Wow, so sorry this chapter has taken so long! Sometimes the words flow like water, sometimes they trickle and sometimes they just drip. This chapter has been a dripper!

Chapter Fifty Three

After supper, when the nanny took the twins upstairs to get them ready for bed, Mycroft excused himself from bedtime story duty and went to attend to that urgent business. Seated at his desk, he took DVD 'B' out of its box and fitted it into the disc drive in his laptop then settled back to see what it would reveal.

The image that appeared was of Arthur, sitting on a plain upright chair, staring straight at the camera – or rather just below the sightline of the camera. He was slouched forward in his seat, with forearms resting on thighs. He looked most dishevelled. He was wearing the same hospital scrubs that he had been found in, by the police on the moor. He appeared rather pale and drawn and he swallowed repeatedly, licking his lips, which appeared quite parched. All in all, he looked most unwell.

In the background, off to the right of screen, Mycroft could see the legs and lower torso of another man dressed in light coloured jogger bottoms and a sweater. There was a strange, intermittent background noise, which Mycroft immediately identified as a recorded soundtrack and he understood what Arthur and the other man were doing. They were watching porn.

Classic Aversion therapy technique, Mycroft thought. One gives the subject a noxious substance which makes them feel very ill then one shows them images of the target behaviour – in this case, same-sex couplings. Well, good luck with that, he thought. Arthur was no devotee of gay porn. He was a doer, not a watcher. But Mycroft had seen Arthur's medical report and he'd seen the state of the man himself. He knew that watching porn films whilst feeling like death warmed over would have been just the beginning of his ordeal.

He paused the DVD and rose to cross to his drinks tray, on the sideboard. It was a little early for a shot of his favourite single malt but he felt the need for some fortification. This was going to be a tough ordeal.

ooOoo

Mycroft stepped from the antique lift in the Whitehall building and walked along the corridor to Anthea's office and, via that, to the door of his own inner sanctum.

'Good morning, sir,' Anthea greeted him, rising from her desk to make her boss's morning cup of tea.

'I'll take coffee today, please, my dear,' he interjected.

She nodded but made no comment about the dark shadows under his eyes and the strain that showed in the stiff set of his shoulders. A bad night, she surmised. She hoped that Arthur had not suffered a setback in his rehabilitation, following his terrible ordeal. Things had seemed so positive, yesterday.

Anthea tapped on Mycroft's office door and entered without waiting for an invitation, as she knew she was expected. Mycroft was sitting at his desk, elbows on the table, head in hands. Anthea approached and placed the cup of freshly brewed coffee on the desk in front of her boss then stood back, waiting for him to begin their usual morning briefing. He smoothed his hands over his scalp and sat up straight, inviting her with a hand gesture to take a seat.

He took a sip of the strong, dark brew and gave her a strained smile.

'What do you have for me today, my dear?' he asked.

Anthea ran through a round-up of everything of interest or importance that had occurred overnight and Mycroft interrupted, occasionally, to ask questions or give instructions, until they came to the final item on the list.

'Frayne's accomplice, sir.'

'Oh, yes? Er, Cranbrook, wasn't it? Thomas Cranbrook?'

Marcus Frayne had happily turned Queen's Evidence on Cranbrook, after Anthea disclosed that the young man had gone off-piste on the day of the kidnap and followed his own agenda.

'Yes, sir. We've picked him up, at last. Frayne's intel was a little out of date. Cranbrook was about to board a plane for America, under an assumed name, but Fax Rex ID'ed him and the border police detained him at Heathrow, last night.'

'Where is he now?' Mycroft asked, with a tightness in his voice that betrayed the strong feelings that a mention of Frayne's partner in crime provoked in him.

'He's downstairs, sir,' Anthea replied.

'Has anyone spoken to him yet?'

'No, sir. We thought you might wish to speak with him yourself.'

'No, actually, I don't. If I were in the same room as him I might not be responsible for my actions. But I would like you to, my dear, and I will observe,' Mycroft instructed.

Anthea nodded and rose to leave.

'I'll be with you in about half an hour,' Mycroft advised her and she left to arrange a little chat with the latest detainee.

As Anthea departed, Mycroft took out his mobile phone and dialled Eve Matthews' number. The doctor answered right away.

'Mycroft, hello,' she greeted him. 'I received your email this morning and I've just finished viewing the contents.'

'And what is your opinion, doctor?' he asked.

'I agree entirely with your analysis and I will certainly be using it in my session with Arthur today but I would like to make an additional suggestion.'

'Which is?'

'I'd like to show him the DVD footage.'

'Do you think that's wise? Would it not be too traumatic, reliving the experience over again?' Mycroft was frankly appalled at the idea of showing Arthur the video of his own brainwashing.

'Quite the opposite, Mycroft. He's already reliving it, in his mind, but the version he has is not terribly accurate. I believe taking him through the actual experience – with sensitivity, of course – would be most therapeutic. I could point out to him all the techniques employed and the utter inevitability of the outcome. I think it would help him enormously.'

