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p.m. 28th March 2014
Thurstan took off his jacket and was hanging it on the stand when Degsy tapped on the open door. “Got a moment, Boss? Just want to update you on some stuff.”
The DCI turned beckoning him in. “Yes, please do. Just been doing the same for the Chief at the weekly conference.”
Degsy sat down, sorting through the papers he’d brought with him. “How did it go?” he said absently.
“Hmmm, could have been better. Despite the breakthrough in the Masterson job, he wasn’t impressed when I told him we still had no suspects for MacMahon,” Thurstan threw his mobile in the top drawer, closed it and sat down at his desk.
“So you didn’t mention Nickson then, Boss?”
“No, Derek, I didn’t. Best kept to ourselves, for now. I looked a big enough twat as it was.” Thurstan stacked the files on his desk into a neater pile, lifted the thinnest one off the top and dropped it on his blotter placing the rest on the floor to the side.
“Before you start,” he said opening the file, “I made some quick enquiries myself. Just for anything unusual in and around his parent’s and former address. The only thing of note is his parent’s neighbour died, February 2012. Nothing so unusual about that we might think. People die all the time except this neighbour was a right pain in the arse, drug dealer and all-round little shit. I’ve had a good look through the file. Local CID investigated, and it seems he fell down the stairs and broke his neck during an alcohol and drug binge one-man party. I can’t find anything to contradict the findings but it just makes me wonder though. Idle speculation at the moment. Anyway, it’s there.” He dropped the file on the front of his desk. “Take a look at it later and tell me what you think.” He leant forward expectantly, his elbows on the desk, hands clasped together supporting his chin. “Right! What have you got? Please tell me you’ve got something.”
Degsy handed him a sheaf of papers. “These are the printouts of his bank account and credit card transactions since he retired. I’ve seen the previous stuff, nothing interesting there. The thing is, in the year after retirement he’s paid off his mortgage, taken quite a few holidays and generally spent what’s left of his pension payout. This was the time his wife was being treated for ovarian cancer. Note he’s only using the credit card for holidays and internet payments. She dies in 2007 and everything becomes more mundane, just everyday stuff. He appears to have hit the booze though, judging by his credit card use in off licences all over Crosby. Understandable, in the circumstances.”
“Yeah, and I’d say he was trying to hide the fact, publicly, by spreading his purchases around,” Thurstan murmured thoughtfully.
Degsy continued. “2009 he gets another credit card, from another provider. This one’s best used abroad, gives the best exchange rates and charges. Early 2010 we start seeing withdrawals from the Berlin cashpoints. Seems normal but suddenly he starts taking out maximum amounts in blocks. Four, five day period usually but not always every month.” He paused.“This one’s interesting, though.” He stood up and leaned over Thurstan’s desk, sorting through the papers, pointing to an entry three-quarters of the way down the page. “April 2013. Three withdrawals in Berlin followed by one in Budapest. It’s the only break in his usual routine.” He sat down again.
Thurstan rescanned the pages. “Hmmm ... interesting. A little slip up perhaps? He’s like a squirrel hoarding nuts to get him through winter until he can get to the tree again. Thing is there’s no shortage of these particular trees in Germany and particularly not in Berlin. Smells like he’s trying to cover something up.” He paused thoughtfully. “I think he wants people to believe he lives in Berlin, certainly that he lives in Germany. Odd though. I might have believed elsewhere in Germany but Budapest? That’s intriguing. Find out what’s near the ‘man in the wall’ he used there, travel links, that sort of thing.” He shuffled through the papers again as Degsy sat silently making some notes. “I see he’s still using the credit cards online. He’s going to leave a trace there, Derek. Have you done anything about tracing his IP address?”
Degsy felt a little smug and hoped it didn’t show. “Yeah, Boss. Gandalph took a look at that for me. Nickson’s using IP addresses all over the place. It seems he’s using Tor.”
“What’s that?” Thurstan’s face screwed up.
“It’s a software program you load onto your computer, like a browser, and it hides your IP address every time you send or request data on the Internet. It’s heavy-duty encrypted and bounces everything through a shit load of servers all around the world. It’s never the same route because it uses up to 6,000 different relays to send the stuff.” Degsy sat back and looked apologetic.
