Those Who Play With Fire, Chapter Fifteen

Photo: Harland Quarrington/MOD, OGL v1.0OGL v1.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The afternoon was spent wandering round Oxford Street. Sally was in and out of the shops, she hadn’t bought anything until they arrived in Selfridges. “Find something you like and I’ll treat you.” She spent ages going through clothes rails before finding a silk dress she loved, Dave liked it as well, when she tried it on, she looked stunning, it was cherry red, thin straps and finished just above the knee. Sally suggested he buy some new clothes, Dave wanted to buy jeans, Sally had other ideas, he ended up with two new pairs of trousers. Finding shirts to fit his shoulders was difficult. He usually ended up with loads of material round his waist. Sally spoke to an assistant who showed her a range that would fit, they were expensive, but hopefully they would be OK. She chose three for him, Dave came back with a jacket he liked, that was enough shopping for one day. They decided to walk back, it was only twenty minutes to the hotel, on the way, they discussed what they would do that evening. Sally wanted to stay in the hotel to eat, just the two of them, Dave was fine with that, he was tired, he would have preferred to go to bed and sleep until morning, but he wouldn’t be allowed to do that. As they arrived at the hotel, the door was opened for them and they walked in. Instead of taking the lift, Dave headed for the bar, they hadn’t eaten since breakfast, he was starving. Seeing the menu, he glanced down it and passed it over to Sally. They made their choices and ordered drinks, Dave wanted a cold soft drink, Sally ordered gin. When the food arrived, Dave wasted no time, his was gone long before Sally was half way through hers. When she had finished, she had a question for Dave. “You don’t have to answer this, how do you deal with what you did yesterday?” “It’s a job, I try not to become emotionally involved. I push it into a part of my brain I try not to access, occasionally it sneaks out, or I am reminded of it, like at the dinner party. I have to force it back into where it should be.” Leaving the bar, they took the lift up to the third floor. The bed had been made and the room tidied. Dave rang reception and asked if someone from housekeeping would call. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door, he gave the girl his new shirts and trousers, would you press these and have them back before 19.00, he gave her a note with the pile of clothes.

Lying on the bed, his eyes closed, Sally pulled off his shoes. The sound of rhythmic breathing was soon coming from Dave. Sally ran the bath and had a long soak while he slept. Beside the bath was a phone, she called reception and booked a table for 20.00. Pressing nine for an outside line, she called Olivia, “guess where I am?” Olivia tried a few suggestions before giving up, “I’m lying in a huge bath in a posh hotel in London.” She wanted to know what Sally was doing there. Dave is here on business, I came down on Sunday, unfortunately we have to check out tomorrow. I will tell you all about it when I am at home.”  After the call, she lay for another ten minutes before pulling the plug and getting out. Dave was still asleep, she gently shook him until he woke. “Bloody Hell, I didn’t mean to fall asleep, what time is it.” “Time you were up, housekeeping will be here with your clothes. He stripped off and went for a shower. While he was in the bathroom, Sally put on her new dress, she tried all the mirrors in the room to see how it fitted at the back. Even she thought she looked good in it. Housekeeping returned Dave’s clothes perfectly ironed. Sally was hanging them in the wardrobe as he came out the bathroom. “I hope the shirts fit, you haven’t anything clean left.” He tried on a light blue one. It fitted well, as he dressed, he put on the trousers and the jacket. “You are very smart, it all fits well.” “The dress fits you perfectly.” Sally told him she had booked a table for 20.00, once they were ready, they walked arm in arm along the corridor. They had a couple of drinks before eating in the restaurant. A couple of times, Dave noticed Sally was trembling, just for a second, but definitely a tremble, “Are you alright, I just saw you shake?” “I’m OK, maybe it’s a breeze when someone opens a door to the kitchen.” Sitting with coffees, Dave asked if Sally wanted another drink at the table, or maybe in the bar. She leaned across the table and motioned Dave to do the same, “I want to tell you something, but I need to whisper it.” Dave leaned as close as he could, “I have nothing on under this dress, nothing at all.” “Let’s go then.” Sally was walking slightly in front of Dave, he watched as there was a little wobble under the dress every step she took. In the lift, he kissed her, at the same time he slid his hand up her leg, she was telling the truth. The minute they were in the room they made straight for the bed. Later as she lay next to Dave, she wondered what she had done to be so lucky.

Sally and Dave were the last ones down for breakfast in the morning. They ate silently, she was tired, not much sleep on the first night and even less last night. Dave was thinking, he was going over everything again. Although it had gone well, he was going over the operation to see if it could have been improved. On the way to the room, he exchanged his receipt for the package in the hotel safe. In the room, he tried to make everything fit into the one suitcase Sally had brought, he didn’t want to use the one he had taken from the flat. Using the Selfridges carrier bags he managed it. The suitcase he put in the shower, washed it all over and left it to dry, he wanted to remove any of Roger Peterson’s fingerprints from it.

