Chapter 15: Fracture!

Chapter Introduction

Petra takes simultaneous initiatives in London and Warwick,

Joe has some new and completely unexpected experiences,

Jenny is given encouragement from an old acquaintance,

and Manfred Randolf receives a surprise invitation.

The Overseer

In London, Petra Tennerby places a call to Manfred Randolf. She is using the Virgin pre-paid cell phone he gave her. The days are slipping by without much more progress in the case. The New Year had come and Petra feels as if she is losing the initiative.

“Manfred? It’s Petra.”

“Yes?”

“Developments in Birmingham — that’s Birmingham, England.” Petra thinks the subtlety of “Coventry” might be lost on Randolf.

“Oh?”

“Joseph McEwan has been fired by his company. He hasn’t been there since before Christmas. He is home pretty much all day, every day. I intercepted a call from his wife to her parents with lots of words like ‘redundancy’ in it but there seems to have been more to it than that. Something to do with a contract violation. I couldn’t quite make it out. I took a walk past McEwan’s company and saw some workmen changing the sign to ‘New Skandia CE.’”

Manfred Randolf gives a quiet grunt. “McEwan is not the first man to be discarded during a company merger or a re-structure. I’ll check the British engineering press. See what’s up. Looks like we could have us some leverage here maybe?”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought. The husband will be out from cover looking for work. The two of them will probably have money worries. I think there will be more pressure on his wife, lubrication of a sort. Manfred, I think it’s time to kick ass.”

“Like how?”

“Like you shouldn’t ask. Look, here are the alternatives.

“First, I keep listening to the phone intercepts, but I do not relish having to listen to the collected phone calls of the McEwan’s in the hope of picking up something useful.

“Second, perhaps the girl says more to the shrink she sees than she does to her husband? That figures. She might have been a naughty girl when she was away? To find out, I am going to have to bug the shrink’s office or commit a burglary to read the clinical records. I don’t know what level of security they have to protect them and I definitely don’t want to get caught by Birmingham PD with my ass hanging out of an upstairs window trying to exit the premises.

“Third, and this is best, I kick ass good and hard and see if we can’t get the English gal talking.”

“OK, Petra. You are the expert. I will leave the situation in your hands.”

After Petra rings off, Manfred Randolf takes a moment to think. There has been no recent helpful information from the FBI people about Tracy. They keep in regular touch, but that seems to make the situation feel worse. It is several months since Tracy vanished. He had paid is debts but the girl has still not been returned. Had she really been working for them all along? Has she been turned, with the promise of more money than he was paying - but in due course, she stands to inherit the Corporation, so it couldn’t be just money? Is she planning to blackmail him into stepping down with the help of some new ex-communist pinko friends, so she gets the Corporation early? The longer she is off the rein, the more anxious he is getting. If that other bitch of a girl McEwan is still not talking, here is the opportunity to help her to find her tongue and that might lead to getting Tracy back. Here is an opportunity for the sort of leverage which could be most effective. Petra is right. Time to use it!

21:30 pm. A Conversation Without Words.

Joe is walking through quiet London streets. He’s heading back towards his hotel after a lonely dinner. It’s been a tough day.

He isn’t thinking too much about his surroundings. He’s just walking. And thinking. There’s a lot to think about. His priority is to find another job after his dismissal from NHCE-Skandia. He’s had one job interview today. There’s another one for tomorrow afternoon. That, at least, is encouraging — interviews. At least he is making the short lists.

Joe hasn’t adapted well to being unemployed. The lack of a routine, the lack of the whole framework of having a job; it’s left more of a hole than he thought it would. Andrew Edwards had been helpful but he cannot offer anything like a permanent job, with prospects, with colleagues, with structure, like the job at NHCE that he had just lost. Joe weighs the unexpectedness and capriciousness of life. Then, he had a job but no wife. Now, he has a wife but no job.

He passes some shops. Half of them are empty, the other half have their windows plastered with banners shouting “Sale!” and “Last Few Days!” The economic recession is at the bottom if it, of course. That’s just one reason why he is finding it hard to get another job. He vaguely notices a couple on the other side of the road, hurrying by. They’re arm in arm, laughing.

