The Maggie Bainbridge Box Set

by Rob Wyllie

  Asvina smiled. 'As it happens, a stern and rather overweight woman who called herself the Assistant Deputy Director of Children's Services did make many statements that I did not agree with, and she made them with considerable force and at considerable length. However, you will be pleased to hear that I did not get aggressive, I did not get emotional and above all, I did not say a four-letter swear word, not even once.'

  She handed the letter to Maggie, her voice the faintest whisper. 'Why don't you open it?'

  Ollie was coming home.

  BOOK 2

  THE LEONARDO MURDERS

  Chapter 1

  Two-thirty pm on a late June afternoon, and for once the forecast had proved accurate, the sun splitting an azure-blue sky, its elevation perfect and its alignment about one hundred and ninety degrees off north. Eddie Taylor checked his little light meter, which only confirmed what he could see plainly with his own eyes. Ninety thousand lux. Couldn't be more perfect.

  Carefully he removed his kit from the padded leather holdall. High-end digital SLR, super-steady tripod and the ultra-long zoom. Over two grand's worth in the lens alone, but it was his firm belief that a good workman needed the best tools, so it was money well spent. Particularly since he was having to set up nearly five hundred metres away, a distance that the big Canon lens would make short work of. He liked these little catalogue shoots, as he called them. Twelve hundred quid in his back pocket for half an hour's work, and no ghastly bridezillas to deal with like on his routine wedding work. He'd done two or three in the last couple of years, including the nice all-expenses jaunts to Europe. There was that trip down to the Dordogne and then a couple of months ago the Amsterdam job. And they'd sent him business class and put him up in a quality hotel. What was there not to like?

  Today's assignment wasn't without risk of course, because understandably the authorities weren't too keen on primary schools being photographed, but he was far enough away not to arouse immediate suspicion, and for back-up Eddie always carried that estate agent's business card. Up here in Hampstead you couldn't move for the parasites, the district being one area of the capital that was immune to property-price wobbles. Knock up a fake e-mail with their letterhead arranging a fake appointment to survey the property, and that would be enough to fend off any local busybodies.

  This was stage one in the surveillance operation. The idea was to get some decent identification shots of the target and to make sure you understood the pick-up routine. Then a bit of discrete tailing, figuring out the route they took home and sussing out one or two places where the snatch could take place with minimal risk of interruption.

  It only took a few minutes to get set up, mounting the camera and lens securely on the stand and connecting the cable that operated the remote shutter release. A couple of adjustments and the school gates were sharply in focus. All set, giving him time to reflect that this assignment was a bit of an odd one. The last two or three, it was obvious why those kids had been targeted. With parents in the public eye and the prospect of a big fat juicy ransom, it made perfect sense. But as far as he knew, this kid was a nobody. Still, such musings were above his pay grade. Just do the job and take the money, thank you very much.

  Now it was approaching three o'clock, and a gaggle of mums and carers were beginning to mill around the gate. Sometimes they got in the way and made it difficult to get a clear shot, but the problem wasn't insurmountable. The key was to shoot as soon as the subject was in sight and not worry too much about the finer points of composition. He stole another glance at the photograph they had sent him, then scanned the scene, eyes struggling to focus in the bright sunlight. He'd had his first brief look at the boy yesterday, but the trouble was, they all looked pretty much the same to him in their neat school uniforms, and the boss wouldn't be happy if he got the wrong one. So it was important to be sure. But there, no doubt about it in his mind, that kid was the one. Skinny, tall for his age, smooth pink skin, thick glossy shoulder-length hair and a mischievous smile. He watched as the boy scanned along the pavement, looking for the fat girl who he assumed was his nanny or au pair. Yesterday she'd been nearly five minutes late and he wondered if maybe she made a habit of it. But today she was on time, the boy giving a broad smile of recognition before running over and throwing his arms around her. A quick peek at the viewfinder, a squeeze on the shutter release and the shot was in the can. Result.

