Rough Cut (23 page)

   When the laptop had fired up, a smile appeared on Carter’s face and he shook his head as he spoke. “Careless. Very careless,” he said,  “No access security.”

   Carter proceeded to open Philippe’s email system and began looking through his messages. Conrad came over to join him and watched over Carter’s shoulder as he worked his way through them. When he found the one Philippe had sent to Rob, Carter smiled.

   “Gotcha,” he said as he opened the message and saw the groups of numbers, identical to Rob’s printout.

   Carter searched the laptop’s email system for other messages which had been sent from the same address and when he saw the list, he smiled again.

   “You can see how it could have happened. Most of the messages from the email address
[email protected]
were sent to
[email protected]
. And Rob’s email address was [email protected] so typing in the first few letters would bring up both addresses. Get distracted for a moment and click on the wrong one and the message goes to the wrong person. We’ve all done it.”

   Conrad nodded. “So now we just need to find out who [email protected] is.  That would give us the next link in the chain. And it should be a whole lot easier to trace than
[email protected]
was. Unless of course bainesautomotive doesn’t exist either.”

   “Time for us to do a bit of research,” said Carter as he got up from the desk. “Can you download these messages so that we can go through them later?”

   Conrad nodded and held up the memory stick he had already taken out of his wallet in anticipation of Carter’s request.

CHAPTER
16

Early the next morning, Carter and Conrad were in Carter’s hotel room. Carter was on the phone to Inspector Harris while Conrad sat on the bed, waiting expectantly.

   “All the coded messages were addressed to someone called Robin at baines automotive.co.uk,” said Carter.

   “What do you need from me?” asked Harris.

   “Well, we did a quick Internet search which showed that there is an engineering company called Baines Automotive based in York. Is there any chance you could arrange for all the information you have about the company to be available for me at the airport when we get there?”

   “I’ll see what I can do. And if anyone’s available, given that it’s Saturday, I’ll get them to meet you and hand it over to you.”

   “Thank you, that’s great.”

   Carter took the phone from his ear and ended the call. He looked at Conrad.

   “He says he’ll get what he can together for us.”

   “Time for us to make arrangements to head back to Yorkshire then,” suggested Conrad and Carter nodded.

_________________________

   Later that day, the plane carrying Carter and Conrad touched down at Leeds Bradford airport in Yorkshire. Having collected their bags, Carter and Conrad came out of the baggage collection area of the airport into the arrivals area. There, they saw a man wearing a suit who was holding up a piece of paper with Carter’s name on it. They approached the man and Carter introduced himself.

   “Hi, I’m Carter Jefferson,” he said, whereupon the man folded the sheet of paper and put it in his pocket.

   “Detective Constable Green, from the West Yorkshire Police,” he said, identifying himself and shaking hands with Carter and Conrad. “DI Harris, one of our colleagues from the North Yorkshire force, asked me to meet you and give you this file,” he continued, indicating the file he had under his arm, “But before I do, please could I see some ID.”

   “Of course,” said Carter as he reached into his jacket pocket for his ID wallet and handed it to him. DC Green looked at Carter’s ID, nodded and then returned it to Carter along with the file.

   “Please could you return the file to DI Harris in York when you’ve finished with it,” he said.

   “Of course, no problem,” said Carter as he took the file.

   “Oh, one other thing, DI Harris said to ask you to contact him when you arrived.”

   “I’ll give him a call,” said Carter.

   After DC Green had left, Carter and Conrad went to find the car rental desk. Once they had found their hire car in the car park and were on their way to their hotel, Carter telephoned Harris. He told him they had arrived and thanked him for the file.

   “We could do with a briefing,” said Harris, continuing the conversation, “To bring us up to date with the case. Perhaps when you’ve settled in at your hotel you could come down to headquarters and fill us in on what’s been happening?”

   “Be glad to,” responded Carter, “Say in about an hour?”

   “Fine.”

