Everything to Lose (20 page)

32

Reagal
Close
,
Cosham

Zoe Tampin had left the University early to collect the ingredients for a dinner she planned to cook; a skinny chilli con carne. In a military fashion she laid out all the ingredients like soldiers on a battlefield. Ready for immediate action; one onion, two sticks of celery, one carrot, two cloves of garlic, two green chillies, two fresh tomatoes. To be finely chopped.

Waiting
for orders to advance; four hundred grams of fine extra lean minced beef, four hundred grams of tinned chopped tomatoes, three hundred grams of tinned kidney beans and two hundred ml of boiling water.

Waiting
in reserve; tsps of ground cumin, sweet paprika, tomato purée, one cinnamon stick, one fresh bay leaf and one blast of cooking oil spray.

Zoe
set the timer at seventy minutes and checked the time. It was 5.05 p.m. and one thing was missing. Zoe wiped her hands and fetched her SEM phone. All of the distinctive smells were making her salivate. She was enjoying the experience.

"Toni
report," she said.

"All
present and correct."

"Slip
One is overdue. Is he still in the ivory tower?"

Zoe
had designated ID codes; SLIP One for Gavin, SLIP Two for Rolley SLIP Three for Elaine. With the extra security of SEM phone there were no concerns over eavesdropping. The SEM phone doesn't use normal telephone signals that can be hacked. It uses military grade encrypted signals direct to a satellite. The three codes were for easier communication between Zoe, Scott and Toni.

"Negative.
Slip One did some shopping and is now sightseeing," Toni replied.

Toni
explained that Gavin Shawlens had left the University soon after Zoe but didn't follow her back to the flat. Instead he drove into Portsmouth and shopped at Gunwarf Quays. Toni reported that Gavin Shawlens was atop the Spinnaker Tower taking in the view.

It
was a clear bright day and Gavin Shawlens stood on the view deck of the Spinnaker Tower 100 metres above sea level. He saw sandy beaches of the Witterings and Selsey Bill to the east, and the green countryside of the New Forest to the west. He watched large sea going ferries pass through Portsmouth harbour and smaller ferries zip back and forth to the Isle of Wight.

"ETA
at the nest?" Zoe asked.

"No
idea. Not soon I think."

"What
kind of shopping?"

"He
bought female underwear in M&S."

"Awwh
that's sweet."

"Is
he gay?" Toni asked.

"No.
He broke the washing machine in the flat. So he's on laundrette duty and he lost three pairs of my knickers in the last wash," Zoe said.

"Idiot
how did he do that?"

"God
only knows. Anyway what kind of new underwear am I looking at?"

"Think
Sigourney Weaver at the end of Aliens the sequel. When she's getting ready for the hypersleep stasis pod. Not the light grey but powder blue."

"Okay
I think I can live with that."

"I
thought you said he was having nightmares."

"He
is. Well obviously not every night. I'll need to keep an eye on him."

"By
the way," Toni added.

"What?"

"He only bought you one set."

Zoe
heard Toni and Scott guffawing and laughing at the other end of the phone.

"What's
going on?"

"Sorry
boss. SLIP One has just taken his shoes and socks off to walk on the glass plate sky walk."

"Where
are you?"

"We're
on the ground. Scott has deployed a BHN," Toni replied.

When
Gavin Shawlens took the thirty-second elevator to the view deck of the Spinnaker Tower, Toni and Scott remained at ground level. Scott fetched a Black Hornet Nano from their car. It was a small four inches by one-inch helicopter drone camera that relays video images to a tablet control terminal and display. It was hovering twenty metres from the Tower and the camera zoom provided a clear picture inside the Spinnaker Tower sky deck.

"Okay
fun is over," Zoe told Toni.

Zoe
called Gavin Shawlens and brusquely informed him that dinner would be served at 18.00 hours. Toni and Scott watched Gavin juggle with a shopping carrier bag and his phone in one hand, audio guide handset in the other hand and shoes & socks under his arm before Scott piloted the BHN back to their position.

Back
at the Reagal Close flat Zoe and Gavin had just started to eat their skinny chilli con carne when they received a RED FLASH emergency contact. Immediately they got up and prepared to leave. Zoe contacted Lambeth Group control and the duty officer told her Rolley Morgan had not reported in and had not responded to an emergency call-back.

The
duty officer told Zoe he'd switched Rolley's phone to listening mode and heard horrendous screaming in the background. Zoe ordered the duty officer to send armed backup. Zoe and Gavin were five minutes away by car so they scampered over to Rolley's flat.

When
they reached Rolley's flat Gavin banged on the door while Zoe picked the lock with two lock pics she had in a small wallet. Inside they found Rolley lying on his back naked at the end of a trail of water from the bathroom.

"Has
he been shot?" Gavin asked.

"Check
his pulse. I'll start CPR," Zoe ordered as they dashed over to his body.

Gavin
put his fingers on his carotid artery.

"Oh!"
he recoiled as he saw a flash of yellow light escaped from his open mouth.

As
she placed her hand on his chest to lean down she felt strong heat. Before she could withdraw her hand his abdomen exploded causing flames and boiling fat to splash out onto her hands and clothes.

Her
jacket sleeves caught fire from the burning fat and she ran to the bathroom. The bath was full with cold water and she plunged her hands and arms into the water to put out the flames. Gavin stared at the hole in Rolley's abdomen as flames desperately grasping for air lashed out from inside.