Joe’s mind moves on to practicalities. Jenny does not have her old post at the university. They have slipped from being a couple with two incomes to a couple with no income at all.

There are still bills to pay and very little money left to pay them. If he is unsuccessful tomorrow — in fact, if it’s anything less than a firm offer of work and a starting date in the near future, they will have to take some hard decisions. Joe cannot see how they can avoid putting their house up for sale. He really needs to get some cash into their account. The money is draining away relentlessly. Soon there will be nothing left. Will the house sell? Joe doesn’t have an up to date idea about what it’s worth. He knows that property isn’t selling easily. The “For Sale” signs down their street tell him that. If they have to accept a modest sum for their home, will they be able to pay off what they owe on their mortgage? Will they end up with no house and still owe the bank money? Nowhere to live and no money? Panic begins to rise inside him. Why had they not grasped the nettle earlier? Maybe, whatever the result of his interview, they should sell. Get somewhere smaller. Quickly.

Joe hears a sharp scuffing noise behind him. He turns and feels a sharp heavy impact square on the side of his face! For a moment he is paralyzed with surprise and the effects of the blow. As he tries to pull his senses together, the fist impacts again. This time it’s on his cheekbone and then again on the opposite side of his lower jaw.

Joe is vaguely aware of a crunching sound on one side of his face and a snap on the other. He feels numb and in pain, simultaneously. After the three vicious blows, his knees buckle and a fourth blow smacks into the middle of his face. Something hot is running down from his nose. He collapses onto the pavement and the side of his face slaps onto the ground. A hand grabs his shirt and hauls him half way upwards only to drop him down again. As Joe’s head smacks on to the pavement he is overcome by a wave of nausea. A final vicious kick to his shoulder sends him rolling across the pavement and into the gutter where he vomits his meal.

Joe struggles to take control of his body but it refuses to respond. He is vaguely aware of someone — or maybe two people — walking away from him.

Then there are other people. People looking down at him. People crouching beside him. There are voices. Someone seems to be talking into a mobile ‘phone. Something about an ambulance and police. Hands and arms are supporting him. Questions are being asked about how he feels. He can’t answer. Somewhere in his brain, a voice is telling him he had better get back to his hotel and clean up. He has an interview tomorrow.

21:35 pm. Instant Messaging.

Jenny is at home. Thinking about Joe. Thinking about how he will get on with his interview tomorrow. When they had spoken earlier, he sounded encouraging about today’s interview. Maybe he was just being hopeful or maybe it really was good. She hopes so.

Suddenly both her mobile and the house phone rings. Simultaneously. She picks up her mobile and answers.”Can you hold please, our other phone is ringing?” As she puts down the handset, she notices it is a withheld number. She has a premonition that something is very wrong and there is a slight tremble in her voice as she picks up the other receiver.

There is no one there. A silent call. She goes back to the mobile and, once more, there is no caller, but there is a text to say a video message has arrived.

Could this be Joe to say the new company has been in touch to tell him he has got the job? Jenny clicks on the video.

It launches to show a street at night. There are two men in the field of view. Jenny realizes at once that the man at the very front is Joe. The video slows down. Frame by frame, it shows the man behind Joe catch him up and smash a fist into the side of his head, once, twice, and, as Joe is spun round by the force of the blows, he is struck again. Joe starts to crumple and, as he falls, the Assailant plants his fist hard in Joe’s face. As Joe topples back, Jenny can see blood streaming from his nose and the impact areas on his face which seem stoved in, like a broken doll. Joe is on the ground now. The Assailant grabs him and lifts his bloody face towards the camera, only to let him fall backwards. The final frames show Joe being kicked into the gutter and vomiting.

The video has ended. Jenny stares at the black screen. She can hardly believe what she has just witnessed. In an instant, she is hit by a torrent of dismay, despair, guilt and fear — for Joe. She has just seen him beaten in front of her eyes. Perhaps murdered.

With the greatest effort, Jenny picks up the receiver again. She hears the friendly purr of the dial tone. She dials the Police Emergency Number — and then she calls her parents.

