Blood Money (25 page)

With all the noisy work over, John removes the mattress from the door and turns-off the radio as it's been getting on his nerves. Having returned the flat to peace and quiet, John goes back into the spare room and begins intensely comparing the duplicate key against the impression to closely critique his work. Nearly good enough might not actually work, so he takes great care with some final finishing touches with the needle files until at last he's satisfied it looks like a key that'll do the job. With sore hands and tired fingers Gibson stops work and looking at his wrist watch he sees it's almost 3pm.

Relieved that the key is complete, John's now mindful of the limited time still available to complete the rest of his preparation work. Leaving the flat once more, he retraces this morning's walk back through Finsbury Park and believing it had been a pretty shrewd to stop midway to scrutinize everyone around him, he once again pulls-up but this time at a different bench offering him a slightly improved field of vision. He gives it just shy of a minute to read the body language of every dog-walker and pram-pusher within a 200 yard radius and once again satisfies himself that the coast is clear. This time when he gets to the north side of the park, he goes over to the Arena Shopping Mall and stops at the burger-bar just inside the entrance. Eating-in gives him another ‘policeman's opportunity' to study the passing shoppers for any loitering and purposelessness. Even with his sensory receptors on high alert he's yet again unable to single-out even one individual who might be trying to keep him under observation.

Having wolfed-down the extra large cheeseburger meal, John wipes his mouth clean of grease with a paper napkin before getting up and going across to the budget sports clothing superstore which lies a little further into the mall. He wastes no time in picking-out a large black holdall, some safety boots and an assortment of streetware including some unbranded baseball caps and a couple of quilted shirts (he's figuring that even in early May an unheated basement at night has the potential to be bone-chillingly cold). And wanting to stay as anonymous as possible he refuses to use the stores own-branded carrier bags, preferring to stow all of his purchases directly inside the black holdall.

Once he's paid in cash, he throws the bag's padded strap over his shoulder and goes over to the public toilets on the far side of the concourse. Locking the door to the stall behind him he takes the precaution of changing the hoody he's wearing for one of the shirts he's just bought and he also don's one of his new baseball caps. Having switched clothes, he makes for the exit. As he does so John happens to catch a momentary glimpse of himself in some shop windows and without smiling he gives his reflection an imperceptible nod of approval before dropping his head and leaving the mall.

As Gibson walks back to Ark House, he momentarily raises his lowered head every fifteen to twenty seconds to scan the people around him.

Not that it'll make him complacent, but John's acutely aware that he's now been on several excursions away from his flat and he's 99% sure that he's not been followed even once. If that's correct then Slater must be relying on other sources of information to be sure he's not going to cause him any trouble.

If John were in the bodyguard's shoes, the easiest way to check this out would be to use some informants inside Bishopsgate. The tedious alternative would be to listen to bugging devices day-in, day-out, -something that'd be about as dreary as watching paint dry. Such gadgets were much like CCTV, only of real practical use if you knew a specific day and an approximate time to listen-in on them. Pretty certain that his rationale is sound; John's mightily relieved that his contact with the boys back at the station since Rebecca's death had been very limited.

The murder was out of City of London's jurisdiction and so long as DS John Gibson didn't kick up a stink and start insisting that his colleagues start a full scale investigation into Kronos's affairs then the Hedge Fund Manager and Slater were home free.

*

The nature of travelling around London after midnight will necessitate the use of night buses. These are simply after-hours versions of daytime buses, running the same routes and serving the same destinations but their numbers become prefixed by an ‘N'. Gibson prints out some London transport timetables and organises himself several routes that'll give him several suitably indirect alternatives.

By 4pm, it's time to get everything together, like head-torches, flashlights, a steel measuring tape and a flat ended screwdriver. All the heavy stuff goes in the bottom of the holdall and then John throws all of the soft, light stuff like the plastic sheeting and jump-suits on top. He's pretty-much good to go. Finally, and most importantly, he puts the duplicate key (along with a selection of needle files) into his jacket pocket and just prays that last minute adjustments won't be necessary.

Sitting down on the bed, he figures there's still some 7 hours to wait before needing to leave, so the best thing for him to do is to try and get some sleep. Closing the bedroom curtains, John sets the alarm for 11:30pm before kicking off his shoes and lying back on the bed. If the key functions properly and his survey of the basement proves fruitful, he'll effectively be working nightshifts for as long as it takes to get the job done and his sleeping and eating patterns will need to change accordingly.

But his mind isn't interested in relaxing just yet, it starts recalling the positions of the CCTV cameras in and around the area, remembering which sides of the street he'll need to avoid in order to stay out of frame. Eventually though, he somehow manages to clear his head.

*

Apart from five drunken youths throwing chips at each other there had been no incidents during his tortuously long night-bus journey to reach the edge of the square mile. Walking up Clement's Lane, John checks his wrist watch and sees that it's almost one in the morning.

At its junction with Lombard Street, he stops to check that the Lamb and Lion pub is all closed-up, then out of the glare of the street lights, John drops his bag to the pavement and gets out a pair of disposable latex gloves. He puts them on and retrieves the duplicate key from his pocket.

The entrance to the church is lit by a single bulb suspended in a lantern enclosure above the doorway. Checking once more that the coast is clear John walks silently across the road and without hesitating he tries the key in the church door. It inserts into the lock fully, so John turns it clockwise and can feel the heavy antique mechanism moving within. He'd been concerned that the key wouldn't fit, but if anything it's actually quite wobbly in the lock. John can only conclude that the actual key must be similarly worn and loose. He can feel the bolt drawing back until it reaches the limit of travel.