   Carter ended the call and as Conrad drove them to their hotel, Carter leafed through the file DC Green had given him. As he did so, he came across a plan of a building on which were marked all the security systems which had been installed. He opened the plan out in front of him and saw a room denominated as the New Product Development Room. He nodded sagely to himself as he noted that this room had no windows and additional security in the form of a steel door operated by a combination lock.  

   When they had arrived at their hotel and unpacked, Carter and Conrad met in Carter’s room to discuss their next move. Carter had the file on Baines Automotive in his hand.

   “Before we go and fill the Inspector in,” began Carter, “let’s just remind ourselves what we know so far.”

   The two men sat down in a couple of armchairs which were by the window before Carter began his review.

   “First off, we know that Philippe’s contact here is someone at Baines Automotive. Secondly, we know that Baines Automotive is an engineering company manufacturing auto parts, so it’s in the right line of business to be able to construct the kind of equipment needed to make synthetic diamonds, especially if they’re using the high pressure high temperature method. And finally, we know, from the security details in the police files, that the company has a development room, which, for some reason, has been provided with a three inch thick steel door.”

   “If they
have
been making the diamonds there,” suggested Conrad, “the equipment will most likely still be there. Even if they knew we suspected them, which hopefully they don’t, the set-up we’re talking about, a pressure chamber capable of producing synthetic stones of gem size and quality, is not the sort of thing you fold up and put in your briefcase. It wouldn’t even fit through the door. And even dismantling it and moving it in pieces would be a non-trivial exercise. Even if they’re using the chemical vapour deposition method, getting rid of the equipment in a hurry would not go unnoticed. And, if they’re doing this on a commercial basis, which they appear to be, we’re not talking about a single piece of equipment. Each diamond would take weeks to produce using the CVD method so they would need a lot of machines.”

   Carter nodded at Conrad’s accurate summary. “So, let’s go and see the Inspector, shall we, and see if we can get to the bottom of this today.”

_________________________

   Half an hour later, Carter, Conrad, Inspector Harris and Harris’s assistant, Detective Sergeant Grimshaw, were all seated round Harris’s desk as Carter concluded his summary of where the case had got to.

   “And that brings you right up to date,” said Carter.

   Inspector Harris had listened intently as Carter had described everything that had happened since their meeting a few days earlier.

   “What can we do to help?” asked Harris.

   “This is the plan of the company’s premises,” said Carter opening out the plan on the desk in front of Harris. “It was in the file you gave us.”

   Carter pointed to one of the rooms marked on the plan. “We’d like to take a look in there, the New Product Development Room. Can you arrange that? If they are making diamonds in that factory, and all the evidence points to it, then that’s where they’re most likely to be doing it.”

   “That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Harris, “I’m sure Grimshaw here can find us a JP to sign the warrant.” Harris looked at Grimshaw who nodded and left the room.

   “Could take a little while though,” added Harris when he had gone. “It is Saturday, after all. Tell you what, why don’t I introduce you to our local beer while we’re waiting for him to get back.”

   “Sounds great,” said Carter.

   Later, when Grimshaw returned, having accomplished his task successfully, he found the little group in his boss’s favourite pub across the road from the police station. Harris looked up as he came towards them.

   “Did you get it OK?” he asked.

   Grimshaw nodded and handed the search warrant to Harris who looked at Carter as he spoke.

   “Are you ready then?” he asked, as he drained his glass and got up to go.

   “Sure, let’s do it,” responded Carter, also getting to his feet.

   The group returned to the police station where Harris went to speak to the Desk Sergeant.

   Once they were all in the police car travelling towards the factory, which was on the outskirts of York, Harris said, “The factory is closed at weekends, so I’ve arranged for a car to fetch Mr Baines. He’ll meet us there.”

