Dead if You Don’t

48

Saturday 12 August

21.30–22.30

Shortly before 10 p.m. Roy Grace, shirtsleeves rolled up and a mug of coffee beside him, was sitting at his workstation in the Intel suite, updating his Policy Book and looking once more at the latest information that had come in from Digital Forensics. He had already given the action to two analysts, following the information, to search for derelict properties within a twenty-mile radius, although he felt that was a slender hope.

The mood in the room was purposeful but sombre. Everyone was concerned for the missing boy, and on top of this was the sense of disappointment that Brighton and Hove Albion had lost, 2–0, in the football. Not that there would have been any noticeable jubilation in this room had they won. The intensity of concentration was so strong that the outside world, unless it materially affected their investigation, was for now irrelevant.

A key person they needed to speak to was Mungo Brown’s school friend, Aleksander Dervishi, the friend his father had seen him talking to shortly before he had disappeared. They had spoken to Aleksander’s mother, Mirlinda, a couple of times. The first time she told them he hadn’t returned from the football yet, but she wasn’t worried. He’d told her he was going to another school friend’s house in Brighton after the game, to work on a video for a YouTube project for school, and their chauffeur would collect him when he was ready. The second time she was spoken to, by DC Boutwood, she was sounding anxious, saying he wasn’t answering his phone.

As he made notes, Grace went through a mental checklist, trying to ensure he was not missing anything, as well as checking online through the National Crime Agency’s kidnap protocols. He repeatedly looked down at his phone, at the two texts Glenn Branson had forwarded to him, the first an hour ago, the second just moments ago.

Roy Grace stared also at the photograph of Mungo, in the darkness, with grey duct tape over his mouth. He could see the terror in his eyes. Poor kid. One of the worst nightmares for a child. Something from which the boy would never fully recover, because kidnap victims rarely did. After they — hopefully — found him, Mungo would be haunted by nightmares for the rest of his life and very possibly end up dependent on medication and in therapy. Let alone the traumatic impact on his family. That was one of the consequences of this ugly act that the perpetrators probably did not think or, more likely, care about. With most major crimes, it was rarely just the victim who suffered a life sentence of fear and instability.

He read through the texts again, once more clocking the two spelling errors, ‘instruxxion’ and ‘derelick’, and thinking about them. Someone dyslexic? He turned to DC Kevin Hall, sitting close to him. ‘Any word from Digital Forensics?’

‘Not so far, guv. But they’re looped in and on it with all the phone companies, and they’re carrying out cell-site analysis to try to locate the device that sent this, as well as checking if it had geo-mapping, which would give us the location where it was taken.’

There was a sudden appetizing smell of French fries in the room.

‘Nice to think whoever’s taken Mungo would be dumb enough to leave their geo-mapping on,’ Grace said.

‘Indeed.’

He was about to say something else when he was interrupted by DC Alec Davies. ‘Sir, what was it you ordered?’

‘Ordered?’

‘To eat. From the Big Mouth Burger Bar. John Palmer’s just made the delivery.’

‘Great, I’m ravenous. A cheeseburger and fries with onion rings, thanks, Alec.’

His phone rang.

‘Roy Grace,’ he said.

He heard a hubbub at the other end; it sounded like the din of a rammed pub or bar. Then, above it, he heard a precise, clear voice.

‘Detective Superintendent, it’s PC Denero. I have some information you requested.’

‘Great, Nikki, what have you got?’

‘Well, sir, from what I’ve been able to find so far, this Kipp Brown character has been cultivating clients from the Albanian business community in the city. He appears to be the go-to man for them for unsecured — or poorly secured — cash loans and mortgages. I’m with twenty or so Albanians at the moment and almost all of them have had dealings with him — pretty happily, they assured me. You might be interested to know that Edi Konstandin is one of his major clients.’

‘When you’ve finished, could you come to the Intel suite at HQ CID? I’d like you on my team until we find the boy.’

‘Yes, sir — I could be there in an hour.’

‘Thank you.’ Ending the call, he looked down at the texts again. The spelling errors.

The kind of mistakes that might be made by someone for whom English was their second language?

