Dead on Demand (A DCI Morton Crime Novel) (25 page)

He had been careful to avoid the obvious trap of exacting revenge within a short period after his release from prison. He would have liked nothing more, but it would have been extremely obvious, and almost certainly have required him to break the conditions of his parole.

Ant knew he had a significant height advantage over his intended victim, but he would be recognised if Jake spotted him, so he would have to move with considerable stealth. He would hire a car on Saturday, and drive it to Southampton airport ostensibly for a holiday. There, it would be returned to the vehicle hire company. The last leg of the journey would be done by train. It wasn't quite a direct route, but he intended to stay in Southampton in the evening to provide something of an alibi.

Tickets for a gig he had no intention of going to were primed and ready in his wallet. A copy of the band's latest album was on his MP3 player, so if he was questioned he could answer general questions without any cause for concern. The venue he had chosen was an old-fashioned one. The newer gig venues used electronic tickets, and would flag the fact he never went.

In reality he intended to place a small explosive inside Jake's car. The device would be simple in the extreme. A radio switch would be placed inside his petrol tank that would create a spark, exploding the car from the inside out. The range of the switch would be limited to around a metre, and the activation key would be receiving a mobile phone text. Given that he parked on the driveway at his home, the odds that someone other than him would be that close at the time of receiving a text would be minimal. Assuming that the tank was full it would create an explosion encompassing around fifteen feet, with the car chassis acting as shrapnel.

CHAPTER 48: THE COLONNADE

The office was among the highest in the building. With views out over Canary Wharf, 25 The Colonnade was a building that any bank would be proud to inhabit. Instead it was home to a government regulator, the Financial Services Authority.

Morton, with WPC Stevenson in tow, had easily cleared security and they were now faced with a heavy oak door leading to a corner office on the eleventh floor. Morton rapped loudly on the door, and proceeded to open it.

'Mr Burrows?'

'My my, Detective Chief Inspector Morton. How the mighty have fallen, eh?' Michael Burrows was as obnoxious as Morton remembered him being the first time they had met, when he had found Burrows sat in his office, feet on his desk. It was unlikely the two men would ever be more than cordial to each other after such an aggressive first meeting.

'Mr Burrows, I need to ask you a few questions.' Morton tried to avoid a churlish response.

'Fine, what do you want?' He snapped his laptop lid down, and turned his attention to the two police officers now occupying his office.

'Your investigation into Mr Sugden. What evidence did you have that he was involved in insider trading?'

Burrows sighed, buzzed his secretary to bring in three coffees, and settled in for the long haul.

'All stock trades are now electronic. One trader posts an offer to buy, another to sell, and the system matches the offers. Most professionals make a reasonable sum of money, but Sugden, among others, was consistently buying bull stock right before big news was announced, as well as going bear on stocks before losses came to light.'

'Bull and bear?'

'Bull stocks are those on the up, so you want to buy them. Bear are those that are about to crash, so you want to sell, or even short them.'

'OK, and Sugden was right too often?'

'A certain amount of it can be attributed to market rumours. Most traders live by how much confidence they think the market has in a stock. It's often more about the perception of a stock's value than how much it is really worth. The problem is that Sugden wasn't going by the rumour mill. Several times in the last year stocks have been rumoured about to crash, and instead of selling like everyone else Sugden would buy the stocks everyone was offloading on the cheap. The news would then turn out to be false, and Sugden would double his money in a single morning. As a one-off, it might be lauded, but his group consistently made huge amounts.'

'How did he find out about the stocks?' Stevenson chipped in.

'We can only speculate.'

'What's your best guess?' Morton asked as the coffee arrived. He declined sugar as Burrows stirred three into his coffee, black.

'Come with me.' Burrows rose, striding quickly for the door. Slightly perplexed, the investigators tailed him, curious expressions splashed across their faces.

