The Missing Hours (30 page)

‘How do you mean?’

She gives me a long look. ‘See for yourself.’

I want to. And yet I don’t. The car. The damn car. It has come to promise answers, has developed its own mythology, that once it appears, all things will become clear. I walk around Willa towards the open passenger door. It should be parked outside a nice restaurant, the valet having just dropped it off. I duck my head, keeping a good distance. Then I reel back.

I was expecting it. But still the amount of blood staggers me, literally knocking me backwards so that for a moment I feel unsteady. It coats the cream leather seat, a red winter shawl dumped there by some cavalier passenger. It covers the centre console, has turned the dark panelling darker still. The driver’s side, that’s taken a hit too, albeit a lesser one. But the passenger seat …

‘That’s where he died.’

Willa shrugs again, doesn’t answer.

But I can see it, can see Dominic Newell curled in on himself, desperately trying to hold together the gaping hole in his neck, breath coming shorter, briefer. Was he conscious? Was he begging for help, for a hospital, for his mother? I can see him, his hands over his neck, slumping lower and lower into the seat as the life runs out of him.

I step back, look out over the fields, breathe in the country air.

The wound, it was on the left side of his neck. So … either he was sitting in the passenger seat and someone reached in from the outside … but why would he be in the passenger seat of his own car? Or …

I lean, look in through the passenger door towards the driver’s seat, the line of blood smudged and uneven on the left side of the seat. Or he was sitting in the driver’s side when he was stabbed? By someone sitting in the passenger seat. Then … what? I look at the blood again, the driver’s side; it looks less defined, like someone has pressed a cloth to it. So someone, his passenger, stabs him, gets him over into the passenger seat – did they pull him, did they get out, go round to the driver’s side, push him from there? – and then climbs in and drives off while Dominic sits beside him or her, bleeding to death.

I stand up again, lean backwards, trying to make the move look casual. Willa isn’t looking at me. I glance at her, features tight, expression pinched, and I think that it has got to her too, finally. The reality of murder when it is, if not one of your own, then almost one of your own.

‘You, ah, you okay?’ I say it not looking at her, my gaze still on the blood. Such simple words, but they seem to open up so much. I’m not this guy. I’m not the one you want to spill your troubles to. Unless what you are looking for is asinine repartee. Then I’m your guy.

Willa stares at me, seems that she’s thinking the same thing. ‘Yeah.’ It is defensive. Said in the same way she would tell me to piss off. Then she sags, air out of a tyre. ‘I’m tired. I haven’t slept in … I don’t know how long. And this …’ She waves to the car.

‘I know,’ I say. See? I got this. ‘It’s a really hard thing to deal with.’

She looks at me, snorts. ‘Not the blood, you wanker. What do you think I am? New?’ She jabs her gloved hand back at the car. ‘Do you have any idea how long this shit is going to take?’ She leans in closer, scowling fiercely. ‘I want to go to bloody sleep. I want to eat something. Anything. I’m not picky.’ She makes an irritated noise in the back of her throat.

Okay. Maybe I don’t have this.

On the plus side, I’m starting to like this woman.

‘So,’ I say, desperate to change the subject, ‘we have our murder scene?’

‘I’d say,’ she agrees.

‘Fingerprints?’

Willa nods. ‘Car is full of them. We’ll have to eliminate Dominic, of course, but frankly, it doesn’t look like his killer made any attempt to clean up after themself.’

‘Panic?’

‘Maybe.’

I stare at the car, the star of the show in its spotlight. Watch as the other CSI does whatever the hell it is they do in the back seat. What a bloody mess.

Literally.

Sorry.

‘We’ll run these prints, hopefully get a hit,’ says Willa. ‘One thing we can be damn sure of, this was no professional assassin.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘You aren’t kidding.’ I kick at the grass beneath my feet, a ring of mud lapping at the toe of my shoe. ‘Well, look, I’ll let you get back to it.’ Suck in a breath. ‘And, ah, maybe when we’re all wrapped up on this case, I can take you out for an Indian. You know, as a thank-you for all your hard work.’