He looked behind him at the whiteboards, stood up and went over to the one on which there was now an association chart for the dominant Brighton Albanian crime family. At the top was the name Edi Konstandin, who Intel put as the local Godfather — the equivalent to a Mafia Don or Capo. Directly beneath him was the consigliere, Jorgji Dervishi, Aleksander’s father, and beneath him the underboss, Valdete Gjon. He turned to another whiteboard, on which was the photograph of the man in the red cap.

‘This is a person of extreme interest to us. He vanishes just after the sign for the South Stand Waste Management. OK, we know from all the CCTV at the Amex that people cannot just disappear there, so what happened? My hypothesis is that this camera was deliberately disabled at this point. It was done so that Man-in-Red-Baseball-Cap could change his clothes and perhaps so that Mungo Brown could be concealed somewhere at the same time. The contradictory evidence regarding Mungo is that his phone was recovered after being thrown from a BMW car leaving the car park at high speed. How did he get from the stadium to the car park without being seen?’

He looked around at a sea of blank faces.

‘Is his middle name Houdini, guv?’ Norman Potting asked.

‘Thank you, Norman,’ Grace retorted. ‘His middle name is actually Eric.’

‘Houdini’s real name was Erik Weisz,’ Potting retorted.

‘Is that helpful to our enquiry, Norman?’ Kevin Hall interjected.

Potting mumbled that it probably wasn’t. Hall, answering a call on his phone, did not hear him.

Grace, ignoring the banter, said, ‘I’ve contacted Forensic Podiatrist Haydn Kelly, who is, fortunately, available and is on his way down from London now. I’ve also contacted the Met Police Super Recognizer Unit, and they are sending down one of their team. I’m going to have both Haydn and the Super Recognizer look at all footage of the crowd leaving the Amex after the game, to see if they can spot Red Cap, either from his gait or a facial feature.’

Ending his phone call, Kevin Hall said animatedly, ‘Guv, I may have something.’

Grace looked at him. ‘Yes?’

‘DI Branson got the IMEI code off the phone Kipp Brown brought back from the Dyke — I sent it straight to Digital Forensics and we have a result from it!’

Criminals used pay-as-you-go phones — so-called burners — under the impression these could not be traced. That was true to an extent, but every phone had a unique IMEI code that could be accessed by entering a series of digits and numbers: *#06#. This would reveal the identity of the phone, from which Digital Forensics could find out its provenance and history.

Excitedly, Grace asked, ‘Tell me?’

‘Well, guv, this is interesting. It’s a phone that’s been used before by a character called Fatjon Sava — who was linked to this burner two years ago. At the time, we had him on file as one of Dervishi’s henchmen. Do you remember the case of an Albanian left in the middle of Churchill Square with both his eyes burned out with a cigarette lighter? The charmer who did this, who was never identified, sent a text on behalf of Mr Jorgji Dervishi to the victim, politely warning him not to tread on Mr Dervishi’s toes again.’

‘Nice work, Kevin,’ Grace said. ‘What happened — was Dervishi arrested?’

‘No, the Albanian wall of silence came down. No one would say a word, not even the victim’s wife, she was too frightened. But we knew Fatjon Sava was probably the offender, although we didn’t have sufficient grounds to arrest him.’

‘The eyes have it,’ Potting announced, looking around, pleased with himself.

No one smiled.

Grace’s thoughts immediately returned to the spelling mistakes. Someone not quite a hundred per cent fluent in the English language, or someone trying to misdirect him? He looked down at his notes, thinking, before looking up again at his team. ‘OK, we understand that Mungo Brown’s best friend at Brighton College is Aleksander Dervishi, son of Jorgji Dervishi, and Dervishi might well have had business dealings with Kipp Brown. I want Dervishi interviewed tonight.’

‘It’s late, guv,’ Hall said. ‘10.15 p.m.’

‘This is a kidnap, Kevin, where every second counts. I don’t care if it’s 3 a.m. Call him and tell him we need to speak to him tonight, urgently. Hopefully his son will be home and you can talk to him, too. If Dervishi is difficult you can tell him he can do it the pleasant, informal way or we can arrest him in connection with the blinding of one of his countrymen — and the phone.’ He looked around at his team, considering who might be appropriate to interview him. Detective Sergeant Norman Potting was a blunt straight-talker who could stand up to anyone. To offset him, DC Velvet Wilde, who had a more subtle approach to people, might make a good foil. He gave them the action.

