Tim Heath Thriller Boxset

by Tim Heath

  A tidy man throughout his life, he liked things ordered and always in place. He’d learnt from experience that things left around tended to get lost, or worse still, taken.

  He quickly pulled on some black Armani trousers but didn’t put on a tie, having adjusted to the comfort of not wearing one. Taking a deep breath, he finished his drink in one gulp, checked his hair in the sizeable study mirror and walked back into his lounge to face another day.

  At the same time in central Manchester, the offices of Harman Insurance Company Ltd (HICL) were coming to life. HICL had been around for thirty-five years, started by Brian Harman, an experienced broker who’d spent fifteen years as a cog in a large company learning everything, before setting up his own business. HICL multiplied, mainly through reputation, and it specialised in corporate insurance, but through a semi-merger and several takeovers, it became a giant, and though purchased itself eleven years ago, it retained its name, reputation and growth rate. Today HICL stood as the most significant insurance company in Europe, worth over £35 billion. It had two offices in the UK and another ten across Europe.

  Brendan Charles was the CEO at HICL and had been since the takeover. He stood as a giant in his field, feared by many and not just because of his position and wealth. He stood at an impressive six feet six inches tall which naturally made him tower over almost all he came across, and he used this to his advantage on many occasions. A Gamble Holdings Group man through and through, he’d been given this ship to control when HICL was purchased and had himself played a prominent role in the acquisition at the time. Aged forty-eight, with natural grey hair, he was always well turned out in designer suits and expensive watches. A family man, he’d married his university sweetheart at twenty-six and had three children.

  “Get the Finance Heads to meet me in the conference room at nine o’clock sharp,” Brendan instructed his secretary from the intercom on his desk phone, his usual quickness of tongue causing her daydreaming to stop instantly.

  At nine in the HICL conference room, the five Finance Heads were sitting around the long mahogany desk, with Brendan Charles at the far end. The conference room was warm, lush and comfortable, with little expense spared to give the impression of wealth and importance for all those who had the honour of using the room. A conference phone sat in the middle of the desk, and a female voice said:

  “I’ll just connect you now, sir.”

  A couple of seconds of silence and a voice spoke. “Are you there Brendan?” Nobody called Mr Charles, Brendan and the five around the table didn't miss it, all of whom earned six-figure salaries.

  “Hello, sir,” Mr Charles replied. The five around the table collectively sat up even straighter. “Everyone is here who needs to be,” he continued.

  “Good. I shall keep this brief. Over the last two years, as Brendan is aware, we have been setting aside certain amounts of equity so that if a situation arose when liquid cash was needed at short notice, we would have the means. Therefore, each of you who oversee your budgets must move the relevant amounts, as to be indicated, so that Brendan has it all centrally located by 10 am today. We’ll leave much of the equity in place, but there will be around £20million moved this morning, with plenty in reserve. Brendan, you are then to contact our usual man and proceed at once with the purchase of Nottingham Forest Football Club. Account authorisation is with Brendan, and he will hand these to you in a minute. Also enclosed are the forwarding account details and the contacts at the banks. They are aware that I will be moving funds but are unaware of what volumes. Please, can you now collect your file from Brendan and proceed as instructed.” They quickly jumped to their feet, Brendan handing each of them a brown folder which contained all the required information, and leading them to the door, they went their separate ways with renewed energy. Brendan returned to the desk and picked up the handset.

  “It’s just us now, sir.”

  “Good. Once we make a move there will be a media circus. I need you in place to handle that side, which is why I’m running the deal through your books. As always, I want to remain in the shadows and do not want to see my name in the papers.”

  “Of course, sir, I understand what you are saying.”

  The voice on the phone continued: “Three years ago you recruited a man named Tommy Lawrence for me if you recall.”

  “I do, a bright young man from Preston, if I remember correctly,” Brendan added.

  “He was put through your management training program there at HICL within one month of employment.”

  “He was indeed, upon your request, sir.”

  “As you will have seen, he has shown an excellent degree of management ability, as well as being a great people person. He has the character of a leader, always had, and I knew under your leadership there at HICL he’d be a wonderful asset. I now need you to contact him at once. You’ll find him in his office on the third floor. I need Tommy Lawrence installed as the new manager at Nottingham Forest first thing tomorrow.”

  2

  The Department of Information was quiet that early on a Monday morning. It was opened up two years ago as part of a collective crack down on terrorism, and it pulled together all the information on anything that was ‘out there’ and aimed to centralise it. Similar to a library, it acted as a resource centre where you could come and read up on anything, or anyone. Not limited to the printed page, it had over one hundred terminals that covered three floors and all with access to the central database. Military intelligence, of course, remained secret, but not much else did nowadays.

