Queen's Bet

By George G A Wensley

Carpenter and Kaminska continue their search for Dragor. To complicate things the remains of Dragor's daughter are found in Ramsgate. His strings are pulled in Treste Italy. He is involved in a plot to assassinate members of the Royal Family. The stress on Dragor is immense. Will he survive it? Carpenter and Kaminska must stop him, solve the murders and stop a massacre, that would surely start World War III. The story starts in Kent and ends in Balmoral Castle. The Queen's knowledge of betting and tennis help in the tense end of this story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legend Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787193758

George G A Wensley

George has for a long time done amateur photography concentrating on landscape photography, any people that appear in his photographs are there by chance. He enjoys poetry and short stories. Having achieved a certificate in creative writing he has learnt that some of the great novelists also wrote short stories and poetry as well. He admires people like HG Wells, Henning Mankell, Roald Dahl, Tolkien, Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway, Kathy Reichs and Anne Lamott. Some of their shorter works give an insight to the larger ones. George likes to go visit the places that appear in his novels and write about them in detail, then like Ernest Hemingway's tips of the Ice burgs include a small detail in the full scale novel. The Isle of Thanet appears in his second novel, while doing research for the second book 'Devil's Gate and his work for the certificate, he went to the Turner Gallery at Margate and wrote a piece called the Dreamlands (he had read The waste lands by T, S Eliot) to get the description out of him. There is also a piece called 'Venice in the Rain,' which he wrote because he was struggling with the end of the book and what was happening in the third. He wishes that he could say that he lives with cats but because he likes to travel it would be difficult to keep them, but he does like his small flat with a court yard garden in a market town in Kent.

Book preview

forgotten.

PART ONE

Chapter One

Reflection on Text: Murder

The room looked small with all the people in it. To Carpenter it looked dark, particularly when, as he was doing now, looking at a resin cast of Dragor’s finger. Cramped around the table were, DS Kaminska, CI Gower, DS Greywick, forensics tech Xian and ME Hawthorn.

There was a babble of conversation; Carpenter listened to snippets of it, which ranged from the price of coffee, to who was seeing who. Carpenter and Greywick didn’t engage in this conversation. Carpenter let go of his selfconsciousness and gently banged the table.

Thank you, ladies and DS Greywick.

There was a titter and a grunt to that.

Carpenter had an uneasy feeling that Kaminska was watching him. Assessing him, for what? His life was not good, but he was scared of bliss and that fear of it being taken away.

He drew himself away from that thought and started the meeting. Thank you for coming to this meeting. As you know we have caught and obtained a confession from the killer Timor, to the murder of Ilse Chemnitz. We could pat our-selves on the back, but we shouldn’t as the job is barely done. We still have to catch Dragor, a businessman based on Canary Wharf and who lives in Marylebone, and is at large now.

A door opened and a man walked in. He had a number four cropped haircut, its colour was white and black speckled grey, his eyes were doe brown, and the wrinkles that adorned his face showed that he smiled a lot. A smile wasn’t on his face now. He wore a shirt without a tie and a black well cut suit.

Does this room possess anything that will make a caffeine drink, preferably an espresso machine? The accent was LA Californian.

Carpenter started, Who the...

CI Gower, Jenifer to her friends, cut in. This is Marco Richmond. A company colour Sargent in the American Armed forces intelligence services.

All the eyes in the room were on Richmond, some with admiration, some with envy and some with suspicion. He raised two fingers side by side to his temple in salute and then resumed his hunt for coffee.

Carpenter chipped in. There’s a kettle over there on the counter with instant coffee, sugar and coffee mate. I’m afraid our budget won’t go to an espresso maker. Mine’s black with two sugars.

The room fell to silence, while Richmond made the coffee. He sampled his work. Hot and wet, the way I like it. Richmond placed a large latte mug in front of Carpenter, who hated large any things. It wasn’t a good start, but Carpenter was never good at starts.

Get back to work, that’s what I’m good at. Carpenter smiled at that thought, but the smile didn’t quite hide his distaste for the coffee in front of him. He took a sip. Mmmm, that’s nice. Welcome colour sergeant Marco Richmond. That name is a bit cumbersome, is there a shorter version?

Marco, not Mark, I’m very particular on the spelling of my name, I was named after the Piazza san Marco, my mother was Italian from Venice.

Marco it is then. Carpenter did the intros, noticing the reaction of the team to its new member. Kaminska’s was the most surprising, very polite, very wide eyed and as warm as her red dyed hair, but she fingered her silver cross, that hang around her neck, nervously almost yanking it off of her neck.

Carpenter said, Right, Marco, let me get you up to speed. I’m a member of the special branch police. We deal with special crimes, like spying against the realm, organised crime and murder, and finally protection of VIPs in the government and the Royal Family. As a consequence we work very closely with MI5; in fact we are seen as the enforcing side of MI5.

We had a murder of one Ilse Chemnitz, a young woman from the forma East Germany. I was brought in, because I have experience of investigating foreign nationals and in particular those from the forma DDR. It looked like a simple murder of passion, but there was a lot more going on. It was a professional hit at the behest of a London based Serb gangster come businessman called Dragor. The hit man Timor had a working relationship with Dragor that went way back before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

As sometimes happens the gangster becomes legit and the hit man languishes in a personal hell. Timor turned to alcohol and drugs; he then murders a drunk in an argument about a can of beer. Timor was sloppy and that meant we got him.

