48 Hours - A City of London Thriller

by J Jackson Bentley

  “Donald Grainger Fisher, former lead singer of ‘London’s Burning’ and founder of Rock Relief.”

  The young policeman received the reaction he must surely have expected. Every jaw in the room dropped.

  Chapter 48

  No. 2 Parliament St, London. Thursday, 2pm.

  It was his third glass of the Chief Whip’s Armagnac and the forty percent alcohol content was calming Lord Hickstead’s nerves. He stared at the colourful liquid swilling around in the balloon glass, marvelling at the French talent for producing the world’s best wine and then producing the world’s best brandy from that wine. The oddly shaped bottle looked as though it should contain Olive Oil or salad dressing. It had a long neck, bulbous body and it was flat front and back. The label was old fashioned and appeared to be deliberately designed to appear aged. It read Clés des Ducs, with three stars under the name. As with other types of brandy, it had been given the appendage VSOP as it was a five year old Armagnac and, luckily, it was his favourite tipple.

  Despite the mild alcoholic haze in his brain, his mind kept coming back to the disastrous day that was only half over. It had all seemed so simple in the depository. Go to Trafalgar Square, hand over the diamonds to Van Aart’s man and drop the photos in the post to the anonymous ‘Dr Crippin’ who published the notorious Celebrity Leaks website. He would have posted the Polaroids to one of the newspapers, but there was only one out of the batch of ten that could be considered suitable for publication by any newspaper, no matter how broad minded the readership. Still, by this time tomorrow the pictures would probably have appeared on a thousand websites and blog pages around the world, especially considering the alleged celebrity of the subject.

  He still couldn’t believe that he had been mugged. The police seemed to think that the mugger had waited outside the depository, evidently reckoning that there was a good chance that anyone leaving the premises would be carrying some valuables. The police had a suspect, but no briefcase. That was just as well. How could he possibly have explained carrying a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of diamonds? The only provenance or receipt he had which showed they had not been stolen would lead straight back to Abasi Nour.

  That was another disaster. He had convinced the police that he had lost nothing of value, and they hadn’t recovered the briefcase, so he thought he was in the clear. Then he saw Nour and De Montagu in the police station. Presumably they were sitting there waiting to talk to a detective about the blackmailer who used them to launder his money.

  He thought that he had seen a glimmer of recognition in Nour’s face when they had made eye contact, but he had convinced himself that he was over-reacting. In any event, who would believe that a Peer of the Realm would blackmail random individuals in the City? Nonetheless, the Egyptian had shown himself to be borderline criminal, and so Arthur would have to wait and see what happened next. His guess was that he would receive a call from Mr Nour and a request for his diamonds back. But the diamonds were gone, and Nour certainly wasn’t the person he would have given them to, anyway. The Peer had already received polite but vaguely threatening calls from Van Aart demanding immediate delivery of the diamonds or his money back. The Dutch criminal also noted that if he did not receive the diamonds he would add an extra one hundred thousand Euros to the bill as compensation for lost profit.

  Not a good day, on the whole. Almost a third of a million pounds down, failure to humiliate that scumbag pop singer in Isleworth, and now a very real possibility that he might have to deal with Mr Nour.

  Another glass of golden brown Clés des Ducs Armagnac slid down his throat.

 

  Chapter 49

  New Scotland Yard, London. Thursday, 4pm.

  I was back in the conference room with Inspector Boniface, DS Fellowes and Dee. We had been summoned back by the Assistant Commissioner’s secretary, having enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the canteen. The canteen food proved to be much better than I had been expecting. The roast lamb was moist, the roast potatoes crispy brown on the outside and white and fluffy on the inside, and the vegetables weren’t overcooked, having the perfect degree of bite to them. The Metropolitan Police eat well, especially at those prices. I suspected that if Dyson Brecht had such a canteen we would all be much heavier than we are. Many of us are lazy thin; we simply can’t be bothered to make the journey to buy food, either the healthy or junk varieties.

