He thought for a moment. “Could be.”
“No could be about it,” I said. “I arrested several burglars when I was with CID and I never caught anyone still holding onto whatever he’d taken a few days later. First thing any good burglar does is dispose of whatever they’ve taken: fence it or sell it on or store it. That’s how we usually caught them. No burglar keeps what they’ve lifted with them where it could be found, especially if you’re involved in some high-profile campaign against a company like Ambersial. These people’d be the obvious suspects, so having it with them doesn’t make any sense. You follow?”
“Hmm.” He nodded.
“You say Ambersial never reported the burglary.”
“’S right, they didn’t. The word was they were embarrassed this pair of amateurs could bypass some top-of-the-range security locks, so they didn’t report it. I mean, they’ve had people go onto the site and cause damage. They’d even set fire to a whole pile of wood one evening. It’s not easy keeping a building site completely secure, but nobody’d ever gotten into their offices before.”
“They’re skilled enough to get past some effective security, but not smart enough to leave anything taken where it can’t be found?”
Sharone simply shrugged, but I was uneasy. Something didn’t feel right. The norm for firms in sensitive and controversial areas like Ambersial would be to report any break-in, especially if anything valuable had been taken and there were issues of confidentiality. This was so police could start putting out feelers to their sources and get them to be aware of what was being traded. I wasn’t sure why they’d not reported the break-in. This was something to look into in more detail.
I then remembered something. Whoever’d shot at al-Ebouli had also bypassed security locks to get into the shop. Rhodes had been identified as a possible suspect for that, and he’d also been working for Ambersial when the two members of CDA had perished. Another coincidence?
“You seem to know a lot about this,” I said, hoping he’d take my hint.
“The people my source works for have interests in both Hembreys and Ambersial.”
I nodded. It made sense. I had another question to ask, as I wasn’t going to waste time asking who his source was when I knew he wouldn’t answer. But he then astounded me.
“I’m not going to name him, but I can tell you he’s a friend and he works for Israeli security. I get some good intel about things from him, especially affecting the Middle East.”
I sat forward in my seat, eyes wide open.
“Israeli security?” I blurted out. “What’s their interest here?”
“They became interested when hydroxilyn went missing, and when they learned about Red Heaven acquiring it, especially when they heard about the MI5 man who’d been funnelling it to them.” He paused for a moment. “Let’s just say Israel takes more than a keen interest in the deal between these two firms.”
A second Israeli connection. He’d anticipated my next question
“And, no, I’m not telling you exactly what their interest is because I don’t know, but even if I did I wouldn’t tell you. My friend wouldn’t like it if I did.”
An absurd idea suddenly struck me. I wondered if the Israeli connections were in fact one and the same person. I decided to go out on a limb.
“I know someone with Israeli security, name’s Joachim Balpak. I wonder if your source knows him?”
The momentary astonished look on Sharone’s face told me I’d hit the jackpot. It’s often better to be lucky than good. But he soon regained his composure.
“I don’t know.” He somehow managed to smile and look deadly serious. “How d’you know this guy?” He was fishing.
“I don’t know him that well,” I tried reassuring him. I didn’t know him at all. But for the CCTV images and Jacqueline Chandler’s drawing, I wouldn’t even know he existed. “I’ve just seen him around. You know how it is in my world. It’s a small place.”
I paused for a moment. Kevin Sharone was still looking stunned.
“So your source tells you about the burglary and the two people being killed,” I said. “How would he know that?”
“As I told you, Israeli security’s interested in both companies.”
“Why’s that?”
“Ambersial does work for a couple of Israeli firms. I don’t know who or what, but clearly they’re gonna be interested when an American firm with a terrorist suspect in its senior management joins forces with it. That’s how I know about Dellvay.”
“Because your source told you.”
“Correct,” he said firmly.
I took stock. I’d gleaned a few interesting points talking to Sharone, not least about Richard Rhodes. The frustrating part was that I couldn’t connect Rhodes to anything specific, but the coincidence of him working for Ambersial at the same time two activists against the company were killed in an apparently deliberate car crash was resounding. I wasn’t any nearer to joining together what still seemed like a whole pile of random dots, but at least I had something to go on.
“This any use to you?” Sharone asked. He was looking less surprised now.
“Oh, yeah, certainly.”
I thanked him for his time and asked him to keep my visit to himself, and definitely not to mention it to his Israeli friend. He agreed, saying a few beers at Mickey’s pub soon would be adequate recompense for his silence. Fine by me.
*
Eight fifteen. I was back in the office, looking up details of the crash where two animal rights activists had perished. My initial plan of going home after leaving Lantanis had been deferred after what I’d learned from Kevin Sharone. I wanted to check out a few things first.
I found the official police report and read through it.
The facts as laid out were straightforward. The emergency services had been alerted by a call from a mobile phone just after 10.50 pm. A couple on their way home had come off the M11 motorway and had seen the car tipped up in the ditch the other side of the road. From the front they knew there’d been an accident, so they’d immediately contacted the emergency services, informing them of a car in a ditch with what looked like two bodies on the front seats. Police and an ambulance were dispatched to the scene, along with a fire engine in case anyone had to be cut loose from the wreckage.