22:00 pm. Accident and Emergency Medicine

Joe has reached the Accident and Emergency Department of University College Hospital. (1) The Ambulance was followed by the Police who were called to investigate the “affray.” The ambulance crew and bystanders at the scene have given them as much information as they can about the nature of the assault. Joe is only partly conscious as he is moved quickly through triage. It’s obvious he’s a priority case.

On a trolley in the resuscitation bay, Joe’s vomit-covered clothes are cut from his body and he is examined for signs of any internal injuries and for possible knife wounds.

The A&E staff are working methodically. Joe’s nose has stopped bleeding but it’s blocked by congealed blood. Joe can just about breathe through his mouth but he cannot open it fully. They worry about his airway. The evidence on his clothes suggests that his stomach is now empty. The absence of abdominal bruising or abrasions suggests that the risk of further vomiting or inhalation of the vomit is not high.

They shave his head to let them inspect his scalp for evidence of depressions of the cranium and acute head injury. They don’t find any. That’s a good sign, at least.

Joe’s face is swelling rapidly. The on-call trauma team summon colleagues from Maxillo-Facial Surgery to assess the facial injuries. Although Joe’s right eye is now closed by swelling, there do not seem to be any penetrating injuries or corneal tears. He has a painful shoulder with movement restriction, but this seems to be due more to bruising of the muscles than to a bone fracture or joint injury.

The Maxillo-Facial on call doctor makes a provisional diagnosis of fractures to the nasal bones, the cheekbone complex, and the body of the jaw on the opposite side. Joe is sent to X-Ray for imaging of the bones of his face, jaw, neck, his injured shoulder and chest and abdominal views to search for accumulations of fluid with would point to internal bleeding.

There’s still the risk that there may be a brain injury. At present Joe scores 13 on the Glasgow Coma Scale (2), putting him at the boundary of Mild and Moderate affliction. The trauma team take the easy decision to admit him for more formal and extended observation and arrange for a facial bone CT scan to be undertaken in the morning. At the present time, Joe’s facial swelling may significantly reduce the visualization of any fractures on the “plain films” so an elective CT scan when he is not so restless will demonstrate the extent of his injuries with much more precision.

A member of the team is dispatched to call next of kin which, according to papers in Joe’s pockets, is a wife called Jennifer.

22:55 pm. Next of Kin

Jennifer has just finished a distraught and panic-stricken call to her parents. She has just replaced the handset when the telephone rings again. For a moment she stares at the equipment, wondering if she has the courage to answer, wondering if this might be the people who have assaulted her husband — and then, in the middle of the emotional turmoil, she remembers. She telephoned the Police. Perhaps it’s them?

She answers. Her voice quavers. Normally, she would confidently give her number and say “Jennifer McEwan speaking?” but this time all she can say is “Yes?”

There is a second’s pause on the line. She can hear sounds of busyness and bustle at the other end. Then a voice asks, “Can I speak to Mrs Jennifer McEwan, please?”

Jennifer clears her throat and manages to say “This is Jennifer McEwan?” and the warm and soft voice replies, “Hello, Mrs McEwan. May I ask, is your husband Mr Joseph McEwan?”

“Yes...”

“and was — is he — in London this evening?”

“Yes...”

“Ah, so my name is Dr Sue Baker, from the Accident and Emergency Department at University College Hospital. I am sorry, but I have to tell you that your husband was brought to see us by ambulance about an hour ago. I am afraid he has been assaulted and is probably going to be with us for a day or two. I wanted to let you know where he is and to tell you that, although he is quite badly hurt, we don’t think he is in any serious danger and you would be very welcome to come and see him...”

“Can I come now?”

“Of course you can. Are you in the London area at the moment? I can see from your landline that your home number is not local?”

“No, I am in Warwick.”

“I see. Well, that is quite a long way to drive at night even though the roads are quieter, but you might be wise to wait and come up to London by train in the morning? When you arrive, go to the main hospital reception and they will be able to tell you where Joseph is being looked after. I am afraid there is no parking at UCH but plenty of places nearby. In fact, there is a website called Parkopedia (3) which is helpful. If you come up by train...”

“Trains from Warwick go to Marylebone...” says Jenny, who has made a significant journey by train to London before. “ ... so catch the Bakerloo Underground from Marylebone to Oxford Circus, change there and catch the Victoria Line north to Warren Street and you will see us just across the road.”