Fearing that an intruder alarm might sound as he does so, Gibson slowly pushes the heavy oak door inwards. Another look up and down Lombard Street just to reassure himself that he's still alone and he steps inside before slowly easing the great door shut again. Without taking another step, John puts down the holdall and peers into the dark interior of the church to check for red LED lights from any PIR sensors that he may have failed to notice on Tuesday's visit. The corners and crevices of the interior remain reassuringly dark.

John now crouches down beside his bag, unzipping it in complete darkness so that he can pull out some spare clothing. He lays these on the floor along the bottom of the door to prevent any torch light from being seen out on the street through the gap. Only now, does he take a flashlight and covering it's lens with his hand he switches it on. Keeping it pointed downwards; away from the windows, he slightly opens up his fingers to provide just enough light to allow him to lock the heavy oak door from the inside. He picks-up the holdall and pushes through the glass inner doors to silently walk further into the small church, all the while checking for red LED lights being activated around edges of the ceiling. Now in the very centre of the building, John turns left between a pair of bookcases and finds the floor hatch and its recessed brass ring.

Before proceeding any further John takes out the pack of dust sheets. Pulling one out from the packaging, he covers the surrounding wooden floor in a large single-piece of clear plastic and he uses four hardback books from the very end of the bottom shelf to his right to keep it all pinned-down and in place. Needing to create an opening so he can lift the hatch, John slips a razor blade through the sheet into the small gap between the trap-door and the floorboards and cuts carefully so he doesn't damage the wood. Only now that the surrounding area is fully protected does John pull on the ring with his index finger and with a firm upward lift he opens the hatch in silence.

A strong musty smell of damp wood, old stonework and general staleness wafts up at him. Allowing a little torch-light down into the opening, John's able to see there are some rickety wooden steps leading downwards. They may be worn and old but they appear to be intact, he can also see the brick floor some 8-10ft below.

Firstly donning a set of white decorator's overalls and putting some blue plastic covers over his boots, John picks-up the holdall and descends the creaking steps into the darkness of the void.

By the time he reaches the brick floor, the moist and musty smell has become twice as pungent. Switching-on his powerful head torch for the first time John can see that he's standing in the centre of a basement built of brick and stone. Along the centre of the subterranean room run a series of thick stone columns, each of which supports a quartet of enormous oak joists that hold up the planked floor above.

On the nearest of the stone pillars, just to the side of the steps is a vintage ‘Bakelite' light-switch, probably pre-WWII. From behind it, two twisting wires each covered in some kind of woven insulation climb up the column. John optimistically flicks the toggle switch and pleasingly at least half of the light bulbs running along the length of the basement flicker into life, dimly throwing-down weak, yellow light into the centre of the basement.

Still needing to rely on the powerful white beam from his head torch, John begins walking over to explore the dark shadows around the perimeter of the room. All four surrounding walls are similarly constructed as a series of arched alcoves, and within each recess there are shelves constructed from thick oak planks supported in the stonework at either end. Each alcove has eight of these heavy duty shelves and on each there sits a dull grey box with the proportions of…a coffin.

Gibson realises that this isn't just some ordinary church basement; it's a crypt, a catacomb, a storeroom for the dead.

Taking a few moments to get over this initial shock, he now understands why the basement smells as it does. Continuing his walk around the perimeter, he counts the alcoves as he walks past them. Multiplying by eight, John is able to estimate that there must be at least a couple of hundred coffins of varying shapes and sizes down here. With a certain amount of trepidation he walks right up close to one of these alcoves and makes a closer examination of one of the dusty grey caskets. He can see now that they're all made from beaten sheet lead rather than from wood.

Back in the day, this must have been one hell of an expensive way to be laid to rest and something very few Londoners could afford. Never mind the cost of the metal, or the work involved in making a lead coffin, just think how much the church would charge your family for the privilege of laying you to rest down here, what with the limitation on space.

It figures they'd need to be lead as wooden coffins would soon become rotten, enabling the content's liquid components to leak out. Lead could be bent and folded to be watertight and if the lid was beaten to mould it around the top edge it might even make the thing pretty near air-tight.

Continuing his exploration, John comes across several patches of wood rot and beetle infestation in the timbers, and many patches of stonework along the walls show signs of damp. There are also several shoddy attempts at repairing these problems and behind the stairs John finds a collection of scaffolding planks, a jumbo sized tub of trade white emulsion (probably for the interior walls of the church above), some sacks of dry mortar and a few tins of wood preservation treatment. There's also a pile of old bricks stacked-up around the back of one of the pillars, perhaps left-over by the person who'd been doing the botched repair work he'd just been looking at. John now approaches the western wall of the crypt that adjoins with 60 Lombard Street.

Despite having a strong stomach it's still pretty unpleasant being down here and John's finding the smell to be really quite nauseating. In one particular alcove a couple of the heavy oak shelves have become rotten-away at one end (probably due to the damp stonework) and have collapsed under their weighty burden.

It makes sense to examine this particular arch because a good portion of the stonework behind is now exposed making it easier to scrutinise. The smell is really bad though, and it's necessary for him to hold his nose as he leans over the fallen coffins. As he makes an up-close inspection of the wall he tries hard not to think about the contents of the damaged coffins lying at his feet.

Taking out his flat screwdriver, John finds it remarkably easy to pick and scratch away at the mortar between two indiscriminately chosen stone blocks. The render seems quite soft and porous and he has no problem in loosening it. Even for a man who's never done any bricklaying, he's seen enough restoration programmes on TV to suspect that this flimsy stuff is in fact lime mortar, something that he's able to confirm when he goes back over to take a second look at the paper sacks stacked-up behind the stairs.

When it comes to covering his tracks after getting in and out of the bank next door, there's just about everything he'll need down here to ‘make good' the stonework. The smaller he can keep the hole in the wall the simpler things will be and hopefully, his own repair job will end up being pretty-well hidden behind one of the many lead coffins.