Chapter 7

Tuesday morning found Andrew refreshed and ready to get back to work. Part of the challenge of the previous two weeks had been the relentless running around, often without a clear picture of what was going on. Even the trip to Hamburg had added to that. The one time Andrew sat down for an hour or two he had been able to piece together some of his thoughts on the case, which although not accurate, had ultimately helped to find the missing armoured panel. As he stood on the Tube, taking up a lot of space as he had his boxed up computer as well as his backpack, on the way over to Jim and Freya’s he considered all this. Such considerations were put to one side when he got back to the flat. Jim and Freya were in the middle of their morning routine and insisted Andrew sit with them for some breakfast.

“How was Edinburgh Andrew?”

“It was a busy couple of days but it was good to see everybody.”

“Thank you for letting us know you would be back this morning. Why are you starting work this week on a Tuesday?”

“I had to travel all day Saturday, I didn’t get into Edinburgh until after 5.00. I was told I could take Monday in lieu.”

“They were okay with you not travelling with the rest of the team?”

“There are a couple of things related to that. Firstly the Flyboys were being as helpful as usual and nobody had any idea when the team were going to get back. There was talk of Monday, which is another reason they gave me the day off, none of them were going to be there anyway. The more difficult thing is they simply had no idea what to do with me. I am not in their chain of command. Sure I was assigned to the team but all I needed was permission to go home. I paid for everything myself and took the train and two flights to Edinburgh. Even if the RAF had a plane ready on Saturday we would have still had to get to Bruggen or Gutersloh, fly to Brize Norton, get into town, for me then to have to get the Tube back to Heathrow and fly home. So Inspector Brodie okayed it but I could tell he wasn’t happy.”

“I can see where the uncertainty of your status can cause issues. So into the office today. I presume you have no idea of the plans after that?”

“None at all. I assume here all week but I am not going to unpack just yet. I think I might keep one of my backpacks ready with a week’s clothes just in case. I hope that things will calm down from now on. How are things with you both?”

“Hectic. Jim is bemoaning the fact that we didn’t just elope and there are moments when I agree with him. We will fill you in on all the latest tonight.”

They went their separate ways and Andrew approached the Empress State Building an hour later with a confidence that had been noticeably absent a month earlier. He showed his pass and took the elevator up to the Major Investigation Unit. He had been working for them for more than a week before someone explained what MIU stood for on all the correspondence. When he exited the elevator he stopped and looked around. A sea of closed doors greeted him, so heading left Andrew went to see if there was somewhere obvious that he could find a desk. Once around the corner he saw further down the corridor Superintendent Lester trying to open a door with a coffee, some kind of sandwich and a large file. That was not going to end well.

“Can I give you a hand before there is an accident?”

“Yes. Grab the file and the coffee while I get this door open.”

Once Lester had the door opened he beckoned Andrew to follow him in.

“What are you doing here? I thought the team were flying home this morning?”

Ah.

“I flew to Edinburgh on Saturday. Inspector Brodie told me to take Monday off and be back here this morning.”

Lester looked at him for a second, although Andrew could see the wheels turning in his head.

“I suppose no harm was done. Where you fit in the chain of command is probably causing some issues. The Inspector will be in to see me about that when he gets back. We have never had a situation like this where we have a civilian employee out on a team.”

He parked that issue and changed gears.

“You have never been on this floor before, have you? Well let’s find you a desk. First thing you need to do is find out when the rest of them get back and be out there to meet them. You will need two vans.”

They were walking as he was talking and when he opened a door it was like walking onto a TV or movie set. It was a large room, taking up what looked like a third of the floor. It was the MIU squad room, a scene from innumerable TV shows. Lots of desks, lots of people working away, some boards on the wall, lots of phones ringing. Lester led Andrew to a quiet corner where there was a computer on one of the desks.

“No one ever sits here in case they are made to use that thing. Seems like the perfect spot for you. Jamieson.”

This last was to the room and a small man came over. He was thin with glasses and had the air of a perfectly forgettable or unnoticeable person. He would hardly register in an empty room never mind a crowded room.

“Yes Boss?”

“Andrew McLeod, the computer expert we stumbled upon. Civilian and only a temporary one at that. Get him set up here but assign nothing yet. He can deal with getting the team back from Brize.”

“Okay.”

Lester turned away and mumbled something quietly to Jamieson who looked sharply at Andrew before nodding slowly,

“Okay. McLeod, this is Detective Inspector Jamieson. You will report to him for the remainder of your time with us, unless you are sent out on another team. He will get you organised.”