  He tossed the camera bag into the back of his hatchback, blipped the lock and casually began to stroll down towards the school. The nanny had got into conversation with a couple of the mums whilst the boy wrestled with a robustly-built younger girl, ending up with him spread-eagled on the pavement as she easily overpowered him. But soon they were on the move, heading south-east down Christchurch Hill at a brisk pace. He kept about fifty metres behind them, close enough to maintain visual contact without causing any suspicion, not that they ever looked back. Besides, the pavement was full of pedestrians at this busy school pickup time. No chance of him arousing alarm even if they did glance round.

  After about half a mile the pair swung right onto Pilgrims Lane then left into one of the quiet upmarket residential streets, lined both sides by neat million-pound-plus terraced properties. This was more promising, with nobody about even at this busy period in the day and plenty of access to get a fast motor in and out in an instant. He removed his smartphone from his pocket, noted down the street name then took a few snaps of the general layout. Great, that was probably enough for today. He'd do one more trial sweep tomorrow and then they would be all set.

  About half way back to where he had parked his car, he heard the ping of a message coming through on his phone. Mechanically, he removed it from his pocket and gave it a fleeting look. Another wedding enquiry, checking his availability for October and requesting a mates-rate price. He thought it was a bit of a cheek given the bride-to-be was absolutely minted, but then the enquiry was from an old school pal from his East End days. Good old Roxy Kemp.

  She being the actress now known as Melody Montague.

  Chapter 2

  DI Frank Stewart launched one final kick at the ancient vending machine before issuing a heart-felt bollocks. Despondently, he shuffled back down the dank corridor of Atlee House to his ancient battered desk. Boy, how he had been looking forward to that mid-morning Mars Bar, but now he was to be disappointed - again. He resolved that this was the last time he was going to risk a two-pound coin in that frigging machine. No frigging Mars Bar and no frigging change either.

  That was the problem with working in poverty-spec Department 12B. It had the crappiest building, the crappiest equipment and the crappiest detectives, who quite naturally were assigned the crappiest cases. Present company excepted of course. Frank had been banished to this god-forsaken outpost of the Metropolitan Police not for being crap but because of an unfortunate incident involving his then commanding officer. An incident that involved a push, a punch, a torrent of colourful Glaswegian invective and resulted in six stitches above the eye for the huge pile of twatness that was DCI Colin Barker. Only the general agreement at the most senior levels of the force that Barker fully deserved it had saved Frank from instant dismissal from the job he loved. Instead, he was sent into semi-permanent exile amongst the has-beens and never-had-beens that occupied Atlee House.

  Nonetheless, Department 12B did perform a useful function, being the dumping ground for cases that couldn't find a natural home elsewhere in the Met. Or cases that the brass would rather see swept under the carpet. Cases like the Jamie Grant abduction. Almost two years to the day since the wee toddler had been snatched in broad daylight as he was being wheeled home from playgroup by his child-minder. The fact that he was the son of the soap actor Charles Grant guaranteed maximum publicity for the case, but it hindered rather than helped the investigation, generating a ton of false sightings that swamped his mate DI Pete Burnside's stretched team. The case had been a disaster from start to finish, and when it was clear that there wasn't going to be a happy en
ding, the Assistant Commissioner quietly shut it down and shunted it off to Atlee House, telling the press it had been put in the hands of a specialist team. That had made Frank smile. Specialist team? It was obvious that the AC had never met any of the fuckwits and losers who called themselves his colleagues.

  Before heading to the vending facilities, he'd given the empty buff folder sitting in the middle of his desk an appraising look. So far, all he'd managed to do was stick a white label on the front of the folder and scribble the name of the case on it. Operation Shark. He wasn't sure why, but he liked to give all his investigations a code name. This one hadn't taken long to come up with and he didn't really know why he picked it, it just sounded sort-of, well, solid. He had a hunch that this investigation was going to turn into something big and he didn't want it saddled with a rubbish name.

