by A P Bateman
King put his iPhone back into his pocket and looked at the hospital as Amanda drove away from the main thoroughfare and around the rear of the main building. “You tell me,” he said quietly, somewhat thoughtfully.
She shrugged, didn’t bother reiterating. “Do you think there is more to the Helena Snell and Viktor Bukov thing?”
“He’s banging her. Her husband’s only just cold. What more do you want?”
“No, I mean, are they suspects?”
“Everyone’s a suspect,” he said.
She waited as she opened her window and spoke into the speaker at the barrier, announcing her name and credentials. There was a camera lens at the top of the speaker and she was told to hold up her ID. She did so, and the barrier rose slowly. “I’m not a suspect,” she said.
“Maybe you are,” he said.
“What?”
“Where were you yesterday?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Of course,” said King impassively. He saw the sign for the Pathology Unit, unclipped his seatbelt as she swung the car complacently into a free space. “But I have more than a few doubts about those two,” he added.
“Then why not question them further?”
King had called DCI Trevarth and had him escort the couple off the premises. They had been instructed to wait for permission to return, as the house on the Roseland was still a crime scene. Helena Snell had protested vehemently, but after a short while, she had relented. King could see she was pragmatic. There was no sense in fighting a losing battle. Viktor Bukov, by contrast simply did what Helena Snell told him. They had reverted to speaking Russian, unaware that King was conversational in the language, if not fluent.
And that was when he decided they did not need further questioning.
“It would have been a waste of time. They didn’t kill Snell.” King opened his door and Amanda followed.
“You don’t think so?”
“No.”
“So, what are we looking for here?”
“Toxicology.”
“For a fatal shooting?” Amanda asked incredulously. “Seems like a waste of time and resources to me.”
“We’ll see.”
28
Pollsmoor Prison
Tokia
South Africa
After the noise and sensory overload of the prison walk, the silence of the governor’s office came as a welcome relief. Governor Preet Boesak seemed to have changed his attitude towards Caroline, but it had been short-lived. Her request to move Prisoner Vigus Badenhorst to a lower category wing, pending authorisation from the South African government, had sent the man over the edge and he had shouted the odds, to which Caroline had acted bored, almost indifferent to the man and started to make the first of many phone calls on her mobile phone.
Kruger had escorted Boesak outside to cool down, and must have spoken to somebody for a coffee, because Caroline had been brought a cup on a tray with cream and biscuits. She was ravenous from the shock and emotion, not to mention exertion from her ordeal that morning, as well as having missed breakfast, and soon finished them off with her coffee.
Her first call had been to Simon Mereweather, who following standard operating procedure (SOP), did not answer, but had listened to her message and called her straight back. He had listened to what she had to say and ordered her to get Badenhorst’s information at any cost while he set about putting a deal in motion. Caroline knew what the MI5 liaison officer had meant, but having witnessed Vigus Badenhorst’s desperation and near-breakdown, she was not about to lie and promise the man the earth with no intent to make good on her side of the bargain. She knew he deserved her trust, could see just how desperate he was. The man was on the edge, had suffered terribly. She reflected that he would no doubt merely be one of a number. Pollsmoor was indeed, a living hell.
After her conversation with Simon Mereweather, Caroline had then called her Interpol contact to get a deal brokered at their end. It couldn’t hurt to play two hands. Interpol was a large agency, perhaps they would have more luck with the South African government than MI5 would with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who would then set out to broker a deal with Pretoria. The FCO were not renowned for the speed with which their diplomats did their work. By contrast, Interpol would already have South African law enforcement personnel in their offices and contacts within the government. It seemed like a logical step, and one with which to circumvent a protracted deal.
Bérénice Duval was the senior investigator and leader of the Terrorism Incident Response Team. Her remit was to liaise with police forces from around the world and enable the smooth running of joint investigations where Interpol facilitated a brokerage between law enforcement agencies. Interpol were to act as a go-between in any investigation into the group known as Anarchy to Recreate Society. Caroline had met the forty-five-year-old woman and former counter terrorism officer with the Préfecture de Police de Paris, along with other representatives from law enforcement agencies of the nations of the five richest people in the world on the kill list. Also present had been representatives from countries of the next five people, but the dramatic shedding of wealth had changed the line-up daily. Caroline had liked the woman, had spoken enough with her at the group dinner and in subsequent meetings to have built up a rapport. It couldn’t hurt throwing out a deal with the South Africans while MI5 did what they could with Whitehall.
Bérénice Duval had been pleased to talk to Caroline. She had listened intently and when she heard that the deal could mean as little as striking a year from Bordenhorst’s sentence, she had seemed confident in obtaining a result. She called back within twenty-minutes, just as Caroline could hear Governor Preet Boesak return, his thick, guttural tone barely contained by the outer office.
She glanced down at her phone, saw Duval’s number.
“Bérénice, that was quick,” she answered. “Good news or bad?”
“Good,” she replied. “For us, but I think he will buy it. It doesn’t sound like the man has choices.”
“You could say that. What’s the deal?”