  As soon as we were told that Don Fisher had been implicated in the mugging the Assistant Commissioner had blown his top and ordered DCI Coombes to “find him and drag him in, if necessary”. No such action was necessary, however, as Fisher was already on his way to Scotland Yard to get his friend Gordon out of trouble.

  DS Scott came in with Don Fisher and a churlish looking man whom I took to be Gordon James Coppull. They were followed a moment later by a man who was obviously a lawyer. He was carrying a green Harrods bag.

  Introductions were affected, and then we sat down to await AC Evans. When he arrived he looked at Fisher and failed to completely mask his anger. Fisher had the decency to look embarrassed.

  “Mr Fisher, you seem to have completely ruined a complex international surveillance operation, stolen a briefcase from a good friend of the Home Secretary, and put a suspect on notice that he is under investigation. Well done, and all in a single day.”

  James Loftus, the lawyer, began to speak, but Fisher caught his arm and shook his head. “I probably deserved that. However, I’ve got the briefcase here. None of my guys touched the handle or the locks, so you should be able to confirm it belongs to Hickstead.”

  The lawyer lifted the Harrods bag on to the table, the briefcase still inside. Inspector Boniface carefully slid the brown leather briefcase out onto the desk.

  “Are you sure no-one has touched the handle or the locks?”

  The former rock star nodded.

  “We’ll need your prints, of course, for elimination purposes,” Boniface told him as he turned the briefcase to face him. Using a silver retractable ballpoint pen the Inspector pushed the right hand side button toward the edge and the spring loaded fastener shot up. He repeated the operation for the left had side and, using the pen again, he opened the lid. It smelled of new leather. The inside was pristine. I suspected that Hickstead had bought it specifically for the diamond handover.

  Inside the briefcase lay a large padded Jiffy bag and a plain manila envelope. Nothing else.

  Inspector Boniface reached inside his pocket and took out a plastic ziplock bag containing a pair of pristine white cotton gloves. After slipping them on, he extracted the Jiffy bag. It was sealed. He looked at the Assistant Commissioner. He nodded and said, “The chain of evidence has already been broken, so you might as well open it.”

  I knew enough about these things to understand that any incriminating evidence we found would be unusable because the briefcase had not moved directly from Lord Hickstead’s possession to the police, who would have sealed it to preserve any forensic evidence and recorded its processing from collection to trial.

  Boniface carefully opened the Jiffy bag and removed a black velvet pouch. It had to be the diamonds. He opened the top of the drawstring pouch and looked inside. For a moment he said nothing, he simply stared at the contents. He then took the blue cardboard envelope file he had been carrying and placed in on the table where all of us could see it.

  “Inventory please, Sergeant.” DS Fellowes opened his notebook to a clean yellow page. The inspector carefully tipped the contents on to the blue folder. There were fifteen stones of different sizes, which meant they were worth an average of sixteen thousand pounds each. I could well believe it. I had never seen diamonds as large, as pure or so beautifully cut, and I see a lot of jewellery and gems as a loss adjuster. They sparkled from whichever angle one looked at them, even under the fluorescent lighting.

  For the second time that day there was a collective sharp intake of breath around the table. DS Fellowes photographed the diamonds and the pouch from various ang
les, with his mobile phone. Taking great care, Boniface replaced the diamonds in their velvet pouch. He then placed the pouch in an evidence bag and sealed it, passing it to Fellowes, who wrote something on the label.

  Inspector Boniface returned to the briefcase and lifted out the plain brown envelope, which was also sealed. Written on it were the words ‘Dr. Crippin’. He carefully unsealed the gummed flap and then started to open the envelope.

  “Stop!” Don Fisher shouted. “I need to explain something.” The lawyer immediately advised him not to say anything that might incriminate himself. Don Fisher told him that they had gone too far for that, and that he needed to protect his family.

