48 Hours - A City of London Thriller (38 page)

“
Oooh, he’s a good kisser,” she said to Dee, laughing at my
blushing face. “I’m Lavender, by the way.”

“
I know,” I replied. “I’ve seen your pictures.” The room fell
silent. “In the papers,” I added hastily, but too late. “Not the
Polaroids. I didn’t look,” I spluttered, digging myself deeper in.
“Sorry.”

Lavender, Dee and Fisher laughed out loud.

***

Don Fisher asked if he could speak to Dee privately, and so
Lavender and I retired to her room, which was identical to Dee’s
but in mirror image. We sat and spoke for a while, and she told me
about Dee’s sacrifices on her behalf, which included her pushing
Lavender onto the roof of the offices and pretending that she had
escaped, even though she knew she would be punished.

The plan had been to make them believe that Lavender had
escaped, so they would have been forced to abandon their hideout,
leaving Lavender to raise the alarm by calling the police from the
phone in the office.

She was in tears as she recounted how Dee had been shot and
tortured whilst stubbornly refusing to give Lavender up. After
tearfully explaining how Dee had stood in front of her, ready to
take a bullet, Lavender said something that touched me. Taking my
hands in hers, she began.

“
No-one has ever done anything like that for me before. All
the time I was thinking to myself, why is she wasting her life for
me? She’s so much more valuable than me. I’m just a spoiled child,
like people say, and I couldn’t see it until today. I thought we
were going to die. Josh, why was she prepared to die for someone
she had just met, someone so shallow and selfish like
me?”

I had to think for a while, but then I found the words. “I’ve
only known Dee for a week and a half, but she entranced me from the
beginning. Isn’t there a song called ‘You had me from hello’? Well,
that’s how I feel. A person like Dee is rare. If you want my
opinion, I don’t think she was protecting the spoiled child in you,
I think she was protecting the vulnerable person underneath. She
was protecting the person you have become, not the person you were
on Friday.”

The tears were flowing freely now, and Lavender squeezed my
hand. I hoped that she would find her way in life and be happy. She
seemed like a good kid on the whole. She didn’t deserve a shallow
celebrity life; she deserved so much more.

Don Fisher came into the room and, for the sake of something
to say, he joked.

“
I’ve tried to get Dee to see sense, but the drugs are messing
with her head and she’s still insistent on marrying
you.”

“
Can I be a bridesmaid?” Lavender trilled, her eyes widening
in expectation.

“
You can be the chief bridesmaid,” I replied.

The phone rang and Fisher answered it. He listened for a
moment and then explained that we needed to go next door. Inspector
Boniface was on his way up.

***

Once he had explained what they had discovered in The
Tottenham Press building, Inspector Boniface asked the girls to
confirm the sequence of events leading to their eventual rescue.
Other than the fact that “Dave the soldier” had given his life to
save them, things had unfolded pretty much as the police had
surmised.

Having expressed admiration for their courage and
resourcefulness, the Inspector explained that Dee and Lavender
would each be required to give a formal statement later.

“
Now,” he said brightly. “I need to explain what happens
next.”

He paused to ensure that we were all paying attention. I could
see that he was relishing this next part.

“
Lord Hickstead has been kept in sterile conditions all
weekend. That is to say, he’s heard nothing of the day’s events,
and nor will he. There is a press embargo on the Europol action
until a press conference is held tomorrow afternoon, aimed at the
evening news programmes.

At ten o’clock in the morning he will be back at Scotland
Yard. As far as he’s concerned, the only evidence we have consists
of the fingerprints on the photographs and a lot of circumstantial
evidence. He will also believe that Josh and Don are pressuring the
police to allow him to plead to a lesser charge and walk away with
a non-custodial sentence. I think we can expect him to be
unbearably smug, at least for a while.

My question is this. Do the two of you want to watch that
interview from the conference room?”

“
I suppose it’s too much to ask for me to be left in the same
room alone with him for five minutes?” Don Fisher asked, without
any hope of a positive answer.

“
The offer is restricted to watching on a video screen, I’m
afraid, but if you do want to see him face to face, I have an
idea.”

I was torn between staying with Dee and watching Lord
Hickstead’s world collapse around him. In the end, both Don and I
agreed we would be there.

“
Will you be wearing those attractive matching tracksuits?”
Boniface asked, barely holding back a guffaw.

We both scowled at him, and bid him farewell.

Chapter
81

No.2 Parliament St. Westminster, London. Sunday,
8pm.

Alan Parsons, Lord Hickstead’s solicitor, sat on the
Chesterfield sofa facing the peer, who looked comfortable as he sat
in the wing chair sipping brandy.

“
Arthur, we have a difficult meeting tomorrow morning, and
based on what I have heard, the police are close to arresting you.
I appreciate that the safety deposit box is now empty and that your
papers have gone. I also understand that whatever the police hoped
to find in there is not there, either. But - and this is a big but,
Arthur - they still have witnesses who can connect you to the
blackmail plot, and blackmail in this country carries a sentence of
up to fourteen years.”

“
Relax, Alan. They’ll do a deal. They won’t want the
publicity, and by the time the politicians put the pressure
on...”

“
Yes, Arthur. Actually I was coming to that.”

Hickstead thought that this sounded rather ominous, and he was
right.

“
I did a ring around Friday and yesterday. No success, I’m
afraid. The Commissioner wouldn’t speak to me, but had his
assistant tell me that he couldn’t interfere in an ongoing
investigation. The Home Secretary and Shadow Home Secretary wished
you well in establishing your innocence, but they will not take
your calls. The two Labour Leadership contenders you asked me to
call said that the charges were so serious that they were unwilling
to intervene, although one of them did say that if there was any
hint of a political element in the prosecution he would try to
help.”

