by Tim Heath
“Good to see you again, Anya,” he said in all too happy spirits given the circumstance of their meeting. “Did I say that I knew your father rather well back in the day?” He had, and who didn’t know her father, but she held her tongue.
“How interesting,” was all she managed. “Shall we get down to business?” It wasn’t a suggestion. If there was something Anya lacked, it wasn’t determination and a ready spirit to get on with things. It was how she was wired and what her upbringing had taught her.
“Of course,” he said, taking a seat as she did the same. “This is Sarah, I’ve asked her to join us to help with the situation, I do trust that this is okay with you.”
What option did she have?
“You understand that beyond your diplomatic roles in my country, you have no other jurisdiction here. This is an FSB case.”
“Yes, of course, Anya. Sarah is simply here to help me go forward, as a point of contact for you. That’s all.” He didn’t like the fact that battle lines were seemingly being drawn up already.
“So, please tell me, what do you have on our victim, Mr Fernandes, that we don’t already know?” Anya said. There was probably something, but she didn’t expect to be shown that yet.
“Nothing you don’t already know, I’m sure. He ran his own group of businesses in the UK. A net worth of about one hundred million and while not putting him on the super-rich lists, he’s done all right for himself. He works, or worked, mainly in the UK and Russia. Moves in circles that include members of the Kremlin. We are a little sketchy as to who these people are and why they are connected,” he said, which she knew wasn’t true. “Any ideas, Anya?”
“I’ll look into that for you, sir.” Two could play that game, and Anya knew the British would be aware that she was holding back as much as they were.
“So, a high-profile British businessman with political connections and lots of money gets murdered in a public park, in daylight, in St Petersburg,” the Consul General summed up. “The question we need to know, is why was he here? And if this was a British hit, as you’ve suggested Anya, though we have no proof of that yet, why kill him here?”
“He seemed to have a lot of enemies,” Anya said, stating something that was obvious to both parties.
“Moving in his circles, with that type of money flying around, who doesn’t?”
“True. Look, sir, if we trace the killer back to the UK, we are going to need to get him back here for questioning.” Anya stopped and deliberately took time to pour some more tea, letting her last statement sink in. “Do you want some, too?” she added.
“No, thank you.” They both waved the tea away. “You know how it is. I can have a word, but this is out of my league. You’ll have to take this up with the Home Office, if and when the proof comes and a charge against a British citizen is made.”
It was the answer she expected. It changed nothing. She knew her way around the system enough to know when to press and when to hold back.
“Have you had any chance with the identification of the attacker?” she said, skilfully changing tack.
“Nothing yet, but it is being looked at by Scotland Yard in London,” Sarah said, her first words uttered in the conversation.
“Okay, well I look forward to being told when you have identified him,” Anya said, fully expecting the FSB to have named him long before the British got around to telling her.
“That is of course if he is a British national, Anya. Let’s not jump to any conclusions.” He had a warm enough character about him, but there was still something too British that was starting to annoy her. And he reminded her of her own father. That certainly didn’t help his case.
“Regarding the media,” Anya said, coming onto the final thing on her short mental list that she needed to cover with this meeting, “it’s going to break soon, news of the killing I mean. The victim, as we know, was well known in Moscow. He’s got offices there, and one here. The public setting for the killing means stuff is appearing online already. I don’t suppose it’ll be long before the British press gets hold of things. No doubt more anti-Russia propaganda for them to stew over.”
“It's the nature of journalism, I’m afraid,” he said. “This stuff sells papers. I’d, therefore, expect it to break tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up.”
Anya stood up, thanking them for the time. While not giving her much information, it did set the rules of play. She was prepared for that game.
Sarah led her back down the stairs, and Anya picked up her mobile phone again at security and went on her way. Her driver was just shutting her door when her phone went. It was the team at the airport. They had video footage of the suspect boarding the plane to London the night of the murder. Anya smiled, as she put the phone back in her bag. The car sped along the road, and not long after passing the American consulate, turned right into an open entrance. A shutter came down, and they disappeared back inside HQ.
Anya had gone late to the airport, allowing the city’s non-stop traffic to at least thin out a little. She was driven through the security gates at half ten, and the airport was still busy. People were forming massive queues to get through passport control. She instead was met at the kerb and led to the offices, situated between the arrival and departure lounges of the ‘Pulkovo 2’ airport.
Vladimir was a young FSB recruit who’d been sent to the airport the previous day to work through the footage they had. He was always pleased to see Anya.
“Show me what you have,” Anya said, cutting straight to the point as always.
“Yes, look here, this man,” he said in an unusual moment of hesitation. His face was reddening too. “Travelling under the name of Mr Gregory Barnaby,” and he paused the video at that moment. The man on the screen had been doing very little to hide his identity from the camera. Looking straight into the screen, it was their man. “He flew out on the British Airways flight to London Heathrow last night, travelling in Business Class. Hand luggage only.” He switched to another screen, getting up to his usual speed, his own awkwardness subsiding finally. “And here he is arriving the day before, on a Lufthansa flight via Frankfurt.” It was him all right.
