Fallen Angel Chapter Thirty Seven
Bad Banker (Part Six)
One warrant and two hours after leaving Wood Street, Sherlock was now wearing a path in Lestrade's office back at New Scotland Yard. The news had been released by the kidnappers twelve minutes ago and all hell was breaking loose.
The 'press release' from the kidnappers consisted of the email to the CEO, and already the camera teams were in the City and broadcasting live about "the Customers' Crusader", along the lines of 'man bites dog' story- revenge of the aggrieved customer. Profiles of Nathaniel Warren were being hastily cobbled together from the internet, and reporters were trying to explain how "Wealth Management" fit into the organisation of Barclays PLC.
"Busking- they don't know what else to say" was Sherlock's verdict. He was getting more and more agitated as he prowled the small office. The CCTV footage of Wood Street on the morning after the kidnapping was proving difficult to obtain- the City Police and the Metropolitan Police were arguing over who had control of the case. Sherlock was not amused. "Turf wars while a kidnap victim awaits rescue? Not a good idea. Sort it, Lestrade." He went back to pacing. John was seated in the visitor's chair across from Lestrade. After a full day's work at the clinic, his stamina was beginning to flag, and he stifled a yawn.
The DI sighed. "I'll do my best, Sherlock, but it's hard enough to get our own people to let us in on the case. The Met's Kidnap Unit wants to run this one- says it's not a murder."
"YET. Not a murder, yet, Detective Inspector. But the longer people waste time, the more likely that is to happen. I need that footage."
"And you're about to get it." Donovan was standing in the doorway, looking at Lestrade. "Guv, the front desk just rang up to say that DCI Mattison from City is on his way up to the press briefing room. He's brought the tapes with him to hand over to the Kidnap Unit. The Chief is going to brief him upstairs with James Poole, the Barclay's Head of Communications, at the same time. The victim's wife is due any minute. She will do the on-air plea, according to the script they're working on now."
Sherlock kept pacing, his path watched by Sally. She crossed her arms across her chest. "Why is the CCTV so important? The kidnap occurred at ten twelve last night. Footage for the next hour was looked at last night; didn't show a damned thing. Why on earth would film from the scene seven hours after the kidnap be anything but a waste of time?"
Sherlock stopped his pacing, but did not turn to look at her. Through gritted teeth, he said to Lestrade, "That's exactly what the kidnappers want everyone to think. When's the safest time to move a hostage? After everyone has stopped looking for him."
Behind Sally, the open plan office of the Met's Murder Investigation Teams was positively heaving with personnel. The story about the kidnapping was now all over the news wires. On the far wall of the office, a television screen mounted on the left wall was switched on, with the volume on low, with a reporter broadcasting from the pavement of Gresham Street. Across the bottom of the TV picture, a steady ticker was crawling across the screen.
BBC BREAKING NEWS- 21.17 BARCLAYS BANKER KIDNAP LATEST £1.3 billion ransom demand. LIVE BROADCAST from New Scotland Yard expected before midnight.
DC John Chambers of the Kidnap Unit arrived in the open plan room, carrying some boxes. Sherlock stopped his pacing mid-stride and darted out of Lestrade's office. He dodged around the officers standing around looking at the evidence board, and snatched the boxes of tapes from the Constable.
"I'll be in the media room, Lestrade. John, follow me."
"Sherlock- wait!" Lestrade grabbed Sherlock's arm as the consulting detective tried to slip past. Sherlock scowled at the offending hand.
"If you find something, get it to me ASAP. Anything, anything at all." The DI's expression was grim. "You know as well as I do that the first twenty four hours is crucial. I'm going into that press conference with nothing more to tell them than we are working on it. If you want to solve this, you are going to have to prove to both the City Police and the Kidnap Unit that you should be involved."
Sherlock shook Greg's hand off his arm. "Go, feed the voracious newshounds baying for something to put on their 24/7 news cycles." He headed off down the corridor, with John close on his heels.
