Dead if You Don’t

42

Saturday 12 August

20.30–21.30

Major Crime was housed at the Sussex Police Headquarters, in one of a group of featureless brick buildings that were originally dormitories for police recruits. The Intel suite was housed on the first floor, a modern, airy conference room with a long white table, black and chrome chairs and a charcoal carpet. There were large wall-mounted monitors and it was wired with all comms systems, prepared 24/7 for any Major Enquiry or Incident team to move in within minutes and be instantly operational.

Seated around the long rectangular table were Roy Grace and his rapidly assembled team of detectives, analysts and researchers.

On the wall behind Grace were mounted three whiteboards. One contained a family and association chart of all Mungo Brown’s known family and friends. On another was a series of photographs, taken from the Amex’s CCTV cameras, showing Mungo Brown and his father arriving at the stadium, Mungo talking to another boy, then both of them disappearing into the throng of people heading to the entrances. On the third whiteboard was a sequence of photographs of a man in a red baseball cap. The first showed him leaving his seat shortly after the start of the game. Subsequent pictures tracked him through the stadium until he disappeared, shortly after a sign reading SOUTH STAND WASTE MANAGEMENT — NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS, where a camera was not working.

‘The time is 8.45 p.m.’ Grace turned to DS Exton. ‘Before we get started, welcome, Jon, we’re delighted to have you back — you’re looking well, your break has obviously done you good.’ Then, glancing down at his notes, he addressed the rest of the team. ‘Right, this is the first of what will be regular briefings around the clock for Operation Replay. I’d like to remind everyone this is a crime in action, currently being run as a covert operation owing to threats made to the father of the kidnap victim about not contacting the police.’

‘Operation Replay?’ Norman Potting commented. ‘Would have been a match replay and all if it hadn’t been for our hero Roy Grace here saving the day.’ The old Detective Sergeant pointed a finger at him. ‘Instead he helped our team to a two — nil defeat!’

Kevin Hall, a burly, genial detective constable in his mid-forties, chuckled and turned to Grace. ‘You are bonkers, guv. I’m just glad we’re sitting around this table and not on our hands and knees at the Amex doing a fingertip search for your — er—’

‘Fingertips?’ Potting suggested.

‘And the rest of you,’ Hall added.

‘I’m quite glad about that,’ chipped in Crime Scene Manager Alex Call. ‘It’s really not a nice job.’

‘Yep, well I’m pretty glad about that too,’ Grace said. He was less glad about the flak he knew, almost certainly, he would be getting from his boss, ACC Cassian Pewe, over his actions. He had already had a near-apoplectic voicemail from him — to which he had not yet responded. That was a joy to come.

‘What’s the latest from the EOD on the device, sir?’ asked DC Velvet Wilde, another recent recruit to his team.

‘I’ve had an update from Oscar-1,’ Grace said. ‘In the absence of anyone claiming the camera, the EOD carried out a controlled explosion. The fragments have been retrieved by the EOD team and taken away for analysis. We won’t know for some time what sort of device it actually was. But we’re not concerned with that — our task is to one hundred per cent focus on returning Mungo Brown safely to his parents.’

‘But, boss,’ DS Exton said, ‘don’t you think there’s a likely link between the bomb threat and the kidnap?’

‘There may well be, and there’s another SIO working on that with the Amex team and Nick Fitzherbert. I’ll be liaising closely with him. He’ll keep our team constantly updated with their intelligence, and that’s why there’s a picture of the suspect bomber on display in this room.’ He turned to the Principal Analyst, Annalise Vineer. ‘That will be one of your actions, to coordinate the intelligence around the Amex operation and any links.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Grace glanced down at the notes prepared by his assistant and went on. ‘OK, this investigation is into the suspected kidnap of a fourteen-year-old boy, Mungo Brown, son of the well-known Brighton businessman Kipp Brown.’

‘That arrogant tosser!’ Jon Exton exclaimed.

‘Thank you, Jon,’ Grace retorted sharply.

‘Trust Kipp?’ Norman Potting interjected.

‘Correct, Norman, that’s him,’ Grace replied. ‘Mungo went missing sometime before the start of the Albion game today at the Amex.’ He read out the text Kipp Brown had received. Then he went on to summarize the information he had to date.