Andrew was then dismissed from Lester’s thoughts and he turned and walked away without another word. Andrew stood there looking at Jamieson.

“Where is all your stuff?”

“Em, I have no stuff. I started a month ago in the records centre, summer cover for holidays. They sent me to Colchester with some files and I haven’t been back here since.”

Jamieson smiled.

“That sounds about right for this place. Okay this is your desk, since you are our computer expert. Hang your coat up and I will introduce you to Susan. She is our over-worked secretary here but will help you get organised to meet the team at Brize.

“Susan, meet the new computer expert.”

Susan Yorke was mid-thirties maybe, with a harassed air about her. She also didn’t hide her surprise.

“No really. We had a summer student sent here, god knows why. Anyway, we discovered the kid knows computers so he has been assigned to us for the rest of the summer, what six weeks?”

Andrew nodded.

“He needs to get two vans out to Brize to collect Brodie and his team. Show him how to do it will you.”

And just like Lester he wandered off. Andrew felt like the idiot cousin being passed around until left with the lowest ranking person who could not pass him any further.

“Excuse the surprise. It is unusual for anyone to be assigned here without years of experience. You just caught me by surprise. Here sit down, I will get a crick in my neck if you stand there all day.”

Susan Yorke was everything Sandra Walker wasn’t. She accepted him, helped him and showed him the ropes. The team would still be at Brize Norton today if it wasn’t for her help. Brodie actually called her while Andrew was sitting at her desk confirming that the Flyboys had finally deigned to bring them home and that they were scheduled to land around 2.00. This meant Andrew had to leave with three vans by noon to get out to Oxfordshire. Once that was sorted Andrew got out of her hair and went back to his empty desk in the corner of the room. He fired up the computer to see what software was installed. To his surprise, well maybe not, there was nothing on it. No wonder nobody used the damn thing. So he had two hours to kill until he needed to head off to collect the others.

The room was neither quiet nor peaceful but Andrew had nothing else to do so sat and thought about the case he had just worked on. Now that the running around and the relief of finding the panels were over something did not seem right. That everyone was freaked out was clearly true but ultimately the panel had sat in the back of a truck in the middle of an Army garrison. Now not the right garrison but it wasn’t like it was mixed in with the Catering Corps or the Signals. It was sitting in the truck park of a REME workshop. There seemed to be confusion as to all the different parts of the BAOR, the different divisions, the confusion of the reinforcing units. But fundamentally this was a piece of armour being taken to the wrong depot. How many hundreds of hours of time and tens of thousands of pounds had been wasted on this. If Andrew had not seen Brodie and the BAOR command staff freaking out he would have thought it was an exercise. He sat there and made some notes. The Army is made up of a hundred different pieces, different regiments, different chains of command. Maintaining an accurate ORBAT (Order of Battle) was fundamental to making sure that in the event of war the defence and response were as planned. How was it that Andrew asked about the 2^nd and 3^rd divisions while in the middle of the 4^th divisions lorry park? Had nobody else not thought of that? The team seemed under-resourced, and there seemed to be a whole lot of red herrings and misdirection. Plus although it had been a serious investigation it was only in the last week that the pressure was ratcheted up. The weekend before four of them were being dirty young (and old) men in Hamburg. Andrew put the notes away in his desk drawer and got ready for the drive out to Brize Norton.

When Brodie finally got off the Hercules Andrew could tell immediately that he was beyond bursting point and wanted to explode at someone. Fortunately some pointless RAF movement controller decided to take one for the team and tried to insist that the locked file cases were to be opened to search for contraband. Brodie looked like he was going to rip the man’s arm off and beat him to death with it. It was truly wonderful to watch. The whole team owed the man a huge thank you and Mount St. Brodie exploded at him rather than any of them. Once that theatre was resolved the loading of the vans was accomplished without issue. Andrew stayed well clear of Brodie in the other van. Then it was just traffic until they returned to Earl’s Court where everything was unloaded and taken either to the records centre or the MIU floor. The team were told to be in the office for a 9.00 meeting in the morning and sent on their way. Vestie caught up with Andrew at the elevators.

“You lucky bastard. You did the right thing getting the hell out of there on Saturday. We had to sit around waiting on the fucking RAF to send us a fucking plane. Then yesterday Lester phones Brodie and tells him it was an exercise. We all ran for the hills. Brodie was fit to be tied. Thank fuck for that guy at Brize. He needed to let all that out.”

“I wondered if this had all been an exercise. Nobody told the BAOR about it that’s for sure. They were panicking worse than anyone last week.”

“What do you mean you wondered if it was an exercise?”