“Oh ... oh ... thank you ... you have been very kind.”

“Mrs McEwan, I am glad to help. I am sorry I have had to have to call with news like this...”

After she closes the call, Jennifer wonders what she should do? She could wait till morning, but how could she sleep? Best to drive up to London overnight, find somewhere to park in the early morning, find a hotel to stay — she is sure she remembers a Premier Inn somewhere on Euston Road — and see Joe as soon as she can. (4)

She makes her decision. She will go to see Joe immediately. She quickly gathers a change of clothes, tooth-brush, toothpaste and deodorant, her mobile and charger, and her purse into an overnight bag, calls her parents again, to say that Joe is in Hospital — and leaves. The time is 23:30.

01:30 am. High Calorie Count

Jenny called her parents using the landline, so it is not intercepted by Petra’s Sting Ray equipment, but Petra is pretty sure what Jennifer would do. She is sitting quietly in her van watching and waiting for Jennifer to leave home, to go to her injured husband. Petra still has much work to do, but she waits until the street is quiet before she approaches the property.

In her reconnaissance she has noted that the McEwan’s do not have an intruder alarm — at least, there is no evidence of one. There is no tell-tale box on an outside wall.

First, there is the Sting Ray beacon to deal with. There has been no suitable opportunity for the drone to make a return flight to collect it, so Petra has brought a telescopic ladder to reach the roof of the McEwan’s property and retrieve it personally. It takes only minutes.

Petra is also a practiced housebreaker and is soon inside the property. She dons surgeon’s gloves, then a night vision headset and then begins a search of the kitchen where she finds two packets of sweet biscuits and several packets of potato crisps. The biscuits she empties into a paper tray she has bought, positioning it on the kitchen work surface, beneath the food cupboard. The potato crisps she empties into another paper dish, placing the dish beneath the central heating boiler, also located in the kitchen.

Petra then searches the rest of the house and in the small bedroom Jenny and Joe use as a study, she finds Jennifer’s laptop. It is not password-protected. Even the most accomplished burglars need luck! She slips a pen drive into the USB port and begins to download the contents.

Petra continues her search to locate any diaries or notebooks where Jenny might be confiding her inner thoughts and, on the privacy of the page, provide the story of her time away. After all, didn’t shrinks often tell their patients to write out an account of some ordeal, to gain some perspective over it? The McEwan girl is seeing a shrink so it is worth a look.

Finally satisfied that she has found as much as she reasonably can in the available time, Petra stows her finds into a small rucksack she is wearing to keep her tools handy. She returns to her van, and prepares to cover her tracks and put a little more pressure yet on the English girl.

Fire Departments generally know how to investigate the cause of a domestic fire. They know the likely causes: over-heating electrical circuits, a hob left alight, a smouldering candle which falls onto paper, even a laptop left switched on. They know to look out for unexplained empty canisters of petrol, the fire starting in two separate locations and the other signs of arson. They also know that fires spread upwards and Petra knows chemistry...

Petra returns with four large thermos flasks of liquid oxygen. Two she takes upstairs, taking care to check all windows are closed but leaving open all the doors. She takes one flask and pours the contents into a plastic box which she has placed on the floor next to the bookshelves in the room Joe and Jenny use for an office. It is full of paper and, of course, their IT equipment. The other flask she pours into another box on top of their bed. Petra wants the house to burn and burn hot but in all her busyness, she does not forget to retrieve the pen drive.

She quickly returns downstairs and douses the sweet biscuits and the potato chips with more of the liquid oxygen. She pours the contents of one flask onto the lounge sofa and the other Petra pours into a large saucepan on the kitchen hob. Leaving herself a short and quick exit route to the back door, she sparks the biscuits and the chips and immediately they are converted into white hot, incandescent balls of flame as the concentrated oxygen liberates all the latent chemical energy of the food. (5) The high oxygen concentration spreads the fire generously, enthusiastically. In no time at all, it spreads into the food cupboard and begins to attack the substance of the wood and plasterboard stud wall. The gas inlet pipe of the boiler soon comes under withering attack.

