The Prime Minister picked up the phone on the desk. “Find the Home Secretary and ask him to return to the meeting room.” It was five minutes before he seated at the table. “Peter, Mr. Stretton is to assume control of MI5 until Miss Goodley returns to work. Miss Fellowes will assist him, please arrange a meeting between the three of you to discuss how it will work and what you expect from them. Ensure her deputy is informed before they return to the building.”
“Would you like to join us for dinner this evening, we are staying at Flemings Hotel. We can sort out how you want us to work then.” A time was agreed, they shook hands and left.
Back in Jane’s office he asked Howard to come in. “Has the Home Secretary spoken to you?”
“Yes, he said Miss Goodley is ill and you are in charge until she returns. I’m glad it’s not me.” Dave asked if there were any updates. “No, we have been promised forensic reports later.”
“I’m not sure how Jane did it, but we need food, could you organise a couple of salads for us and some cold drinks.”
Sally closed the door when he had gone. “Will you tell me what you think?”
“Lock the door. The Army is involved in this, Taff is scared, it takes a lot to frighten someone who was in the SAS. He was offered a lot of money to take part, he declined. I wonder if because he said no, he is now in danger. There is unrest in some sections of the country. They say there is too much immigration, taxes are high, prices are high. Richard Carlton and the rest of his crew will probably be replaced at the next election. These bombings are a way of putting the public further against the government. People are easily led, if the newspapers start saying it’s the government’s fault, there will be more calls for them to be replaced.”
“What part does the Army play in all this?”
“At the moment, I’m not sure, this is where we keep this to ourselves. We carry on investigating as normal, however there will be another one running at the same time. I meant it when I said the only person who could be trusted was you. There is no way I want to talk to anyone at the MOD about this. I’m not sure where we go from here.” There was a knock at the door, the food had arrived, they sat and ate it at the desk, when they had finished, he went out to see Howard. “We both need email addresses and log in credentials for the servers, can you organise it please. When you have done that, can you find whoever it is who is checking the CCTV from the bombing and send her in. Sally will need an office nearby, can you sort that as well?” In the office, he explained what was happening, take whoever it is into your office, find out what progress she has made, if she is struggling, help her. I want the identity of the third person you saw, check Leicester station as well, look for a clear face shot. Find out if there was CCTV on the train, if you have any problems, say you are the assistant to the head of MI5. While we have the opportunity, let’s use the power we have to our benefit.” Sally answered the knock at the door, she went off with the girl to look at the CCTV.
On his own, he called Taff, it was unanswered. Howard had brought in reports, he read each one, none of them offered any progress. He was about to try Taff again when he rang Dave. “Are you OK, if you need help, I can see what I can do?”
“I’m OK, no one will find me.”
“Will you tell me about it, I will meet you anywhere at any time.”
“Let me think about it, I will call you again, trust no one.”
“Taff, keep safe, call me anytime, day or night.” As soon as he had finished, his phone rang again. The Brigadier at the MOD asked him what was going on. “Jane Goodley is ill, I’m working at MI5 until she returns,”
“I already know that, I mean about the bombs, what do you know?”
“Not much, we are searching for CCTV images, hopefully we can see who placed the bombs. I will keep you informed when I find something out.” He thought about Taff’s words when he put the phone down. Looking through Jane’s contacts, he found one for the Met police, he dialled the number and explained who he was.
“Last week, I think Miss Goodley may have asked you for details of anyone found murdered from the night of the bombing onwards. I can’t find a report, do you know if it was done?” The contact wasn’t sure, he would find out a phone back.
Twenty minutes later the phone rang, “I have the report, if you give me your email address, I will send it over,” Dave read out the address from the sheet Howard had given him. A short time later he was looking at a list on his monitor, there were fifteen people. Attached were images of the faces, he went looking for Sally, she told him the journey had started in Norwich. He asked if all three were there. “Yes, there is a camera looking at the entrance, we are watching to see if we can get clear images.”
“When you have them, come and see if any match up with the faces I have.” They hadn’t anything by 18:00, Dave said it was time to go, they were eating with Peter Stockdale that evening. They travelled back in an official car, before he left he said he wanted to be updated if anything came in. Having showered and changed, Dave said to not say anything about the second investigation. “Talk a lot, but say very little, we won’t hang about afterwards. I want to try to figure out what we do next.”
As they ate, Dave said the responsibility was all very new to him and he hoped the Home Secretary would understand if things were done differently. “Please tell me if I should be doing something that hasn’t been done.”