_________________________

   When they reached the locked factory gate, they sat in the car and waited for the second police car, carrying Jeremy, to arrive. The factory building was deserted and Carter could feel the hairs on the back of his neck bristle as he anticipated the culmination of his investigation. The adrenalin began to flow and he became edgy just sitting there. He opened the car door and stepped out in front of the gate. Harris joined him.

   “They won’t be long,” said Harris. “A few more minutes at the most.”

   Just then a police car pulled up beside them and Jeremy got out of the back seat. “Which of you is Harris?” he demanded, storming towards them.

   “I am,” answered Harris. “I have a warrant to search these premises. Could you open up for us please,” he added bluntly as he handed the search warrant to Jeremy.

   “I don’t suppose I’ve got a lot of choice, have I?” responded Jeremy, after he had looked at the document and confirmed its contents. “But I intend to lodge a formal complaint. I’ve done nothing that could possibly justify such an intrusion.”

   “Yes sir,” said Harris wearily.

   “And what the hell are you looking for anyway?” continued Jeremy angrily.

   “I’m not at liberty to say, sir,” responded Harris as Jeremy shook his head and began opening the factory gates.

   “Where do you want to start?” he asked once they were inside the factory.

   “How about the New Product Development Room?” suggested Carter; there was only one place he was interested in searching.

   “You can’t go in there, it’s full of our latest inventions. Our competitors would love to know what’s in there. No, no. You can look everywhere else but not in there.”

   “I think you’ll find, sir, that we can look anywhere we like,” said Harris coldly. “But you really don’t need to worry, we won’t spill the beans to your competitors.”

   “Well, you can’t go in
there
. It’s on a time lock until Monday morning.”

   “Not according to our records, it isn’t. So, be a good chap, and open it up for us, would you?”

   “What about him?” Jeremy pointed to Carter, “He doesn’t sound like one of yours.”

   “He isn’t. He’s from New York, but Scotland Yard have vouched for him. So you don’t have to worry, your secret formulas will be quite safe.”

   Jeremy gave up resisting and led the group towards the far end of the factory where the development room was located. They walked through the laboratory, where products produced by the company’s competitors were taken apart and examined and tested, and stopped at the big grey metal door to the development room.

   Jeremy pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked the combination wheel. Slowly and methodically he spun the wheel a few times and lined up the first number of the combination with the mark. Then the next, and the next, and finally the last number. He turned the wheel again and they all heard the click as it locked open. Next, Jeremy used both his hands to turn the big heavy handle and slowly he pulled the thick steel door open. When he had finished, he went in and switched on the lights before emerging and inviting the group to go in.

   “After you,” said Harris.

   As they entered the large room, Carter whistled at the high tech equipment that seemed to fill every part of it. His heart began to race as he contemplated finding the high pressure chamber and solving the mystery of where the diamonds were being made.

   Conrad quickly scanned the room and then leaned towards Carter and whispered into his ear. “There’s nothing in here that is even remotely like the size or quantity of equipment that would be needed.”

   As Carter surveyed the room, he knew Conrad was right. His heart plummeted to the soles of his shoes and he felt that hollowness in the pit of the stomach that often signals the realisation of some unwelcome truth. Carter touched a finger to his lips to warn Conrad not to say anything to Harris.

   “Maybe they’ve developed a new process that uses smaller equipment,” he suggested, desperately clutching at any explanation which would mean that he had not been wrong about the room.

   “Maybe,” agreed Conrad, “It’s conceivable. But it’s very unlikely.”

   Carter was dismayed; surely he couldn’t have got it so wrong. If the diamonds weren’t being made there, then they must be being made somewhere else. But where?

   Harris strolled over to them. “Something the matter?” he asked.

   “No, no,” lied Carter smoothly, taking a tight rein on his anxiety. “Let’s get on with it, shall we.”

   Even though Carter and Conrad no longer believed that the development room was being used as a diamond factory, Carter insisted that they search it thoroughly, just in case he was right and Jeremy had found a means of producing high quality diamonds without the need for a huge high pressure chamber or a collection of CVD units.