Mycroft considered that idea and then gave his consent.

'I trust your judgement, Dr Matthews. Please keep me advised,' he concluded and closed the call.

ooOoo

Thomas Cranbrook was an easy nut to crack. In fact, by the time he was led into the interview room and seated opposite Anthea, he was already showing clear signs of crumbling. Being apprehended by the armed airport police, transported to the underground car park on Whitehall and then transferred to a holding cell without so much as a caution or a reason being given for his incarceration, his fertile imagination had done most of the work already. The young man was visibly shaking when he took his seat, his eyes wild and his face dripping with perspiration.

Anthea's first question, asking him where he was on the day of Arthur's kidnaping, was all it took to loosen his tongue. He cooperated unreservedly and confirmed all the details of the operation that Mycroft's team had already pieced together and showed no hesitation in naming Frayne as the mastermind of the operation. His only objective was saving his own skin. Anthea let him talk on, uninterrupted, until he came to the end of his febrile soliloquy and slumped back in his seat, snivelling pathetically.

There was a pregnant pause, as Anthea waited for Mycroft – sitting in the Observation Room and linked to her by the ear piece she wore concealed by her hair – to give her instructions.

'Ask him about the personal effects,' he growled.

'What did you do with the target's personal effects, Mr Cranbrook?'

The young man looked up, confused.

'I told you what I did with them. I burned them, as I was instructed,' he exclaimed.

'You told us you burned the backpack and its contents,' Anthea confirmed.

'Well, that was it! That was all the personal effects that I dealt with.'

'I think not, Mr Cranbrook,' Anthea replied.

'I don't know what you're talking about!' he screeched.

'I'm coming in,' Mycroft hissed in Anthea's ear, so she continued to stare at the man opposite but said nothing.

When Mycroft walked into the Interview Room, Thomas Cranbrook gave him a hopeful look but this soon disappeared when Anthea rose from the table and the new man took her place. His cold stare was enough to assure the interviewee that he was not a saviour but possibly an executioner.

'Good morning, Mr Cranbrook. Thank you for your co-operation – thus far,' Mycroft intoned, with a lizard smile. 'But there is just one small matter to be resolved and I would like to point out to you, sir, that your entire future may depend on how you respond to my next question.'

'You can't threaten me like that! I'm a British citizen and I have rights!' Cranbrook squawked.

'You, sir, are a terrorist and, as such, you have very few rights whatsoever,' Mycroft replied, smoothly.

'A terrorist? What the hell are you talking about?' the suspect gasped.

'You are part of a terror organisation that is committed to bringing down the democratically elected government of the United Kingdom. The person that you abducted was a Person of Significance to a high ranking government official. That person was to be used to discredit that government official and, through him, the government itself.'

'No! That's not true! I'm not part of any organisation! I'm a freelance. I work for whoever pays the most!' He was babbling, scanning the room with wild eyes, beseeching somebody – anybody – to call a halt to this nightmare scenario. But no one came to his aid.

'Mr Cranbrook, I am sorry to inform you that, on this occasion, the people paying the most were affiliated to a home-grown terror organisation known as Combat 18. You may have heard of them?' Mycroft explained, patiently.

'But I don't belong to them!' Cranbrook insisted. 'I was working for Marcus Frayne. He brought me in. Ask him, he'll tell you!'

'Unfortunately Mr Frayne is no longer available to be consulted on the matter and, to be frank, even if he were, I doubt he would be prepared to vouch for you. You see, Mr Cranbrook, despite how it may appear, Marcus Frayne does have a moral code of sorts and he does not appreciate having a common thief on the payroll.'

The light of realisation suddenly dawned on the suspect's face and he swallowed, reflexively. This did not go unnoticed by his interrogator.

'So, sir, I repeat my colleague's question. What did you do with the target's personal effects?' Mycroft brow beetled as he spoke these words with cold precision.

'D-do you mean the-the…ring and the w-watch…?' Cranbrook spoke barely above a whisper.

'Indeed I do, Mr Cranbrook. The ring and the watch that you removed from the target's person, in the park, while you were pretending to render First Aid and your accomplice was calling the bogus ambulance. Where are they now?'

'I sold them…on eBay,' the suspect mumbled, despondently.

'On what?' Mycroft asked.

'It's an online auction site, sir,' Anthea explained, leaning in towards her boss to impart this information.

Mycroft stared hard at the man opposite, not sure what aspect of the man disgusted him the most – the greedy opportunist thief or the moron who sold his ill-gotten gains on a public auction site.

'Take this creature away,' Mycroft hissed, venomously, pushing up from the table and rising to his full height. He and Anthea watched as the gibbering man was dragged away by the guards, to be returned to his cell. When they were alone, he turned to his PA and said,

'Put Tech onto that website. I want that sale tracked and those items returned to me.'

Anthea nodded, already tapping on her mobile phone giving the necessary instructions.

ooOoo

Nearly there, folks! Thank you for your patience, for your favs and follows and especially for your reviews. They are all very much appreciated.