“Very good. So we have a name,” Anya said. “Get me everything you can on this Gregory Barnaby. I want to know who he is and what he was doing in Russia, besides killing Mr Fernandes.”
The young officer left the room, eager to impress. Anya asked for copies of both recordings, with verified time stamps to confirm when they took place. She also requested copies of the immigration cards which would have been collected each time he passed the border, one for his arrival and the other taken at departure. These also would verify the timing. It was only another ten minutes before she was handed them. She stored them in her bag and made her exit.
“I need to speak to someone at the UK Home Office,” she said, calling her team at HQ. “Arrange it for me,” and she ended the call. If they’d worked out who the man was at Heathrow airport, it was highly likely the British were doing the same themselves. She had little time to lose.
4
Zoe Elliot, an always smartly dressed plainclothes officer in her late thirties, had been working at Scotland Yard for more than ten years and had initially headed up the team on the UK side in the ongoing investigation. She’d been at Heathrow airport all morning. There were hundreds of flights coming in, so there was a lot of passenger traffic to work through. Similar teams were at Gatwick, but with the direct flights from Russia arriving in mainly to Heathrow airport, this was deemed their best bet if it was to be believed that the attacker had indeed fled to the UK. As she was working through video footage of the thousands of travellers returning to the UK, a call had been put through from St Petersburg to the UK Home Office––it was clear the Russians had the hitman down as a British-based killer. That only added pressure to Zoe and her small team. With Home Office involvement, she knew others would soon be brought in as well. Her role covered the UK, and with an apparently growing overseas angle, she was in no
doubt that someday MI6 would get involved.
The inevitable call came through to Zoe later that evening. Someone from MI6 was being brought in to assist her. She was far from happy.
The man in question was Charlie Boon, an MI6 agent in his late twenties with a little too much attitude at times. She was introduced to her new partner outside the main building of Terminal Five.
“Zoe, my name is Charlie,” he said, passing her his business card. She knew his type, that slippery confidence that makes him think he’s better than everyone else. She took the card, and for what it was worth, gave him her own.
“Nice to meet you, Charlie.” She was a terrible liar.
“Look, Zoe, I’m not here to start a fight. I’m here to work with you. I know the St Petersburg scene a little, was stationed over there some time back. I know how the Russian mind works, even dated a girl who was Russian.” She could tell he’d dated a lot of girls. Obviously thought himself a bit of a charmer, not her type at all. He wore a tie that told those who knew he was an Oxford Blue.
“I’m from the other camp, you should know,” she said, pointing to his tie.
“A Cambridge girl? Bloody marvellous.” He was putting on a show now.
“Look, shall we get down to business,” she said. There was a slight accent. “We have this man travelling in on fake passports yesterday. The Russians say he’s the prime suspect in the killing of Anthony Fernandes, a British national shot twice in the head in St Petersburg.” None of this was new information to Charlie, who had been briefed shortly after the Russians had contacted the Home Office.
“How do we know they were fake passports?” he said, wanting to give her the chance to appear in control.
“They didn’t check out. Gregory Barnaby is not the man in the picture.”
“So who is he?” Charlie was enjoying himself.
“That’s what I was hoping you could help me with.”
“Grab your coat then and come with me.”
“Excuse me?” she said
“Let’s get to an office. We need to run his face for any matches.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be right with you.” She went over and said a few words to the team she’d been working with before she grabbed her jacket and then followed Charlie to his car.
Fifty minutes later they were running faces through the central police database, looking for a match to anyone they had on record. The car journey had helped to break the ice a little. She was warming a little more towards Charlie, but there was still no eye contact with her.
“Tell me, Zoe, you have a hint of an accent, but I can’t place it,” Charlie said.
“Well, I grew up in Devon” she relented.
“A West Country girl. Splendid!” and he said nothing more.
She looked over at him, smiled herself and left it at that.
“I’ll tell you why I’m here,” he said, after a silence that went on longer than was comfortable for him. “Relations with Russia are, shall we say, rather tense at the moment. It’s not a good time for something like this to happen. A British man murdered in a park in Russia. Politically this could get messy, especially now they know the suspect came from here. It’s a Russian crime, committed on Russian soil. They’ll want to extradite the suspect and as he’s a British citizen on British soil, that puts us in a very awkward position.”
“We don’t yet know that he is a British citizen,” Zoe pointed out.
“True, but I think that’s the safe assumption for now. We can confirm the facts if and when the face recognition comes up with anything. But for now, let’s assume the worst. So, from a British side, we’re in a very tight spot. I’ve been brought in because of my connection to the situation. I have a passion for Russian politics, speak Russian well enough to get by and was based there for two years, as I’ve already mentioned.”
