Lost Souls

by Michael Knaggs

  *

  The four police officers and Rob Cameron stood together outside the circle of crime-scene tape, which still surrounded the now vacant space where the Audi had been found at the side of the harbour.

  “How long do we think it had been here?” Harry asked Charlie.

  “Well, as soon as the appeal for information went out on Thursday we had thirty or so people get in touch right away. Apparently, it had been a focus of public interest for a while. We reckon it must have been parked here for at least twenty-four, more likely forty-eight, hours before we got to see it. So that would be from last Tuesday, or, latest, Wednesday.”

  Harry nodded. “And you don’t think it had been touched during the time before you got to it?”

  “No new fingerprints on the door handles, which, as you know, is usually the first contact. The gulls had peppered it a bit. We needed the bomb disposal lads to check it out, of course. The detonators and wire were visible behind the seats; it was just possible it could have been booby trapped. Then CSIU photographed it and forensically recovered it the same day – Thursday.

  “We’ve removed a couple of things for examination since then, which you know about. The mobile – it was in the glove box. I assume he’s got himself a replacement so we can’t trace him – that’s the only reason I can think of why he’d leave it. Anyway, the last call he made from it was to Jackie Hewlett, the Home Secretary, very early last Sunday morning – around half past midnight. At least that was the last one on the outgoing calls list – unless he’s erased some. The techies are checking it out. He’s had a dozen or so missed calls since then, mostly from his wife, a couple from someone called Dan. And the detonators and wire – we removed them to compare with the stuff used in the Dorking bombing, like you asked.”

  “Did the satnav tell us anything?”

  “Only that he didn’t use it to find his way here. Not that you’d expect him to. It’s the only town up here and there’s only one way to it from the south – the A835.”

  Charlie’s mobile sounded. He took it from his coat pocket. “Excuse me,” he said, and stepped a few paces away. After a brief exchange and a few questions, he ended the call and turned back to the group.

  “That was Chief Superintendent Stevenson – my boss. She’s just had a call from Donny McClure, no less. Apparently, Mr Brown and his wife spent a few days at a place called Farcuillin Lodge on Knoydart earlier this year. She said it might be worth checking to see if he’s gone there.”

  DS Macken frowned. “He’d hardly come to Ullapool on his way to Knoydart…”

  “Unless he was trying to throw people off the scent,” Charlie said, “which he’d want to do, of course. And he’d have to hire a boat from somewhere…”

  “Or steal one, I suppose,” Isabel said. “There’s one missing from further along the loch at Morefield, but they think that’s just come off its mooring. It’s a wee, crappy thing – not something you’d want to take out into The Minch. I guess we could check for anyone landing at Inverie.”

  Harry and Natalie exchanged a brief glance, not lost on Charlie.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Knoydart is much further south and only accessible by boat. Although…” he turned back to Isabel, “… if that’s where he was going I’m not sure how he’d get around once he arrived. He’s bound to be recognised, for a start.”

  “Who’s Donny McClure, by the way?” Harry asked.

  “Donald McClure, Head of Grampian Police. He remembered Mr Brown saying he was going to Knoydart directly after a meeting they both attended at Lochshore in April. Anyway, Cath Stevenson’s sending a chopper to check it out – apparently there’s a helipad next to the Lodge. She wants to know if we’d like to go along. It’s a long shot. What do you think? I said I’d phone her back.”

  The colour drained from Harry’s face. “I’ll pass on that, if you don’t mind.”

  “Don’t mind at all,” Charlie said, looking relieved. “Hate those bloody things. I’ll just let her know to go ahead without us, then I’ll take you to where we’ve got the car so you can see it for yourselves.”

  He turned away again to make the call. When he’d finished, Harry was staring out across the loch, deep in thought.

  “When you think about it,” he said, “we don’t really know why he’s up here. I guess we’re assuming – I was assuming – he’s gone on the run or into hiding, but the timing doesn’t fit, does it? He’s not been seen since a week last Friday – that’s ten days ago. Well, half-two in the morning on the Saturday, to be exact, when he was – shall we say – ‘helped’ to leave a club on the Embankment in London. The manager, at Brown’s request, phoned someone to pick him up on a number given to him by Brown. A woman answered, wouldn’t give her name, but agreed to come and get him, which we assume she did, because he’d gone when the doorman went to check about twenty minutes later.”

  He was silent for a moment, counting off the days in his mind before continuing.

  “We’re ninety-nine percent certain he was at his apartment when he made that last call from his mobile to Jackie Hewlett at twelve-thirty on Sunday morning, and later that day he was definitely there because he phoned John Mackay – that’s my boss – from the land-line. That appears to be the last contact anyone’s had with him. His lawyer called at the apartment on Monday and got no answer, and you’re saying he hasn’t answered his mobile since before then.”

  He paused again, deep in thought.

  “Where’s this going, sir?” Natalie asked. “Am I being thick or something?”

