Three Faces of West (2013) Read online

  Prologue

  The sky was as grey as the mood on the ground. This Tuesday morning, there was nothing unusual about the rush associated with the vibrancy of the city at this time of day. In the light rain, the clock outside the train station, and those within struck 07:28 reminding passengers to the schedule of their hectic day ahead. London King’s Cross was one of the major hubs in the nation’s capital, even so at this time in the morning the whole building was abuzz with a hive of activity.

  Inside the trains were pulling in out of the platforms with harmonious pandemonium, all releasing their passenger loads before taking on the next ones. Around the main area local businesses and shops were drumming up custom and profit, some serving tea and coffee, other magazines and publications, others foodstuffs. This aurora of normality rumbled on in the station as another day began to unfold.

  The clock struck 07:29. Platform 1 was a filling up nicely, more so in the last few minutes as commuters began readying themselves for their travel. Professionals, students, young and old, all bound by their desire to get to where they needed to with as little hassle as possible. Finally the station lights turned green and further down the line, out of the grey morning gloom the 07:40 from Colchester and going to Edinburgh pulled into view. The huge train with its many carriages thundered into the station shaking the ground as it slowly pulled up alongside the platform.

  Something did not feel quite right as the locomotive brakes let out that familiar, yet tortured squeal signalling the end of the journey. This was a train that had performed this many times before, almost daily, yet this morning the mood was slightly off. It was almost as if a primeval telepathic feeling permeated through the commuters. What turned out to be even stranger was that this disturbing atmosphere was not just restricted to the platform, but the surrounding waiting areas and shops.

  The train, by now halted, opened its doors, and as customary the carriages spilling their passengers onto the already crowded platform. The clock struck 07:30 precisely. Just as platform 1 was at its busiest. There seemed to be sudden shouting and general commotion further down the train. Sounding as if it is coming from the third carriage back, it was louder and more profound than the surrounding ambient noise. Through the crowds people shouted accompanying by pushing and shoving, drawing the attention of people to the event just because of their curiosity was exactly what was planned to happen. Next was a bit of a blur, a flash, first blue then orange then a bang. Coming from inside the third carriage, the crowd of people caught the full force. A second bang came instantly afterwards, this time ripping through the carriage causing pieces of shattered and splintered debris of all kinds of material to fly through the air, mercilessly tearing through anything in the way, including flesh.

  Smoke and darkness flooded the area both immediate and beyond. What seemed like an eternity was only punctured by the inevitable haunting sounds of people in distress accompanied by alarms ringing echoing through the thick smoke. A second flash and explosion disrupted the chaos, this time from the second carriage of the train. Blasting away walls, throwing the locomotive off the tracks, this one was more violent. The second one deposited even more debris across an even greater area, increasing the damage and the injury.

  The chaotic overspill spread to the outside. Thick, black choking smoke rose up through the London air high above King’s Cross like a morbid signal to the site of the incident. Drawing attention to the site through both the general public, the streets quickly became choked with traffic and people. Screams and wails from both the shocked and the injured became permeated by the sirens of emergency services trained in rapid response zeroing in on the site of the incident.

  Kings Cross quickly became a scene akin to something out of a film. One could be forgiven for thinking this was a movie setup, but this was no tale, it was a very real scenario. Rapid response teams congregated around the smoke filled entrance sealing off any further inroads by the general public. Through the smoke, by now as thick as it was black blocked the view of the rescuers to investigate what had gone wrong. Brave souls donning breathing apparatus entered the building by crossing the threshold into the darkness, keeping their cool under intense pressure as the world seemed to collapse around them.

  Seconds seemed like minutes, which in turn seemed like hours as people streamed out of the disaster zone into the blinding daylight of safety. Some screaming, others shocked, some conscious others unconscious all gave hints to the apparent carnage within. Everyday commuters, ordinary people flowed out, helped out by emergency crews blood-stained but alive. Somehow they were the lucky ones. Inside a totally different picture emerged indicating that what was going on above was just the tip of the iceberg.

  Everything completely dark except for a restricted area of light directly above platform 1 greeted anyone who ventured inside. Part of the roof had been blown completely off leaving behind only jagged twisted metal blasted across the tracks and waiting areas for those that were not still hanging from above. The sound of cracking and crunching could be heard as you could not help but walk over shattered debris of various things that littered the place. Hauntingly the carnage was accompanied by the disturbing sound of people, still in peril crying out, some for help, some under a shock spell. Priority was given to those who could not move, but the immediate action was to get everyone out as quickly as possible.

  The rescue effort moved rapidly forward, crews and teams putting into action the training given for exactly this type of scenario, and to save lives. That was until platform 1 greeted the workers. Unrecognisable and undistinguishable between the twisted metal and the concrete, the train that had pulled in earlier completely destroyed. The locomotive at the front smashed, the carriages ripped, the platform covered in bodies - and body parts. Limbs, extremities, heads and corpses with half their torso’s blasted away strew the vicinity of the explosion. The walls, repainted with the horrific pinkish reddened tint of human flesh and organs greeted the sight of the onlookers. The stickiness of the floor felt underfoot from a blood-washed platform creating the horrible squelching sound usually reserved for a nightclub dance floor on a Saturday night. Even by hardened, trained men’s standards, it was a sickening sight.