Willa stares at me, apparently as surprised by this as I am. Then she smiles, the lines on her forehead vanishing so quickly that I think I must have imagined them. ‘That would be good.’

‘Got something.’ The CSI’s voice is muffled, strangulated by his awkward position, body half in, half out of the rear of the car.

Willa hurries over to him as he emerges, panting like he’s run a marathon. He looks pale. Must be new.

I cannot see what he is holding, but I see Willa frown. Hear her say, ‘Well, isn’t that interesting?’

‘What’s that?’

For a moment I think she is going to ignore me, but then she beckons me closer, holding something up to the light. I frown, squint at it, can just make out flashes of red beneath the plastic. But then, I think, maybe I’m not seeing red at all, maybe it’s just that my eyes have become so accustomed to the blood that the red is habit for them now.

Then I come closer and I realise what it is that I am seeing.

A penknife, its handle slick with blood.

Addendum to Cole Group case files (CONFIDENTIAL)

Ref: Case No. 68

THIS SPECIAL NOTE IS RESTRICTED ACCESS. THIS NOTE IS ONLY TO BE REFERENCED BY ED OR SELENA COLE.

The victim in this case is Harold Bayliss, CEO of Whalley Oil, and the location of kidnapping is Caquetá, Colombia.

Whalley Oil is a small British firm that has proven moderately successful with its oil operations within Latin America, particularly Colombia. They have established a highly profitable operation within the district of Caquetá. However, as is typical within this area, they have experienced a number of security concerns, primarily stemming from FARC rebels and a number of offshoot groups.

In September 2013, a bus carrying employees to Whalley’s base of operations within the region was attacked by more than a dozen gunmen. Five employees were killed, three others seriously injured. Later examination of the circumstances surrounding the attack suggested that the attackers – believed to be a neo-paramilitary group operating out of the Darién Gap – had been provided with information about the movement of the employees into the base.

Whalley Oil has been a customer of the Cole Group for a number of years and, as such, is in receipt of both security training for its personnel and an annual audit of its security practices. Such an audit was carried out in early October 2013 in the aftermath of the attack on Whalley personnel. Our findings were that, whilst good practice procedures were in place in principle, there were a number of indications that there had been leaks in information from Whalley Oil to the rebels. Despite a shifting timetable and route for bus transports to and from headquarters, the rebels were in position waiting to attack. In the months leading up to this attack, one employee – Carol Amis, a researcher with Whalley Oil – was shot and killed exiting her home address. Meanwhile, another – Jensen Frank – was kidnapped from his home and a ransom leveraged for his safe return (see case no. 56, 2007, for further details). Following on from these events, the conclusion was drawn that someone within the Whalley Oil operation was providing information to the rebels.

A number of recommendations were put forward by the Cole Group, including a cessation of operations within the Caquetá region until such a time as the safety of such operations could be assured.

Whalley Oil refused to act on these recommendations.

On 5 November 2013, the CEO of Whalley Oil, Harold Bayliss, aged sixty-one, travelled to Colombia in order to visit the scene of the attack and perform an inspection on the company premises. The Cole Group, upon learning of this plan, strongly advised against it. Whalley Oil had brought in a greater number of security personnel and shifted their operational schedules to make procedures less predictable. However, there was still the very great concern of information being provided to the rebels from within the company. Mr Bayliss, however, remained determined to attend the scene, citing staff morale as his primary motivation.

Mr Bayliss arrived at the company’s base of operations at 10.25 a.m. As per his wishes, he met with survivors of the attack and was able to tour the facility. He was scheduled to depart for a lunch appointment at 12.05 p.m.

