THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (40 page)

‘A friend of mine,’ said Lawrence, as they sat down. Neither asked for a drink. Unfortunate. Jake wouldn’t be able to get the DNA off either of their coffee cups. He could have done with the saliva from the rims for comparison with anything found in the Transit van.

‘Let’s cut to the chase then, shall we?’ said Jake. ‘Where’s Claire?’

‘We have no idea.’ Lawrence’s response was curt.

‘Look, I have reason to believe that Claire has been kidnapped. I want to know why.’

The two Security Service men exchanged a glance.

‘How do you know that’s what has taken place?’ asked Lawrence.

‘I know much more than you think.’ Jake leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Lawrence.

‘Is that an Armani suit you have on, Lawrence?’

‘What on earth makes you ask that?’

‘It looks almost identical to the one I saw hanging in Claire’s wardrobe. You must think I’m stupid, Lawrence. Expensive suits, flash car, meetings with informants on your own in Blackheath. That’s not how the Security Service rolls, I know.’ Jake smirked at him, trying to pretend he knew much more than he did. Yet all he knew was that Lawrence had far too much money to burn and that something wasn’t right. The suit in the wardrobe grated on him.

A shadow passed over Lawrence’s face. Jake was beginning to push his buttons now. ‘Look here. There’s nothing to know, and even if there was, don’t you think that I, as a Security Service agent, would know more than an oik in the police?’

Lawrence’s brow furrowed like an unmade bed as he over-emphasised the ‘O’ in oik.

‘Oik?’ asked Jake, puzzled.

‘Is this an official police investigation, Inspector Flannagan, or just some flight of fancy of your own? What police resources have you been using on this jolly of yours?’

‘I’m doing my job. She didn’t turn up for our holiday,’ Jake said between clenched teeth.

‘Oh really? Well one hopes you didn’t have a police vehicle in Cornwall with you whilst on holiday? I’ve heard Claire talk about you using it for personal use, Inspector. I suspect your superiors would take a dim view of that?’

Jake was getting nowhere. This was pointless. He picked up his cup and resisted the urge to throw the dregs of his unfinished coffee into Lawrence’s face. There were plenty of witnesses, not least Lawrence’s colleague. There was no way he could say his arm had slipped and it had been an accident. The coffee was still hot and then he’d be had up for deliberately scalding the bloke.

No. It was not the right thing to do. He stood up to leave.

‘I’m a detective inspector, Lawrence, not an oik; you’d do well to remember that.’

Jake walked away from the table and settled up his bill at the counter. Furious, he left the café without even looking over his shoulder. Once outside, he turned right and began to walk back up the street. He needed to calm down and think. He ducked into the entrance of a nearby office building and stood in a large air-conditioned lobby area with purple sofas and clashing green carpets, whilst he took a few breaths.

He glanced back at the street through the window and spotted Lawrence’s heavy, presumably on his way back to the office. Lawrence was not with him.

Jake quickly retraced his steps and slipped back into the café. Claire’s boss was no longer sat at the table; in fact, he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’d gone to the toilet?

Jake made his way to the rear by the kitchens. Inside the Gents, Lawrence was relieving himself at the far end, staring off into the distance.

Jake stood at the next urinal along, hemming Lawrence in to the corner, and proceeded to pull down his own flies.

‘Hello again, Lawrence,’ he said.

Congerton-Jones visibly jumped as he realised who was stood beside him. Jake noted the surprised look on his face. The runny nose and telltale grains of white powder below his left nostril, gave away the fact that Lawrence had just been snorting cocaine.

‘Tut, tut, Lawrence. Naughty boy,’ said Jake, as he deliberately missed the urinal and turned, conveniently, to piss all over Lawrence’s handmade, lace-up Louis Vuitton shoes.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t know I was going to do that, Lawrence. You, an agent of the Security Service. I thought you’d be one step ahead of an oik police officer like me?’

Lawrence stood open mouthed as Jake quickly washed his hands and walked out of the toilet.