‘The last email communication from Mungo Brown, which the High Tech Crime Unit sent to me, was at 2.40 p.m. this afternoon. It was addressed to an Aleksander Dervishi and said: “See u at the game. It’s gonna be lit!” Now the significance of this is that shortly after arriving at the ground, Mungo’s father, Kipp, saw him talking to this boy. I’ve also heard back from the Amex that Mungo Brown’s season ticket was not logged at any entrance, which makes it unlikely he ever entered the stadium at any point, unless he used — or was coerced into using — someone else’s. The fact that so far he has not been identified on any exterior CCTV footage indicates to me that he may at some point have entered the stadium and may still be there — or was secreted away, disguised, somehow. The kidnappers must have had a plan.’

He took a sip of coffee. ‘A full search of the grounds is in progress — there are a lot of places someone could be concealed. All CCTV footage is being scanned. With the network of cameras they have at the Amex, he will have been picked up on several. I’ve also requested all police body-worn camera footage. We know the boy’s mobile phone was seen being thrown from an older model BMW 5-Series car leaving the Amex car park at high speed. We have the index number, and an ANPR plot of the car’s possible movements is being carried out by Oscar-1. Digital Forensics have Mungo’s phone and computer. They are doing a backwards plot on his movements for the past week to see if there are any unusual patterns, and to see who he’s been communicating with.’

He looked at his notes. ‘One person of interest to us is this man in the red baseball cap.’ He pointed at a photograph on the whiteboard. ‘We have secreted two officers, DI Branson and Acting DS Jack Alexander, into Kipp Brown’s house to monitor all calls he receives, to guide him and his wife and provide reassurance, and assist with any negotiations. At this time, the only lead we have is that when last seen, well before kick-off, Mungo was talking to the boy whom we believe to be Aleksander Dervishi.’

Annalise Vineer raised her hand. ‘Sir, we have some information on this boy.’

‘Go ahead,’ Grace said.

‘If he is Aleksander Dervishi, he’s a pupil at Brighton College, same year as Mungo Brown, and according to his headmaster who was spoken to a short while ago, they are close friends. Now this might be of significance. His father, Jorgji Dervishi, is a person of interest to us. He was a former kind of consigliere to the boss of a London-based Albanian crime family who went rogue some years ago. We believe he came down here in a similar role for a branch of his family in Brighton, and that he has links to several Eastern European criminal networks. A few interesting facts about Mr Dervishi. He has a glass eye and people say it’s easy to spot — it’s the friendlier of the two.’

There was a titter of laughter.

‘He also has an artificial right hand. He tells people he lost it — and his eye — fighting in the Kosovo conflict. But we understand he actually lost his hand working on a piece of farm machinery as a child, and he lost his eye in a fight in a bar. He is not considered good news by anyone.’

Grace stared at her, feeling a deep chill. During the 1998–9 Kosovo conflict, when ethnic Albanians opposed ethnic Serbs and the then-government of Yugoslavia, Albanians were given asylum in a number of European countries from the ethnic cleansing that followed. One of the places declared an official relocation centre was the city of Brighton and Hove, which took an influx of two thousand of them.

The majority of Albanians who had come here were decent, hardworking and law-abiding. But along with those came a brutal organized criminal element. Some of these, structured around ethnic groups and family or friendship ties, using Kanun laws, modelled themselves loosely on the Sicilian Mafia with similar lines of command and ranks, but without their rigid discipline. And like many modern crime organizations, they dealt in drugs, arms, human trafficking, modern slavery, human organs and counterfeit goods, their reach stretching from Israel to South America. This criminal element liked to show off its brutality both to insiders and to the public at large, and frequently committed acts of violence in public as a lesson to others. Yet at the same time, internally, this fraternity maintained strict codes of honour, one of them being scrupulous punctuality.

‘There’s another factor that may be significant, sir,’ Vineer said.

‘Tell me?’

‘The Albanians have a social code of honour known as blood feuds. Their word is hakmarrja — I got this from PC Denero who is working closely with the Brighton Albanian community. It’s all about the salvaging of honour, avenging a murder or humiliation. She has intel from the Met that the crime family that Jorgji Dervishi screwed over is planning revenge.’

‘Could this kidnapping be connected in some way — is that what you’re thinking, Annalise?’

‘I think it’s worth throwing into the mix, sir.’

‘OK, we need to find out fast if Kipp Brown’s ever had financial dealings with any of the Albanian community.’

Mindful of the texted threat to Kipp Brown he had seen, and which he had already told his team about, he made a note to contact the Force Gold, Superintendent Tingley, with this update straight after the briefing.

‘Good work, Annalise,’ he said.

His mobile phone rang. Excusing himself, he answered it.

‘Roy Grace,’ he said.

It was Glenn Branson.

‘Boss, we’ve got a second text from the kidnappers.’