“I want you to find out who is behind these bombings. You will need to work with the police, I will set up a meeting tomorrow. Do not antagonise the Chief, this is more important than petty differences.”
Dave ignored the comment. “I intend to have Howard, take on the day to day running, with me only having to make decisions. It will allow more time to concentrate on the bombings. I think we are making more progress than the police. There is a team looking at the images from British Transport Police, trying to find out which station they originally set out from. It’s a long tedious and labour intensive job. Every train which stopped at Leicester is being checked.”
“Let me know when you have an update, I may call in tomorrow to check on progress.” Dave’s phone rang, he passed it to Sally as he talked, she left the table to answer it. She was back in a few minutes. “It was Olivia, she wanted to talk to you about the arrangements for Christmas.” Dave knew it wasn’t true, he wondered who it had been. The meal was over by 21:30, they stood by the door as Peter Stockdale waited for his car. There was a shake of hands as he climbed in.
Immediately they were back inside, he asked who had phoned. “Ruth, I said you would ring her back.” Dave waited until he was back upstairs, he put the phone on speaker mode as he undressed.
“Ruth, it’s Dave, how is Jane?”
“In bed and sleeping, she won’t be in tomorrow.”
“That’s alright, if she asks, tell her it is all under control, the investigation is proceeding. I don’t want her returning until she has recovered, if she comes back too quickly, she will be off again. I can come over and see her when she is better. I don’t want her to call me, but if she is insistent, then let her. Make sure you don’t do too much, if you need help, let me or Sally know. Tell her we both send our love, and to you as well.”
Sally had heard the call, she had run a bath for Dave. She made a coffee for him, he took it into the bathroom, the light was off. The door was open just enough for him to see, slipping into the bath, he lay back and closed his eyes. Sally heard the water running out and Dave moving about, she pushed the door open, he saw her wearing one of his tee shirts. “Any further forward?”
“No, not really, I need more information, enormous amounts of data is being gathered, but all I need is a tiny little bit to move me forward.” He picked up his phone and called the Met Police. Explaining who he was, he asked to speak to one of the senior investigators. “David Stretton, MI5, I want to know if you have any information from forensics regarding the bombs? The timer, detonator, or the explosive, how they were wrapped or what type of container they were in. Can you please check, anything you find out, no matter how small, send it over to me. I would like it by 07:30 tomorrow.” He passed on his email address and phone number.
In bed, he lay with the light off, his eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleepings h. Ae had done in the bath, he was searching for a clue. The alarm call woke them at 06:00, breakfast was finished by 07:15, they stood by the door, waiting for their car. Sally made coffees as soon as they were in the office, the coffee machine was filled so there would be enough for Dave during the morning. She would be going through the CCTV images again. When Howard came in at 08:00, he was called in to see Dave, “I want you to take over the day to day running of the building, only pass on to me anything which needs to be signed or where a decision has to be made, it will allow me to concentrate on the investigation. I’m not sure what meetings Jane usually held, schedule them as normal, if it is something you don’t think you can handle, put my name down for it. Knock and come in if you need to speak to me, the door will be locked if I want privacy. Together, we will get through this, if at anytime you fell like you are sinking, let me know, I will come up with a solution.”
The girl Sally had been working with yesterday came back up to see her, she asked who her supervisor is. Sally called her, she wanted her to come up to see her. “It’s OK, it’s nothing to do with your work, I want more people on this.” Sally introduced herself, “I need more people to look at CCTV, three people have to be identified. Currently we are looking at images from the station in Norwich, can you put more people on it to check the CCTV near the station. They must have come from somewhere, I want full facial images. I will send you copies of the people, if there are any problems accessing the CCTV, let me know.”
Dave was sitting in Jane’s office reading through the report from the Met, the explosives were commercial grade, used in demolition, it was the same with the detonators. All the timers were the same, Chinese, readily available online. The packaging varied depending on where the bomb was being placed. Leaning back, he closed his eyes, a few minutes later he opened them, took out a burner phone and made a call. “Yuri, it’s Dave Stretton,” he waited while he was asked how he was. “Do you have anything which would give me access to the back office of some of the leading online sales platforms?”
“No problem with the ones in English, it will let you into the Chinese ones, but there is no translation.” Dave thought for a moment, “can you send it to my secure storage, I will pay what you want when we meet.”