113

Tuesday

11 October 2005

0915 hours

Fifteenth floor, New Scotland Yard, Westminster, London

Jake stood in the corridor outside DCI Helen Brookes’ office. The door was closed. Helen had called him just twenty minutes previously and told him to get there. It had sounded like bad news. Jake guessed he was going to get a bollocking. He’d spent the weekend going over and over what he knew about Claire in his head, thinking about Lawrence. Thinking about his comment on the use of the car. That last one was really bugging him.

How had Lawrence known that he’d taken the car down to Cornwall? Claire was surely in on this whole thing? Was Claire trying to set him up? Maybe she had tried to make him take a tumble for the 21/7 stuff? Why? None of it made any sense.

The door to Helen’s office opened. Jake stared into the small space and saw a man in a black suit whom he didn’t recognise, sitting inside. Helen stood at the door.

‘Come in, Jake,’ she said.

Jake stepped into the tiny office and Helen closed the door behind him. Door-shut moments were very bad news. Jake’s heart began to beat hard and fast.

‘Sit down please, Jake.’ Helen was being overly formal.

Jake sat down opposite the man in the suit. He didn’t introduce himself or offer to shake Jake’s hand.

Helen sat at her desk by the window but swung her chair around to face them both.

‘What’s this all about?’ asked Jake.

‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Powell. He’s from the Directorate of Professional Standards,’ said Helen, indicating the man aged fifty-plus sat opposite Jake.

The DPS dealt with complaints against police, internal investigations. Jake knew he was in trouble. The question was how much trouble?

‘Jake, I’m here to inform you that you are being formally suspended from duty today. There have been several allegations made against you, some of which have concerned us enough to require you be suspended while we investigate them properly. You can have a Police Federation representative or a friend with you here whilst I go through the formalities with you and serve the relevant paperwork on you. Do you wish me to wait for a friend or representative to be present?’ asked DCS Powell.

Jake felt sick.

‘This is all bullshit. What are the allegations?’ said Jake, trying to sound composed. His mouth had gone dry. His lips stuck to his teeth as he spoke.

Helen pushed a piece of paper toward Jake who picked it up and read: ‘Form 163A: Formal Allegation of Complaints against Police Officers.’

DCS Powell began reciting from a duplicate version of the same form that he had in front of him: ‘Point one – on or before 10 October 2005, you used a police vehicle for unauthorised private use. Point two – on or before 10 October 2005, you failed to properly instigate a formal missing-person’s enquiry relating to the disappearance of Claire Richards. Point three – on or before 10 October 2005, you perverted the course of justice in relation to the collection and retention of evidence relating to the disappearance of Claire Richards. Point four – on 10 October 2005, you assaulted a Security Service officer by urinating on him.’

Jake sat there in silence. He was
really
in the shit if they could prove the allegations they were making. This was the problem with the DPS; they didn’t need evidence to find you guilty and sack you. Internal discipline matters were found on the balance of probabilities. It was like a kangaroo court where they could present pretty much anything against you. They didn’t have to follow the normal rules of evidence and procedure the same as a police investigation. The evidentiary standard required here was much, much lower than that required at court.

This was going to take a lot of sorting out.

‘The serious nature of these allegations means that I must suspend you from duty. Your warrant card and the keys to the car that you’ve been driving, please.’ DCS Powell held out his hand as he finished the sentence.

The journey home took him half an hour on the train. Completing the last part on foot, he turned off Commercial Road and walked up Caroline Street. As he neared his place above the sari shop, he saw immediately that the main entrance had been kicked open. The frame was split and had splintered. Inside, his flat had been ransacked. It was a tip. His computer was missing.

Jake stood there, looking at the mess. The furniture had been slashed open – white feathers spewed out of the cuts. The contents of the kitchen cupboards had been thrown on the floor. They’d been in a hurry. It didn’t look like any job he’d been privy to in the police, too messy. The Security Service? The kidnappers? Lawrence?