Sally was reluctant to leave the room, “could we stay for one more night,” she pleaded. “No, we both have work to do in the morning, I’m not sure I have the stamina for another night.” It was a short train ride to Luton Parkway, Sally bought two coffees as they left the station. With the luggage in the boot, they set off for home. Sally was sleeping by the time he drove down the slip road on to the motorway. The traffic was steady with no hold ups, he drove in silence, the radio may have woken Sally, but more importantly, he was still thinking. Several times Dave realised that he had no recollection of driving the last few miles. He tried to concentrate on the road ahead, but ended up drifting off to his thoughts, there was no alternative but to put the radio on. The noise woke Sally up, “where are we?” “Lutterworth, not long to go now.” She apologised for falling asleep, picking up her drink from the cup holder she took a sip of the now cold coffee.

Once she was at home, Sally made coffee while Dave emptied the car. He took everything upstairs, including the Glock and the carrier bag of money. Sally would sort out the clothes later, the gun, he would check in the morning, the photographs he put on his desk. The only thing left was the bag of money. He took it downstairs, and dropped it on the coffee table then sat down. Drinking his coffee, he asked Sally if he remembered him saying to the Brigadier, he had retained some of the money for expenses. She nodded, he slid the bag along the table towards her. Sally opened it, “There’s loads in here, how much is there?” “I have no idea, why don’t you count it?” “I’ve never seen this much money, there all fifties and twenties, it will take ages.” “Close the curtains and we will do it together, write the amount on each band, we will add it all up at the end.” When they had finished, Sally used her phone to count up each band, she stopped at £34480.00. “That’s some expenses,” “no one will miss it, Roger Peterson won’t be asking for it back.” “What are you going to do with it?” “Keep it here, it will be used for the good things in life, the first being a holiday for us. It needs to be split into smaller bundles and put in different places round the house, I need £1000 for tomorrow, I have to pay someone who helped me out on the job.” With the money split up and hidden it was time to eat, neither wanted to cook, Sally said she was going to order a takeaway, “do you want Chinese?” She realised when she said it, everything about the job related to China. “I’m sorry, you might not want Chinese.” “I like the food, it’s some of their citizens I’m not too keen on.”

When Sally had ordered, Dave put the TV on, it was a news programme, the sound was off, he read the latest news scrolling along the bottom of the screen, ‘Cabinet reshuffle as Home Secretary resigns’, it was on endless repeats, he saw Mark James image on the screen. He found the remote and turned the volume up. The newsreader was saying it had been announced at lunchtime by a spokesman for the Prime Minister, that due to an ongoing health condition the Home Secretary had, with regret, tendered his resignation to the Prime Minister, he would also be leaving the House of Commons with immediate effect. It is understood he is already at home in his constituency with his wife and family. There has been no statement issued regarding his medical condition. The screen then switched to a wet reporter standing at the bottom of a drive, a house could be seen behind some trees. He had nothing to report. Sally hearing the TV was standing behind the sofa, “You did that, I bet they don’t mention the part you played in it.” “If he hadn’t stuck his cock in another man, and let it be filmed he would still be Home Secretary, I didn’t do it, I discovered it, someone else would have found the photographs if I hadn’t.” The TV was now going over his political career in minute detail, starting from when he was a door knocker at local elections up to the present day, they even had a medical correspondent on the screen suggesting what may be wrong with him. “I know what’s wrong with him,” Dave was shouting at the screen, “he got caught, that’s what’s wrong with him.” He pressed the button to mute the sound. “They will be going on about this for days, I bet less than fifty people are privy to the real reason.” They were in bed by 20.00 that night, both were tired, Dave had called Trevor and arranged a meeting for 09.30 at his office. Following a shower in the morning both were refreshed, Dave left first to travel to Leicester, the meeting didn’t last long, he handed over the money in exchange for the laptop. “You owe me Trevor, the money you have is much more than you earned, I will call you again when I need you.” “Can I ask you something, what was it all about?” “Sex, nothing else but sex.” “So, you shot him because of sex?” “What man? I never saw anyone in the flat we didn’t go into, don’t go flashing the money around, if you mention this to anyone, expect a visit from me, and it won’t be a social call. You did a good job and I appreciate it, time to go and see if you can find your lady’s pussy, you normally don’t have any problems doing that, just don’t get caught with your trousers down.”