“I sat down this morning and thought about everything we went through. It should have not taken me asking you about the 2^nd and 3^rd divisions to find out that there were more REME workshops. Nobody was sharing the ORBAT and all these different divisions and garrisons, close but separate is a recipe for mix ups like this. Nobody will care about a LandRover but something like this just shows that when something important goes missing and the spooks think it may be espionage nobody has a clue.”

“Lester didn’t talk to you?”

“About this, of course not.”

“Come on. Fucking kid, too smart for your own good.”

“Where are we going Vestie?”

“To see Brodie and Lester. If you can work this out then they need to hear it.”

Vestie let Andrew get his notes just to show he had thought it all through before reuniting with the team. Vestie knocked on Lester’s door.

“Come in. What is it Vestergaard?”

“I think you should hear this.”

He moved aside.

“McLeod?”

Vestie spoke up.

“He worked it out on his own this morning.”

It was after 8.00 before Andrew was allowed to leave. He went through what he had seen, the different tempos of the investigation and how in the end it had seemed too easy. Andrew showed them the final page of his notes where at the bottom he had written ‘Exercise?’.

Brodie and Lester looked at each other for a long time. It was Lester who had the final word.

“Please keep this to yourself McLeod. There will be more at the briefing in the morning. I will say one thing. You would make a good policeman. Go on, go home.”

It was 9.00 when he got back to the flat. Freya was full of questions.

“Everything is okay. I had a last-minute meeting with my boss over something I wrote earlier. It just went long that is all.”

Andrew could tell that Freya had a bunch of questions but knew enough not to put him in the position of refusing to answer. He ate a belated dinner, not even bothering to reheat it, he was that hungry. Once he was finished, he went through to the drawing room.

“Let me forget about work for a while. Can we talk about the wedding instead? I have quite a few questions.”

Jim laughed.

“Like you have to ask to talk about the wedding. What can we help you with?”

“Okay, in no particular order I would like to find out about the stag, is there a rehearsal dinner, am I and my guest sitting at some kind of head table, I want to talk about the speeches and we need to talk about Julian Strong. How’s that to start with.”

“Okay well most of them are easy. My stag is on the Saturday before, so the 8^th and I would like you to attend.”

Freya tagged in.

“There is a rehearsal dinner on the night before the wedding. 14 people and it is at the little Italian place around the corner. We have booked it out for the night.”

Jim stepped back in.

“There is not a top table and you will not be sitting with us. You will host your own table. We thought about this and so have invited Julian and Leslie to attend as your guests. The tables hold 10 people and so you will know three people well at the table. The other three couples will be known to you as well.”

Freya’s turn.

“There will just be three speeches. Yours, Jim’s and the best man, Norman Wylie. You have decided to do a speech then?”

Andrew smiled at her.

“Like I had a choice. Oh stop. Yes, I will do a speech. It will be short though so maybe check with Lord Wylie how long he plans to speak. It will be pretty jarring if goes on for 30 minutes and I am done in four. Maybe let me go first in that case. Is there a prescribed order for wedding speeches?”

Neither of them knew but Jim was going to talk to Lord Wylie.

“Is there a problem with Julian Strong, the older one?”

“Not a problem but he has been acting a little jealous. He could not believe that I was staying with you and when I was round for dinner on Sunday he was making a big deal about being at the wedding. He assumes that I am not going to be there so I just think, given that you have invited his son, that you should give him a heads up. Otherwise there might be a lemon-face at your wedding.”

They laughed.

“We only sent the invitation to young Julian and Leslie this weekend, hopefully they can attend. I will give the father I call this week and break it to him that you will be there. I think I will keep the walking down the aisle a secret just to watch his face.”

“Okay, that solves most of the issues I think. What about the night before the wedding and the groom not seeing the bride, plus us just generally being in the way on the wedding morning.”

They both laughed at that.

“You and I will be in a hotel for the Friday night and you will be there on the Saturday night as well. We will leave from here for our honeymoon on the Sunday morning.”

“The only other thing is I have asked Suzanne to be my guest at the wedding. She is uncomfortable at these large events and so I have asked her to stay for the weekend in a couple of weeks. I hope that is still okay.”

The pair of them had no problem, as Andrew knew they wouldn’t but it was still polite to ask. Spending a couple of days around Jim and Freya would be good for Suzanne as well. He thought her issues were mainly a fear of the unknown.

