Читать книгу The Song of Mawu - Jeff Edwards - Страница 17

11

On their way out of the headquarters building, Bree and Sam were drawn once more to study the old Rolls Royce on its raised plinth.

‘Are you sure it’s the same one?’ asked Bree.

‘What other Roller could it possibly be? I have the registration number written down in my notes somewhere at home. Let’s go back there and I’ll confirm the number before we ring Thorpe. I don’t think The Fund would look kindly upon us ringing Inland Security from here.’

‘And I want to make sure no one is listening in when we talk to him. The encrypted line is the only way to ensure secrecy.’

***

John Thorpe sat at his large cluttered desk, quickly and efficiently reading through the stack of reports and absorbing the information that they contained while making notations in the margins for him to turn into official assessments and recommendations for future operations.

Absently he considered the spectre of his imminent retirement and who he would recommend as his replacement. Neither of the next men in line thrilled him, but he knew that his days at Inland Security were coming to an end, not because of any failure on his part, but simply from the inevitable passage of time. Having reached the mandatory retirement age, he was now regarded as too old for the job. The politicians had decided that the security of the country should be handed on to a far younger person with a more modern outlook and had ‘asked’ him to step down.

However, before he went, Thorpe was determined that one of his few outstanding cases should finally be closed once and for all. That matter involved Jade Green and her missing videos. He didn’t give a damn that Green was dead. The fact remained that her videos were still out there and they contained incriminating evidence on men who were now in positions of power, men who had been caught in the act with their pants down and therefore capable of being blackmailed.

Thorpe was determined that the videos would be recovered at all costs and that the government be the sole arbiter of who should be coerced because of their failings, coerced in the best interests of the country of course.

Thoughts of Jade Green leapt to his mind because a report had arrived advising him that Sam Tait and Bree Lake had returned to England. He fully expected to have heard from them by now, despite the fact that they had been taken directly from the airport to The Fund’s new building in Walton Village.

Thorpe had remained late in his office in anticipation of that call.

Suddenly there was a chirping sound from the phone consol on his desk and he noted that the light on it was flashing purple. Punching the encryption button the purple light turned to green and Thorpe picked up the receiver. ‘You pair took your time reporting in,’ he said without preamble.

‘We were busy,’ replied Sam, ignoring Thorpe’s jibe.

‘Did you enjoy your little holiday in Singapore?’ continued Thorpe sarcastically.

Sam continued to ignore the man’s tone. He would dearly have loved to tell Thorpe what he really thought of him, but decided that his opinion meant nothing to the Head of Inland Security. ‘We had a wonderful time. Thanks for asking. Both of us are nicely tanned from sitting beside the pool all day sipping cocktails.’

‘You should have been back here helping to locate the videos. They could be anywhere by now.’

‘That’s why we rang. We have news.’

Thorpe stiffened in his chair and he gripped the phone harder in anticipation. ‘What news?’

‘Green’s Roller has turned up.’

‘The bullet-proof one?’

‘The very same. It’s sitting on a plinth in the reception area of The Fund’s new headquarters. We checked the registration number and it’s the same one, right down to the signs of being in a battle.’

‘So what?’ asked Thorpe.

‘Well it’s just that our old friend Mick Sloane always believed that the videos and the Roller were together. He worked out that as both of them disappeared at the same time, then it was a fairly safe bet that one was contained in the other.’

‘So you think that the videos are now somewhere in Walton Village?’

‘It stands to reason doesn’t it? We searched their old headquarters time and again and we’ve all been keeping a constant eye on the place. Nothing has come to light so they must have had them hidden somewhere else, and if you were building a new headquarters wouldn’t you include a secure area where you could keep your most valuable possessions?’

‘Your logic seems sound enough,’ conceded Thorpe. ‘Where do you think they are and how do we get to them?’

‘Bree and I have no idea. We’ve only been inside the new building once. It will take time for us to search the entire tower, especially as we don’t have any particular reason to spend a lot of time around here.’

Thorpe began to lose his temper with the agent. ‘Invent a reason. Move down there if you have to. Find the videos. They must be in Walton Village somewhere,’ he barked.

‘Fine. We’ll do what we can.’

‘You’ll do better than that! Find me the videos!’

***

There was an audible click on the tape and Teddy Strang reached over to turn the recorder off.

The small tape recorder sat in the middle of the conference table with The Fund’s directors seated around having listened in to the full conversation between John Thorpe and Sam Tait.

‘Wonderfully clear. I imagined it would be much more distorted than that,’ said Brian Reynolds.

‘With the pick-up so close to the phone itself we can have it as clear as if they were seated right here with us,’ smiled Teddy.

‘And they had no idea they were being overheard?’ asked Toby Brown.

‘As far as Sam and Thorpe were concerned they believe that they couldn’t be understood even if the phone was bugged. Bree was using an electronic sweep even as the conversation was taking place.’

