Blood Money (18 page)

May Day has long been associated with socialism and the working class. More recently, in the heart of the City of London it's a day that's become synonymous with rioting and anti-capitalist demonstrations. Because of this, a high visibility police presence will be out in force in the square mile today. Squads of officers wearing fluorescent yellow jackets including mounted police will be concentrating their numbers on the streets close to the Bank of England and Mansion House. The Metropolitan Police, City of London Police and British Transport Police will combine to put around 4,000 officers on duty to patrol today's events and the overtime this will bring-in for the lads down at Bishopsgate will prove very welcome. And although a couple of officers will remain at the station to coordinate and communicate with the front-line troops, Bishopsgate ‘nick' will otherwise be deserted.

Gibson is now satisfied that the bug found inside his flat proves (to himself at least) that Kronos are involved in illegal activities so lucrative that they're prepared to vigorously and violently protect them. It seems likely that Rebecca (and now he himself) aren't going to be the only ones under surveillance, however the total extent and complexity of Kronos's intelligence network is unknowable. They've got deep enough pockets to keep several people under observation at any one time and so it figures they may also have a string of informants on the payroll too. Under the circumstances it's best for John to believe that Kronos have eyes and ears everywhere.

Like an insect walking through a spider's web, he needs to proceed with extreme caution. The slightest wrong move might unwittingly send Kronos a signal that could trigger an aggressive and lethal response from the very same man who'd slain Rebecca.

Having already racked his brains to remember everything said in the flat since the bug had been planted John's now pretty certain that the eavesdropper must have known that he was policeman even before murdering Rebecca. And that just proves how confident the killer had been in his own abilities. Could that confidence stretch to killing her policeman boyfriend as well? Surely not…two people in the same flat, murdered in separate incidents just days apart…the odds against such deaths being unconnected would be astronomical. The police would react as if a serial killer were at large and they'd throw enormous resources into catching the assassin. Would a professional hit-man take such a risk? Would he be brazen enough to kill a serving police officer? John shudders to even think such thoughts, but if Slater really is ‘that good' then maybe he'd believe he could get away with it. Perhaps if he picked the time and the place and made it look like a cast-iron accident, a suicide perhaps…

Was he really contemplating taking on such ruthless and well-resourced people?

But what is the alternative? To sit in his apartment, paralyzed by fear? Could he bear to live a lie for the rest of his life by kidding himself that he'd been powerless to do anything? Should he meekly bury his fiancée and return to the dreary work of investigating petty fraudsters whilst leaving this big-time criminal and his murderous bodyguard to continue unchecked?

With the investigating team at The Met having barely any criminal evidence to proceed John knows it won't be long before Rebecca's murder case is dropped entirely in order that their already over-stretched resources can get re-assigned onto a case more likely to result in a criminal conviction. He surely owes it to Rebecca to do some further digging into Kronos's affairs and rationalising that he's actually in a very privileged position to do this it seems to be the very least he can do. An in-depth scrutiny of anything and everything relating to Kronos might throw-up something. A weakness perhaps…maybe unusual patterns or odd inconsistencies. It's almost certain that nobody in the police has ever delved into Kronos in such a way before, so who knows what a thorough examination of all the available information might reveal?

And John can't ignore the unique opportunity that today's protests offer him. This is going to be a very busy day for his Bishopsgate colleagues and he knows it'll leave the station virtually deserted.

In recent years the overtime roster for May Day required only a couple of middle-ranking uniforms to remain on the lower floors to coordinate the men out on the streets and there's no reason to think that today won't be exactly the same. Slipping into the building through the rear entrance and taking the back stairs up to the top floor should allow him the time and space to gain access to all the records he needs without being detected. But if he's seen by just one officer it'd soon get around that ‘Gibbo' had been back at the station when he was supposed to have been off on bereavement. Curiosity would drive speculation and his colleagues would soon figure out why he'd been in…‘Oh, I guess he'll have been trying to do a bit of research into who might have killed his girlfriend, won't he?' Such a snippet of gossip would circulate around the men like a virus, and if Kronos got to hear about his continued interest in their affairs there could be dire consequences.

Getting up off the sofa, John stands tall and shakes-off his lethargy and indecision. He's gonna have to do this…a thorough look through the police records must surely reveal something, but he'll need to be supremely cautious if he's going to get in and out of his own workplace without being seen.

Leaving Ark House minutes later, John uses public transport to travel as far as Spitalfields, then he walks south through the back streets.

Having taken half a minute to discreetly observe the rear of the building he feels satisfied that it's as quiet as he could have hoped for, so he silently walks toward the station's back door.

After punching in the entry code he enters and cautiously ascends the concrete stairs. His heightened senses listen intently to the muffled voices emanating from somewhere toward the front of the station. He stealthily ascends upwards and succeeds in getting to the top floor without detection. John's nervous eyes make a quick sweep of the offices on this level and as he'd hoped, the upper part of the building is completely empty.

Finding a quiet corner that affords him a clear view back to the top of the stairs he picks a workstation and sits down behind its computer. The aging machine starts up. Its fan blows noisily through its dust-clogged grill as the grumbling hard-drive clicks and hums deep inside. On an otherwise silent floor, such conspicuous sounds are making John feel extremely nervy and it's only when the infernal processor at last completes its boot-up routine that he's able to begin his inquiries. Using a group logon to gain access to the CRIMINT database he begins searching using various names, dates and locations to discover all he can about his adversaries.