  “Sorry, I’m rambling a bit; just bear with me. His wife goes to the apartment later on Monday and finds he’d already left – no car, holdall and clothes missing, wallet and keys gone. DI Cottrell searches the place on Wednesday with Mrs T and they find the gun. We put out an appeal for info on his whereabouts on Thursday lunchtime. Are you with me?”

  They all nodded.

  “So the first time he’d know we were looking for him – and that’s if he had access to TV, newspapers, Internet, whatever – would be then, Thursday lunchtime. Right?”

  “And by then he was already up here,” Charlie said. “So he must have had another reason for coming. Unless it’s just a coincidence that he went on the run just before we put out the appeal.”

  “I’m afraid…” Harry began.

  “DI Waters doesn’t believe in coincidences,” Natalie interrupted.

  “That makes two of us,” Charlie said. “So perhaps it’s not a hiding place we should be looking for.”

  *

  “Cassie to Archer-Two. All clear to surface?”

  “All clear, Cassie.” Lydia’s voice. “Come on up.”

  Tom pulled back the tight cuff of his wetsuit and checked his watch – 13.07. Cassie nudged against the column as Shirley-Ann evacuated the water until the craft came to rest on the surface ten feet below the door. The column climbed away upwards to the five-and-a-half acres of the main deck with the receiving floor suspended below it. Around 200 yards across from them, through the gap between the north and west columns, the satellite platform – a 120-foot-square lift shaft, designed to raise the prisoner cages from the transfer vessels to the receiving floor – towered to the same height.

  Below the surface, the four main columns extended down a further hundred feet and were joined together by a huge pontoon – like an enormous square doughnut – to create the semi-submersible design, providing a low centre of gravity and optimum stability. The whole structure, anchored by sixteen deep-water chains and a network of wire mooring lines, had been originally designed to survive a once-in-a-lifetime storm in the merciless waters and wind systems of the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Cassie to Archer-One and Archer-Two. In position. Flipping the lid now and changing to tactical radios in… ninety seconds.”

  The Perspex dome hissed open an
d over, coming to rest on the water at the side away from the column. They removed their masks and breathing tubes, and unclipped the extendable poles from their brackets at the sides of the hull. After using the magnets to secure Cassie against the column, the four men wriggled out of their wetsuits and back into their trousers, close-fitting jackets and light-weight boots. They took out the MP5s, each slipping the strap over his head and shoulder, and pulled on the black beanie hats, strapping the head-torches against their foreheads. They clipped the lightweight digital radios in place around their necks, adjusting ear and mouthpieces to leave their hands free, and checking frequencies. Finally, they pulled on fingerless gloves with toughened rubber palms to assist with gripping the rungs of the ladder and checked the karabiner on the leather waistband of their trousers, which could be hooked onto a rung to free their hands at any point of the climb.

  Shirley-Ann had secured the magnetic ladder against the hull, extending it upwards to just below the door. Jules pulled on the rucksack, tightening it in place against his chest to give easy access to the wedges.

  Kade looked round, checking readiness. “Okay to go?”

  “Okay to go.” All replied.

  He checked his watch. “Team to Archers; entering shaft at thirteen-twenty-one. Out.”

  He turned to his comrades.

  “Right, let’s do it.”

  Jules climbed the ladder, turned the bolt-head, pushed in the door and slipped through the opening. He leaned out again, while Kade threw the five lifejackets up to him, then the rest of the team followed him into the shaft, closing the door behind them.

  *

  Oblivious to the shouts and whoops of the crushing mass around him, Jason Midanda watched the woman swinging her body around the mast on the bridge of the boat. It wasn’t a unique experience seeing a female in a bikini close to his new home. Even in the short time he’d been there, there had been several cruise ships passing by – Alpha now seemed an essential part of all island tours – providing lots of opportunity to watch sunbathers on their heated decks through the telescopes and binoculars mounted on the continuous shelf which ran along all three sides of the corridor. But this display seemed to be entirely for their benefit. So either this woman was the world champion prick-teaser or something else was going on.

  He turned his bins onto the other boat. Nothing moved on deck; no sign of any activity. BOSV on the sides and cabins – ‘British Oceanographic Society’ or ‘Survey’ he guessed – ‘Vessel’ probably. He wondered what possible value a pole dancer could bring to a scientific mission.

  *

  One hundred and fifty miles away a much smaller group was watching the spectacle unfold on the digital lattice on the huge wall screen in front of them and on the smaller screens showing images from the sea-facing cameras. The four-man Lochshore monitoring team covering the afternoon shift saw the same rush of Exiles to the west side of the platform, and the same exotic dance on the survey boat.

  “She’ll be in deep shit if this gets back to the BOS,” said one man.

  “Well they won’t find out from me,” said another. “Just in case she’s planning to do it every week.”

  They laughed, then seemed to remember the tall, striking-looking man with the mane of grey hair and the expensive suit standing behind them watching the same screens. There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

  “What do you think, sir?” The first man broke the tension with his question.

  The tall man smiled. “No comment,” he said, “except that they won’t find out from me, either.”