A
crackling sizzling noise from the body reminded him of a spit roast he'd seen when he was a child. Zoe plunged a bath towel into bath and placed the soaking towel over his chest to smother the flames. The choking smell became worse. Zoe extended the bath towel over his head to smother the flames in his mouth.

Toni
and Scott weapons in hand bounded into the flat and Scott collided with Rolley's bike parked in the hallway. With hand signals Zoe directed them to check other rooms in the flat. They were dressed in civilian clothes. Gavin closed the front door.

Zoe
lifted the towel to check that the flames were out and a plume of white smoke escaped into the air. A smell of burning ash in the air caught her throat so she covered her mouth while she examined the damage in Rolley's abdomen.

She
saw numerous small red embers still smouldering in his body. Toni fetched a bottle of water and poured it over the hot embers. The water frizzed and hissed as it doused the flames.

The
hole in his chest was four inches in diameter. Gavin looked inside and said his lungs, stomach and small intestine had been destroyed by fire. Toni asked him what he thought had happened. Zoe spoke first and said the body was intact when they arrived with no entry wound on his chest and the fire escaped when she leaned on it to start CPR.

Scott
called in to report the loss of Rolley. He handed his phone to Zoe and told her the boss wanted a word. Zoe walked around the room and told Alan Cairn what she'd seen.

"The
boss needs to know if Rolley was attacked. A forensic team are on their way," Zoe said as she returned Scott's phone.

Gavin
and Scott looked around the flat for signs of forced entry or disturbance and gave headshakes to Zoe when they found nothing. Toni found Rolley's spandex racing clothes and his cycling shoes scattered on the bathroom floor. There were no other clothes.

"Looks
like he came in from a bike run and ran a bath," Toni said.

Toni
saw the under seat race bag on the bike was open. She lifted the flap and saw Rolley's wallet and a personal mobile phone. She lifted a compartment and found what looked like a mini first aid kit. Inside she found a blister pack of six vials with only two remaining.

"The
flat was locked, no forced entry. No obvious wounds on the body, no damage to the flat. The body was intact until it burst into flames," Gavin said.

"From
the trail of water and the bath full of water, it looks as though he tried to cool himself in the bath then got out. The bath water looks greasy and oily," Toni said.

Zoe
noticed Scott staring at the body, thinking deeply. She asked him what he was thinking about.

"When
I was in Fire and Rescue one of the old guys showed me a picture. A picture he had of the remains of an SHC."

"A
what?" Zoe asked.

"Spontaneous
human combustion."

"What
did it look like?" asked Gavin.

"A
pile of ash where the body lay, one foot and one hand were all that was left of the torso. Furniture nearby were untouched by fire and there was no fire damage to walls or ceilings," Scott explained.

"I
don't see how that's possible you need at least one thousand degrees C to cremate a human body. That's going to set a room on fire," Gavin said.

"The
old guy said they thought it was a sort of wick and candle effect. Slow burning fat."

"Even
so. Would that reduce bones to ash? I don't think so," Zoe said.

"Rolley's
body fat was burning. We saw it but what started it. It takes a lot of heat to get fat up to its ignition point," Gavin said.

"Fat
burning produces a lot of smoke doesn't it?" Toni added.

"Cooking
fat does. Human fat is a different kind of fat," Gavin replied.

"If
I came in here now I'd say someone put a blow-torch to his chest and tried to set him alight," Scott said.

"When
we arrived his body was intact. The fire was inside. I can't smell any alcohol or accelerants. It doesn't make sense," Zoe said.

"Find
his SEM phone. I want to track his last movements," Zoe ordered.

"His
phone isn't in the bike bag," Toni said and looked puzzled at Rolley's body.

"What?"
Zoe asked Toni.

"I
think I told you that on my first tour in Iraq when we were entering Basra I saw a sapper get some shrapnel in the chest from an incendiary device. A chunk of white phosphorus not bigger than a sugar cube got inside his body armour and set his chest on fire. We tried to smother the flames but couldn't get it to go out, burned his chest right out," Toni said.

"Okay
enough guessing we'll leave the figuring out to the forensic people. A pile of tests will tell us what happened. Until we know otherwise we assume it's an attack on the team so we all move to high alert," Zoe commanded.

"What
about Elaine?" Gavin asked.

"Toni?"
Zoe fielded the question.

"Already
done boss, a police ARU have her," Toni replied.

Scott
found Rolley's SEM phone in the bedroom and handed it to Zoe. She tried to override his security but couldn't do it. It would need to go back to the Lambeth Group office.

"Rolley
was a good man, let's think about him for a minute," Zoe said as the four stood over Rolley and looked down on his body.

Anger
welled up in Zoe Tampin. She didn't assess a risk to Rolley Morgan. She deployed Scott and Toni to shadow Shawlens. She left Rolley exposed and if he had discovered something at the cycling club that got him killed, then she had failed him. Two deaths in one week were unacceptable in her mind.

Gavin
Shawlens kneeled down beside Rolley to have a closer look at the burned edges of the hole in Rolley's chest.

"What
is it Shawlens?" Zoe demanded.

"When
you said forensics it reminded me of Jemard Edmond's hand. His wrist was seared as if it burned but there were no scorch marks on the hand, as you would expect if it had been in a fire. The wrist was seared just like the edge of this hole."

"Leave
it to the forensic guys. Come on," Zoe ordered.