After the fire engine had pulled the car from the ditch and back up onto the road, inside the car were found a man and a woman, both unconscious and looking badly injured, with blood-splattered faces. They’d been taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, but both had died within a short while of arriving without regaining consciousness. Both had suffered massive head injuries and had several broken limbs caused by the impact of their car hitting a tree at high speed. The extensive damage to the front of the car, and the damage to the tree, suggested they’d hit it at a speed somewhere between forty and fifty miles an hour, which would be consistent with the nature of the injuries suffered. The estimate was the accident must have occurred within the past hour due to the fact the blood on their faces had yet to congeal. There’d been no witnesses to what had occurred, and police had written it off as an unfortunate accident.
The male deceased had been identified as Steven Perry, aged forty-seven, and the female as Assa Khoudri, aged forty-five, both from London.
I felt like someone had hit me in the solar plexus. The name Khoudri leapt out at me. I remembered reading about Jamal Khoudri’s wife having died in a car crash not too long ago. Jamal was recorded as being her husband. She was involved in CDA, organising protests against Ambersial? She was suspected of being involved in a burglary of their offices?
I went into Special Branch’s database, the family album, and entered the name Assa Khoudri. The details given were mostly factual. They mentioned her nationality, education, her residence and that she was married to Jamal Khoudri, an investment banker, though currently working for the mayoral campaign of James Blatchford. But there was nothing listed about her being involved in demonstrations against Ambe
rsial, or anyone else for that matter. There was nothing listed against her name, she was not a person of interest, yet she’d died a suspect in a break-in at the site of Ambersial’s new premises near Cambridge.
Steven Perry was a seasoned agitator for animal rights. He’d cut his campaigning teeth as one of the most prominent ringleaders in the campaign to close down HLS. He’d been interviewed as a suspect after car bombs had exploded close to the firm’s premises, but culpability couldn’t be definitively proven. The fact of explosives being used to disrupt the activities of a lawful business, plus the discovery one car bomb had been made from agricultural fertiliser and Semtex, the traditional mix favoured by the IRA, had meant an upping of the ante between the state and those seeking to use violence, which had meant the involvement of Special Branch to investigate those associated with the extreme edges of protest. Perry was known to have been involved in demonstrations against several companies and universities that traditionally used animals for experimentation.
One of the directors of HLS had been seriously assaulted one night as he’d arrived home. As he had parked his car in his driveway, three people had jumped him, punching and kicking him several times. Perry had been brought in on suspicion but, again, it couldn’t be established he’d had a hand in it, despite police knowing he was in the area the same evening, as the victim refused to get further involved.
But there was nothing on his file about burglary. All his clashes with criminal law, apart from a fine for speeding in a built-up area, had been through his involvement with animal rights campaigning.
I went back briefly to Assa Khoudri’s file. She had no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. Yet, according to police reports, she’d broken into a well-protected office and stolen confidential documents belonging to Ambersial.
I looked at Perry’s personal details. School, university, residence, employment, family. Mostly unremarkable. I then spotted a detail which made me gasp out loud. He’d married a woman named Elaine Jones five years ago. It was a second marriage for both parties. She had one son, Daniel, a police officer stationed in London. Dan Jones. The same one who’d been killed yesterday?
I brought up Dan Jones’ details. He’d lived in police accommodation in central London but his family lived in Putney. His parents were divorced. His father, a former police officer named William Edward Jones, was now believed to be living somewhere in the Coventry area. But his mother was named as one Elaine Jones. She’d remarried a few years ago to a Steven Perry, a known militant activist concerning animal rights, and thought to be one of those involved in what’s quaintly known as the Justice Department, that section of the Animal Liberation Front involved in meting out retribution to any person publically identified as either an animal abuser or someone who has justified experimentation on animals.
The mother of the recently deceased police officer Dan Jones was the wife of a man known to be involved in violent protests against companies using animals in their work, and named as a suspect in a burglary at Ambersial. In the space of a few months she’d lost her second husband and now, last night, her only son had died. Did his stepfather’s activities have anything to do with the killing of PC Dan Jones? How could they have done? Jones himself would almost certainly have known about his stepfather and what he did.
I was confused.
F I V E
Wednesday
The main headline in many of the daily newspapers, even in some of the tabloids, was the killing of Jamal Khoudri, described as a merchant banker currently working as campaign coordinator for the independent Tory candidate James Blatchford in his quest to become Mayor of London. The facts of the case had been briefly laid out, along with how his body’d been found by police late morning. A police canvass of the area around the campaign HQ had, so far, not produced any results, and they currently had no obvious suspects but were keeping an open mind as to motive. A couple of campaign workers had been quoted, saying Jamal was a lovely man and they couldn’t understand why anyone would want to kill him.