Meanwhile, the high oxygen concentration Petra has created in the upstairs of the house is encouraging the fire upwards to indulge its ravenous attention on the modest possessions of a young married couple, their photographs and memories, their computers, and finally, joyously, the roof of the building.

If only people knew just how much energy is locked into a pile of biscuits, maybe people would not eat so many, thinks Petra as, from her van, she observes the McEwan’s home, now being rapidly engulfed in a fierce conflagration, and all begun by a few sparks, oxygen, and some high calorie snacks.

04:50 am Moscow Time: Anatoly in Wonderland.

Anatoly and Sveta walk hand in hand through the forest. It is a summer’s day. The air is still, pure and smells of pine resin from the trees. Curiously, or so it seems to Anatoly, there are no biting insects — which is just as well as both he and Sveta are completely naked. Anatoly feels the sun on his back and, with its warming heat, he feels his cock start to grow. He wants Sveta! The ground is soft beneath their feet, covered in a soft blanket of pine needles. He turns to her and is immediately surprised to see her nipples are pierced, something he has wanted for a long time but something she has denied him.

When did she have that done? The rings are quite thick. Very attractively thick. They are in perfect proportion to the size of her nipples. If she has had the time to stretch the piercings, thinks Anatoly, Sveta must have had the piercings carried out several months ago. How has he had failed to notice? He shifts his gaze upward and draws her close to him. Their lips meet — she is so ready. He can feel how hot she is — and a septum ring rubs Anatoly’s lip. What? That is something the slaves wear, to remind them of their position. What is Sveta doing? She cannot wear a septum ring to host her television programme! But the ring is nice!

Anatoly can feel his penis grow hard, tight ... and then comes a buzzing insect. Its buzz is loud and instant. Anatoly looks quickly round to see if the creature is flying in their direction. He does not want it to sting Sveta who does not seem to hear the noise. She presses herself on Anatoly and all the while the buzzing insect circles around and around. Anatoly stretches out his arm to fend it away — and his grip closes around the handset of the bedside telephone!

“Excuse me, Anatoly Sergeyevitch, it is Yevgeny speaking.”

“What?”

Visions of the forest have vanished. Anatoly is in bed, in Moscow. Sveta is spooned beside him, oblivious to the noise both real and imaginary.

“Yevgeny? ... Oh ... what is the matter, Yevgeny?”

“I have an intercept you should know about.”

“You do? What? Can’t it wait until morning?”

“It is about Vyera...”

“Oh ... well, I am listening...”

“Yyera’s husband was assaulted in London this evening. Someone has sent a video of the attack to Vyera. She has called the police. Her husband has been badly hurt...”

“Ah ... oh ... thank you, Yevgeny. You were right to call me. Thank you.”

“Boss?”

“Yes?”

“There may be more. I have just lost all the communication with our surveillance equipment at Vyera’s home. Computer, telephone, everything.”

“Do you think the house has been attacked?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Where is Vyera?”

“I have signal from her mobile. She is travelling to London.”

Now completely awoken from sleep, Anatoly glances at his watch to see the time is 04:55 am. His mind is surprisingly agile at this time in the morning, but, of course it is the events that conspire to make it so.

The assailants. Who might they be? There really is only one likely answer. Anatoly gets up, slipping out of bed without waking his sleeping wife (whose face is, of course, not decorated by a septum ring, nor are her nipples pierced). She is the brittle fragile girl whose wild, reckless, generous, romantic gesture has caused so much trouble...

In his office, he calls Neena.

“Neena Alexandrovna?”

“Er, oh, yes, speaking, Anatoly Sergeyevitch.”

“You reported Pavea has changed her perspective?”

Now it is Neena’s turn to struggle with an unexpected telephone call in the small hours of the morning, when body and mind are at their lowest ebb. “ Ye ... yes, that is correct, Anatoly Sergeyevitch. She told me she...”

“How far can we rely on her?”

“Er ... er ... I cannot be sure, Anatoly Sergeyevitch. I advise caution. I think it is probably too soon to put her to the test ... er...”