‘They’re going to be very upset when they find out,’ said Nori Akuba.

‘We’re going to have to pick the right time to break the news to them,’ said Justine.

‘What about the contents of the call?’ asked Teddy.

Brian looked over at Toby, ‘That’s what we expected, isn’t it?’

Toby nodded, ‘We couldn’t have scripted it any better ourselves.’

‘So you won’t mind them snooping around the building?’ asked Teddy as Head of Security.

‘Not in the least!’ replied Brian, ‘We’ll rely on you and your men to make sure they don’t get into too much trouble. If they arouse the suspicions of other members of staff I’m sure you’ll be able to allay those fears. We’ll let them do their thing.’

Teddy didn’t like the idea of trained security agents snooping all through a building that was his personal responsiblility, but knew the board members to be a very clever group. If they wanted the agents to snoop, then they had their reasons. ‘Oh! By the way!’ he added, ‘That wasn’t all that the tape recorded.’

‘What else was there?’ asked Eliza.

‘Well, it’s of a more personal nature.’

The women around the table instantly became more alert. ‘You’ve got our interest. Play it,’ said Suzie gleefully.

‘Now hang on!’ said Toby, ‘We found out what we wanted to know. Anything else is strictly between the two of them. Besides, we already know that they’ve been sleeping together in Singapore. It’s why my devious wife made sure they were booked into an apartment out there and not a hotel.’

‘Well it seems it’s more than that,’ explained Teddy, ‘They were discussing Thorpe’s order to move down to Walton Village and they’ve decided to move in together down here too.’

‘And?’ asked an eager Suzie.

‘Well, it seems that after deciding to move in together, Sam asked Bree if she wanted to make it a permanent arrangement.’

‘Don’t tell me he finally proposed!’ yelled an excited Lana.

Teddy nodded.

‘She accepted didn’t she?’ asked a beaming Suzie, ‘She’s been in love with him forever.’

‘Well yes she did.’

‘Then what?’ demanded Lana.

Teddy blushed, ‘Then it became really personal.’

Brian laughed, ‘I think you’d better erase the tape right now before these women embarrass us all by demanding to listen to it.’

***

In his office, John Thorpe opened the thick file which Inland Security had amassed over the years, not only on Jade Green, but also on The Fund and the members of it’s board.

He dialled his deputy and began reading the file from the beginning while he waited for the man’s arrival.

As a junior agent straight out of university, Thorpe had been assigned the task of locating the legendary recordings Jade Green had made of her clients at The Garden of Eros. Despite his best efforts Green had refused to co-operate and over the intervening years additional attempts had also proved fruitless. His inability to close the case and his unshakable belief that the videos had existed rankled with him for his entire career and he was more determined than ever to solve the case before retirement overtook him. He was encouraged in this by the sudden appearance of one of the famous videos. It had been transferred to a DVD and featured a prominent judge. The Prime Minister himself was also determined that these elusive videos be found. He had become more than a little interested when his brother, a church minister, was featured on one of these videos that was splashed across the internet. As a result, the unfortunate man had been forced into exile in Hong Kong.

Entering Thorpe’s office, his deputy saw the file spread in front of his superior and sighed inwardly. Not again! He thought.

‘How many people do we have inside The Fund?’ Thorpe asked without looking up from the file.

Taking a seat opposite Thorpe his deputy replied, ‘Besides Sam Tait and Bree Lake we have three. They’re only junior agents, straight out of the academy, but we had to go with juniors so that they would fit in with the rest of the staff at the charity. Tait and Lake don’t know anything about them.’

Thorpe flipped through file and came to the last few pages. ‘I see they reported the appearance of Jade Green’s Rolls Royce a week ago.’

‘Did they? I haven’t studied that file for some time.’

‘You don’t consider the appearance of the car to be significant then?’

The deputy shrugged his shoulders, ‘Should I?’

Thorpe looked over at the man, thinking: ‘And you want me to recommend you to be my replacement? Moron!’ He spoke slowly to his deputy, ‘If you had studied the file as closely as you should, you will see that the Rolls Royce was garaged in the same storage facility that Green used to hide her videos. The videos and the car disappeared at the same time. The car has now reappeared. Can’t you understand that if the car has reappeared then the videos may also have reappeared? Certainly Tait and Lake did when they contacted me last night.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose it could be a possibility.’

‘Thank you for agreeing with me,’ said Thorpe sarcastically. ‘I think something is about to happen and I want to know what it is and when. Contact all the agents we have down there including Lake and Tait. I want to know everything that’s happening in Walton Village, particularly if it seems to be out of the ordinary.’

The deputy nodded, ‘I’ll get right on to it.’

‘How many other agents do we have that we can use to infiltrate the charity?’

‘Not many I’m afraid.’

‘Get as many of them in there as you can. This is important,’ demanded Thorpe. He was determined to gain the upper hand on The Fund this time.