  Laying in momentarily stunned silence, the rescue teams, trained for this could not help but freeze the human emotion. Reaction suddenly kicked in, spurring the professionals into action over the scene to try and find anyone still alive.

  Outside the situation was just as confusing. Almost instantly the mass media had drawn the attention of a worldwide audience. Internet and social media outlets meant that the situation could not be noticed locally. The fringes of the site, crammed with onlookers and the media at the cordons the police had put up resembled something of a scrum. The sky, active with helicopters above the chaos all desperately scrambling to airlift the priority wounded away. Others representing the media, constantly looking down beaming the events live across the country and to the wider world completed the aerial armada above the thick black rising smoke.

  Chapter 1:

  Light streamed in through the three large tall windows in the room. A flicker made by the rustling of the tree leaves in the garden outside disrupted the light in the room of the ever brightening sky outside. It clearly was opulent surroundings, expensive blue patterned flock wallpaper draped over each wall, adorned with valuable 18th century oil portraits and landscapes. Leather bound volumes covered one wall indicating to any visitor that the occupier was one of high social and intellectual class. The room was active, despite the situation outside. The dark blue uniforms and the white paper suits worn by the occupants indicated that here was a crime scene. Despite the commotion there was a strangely still calm to the man sta
nding at the window looking out on the world beyond.

  The figure stood tall, his short black hair mirroring the colour of his coat thus completing the silhouette of his figure against the window light.

  “What do you think Jack?” Said a voice from behind, “Why do we get jobs like these?”

  “What do you mean John?” He replied,

  “Well look at it, all this going on at King’s Cross and we are stuck with this case. Can’t you hear the sirens outside?”

  Jack turned round from the window. Looking John in the eye, ignoring his brown hair and grey coat,

  “Unfortunately we are. Look the reason we are here-‘

  John interrupted, “What about the police? This should be a matter for them not us.”

  Jack responded calmly, repeating his sentence from the beginning again,

  “We are here because the police responded first to report the theft of a rather precious item. They are waiting for the special branch to turn up. Apparently it’s so important that it requires even people like us to get involved.”

  He continued, “I’m guessing the reason why there is only uniform outside is because of the incident at the train station. Sound like chaos to me.”

  Proceeding to move closer to his partner, Jack could not help but examine the surroundings. Only snapping out of his thought pattern by John’s next remark,

  “You know the media are saying there’s been a gas explosion at King’s Cross, everyone else thinks it’s a terrorist attack” He said rather cynically.

  Jack replied in a typically quirky style,

  “You might be right. You know this is the one of the apartments of the Duke of Westminster. His seat is Eaton Hall up in Cheshire, but this is one of his London residences. That is why we have been drafted in, to make sure that what happened was only criminal and nothing deeper.”

  “Well let’s hope it is only criminal and nothing else.” Replied John.

  Jack turned around to look at the evidence in the room. He wasn’t a detective anymore, but the investigative instincts inside him still profoundly empowered him. There were certain niggling things out of the ordinary that rang alarm bells, as he surveyed the surroundings knowing that he was absolutely forbidden to interfere with anything.

  “What’s this?” He asked himself noticing objects draped down beside the mantelpiece. Upon it the ornaments, a complete mess, tipped up and broken showed some signs of activity here.

  John’s attention had shifted to a cabinet case in a centre of the room. Clearly the focus for the police officers and forensics, Jack, knowing not to contaminate the crime scene by touching, wasted no time in moving closer to observe and analyse the clue,

  “Looks very secure to me.” John remarked, “But it’s easy to see how such a crime could have happened.”

  Moving toward the cabinet case Jack could see the structure was tampered with,

  “Is it alarmed?” Asked Jack,

  “Almost certainly” Replied John.

  Looking at the glass lid of the case in greater detail betrayed some of the clues to the robbery. It clearly had been cut in a circular fashion. The extra glass fell inside the case and was resting on the base where the precious contents once displayed. The hole itself was only just big enough for the smallest of hands to get through. Jack paused in his train of thought for a minute, then reacted,

  “If someone stole this, then they must have entered from somewhere” He pondered.

  “Just out of curiosity,” John asked, “What was in this case?”

  Jack turned to John giving him a knowing look. Clearly the intelligence was accurate in his briefing before being sent out on this assignment.

  “This John, used to house a brooch. But not just any old precious one, it was made of two diamonds. Both called Cullinan. Ever heard of the Cullinan Diamond?”

  “Yes, the largest rough diamond ever found on Earth. It was discovered in a mine in South Africa. But they are the part of the crown jewels.” Said John promptly.