“It’s not expensive, $1500, I will see you soon, pay me then. It will be with you in thirty minutes.”
He picked up a phone on the desk, he called Howard. “Can you have someone from personnel come up here, now please, no excuses.” Five minutes later there was a knock at the door, Dave opened it to see a lady in her late fifties. “Laura Jones, I’m from HR.”
“Come in, sit down,” Dave sat back down opposite her. “As you know, I’m standing in for Miss Goodley, I need someone who is fluent in Chinese, they need to be able to read and write it. Do you have anyone in this building?”
“I’m not sure, it’s not something we would have on record.”
“Can you find out, I need someone within an hour, check their clearance before you let me know. Phone me when you have found someone.” He left the office in search of Sally, she was still trawling through the images from the station. “Any luck yet?”
“Yes, we have them coming in at different times, the third man was already there waiting for them, we haven’t found him coming in yet. There isn’t a clear shot of him, we have the other two, but not clear enough.”
“Could the third man come in on another train and was waiting for the other two? Check the arrivals, especially from London.” Back in the office, he logged on to his cloud storage, the software was there for him, he downloaded it and logged off. His next call was to the Met Police, he spoke to the contact listed in Jane’s book, he asked for images of parts of the timers recovered from the station and any of the recent bombings, he said he needed them now. The other phone on the desk was ringing, “David Stretton, good morning sir, yes, I can be there. 11:00 is a little tight for me, I’m half way through organising something, could you make it half an hour later. I would also like a private meeting with you afterwards.”
He called Howard in, “I have to go to a meeting in Downing Street, probably for an hour, can you have IT bring me up a clean laptop and a couple of USB sticks. Has the lady from HR called back?” There was a shake of the head. “Chase her up, say I’m waiting.”
Sally came in smiling. “Got him, it’s a clear image, he had a coat over the jacket he was wearing later, he must have dumped it in the station somewhere.”
“Lock the door, I have to go to Downing Street. I have two jobs for you, use our laptop for one of them. With the image, search the Passport Office, use the VPN, I don’t want it being traced back here. If you get a name, do the same with the MOD, then MI6 and finally MI5, try them all, don’t stop if you get a hit on the first one. The second job is to supervise a search for the timers, hopefully HR will find me someone who can read Chinese. Yuri has sent me software to look at the back end of online sales sites, however, it won’t translate.
There will be images of the timers sent across, you need to find a match and then look for sales where a single customer has bought more than one hundred.” There was a knock at the door followed by the handle being tried. Sally unlocked and opened the door, Howard was standing there with a Chinese girl, behind him was someone else with a laptop. “Howard, I need another office,” he said for the girl to come in, looking at the ID badge, her name was Valerie Ho. “Come in, you will be working with Sally. We need to look at a Chinese website, I hope you will be able to translate it for us.” He wrote down the list of sites he wanted checking out. “The laptop to use is behind you, Howard will have the keys for an office, I will give you images once I have printed them out.” He took the USB sticks from the IT engineer.
He put his jacket on as he was leaving, then dropped off the images for Valerie. Sally was sitting beside her, he passed over the software. “I’ll see you later, he kissed her on the head.” He was the last to arrive for the meeting, he sat down, usually he would pour himself a coffee, but not this time. It was the same format as the day before, Dave was last to speak, he said he thought they might have found the identity of the third man by later today. It was a short meeting, no one else had much to add, the trains were now returning to normal.
The Prime Minister said the meeting was now over, Dave was asked to stay behind. He remained sitting, when everyone was gone, he asked if the meeting could be private. Richard Carlton said for his aide to leave. Dave took a pad and pen from the desk, he put his finger up to his lips, on the pad he wrote, ‘say nothing’. The PM looked at him, he picked up the pen again, ‘garden’. “I don’t think I need to talk to you now, you can return to your office.” They stood up and left the room, both of them put on jackets, outside the sun was shining, but it was cold. “What’s all this about?”
“Sir, I don’t know who I can trust, I think I know where this is heading, I need you to suggest that I am not getting anywhere. Say you aren’t sure I’m the right person for the job, bollock me in a meeting or something.”
“David, will you tell me what is going on?”
“I’d rather not, I spent a lot of time debating whether to tell you, I decided I can trust you, I will find out if I was right.”
“Are you in danger?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“Who else knows?”
“Sally, I also have files saved in my secure storage, they will be released if anything happens to me. I won’t say any more until I can see the end, we can then discuss what we will do.”
© 10210ken 2026