“The South African government will grant him freedom in the form of a suspended sentence with gratuity. One wrong move and he’s back inside Pollsmoor Prison, but this time for four years. He will have to cooperate with our investigation, give us a result which leads to further positive intelligence. They wanted his information to lead to the capture or conviction or of the people we are after, but I didn’t think Badenhorst would go for it. There has to be some carrot as well as stick.”
Caroline marvelled at the woman’s fluent English and turn of phrase. “Sounds fair,” she said, feeling excitement, a rush of adrenalin. Not only could she close the gap in the investigation, get a step closer to finding the terrorists, but she would help the man out of his nightmare. She knew he had broken the law, avoided paying taxes, but she had read the file on him, seen that his older brother had been the brains behind the venture. He had been running the operation while his younger brother was still in junior school. Vigus Badenhorst wasn’t a killer, a rapist or a thief. He didn’t deserve the living hell of being locked up with South Africa’s gang members, men who did what they did to the vulnerable.
“Well, there is also a stipulation,” Duval paused. “But he’ll go for it, given the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“The government will be working with the four leading organisations for the prevention of the ivory trade to set up a task force. Organisations like TUSK and the WWF. This has been underway for some time, but with this new development, Badenhorst will have to give his cooperation, selling out the chain he and his brother used to off-load their illegal ivory.”
“I think he will agree to anything,” she said. She hadn’t told Duval the extent of Badenhorst’s reasons for commuting his sentence, but the woman was an experienced police officer, she knew the score.
She gave Duval the prison’s fax number so that Interpol could send notification to se
t the ball rolling, and was told the notification of Badenhorst’s release would be both faxed and emailed within the hour from the South African Judiciary.
Caroline replaced the telephone as Governor Boesak entered, his fax machine rolling. She was seated behind the man’s desk in his leather swivel chair. She beckoned the man to take a visitor’s seat and glanced at the whirling fax machine. “Don’t see many of those these days,” she said. “But I think you will find what it says rather interesting. Kindly prepare prisoner Vigus Badenhorst for immediate release into my custody, Governor Boesak. The official authorisation should be here within the hour, I don’t want any further delays.”
29
There was something about the clinical, almost voyeuristic process of an autopsy that left King cold. The final indignity, as if death wasn’t enough. The humiliation of being taken apart and scrutinised, samples removed and then to be roughly sown back together and the waste sluiced down a drain seemed so far removed from the being who had existed shortly before. No wonder Caroline, and many like her throughout her curious profession thought of the dead as nothing more than merely fat, muscle and bone did not surprise King. He had battled for years to justify, to be able to live with what he had both seen and done. He always knew he did it for a cause, for the freedom and protection of the oblivious people he lived amongst. His country.
He was no stranger himself to death. He had killed in the heat of battle. Not great company advancements in a regular army, but secret wars. Deniable affairs with little in the way of support. All-out close quarter battle with guerrillas and terrorists. He had gunned down people who had been trying to kill him. He had gunned down people who posed a threat to his country or the western world. He had killed with a knife, made death look like an accident and he had even killed with his bare hands. The first lives he had taken had been without a weapon, and he still thought of what happened, and the two men whose lives he had taken that night. It was part of the baggage that travelled with him, for all these years on the path that had been shaped for him by second chances and secretive government departments. In many ways, what he had done for his country since was his way of making amends. Of quantifying his mistakes, of becoming a better man and serving his country as those two men had, and would have continued to if words and actions, drink and ego had not got out of hand. It had been in his nature to attack, to never back down. He had always been that way. On the streets, in the boxing ring, on the run.
A long time ago. Another life.
King had watched Amanda Cunningham remove Snell’s organs and place each in various dishes and containers. He had watched the measured way she had peeled back the flesh, the muscle, prise the bone apart or make significant cuts and remove the necessary body parts. The way she had dissected the organs, taken samples and placed in a selection of test-tubes and petri dishes.
He had watched, but found the experience cold and dispassionate. He wondered how a woman like Amanda Cunningham would get into the profession. He had taken himself outside to get some fresh air, to air the stink of death from his clothes, his skin. He wondered if it was why Amanda Cunningham drank. She clearly had a problem. The excessive amount she consumed, the denial afterwards in the sobering light of day.
He took out his phone and checked the display. Nothing from Caroline. He quickly texted: Are you ok? Call me xxx. He fired it off, then instantly regretted it. They had a rule. But they were on separate missions and he needed to know if she was safe and well. He hoped she was not stewing over Amanda Cunningham staying at the same hotel. He needed to fill her in when he could, but he still thought he’d keep quiet about their ill-fated dinner at the cottage. That was a mistake, and nothing happened. Nor was it even on the cards to happen. Naivety and stupidity. Both Caroline and King worked on a need to know basis, and as far as he was concerned, this would be one of those times.