Thurstan chuckled inwardly when he saw Degsy’s slightly dejected look. “Not your fault, Derek. I’d like to think the Security Service would be able to do something about that, but it’d probably need some pretty high-level clearance and we’re a long way off at the moment. No, let’s see what some good ‘old fashioned’ police work can do before we head down that thorny path,” he said smiling benignly. “Incidentally, if he’s buying stuff on the Internet, where’s he having it delivered?”
“Parents’ address, ever since he sold his house. If you look at the sheets with the results of the Border Agency enquiry, you’ll see it shows every time he’s been in and out of the country. Generally, tallys with his online purchases. If you turn the page over you’ll see I’ve highlighted that he’s not left yet, he’s still here and...” He paused. “There’s a ten-month period 2011 into 2012 with February right in the middle when he wasn’t in the country.”
Thurstan was pensive. He rubbed his chin with his hand and made a little sucking sound from the side of his mouth then exhaled deeply. Never one to give up easily, he finally said, “Well, not as far as we can tell, Derek. He may’ve entered and left at some stage using false identification. If he is our shooter I certainly wouldn’t discount it.” He slouched back in his chair, elbows on the armrests, hands clasped in front of him with his forefingers pressed against his lips, eyes closed.
Degsy sat silently watching him.
After several minutes Thurstan got up and closed the office door. Sitting down again he said:
“This isn’t just about this Nickson chap and the little oddities that seem to surround him. I’ll be honest with you, Derek. Throwing ‘coincidence’ out the window for the time being, this MacMahon job has a level of organisation and, dare I say, sophistication that disturbs me. The CCTV interference, the mystery street cleaner, the ‘convenient’ white van.” He paused and let out a slow, thoughtful sigh. “It’s too much, I think, for organised crime. It smells of something much bigger.” He paused again. “I went for a drink the other night, with an old Army friend who’s now in Cheshire SB. He told me something interesting. Did you see the news the other day? The item about the anti-terrorist exercise in Delamere Forest?”
Degsy nodded. “Yeah, I did, Boss, and I see there’s just been a load of arrests. Connected?”
“I think so,” Thurstan replied then leaned forward and spoke quietly, “I’m telling you this, Derek, in the strictest confidence and it’s not to be taken beyond these four walls.”
Degsy looked back at him seriously. “I understand, Boss. You can rely on me.”
Thurstan looked him intently in the eyes. “I know I can, Derek. I wouldn’t be telling you otherwise. Well,” he continued in a subdued tone, “we were discussing jobs and cases, as you do, and got to speaking about the MacMahon job when my friend remarked about the ‘old silenced headshot’ making a popular return. I asked him what he meant and he looked a bit sheepish, as if he’d given something away he shouldn’t have. Naturally, I pressed him on the matter, but he wasn’t having it so I plied him with several more drinks until he’d ‘relaxed’ somewhat, well, quite a lot actually.” He smiled before continuing, “Well, it seems it wasn’t an exercise at Delamere. They had an incident there that left three Islamic fundamentalists dead, apparently surprised whilst recording an attempt to cut another Muslim’s head off. To keep it to the point, Derek, headshots, semi-automatic pistol, witnesses nearby who should have heard something but didn’t.” He paused shaking his head. “To me, that means it was probably a suppressed weapon. Furthermore, it seems MI5 had them under surveillance but when they went mobile several ‘traffic situations’, as my friend put it, occurred which resulted in a loss. Coincidence? I think not. That’s organisation and sophistication, Derek. Anyway, MI5 locked it down and it’s theirs and SB ‘eyes only’ now.”
He took a deep breath. “And I didn’t tell you before, but I think you should know now, Matrix and the NCA wouldn’t be making so much progress cracking open MacMahon’s little empire without the information and documents Sackville, provided to them. I’m quite sure our Rupert would never have given this stuff up voluntarily unless someone had put him in fear of his life and I think that fear was instilled in him, not by Tommy Cole as he thinks, but by someone masquerading as a messenger from Tommy Cole.”