However, only the Independent and the Guardian mentioned Khoudri’s body had been found by two Special Branch detectives who’d just been to talk to Qais Jaser. They both also mentioned the same detectives had been at the meeting al-Ebouli had spoken at on Saturday, which was an election rally. Both papers queried why Special Branch was investigating James Blatchford’s campaign.
Several of the broadsheets mentioned Jaser was the personal assistant to Christian Perkins, a senior backbench Tory MP. Perkins would be pleased to see his name in print.
Following on from the shots fired at al-Ebouli last Saturday, and the killing of PC Jones on Monday, several broadsheet newspapers focused on what appeared to be a dangerous new trend in British politics: the use of extreme violence to attempt to intimidate or to silence those with whom you disagree, with the Telegraph making the point this trend would not be developing if extremists were banned from holding or speaking at public meetings.
What none of the papers knew was my suspicion two animal rights protestors hadn’t died in an unfortunate accident; they’d been murdered, and you couldn’t get a more silent opponent than one who was dead.
*
“No, Detective, that isn’t the case at all.”
I was on the phone talking to a Ms Kerrie Brandon who, from her accent, came across like a Brit trying to sound like an American. I’d arrived at the office and, after looking at the papers and learning Smitherman was upstairs at an early morning meeting, had phoned Ambersial in Cambridge, identified myself and asked to speak to a senior manager. Kerrie had told me she was currently the most senior manager onsite, adding that she was responsible for strategic counter planning logistics. I didn’t ask her to elaborate. The job title sounded dreadfully boring and I didn’t want to know what it involved.
I’d begun by asking her about the burglary. She’d replied they’d already spoken to local police after retrieving their stolen property, and asked why she was being asked to repeat herself. I said I wasn’t local police, I was Special Branch, and our interest was different. She didn’t sound convinced.
She described arriving at work with a colleague and, on entering the main office, discovering the drawers in her desk and in other desks, plus the office filing cabinet, were all unlocked. This was immediately suspicious as all papers and documents had to be stowed away, and all desk drawers and lockers were checked to ensure everything was secure, before the offices were locked down for the evening. Whoever was the last manager in the office had to sign a security logbook confirming everything had been locked down before leaving. An examination of the cabinet’s drawers by her and two other managers had revealed several files had been taken.
I asked how important whatever had been taken was. She didn’t elaborate on the contents of the files, other than to say they were mainly scientific in nature, and were extremely confidential. They’d not lost anything relating to dealings with clients, such as lists of contacts and addresses.
I asked why a burglar would be interested in scientific files, and wondered whether Ambersial had suspected industrial espionage, but she answered that she didn’t know.
I asked about security when no authorised personnel were onsite. She said the premises were watched by uniformed security guards, who regularly patrolled the perimeter of the site using dogs. Their duties also included checking the offices roughly every sixty to ninety minutes, and they’d done so throughout the night and found nothing amiss. She mentioned this didn’t include checking desks were locked as this would have been signed for when keys were handed in, and on the day in question, every key had been signed in and accounted for. She concluded by saying whoever’d got in was obviously skilled at his profession, as he’d managed to disable the locks on the door, bypass an alarm system and get into locked filing cabinets, not to mention avoiding the security guards.
“How many managers onsite have keys?” I asked.
“Four, including myself. When everything’s locked up, m
anagers deposit their keys in the safe, over at the security station. Keys used in the office are not allowed offsite. They’re signed for when they’re deposited, and again when collected. There’s a security man there twenty-four seven. Someone’s in that room the whole time. The room also has CCTV.”
“And the security man says everybody deposited their keys, nobody came to sign one out and he didn’t leave the room,” I said flatly.
“That’s the first thing we checked. Yes, that’s correct, Detective.”
“Makes me wonder why the burglary wasn’t reported when you first knew about it. Didn’t you think a security breach was serious?”
“Initially, I wasn’t sure if it was a burglary,” she countered. “I thought one of the senior managers might have forgotten to lock everything up before leaving. It happens when you’re in a rush; I’ve done it myself. You know how firms work; you wink at the security guard, backdate the signature for depositing them the previous night and sign them out again, even though you’ve had them all the time. So we waited before raising the alarm.”
“How long before you found out no senior manager had got them?”
“It was later that same day. I didn’t initially mention it to the guard. I waited for the other managers to arrive. That’s when we found out.”
“I’m guessing there was nothing confidential taken, then, as you don’t sound too concerned about what occurred.”
“We had some very confidential files taken, Detective, containing some very sensitive information.” She sounded displeased with my questions.
“So why wasn’t the burglary reported?” I repeated my earlier question. “Didn’t it bother you whoever it was had bypassed some elaborate security to gain access to your office?”
“Of course it did.” She was now agitated. “But our assumption was it must have been someone with the protesters. The material taken couldn’t be sold on, there was no commercial value attached to what had been taken. It could only be of use to another such firm, and they’d know immediately where it came from, so they’d not touch it because we’d soon know about it. We assumed the people who took it’d get in touch with us about it, try to do a deal of some kind.”
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