding on this meeting. If Jake blew it, any hopes of gett
ing close to Medcalfe’s gang went up in smoke, but if he got it right, who knew where having a hook into one of Dale’s most trusted lieutenants might take them?

  The radio over by the technical officer’s table suddenly crackled into life, and everyone tensed as a WPC’s voice rattled off the news that the suspect had just been spotted entering the building.

  Jake wasn’t wired for sound, of course, since they’d agreed that Darren Chivnor would definitely be on the look-out for any tell-tale signs – and might even demand that Jake allow him to pat him down. Consequently, Jake had been ordered to wear a tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans, and to wear his jacket open, with the inner pockets fully exposed. Since the area surrounding Jake had microphones galore, it wasn’t necessary that he should wear any equipment.

  Each one of the pseudo rugby players was wearing a small earpiece, which allowed the news of Chivnor’s arrival to be relayed to them, and one of them now gave Jake the pre-arranged signal to warn him that the meeting was imminent.

  On the monitor, Hillary could actually hear the slight intake of breath Jake gave, and she nodded in approval. Good. She really could hear and see every little thing.

  ‘Let’s just hope he remembers your briefing,’ Hillary said softly to Steven, who nodded. They were all very much aware that Jake was the wild card here – as a civilian consultant, he had had no formal police training at all. But that didn’t mean, of course, that they hadn’t all done their best to give him a crash course.

  ‘He should be OK,’ Steven said, with more confidence than he felt. ‘Rollo and I rehearsed him for practically every situation we could think of. And he knows just what we need to get from this meeting. Besides, he’s motivated.’

  ‘Even so, a lot of it he’ll have to play by ear,’ Rollo put in. ‘And he’ll need to react to circumstances as and when they materialize.’

  Hillary nodded and made a mental note. Her new boss was a cautious man. And probably a bit of a pessimist as well. Neither of which was necessarily a bad thing. Merely something to bear in mind and pass on to Jimmy later. In her job, keeping an eye on the criminals was important, but sometimes, keeping an eye on your boss could be even more so.

  Every copper worth his salt knew that both of them could mess you up just as badly.

  ‘There he is,’ she heard Steven say beside her, and her eyes scanned to a second monitor on the desk, this one keyed in to the library’s own CCTV system. And sure enough, just coming through the main doors was a shaven-haired young male, wearing dark denims and a leather biker’s jacket. Even from the relatively poor quality of that particular footage, Hillary could make out the almost compulsory dark patches that told her he had some sort of tattoo on the back of his neck. It probably went all the way down his back. Her concentration was more on the jacket, though. Bulky and loose fitting, he could be hiding an arsenal under there.

  As he headed towards the stairs he looked around. Carefully, slowly, and making a thorough job of it, he missed nothing. And she was glad that they had decided that they wouldn’t have any undercover officers in sight at this point. Furthermore, if he was already this alert and eagle-eyed, she was even more relieved that they’d decided to keep the number of officers in the reading room to a minimum of six. And that the other three officers concerned were all female.

  One was a middle-aged veteran from the thief-takers squad. Famous for looking like a grey-haired and eminently muggable little old lady, she was currently standing by a display stand of books with a shopping bag in one hand, and a pair of reading glasses in the other. She was a black Dan in something or other, or so Hillary had heard, and rumour had it that the station house boxing champion went in fear and trembling of her – as apparently did most of the Alsatians in the canine unit.

  The other two officers were much younger women, and were sitting at a table nearby, surrounded by books and taking notes. In Hillary’s opinion they looked like they were studying too hard and too diligently to look like real students, but she doubted that Darren Chivnor would know the difference.

  The rugby players instantly went into their role-playing as a group of slightly too-loud jocks, bored with study, and now grouped behind the back of the bookshelves, out of sight of the library staff.

  Apart from these, the room was deserted. Unusually so. They were all banking on the fact that Darren wouldn’t realize how busy the Oxford library normally was, and that on a wet, cold, grey winter’s afternoon, the dearth of readers wouldn’t strike him as odd.

  At his table Jake shifted slightly, turned the page of his newspaper, and then looked up.

  On the CCTV monitor, they could all see that Darren was now poised in the entrance way to the door, and was looking around. He spotted Jake fairly quickly and Barnes slowly folded and put away the newspaper, careful (as he’d been instructed) to make sure that it in no way impeded the view of the miniature camera hidden in the book.

  ‘And here we go,’ Steven said tensely.

