It would take almost five hours to drive into London, he decided to park at Hillingdon and take the tube the rest of the way. Hopefully he would be there whilst Jane Goodley was still in her office, there was a conversation he wanted to have. At Hillingdon he phoned ahead to ask her to wait for him, saying it would be around 16:00 when he arrived. The next call was to Sally, he hoped there would be good news about the case later, “don’t wait up, it might be late when I get home, I will call you when I am on the way.”
He had to wait for her to finish in a meeting before she would see him. “How is it going?” “We’re making progress, there is a secret drawer in the old desk, the answer to the mystery, hopefully is in there. I’m going down to check as soon as I have spoken to you. What is happening regarding Sally?” “David, I hope you don’t underestimate her, she is very determined. What she wants to do is possible, I’ve had to be very creative to have her trained, she will have to become an employee to undertake the training, I will write to her explaining what her it will consist of and when it will take place, there will be a contract to sign. It won’t affect the way we work at present. You I will expect to be here at least one day a week, either training my staff or assisting with problematic cases.” “I won’t say anything until you have written.”
Downstairs in the storeroom he handed over a slip of paper allowing him to examine the desk. Doing as he had been advised earlier, the secret drawer popped out, inside was a small notebook, names, addresses, phone numbers and code names were listed. Opening his briefcase, he placed it inside. It was 18:30 when he left Hillingdon Station and made his way to the carpark. On the motorway, he called Sally saying he was on his way, the roads were busy, it was difficult to overtake, he stayed with the general flow of the traffic, there was no point in trying to race ahead, he would only be stuck behind another car a few hundred yards further on. As he approached Leicester, it was quieter, on the spur of the moment, he decided to leave the motorway, he wanted to see Mark and Grace, he would tell them the good news. At the hotel where they were staying, he found them in the bar, his arm was round her waist. “I thought you weren’t a couple?” “We are now, it won’t affect our work.” “I’m not bothered, I won’t say anything, no one will find out from me, except Sally. I came to tell you I have the book with the names and addresses, hopefully tomorrow, we can tie this part up.” He enjoyed a drink with them before going home. Sally was waiting, “I thought you would be here earlier.” “I would have been, I stopped off in Leicester, I went to see our analysts, they’re a couple now, I wanted to let them know about the book, I think tomorrow will maybe finish the drugs side at the farm, I’m not sure about information regarding the weapons, maybe it’s somewhere else.” “Will a microwave meal be alright? I ate earlier.” “Anything, I’m starving,” while he ate he told her about the prison visit, Sally shuddered at the description. He took out the notebook and passed it over for her to look at. “They should be able to tie it all up using this.” “Dave, everything so far has been about the drugs, I haven’t seen anything concerning the weapons.” “I know, I think I need to make a call to the Brigadier tomorrow.”
The following day while Mark and Grace tied up names to orders, Dave made his phone call, “sir, do you know if any notebooks have been found in any of the lorries, I haven’t been able to tie up any of the orders to the weapons, just the drugs?” “The lorries were taken to Kent for disposal of the weapons, I will make a call and let you know.” It wasn’t until later in the afternoon when he was called back. “There are two notebooks in Kent, no one could figure out what they meant, I have arranged for them to be couriered over to you, they should arrive tomorrow.” Dave thanked the Brigadier. Grace had been creating one large spreadsheet from the information in the notebook. Mark was putting away the paperwork no longer required. He had then made a start on the boxes retrieved from the house. Dave looked through it as it was laid out, there didn’t look like he would find anything much, the bits he had looked at were mostly domestic bills. The computers would have been more interesting, but they had gone to forensic accountants, maybe he could see them after they had finished.
