“Two protesters died near Ambersial’s new premises in Cambridge a few months ago. It was reported as an accident, but I have a source who tells me it wasn’t. The two people involved were deliberately run off the road by two cars hemming them in at high speed, and they went straight into a tree.”
“And?”
“And Rhodes just happened to be working onsite at that time,” I said, firmly. “He’s also with the guy from Hembreys, and Hembreys had an interest there. Ambersial needed to get the protests stopped or Hembreys was going to pull out, and they couldn’t afford for that to happen. So Rhodes turns up and, hey presto, two deaths later, the deal between the two firms goes ahead as planned. The protests outside have largely died as well since then.”
Smitherman looked doubtful. He sat back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the corner of the desk, a certain sign he was thinking.
“I think Jamal Khoudri’s death is tied up here somehow,” I said. “His wife was one of the two people who died in that crash.”
“Yes, I was aware of that,” Smitherman said.
“It’d be interesting to know what the importance of this link-up between Hembreys and Ambersial is. I was checking details about Zealiac because they were planning to join with Ambersial, but their deal was shafted. I was told the proposed deal was screwed over by James Blatchford, and if his bank is to be believed, it could have been deliberate, though that’s just speculation on their part.”
“Deliberate?” Smitherman sat forward.
“That’s what my source told me.”
“Why would Blatchford want to do that?” He sounded puzzled.
“I don’t know. I’ve spoken to him about it and, of course, he denies deliberately sabotaging the deal, though the bank says he did. That’s why they mentioned it to the FCA. But he’s also buried something on the bank, and he says he’ll publish if they go after him for negligence or whatever.”
“You know what it is?”
“No idea.”
“You know what it’ll mean, don’t you, if it transpires Blatchford acted in such a way that national security issues become a consideration?”
“Yeah, he’ll lose a few votes.” I grinned.
Smitherman stood up, shaking his head. “Keep me posted.” He began to walk away, then stopped. He turned back to me. “I was actually thinking of voting for Blatchford before I heard any of this.”
*
It was now the evening and I was on the phone to a Peter Brenchley, Chief Executive of Ambersial. He was still in his office despite it being gone seven fifteen. I explained who I was and said I needed to ask a few questions he might be reluctant to answer, though I stressed my involvement in a murder inquiry. He assured me of full cooperation if possible.
“Your offices at the new site were broken into a little while back, weren’t they?” I began. “Your firm lost some important documents, taken in the burglary, but they were retrieved after a car crash two nights later.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“We don’t believe the victims in that crash were the actual burglars, but that’s another issue. What we’re interested in knowing is, what exactly was it you had taken?”
“Is this important to your investigation?”
“I believe it is. I don’t believe the crash where Ambersial retrieved what had been stolen was an accident. I think whatever had been taken has a bearing on it, and it’s probably a motive for at least two deaths. So we’d like to know what it was you lost in the burglary.”
“I’m afraid I’m really rather reluctant to cooperate with your request. What was taken was of the utmost commercial sensitivity to us, and we don’t want it made public.”
“It wouldn’t be made public.” I was annoyed at his attitude. “As I told you, this is a murder inquiry and we believe what was taken from your premises that evening has a direct bearing on at least two deaths, possibly even three. That’s why we need to know, so we can narrow our search for the killer or killers.”
The line was quiet for about six or seven seconds whilst Brenchley thought about what I’d said. He came back on the line.
“Okay, I can give you some idea.” He paused. “What we had taken were case files: all the documentation relating to our failed negotiations with the Israeli firm Zealiac. We had copies saved on our hard drive, of course, but it was worrying nonetheless. We’d been in negotiations with Zealiac about a possible merger, but negotiations stalled and then they informed us they were pulling out, for their own reasons. It didn’t work out, so we’re going into business with the other firm. These are obviously just the broad strokes. I’m not going to give you figures or detailed analysis as to reasons why.”
“And that’s it, that’s all that was taken?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Was there any information contained about the products Zealiac manufactures in what you had taken?”
“Yes. We had some very sensitive information about what they were attempting to make, which they said they’d need our help making. But then, suddenly, they pulled out, just as we were coming very close to getting the deal done.”
“Why exactly did Zealiac pull out? My sources tell me they were keen on the deal.”
“In the very beginning, they were keen. However, we were never officially told why they withdrew. We just had an official communication from their board informing us they could no longer go ahead, and they were withdrawing their interest in a merger with us, and that was that, really.” He paused for a moment. “Fortunately – for us, anyway – Hembreys were interested in a business partnership with this company, so all our investment of time and energy, not to mention the financial outlay, wasn’t wasted.” He sounded pleased.
“And you don’t know what brought about this change of mind on Zealiac’s part.”
“I don’t, I’m afraid.”
“Did this strike you as being a targeted burglary? You know, whoever it was wanted one thing only, and they went straight for it? Did you have other important stuff there as well?”
“Hmm,” he mused. “I’m not sure we considered that one. We keep lots of confidential information in that cabinet. Are you saying whoever it was just wanted the stuff about the failed merger attempt?” He was sounding worried.