  “Dr. Crippin is a filth monger,” he explained. “He runs a website called CelebrityLeaks.org. It specialises in publishing private pictures, stolen movies and long lens shots of celebrities. Just yesterday he posted a video of that TV weathergirl showering topless on the beach in the French Riviera. Already that video has almost a million hits, and the ads on that page alone are raking in a small fortune.

  I believe what you’ve got in that envelope are pictures of my daughter Lavender and some of her so-called friends, taken in Spain last year. I was approached by a German man who said he had ten Polaroids that he was sure I would rather have destroyed. He asked for a paltry sum of money, and I wish I’d paid him, but I get calls like that regularly and most of them are rubbish.”

  I thought to myself that he might be right, but Lavender was well known as something of a self publicist, and if the Paparazzi don’t snap her for a month she allegedly tells them where they can find her while she’s out in some celebrity pool or on a beach, splashing around topless. Brand Lavender needed the oxygen of constant publicity.

  Don Fisher was still talking. “Yesterday I got this text from the blackmailing shite, Lord Hickstead, signing himself off as Jim. It says, Thanks for the cash but keep your eye on CelebrityLeaks.org where your fragrant daughter will soon be making an appearance.”

  “So, that’s why you had your men tail Hickstead and steal his briefcase after he had visited his safety deposit box?” Boniface asked.

  “Yes. Believe me, that girl is in the deepest trouble of her short life. I told the TV company she’s been working with to get her home today from Italy. They whined about their shooting schedule. I told them if she wasn’t home tonight it would be a different and more fatal kind of shooting they would have to worry about. I was bloody angry.”

  “And you believe that these Polaroid photographs in this envelope are intimate shots of your daughter?”

  The old rocker nodded unhappily.

  “Then, why didn’t you open the case and destroy them?” the Assistant Commissioner asked.

  “Because, as much as I want to protect my family, I need the scum we keep calling Lord Hickstead to go down, to lose everything, to understand first hand the disgrace that Lavender faces. I realise that the boys got a little bit overzealous and made an executive decision to snatch the photos before he could sell them on. But remember that Gordo here and Dirk have known Lavender since she was born; we have video footage of them both bottle feeding her at the studio. She’s like a daughter to them. She might need a short sharp shock from you boys to bring her into line, but nobody deserves photos like those to be published on the internet.”

  “So she has admitted to you that the photos exist, and she has described their subject matter?” It was the Assistant Commissioner again.

  “No. She can’t remember. She was probably out of her head. It was the German boy who told me what was on them, but I wouldn’t believe him.”

  “You realise, of course, that these photos are evidence that could be used to convict Hickstead. They will probably have his fingerprints on them, and that would be enough evidence to bring him in and sweat him, probably enough to get a warrant to search his safety deposit box.”

  The father nodded silently. There were tears in his eyes.

  Inspector Boniface spoke gently to Don Fisher, father to father.

  “Don, if we use these photos at all it will be to get him off the streets. I assure you that between the Met and the City Police we will be looking at charges that go way beyond threatening to post these shots on the internet. In which case, these photos will never see the light of day in court.”

  Somewhat mollified, Fisher thanked the Inspector.

  “Mr Loftus, as Mr Fisher’s legal representative you need to advise him that he and his two colleagues will be asked to accept a Simple Caution, and that whilst a Caution is a not criminal record, their fingerprints and DNA may be retained under the appropriate Acts of Parliament.”

  “Is this really necessary, Bryn?” the lawyer queried, revealing his familiarity with the Assistant Commissioner.

  “Jim, you know full well that I am putting my neck on the block offering a Simple Caution at all. We should really be referring this to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

  Assistant Commissioner Bryn Evans responded reasonably.

  The meeting broke up and Don Fisher approached Dee and I. “Sorry about all of this. If my interference stops you getting your money back, just let me know. OK?”

  “OK,” I agreed, and he left the room to receive his Caution.

  “We could be rich after this,” Dee said. “Two people have each offered us a quarter of a million pounds to put Lord Hickstead away.” She smiled and linked my arm.