By 11.00 he had the hard drive out of the laptop, he fixed it into a cradle which would allow him to connect it to his laptop. It didn’t take long for his software to bypass the user name and password, he had no idea how it worked, he was happy that it did. He read through the emails, there was nothing of interest. He suspected the information would be on the iPhone, he had never been able to break into one before, but he knew a man who could, or at least his organisation could. He was too involved to call Cyrus Grantly, instead, he sent an email asking him to call, he had possible information which may help his enquiries. He returned to the hard drive, Dave scoured it again, there wasn’t very much stored on it at all, he checked for hidden drives and files, there was nothing else. He would take it with him next time he was in London and drop it off at the MOD. With the hard drive re-installed on the laptop, Dave turned his attention to the package. He tried to group the photographs by the participants but abandoned that, too many people were in lots of the pictures, it was too confusing. Putting them in groups of male-female, all male and all female made it a bit easier. This made it quicker to search for common faces in each group. He cut up PostIt notes and placed a sticky yellow square on each of the ones he thought appeared on different occasions. He saw Freddie in a lot of the images. Doing this reduced the number of faces, he did the same with the other two groups. He no longer saw, who was doing what to whom, other than the faces, the rest of the image was a blank. What he did notice was the camera angles in all the groups were mostly the same, Dave suspected that rather than someone there all the time taking pictures, hidden cameras were used, the cameraman was used for the occasional group shot, mostly at the men only parties. He was still at it when Sally came up the stairs with coffee and sandwiches. “God, what a mess,” “please don’t touch anything, it’s not a mess, there is a system.” “It doesn’t look like it to me, why do some of the people have a yellow sticker on their face?” Dave explained what he had been doing while he ate, Sally was staring at one of the images, “put it down, I’ve been doing this for so long now, I’m only seeing the faces.” “I’ve seen her on the tele, she runs a big company, she obviously likes him.” “Can you remember her name?” “No, you’ll have to search for her face. Do you want me to help, earn some of the £5k paid into my bank account yesterday.” “When you’re ready, the trouble is, they will all need to be scanned in to be able to search the faces.” Dave suddenly thought, the photographs must have come from digital images originally, he pulled out the sticks from the envelope. He arranged them in order from one through to sixteen. He plugged one into his laptop, fortunately there was no password protection on the stick, however there were hundreds of images, with sixteen sticks to go through, he thought it would take months. Later having quickly scanned each one he worked out it was a memory stick per party. Would he need the printed photographs, he wasn’t sure. Sally was working on one of the other sticks, Dave, I think the cameras are set to take a picture at timed intervals, some images have no one in them.” He watched as Sally flicked through a sequence, “in one shot they are there, the next two shots are empty, then in the next one there are three people.” “Go back to an empty image, zoom into above the sofa, there is a picture on the wall, will it zoom in close enough to see it.” Sally did her best, but the image was blurry. “Keep going, see if the lighting gets any better on other pictures, I will check out my sticks. Save any you think might be useful.” “I’ve got one, there is a man standing behind the sofa, I think he is having a blowjob, the camera has focused on him, it has made the picture on the wall clearer.” Dave stopped, “zoom in, a bit more, that’s it, copy that and send it to me, I will see if I can sharpen the image with Photoshop. When he had finished it was much clearer, “Here goes, he searched on Google Image for similar pictures. Loads came up, including an estate agents listing for ‘Skifford Hall’ a fifteen-bedroom Georgian mansion set in ten acres. “I think we have it, check this out, they both look the same.” “Open up the details, see if we can match any of the rooms.”  Dave slowly went through the pictures from the estate agent, Sally was concentrating. “Stop, that fireplace is in another picture,” she returned to her screen and quickly flicked through images until she suddenly stopped. “The fire places are the same,” “we need another one.” Dave carried on going through the listing, He stopped at an image of a snooker room, “I’m sure I’ve seen a snooker table in some of the pictures, Sally brought up thumbnails of all the images on the stick she had. Scrolling down, she was checking for images with a lot of green. She paused and went back up, with a double click on the pad, a snooker table appeared, two couples were naked, having sex across the table. “Compare the floor and the wood paneling on the walls, they both match.” “I think that will do, we can talk about the next move while we eat.” It was good to eat home cooked food after days of rich meals. They ate a plain and simple meal, grilled chicken, new potatoes and salad, ice cream for dessert. “I think we should forget the photographs, it would take too long to go through and for what benefit, someone else should be doing that, not us, I will carry on with the house, as I think that is important, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find the owners.” As they sat in the lounge afterwards, his phone rang, it was Cyrus, after the usual pleasantries it was down to business. Dave said he had taken an iPhone from the body on Sunday, it was locked, he couldn’t access it. “You lot have found a way in haven’t you. I suspect there may be information regarding the African aspect of your enquiries, if I give you the phone, will you send me all the data that you don’t need.” Cyrus replied he was sure that would be OK but he had to check further up. “I’ll call you when I have an answer.

Dave decided that Thursday would be his last on this investigation, The photographs, without days or possibly weeks of research would yield nothing. The Brigadier could decide what happens to them. Before that, he would copy them all onto his hard drive. If any information came back from the iPhone he would keep it to himself unless it was relevant to S417. It only left Skifford Hall, he wanted to find out who the owners were as a final part of the job. It would serve no purpose for the MOD, but he was curious, MI5 may want to know.