The DCI slowly shook his head. “No, Cole wouldn’t have sent a messenger round. It’s not his style. It may have been MacMahon’s, but it’s not Tommy’s. He’d have gone himself and turned the screws all night until Rupert had to tell him. He may have sent some thugs round to his mum’s place as leverage, but that’s as sophisticated as Tommy gets. Meanwhile, it appears he’s happy to believe Sackville’s legged it to Spain. From his point of view, it keeps him out of our clutches. No, it wasn’t Cole threatening him and I think it’ll be quite some time before Tommy figures out Matrix have Rupert and his mother in a safe house in darkest Cheshire.”
Degsy allowed himself a little smile. “Nice one”, he said tilting his head in appreciation before adding, “I know Tommy Cole isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but didn’t he bother to check the airport at least?”
“Oh, he did, and the neighbours. Matrix had someone insert the holiday flights into the airport systems and they even had Sackville prime next door,” Thurstan replied.
“So where does this take us, Boss?” Degsy was intrigued and a little confused.
Thurstan leant back, rubbed his eyes and then ran a hand through his hair. “What we have here, I believe, are two well organised and co-ordinated assassinations ‘coincidentally’ followed by intense Police activity leading to some very positive results after probably months or years of the subject being in the ‘too hard to solve box’. No, I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
Degsy contemplated the information then said: “So you think the killer is the same person or at the very least the same ‘crew’?”
“In a nutshell, Derek, yes,” Thurstan said bluntly.
“And they’re doing it so...?”
“They’re doing it, I think, so the Police and MI5 have to do something. It’s like standing at the edge of a swimming pool when you can’t swim, or at least you’re not a confident swimmer, and the instructor or someone just nudges you off balance into the water. You have to do something. Most people swim.” The DCI looked pleased with his explanation.
“What if they drown?” Degsy replied with an apologetic half-smile.
Thurstan frowned. “They won’t drown, Derek, because there’s always someone there to save them. Just like now.”
“But... Nickson? He’s... he’s ex-job, Boss.” Degsy shook his head. “It’s not easy to believe.”
They looked at each other in silence which Thurstan broke first. “I definitely think these jobs are connected. As for Nickson... Well, he appears to have the skills and he appears to be up to something.” He leant back in his chair and discarded the pencil he’d been twiddling. “Anyway, you were the one who flagged him up in the first place.”
Degsy managed to return a look combining doubt, determination and apology all at the same time. “I know, Boss, but I only did it because it was nagging at me and I just wanted to get it off my chest, just in case. You know how it is. I mean, a ‘one off’ for revenge I could understand, but this is a whole different thing.”
Again silence then Degsy continued, “I admit, he has got an odd life map at present so I feel a little better about it, but I think the possibilities have just hit me. I mean ... we’re talking ...” He paused, struggling for words, shaking his head again. “It’s like ...I don’t know....the dark side.”
A flicker of a smile wandered across Thurstan’s mouth. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I knew people when I was in Northern Ireland who you’d never have thought it of but they ended up working for shadowy organisations, often never officially recognised.”
Thurstan rested his chin on his clasped hands. “Now, I’ve no idea who these people are, Derek. I don’t know if we could be dealing with MI5, MI6 or some other Agency we know nothing whatsoever about. I don’t know if it’s rogues in the system or something entirely different. I’m clueless. I’m fairly certain though, the connection between our job and this job out in Delamere is who organised it. If Tony MacMahon had any Security Service or terrorist connections of any sort, I’m sure they’d have shut us down by now.” He stared at his DS for several moments before saying quietly, “I think we need to tread very carefully, Derek, and I thought you needed to know.” He flashed him a look of apology, encouragement and invitation. “Well, are you still game?”
Degsy looked back at him and shrugged. “Yeah. I’m in.”
“Ok, so be it.” Thurstan stretched his arms and stood up. “I think we could both do with some fresh air. A quick ‘comfort break’ and a drink then I think it’s time we gave Nickson’s parents a little visit. See what happens if we shake the tree. We’ll work out our ‘story’ on the way.” He grinned. “Time to go fishing.”