  “We,” I teased. “When did it become we? Surely you mean me?”

  “Oh no, you obviously haven’t read the small print of our agreement. All recovered monies are split fifty-fifty. Why do you think I’ve been so nice to you?”

  My face obviously fell as I searched hers to gauge whether or not she was serious, because finally she could hold it no longer and she laughed out loud.

  “For a cynical City loss adjuster you are pretty gullible. By the way, did you know that the word gullible is not in the dictionary?”

  I frowned, and she laughed out loud again.

  Chapter 50

  Ashburnham Mews, Greenwich, London. Thursday, 11pm.

  I was lying flat on my back with my hands between my head and the pillow. I couldn’t sleep. It seemed to me that if I was on a jury I would convict Lord Hickstead on the basis of the evidence that was already available. Although I understood that much of it was circumstantial, it was beginning to become overwhelming.

  The police were testing the Polaroids for fingerprints and were quite hopeful of finding definite proof. When the fingerprint technician collected the photos, he said that the chemical process used by Polaroid to develop the picture in the camera leaves a soft residue on the surface which brings out the ‘ridges and whorls’ of a fingerprint very nicely.

  The police had been busy, and had tracked down photos and other details of all those known to own an Old Navitimer Mecanique by accessing the DVLA database of driving license photos and the Passport Agency’s database, which included details such as height and distinguishing marks. Lord Hickstead was the only man on the spreadsheet, provided by Breitling, who matched the description given by Nour and De Montagu in terms of height, build, ethnicity and eye colour. Nikon UK had helpfully taken the Breitling list and checked it against their registered owners of the P100. The only match had been Lord Hickstead.

  Vastrick Security had also been working hard to build a full profile of Lord Hickstead, from his schooldays to the present. The file was thick with copies of his school reports and certificates, his university papers, his Trade Union activities, his numerous complaints about me and his insurers, press cuttings and a video from YouTube showing him being humiliated on screen by Don Fisher. There was whole section dedicated to his relationships with the victims of his blackmailing scheme. It consisted of lists of names derived from school, university, Trade Union Membership records, director information from Companies House and AGP’s list of individuals who travelled to the Partners’ meeting with Andrew Cuthbertson.

  Between them, the police and Vastric
k could connect Hickstead with three dead bodies and two living blackmail victims. They could also place him in South Africa and Thailand, where 48hrs.co.za was based and registered.

  Dee came out of the en suite bathroom and looked at me. She scowled.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Hmmm. Typical man,” she murmured, climbing into bed and back towards me.

  “Have I done something wrong, Dee?”

  “You don’t even know, do you?”

  I scoured my memory banks for what I could have done to offend her, and came up blank. I tried again.

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind. Have I missed something?”

  Without turning around she said sharply, “Last night was our first week anniversary and you said nothing, did nothing and just let it pass. Hmmm.”

  I was taken aback. I hadn’t realised that Dee needed that kind of reassurance. I turned on my side and placed my hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, Dee, it was thoughtless of me.”

  Her shoulders shook under my hand. Was she sobbing? She turned over and lay on her back and now I could see that she was laughing uproariously. I’d been had again. Was this the way it would always be; me as her comedy sidekick?

  “You just like making fun of me, don’t you?” I said, by way of statement rather than as a question.

  There was amusement in her voice when she answered. “I do, for two reasons. One, you are an easy target and two, Josh Hammond, I think I might just be falling for you.”

  I was speechless, but happier than I could remember ever being before.

  “Go to sleep Josh. We’re bound to be busy tomorrow.”

  “I can’t sleep,” I answered. “I don’t feel tired.”

  “I can help you there. If I place my hand on your shoulder and neck like this, and squeeze here, I’ll cut off the blood supply to your brain, and you will be out in fifteen seconds.”

  “No, that’s quite all right,” I laughed nervously, switching off the bedside lamp. “I suddenly feel very tired.”