He led them into a larger room, with a conference table in the middle and a number of charts, documents and photos on displays down the length of the wall. It was eerily reminiscent of the police squad room when everyone was roped into a particularly intriguing case.

Burrows gestured at a collection of photographs near one end.

'These gentlemen have all appeared on our radar after making gains that would be hard to explain by mere luck. They all make losses, but those losses are without exception far smaller than the gargantuan gains they make. All the men are connected personally, even if only remotely. Several of them are linked by alma mater, professional training, place of birth and past employment. The connections are slim at best and don't appear to point to a cohesive group. Their market positions, however, almost always coincide, even when the general market opinion is against them.'

'So you think they are working together?'

'Yes. Between them they seem to have developed an extensive collective network, one that would explain how they are getting their information.'

'I'm sensing a "but" in there?' Morton smiled mirthlessly.

'Yes. The "but" in the equation is: I can't for the life of me work out how they are communicating. No letters, texts, calls, emails, couriered messages or in-person meetings have taken place. I have extensive surveillance on all of them, and my agents have seen nothing.'

'Doesn't sound like you've got much to go on. I guess we're on our own.'

***

The journey took Ant longer than he expected. It was nearing nightfall when he made it into Portsmouth. His jury-rigged device was safe inside a backpack. Without the petrol inside the car, it posed no threat. A jiggler key rounded out the required kit, and was tucked safely inside a pocket, hidden from prying eyes. Jake's car was an older-style Fiat, and getting into the fuel cap would be fairly trivial. By bumping the inside of a tumbler lock Ant could force the pins up above the lock for a fraction of a second. If done while nudging the jiggler forward and turning, it would allow the cap to be opened without the proper key. It was an old lag's trick, and Ant had heard about it many times while in prison. It wasn't something he had much experience in doing, but he had practised on his own car, and was confident that he could open the cap inside thirty seconds flat.

The plan was to wait for dark before making his move. He would need a full two minutes to get to the car, open the cap and get out without being seen. Daylight would put him in plain view, and while the house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, there was the possibility that there would be neighbours around that could spot the movement.

Google Street View had shown Ant that a solitary street lamp lit the road in the evening, and Ant guessed it would kick in around six. On a Wednesday night Ant was fairly certain that footfall would drop to zero after around ten o'clock. There would likely be a few students in the various pubs in the area, but Taswell Road wasn't on any of the major routes, and few lived there. The houses were largely recessed from the road, fences and hedges obscuring the driveways from view.

At eleven o'clock, Ant made his way to the street. A few drunks could be seen near the Taswell Arms pub. The road was laid out as an inverted T section, with one side running north-south, and the bottom of the T containing the target house. The north of the cul-de-sac was a school, and the CCTV on the gates would cover part of the pavement on that side of the road.

Ant was careful to stick to the south side of the road, avoiding the ever-watchful cameras. No one was in sight, and he passed into the driveway of Jake's home without being challenged. A crackle rang out in the darkness, somewhere nearby, and Ant drew closer to the wall for cover, holding his breath to ensure silence. Thirty seconds passed, and he heard nothing. By the one-minute mark his blood was pumping, beginning to pound in his ears, and a sharp intake of breath ensued as his lungs screamed out for air. He didn't know how long passed before he allowed himself to move again, his muscles a little stiffer for the experience.

He slowly inched towards the fuel cap. It was at the back right of the car, close to the house. If anyone inside went past the bay window that guarded the lounge he would be caught. Moving quickly he jiggled the lock. A forensic examination would show that the lock had been bumped, but Ant was confident that the explosion would destroy all the evidence.

With a wrench the fuel cap came off in his hand. He delved inside the bag at his feet, and pulled out the device. He had balled up the device his Irish cellmate had taught him to build. He had tied one end to a short length of string. He held the string, then lowered it in carefully, listening out for the splash that would indicate he had gone too far. The device needed to be near the petrol, but not in it as only the fumes could be lit from the spark. If the device were to become submerged, it would fail. He taped it off inside the fuel cap, and replaced the cap to conceal his treachery.