  Robert Sandal sat alone at one such terminal. With a coffee at his desk, he tapped away continuously at the keyboard. Aged twenty-nine, Robert had an intelligent look about him, which was significantly aided by his wire-framed spectacles that sat on the end of his nose. He was dressed in a grey flannel suit and matching trousers. His prematurely greying hair only seemed to add to his style, as well as make him look a lot older than he was. He was a frequent visitor to the DoI, calling in at odd times and on different days. The young female clerk, sitting on the main desk by the entrance came to recognise him, though they had not spoken much. He never took anything out, just tapped away at the screens.

  “You know, you aren’t supposed to bring coffee near the machines, sir,” said the clerk, coming over to Robert with a slight twinkle in her eye, taking in his appearance. She saw that there was a youthful life to him, his eyes giving him away and although some grey hair was visible, she guessed he wasn’t as old as it appeared and he certainly had her attention.

  “You have pointed that out to me before, Jessica,” Robert replied, deliberately taking time to look at her name badge pinned to her top. She gave a small smile and played with her hair.

  “What do you do here all the time, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Just looking at what every citizen has a right to do, Miss Ponter,” he replied carefully.

  Jessica lowered her head slightly as he continued tapping and took in her name badge, which revealed, as she had thought, just her first name.

  “How did you…,” she started to say.

  “Information, my dear. Everything at your fingertips,” he cut in, tapping away and bringing up a DoI employee page with Jessica’s face displayed.

  “Miss Jessica Ponter, age twenty-two, born in Bolton but you moved to London with your family at age thirteen, who you lived with for a further six years before a death in the family meant you moved again.” He clicked on another folder that was at the bottom of the screen, and this opened up on top. He continued, “You bought a meal at the Chinese Dragon last Friday night. One rice and one sweet and sour chicken, so I’d say you live alone, at Flat 5, Dorset Avenue. You shop at your local store once a week, never more than £20 a time, always meals for one, toiletries or fruit and veg. You don’t smoke, drink very little and keep yourself in shape at the Eccles Star Gym that’s on the corner of your block.” She stood there taking it all in, now in stunned silence, studying this vaguely attractive man
in front of her, who now seemed even more interesting than before, though she was somewhat concerned how he knew so much.

  “Are you flirting with me, sir?” she said shortly, secretly hoping he was.

  “No, I’d be flirting if I was showing you files like these,” he said while clicking on another folder that opened up on the top of the screen, “which shows your purchases at La Senza. 32C, fire red lace underwear and bra set. You’re probably wearing the fire lace set right now,” he said, turning from the screen and facing her.

  She remained calm, smiling down at him as he looked at her eyes then lowered his head deliberately and took in her chest and long legs that were gracefully shown off in her company dress that she wore.

  “Well, really. Aren’t you a man of mystery!” she said, turning quickly and lifting her chin. Flicking her hair over her left shoulder, she walked deliberately back to her desk, swaying her hips all the more knowing that he would be watching her; which he was. Robert returned to his screen, smiling a little but realising messing around wouldn’t get him anywhere, though he was a fan of hers, always had been since he first saw her. He shook that thought from his head and started tapping away again at the computer keyboard. It wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for. It was a hotel room booking for The Thistle Hotel, made out in the name of a Mr & Mrs Charles. Brendan had booked it himself with the company credit card, which was unusual, but not surprising in the circumstances. Robert knew, however, that Mrs Charles was in Devon that weekend visiting her parents. The hotel’s home page gave some general information, such as fire escapes, Fire Officers, Staff, and Security, etc. It also gave the name of their CCTV operator as SecureCCTV, a company Robert had come across before which was based in north London. Calling up the SecureCCTV company data, he was able to access, after a little bit of trickery, the video from the camera on the landing of the tenth floor at The Thistle. It showed Brendan’s door and Brendan himself walking towards the room at that moment with his arm around an attractive young woman’s shoulders. As they stopped at the door, Robert paused the camera, and it confirmed what he thought; it showed Brendan standing next to the DoI’s very own Miss Jessica Ponter.

  The television cameras from the various news and sports networks were crammed outside the main entrance to the City Ground as reporter after reporter did their piece to camera, all talking feverishly about the sensational news of a takeover of one of England’s sleeping giants. More and more vans and trucks were pulling up, as the morning and the story gained momentum. “Directors are currently unavailable for comment, but they are reportedly behind me now, in the offices up there on the third floor, where they have been in a meeting all morning,” one reporter stated, talking eagerly and excitedly into the camera in front of him.

  News had hit the Stock Market at 9:55 am and all trading in Nottingham Forest shares had been suspended. A press conference was planned for midday where further information was promised.