  They laughed again.

  *

  The woman on the boat had stopped dancing and was waving to her audience. Jason felt someone grab his arm frosm behind.

  “Ollie!”

  He turned. A small, stocky young man with a pock-marked face and prematurely-thinning brown hair dragged him through the crowd away from the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “What’s the panic, Razor?”

  Ryan Azinger held on to his arm, pulling him along the corridor, not looking back.

  “Come on, you need to hear this,” he said.

  *

  Tom was already suffering as they approached the first landing. Not only could he feel the exertion of the climb but the dim, flickering light on the ceiling above them along with the darting beams of the head torches had brought on a feeling of nausea.

  Jules stopped his climb with his head touching the first hatch cover, reached for the karabiner on his belt and clipped it to the ladder. Pulling back the sprung bolt, he stepped up another rung, using his neck and shoulder muscles to ease open the hatch. Holding it in place, he removed the first spring-locking wedge from the sack and snapped it around the rim. He unclipped the karabiner and climbed through, holding back the hatch for Kade and Rico to follow. Tom waited below as Jules let the hatch fall back. The wedge did its job, the hatch remained ajar, and Tom followed them through to the next stage.

  The light above them shone with a bright and steady glow.

  “Right, let’s dip the headlights,” Kade said, switching off his torch. They all complied, and Jules set off again up the ladder.

  “Completed stage one,” Kade said into his radio.

  *

  “What is he saying?”

  “How would I know?” Jason said. “I don’t even know what language he’s speaking.”

  A group of twelve had gathered in the radio room to listen to the chanting voice; more were arriving.

  “Sounds like east European, possibly Russian,” Razor said.

  “How the fuck would you know that?” The speaker was Kenny Morrison, a large well-built man in his early twenties with a shaved head and scarred features.

  “Roscoe would know – might know, anyway,” Razor muttered. “I’ll go get him.” He hurried from the room.

  They listened in silence as the deep voice filled the room with short, rhythmic sentences.

  “Sounds like poetry,” Jason said.

  Five minutes later Razor returned accompanied by a tall, thin young man with an untidy beard and uneven teeth.

  “Do you know what this is, Rosk?” Jason asked.

  Roscoe screwed up his face in concentration for a few moments.

  “It’s Russian,” he said. “Poetry – kid’s poetry – you know, like nursery rhymes.”

  “What the fuck’s going on?” Kenny asked.

  Jason frowned and shook his head. “No idea, but it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? We get someone spouting Russian poetry at the same time that a pole-dancer turns up to entertain us.”

  “You’re right,” Kenny said. “What is this, some sort of fucking arts festival?”

  *

  At the third hatch, Jules fumbled the wedge as he took it from the rucksack. It slipped out of his hand. Rico, third in line, took a spectacular one-handed catch and the crisis passed. Pulling himself through onto the final landing, Tom lay exhausted on the floor, his lungs and heart pumping and his legs feeling like jelly. Kade glanced at him. “We’ll take ten this time. Last climb, then it’s easy from there.” He smiled. “Except for the eight hundred or so guys waiting for us.”

  Tom recovered quickly, exercising his legs with a few punishing squats until they felt like his own again.

  “Everyone okay to go?” Kade asked. “Right.” He turned his head to speak into the radio. “Completed level three.”

  Tom stopped several times on the last stretch, aware that he needed to be in good shape when they passed through the next hatch. From there they had to be prepared to move decisively at short notice once an opportunity presented itself.

  They secured the wedge on the final hatch and climbed through to the sub-floor, which was dark apart from the area briefly lit by the strip light below as they passed through the opening. They
switched their head torches on again and looked around them. At one side of the hatch, a few yards away, the floor ended in a solid, featureless wall. At the other side, it stretched away from them into blackness beyond the effective range of the torches. Above them was the entrance to the corridor, their access to the hatch made easier by a vertical, metal ladder the ends of which were bolted to the floor and ceiling.

  “Completed stage four; on sub floor now. Lighting?”

  “Sensors will activate lights as you move past them.” Mike’s voice. “Target has arrived in radio room on corridor Section C. That’s the section above you, but closer to the far end. So he’s around one-twenty metres away from east hatch above you and thirty metres from south hatch. In attendance are around fifteen inmates, some starting to leave. Suggest you wait to see how the picture develops. Archer-Two, are you receiving?”

  “Archer-Two receiving.” Sergei’s voice. “Copy target’s position.”

  “Time for the second act. Out.”

  Kade reached up and switched off his head torch. “Let’s save the batteries.” They all followed his example and the darkness returned.

  *

  The group of eight remaining in a cluster around the receiver heard the voice change to a more conversational tone, speaking clipped English in a quiet and relaxed way, with little more than a trace of a Russian accent.

  “Good afternoon, boys. I hope you enjoyed little trip back to my childhood. Those were poems my mother used to read to me when I was little boy in Kazan.”

  Jason leaned forward and threw a switch on the panel in front of him.