Бен Ааронович: Lies Sleeping

This book is dedicated to all the people whose job it is to rush into danger when everybody else is running in the other direction.

Protective Marking

Restricted

FOIA Exemption

Yes

Suitable for Publication Scheme? Y/N

No

Title and Version

Operation Jennifer

Purpose

Relevant to

Summary

Approval to commence operation Jennifer

Author and Warrant/Pay Number

DAC Richard Folsom

Creating BOCU/Branch & Unit

SAU

Date Created

14 Nov 2014

Review Date

N/A

FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE COMMISSIONER

HARDCOPY ONLY

It is proposed that the following operations be amalgamated into OPERATION JENNIFER:

OPERATION TINKER; BROMLEY MIT – SIO DCI MAUREEN DUFFY

Murder of George Trenchard by unspecified but confirmed FALCON method. Not only has George Trenchard been linked to Martin Chorley financially (cf OP. WENTWORTH) but statements from Varvara Sidorovna Tamonina have directly implicated him in the Mulkern murder.

OPERATION WENTWORTH; CTC and SFO

Investigation into public corruption; financial fraud; attempted murder; conspiracy to cause an explosion. Martin Chorley has been linked to this case through the money trail from County Gard Holdings and its numerous subsidiaries and cut-outs. There is additional corroboration from witnesses including, again, Varvara Sidorovna Tamonina.

OPERATION CARTHORSE; DPS – SIO DI WILLIAM POLLOCK

Investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office by former Police Constable Lesley May. PC May has now been positively identified as a criminal associate of Martin Chorley.

OPERATION CARTWHEEL; BELGRAVIA MIT – SIO DCI ALEXANDER SEAWOLL

Investigation into criminal conspiracy to commit murder.

OPERATION MARIGOLD; BELGRAVIA MIT – SIO DCI ALEXANDER SEAWOLL

See Appendix 2, 3, 4 & 9

It is the unanimous belief of the senior officers involved in the above operations that Martin Chorley represents a serious and immediate danger to the Queen’s Peace on a scale that could, conceivably, match that of the 7/7 bomb attacks. To this end it is their conviction that we should effect the capture, arrest and prosecution of Martin Chorley as soon as possible. To do this will require an aggressively proactive intelligence led investigation. The DPS have advised that internal communications within MPS have been subverted requiring any operation to be run on a ‘need to know’ basis and with compartmentalised IT support.

As the MPS’, and the UK’s, lead agency on Falcon matters I can see no alternative but to let the Special Assessment Unit run the operation in line with their rather, frankly, risky and unorthodox methods. It will, at least, create a degree of plausible deniability should matters become messily public and remains the best chance for a positive outcome with the minimum exposure to the media.

His name was Richard Williams and he worked in public relations. Despite living in a nice Edwardian semi in Chiswick, his family were originally from Fulwood, Sheffield and had enough readies to send him to Birkdale School as a day boy. Thus allowing him to get both an expensive education and a home cooked meal. He’d moved to London after graduating with a creditable first from Magdalen College, Oxford. There he had met his first wife while working for a major advertising agency. Now with a second, younger, wife and a pair of daughters on the cusp of primary school he was, if I was any judge, getting ready to move out to the Thames Valley or even further west to ensure that they went to schools that were a little less ‘colourful’ than the ones in Chiswick. I could guess this because I knew just about everything there was to know about Richard Williams, from his school records to the last thing he bought online with his credit card. No doubt he would be horrified to hear that he’d fallen victim to the ubiquitous surveillance state, and even more horrified to learn that two police officers, me and DS ‘count the stripes’ Guleed, were sitting across from his house in an unmarked, but mercifully not silver, Hyundai and keeping his house under observation.

Me and Guleed were less horrified, and more bored out of our tiny little minds.

We were there because while at Oxford Richard Williams had joined a dining club called the Little Crocodiles. Nothing unusual about that; plenty of posh students and their aspirational middle-class groupies joined dining clubs, if only for the chance to get pissed and boisterous without the fear of turning up on a cheap Channel 5 documentary about the moral decline of the English working class.

Or as my dad always says: it only becomes a social problem when the working man joins in.

What made the Little Crocodiles different was their founder Professor Geoffrey Wheatcroft, DD, DPhil, FSW, and fully qualified wizard. The FSW is the giveaway. It stands for Fellow of the Society of the Wise, otherwise known as The Folly – the official home of British wizardry since 1775. And if this is coming as a shock you might want to consider doing some background reading before you continue.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft thought it would be a laugh to teach some of the Little Crocodiles how to do magic – we don’t know how many. A small percentage of them got really good at it, but we don’t know how many of these there are, either.

What we do know is that at least two of them decided to use their magical skills to do some serious crimes. Including a couple that might just qualify as crimes against humanity – and I’m not joking about that.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft died before all this came to light, and so managed to avoid the consequences for his actions, although I know my governor occasionally fantasises about digging up his corpse and setting fire to it. Also conveniently dead was Albert Woodville-Gentle, who we used to call Faceless Man number I. But, before he went, he helped train up Martin Chorley, who we called Faceless Man II. Trust me – it made sense at the time.

We know who Martin Chorley is, and we know what he’s done. But we don’t know where he is. Or what he’s planning. And that’s what’s keeping us all awake at night.

The man was clever, I’ll say that. He didn’t count on getting busted, but he definitely had contingency plans and resources squirrelled away just in case.

We really only had two viable lines of inquiry to find Martin Chorley. One was the fact that we know he recruited former Little Crocodiles to work for him, and the other was that there were more of those that we hadn’t identified. So some bright spark came up with the idea of the ‘poke’ strategy.

We got our analysts to locate likely candidates amongst the Little Crocodiles, then we put them under close surveillance and then we went and practised some light intimidation – the ‘poke’ – to spook them. That done, we sat back and waited to see if they reacted. Hopefully they might call a number or send an email or a text to an unusual contact. Even more hopefully, they might run out of their house, jump in their car and lead us somewhere tasty.

That’s why me and Guleed were in the Hyundai – so we could follow Williams if he ran for it.

‘This is all your fault,’ said Guleed.

‘It’s bound to work sooner or later,’ I said.