  Over by the table the technician made sure that the digital feed was safely recording every image and capturing every sound.

  Everything now relied on Jake Barnes doing his part.

  Darren approached the table slowly, looking around, noting the two members of the library staff going about their business at the desk, not even looking up as he passed. To the right, by a large bookstand, some dumpy woman was turning the plastic shelves around, picking out the occasional book and reading the blurb. He could also hear some male jocular voices talking about ‘the state of the pitch’ coming from behind some bookshelves.

  Two tasty-looking girls were sitting down four desks away, studying hard.

  He nodded briefly at Jake as he approached, noting that the millionaire was sweating and looked distinctly nervous. This suited him just fine. A quick glance told him that he wasn’t wearing any nasty bits of wire under his tight shirt.

  Not that he was really expecting any trouble. He had a nose for people lying to him, and he was ninety-nine per cent sure that when Jake Barnes had first approached him, he was flying solo. There had been something reassuringly amateurish about it.

  Now he pulled out a wooden, plastic-padded seat in bright orange and sat down.

  ‘Sorry about the last time we met up,’ Chivnor said at once, saving Jake from having to make the opening gambit. What Jake should say at the very beginning of their head-to-head had been the cause of some serious discussion.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Jake said at once, heartily relieved to find that his voice hadn’t come out in some sort of a comical, Monty Python-like squeak.

  ‘Like I said, I thought that guy who walked in on us the last time was someone I knew. I had to make it look good. I never would have cut you.’

  Jake nodded and forced himself to smile. He supposed, in the world that Darren inhabited, that sort of sentence was almost normal. But this was all good. Steven had said that Darren would probably start off nice and easy. After all, he wanted to get his hands on the money that Jake was offering, and to do that, he would want to try and put Jake at his ease.

  So far, everything was going according to how they’d planned it.

  Over the past few days, both Steven and Rollo had taken him through a series of possible scenarios, and it was now just a question of seeing which ones panned out, and to follow the formula they’d set up for each one.

  So, Darren had apologized, he’d accepted it, now he had to move on, but not too fast.

  ‘I guess, in your position, you can’t be too careful,’ Jake said amiably.

  In the room opposite, Steven nodded. ‘Good,’ he said softly to Jake’s video-screen image. ‘Keep yourself sympathetic and understanding. Make him feel you’re on his side.’

  ‘Too damned right,’ Darren said, and leaning back in the chair slightly, gave a brief smile. ‘So, this is where you finally tell me what it is you’re after, yeah?’

  In the other room, Steven drew in a sharp breath. ‘Woah! That was quick. We thought he’d beat about the bush a
bit more first.’

  But Hillary shook her head. ‘No. It makes sense. He’s going to want to keep this as quick as possible. He doesn’t want to run the risk, however slight, that he might be seen with Jake, and besides, right now, he’s almost eaten alive with curiosity and impatience. For weeks now he’s had this tasty carrot of serious money dangled in front of him, and he wants to find out just what he has to do to get it.’

  ‘Let’s just hope it doesn’t throw Jake,’ Rollo muttered.

  On the video screen, Jake blinked but rallied quickly.

  ‘OK. Why not?’ Jake licked his lips, probably in an unconscious gesture of strain, and took a slow breath. ‘Like I said, it’s got nothing to do with your boss, or crossing him, or grassing on him or anything like that,’ he said, as per his instructions. Both of his bosses had drummed it into him that he needed to make Darren feel comfortable with what he was going to be asked to do, and by far the easiest way of accomplishing that, was to reassure him that his own skin wouldn’t be in jeopardy.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Darren said, glancing back at the library staff manning the desk. One of them was busy on the computer whilst the other was swiping the bar code on the back of a book under a scanner that was emitting a bright red light.

  Darren turned to look at Jake again. ‘So, wassup then? What do you want?’

  ‘I just want to find my sister, Jasmine Sudbury,’ Jake said bluntly.

  Darren Chivnor went very still indeed.

  In the small office, everyone tensed. But Jake had done only what he’d rehearsed. Once Chivnor had asked the question, he was not to beat about the bush. He was to give him all the information he had as quickly as possible, before Darren could have time to interrupt. So he swept on quickly, ‘Her name is Jasmine Sudbury, and she—’

  ‘Jas?’

  Darren repeated her name sharply, and in the office, Hillary Greene moved imperceptibly a little closer to the monitor. Her eyes were fixed on the young thug’s face.