William David - ForceNet

“Well there is one thing. Do you know anything about Allied Grampian?”

“Not much,” said Alec, “apart from the fact that they are an investment bank with a respectable reputation.”

“Well, they do look legit. But in the past five years they have made a lot of money in dealings with one client and his interests. A Russian called Peter Asimov, he is what is commonly called a Russian Oligarch. Super rich, with vast interests in Russian Oil and extremely close links to the Russian Government. My contacts tell us that they believe, although they have no direct evidence that he is behind some really shady operations in the UK. His links to the Russian government are strong enough for him to have a diplomatic consular appointment in London which of course carries with it diplomatic immunity.”

He carried on, “I had Plavsic tailed. He seems to live at the Grosvenor Hotel in Park Lane, London, and last night he attended a formal dinner at the Savoy. It was a dinner hosted by the Board of Trade for what they call business leaders and innovators. The minister was there and so was Asimov, but as far as we could tell Plavsic and Asimov did not meet.

“So what does all this mean, apart from the fact that the Grosvenor Hotel seems an odd and expensive place for a legitimate business man to reside long term?” I said.

“Not a huge amount at the moment, but there are also indications that Mendip Finance may not be not all it seems. London is really outside of our jurisdiction so I need to discuss all of this with Chief Superintendent Fleet. When you come in to the station in the morning Mr Lever, perhaps I will ha ve some more questions for you. “ I need to get back,” he said finishing his coffee.”

“What about the Volvo?”

“Dead end there I am afraid, it was stolen in London four days ago and the wreck was totally burnt out so there was no evidence left. We have a DNA check to see if we have a match for the driver, but no results yet. The other occupant of the car seems to have disappeared. We have checked out with hospitals and there have been no reports of suspicious injuries, perhaps he was just thrown clear and with little or no injury.”

“I had forgotten about the second car occupant,” I mused.

“ Mr Bell if you have any thoughts please feel free to call me or discuss them with the WPC with your wife. I will let myself out, thanks for the coffee.” With that Lloyd got up and le ft.

“Well,” said Alec, “where do we go from here?”

“I think you should call Frank,” I said. “You need to bring him up to date with what has happened in the past few days. Also you need to get him to get some of his contacts working on this. What do they know about Mendip Finance, Plavsic, Asimov, etc.?”

“I will, but I need to go home and see Lisa now so I will call him from there. I think I should also tell th e brokers that we want to go more slowly on the Float, that could give us a few more weeks until this gets sorted out.”

“I agree,” I said, “but you will need Franks help to handle the board, particularly Armstrong. They could be tricky.”

Alec left and I sat down in front of the computer in the study. I thought I would do a little research myself on these guys.

Next morning I arrived at College Green police station at 9am where I was met by Inspector Lloyd and shown in to a windowless interview room.

“Sorry about the room,” said Lloyd, but we have a screen in here which I can use to show you some pictures. After this session Chief Superintendent Fleet will join us.”

“Did you get that internet research I sent you last night,” I said. “Not really a lot there but according to chat room gossip Asimov was 'around' when both of those big Amsterdam and Paris drug busts were going on.”

Yes, but as far as we can tell he was not implicated in any way.”

“Did you see those photos of him in Washington? He seems to move in elevated circles!”

“He sure does. Perhaps the economic boys in the Met will come up with something. Any way let's have a look at these pictures.”

With that Lloyd turned off one of the room lights and switched on the roof projector using the remote. The images appeared with four characters on each page with a front and profile view of each.

“If any one of these catches your attention shout and I can blow the image up to full screen to give you a better look.”

In the next thirty minutes I must have looked at hundreds of photos, no luck.

“Well that is disappointing,” said Lloyd, “T hat exhausts all of the locals I wanted to show you. I have just a few that have been suggested to me by the Yard. Look at these.”

The third sheet in and I saw a face that looked familiar. “Can you enlarge that one?” I said. It was definitely the heavy who pulled me out of the car. A huge ugly guy, big shoulders and all muscle, “that's him,” I said, the one who pulled me out of the car. Lloyd clicked a button on the remote, and up came his name and details.

“Jackie Peterson,” said Lloyd, “not someone I know, a London boy and by the look of his sheet a lot of form including aggravated assault. Probably a soldier for hire; I will ask the Met what they know of him. Look through the rest and see if by any chance the guy who broke in to your house is also there.”

A few minutes later up came another face. Lloyd enlarged the imag e for me. It was definitely him, an unattractive individual with a thin face and dark lank hair combed over a balding head.

“That was the guy who entered my house earlier, the one with the trench coat and a knife.”

“Well that is another London villain, Reginald Archer, a record as long as your arm for petty crimes, although no record of violence.”

We then went up to see Chief Superintendent Fleet and updated her.

“Look Chief Superintendent, I am worried. I have been injured twice and both Alec and I have been threatened. Now Alec's wife is being threatened, what can you do for us, th e next time might be much worse? ”

“We will follow up the leads including this man you have identified but I am not sure there is much more I can do,” she replied. “For the time being we will continue to post a WPC to guard Mrs Bell on a 24 hour basis, but beyond that there is little we can do; I am afraid I don't have an unlimited budget; I recommend that you and Mr Bell take great care not to expose yourselves to any more attacks.”

“And how do we do that, lock ourselves in a cell!” I asked sarcastically.

“I am sorry, but we now have a team working on this, and Inspector Lloyd will keep you informed as to progress.”

I got up, noisily pushing back my chair and walked out without saying another word. I decided to walk across town to the office. The walk would give me some time to think and calm down.

Back at the office I walked in to a string of meetings that went on through a sandwich lunch. At about 2.30 Alec buzzed through from his office and said “Martin, I have something here that I need you to be part of, can you get away and join us please?”

“Sure, these guys can manage here without me for a while,” and went out to the hall to get the lift to Alec's floor.

Upon entering Alec's office there was one other person in the room besides Alec, Ron Armstrong. Ron was normally quite a pleasant individual although one could sense that beneath the general bonhomie he was probably hard as nails. Ron was the principal in a large venture capital fund, Armstrong Ventures that had invested forty million pounds in Control Networks nearly four years ago. Today, Ron did not look happy, Alec was sitting behind his desk and Ron had obviously been pacing the room.

“Ah, Martin, I think it is best you join us and hear what I have to say. I was saying to Alec that I have heard from Frank and the brokers that you have asked them to slow up on the float preparations, maybe the projected date is going to slip. You need to understand that the brokers are not at all happy and neither are we.”