The communication between the two was by mobile phone, and not by any old mobile phone, it was part of a batch of six mobile phones in London, or as Marco would call them ‘cell phones.’ We found one that had been dumped in the Thames, and then they switched to the second to communicate. The third was used to blow up a military site near to Seven Oaks in Kent, where they analysed I.A.D.s I guess this is where you come in Marco?

Yes, I’m attached to N.C.I.S. my boss’s son was killed in that bomb. I’m here to find the murdering sons of bitches, with your assistance.

Carpenter bristled at that. We are allies in this cause to find Dragor. He may not be the head of the dragon, but he must be found. Recently we have had information that his daughter was murdered at Pegwell Bay near Ramsgate.

The coffee that Marco had drunk seemed to have had a calming effect. I would like to examine the forensic evidence available on the cell phones.

Carpenter got nettled, We call them mobile phones, and as I’m in charge of the day to day investigations and the majority of the personnel on the team are English, Gower and Kaminska gave him a sharp look, we shall refer to them as mobile phones.

Hey! We speak the same language. Don’t we?

Yes, but in different dialects of English.

Gower the leader of the group spoke for the first time, the accent was Swansea Welsh, which for people that knew her, meant that she was angry and losing control of her carefully constructed calm barrier to her inner self. Gentlemen we seek the same objectives! We will not achieve them if we fight each other.

Carpenter and Marco said in unison. We’re not fighting.

What in hell’s name are you doing then?

Carpenter got in first, Getting a pecking order established.

Richmond drawled, We’re finding the correct US of A, Brit protocol.

Gower had calmed a little and she sounded a bit more English. Semantics, you are fighting. Marco you are here to observe. Gordon you are here to do. Now both of you sit and wag your tails.

*

The apartment over-looked the Grand Canal in Trieste. The Canal was a cut in the earth to allow ships to enter the only port of the Austro Hungarian Empire. A coup for that land locked Royal institution the Hapsburgs. To look at the man in the apartment, he looked like a normal kind of a person, with the normal fears and aspirations. But he was not normal; he was on a personal mission, handed down to him, from his parents and their parents, the destruction of the greatest still living dynasty. This is why he was sending a message to London. The resentments of his parents bore heavily down on him.

*

Dragor sat in his apartment that was opposite the Marylebone Hotel. He was grinding his way through a bottle of slivovitz plum hooch liquor, from his native Serbia. Other people were in the room as well, he mechanically went through the social motions, and it was as if he was on social auto pilot. He didn’t know what he was saying, but at the moment nobody took umbrage, and it wouldn’t be a problem for long, if it was.

The doorbell rang; it wasn’t an unusual event as he was giving a party. He went to the door and opened it. It was a despatch rider, by the grease and rubber smears on the leathers and the helmet he was wearing. Strictly speaking despatch riders should take their helmets off. Take your helmet off.

The helmet moved from left to right and then back again. From a large sack he took out a fancy red metallic bag with waxed white handles. Dragor knew now why he or she kept their helmet on, Is there anything to sign for?

Again there was a shake of the head; the rider wasn’t Bulgarian or Greek then.

Dragor took the bag and went back into the party. He shouted, Everyone out!

There was a chorus of objections, Hey we were having such a good time, come on Dragor, one more for the road.

Out, now!

Dragor nodded to a minder, the minder did crunchy things with his knuckles. The crowd reluctantly left the apartment, none willingly. To compensate themselves some picked up a bottle of this or a bag of that.

Finally he was alone and saw the miasma on his coffee table, the empty cans, half empty glasses, some frosted with condensation, some with sugar and some with other substances. It was no good he would have to tidy this crap up. He got a tray and loaded it up and down loaded it to his dish washer, and had to make several trips to complete this task. Then he got a bottle with a trigger on it, squirted some cleaner onto the surface of the coffee table, and wiped it with a fibre cloth. The next part of the ritual was to put two coasters on it, then a glass and a bottle of beer onto the coasters. He opened the bottle, poured the drink and took a few gulps.

In the bag was a neatly tied up parcel with a bow on it. He undid the bow, drawing the string slowly, so as not to offend the parcel and to delay seeing what they wanted. The paper was metallic red, and was cut so sharply that it nearly drew blood from Dragor as he opened it. Inside the parcel was a red leather covered box, with a lid that was hinged and fastened with a hook. His hands trembled as he turned the key and he released the lid. It was a music box with red velvet linings and a curved faceted mirror at the back. A small ballerina erected and pirouetted constantly to the metallic automatic music.

In a compartment was a Blackberry, his fingers shook, he gulped beer down and got another one. Then picked up the phone and unlocked it. There was a notification, he opened it. He read the posting, it was fantastically evil. He had to eliminate some one dear to most of the British public in Scotland; security was too great in London. It was a suicidal mission, it was a no win mission, he could be caught and spend a long time in interrogation with a long sentence afterwards. He could be killed, end of story. He could succeed and get the glory. Then he would be hunted for the rest of his life. Show trials were expensive now, so it would be cheaper for them, for him to be shot in a fire fight, or just shot, or…

At the bottom of the text was the legend, Phone me, if you don’t, you will self-destruct and not the phone. He touch scrolled to contacts, as if he had a choice. There was only one contact and that had an Italian area code. He pressed the dial button. The conversation started in Serbo-Croat, Hello this is Dragor.

The voice that was just outside Trieste sat on a