The Becket Approval by Falconer Duncan (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

his loyalty too, if not his complete unconditional love. It was the loyalty component of their relationship that was most impacted at that moment. He didn't know how that was going to play out. He needed to get his thoughts in order. Find out what happened. But his anger was as dark as a night blade at that moment.

Inside the entrance, a man in a business suit and coat was looking at a street map on his phone, following the progress of a marker as it moved inside the underground station. The man looked up to see Gunnymede enter the same time as the marker. ‘Devon Gunnymede,’ he said as Gunnymede walked past.

Gunnymede stopped to look at him. The man was in his forties, a blond mop of hair neatly combed on top of a hawkish face. He was wearing a crisp, expensive white shirt and shiny blue tie.

‘My name’s Simons. I work for Jervis.’

Simons flipped open a small leather wallet to reveal his MI6 badge, similar to the one Aristotle had shown the police at Heathrow. They were special badges, small with ornate detail. Silver and gold inlaid in simulated ivory. No expense spared in their production. On it was an inscription requesting any authority in the land to extend assistance to the bearer on demand. His name was inscribed on the back of it.

‘You remember Jervis, don’t you?’ Simons asked. ‘Head of operations.’

‘He’s been there a long time.’

‘It’s a long-term job, if you do it right. Welcome back to the fold. I was in the neighbourhood and wanted to introduce myself. We could find ourselves working together in the very near future.’

Gunnymede didn’t know what to say.

‘How was Albania?’

Gunnymede shrugged. ‘Albanian.’

‘Anything of interest?’

‘Not at first glance.’

Simons studied Gunnymede. ‘We’re all on the same team, Gunnymede. Remember that.’ He forced a smile. ‘You take care of yourself. See you soon.’

Simons walked away. Gunnymede watched him leave the station. Odd bloke. Odd conversation. As he dug out his company credit card to use on the ticket barrier his phone vibrated. He accessed a message. Harlow wanted to see him in his Temple office. Strange though it was, Megan was already being compartmentalised in his head. Shelved but not forgotten.

Bethan was at her desk when DCI Dillon crossed the room and dropped a file in front of her.

‘Take a look,’ he said.

She opened it. The first page was a picture of an Afghan in his fifties.

‘Mustafa Lamardi,’ Dillon said. ‘Former Afghan National Directorate of Security. He retired to Macedonia two years ago after opening a fat bank account with funds of dubious origin transferred from his account in Dubai.’

‘Is Macedonia a popular destination for retiring Afghans?’

‘Perhaps for those who don’t want to be found too easily. If that’s true it didn’t work in his case. He was shot dead outside his home in Skopje a week before your mass border killing in Albania.’

‘Why am I looking at this?’

‘Take a look at the forensic report.’

Bethan turned the page to a photo of a Dragunov rifle. ‘He was killed by the same weapon used in the checkpoint killings. What’s the connection?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘A thousand and seventy-five metre headshot.’

‘Sounds challenging.’

‘Apparently it is with a Dragunov.’ She turned the page. ‘Nothing on the sniper.’

‘The Macedonians have drawn a blank on him so far. If it wasn’t the same sniper it was the same level of expertise. Professional hit, clean firing position, no tracks.’

‘Did he booby-trap his escape route?’

‘No. The hide was on a rooftop. There was only one way down. I’d look at the possibility he did the Skopje job and then three hundred kilometres and seven days later crossed the border and did the Albania killings.’

‘He was five days in the Albania sniper hide.’

‘There you go. Two days to get there. Ample time.’ Dillon held up another, older-looking file. ‘I also have this for you which I know you’ll find particularly interesting. It was prepared by an analyst just like you, now retired.’ He placed the file in front of her. ‘It’s a reference guide to a profile pool.’

She read the title page. ‘Unsolved British military related homicides.’

‘Created in 2007. If we assume the Albanian sniper was British and that he’s connected to Mustafa Lamardi’s killing in Macedonia, both cases would fall into this profile pool.’

‘How did you know about this?’

‘I didn’t until this morning. I sent a summary of your report upstairs at the request of those who are all-knowing and this came down in response.’

She read the file’s introduction. ‘Twenty-four cases – it goes back as far as the seventies.’

‘The first three are unsolved killings of IRA members.’

‘Mysterious IRA killings. Sounds like military intelligence assassinations to me,’ she said.

‘Analysts aren’t allowed to be conspiracy theorists.’

‘Which I’m not.’

‘The MoD would be shocked to hear such a thing. Take a look through them anyway. Something might jump out at you.’ Just as he was about to leave he had a thought. ‘And how was your spy?’

She glanced at him and quickly looked away. ‘Fine.’

Dillon tried to get a closer look at her eyes, suspicious about her.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I was on the streets for fifteen years before they parked me in here.’

‘They probably parked you because you weren’t very good at reading people’s eyes.’

‘Quite the opposite in fact. And you are a billboard, my girl.’

She accepted the bust. ‘He was a knight in shining armour. How many girls get to have one of those in a lifetime?’

‘Seeing him again?’

‘We are worlds apart.’

‘Good thing too.’

‘Why do you say that?’ She looked at him with a frown.

‘I was warned about him.’

‘In what way?’

Dillon lowered his voice. ‘When I was given his name for the Albanian trip I