Before looking at the books from Kent, Dave wanted to make sure there was nothing from the house worth pursuing. There were a couple of savings books in his girlfriends name, both had £100K, he put them in a folder to be handed over. Sally would be in on Friday to create a report from the findings. With all the paperwork cleared away, it was time to look at the books from Kent. Mark and Grace looked at the first entry, they spent some time looking for the codeword to tie it to a name in the notebook. “Got it,” shouted Grace, Mark looked for it in the book, a few minutes later, he had the name and address. They tried the next one before entering anything on the computer, they wanted to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t, they couldn’t work out what the weapons bought were, but either Dave or Sally would work it out. There were ninety five orders in total. While they were checking and entering the details, Dave had cut out one of the pages from the order books, he laid it on his desk next to a copy of the original offer sheet given to him by Marius. It didn’t take long, it was simple initials, he passed the information on to Grace who was able to quickly tie everything together. He hoped by tomorrow it would be completed, his reports ready for next week. Talking to Mark and Grace, he said they should hopefully be done tomorrow. “Would you mind if Sally and I joined you for dinner this evening?” He rang Sally to see if she would come over, bringing him a change of clothes. It was a pleasant evening, they both said how much they had enjoyed working away from the office. Dave and Sally didn’t stay long, it might be the last night Mark and Grace were together, they didn’t want to spoil it by staying there.
Sally spent an hour looking over the information before making a start, she then set about re-arranging the spreadsheets into a way which she thought would be easier to understand by anyone reading the report. As she did it, Mark and Grace watched to see what she was doing. Dave was piling up the boxes ready to be collected the following week. At 16:00, she was struggling, she explained to Dave how complex it all was, “there are transactions for drugs and weapons for the same people, there needs to be another sheet with the dual transactions. Once I have that, I can start to make sense of it all. I want to take it home to finish, I need some quiet time to work out the best way.” All the data was transferred onto sticks, they were checked on Dave’s laptop before the PC’s had their hard drives removed.
They shook hands in the carpark, Dave and Sally drove home, she said nothing on the journey. She went upstairs, Dave could here the bath running. He made coffee, taking Sally’s up to her, she was in the bath, the bathroom was in darkness. “Leave the coffee please, I want to relax and think, the solution will come to me.” Nearly an hour later, he heard her moving about. She came into the living room wearing a dressing gown. “I have it, it will take me some time to do it, most of the weekend I think, but it will be understandable. It will show all the links.” Dave asked if he would be able to help, “I’m not sure, it’s all in my head, until I start creating it, I don’t know if you can do anything. If you can make us a meal, I am going to draft it out, call me when you are ready.” Dave stayed downstairs, he wanted to see how it was going, but knew to keep out the way. When she came down to eat, he asked how it was going, “I think it might work, I will do a bit more afterwards, in the morning, I’m playing tennis, but will start again in the afternoon. You will be on shopping duties.”
When she had gone, Dave was looking at the list he had been left. There was a knock at the door, the postman had ‘Signed For’ addressed to Sally, he left it on the table in the hall, the postmark was London. Carrying in the shopping, Sally was in the kitchen, still in her tennis gear, she was reading the contents of the letter. She handed it over without saying anything. She let him read it before asking what it all meant. “You have to become an employee of MI5 before they will train you to use firearms, they can’t be seen to be training members of the public.” “I don’t want to leave the university.” “You don’t have to, it is a paper exercise to put you on the books. It says once you have signed and returned the contract, the training schedule will follow.” “How come you know so much about this?” “You’re not the only one who can have clandestine meetings with Jane Goodley.” “David Stretton, there are times when I could thump you,” she stood up and hugged him. “I guess this isn’t one of them.” Dave put away the shopping while Sally showered, she returned wearing a fleece tracksuit, he tried to find out how little she had on underneath, but Sally slapped his hand. “There is a mountain of work to be done, once I have finished, you can check.” After a quick lunch, Sally resumed where she had left off the previous evening, “I will call you when I have done a bit more, you can come and see how it looks.” He heard Sally shouting him an hour later. The spreadsheets were still there, however, she had copied and pasted the information from them into three different sections of the report, ‘Drugs’, ‘Weapons’ and ‘Drugs and Weapons’.