King wandered through the connecting corridor, bought a cup of tea at the hospital café and walked back around the main building. The hospital was a large site, with what looked to be four main buildings and a connecting corridor running between them. Many people were choosing instead to walk on the paths between the neatly kept lawns. He crossed over a helicopter landing pad, passed by the accident and emergency department and walked back around to the pathology unit. He sipped his tea, perched on a wall and thought back to the house on the Roseland Peninsular. Helena Snell and Viktor Bukov did not kill Sir Ian Snell. He had caught enough of their conversation in Russian to know that they hadn’t been anywhere near. But he was troubled nonetheless. Something was going on and he needed to connect the dots. He took out his mobile phone again, checked to see if there was a message from Caroline. There wasn’t. He just hoped she was ok.
King had lost count of the amount of times luck had saved him. The amount of times he had walked away, when others every bit as good or as professional as him had died. He had begun to question whether he had been blessed with luck. Not from his childhood, that was for sure. Not many children would have lived a worse life than he had. Not children born and raised in Britain, at least. He had known hunger and pain. He had known true fear and despair. He had been beaten by his mother’s succession of partners. He had gone days, looking after his younger brothers and sisters, without money to buy them food, or to pay the rent, while his mother had been coming down or out dealing drugs. But he had survived. Survived the care homes after she had died. Survived life on the streets. Survived when he had a contract put on him by boxing promoters who had lost a fortune when he refused to take a dive in the ring. He had survived the deadly fight which had landed him in prison. He had survived his incarceration too, and the ex-soldiers in there who would look to even the score. And he had survived his recruitment into the shadowy world of MI6 and the life they had channelled for him. He had survived against the IRA, secret wars against Russian spetsnaz and the FSB, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and most recently, the evil that was ISIS. He had survived even when his own people had turned on him. His luck was good. But was it luck? Did he possess a sixth sense? He wouldn’t say he did. But he had learned to trust his instincts. He had learned as a child, to trust his intuition. When he had a thought, he simply went with it. He didn’t double guess himself, and he never deviated from his chosen path.
King had felt his instincts start to doubt face value. And when that happened, it was enough for him to run with it. He unlocked his phone and typed out a quick message to Simon Mereweather. It seemed a simple request, but he had no idea how political it would be. He would just have to wait and see.
30
Tokia
South Africa
“I don’t know how you swung that,” Kruger said.
Vigus Badenhorst had been permitted a shower, had changed into the clothes he’d been sentenced in and had been begrudgingly given coffee and some biscuits by Governor Boesak at Caroline’s request.
Caroline walked beside Kruger and Badenhorst followed a metre or so behind. He looked bewildered, had sobbed and could not seem to believe his good fortune. He had only been in Pollsmoor for a little over seven months, but clearly it had claimed him.
It had taken two hours to process the prisoner. Several forms were signed, faxed, refaxed, signed and countersigned. It had taken another hour to talk through the deal with him, and no matter how insistent Caroline had been, she could not persuade the man to continue the interview within the walls of Pollsmoor Prison. He remained adamant. He wanted out. It would go no other way.
Caroline glanced at Kruger as they reached the top of the steps and squinted in the brightness of the South African sun, and a crystalline blue sky. “He has information concerning the sniper. Interpol and Scotland Yard’s Special Branch are convinced that the man who wounded Vigus Badenhorst, and killed both his brother and their employee is the same man who has assassinated the four men on the kill list.”
“Is it not a bit of a stretch?” Kruger asked, somewhat dubiously.
“Timings,” she said noncommittedly. “It�
�s all in the timings.”
“Then you have someone in mind?”
She nodded. “But only because of the timings. Absence at the time of the assassinations, absence at the time of the Badenhorst shootings.” She slipped on a pair of black Gucci sunglasses and looked back at Vigus. “Now we need to fill in the gaps. See if it is more than mere coincidence.”
“I will tell you everything,” Vigus Badenhorst said, somewhat meekly from behind them. “But only when we’re clear of this cesspit.”
“Then where?” Kruger asked. “We could go to service headquarters in Cape Town,” he suggested.
Caroline wanted to avoid being on the agent’s home turf. She needed to keep control of Vigus. Interpol was running this aspect of the case and she could not afford to get bogged down in bureaucratic disputes. Besides, from her experience this morning, she knew that the South African Secret Service was leaking like a sieve.
“My hotel would be the best bet,” said Caroline. “They have some spare rooms, or did when I checked in last night. And it will give you a chance to get the SASS report on the incident before he flies back with me. You’ll forgive me for not wanting to go into your headquarters. You’re getting information from him regardless.”
Kruger merely nodded. He slipped on a pair of Ray Ban aviators, which he had been wearing stylishly tucked into the vee of his shirt, possibly unstylishly worn open four buttons down.
“Fly back? Where?” Badenhorst asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Kruger added. “Where?”
“To London,” she said. They had reached the Land Cruiser, waited while Kruger unlocked it with his key fob. “And then on to Lyon in France to help Interpol and relay the information you have on this sniper to other law enforcement agencies. Numbers one and two on the kill list were American software and social media billionaires, so the FBI will want to follow up as soon as possible. Either at their New York office, or through Interpol with American staffers.”