“And you dated someone once, yeah, I get it.”
“Look, I'm serious, Zoe. This could get very messy. You’ll be glad of my involvement before too long. You need me.”
“I need you...” she said but didn’t bother to finish that sentence. She could see it was pointless to argue. She was stuck with him regardless, and it was starting to get beyond her level of expertise. It was going to be a challenging working relationship, but she’d just have to find a way of making it work.
It was early the following morning when the team working on the case at Scotland Yard identified the real name of their primary suspect.
Zoe and Charlie, the unlikeliest of partners, were now working the case together on the UK side of things. They did not doubt that the Russians were digging just as deep. More would come to light later that day, they expected, as a delegation was flying over from Russia to see them. Charlie was in jovial spirits. The office around him, his current base, picked up activity as the morning progressed.
“So, Zoe, what do we know about our man?” he said, louder than he needed to. She was far from working him out.
“His real name is William Hackett. He’s fifty-nine years old, has no criminal record, a family man. He lost his wife to cancer about ten years back. He has three kids, and some grandkids too.”
“Any connection to the victim that we know?” Charlie said.
“I’ve got people looking into that. Nothing so far connects him to Russia. He is a businessman who does a lot for charity.” Zoe was handed another piece of paper at that point. She glanced at it before looking back up at Charlie. “Unofficially, he’s in line for a knighthood. It is due to be announced next week.”
“Wow, that doesn’t happen every day, even if killers have been shown that honour before.”
“Get me someone at the Palace,” Zoe called back to the person who’d handed her the latest piece of information. “Let’s grab a coffee,” she said to Charlie. They both headed out in the direction of the canteen, the one place Charlie had figured out so far. This was very much Zoe’s world, and she knew it.
“So, Zoe, how long have you been here?”
“What, at the Yard?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said
“Too long, probably. It’s ten, no twelve years since I moved to London.”
“And before that it was the country life, right?”
“Well, I did have those three years in Cambridge.”
“Of course, how could I forget.” They were both smiling. They were starting to get used to each other. “If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d say you were starting to like me a little more now, Zoe.”
“Well, Charlie. Looks can be deceptive. And I should know.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re playing twenty questions, are we?”
“Is that a question?” Charlie said. “I just meant you've made a few comments about image, looks, appearance. That kind of crap.”
“Have I?” she said. “Look, I don’t have an issue. Believe me. It’s just my younger sister is a nationally famous model. You’ve probably heard of her.” He had no idea if he had, but didn’t say anything. “I got the brains.” He could see she had resentment, and she apparently was a bright girl, but far from ugly. Most guys would take a second look if she walked into the room. He could only imagine how she’d scrub up if she dressed up for the night.
“I think you put yourself down too much, Zoe.”
“Stop it. And you’ve not seen my younger sister. I couldn’t bring a guy home. Once they meet her, well...”
“There you go again.”
They had now reached the canteen, the coffee machine giving them ample opportunity to change the subject, for which she was grateful.
“So, I guess we bring in this man for questioning right away,” Charlie said, both now walking back towards the incident room, coffee in hand.
“I don’t see what choice we have. He’s a suspect in a murder.”
“But with the Russians coming across later today, and assuming they too will know who he is, does it not place us in a difficult position? We know the
y’ll press for extradition as soon as they find out we have him in custody.”
“They can do what they want,” she said. “Until I’m told otherwise, he’s our collar, and we’ll question him first.”
“The Home Office is already on our back,” Charlie said. His early morning briefing at MI6 had been an interesting one.
“What time do they arrive?” Zoe said.
“Half three this afternoon. I’m meeting them at the airport.”
“Good. Look, don’t hurry back. If it gets to five, five-thirty, suggest they go straight to the hotel. I can come and meet you there around six. That would give us the whole day with the suspect. Plenty of time to start piecing things together. I’d prefer to do that without some Russian agent breathing down my neck.”
“Understood,” Charlie said, happy to play the fall guy for the time being. As things got more political, with international reputations on the line, he’d come more into the forefront. That was why he was there after all. The plods should handle local policing. The big fish was for MI6.
By lunchtime, the arrest had been made, and Bill was on the way to the station. Confused and alarmed, he had been found at his home. A team were now searching the house.
“Guys, when charged with the murder of Anthony Fernandes, Mr Hackett showed some recognition as to the name. I need you to look into that and see what it is. I want to question him in the next half hour, and I want to have everything in my hands before that. Am I clear?” The sudden rush of activity confirmed to her that she was. Charlie sat in a corner, drinking from a can, taking in the scene. He wasn’t due to meet the Russian delegation for over two hours, so would stick around for the opening moments of the interview. It’d be good to have an idea of the suspect before bringing the Russians in. They were under orders not to hand him over to them yet, nor even to admit they had him in custody. They knew it wouldn’t be long before the Russians came looking.