“
So, basically, they’re all running for the hills, are they?”
Hickstead spat bitterly. “I’m on my own after all that I’ve done
for them individually and for the Party.”

The lawyer looked down, in order to avoid the look of
self-pity in his client’s eyes. For goodness’ sake, he was at least
a blackmailer and probably a murderer, and he was behaving like
some kind of martyr. ‘Everyone deserves a good defence’, he
reminded himself, before imparting the last bit of bad
news.

***

The lawyer had gone and Hickstead was pacing around the room.
He was livid. Tomorrow he would strike some sort of deal with the
police, the hostages would be released, and then he would get his
payback.

They would be made to pay for betraying him. The former Prime
Minister would be first on his list.

Alan Parsons had been contacted by the leader of the Labour
Party in the Lords, who had said that they expected Arthur to
resign if he was charged. He then reminded Alan of the changes to
the legislation relating to their Lordships, currently being
discussed; legislation that the Labour Party had commenced in
2009.

Arthur read the text once more.

The Baroness has today put forward proposals for new rules
that include the ability to expel Members of the House of Lords
from their duties if they are guilty of an offence, and she has
said that in the cases that we know about, she is prepared to bring
forward emergency sanctions to deal with those issues.

The underlining had been provided by the Party
apparatchiks.

Arthur would get his deal and defy his party. If the whole
house wanted to vote to suspend him, so be it, but it wouldn’t be
so easy when they heard that he had walked away from Scotland Yard
with a Conditional Caution.

Chapter
82

Highbury Clinic, Blackstock Rd, North London. Sunday,
8pm.

A bright young woman from Vastrick Security had delivered some
clean clothes and a suit from my flat. She also brought Dee a
couple of outfits. That was a little optimistic, as I didn’t think
Dee would need them for a while yet. I was also informed that a new
door had been fitted to my flat, courtesy of Vastrick, and that it
had a seven lever security lock. I took the key for my new front
door. The young woman kissed the sleeping Dee’s forehead and took a
second to arrange her hair before departing.

Don Fisher had gone home with his tail between his legs after
a tongue lashing from the redoubtable Mrs. Fisher. I could tell
that she was a rock journalist by her extensive vocabulary of swear
words. There was a time in the verbal tirade when she had used up
her entire vocabulary of expletives, and she’d had to resort to
foreign swear words.

Having heard this through the wall, I was more than a little
scared when she came into Dee’s room. I stood up nervously. Maddie
Fisher was still a good looking woman, and when she smiled she
looked quite stunning.

“
You must be Josh,” she said in a matter-of-fact way, taking
hold of my chin between her thumb and forefinger, turning my head
from side to side as if examining a racehorse. “Mmm. Lavender was
right, you are a handsome boy.”

I hadn’t been a boy for close to twenty years, but who was I
to argue with such an icon of good taste?

Maddie spoke to a smiling, and awake, Dee for a few minutes,
and then said to me in conspiratorial tones, “Josh, if the
arrangement Don made with Dee isn’t generous enough, let me know.
Don can be a tight bugger if he isn’t watched.”

Dee said she would see Maddie in the morning, and wished her
goodnight. Maddie responded in kind and added, “Oh, I almost
forgot. Lavender said she wanted my opinion as to whether Josh was
a good kisser.”

She walked towards me, put her manicured hand on my cheek, and
said, “Just kidding.” I relaxed visibly, and she kissed me
anyway.

“
Mmm. Not bad,” she said, winking at Dee, who would laugh her
stitches out if she wasn’t careful.

I yawned so widely that my jaw almost locked. I kissed Dee,
and lay down on the sofa bed that the nurse had made up for me. I
lay on my side and looked at Dee as she looked at me. I closed my
eyes for a few seconds, and suddenly it was morning.

Chapter 8
3

New Scotland Yard, London. Monday, 10:30am.

The team that had parted on Friday afternoon had now
reconvened. Alan Parsons was sitting next to Lord Hickstead, and
opposite was Inspector Boniface and DCI Coombes.

We were watching from a room down the corridor via CCTV. When
I say we, I mean myself, Don Fisher, Tom Vastrick, the two
Detective Sergeants and an interloper, Lavender Fisher.

When I had been waiting for the car to take us to Scotland
Yard, Don Fisher joined me on the kerb. A second or two later
someone linked my arm, and I looked around to see Lavender linking
arms with us both and grinning from ear to ear.

“
The doctor said I could go, and Mum thought it was a good
idea.”

I was about to ask a question when Don Fisher said, “Don’t
ask, Josh. It isn’t worth it.”

So now here we were, the six of us, in a semi darkened room,
looking at our tormentor.

***

After the necessary procedural niceties, DCI Coombes got
straight down to business.

“
Lord Hickstead, I trust you had a relaxing weekend. Ours was
rather hectic.”

“
Yes, you mentioned to me on Saturday that my Citysafe box
wasn’t as Citsyafe as I’d thought it was. I understand its contents
were stolen,” the peer smiled.

“
Quite a coincidence, I think you will agree.”

Alan Parsons interjected before Lord Hickstead could
respond.

“
Come now, Chief Inspector, you can’t be suggesting that my
client robbed his own box, surely?”

“
Luckily for your client, Mr Parsons, we can only prosecute on
evidence,” Coombes stated. “What I believe or do not believe is
neither here nor there.”

“
If we could set the animosity aside for a few moments,
perhaps we could discuss how this case is to proceed,” Parsons
continued irritably. “I have spoken with my client and, faced with
the evidence, whilst he admits nothing, he understands that there
is a possibility he would be convicted of the Hammond blackmail,
but I think we would all have to concede that there was at least
reasonable doubt about the other charges.”