It seemed obvious to me whoever’d broken in wanted the material relating to Zealiac. It could have been for any one of several reasons: industrial espionage or simply taking it because it was there, perhaps, but I suspected a more sinister agenda applied.
“It sounds plausible. No skilled burglar’s going to break into the office of somewhere like Ambersial just to rummage around. There’d usually be something they specifically wanted. In this case, all you had relating to Zealiac. Who else knew about the proposed merger?”
“Only the management here and at Zealiac. We’d made no announcements in the financial press. It was going to be kept secret until a deal was announced, to prevent artificial spikes in share prices.”
“What about the merchant bankers involved?” James Blatchford would have known about it as he had been handling it for Crattelle & Hatchman. If his brother was to be believed, James had made a pile buying shares in Hembreys before the merger went sour for Zealiac.
“We had a bank doing work for us, but we trusted them. Crattelle’s is a reputable bank. We’ve no reason to suspect them of anything.”
I was impressed by his almost naïve faith in merchant bankers. “Was any damage caused during the burglary?”
“Damage?” he repeated.
“Yeah, damage, you know, doors forced open? Locks ruined? Damage to the outer perimeter fence from people cutting wires to get in? That kind of thing.”
The line was quiet for a few seconds.
“I don’t recall any reports of anything being damaged.” He said this slowly and carefully.
“I’m told you’d tightened up your onsite security by bringing in some outside security expert from London, and you have all these procedures for put
ting keys away in place.” I didn’t mention Richard Rhodes’ name. “Yet someone was able to just waltz in and help themselves to some quite confidential information. Have I got that right?”
“Someone did get in, you’re right.” The tone in his voice suggested he suspected flippancy on my part. He was probably right.
“Could it have been someone using a key? If, as you say, there’s no forced entry and no damage, maybe the burglar used a key.”
“All keys were accounted for. They were all locked away in the security office and had been signed for.” He sounded certain.
“And whoever it was didn’t trigger the alarm either.”
“It would seem not.”
More than ever now, I was convinced Steven Perry and Assa Khoudri were not the persons who’d got into Ambersial’s offices that evening. Neither of them would have the savvy to bypass security, and they’d not know the security code to turn the alarm off. They’d also not know where to get hold of documents relating to Zealiac. Whoever had done it had to have had some inside help. Maybe it was even someone on the inside.
“You retrieved what was taken pretty quickly, though, didn’t you?”
“Yes, we were very lucky indeed. The briefcase containing all the documents relating to Zealiac was found in the car those two people died in. That suggests they were the people who took it.” He sounded pleased.
“They weren’t. Do you still have the CCTV films for that evening?”
“No,” he replied. “They’d have been wiped by now. We usually only keep them for a short time afterwards. Why do you ask?”
“One of the two so-called burglars was here in London on the night in question. The other one was outside your premises. You could’ve picked her out from CCTV if you’d still had the film.”
The line was silent for a few moments.
“Who actually gave the stolen briefcase back to you?” I asked. “Was it the police?”
“The security man from London. Rhodes, I think his name was. He said police had taken it from the car where the bodies were found and given it to him as he recognised it as belonging to the company. He gave it to us later that same evening.”
I was speculating. Rhodes had made security tighter around the premises, preventing the demonstrators from getting onto the site and causing further disruption. This had been a key factor in preventing Hembreys from pulling out of their proposed business partnership with Ambersial. Rhodes would also have had something to do with internal security procedures. I suspected he’d made a spare key for himself. He would certainly know how to bypass the alarm, given he was probably involved in setting the system up, so he would know all the codes and passwords.
But Sharone had said the crash which’d killed Perry and Khoudri had been caused by two cars. If Rhodes had been involved, someone had to have been driving the other car. It couldn’t have been Gant; he’d not been in the country at the time. Could it have been Joachim Balpak? It had been him who’d told Sharone the accident had involved two cars, so he’d be familiar with the details. But what was in it for him?
S I X
Thursday
I felt as though I'd only just left my desk when I sat down behind it again. I’d not slept too well as I was continually replaying thoughts of everything I knew over and over in my mind, which frustrated me, which made sleeping even more difficult. And I didn’t even know that much. So I was rereading my case notes from last night, still wondering about Richard Rhodes’ potential involvement in this situation, when Smitherman phoned and summoned me to his office. I picked up my coffee and strolled along.
He was behind his desk, looking as fresh as a summer daisy with his new short haircut and what looked like a new suit. He nodded to the seat in front of his desk. I sat, placing my coffee on his coaster.
“You heard about last night?” he began.
I shook my head. I’d left the office just after eight fifty when I’d finished typing up my call with Peter Brenchley. I’d not heard anything since, and I’d been half-asleep this morning, so I hadn’t bothered buying a newspaper. “No, I’ve not.”
Smitherman gave me a puzzled stare, as though he was trying to suppress a smile. A smile or a scowl. I didn’t know which, but, from him, either could be equally scary.
“Al-Ebouli was shot last night.” He said this matter-of-factly, as though telling me what he’d had for breakfast.