  On his return, he was pleased to see Eleanor Campbell waiting at his desk. He liked the quirky government forensic officer, and he thought she liked him too. Not romantically of course, in either direction, absolutely not, and that wasn't just because of the age gap - he was forty-two but looked about fifty on a good day, and she, he wasn't quite sure, probably thirty-two or thirty-three, but looked about sixteen. No, the gap in years might have been no more than ten, but culturally it was wider that the Grand Canyon. Beside which, there was the spectre of Maggie Bainbridge hovering over him. Very definitely out of his league, that was what he believed, but at least she was about his age. He was seeing her in a couple of days with his brother Jimmy, and was very much looking forward to it.

  'Well hello wee Eleanor,' he said brightly. 'Ready to go then?'

  She nodded enthusiastically, which was very much unlike her. 'Yeah, can't wait.'

  He looked at her suspiciously before remembering. Eleanor had a new toy and this was the first time she would have a chance to test it in the field. The woman was a sucker for new technology, especially the shady stuff she seemed to have no trouble procuring from her mates at the Government Communications labs up in Cheltenham. She wouldn't tell him what this one was all about, except she was helping the GCHQ geeks with something called a beta testing programme. She'd explained it once, but he still had no idea what it meant.

  'Are we like walking then?' she asked.

  'No way,' Frank replied, grimacing. 'It must be nearly four miles. No, we'll take a squad car and stick the blue lights on.' He could tell from her expression that she wasn't sure if he was joking or not. He wasn't.

  'I've googled it,' she said in a serious tone. 'It's only two point four miles.'

  'Exactly. Too far to walk. Come on, we better get our arses in gear or we'll miss the start.'

  He grabbed the keys of an Astra from the board and they headed out to the car park behind the building. Atlee House was located just off the Uxbridge Road and ordinarily it wouldn't take much more than five or ten minutes to get to Speakers' Corner, especially on a Saturday. But today was different. The calendar was approaching midsummer, and with the sun blazing down from a crystal blue sky it was the perfect day to get the crowds out for the biggest protest rally of the season so far. Stars Against Fascism. Frank laughed to himself at the colossal self-regard of some of those so-called celebs. But maybe they believed in it all, who was he to say?

  The traffic was nose-to-tail along the Bayswater Road, which confirmed he'd made the right decision with regard to mode of transport. Flicking on the blue flashing lights, he pulled out from behind a bus and cruised down the wrong side of the road, giving an occasional burst on the siren to warn oncoming vehicles. Glancing over into the park, he could see his mates in the riot squad were already there in force, a dozen or more lightly-armoured minibuses parked up and ready for any argy-bargy, should it arise. Which as far as Frank was concerned, was a one-hundred-percent certainty.

  As he had expected, the entrance to West Carriage Drive was closed, guarded by a pair of sour-faced constables who were unarmed but in riot gear.

  'What do you want?' one of them barked as he pulled the Astra up in front of a temporary barrier that had been erected.

  He flashed his warrant card. 'DI Stewart. Department 12B.'

  The constable gave his mate an uncertain look, not sure if he should have heard of it or not. Frank kept schtum, hoping to avoid long and tedious explanations as to why he was here. It seemed to work.

  'Yeah, all right sir,' the constable said, his voice betraying doubt as to whether he was doing the right thing, 'on you go.'

  Frank gave him a nod of acknowledgement and threaded the car through the narrow gap that had been opened up for them. He drove on for two or three hundred yards then pulled over onto the grass verge.

  'We'll just dump it here Eleanor,' he said, 'and then take a wee stroll over towards the stage, so we can get a good view.'

  She muttered something under her breath, her attention fully given to her smart phone. Looking at her, he saw she was wearing a perplexed expression.

  'What did you say?'

  'Their stuff is always pretty buggy but I can't get it to boot up. I might have to check the release notes.'

  He shrugged, uncomprehending. 'Aye, well I'm sure you'll figure it out. Come on, let's go.'