Moments later his phone rang again. It was Oscar-1, Inspector Keith Ellis.

‘Guv, we’ve just had in an ANPR track on BMW index Echo X-ray One-Three Bravo Delta Uniform’s movements. It pinged three cameras after leaving the Amex Stadium.’

‘Which direction, Keith?’

‘It headed east on the A27, past Lewes. The last camera to pick it up was at the Beddingham roundabout, where the vehicle either carried on eastwards towards Polegate and Eastbourne or could have turned right on the A26 and down towards Newhaven and the cross-Channel ferry port. But it didn’t get picked up by the next camera along the A27, nor the next one on the A26, just north of Newhaven. And I’ve got some significant further information on the vehicle. The East Sussex Fire and Rescue team are currently tackling a car on fire on a farm track just off the A26 south of Beddingham. It’s the suspect vehicle, index Echo X-ray One-Three Bravo Delta Uniform.’

‘Shit!’ Grace said. ‘So, it might have put Mungo Brown down somewhere in that area.’

‘Sounds very likely, guv.’

Sensing a possible breakthrough, Grace jumped up from the table and walked over to a large-scale map of Sussex on the wall in front of him, still holding his phone to his ear. He picked up a red marker pen from a holder beneath it and drew a circle round the area that Ellis had given him, which covered several square miles.

‘This is mostly rural, farming community all around here, Keith,’ he said. ‘Any number of barns. Sounds very possible Mungo might have been taken to a hiding place in this area.’

‘It does,’ Ellis said.

Grace thought hard. Both the A27, which was the main route connecting East and West Sussex, and the A26, which had ferry traffic to and from Newhaven Harbour, were busy roads. Whoever had taken Mungo, and had then dumped and torched the BMW, must have left in another vehicle either parked down that farm track or which had been driven there to pick them up. But with the numbers of vehicles travelling on both roads, it would be a near-impossible task to check up on them all. Mungo might have been transferred to another vehicle and taken to the Newhaven — Dieppe ferry, and spirited away to France — although the plug in the photograph indicated otherwise. However, all that meant was that the photograph had probably been taken in England. He could then have been taken on to France. Or the kidnappers could be holding him somewhere inside the red circle.

The police helicopter was equipped with a heat-seeking camera, which could detect living — or recently dead — bodies out in the open or inside buildings. ‘Keith,’ he said. ‘Can you see if NPAS-15 is available to do a fly-over of the area, looking at barns, outbuildings, anywhere Mungo might be?’

‘Right away, guv.’

Ending the call, Grace turned to DC Hall. ‘Kevin, get on to the Newhaven ferry company and find out the times of any sailings to France after 6 p.m. today. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour crossing, so if Mungo Brown is on a ferry, perhaps locked in the boot of a car, it’s possible he’s not yet in France. Then arrange with the port authorities in France to be vigilant and to look out for a teenage boy, possibly with a topknot, in any vehicle leaving the ferry — and get a photograph of him pinged to them.’

Hall nodded. ‘Yes, guv.’

Keith Ellis rang back. ‘NPAS-15’s attending an RTC in Kent, guv. Won’t be available for at least ninety minutes.’

‘God love our budget cuts!’ Grace said, frustrated. Until a few years ago, when the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, had started to decimate police budgets around the country, Sussex Police had had their own helicopter. Now they not only had to share one with Kent and Surrey but, because it doubled as an air ambulance, it was only occasionally available when it was actually needed.

‘Cheer up, boss,’ Norman Potting said. ‘The good news is that the money saved on our helicopter is helping people in need. Such as al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists getting legal aid of a quarter of a million pounds a pop to fight their deportation orders. There’s always a silver lining, eh?’

Grace’s phone rang again. It was Glenn Branson.

‘Boss, we’ve just had a ransom demand come in. And it’s a strange one in a couple of ways.’