My eyes opened wide in surprise. I was not expecting this news.
“Dead?” I blurted out.
“No, but he’s critically injured, suffered severe damage to his internal organs, may not pull through. He’s currently under police guard in the hospital, in case the shooter returns to finish the job. Location’s not been disclosed to the media. They’ve only been given the barest outline of what happened. His bodyguard’s dead, though, Moussa Dhelkili.”
“So what happened?”
“From what I’ve been told, it seems Dhelkili came out of the house just after ten last night. Opened the car door for his boss, who was right behind him. Someone was waiting across the road, and whoever it was puts two bullets into the bodyguard. Then he puts two into al-Ebouli. Four shots, two down and all in less than a couple of seconds.”
“What about the other bodyguard?”
“The other bodyguard dropped down behind the car, and whoever it was fled. When he’d got his weapon out, the shooter’d gone. Al-Ebouli’s wife came out, saw what’d happened, went back in and called police.”
“Anyone hear the shots?”
“No. Suggests a silencer was used. Nobody heard anything.”
“Any witnesses around?”
“A few people on the street, but none nearby. None close enough to pick out a face. Like I said, the shooter dropped both men in a couple of seconds and fled.”
“So no one saw him leave either.” I was being optimistic. “No.”
“We any idea who the shooter was?”
“Whoever it was is a crack marksman. Both victims were hit twice, and the groupings of the shots were remarkable, considering he was firing across a road at dimly lit targets,” he said, sounding impressed at the gunnie’s skill. He then paused for a moment, looking out the window at the treetops in St James’s Park, which would have been my view had he not rearranged his office. I was now looking at his bookcase, which was a poor substitute. “But we might have some idea. You remember Bartlett Poe?”
I did. He was a prime suspect in the deaths of Roger Bradley and Debbie Frost’s fiancé, Darren Ritchie. Both men has been killed when Red Heaven had started winding up its money laundering operation at Karris and Millers. I’d seen Poe with Michael Mendoccini one time, though, initially, I hadn’t realised it was him. My suspicion was Mendoccini had given the orders to kill both men, but I couldn’t prove it. Poe and Lois Hemsley were supposed to escape together, but she’d returned to her flat, where she’d been arrested. Poe had managed to evade capture and hadn’t been seen since.
“Yeah, I do.” I rubbed my neck involuntarily. He’d once karate chopped me from behind, rendering me temporarily unconscious.
“Few hours ago, he caught an early morning flight from Stansted airport to Schiphol, Amsterdam. The Euro businessman’s special. He was identified on CCTV in the area where the shooting occurred earlier last evening, just off the main road, but he dropped out of sight soon after. Nobody saw him after this, but he’s a plausible suspect. An eyewitness told police she’d seen someone standing by the corner of her road, looking at his watch, sometime just before the shooting. He was standing around for a few minutes. Couldn’t pick out a face, though.”
“The other bodyguard see anything?”
“He told police, a split second before the shooting started, he saw someone across the road appear almost from nowhere, raise a gun and start firing. He saw Dhelkili go down and then his boss, by which time he’d hidden behind the car in case he was next. Whoever it was had gone by the time he got up.”
“Some bodyguard,” I sneered. “
Isn’t he supposed to be protecting his boss and returning fire? I’d have done that if it’d been Mulvehill when I was still one of his shadows.”
“Yes, maybe you would have done.”
Al-Ebouli shot. Who might have done this, I wondered.
“So all lectures are cancelled today, then.” I grinned maliciously.
“This isn’t the time or place, DS McGraw.” Smitherman fixed me with one of his glares, eyes boring into me, which instantly told me levity was out of the question. “This is a serious situation.”
“What happens now?”
“Now? Dutch police have been asked to talk to Poe about last night. But we don’t have enough evidence to request a European Arrest Warrant. We haven’t got him on CCTV. All we have is suspicion because he’s known to us. His being in the area could be purely coincidental.”
“You really believe that?”
“I’ll believe what evidence tells me,” he said formally, laying both his hands flat on his desk, “and as of this moment we don’t have much of that, do we?”
We were both quiet for a moment. Al-Ebouli was about as popular as genital herpes, and few in the media would shed tears of regret if he died, especially not the more virulent of the tabloids. But the fact was two men had been shot in this city, one dead and one on the edge, and London was a city unused to political shootings. What with the shooting at the meeting last Saturday night, and the killing of PC Jones two nights later, and Jamal Khoudri the day after, London was starting to resemble the Wild West.
I looked at Smitherman. “You told me last Sunday morning someone inside Muearada tipped you off about a run against al-Ebouli. Could this have been it? You said you’d heard they were gonna use someone from outside.”
“MI5’s looking into that one. It could be, but Stimpson hasn’t said anything about it yet. I don’t know what their man’s told them.” Smitherman spread his hands out. “Till we know more, it’s being treated as a murder case. Local CID’s on it, poking around, looking at likely suspects, but we’ll be looking as well. This is no simple shooting case. This’ll have wider implications. We all know that.”
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