Wednesday, he got back into his morning routine. After exercising as usual he decided to see if he could run to the Marshall Street pool or whether it would be too stop start because of the traffic. It was but he made up for it with a long swim before getting the Tube back across town to the office. Andrew was at his new desk at 8.20, once again with nothing to do. Vestie arrived a few minutes later and they spent the next 30 minutes emptying all the cases that the RAF were so concerned about and stacking the files ready for their return to the Record Centre.

As 9.00 approached Andrew followed along to a conference room on the other side of the floor and tucked in at the back as usual. It started promptly. Lester explained that the whole investigation had been an exercise, designed by MoD Headquarters. There were concerns over policing in Germany in particular. Neither the MoD Police or the British Army of the Rhine had been told it was an exercise. The Major-General in charge of the REME had provided the one team that had taken the panel back to Munster before flying them back to the UK. The wreck was fortuitous but a panel would have been procured some other way even without the wreck. The review of the exercise was going to focus on the impact of the reinforcing Regiments during exercises, as well as the communication between the different garrisons and Divisions. A detachment was to be sent to Germany immediately with more men to follow if a permanent deployment was approved.

Andrew had a sinking feeling that he was going to spend the rest of the damn summer in West Germany at the whim of the RAF as to when he got back to the UK. In fact he was spared all that and a complete separate team, with the exception of Brodie and Taff, were sent to Germany. He was back at his desk when Jamieson came by, barely broke step and told Andrew to come with him. He found himself in a conference room with Jamieson and Vestie.

“Right, I want the two of you to talk to me about computers, and how they impacted this investigation. Vestie, you tell me from the investigation side and McLeod you tell me from the computer side.”

Age before beauty so Vestie went first. He talked about the difficulty of knowing what the information was, what it proved and even knowing whether it was accurate.

“Look, it was dumb luck that we ended up having the guy who designed the program on the team. We would still have no idea without Jock.”

“What? What the hell do you mean he designed the program. He is a student.”

Ah, someone had forgotten to explain how Andrew ended up on the team.

“I thought you knew. Jock you better tell him.”

“I designed computer software when I was at school. The program that was used to create some of the reports, AIMS, I designed it with two friends.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

About the standard reaction and more honest than most.

“No he is not. It all checked out. He also has a degree in Computer Science from the Open University as well. He left that part out. He knows his shit.”

It Jamieson a moment or two to recover his poise.

“So Lester wasn’t kidding when he said you were the computer science expert. Alright then kid talk to me about computers. What are we going to be facing out in the field going forward?”

Andrew marshalled his thoughts before starting.

“The first and most important thing. Ask a lot of other people for their opinion as well, not just me. I will give you the number of the Professor at the Open University. You should get his views and ask him for three other people. I don’t know all the answers, I am just going to tell you about all the fuck ups that I have seen for the last five years.

“I don’t think you are going to face much to be honest, at least right now. Until the Army trains the clerks in the Regimental offices to start using them properly then it is a waste of time. Everything to do with AIMS on this investigation was a complete waste. AIMS stands for Asset Information and Management System. We designed it because Leslie, one of three of us that designed this, heard about a situation where a building had been completely demolished and the Head Office of the company did not even know. It was quite a famous example of business control and her lecturer reinforced the point. So we designed this for organisations, like the government, to keep a central record of what they have scattered across the country. So first of all it is designed for large high value things. Mainly buildings. The other even more important issue is that without training it is useless. Some keener in the REME decided to use software designed for one purpose for another purpose using troops trained for neither. That is why the AIMS reports were all over the place. Shit in, shit out. The Property Services Agency left the programs in West Germany for the Army to complete their job for them. They were just being lazy and as no one knew how to use AIMS, the task got pushed to the bottom of the pile. And then like I said it ended up being used for the wrong purpose.

“I start by saying that so that you realise if you come across computer information on an investigation, treat it cautiously. Ask about the training of the staff preparing the reports. The computer reports will tie into source records, or they should. Stuff like that. The reason I got into computers is because older adults were clueless. The first time I made some money off computers I designed some templates for the father of a friend. The second time I fixed a whole bunch of problems in an office that had bought a lot of computers. They had dropped a lot of money on them but nobody was using them and they were sitting there, an expensive waste. You know what the Army is like. Someone will decide that the Army needs to keep up with technology and that they should invest in computers. Be very suspicious at that point. Because the training will not have kept up with the investment in kit. Look, Taff joked with me about making something squaddie-proof, and how it has never been achieved. The squaddies can and will break everything. Well computers are about the least squaddie-proof thing invented. They are fragile, temperamental, and as this case just showed, more trouble than they are worth a lot of time. You need to liaise with the advanced training garrisons and find out when they are going to start using computers and training the troops to use them.”