The Ardmore Inheritance by Rob Wyllie (reading the story of the .txt) 📕

'Sweet,' she said. 'It's just like a shame we don't work for MI5 or MI6.'

He looked at her sharply. 'What do you mean?'

She shrugged. 'They monitor every phone call in the universe. They've got the phone databases mounted twenty-four-by-seven, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Permanently online.'

Frank leapt to his feet, knocking over the flimsy chair in the process.

'Eleanor, come with me.'

◆◆◆

They found DC Ronnie French in his normal repose, leaning back in his swivel chair with his feet on the desk, phone jammed between his shoulder and cheek whilst he swigged from a beverage can. For a worrying moment Frank thought he was enjoying a sneaky beer, but on closer inspection he saw it was one of these caffeine-boost drinks, the kind that were supposed to give you wings. But never mind wings, it would have its work cut out just to get Frenchie off his fat arse.

He looked up and seeing Frank, shot him a nervous smile before judging it would be prudent to bring his call to a close.

'Yeah...yeah Harry, look mate, got to go. Thanks for that nugget mate, yeah nice one. See ya.'

'On to your bookie then Ronnie?' Frank said, conveniently forgetting that gambling had moved online ten years ago or more.

'That was Harry guv,' he said, unconcerned, 'one of me snouts. Given me a tip-off for a jewel job up the West End he has.'

Frank shook his head. 'You've been watching too many old episodes of the Sweeney mate, nobody nicks jewels these days. But what we're here for is to ask you about that pal of yours, Jason or something like that. The guy we used on the Aphrodite case, you remember?'

'Yeah, Jayden guv. The Jamaican lad with the dreadlocks.'

'That's him. Is he still at Thames House, with the MI5 crew?'

Frenchie gave an uncertain look. 'Yeah, I think so, although we've not touched base for a while. Got a job for him have you?'

'Aye we have. I'll leave you in the good hands of Eleanor here who'll tell you what we need him to do for us.'

'And what would be in it for him?' Frenchie asked. 'Because me and Jayden have always worked on a you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours basis. He won't do nothing for nothing, Jayden won't.'

Frank gave a sardonic smile. 'Aye, really public-spirited then. But I seem to recall that your mate loves the ladies, am I right?'

'Yeah, he loves them all right guv,' Frenchie grinned. 'Mind you, they like him too. He's always getting himself into bother on that score. He's a bad lad.'

'Perfect,' Frank said, 'so you can tell him there'll be a hot date waiting for him up in Manchester when he's done. And tell him we'll supply the handcuffs.'

◆◆◆

It was just six days later when Eleanor and Frenchie got back to him, considerably quicker than he'd expected given his admittedly vague understanding of the complexity of the matter. But then again, he assumed that the spooks had all of this stuff off to a fine art, with the phone records of every one of the UK's sixty-six million souls on tap, twenty-four-by-seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, as she had said. He thought it must be a giant pile of tedious routine, sixty-six million instances every day of I'll be five minutes late or I've just got on the train and suchlike, which made Frank wonder about the value of keeping it all. But in amongst it all, like the tiniest needle in a haystack the size of a galaxy, would be the stuff in which they were really interested. The coded messages arranging the terrorist outrage, the exchange of images between members of the paedophile ring, the malign activities of the hostile foreign power. That was the good stuff, and all the other crap was the price the authorities had to pay to get their hands on it.

She'd booked one of the big conference rooms in Maida Vale labs, the one with the full-wall multi-media display panels, which he took as a good sign. There was a lot of online form-filling required to get your hands on one of them, and he knew she wouldn't have gone to all the bother if she hadn't some good news to report. The room was big enough to host fifty or sixty, but today only three others besides himself were in residence. Eleanor Campbell, Ronnie French and a tall rangy Rastafarian in a Hawaiian shirt who Frank assumed was Jayden the MI5 spook, or Intelligence Analyst, to give him his proper title.

'Morning all,' Frank said brightly, tossing his notepad down on the table and pulling out a chair. 'I guess you're Jayden.'

'Sure man,' the Rastafarian replied, 'that's me.'

'Well thanks for helping us out with this,' Frank said. 'It's much appreciated.'

Jayden raised a languid hand and lounged back in his chair. 'Pleasure man.'

Frank smiled to himself. That was the thing about stereotypes. They so very often turn out to be true, not that he was bothered, because Jayden seemed like a cool guy. The only think that was missing was his piña colada. Or, when he thought about it again, his joint.

Eleanor hammered a few commands into her wireless keyboard and the wall was filled with a giant map of the UK.

'So Jayden mounted the cell phone data records for the dates where we had the information on Georgie's activities.'

'Geordie.'

'Yeah Geordie, soz. Anyway, watch this.'

She punched in another few characters and a series of blue flashing dots appeared on the map.

'So these are the locations where he sprayed that weird graffiti and you can see on the label below the dot the date and times he was there.'

Frank stood up and peered at the screen through narrowed eyes.

'Aye, so it's mainly in the London area but there's that one up in Manchester I can see. I'm guessing that's ACC Frost's place?'

'I wouldn't mind getting an invite there myself some time,' Ronnie French said. 'Know what I mean?'

'Two things Frenchie,' Frank said, giving him a