  “The news of this takeover will no doubt bring mixed emotions to all Forest fans. Having been a club on a downward spiral for the last couple of decades, and always in the shadow of their bigger local rivals, for the true Forest fan this news should be met with excitement,” the news reporter continued to say. “With debts mounting and gate receipts suffering following the latest television deal, a suited investor with ambition and wealth has an excellent opportunity to get this club back on track. We await lunchtime’s press conference, which should hopefully shed some light on the new owner, and what exactly their plans are for the club itself. For now, it is back to the studio,” he said, signing off and quickly making a call on his mobile phone.

  Robert closed down the files he was looking at, having printed a couple of things off, and collected his papers together. Standing up, he slipped on his jacket and picked up his bag. Walking back out towards the main desk, he smiled at Jessica as she looked up and saw him coming. She was typing away on her computer but paused as Robert approached.

  “See you, for now, Jessica,” he said as he passed the front of her desk. Carrying straight on he added, “and say hello to Brendan Charles next time you see him, won’t you,” and he was gone. Jessica froze. She looked up quickly, but he was gone. Panic caught up with her, and Jessica started to feel nauseous, but she took a deep breath and started to focus again. Jumping up, her head slightly clearer now, she returned to his terminal, the building still very quiet, and sat on the chair in front of the screen. Though not a computer expert, she knew she had ‘Screen Recall’ facilities as a DoI employee, and she quickly opened up the program and typed in her password. The recall facility displayed, in a screen print style layout, the sequence of screens and applications any user had accessed, and though rarely used, it was available in the most urgent situations where it was suspected a crime had been or might be committed. Jessica knew none of this was the case indeed for herself, but her self preservation drove her through the process, and besides, nobody else was around to stop her. She tabbed through the pages, past her details as Robert had relayed them to her and onto the Hotel page, and then the SecureCCTV homepage, which required a password at the time, but which Jessica could see had been entered, though a star replaced the seven characters on her view. Then up came the details, the exact weekend, corridor, time, and then the image of her and Brendan entering the room together.

  “Damn you!” she snarled to herself under her breath, sitting there in silence trying to make sense of it all.

  That same day, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Monopolies Commission were having their joint monthly meeting in a central London governmental office. The gathering had been pulled forward from lunchtime due to the breaking news about the Forest takeover.

  Both departments had three representatives, and they were all seated promptly around the table in their usual ‘formation’ drinking coffee and making small talk. Mary Ingham was the Chair of the meeting.

  “Shall we get started?” Mary said, standing up holding her prepared file. Glancing down the page, she continued. “We’ve pulled the meeting forward due to the news of the Nottingham Forest takeover, though the existing agenda will still need a good look at as well. I want to cut to the chase as it might be a long day if things with the Forest takeover go that way.” She looked up and had everyone’s complete attention. “Now obviously we need to gather all the information we have available on the proposed new owner or owners of Nottingham Forest, though early reports seem to suggest that it is a UK based consortium, which makes our job that little bit easier.” She took a sip of water, and then picked up the original agenda that lay on the desk. “Six other corporate takeovers to look at, four overseas investors and countless tax cases as always,” she summarised. “OK. The six takeovers we’ll pass straight to your team at the MC. Three are inter-industry, one’s a straightforward director’s buy-out, and our friends across the pond are looking to buy two long-established firms.” She took another longer sip of water while the relevant green folders were passed across.

  “The four overseas investors are being checked out by MI6, as usual. I’m passing around a summary of each, and you’ll be informed of any developments by email if anything significant happens before next month’s meeting.

  “I’ve got a call out for us to be notified when the press conference is underway for this Nottingham Forest thing. Our guys are also digging around, working with what we’ve got at the moment. In the meantime, we’ll crack on with what we have,” and with that, she sat down. They spent the next two hours reviewing the tax cases, which always took time and was the slowest part of the meeting, as both departments had their own input.

  Tommy Lawrence was thirty-seven years old. He had a personality not quickly forgotten and a unique way with people; he stood out from the crowd as early as his teenage years. A sports-mad sixteen-year-old, Tommy was a keen footballer and played every weekend for his local boy’s team. At eighteen he moved to the men’s side and filled many Saturdays with his first love. Before long, h
e was involved in helping to run the team, and not just his team, but the youngsters too. And the club had never played so well in its forty year history. His love for the game continued off the pitch also, as he shared a common passion for management simulation games on his PC. He used the tactics employed on his beloved and successful PC team and copied them onto the real-life Saturday matches. And it worked.

  Even at thirty-four, he was still going strong, playing every week as well as being involved in training and helping out the younger lads who were showing promise in the youth teams. He took it very seriously still but had come to accept that as the years went by he wouldn’t make the big time as a player himself. Things changed dramatically for him at the end of the season when he fell madly in love with a beautiful nineteen-year-old, sister of one of the players at the club. She came just once to watch her brother, and for Tommy, it was love at first sight. His world was quickly turned upside down, and his priorities changed overnight. With the season over, he was able to spend time with her like he hadn’t spent with anyone else before.