The purchasers according to the Land Registry was a company registered in Singapore, he checked on their version of Companies House for the directors and the trading history. He wrote down the directors names, the company had never traded in Singapore. That was a dead end, Singapore, probably meant China, but he had no proof, he doubted if any of the owners had ever been in the building. His last thought was to email Cyrus Grantly, if this returned nothing, then he would give up. In the email he wrote the names and added that he thought they may be Chinese. Dave stressed the urgency of the enquiry.

When he had finished, he put everything to go to the MOD in a pile, he hoped it would all fit in his briefcase.

Downstairs, he looked at the clock, Sally would be home soon, he made lunch and sat waiting. She was pleased to see him, “I’ve got some news, I have to phone and arrange an interview for my vetting, I can do it in Birmingham or London. Which one would be best?” “London, I have the stuff from upstairs to drop off. Did they give you dates?” “No, I guess I will do that when I phone.” As they ate Dave’s phone rang, “Yes, hello sir, yes, yes, Tuesday, 11.30, yes, goodbye.” “What was that all about?” “I have a meeting at 11.30 on Tuesday, not sure what it is about, no doubt I will find out then. Why don’t you book your vetting for the same day? We can go down together.” “Can we stay over again?” “No, you have work on Wednesday, it would all be too rushed.”

Sally arranged her meeting for Tuesday at 11.00, afterwards she asked what she would be questioned about. “They will have all your bank details already and background information, it will appear to be an informal chat, however the questions may be intrusive, you will be asked about your marriage, any relationship you are in now, I’m not sure if they still want to know your sexual orientation, they might not do that now, Answer the questions as honestly as you can, don’t be evasive or upset if they are personal, remember they are checking to see if you are a person who can be trusted to view top secret documents. “You will be OK.” Sally had a lot of work to do in the house, Dave spent his time in the garden, cutting the grass then washing the cars. They went off to Tesco’s later to restock, Dave hated it, he was used to buying what he needed when it was needed, none of this wandering up and down aisles.” That evening they shared the cooking, ate and finished off with a walk to the nearest pub. As they sat in the beer garden, Sally said Olivia and Sam would be round in the afternoon and were staying for a takeaway in the evening. “Do you want me to clear off then.” She smiled at him, “OK, I’ll make myself scarce. On Sunday, I want you all to myself, I think we will go out for the day.”

The following day, having played tennis that morning Sally was upstairs having a shower, Dave crept up the stairs, stripped off and joined her. At 15.30, Sally said she had to get up as her friends would be here anytime, Dave tried to keep her in bed. “I have to get up,” “I’ll go down and open the door, I’m sure Olivia won’t mind.” “She’d have that towel off you in seconds.” Sally was now laughing, she had escaped and was now back in the shower. As she came out, the doorbell was ringing, “I told you they would be here, “I’ll go,” Dave pulled on a pair of jeans and went downstairs. “Bloody Hell, it’s a Chippendale,” Olivia ran her hand over Dave’s chest as she walked past, Sam said a quieter “hello.” “Make yourself coffee, Sally will be down in a minute. “What have you two been up to?” “I’m getting changed before I go out, Sally is getting ready.” She arrived a few minutes later, apologising for not being there when they arrived. “Dave has said he will be doing a strip for us later on.” Olivia playfully ran her hand over his chest again. He took that as his cue to leave, once fully dressed, he said goodbye to the three and he was gone. He stuck the Uber signs on his car, hung his ID from the mirror, switched on the app and waited for a job, it alerted him almost at once, a pickup in town going to the university, Dave thought they could walk there quicker. There was a steady stream of jobs, the busiest between 19.30 and 20.30. He decided to finish at 22.00, he didn’t want to be about when the pubs closed, others would be more than willing to do these jobs. His reward for tonight was a McDonalds, this time there was no trouble, there were still loads of kids hanging around, it must have been the ‘don’t mess with me look’ on his face that kept them away from him. They were still talking when he got back, he wondered what women can talk about for all this time. “We left you some food, it needs to be put in the microwave.” There was rice and chicken in different sauces, he put it all on one plate and heated it up. It was better than the MacDonalds he had just eaten. He sat alone in the kitchen, he washed it all down with a cold lager from the fridge. It was nearly midnight when Olivia and Sam left. Dave had cleared up in the kitchen, there were two mugs on the table, ready for coffee. When he heard the door close, he switched the kettle on. She wanted to tell him about the evening, Dave put his finger up to his lips, “tomorrow, not tonight.” He carried the two mugs upstairs. In bed, he was quiet, he hardly spoke, “are you OK?” “Yes, I’m enjoying the silence.” He was sleeping before he had finished his drink.
 

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