114

Friday

28 October 2005

0735 hours

The flat above the sari shop, Whitechapel, East End of London

The room was filled with a hazy red hue; he assumed it was dawn, but he had no idea
which
day it was. There was a strong taste of stale beer in his mouth. As he rolled over, he felt the deep ache of bruises all over his body. His left arm hurt badly. It was sore around the base of the bicep. Had he been fighting in his sleep again? He wouldn’t even notice if he had broken anything in his flat because, right now, the whole of it wouldn’t have looked out of place in a skip.

Jake dragged himself out of bed and opened the cupboards in his kitchen. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything. Was he even hungry? He didn’t really know. There was nothing except for sugar and tea bags. Where had the beans gone? He was sure he’d seen four cans of baked beans the last time he’d looked, not that he could remember when that was.

He picked up his phone; the battery was flat. He found the charger and plugged it in. What day was it? Empty bottles lay strewn around the living room and kitchen. Jake didn’t remember drinking their contents.

He flicked on the TV. BBC news was reporting on riots in Paris. The riots were slowly spreading to other towns and cities in France. Cars were being set alight everywhere following the deaths of two Muslim teenagers in a Paris suburb. The teenagers had somehow been accidentally electrocuted in an electricity substation, whilst being chased by the police. Heavy-handed tactics were being blamed. The news ticker running across the bottom of the screen announced that George Best was close to death.

‘That happened quick! Bestie only went into hospital last week. What day is it?’

His phone screen lit up one corner of the room and caught his eye. He got up out of his chair to see if it had regained enough juice to switch on properly.

‘Fuck me!’

He’d been suspended seventeen days ago. They’d taken his warrant card and told him that until the investigation was complete, he was not to use any of the powers of a police officer. Seventeen days ago.

‘So where the hell have those beans gone?’

He wandered into his kitchen. The empty tins were sitting there in his bin. He didn’t remember eating their contents; he couldn’t remember anything of the last seventeen days. Jake made a cup of tea with eight sugars. Black. There was no milk. The tea revived him enough to survey the damage properly.

It was utter devastation. There were empty cans of beer on every surface, except the corner of the coffee table, which held a rolled-up ten-pound note. The tubular note was bloodied and crusted around one end, whilst the other was white and crystallised. It was sitting in a very thin layer of white dust. Jake winced and shook his head in disbelief. He felt a cold knot of fear well up in his stomach. He’d taken drugs as a teenager, then briefly when his father died.

Jake knew that most of London’s cocaine was only about 15 to 20% pure. It was always cut and heavily watered down with other stuff – baking soda, flour, citric acid, cleaning chemicals, Italian baby laxatives. The nose often bled after repeated snorting. The extras were what wrecked people’s noses.

His dad had died from the booze and George Best’s liver was on its way out, yet Jake had never really felt over-burdened by his own alcohol abuse. Drugs, though, that was another matter. Jake still viewed drugs as the more evil and destructive twin.

‘
Seventeen days
!’ he chastised himself.

He was hungry, very hungry. He had to eat. He looked in his pocket for some cash but found none. He showered, dressed and began to walk to the café-cum-kebab shop nearby. On the way, he stopped at the cashpoint to withdraw £20. The machine said there were insufficient funds in his account. Jake pulled up a balance enquiry. Jesus Christ! He was £3,000 overdrawn and payday had only been eight days ago.

‘What the fuck have you done, Jake?’ he asked himself.

115

Friday

28 October 2005

0907 hours

Commercial Road, Whitechapel, East End of London

He placed a quick phone call to his bank, which revealed that he’d withdrawn £4,000 in cash in eleven days, £2,000 of which had been in lots of £500 in just over forty-eight hours. Jake had told them that he couldn’t remember going to the cashpoint, but the bank pointed out that it was his card and PIN that had been used. Amounts had been taken out at 2359 hours and 0001 hours and the same cycle repeated less than forty-eight-hours later. The bank also refused to increase his overdraft facility, a request which had never previously been a problem.

Jake trudged back home and picked up the bloodied ten-pound note from the table. He needed to eat. He washed it in the bathroom sink. What was he going to do? This was all he had to live off for three weeks? Ten pounds?