At 12.04 p.m., as Mr Bayliss was being escorted to his waiting vehicle, an open-bed truck carrying armed men and four motorbikes, each with a rider and armed pillion passenger, arrived at the scene. Two of Mr Bayliss’s bodyguards were shot, one fatally. Mr Bayliss was ushered into the truck, and after a number of rounds were fired into the engine and tyres of his vehicle in order to avoid pursuit, the kidnappers left the scene with Mr Bayliss as their hostage.

Response

At 12.15 p.m., a call was placed to the Cole Group. Beck Chambers and I (Ed Cole) were attending a conference in San Francisco at the time. However, due to the high-risk nature of Mr Bayliss’s visit to Caquetá, plans had been put in place to transport us immediately to Colombia should such an incident occur. We were on the scene within fifteen hours of the kidnapping. Seth Britten joined us at the scene twelve hours later.

Upon our arrival, it was established that an operations manager within Whalley Oil had already begun the negotiation process with the kidnappers. Given the security concerns previously cited, it was decided that Mr Chambers would take over this negotiation process in order to establish a ring of secrecy around our operations.

It was rapidly determined that the kidnappers were the same group that Seth Britten had dealt with on the Jensen Frank case (see above), a neo-paramilitary group locally known as Escorpion Rojo who have, over recent years, begun to expand their kidnap-for-ransom portfolio in order to fund their illegal drug operations. This group has also identified itself as the culprits behind an IED attack on a police station in Medellín.

Having dealt with these particular kidnappers before, and knowing that they were experienced in kidnap for ransom, we had every reason to believe that Mr Bayliss would be treated relatively well and that, as long as the negotiation was seen to be moving forward in a timely manner, there was excellent reason to hope for a positive outcome. However, it also gave us fair warning that the ransom would be unlikely to be settled cheaply. In this group’s history of kidnapping, they have made a name for themselves with their demands for high ransoms and their determined unwillingness to shift from this position. In 2011, they were responsible for the kidnapping of Tamara Chase, a US citizen. Her family’s inability to pay the hefty ransom demanded led to her swift execution.

Ultimately a ransom of £200,000 was settled on.

Mr Bayliss was released after three weeks in captivity. Whilst in purported good health, he was unfortunately reporting chest pains and as such was transported immediately to the local hospital, where it was determined that he had suffered a fairly major heart attack whilst in captivity. After an initial treatment period, he was then flown back to the UK, where he underwent open-heart surgery. Despite a lengthy hospital stay, he is expected to make a full recovery.

Special considerations

In the aftermath of this case, Mr Chambers reported to me that during the course of his negotiation, a suggestion was made that he might like to operate for the cartel as a drugs mule. Evidently, Escorpion Rojo are looking to expand their operations from Latin America into Europe, the UK specifically. The suggestion that was put to Mr Chambers was that he would serve as an excellent vehicle to transport their product – a scopolamine-based manufactured drug known throughout Latin America as El Diablo – into mainland Britain, and that he would be very generously reimbursed for his troubles. In ten years in the kidnap-and-ransom industry, and having dealt with many drug cartels, I have never been propositioned in such a manner. Neither has Seth Britten, in spite of the fact that he has had previous dealings with this group. This raises a number of questions for me. Mr Chambers has experienced difficulties in the past with substance abuse; has he made himself vulnerable to exploitation by using this information as a means of building trust during his negotiation? When this issue was raised with him, Mr Chambers steadfastly denied that he had provided too much information about himself and his background to the kidnappers. However, it should be noted that this was only his third time leading a negotiation. My concern is that his inexperience has led to an error in judgement that has opened him up to danger. Until this issue is resolved to my satisfaction, all further negotiations conducted by Mr Chambers will be closely supervised.

Selena Cole has been informed of these developments, and will henceforth be responsible for monitoring Mr Chambers’ progress within the company until such a time as we can be confident that substance abuse or the accompanying criminal offshoots of such are no longer an issue. Until then, Mr Chambers will be unable to handle negotiations independently. The decision has also been made to avoid involving Mr Chambers in cases where drugs are likely to be a factor.