He rose slowly to avoid making any further noise and lifted his bag gently onto his back. It was now redundant, and he would dump it somewhere before returning to London in case the police traced him by CCTV – a man with a bag would be seen far more easily than one without. He moved on the balls of his feet, scarpering out of the driveway and doubling back along the road away from the house.

He debated finding a 24-hour bar to wait out the night, but a lone drinker arriving near the witching hour would be remembered, and the explosion was bound to make the national media sit up and take notice. Instead he would sleep on the seafront. It was quiet, and he knew that the many benches would be a magnet for the homeless. He could easily kill time there before catching a cab in the morning.

***

As the sun rose over the ocean, Ant realised that he was exposed. He had not expected to fall asleep on the hard bench, and to regain consciousness as early morning runners jogged by was disconcerting. He had to get out of Portsmouth before he was seen. He made his way to the train station. He could have simply taken a train, but the police would be bound to look at the CCTV covering those leaving the city in the wake of an explosion.

Instead, his destination was the nearby taxi rank. With the air of someone in a hurry he demanded to be taken to Petersfield. It was a regional trading hub, and he knew it would be easy to get onwards passage there via train back to London. As his taxi pulled into the market town, Ant sent a text to Jake's phone which set off the receiver in his car. The resulting explosion engulfed the car in a ball of flames that blew out the windows of his house, scattering metal and glass over a fifteen yard radius.

CHAPTER 49: PANIC

Half the city had been cordoned off by the police. They had no idea whether or not it was an isolated incident, and they were taking no chances. The road was photographed from every angle, with every shard, fragment and remnant being bagged and tagged. The forensic evidence would be so extensive that the regional processing centre used by the Hampshire Constabulary would be backed up for weeks. The point of origin was discovered in little time. All the damage radiated out from the car parked in front of 2 Taswell Street.

'It was a miracle that there was only one casualty.' Inspector Brown spoke to the group assembled as they broke for a quick coffee, and a chance to survey the scene.

'Yes, sir. Plenty of property damage though. Must be a few million quid in damage,' one deputy chipped in.

'True enough, but the insurance companies will put that right.' Brown was unconcerned with the smashed windows and scratched cars.

'You think it was Al Qaeda?' a crime scene tech ventured.

'If I hear any of you say that near the press, you'll be fired. No one here is to use the term terrorist. Do I make myself clear?' Brown glared at them.

They nodded quickly, knowing they'd simply wait until he was gone before they finished their conversation.

'Right, back to work.'

There was one victim, the driver of the car. His body was better preserved than Detective Brown had expected. Rather than the complete immolation he had expected from an explosion, the body was remarkably well preserved. The fireball had not been hot enough or long enough to incinerate the remains. Forensics had explained that the concussive force was minimal for an explosion, and that it was safe to rule out any controlled substance being used to fuel the explosion. It was simply the petrol tank exploding.

Brown knelt near the car. There wasn't much left of whatever trigger had been used to set off the explosion. The shrapnel fragments would have to be sorted by hand for any evidence of the requisite electronics, but it would take a while to collect all visible evidence. Until that had been done the search for the trigger couldn't begin.

CCTV was being analysed by the audio-visual department, but coverage on the Portsea peninsula was spotty at best, with most of the coverage focussing on the tourist areas such as Gunwharf and the Historic Dockyards. Most of the other shops carried their own cameras, but in the residential areas the blanket ceased and a few cameras were dotted around the major throughways.

The work was being hindered by the media. Minutes after the emergency services were called they began to converge on the scene. Roads that would normally flow freely were being clogged with journalists, and camera crews. Combined with the road closures the police instituted near possible targets for attack such as the Guildhall, the city was at a standstill. Even the Navy had the good sense to remain on base with tightened security checks on the entrance.