Dead if You Don’t

68

Sunday 13 August

10.00–11.00

At 10.15 a.m., Grace was back in the Intel suite and in a fractious mood after his face-off with Cassian Pewe. He dutifully checked on his terminal everything else that was going on in Surrey and Sussex, the counties for which he was responsible. Two other Major Crime investigations were in progress. One was the bomb at the Amex, being run by DCI Fitzherbert; the other was the death of a young woman who had died in the passport queue at Gatwick Airport, which was being run by DI Roissetter.

Wanting an update on the Amex, he rang the incident room. Fitzherbert wasn’t available and he was put through to the deputy SIO running the bomb enquiry, Detective Inspector Jim Waldock. ‘What’s the latest, Jim?’ he asked.

Waldock, who was in his early fifties, had recently surprised everyone in Major Crime by having a gastric band operation, dropping from a whopping twenty-four stone to just fourteen stone, seemingly overnight. Perhaps in panic over failing his annual ‘beep’ fitness test. With it, his energy levels had increased massively.

‘I’ve just had a call from the Explosive Ordnance Division, Roy,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘The camera — a Sony FS7 — was a viable bomb in every aspect except one.’

‘Oh?’

‘How technical do you want to get?’

‘Try me.’

‘The innards of the camera had been scooped out and replaced with a plastic explosive known as PETN — pentaerythritol tetranitrate — structurally very similar to nitroglycerin. Along with RDX, it’s apparently the main ingredient of Semtex. There was a kilo of the stuff inside the camera, packed with nails and ball bearings. It’s one of the most powerful explosives known. It detonates at 8,000 metres a second. If it had gone off it would have killed two or three hundred people in the immediate surrounding area, and wounded countless more.’

‘Shit,’ Grace said.

‘And you were heroic enough to run out with it!’

‘I might not have done if I’d known what was in it! So why didn’t it go off?’

‘Because, they say, there was a timer on it but no detonator to set it off.’

‘No detonator?’

‘None. A totally viable device, made by someone who clearly knew what they were doing, but no detonator.’

‘What’s that about?’

‘Good question, Roy,’ Waldock said.

‘They made an extortion demand, then planted a bomb that would not explode. Why?’

‘Perhaps to show they could, if they wanted, plant a viable device?’

‘Meaning we could expect another bomb threat in the future — and this one for real?’

‘Very possibly.’

‘What clues do we have about the caller’s ID, Jim?’

‘Other than speaking in heavily accented English and using different burners for each call, nothing so far, Roy. We’ve sent voice samples for analysis.’

Grace thanked him, then focused back on the latest briefing he was holding for his exhausted team, several of whom, like him, had been there all night. They had been joined by Forensic Podiatrist Haydn Kelly and by a PC from the Scotland Yard Super Recognizer Unit, Jonathan Jackson. On the monitor behind him was the ransom demand text.

‘Someone ought to give whoever sent that a spelling lesson,’ Norman Potting said, then mimicked a lisp. ‘Instrucions? Hello?’

There were a few grins.

‘Maybe there’s a clue in that, Norman,’ Grace said, in no mood for humour.

‘A dyslexic?’ ventured DS Kevin Taylor.

‘Or someone for whom English is not their first language?’ countered Kevin Hall.

‘Perhaps Albanian?’ DS Exton suggested.

‘Perhaps,’ Grace replied. Then he said, ‘OK, I have two hypotheses.’ He pointed at the screen behind him. ‘The first is that this is a pile of shit. The second is that it’s real.’

DS Scarlett Riley, his replacement for Tanja Cale who had transferred to Professional Standards, said, ‘Boss, do you really think it’s a hoax — something about the Albanian community, from our past experience, makes me think not.’

Despite his tiredness, Grace was thinking very clearly. Events had taken a turn that made him believe that whilst they had established earlier it had been some kind of a stupid prank between kids, the kidnap had suddenly become real. His first task now was to motivate his team, get them out of the hoax mindset and get them refocused.

‘I’m with you, Scarlett,’ he replied. ‘I think this is now real and we are going to treat it as such. I don’t know what’s going on, nor who is behind this, whether Dervishi or someone else completely, but my further hypothesis is that at some point during the night the situation changed dramatically — perhaps someone seeing an opportunity here. Possibly Jorgji Dervishi himself. Or a former employee of his.’ He turned to DC Hall. ‘Kevin, I’m giving you the action of ring-fencing Dervishi’s house — I want round-the-clock surveillance on him and I’ve put in a request for a tap on his phones.’

He next addressed DCs Emma-Jane Boutwood and Velvet Wilde. ‘EJ and Velvet, I want you to revisit all the CCTV footage from the Amex and see if you can pick out Mungo Brown. He has to be on it somewhere. Haydn and Jonathan will join you. Make sure you include the footage from the body-worn cameras of all police officers at the match.’

Then he addressed his two analysts, Giles Powell and Louise Soper. ‘Because of Dervishi and the IMEI code on the phone Kipp Brown picked up being linked to an Albanian, I’m making a further hypothesis that this demand has come from someone, or some group, within the Albanian community. We know the Albanian criminal gangs are highly organized and professional — in addition to being ruthless. This is a massive ransom demand. From what I’ve been able to ascertain so far — and from Surrey and Sussex’s past experience in professional kidnaps — the gangs would never use just one vehicle, but use a second as back-up. They wouldn’t want to risk blowing everything with a puncture or a breakdown. I want you to do convoy analysis. We have a good starting point, the house between Beddingham and Newhaven where Aleksander took us. I’m giving you the action of checking all ANPR cameras in that vicinity, then using the onion-ring principle, starting from the middle and working out, spreading your search. See if you can identify a pair of cars moving together through different locations.’

The recent direct-entry recruit DI Donald Dull — who had already gained the nickname of Spreadsheet Man — raised a hand. ‘Sir, I could perhaps help with the analysis and preparation of a spreadsheet.’

‘That would be very helpful, Donald,’ Grace said. He stared up at the enlarged photograph of the boy that Mungo’s father had given him. A cheerful, good-looking young man with a mop of fair hair and a cheeky grin.

I don’t know what mess you’ve got yourself into, Mungo, but I’ll get you out of it, somehow, he promised.

Somehow.

What worried him was dealing with the Albanian criminals, who used brutality to send messages to the community. In recent years there had been plenty of very public displays of violence by Albanian gangsters. Killing a teenage boy, if they did not get what they wanted, would be their way of sending just such a message about being taken seriously.

He looked up again at Mungo Brown’s photograph.

We will now require £2.5 million.

He looked back down at his notes. Checking he was missing nothing.

Most kidnaps were resolved within hours. But the longer they went on, he knew from grim experience, although he shared this with no one, the less chance they would have of finding the victim still alive.