Lestrade sighed, and looked across at Sally. "You know what he's like. He'll forget to keep us informed. He'll figure something important out but then go haring off after some suspect or other. Well, he can't do that on this one- there are too many egos involved on this case. So, get after him and watch what he is doing. Take Chambers with you. If he does come up with anything, text me in the press conference. "
Donovan's face betrayed both annoyance and disappointment. Greg knew that she had been hoping to be at the press conference- a chance for the DS to appear on television on such a high profile case was visibility that could boost an officer's career.
"Bloody hell, why do I have to do the babysitting?"
"Count yourself lucky, Detective Sergeant; he wouldn't tolerate anyone else in the room."
She shook her head in disbelief. "Why do we put up with his antics?"
"Because he solves cases, that's why. When the guy is returned to his family, then you'll be glad you followed my orders."
This was accompanied by Greg making a shooing motion with his hands. Sally got the message and stalked out, her disapproval clear in every stride. She collected the Kidnap Unit constable and headed down the corridor to the media room. It was a grand title for what was little more than a broom cupboard stuffed with every conceivable form of media player. DVDs and CDs players, VHS recorders, tape decks s of every conceivable shape and size- even an 8mm reel-to-reel player. It was dark, claustrophobic and so not where Sally wanted to be right now.
When she opened the door, she was greeted by a baritone growl. "Shut the door; the light is distracting."
"Found anything interesting yet, Holmes?" Her sarcasm was evident.
It was John Watson who answered. "For God's sake, Sally, give us a break. There are hours' worth of footage to go through."
Chambers had followed her into the room. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
"Shut up."
Sally huffed, turned to the constable and told him to go get two more chairs. "We might as well get comfortable. It's going to be a long night."
Once the door was closed again and the two officers got seated, Sally realised that the only light in the room came from the screen in front of Sherlock, who was concentrating on the grainy black and white footage.
Muttering just loud enough to be heard by Sherlock and John, she made her frustrations known to Chambers. "If the Freak could only describe what we are supposed to be looking for, then it would be possible to get another two sets of eyes on this. Scanning hours of CCTV footage is not something I would normally volunteer for, but if it saves a kidnap victim, I'm willing to do my share."
Without looking up from the screen, Sherlock retorted, "Donovan, given your limited attention span and total inability to actually understand what it is you are seeing, I don't trust you to do this."
By quarter past midnight, three of the four people in the room were getting restless. Sally and Constable were bored witless, watching Sherlock fixated on the screen. The only movement was when Sherlock took out one tape and inserted another. Occasionally, he jotted something down on a pad beside the screen. Even John was yawning. The Yard's black swill, otherwise known as coffee, was little help. Caffeine just racked up the friction levels.
At twenty three minutes past midnight, Sherlock suddenly leaned forward and hit the replay button. John stirred himself awake, brought to the surface by the movement of the taller man.
"What is it?"
The reply was a barely whispered, "Gotcha."
John, Sally and Chambers got to their feet and clustered around the screen, looking over Sherlock's shoulders. On the screen were not one but two different tapes running side by side, synchronised by the time stamp running across the bottom of each feed. The left side showed the CCTV camera on the side of the Schroders building looking eastwards on Gresham Street. The other film was from the other camera on the bank building, this one showing a view of Wood Street running north, starting roughly twenty meters up from the junction with Gresham. Annoyingly, it didn't include the suspect garage in view.
Sally was the one who voiced the question on their minds. "Holmes, you've been assuming that the hostage snatch vehicle spent the night in that garage and then drove out in the morning. But you can't see the garage on this camera- or any camera, for that matter. So how is this going to help?"
He snapped. "It's obvious. How can you not understand?"
John was tired and a bit fed up. "Tell us normal mortals, Sherlock. A little translation, please. I'm too tired to enjoy being insulted."
"You're the one who asked to be involved, John."