“Vyera’s husband has been assaulted in London. This may be an attempt at intimidation. The British security services may be responsible, but I think that is unlikely, from my knowledge of the way they operate in their own country. The next possibility is the CIA acting on behalf of Pavea’s old family, but that is also unlikely. If the American authorities wished to put pressure on Vyera, I think they would arrange with their British colleagues to arrest her and then threaten her with extradition and imprisonment in the United States if she failed to cooperate. That leaves people working for Pavea’s father, Manfred Randolf. I believe urgent action is needed. Could we rely on Pavea to explain her new thinking?”

“I cannot say with certainty, Anatoly Sergeyevitch. If she were to act in our interests in this particular matter, it would imply a significant change in the relationship. We would be in her debt. She would know that. She would have expectations. If we were dealing with Vyera, it would be different. She adapted to her training so much better. She understood her new situation, what she was. I think that Pavea is still dangerous. She is a wild animal waiting to strike, so to speak. To put ourselves in her power seems ... rash?”

“Or brave and decisive. The way to a dog’s heart is chiefly through its stomach, Neena Aleksandrovna. It is also true for the wolf, although with much less certainty. One never knows if the wolf has been fed enough...”

“Speak with her. Try to gauge her true feelings. Meanwhile, I will reflect on the new developments and decide whether we should respond now, or later. Let us think about time. The time is 05:20. In London, the time is 02:20 at night and, in Houston, it is still yesterday, 19:20 pm. I do not wish our actions to be too obviously connected to these new events.”

09:10 am. Crime and Incident Log

Warwickshire is one of the smaller police forces in the UK but sometimes size is inversely proportional to efficiency. Each morning when Inspector Ackroyd arrives at Headquarters, he glances through the Crime and Incident Log and, in the course of a few moments, he is up to date with the overnight events and thus able to set his priorities for the day.

Today, two events leap from the page to his attention. First, at 21:45, the Emergency Team took a call from a Mrs Jennifer McEwan to say that someone has sent her a video message, to show her husband being viciously assaulted in London. Then at 02:15, neighbours had alerted the Fire Brigade to a serious house fire. The building had been completely gutted. It was the McEwans’ home. As Inspector Ackroyd reads the report, he breaks out into a cold sweat. He calls the Duty Officer.

“This house fire. Was there anyone at home?”

“Fire Service says no, they don’t think so. No bodies in the wreckage, but they are not completely happy with it. Apparently, the fire was unusually intense.”

“Have we sent anybody round to have a look?”

“Er, just the local patrol officers, to liaise with the Fire Brigade.”

Inspector Ackroyd goes quickly to his office and calls the Station Commander at the Royal Leamington Spa fire station, the nearest station to Warwick, manned continuously, twenty four hours a day.

“Morning,” he says briskly. “This is Brian Ackroyd here, Inspector, Warwickshire Constabulary. We’re interested in a couple — that’s a man and a woman — whose home was apparently reduced to ashes last night. I just wondered if you had found anyone in the wreckage? Any bodies?”

“Oh, good morning Inspector,” says the Station Commander, lugubriously, “No, I am pleased to say not. No signs of anyone at home. The car belonging to the couple is missing, according to neighbours, so it sounds as if the premises were deserted. The ... erm ... fire was very intense, and we know that because there was not much left, which is a bit odd. We know this sort of property and what usually happens when it catches fire, so we are calling in the Fire Investigation Team for their assistance...”

“Ah ... are you? Are you? Can you keep us in touch about that?”

“Of course.”

“I have the number of the young lady who lives there — has anyone from your team spoken to either Mr or Mrs McEwan?”

“No, as a matter of fact, we haven’t and if they are known to you, perhaps you are best placed?”

Ackroyd is very relieved to learn that the McEwan’s home was empty. He knows from the Incident Log that there is little point in trying to call Joseph McEwan so Mrs McEwan is his best bet, but first he checks his watch. 09:35? He will call Jennifer first, before making his next call...

09:40 am. Fire Sale

In her hotel room, her mobile telephone rings. Jenny answers to hear the reassuring flat black country accent of Inspector Ackroyd: “Mrs McEwan? Ah, glad I have been able to catch you. I got in to work this morning and the first thing I found out about was your call last night about Joseph. Look, I am so sorry to hear about Mr McEwan. Is he all right now?”