Under each heading, the information from the spreadsheet had been pasted, it listed separate orders for each customer, date, items and quantity and price paid. “I’ve done most of the ‘drugs’, how do you think it looks?” “It’s easy to read and understand, I will write the introduction, now I know how the main body will look.” Sally hoped it could be completed tonight with the introduction typed up tomorrow. Dave was now on the other desk, he wrote for almost two hours, explaining each step taken to arrive at the results in the report. He praised the work done by the two analysts who helped them. At 18:30, Sally wanted a break, she said it was her turn to cook, it was an excuse to step away from the screen for a time. She began by opening two cans of lager, when Dave came down, she passed one over to him. “I’ve seen something, but I want to finish it all off before I show you. We might become distracted if we look at it now.” Sally was looking tired, “I have another hour to do, it should be finished then. Dave cleared up as Sally went back to hopefully finish off. He took two coffees upstairs, the dishwasher was whirring away. He kissed the back of her neck as he put her cup down. “Wait, I’m almost done,” he was reading through the report, his pen was ready to change anything he thought he had repeated or didn’t sound right. He saw Sally close the laptop, “I thought you were going to show me something?” She pushed her chair away from the desk and turned towards Dave, she slowly pulled down the zip on her fleece top. “You can look at me?” She undressed in the bedroom and lay face down on the bed. Dave gently caressed her back, there were murmurs coming from Sally. “Switch off the light, as he stood up to reach the light switch, Sally turned over, Dave stripped off, “you can do the front now.”
Sally brought up drinks in the morning, Dave looked at the clock, 09:00, “why are you up so early?” “There is still a lot to do,” she was in the shower. Reluctantly Dave went in as she came out. With breakfast out the way, it was time for Sally to show him what she had discovered. “I want you to look at this and tell me if you see anything different to other orders.” Sally had brought up the ‘Drugs and Weapons’ section, she stopped near the bottom. He looked at the entry she was circling with the mouse. “They bought a load of weapons and drugs, Christ there’s a rocket launcher in the list.” “It’s not that, look at the prices and compare them to another entry.” He scrolled up and down, looking at other sales, “there around 50% less, why” “Check out the address.” “No, no. that can’t be happening.” Dave picked up his phone, “Marius, it’s Dave Stretton, yes, I’m fine. Marius, I want you to tell me where the other people who control the city live, not their exact address, just how the city is split up.” There was a pause, “no I cannot say why at the moment, just tell me, your life may depend on it.” He wrote down the list of areas each controlled. “Thanks, I’ll call you back shortly.” Turning to Sally, “can you find a map of Birmingham showing the different districts, print it out. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t large, I want to colour in each of the areas.” She managed to find one and printed it out on an A4 sheet. Dave used highlighters to colour in the districts, it left a part of the map with no colour. He asked Sally to check where the address was on the map. He phoned again, “Marius, why is there a section of the city without anyone in control?” Dave had put his phone on speaker for Sally to hear, “It’s a bit industrial, there are plenty of prostitutes round there, but the money isn’t good, it’s the same with the drugs, it’s where we have the most trouble amongst ourselves. We always try to make some extra money, it’s when maybe two of us are trying at the same time, we have a little fallout. Dave why do you want to know all this, is something up?” “I’m not sure, if there is, I will call you, thanks for the information.” “Dave what is it?” “Look at what has been sold, almost one hundred weapons including handguns, rifles, a rocket launcher and a box of grenades. Then there are the drugs, it looks to me as if someone is about to start a war, the address is in the middle of what you could call, ‘no mans land’ I bet the police have no idea. Peter Farrell must have made contact or vice versa, let a new gang have the weapons and drugs at a low price, they would do his dirty work, afterwards, he would eliminate them, it all falls into place. Now he is dead, are they wondering what to do next. Was he guiding them, egging them on, who knows. This has to be written up as a separate report. Well done for spotting it.”
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