"Yeah. And what part of involved is sitting around watching you watch a screen without knowing what it is I am supposed to be seeing?" The doctor snapped this a bit.
"Very well. Don't just watch. Observe. The left screen shows every car that turns from Gresham onto Wood Street going north. The right screen shows every car going north on Wood Street twenty meters up from the junction. If there is no sign of a vehicle appearing to turn onto Wood Street, but it then shows up on the right hand screen, then it had to originate from one of the garages. Most of those that have done so since the four am start have been cars- and they're most likely to have come from the car garages on both sides- bankers and lawyers working late. But, we aren't looking for cars; we're looking for delivery vehicles. Ones that presumably stayed in the delivery bay overnight. Between six am and noon, there were plenty of arrivals- vans and trucks delivering stuff to the businesses that share Five Aldermanbury. But they are tracked coming in, as well as going out. There are only three vehicles leaving that delivery bay which were not tracked as entering. The first two were large trucks, which can be ruled out."
"Why?" Sally was suspicious.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Because neither would fit into the car garage on the south end of Wood Street. It has to be something small enough to get into that garage, so it can pop out behind the banker's car to make the snatch. How can you all be so stupid? That is the only place it could have come from, given that it was never caught on screen. It had seventy three seconds to leave one garage, make the snatch and hide in the second garage." He rewound the right had tape, watching the numbers, then flicked the mouse to stop it at 10.17am. Then he did the same on the left hand screen.
"This time, observe. Look first at the traffic on Gresham."
The left hand screen showed a mixture of normal traffic. Cars, delivery vans, a motorcycle courier. Then a big truck. "Watch the turn indicator lights."
John said it. "Two cars turned onto Wood Street."
"Now, look at the traffic going north."
The two cars that had turned appeared now on the right hand screen about ten seconds later. Only between them was a small white van. Sherlock froze the frame. "There's your kidnap vehicle. The license plate number is HN10 KVV- go check the DVLA database for ownership, but it's probably been reported as stolen. Sally, go tell Lestrade."
She nodded and got up, stopping at the door for just a moment. "Don't do anything crazy while I am out of the room."
Sherlock just sighed and waved her away.
"Constable… whatever-your- name-is… go check out the CCTV footage on this vehicle once it passes the City Police building – see if you can get a side view. There's some sort of writing on the side, but it isn't distinguishable from this view. Give me your phone."
The rather peremptory order startled the young man, who had the temerity to ask "Why?"
"Because I want to key in my phone number so you can text me when you find the answer, if that's not too much trouble." The last comment was heavy with sarcasm. Wordlessly, the constable handed over his phone, and Sherlock tapped away furiously.
John's brief dash of adrenaline from the discovery was fading, and he was suppressing the urge to yawn again. "Sherlock, what happens next?"
"I have to go through yesterday's footage and find out when it parked in the garage of Eversheds. That's the law firm, by the way, in the building on the south side of Wood Street. The warrant was for their car garage video records, which are in the other box. That might give us a clue."
"Can you do that without me? Or better, can you take it home with us? I haven't had a thing to eat in twelve hours, and it's probably even longer for you. If we are to catch these people, it won't be when we are comatose with exhaustion."
"Boring."
"Necessary."
Sherlock's left index finger tapped the keyboard in annoyance. There passed one of their staring contests. Nothing was said, but so much was going on between the two men that Chambers actually felt awkward. "Um, okay, I'm off now, back to Wood Street station to do that CCTV footage." He left in a hurry, leaving the two men still locking in their silent battle of wills.
"Oh, all right." In a swirl of coat, Sherlock grabbed the box from beside the computer and was out the door before John could get his eyes fully adjusted to the bright fluorescent lighting out in the halls of New Scotland Yard. He stumbled after the consulting detective, catching up with him just as he vanished down the stairwell.
Why does he never take the lift here? Wearily, John threw open the door and followed the figure running down the stairs.