  “Well,” Continued Jack, “Not all the diamonds went into the crown or the sceptre. The Cullinan was cut into smaller pieces as well as the larger ones. Two of these small stones, called Cullinan III and Cullinan IV held together as a brooch, the one that has been stolen.” He said pointing to the empty cabinet.

  “So this is a theft of the crown jewels!? It sounds like something out of a film. Anyway they are safely locked away either in the Tower of London or displayed in Buckingham Palace.” Replied John.

  “I know, usually they are. But not every Cullinan Diamond is under such guard. The ones that made this brooch for instance were meant to be worn.”

  “By whom?” Asked John

  “By the wearer of course, the Queen herself.”

  John raised his eyebrows in surprise, “Why? What the hell it is doing here? What is her majesty doing loaning one of her personal artefacts to the Duke?”

  “That John, we are not privileged enough to know. That is one for the police and special branch. Our job is to assess any apparent security threat. ‘

  Jack went back to his original thought of the entry of the perpetrator. His intuition, leading him back to the windows noticed that one of them showed no sign of forced entry. No broken pieces, splinters or anything obvious in the first instance except for a small semi-circular mark on one of the panes. Looking closer the marks on the glass was of the same pattern as those on the cabinet, and of a similar size. Whatever made this mark was obviously the same instrument that had cut the glass on the cabinet. Inside Jack knew from the grooves that what had indeed made these cuts was harder than glass, diamond.

  “Doesn’t look to me that any of those windows have been forced in any way Jack.” Said John, stating the obvious. “Do you really think there has to be a real security risk?”

  “We have to be sure. This window has been partially cut, like the cabinet. Only something harder than glass could make these grooves, something like diamond.” He paused once again,

  “Let’s have a look at this mantelpiece again.” Said Jack in a rather unsure voice.

  Clearly he wasn’t happy with just that, he had to know more. However he was stopped rather abruptly if not politely,

  “Sorry sir, forensics is working on that now. Can’t touch it I’m afraid.” Said one of the uniform officers upholding his duties.

  While Jack was being stumped by the long arm of the law, John was examining the bookcase. Managing to slip through the police investigation he saw that two old leather bound books had fallen page open onto the expensive carpet floor.

  The immediate striking thing about the open pages, even to the untrained forensic eye, was that they were not clean,

  “What have you got there?” Asked Jack, after joining him at the bookcase.

  “Look at these pages. See the marks? That’s not old, they were done recently.”

  The marks were clear in the daylight to Jack’s eyes, “Yes they are. Look at the size of them.” He said.

  Jack got to his feet again, turning round to a nearby table, his training taught him to observe every detail,

  “I wonder if there are any clues to here to any potential security threat.” He remarked while examining some personal documents laid out on the surface.

  These seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary here. A few external documents accompanied by handwritten scribbles what appeared to be bored doodles on one corner of the table. On the outset it did not appear to be suspicious, but Jack knew that if there was anything out of the ordinary, the police would be ensured to promptly inform him.

  Slowly moving away from the table to meet John who by now had got back to his feet from kneeling to examine the books more closely, something struck him,

  “Hang on,” He said noticing something out of the corner of his eye, “John, take a look at this.”

  Both men noticed a small ornament on the floor. Obviously knocked off during the incident seemed to be the only explanation for the way it had fallen. There appeared
to be no account to why the table was disrupted in such a way, but before John and Jack could respond an interesting commotion started to develop in the corner of the room. First four, then five officers congregated around a small cupboard quickly joined by two detectives feverishly analysed the scene.

  It seemed to very quickly to be the focus of attention as they opened the cupboard by the door handles. Perhaps they found something inside? John and Jack watched on keeping out of the way in their capacity of non-police officers, this was not for them and they did not want to interfere. Taking advantage of the attention of the police officers, and in the investigative capacity of the two men Jack went to see the door. He did not need to physically touch the dark oak wooden door to see it was heavy duty. Jack turned to John, to point something out,

  “This door was already locked. Clearly even the privileged elite classes are not immune from threats. Looks like nobody could have got in here.”

  “I checked the security measures of the building with the police when we first arrived, the room doesn’t even have CCTV. Looks like our Duke felt this thing was safe locked away in a building in one of the most fashionable parts of London.” Replied John in a cynical undertone.

  At that moment there wasn’t much for the two men to do. The police had this one covered in what appeared to be a normal crime scene, on this of all days. The law was stretched to breaking point with the events going on at Kings Cross, it was lucky the police has managed to get here at all.

  “I’m not sure what if there’s any more we can do here.” Said Jack,

  “Me neither,” Said john, “About time to fill out a report I think.”

  Jack was about to give a suitable reply when he was politely interrupted,

  “Excuse me, which one of you is Jack West?” Said an inquisitive voice. Jack turned his head to the speaker,

  “I’m Jack, and you are?”

  The man responded like for like in his rhetoric,

  “Inspector Brian Waterson, National Crime Agency, Scotland Yard.” The man seemed friendly enough, with just a hint of caution that can be found in most detectives voices,