"So, what brings you to the Task Force for the Second-Rate and In Disgrace?"
They both looked up to see a familiar lanky figure wandering in through the door. Andrew Davenport kicked the door shut behind him and helped himself to a mug of coffee, then dropped into the seat facing Eames, to whom he extended a hand. "Detective Eames, we haven't met before, but it's good to meet you."
"You too," Eames replied automatically. They were once more sitting in DS Hood's office with coffee, this time without DS Hood present. They, and he, were supposed to be going off to Towells Construction to interview Elahi's colleagues to see if they could get any leads on Elahi's behaviour before his death, try to find out why his path had crossed that of Mikhail Andropov. Hood was supposed to be joining them, but Eames guessed he'd gotten held up on the way.
She had the distinct impression that as far as most people on the task force were concerned, their investigation into the Elahis' murders wasn't especially high on the priority list. In a way, she guessed that made sense, since for all they knew it was entirely coincidental that Ranjit Elahi had been working on the City of London Stadium for a few weeks prior to his death and it was understandable that they wanted to avoid wasting resources on what could be a wild-goose chase. Nevertheless, as a senior Major Case detective she was used to getting respect, and it was annoying to be shunted off into the corner. "What makes you say that?"
Davenport grinned, a shark-like baring of teeth. "Well, as you may perhaps have noticed, everyone on this task force is one step below top level, and the reason for that is that the senior people are all off running round Gleneagles for the G8 summit."
"Yeah, I read about that on the way over," Bobby contributed from behind her.
Davenport nodded. "They're all here now… the heads of State for the eight richest countries in the world, all safely tucked up behind a safe fence in a godforsaken part of Scotland so they can have a nice chinwag and stuff themselves silly before posing for a photo opportunity with a few rock stars in attendance. The amount it's costing could finance my department for the next ten years."
"Speaking as someone whose head of state is currently visiting Gleneagles, I'm glad to hear that," Eames replied. "What is it you do, anyway? I thought you were some kind of liaison officer."
Davenport briefly made eye contact with Goren and raised an eyebrow humourously; Eames was privately amused to see Bobby squirm, just a little. (She knew all about that little incident, Sienna having once let slip the details of the exact circumstances in which she and Bobby had first gotten together under the influence of too much vodka one drunken night in Mallory's Bar.)
"I am. I'm also some kind of intelligence analyst; that's another job title I sometimes use…" He shrugged. "Basically, I'm employed to gather intelligence on the Eastern European and Russian mafias, and then decide what action is most appropriate for us to take to tackle them. I often liaise between MI5 and MI6, the Met, Interpol, plus various other intelligence services as and when the need arises, much like I'm doing now. I specialise in tackling the trafficking of women for prostitution, but exactly what I do varies depending on the circumstances."
"So why the hell are you here, working security for a soccer match?"
Davenport grinned again, apparently appreciating Goren's getting straight to the point. "Well, let me put it this way. This match was scheduled before the G8 summit. Ordinarily this would not be a big problem, but in addition to the G8 presidency, Britain is also holding the presidency of the European Union – it rotates every six months, it's our turn at the moment. There's a big EU summit going on in London at the moment on the future of Europe's energy supply; some bright spark decided that taking all the people attending that to the match would be a nice opportunity to display our ability to host major sporting events – London is pitching to host the 2012 Olympics at the moment – and also allow everyone there to make deals between closed doors without the media bothering them."
He sighed and rolled his neck, looking suddenly weary. "Because of the short notice, it's impossible to reschedule the match; the World Cup people won't allow it and the teams aren't available to play at any other time. It either goes ahead as planned or it gets cancelled, in which case the politicians lose major face and have to repay a shedload of money; all the money from the tickets which have already been sold, the TV rights… plus it sends a big signal that our security forces aren't up to the job, in which case we can kiss goodbye to the Olympics and all of us on this task force are likely to be out of a job. No-one here wants to be responsible for making that decision. Be prepared to be very unpopular if you turn up anything that suggests Elahi was killed because of something related to the match."
"You still haven't answered my question."
"I'm getting there. Basically, all the resources we've got available for managing security at a major political event have been spent on the G8 summit. Everyone on this task is either minding the shop in the boss's absence; that, or they got assigned to it as some kind of punishment duty… Hood's one of them; he's a good copper, but he made the mistake of agreeing to testify against a colleague for taking backhanders. You know what coppers can be like; rat on one of your own and your promotion prospects suddenly take a major dive."
Eames nodded, having encountered the old-boy network a couple of times herself. It occurred to her that Davenport had probably just answered the question of why he had been assigned to the security task force. "And you're another?"
Davenport smiled wryly. "Yes indeed. I got suspended from duty six months ago, and since then my boss has me running around wasting my time on things like this."
"You think this is a waste of time?"
"For me, yes, it is. I have no experience in this field. They'll let me do the crap jobs – following up leads, trying to get people in the foreign intelligence services to talk to us when they're all busy with the G8 summit and their response to being asked about security threats to a football match is to tell me to go and screw myself – but any time I try to give an opinion…" He rolled his eyes heavenwards. "It's really, really, bloody irritating, and whilst I'm pissing around here doing the sort of work they give kids who've just joined the service, the bastards out there who are trafficking women into this country are getting away with it."
"Oh, catching them all depends on you?" Goren commented. Eames silently agreed; Davenport's ego evidently wasn't small. Well, be fair, Bobby probably thinks the same way sometimes, only he doesn't say it out loud…
"It doesn't all depend on me, no… but I'm the best there is at what I do."
"Which is?"
"Catching those bastards by whatever means are necessary." Davenport's cellphone went off. He glared at it. "Excuse me, Mulligan wants me…" He sprang to his feet, collected his briefcase and headed for the door, muttering under his breath, "Bloody over-promoted irritating little bean-counter…"
Goren called after him, "What did you get suspended for?"
Davenport paused without turning round. "I left a surveillance operation to go rescue a… friend." He turned round and grinned. "Very unprofessional."
Goren nodded, then suddenly leaned forward, apparently on impulse. "Can you get me some background information on The Newcomers?"
Davenport raised an eyebrow, then nodded. "Sure. Not a problem, it'll be here when you get back."
Behind him, DS Hood entered the room with a uniformed officer in tow. Davenport slipped out behind him as Hood indicated that they should follow him.
"Sorry about that. Right, let's see if I can help you catch your killer." They followed him out of the room, past Davenport, who was stood in the corridor, talking into his cellphone: "CeeCee, I need your help… can you use any contacts you've got over in Russia, I need to know everything anyone knows about a guy named Mikhail Andropov…".
Looks as though he's on our side, she thought, but couldn't help wondering whether that was necessarily a good thing.