  They got out of the car and began walking towards the large stage, she still head-down and swiping a finger furiously across her screen. Taking in the scene, he struggled to estimate the size of the crowd that had assembled. Six, maybe seven thousand at the most, still decent but nothing like the half a million the organisers had claimed were going to turn up. That figure had made Frank chuckle. Bow Road was a popular soap, he knew that, and some of the actors were household names, but it wasn't as if they had the draw of an Angelina Jolie or a Beyoncé.

  There was quite a broad demographic from the age perspective, but much less so from a socio-economic viewpoint. Alongside the placards and banners, the protestors had come armed with tartan travel rugs, wicker picnic baskets and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of prosecco. For this was almost without exception a nice middle-class day out, attendance seen almost as a duty by the comfortably-off and comfortably-smug Islington set. But they weren't the only group driven to attend by a sense of duty, which explained the heavy presence of the riot squad boys. Because whenever the virtue-signalling left came out to play, the right-wing bully boys came out too. Right now, there was definitely a bit of a party atmosphere, but he didn't expect that to last. As they snaked their way through the crowds, he looked again at Eleanor. This time she was smiling.

  'Sorted?' he asked, feigning interest.

  'Yeah, think so.' She held the phone out in front of her at arm's length and began to scan the horizon. 'Yeah, sorted. Look.' She thrust the phone into his face.

  'What am I looking at?'

  'Facial rec linked to the PNC. It's awesome.'

  'And it's also illegal.' He'd got to know more than he really needed or wanted to know about facial recognition technology as a result of his last case, and he hoped he'd heard the last of it. But apparently not.

  'You can like tell in an instant if someone's got a criminal record. It does real-time interrogation of the Police National Computer. With sixty-four-bit encryption.'

  'Good to know,' Frank said, 'but just be careful who you point it at around here, will you? Every second one of them is a human-rights lawyer and they would go ape-shit if they got a sniff of what you're doing.'

  'It's only like a test,' she said defensively.

  'Whatever.' It was one of her favourite expressions, and he liked to use it whenever he could just to wind her up. This time, she scowled but said nothing.

  A moderately well-known indie rock band were just closing their set with their sole hit, the lead singer having peppered the six-song performance with obligatory anti-Tory rants. Frank, something of a music buff, knew the guy's background. Public school, Durham Uni, old money. But he didn't hold it against him.

  'Great song this,' he shouted to no-one in particular. He saw that Eleanor had her phone focussed on the vocalist.

/>   'He's got a drugs bust,' she said, her tone smug, 'back in twenty-twelve.'

  'Put the bloody thing away,' he said. 'You've proved it works, so that's a tick in the box. Let's just enjoy the speeches.'

  The speeches. Because that's why they were here, and to hear one speech in particular. Operation Shark's Charles Grant, the left-wing activist nicknamed the Pound-Shop Martin Luther King by his enemies in the press. He'd need to do some research to find out how he'd come by the name, but he knew that they hadn't meant it as a compliment. But before Grant, it seemed there was to be a warm-up act.

  'Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for coming. Stars against fascism!' Frank recognised the compère as Paul somebody-or other, a comedian familiar to millions from his appearances on TV panel shows, and known for his left-of-centre politics. Then again, everyone on these shows had left-of-centre politics. It was mandatory, and more important than actually being funny.

  'Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to the stage, Mr Benjamin Fox and Miss Allegra Ross.' As the two soap actors walked on from the wings, the crowd, seemingly reluctant to divert attention from their picnics, gave a ripple of polite applause. Frank didn't follow the soaps, but he vaguely knew of Fox. Played the randy doctor, the one lucky not to be struck off when caught with his trousers down. The woman, he was pretty sure he hadn't seen before but there was no doubting she was easy on the eye.

  'Thanks Paul,' Fox said, waving to the crowd. 'Are you all right!' This time, the response from the audience was more enthusiastic, a loud yes followed by laughter. Alongside him, Allegra Ross beamed a smile and raised her hands in salute. It seemed in fact that it was she who would be the first to speak.

  'We're here today, united in our great cause. The fight against fascism, the fight against the rise of global right-wing extremism.'