Slipping a memory stick into the front of the machine he meticulously saves anything relevant straight onto the USB device as he certainly doesn't want to hang-around up here in order to read every detail and neither can he risk the noise that would result from printing anything off. In an otherwise silent building it would alert the officers on the ground floor to the presence of an intruder somewhere above them.

John finds a few things of interest on record; some driving offences and an alleged assault but nothing major league. Next he hits a couple of other databases to check out details on vehicle licensing, firearm registrations, passport control records and the like. Finally, John checks if Eddie Slater is licensed with any of the security industries agencies. When the personal checks run dry he begins searching for any incidents relating to Kronos itself. Apart from the very recent stuff that include his and Bills interview statements taken early last week there's absolutely nothing.

Feeling deflated to have found so little on Kronos he remembers just in time to check out the reports from the incident Bill Warren had told him about, when some criminal gang targeted 60 Lombard St during the time when it had been the headquarters of the PSB some twenty years ago. He finds the pdf'd scans of the old hand-written case reports and saves them immediately along with everything else he's unearthed onto the flash-drive.

Deciding he's ridden his luck for long enough, John removes the memory stick and slips it into his pocket. Whilst waiting for the computer to log-off and shut down, Gibson scribbles a few words down onto a piece of note paper. Folding it over, he slips it into his pocket.

Moving quietly to the top of the stairwell, he stops and waits for a moment, listening intently to the faint sounds made by the people below, then happy that the coast is clear he descends slowly and silently, floor by floor.

At the bottom of the stairwell, John steps through a door and enters the men's locker room. He takes out his folded-over piece of note paper and slips it into the louvered ventilation slats on one of the tall metal cabinets before turning-tail and making for the exit.

Having made it out of the building without being discovered John wastes no time in re-tracing his steps through the backstreets, keen to get some distance between him and his workplace. The data stick sits in his pocket like an explosive charge, primed and ready to explode. He knows he won't be able to ignore what he finds when he reads through all the documents but will he have the guts to take things further?

If anything, now that he has all the information available on Kronos he's feeling under even greater pressure than when he'd been deciding whether or not to covertly enter Bishopsgate Station in the first place.

Needing to think clearly, John Gibson takes a train north to escape from the stifling confines of central London. He needs to be 100% sure he's doing the right thing, so he heads to a place where he and Rebecca always went to when they needed fresh air and some space to de-stress their heads.

He alights from the near-empty train at the suburban commuter-belt town of Chingford in Essex. Though it's not a rough town, it's not a particularly smart one either; just a continuation of the boring north London suburban sprawl. John's leaden shoes walk ponderously away from the station, his mind being so preoccupied under the burden of heavy thoughts that he relies on his subconscious to take him into the heart of Epping Forest.

These pleasant parkland meadows with their thousands of ancient trees have always offered a tranquil welcome for Rebecca and John. It's an environment that in the past has enabled them to forget their petty worries, allowing them to see what's truly important in their lives.

On this occasion he needs to be sure he's making the right decision about what to do next because ever since finding the bugging device John's been fighting a battle inside his own head. If he listens to his doubts and fears he must forget all about Kronos and convince himself from here-on-in that he'd been powerless to fight back. But if he's to be true to his convictions he knows he's going to have to risk everything he's got left in order to avenge Rebecca's death.

Desperate for guidance, he sits down on a bench overlooking Connaught Water, a bench on which he's sat so many times before. Large numbers of ducks and geese have gathered at the water's edge to compete for bread that a passing mother and her toddler are throwing onto the rippled surface.

What would Rebecca say? What would she tell him to do? She's gone of course, and he knows she can't speak to him, but he closes his eyes and opens his mind. The sound from the waterfowl and all the other extraneous noises rapidly disappear. He allows himself to totally relax and imagines that she is sitting right next to him, just as she normally would be. What would she say to him? How would she answer his questions?

“What am I going to do without you Beccs?”

“You'll be alright without me, you're a good man. You're strong and kind. You'll start a new life and you'll find happiness again.”

“You were killed because you wouldn't give-up on nailing Alexis weren't you? You stubborn girl, if only you'd left it alone, I'd still have you!”

“I'm stubborn, that's true. I'm so sorry, but I couldn't drop it. I am who I am. Remember that one of the reasons you loved me was because I was so head-strong; it was always part of the package. Now listen to me very carefully. What's right is right. What's wrong is wrong. And if something's worth doing, it's worth doing. We've always agreed that those are the rules we both should live our lives by.”

“But what am I going to do without you Beccs?”

“You'll keep going without me. Live a good life and you'll have no regrets when your time is up.”

“Shall I finish the job or should I let it go? If I push-on, I could end up dead too…and that scares me…it really scares me. But if I let it go, I fear I'll regret it for the rest of my days…who knows how many people he'll hurt, how many more he'll kill and how many more again he'll steal from.”

“John, you mustn't have any regrets in the years to come. You have to finish the job. You're smart enough not to get yourself killed because you know enough about him to know how he operates. The only way to beat him is to stay one step ahead. Anticipate his thoughts and predict his next moves.”

“Do I really know enough about Vasilakos to beat him?”

“You know more about him than you realise. For a start, he never plays by the rules, in fact he despises them. Also, he feeds on information. He likes to know everything. He has people watching and listening for him, he has ears and eyes everywhere.”

“If that's so, it means he's watching me too, and that makes me vulnerable.”

“Yes it does, so assume he knows everything about you. He knows your employment history; he knows your phone number and of course he knows your address. He knows when you cough, he knows when you sneeze. But most of all he knows you're predictable, more than any adversary Alexis could have you are predictable. You're a British copper, you play by the rules. You are paid to play by the rules. Indeed he's relying on that very fact.”