The Baker's Dozen

By Harry Waterman

Private investigation specialists, PROBE, headed up by Alan and Melanie Cornish, together with SIO Ronnie Jarvis from the Metropolitan Police are tasked with identifying and catching an elusive, unrelenting assassin who has brutally murdered six male OAPs in the London area.

It would appear that robbery is not the reason for the killings. So what is the real motive behind their horrific deaths?

A list of names leaked from MI6 is a precious clue to the killer’s motive; but can he be found and stopped before more of his victims are murdered?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Haydn Jones
• Release date: Mar 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224116935

Harry Waterman

Haydn Jones is an author of adult fiction. He lives in the UK and his books are available from Watermark Publications on Smashwords, Amazon and Apple.Haydn has released a number of novels in different genres, including: The Angels of Destiny, The Devil and the Unicorn and The Journal of Harry Somerville.Under the pen name of, Harry Waterman, he has written a murder mystery trilogy with includes: Shroud the Truth With Silence, Retribution and the recently released Bulldogs and Pure Silk.The trilogy is available as a download, paperback and hardback.

Book preview

Chapter One

A Russian bar on Pokrovka Street, Moscow.

Summer, 1970.

A

layer of cigarette smoke hovered like a cloud under the tar-stained ceiling of the bar and loud music played from two box speakers, one on each side of the small stage. The bar was filling rapidly with excited, young Muscovites gathering to watch a live performance by the popular and talented singer, Vladimir Visotsky. An announcement by the bar manager informed the crowd that Visotsky was due on stage in about fifteen minutes—instigating loud cheers and fist pumps from the singer’s enthusiastic fans; mostly young people blissfully unaware of the frenetic world around them. A world hidden from them by the controlling hand of Leonid Brezhnev’s Communist Party.

It was the perfect place to talk in private and a surveillance nightmare for the KGB, Russia’s Secret Police, who were everywhere in the city; watching and listening, trusting no-one. Paranoid.

In a far corner of the bar, an Englishman named Stan Baker, leaned forward and moved his Queen’s Bishop.

‘Checkmate in two,’ he said, relaxing back into his chair.

His playing partner sighed, knowing defeat was inevitable.

‘…Sometimes I wonder why I bother to play against you,’ he said, lighting a Marlboro Red.

Baker laughed and poured some more vodka from the bottle into their glasses.

‘Don’t be so despondent, Yuri. It’s only a game.’

The Russian responded by pointing a finger at his opponent and saying:

‘Yes—It is only a game my friend, but a game you hate to lose. May I remind you that I’m supposed to win—I’m the Russian—you’re English! With that the Russian glanced at his watch.

‘Don’t be nervous Yuri, everything is going to be okay.’

KGB agent, Yuri Peskov, nodded and breathed in loudly through his nostrils.

Stan Baker downed his shot of vodka and with trained eyes surveyed the gathering crowd in front of him.

Leaning towards the Russian he said:

‘Relax… You know what you have to do. He will recognise you from the photos and that will reassure him. I’ll be in the car outside the arrivals terminal waiting for you. He will be far more nervous than you, Yuri, I guarantee it.’

After lighting a cigarette and refilling their drinks from the vodka bottle on the table, Stan Baker continued:

‘We’ll torch the car with him in it and by the time your boys realise the other charred body in the burnt out wreck is not actually you , it will be too late, because by then, my friend, we will be on a diplomatic flight to the UK, enjoying the very best vodka and caviar. You have earned your passage to a better life—so grasp it with both hands.’

‘But, to Mother Russia, I will be a traitor, my friend—So, I ask you—what is the difference, really?’

Stan Baker leaned forward. ‘It’s all about your conscience, Yuri. Your choice between truth or propaganda, free speech or imprisonment. Democracy or authoritarianism.’

The Russian nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘And I’ve made my choice.’

Yuri Peskov had become disillusioned with communism and sick of the corruption that emanated from every aspect of life in the ‘Motherland.’ He was sick of the paranoia, the baseless lies and the copious propaganda that the Kremlin spewed out to brainwash its gullible masses. (The same authoritarianism Stalin impregnated into Kim II-sung’s psyche; founder of Communist North Korea in 1948).

When still at school, Yuri Peskov had been identified by a curator as ‘Party Potential’ and was later funded by the KGB to study logistics at the prestigious Moscow State University (MSU). Today he was a young man, with no family, in a very senior role within the feared KGB, but thanks to the Englishman, Peskov had been a double agent, working for the UK for the past five years; handing over valuable, sensitive information about the Kremlin’s military capabilities, operations and mind set. But now it was time for him to get out, before the inevitable happened. Peskov was extremely valuable to the West and it was Stan Baker’s task to get him out of Russia, alive.

But before that, the British double-agent, arriving shortly in Moscow on a flight from Heathrow, had to be terminated; even though the sensitive military information he was carrying was bogus, the British agent, and the KGB, didn’t know that. To the KGB he would be a rare and welcome defector to the East and a major coup for the Kremlin.

It was to be Yuri Peskov’s ‘pièce de résistance’; it was he who’d arranged the rare west-to-east defection with the drunken president’s personal approval. Peskov would be a hero. He would be invited to drink vodka in the Kremlin with Brezhnev and the president would pat him on the back and shake his hand, grateful to him for showing Moscow the West’s poker hand.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, the president would be red with rage on hearing the devastating news that a senior KGB officer had defected to the West, and the British double-agent had been murdered on the very day he stepped onto Russian soil.

But, before all of that, there was equally pressing business to attend to right now. The two chess players, both steeped in the shady world of espionage, knew the next few minutes would be critical to the success of the whole operation.

The Englishman stood up and said:

‘See you soon, and do exactly as I’ve instructed. Trust me, my friend, and very soon we’ll know if my hunch was correct.’

He then manoeuvred his way through the boisterous crowd and out onto Pokrovka Street. The Russian nervously poured more vodka into his shot glass and downed it, before replacing, with a trembling hand, the chess pieces on the board.

Was this really the beginning of a new life, a better life? He dare not dream…not yet, not until he’d survived the next few, possibly perilous, minutes, if indeed he survived them at all. His life was firmly in the hands of the British agent that he’d come to trust like a brother. And now that bond of friendship was about to be put to the test.

Just then the place erupted into loud cheers as Vladimir Visotsky walked out onto the stage with guitar in hand.

That was Peskov’s cue. As the music started the tall Russian stood up and squeezed his way through the revellers towards the gents toilet on the far, west wall. At the same time as Peskov entered the toilet a stoney faced KGB agent entered the bar. In his right hand he was holding a gun, hidden inside his coat. He jostled his way through the excited crowd towards the toilet and, as he did, the front door opened and Stan Baker walked in behind him.

Peskov’s heart was pounding in his chest as he pushed open the door to the first of four toilet cubicles. He then, with trembling hands, struggled to unbutton his trousers and tried, unsuccessfully, to piss. His thoughts were elsewhere; his mind was in turmoil. His orders were to do nothing, just wait. As he buttoned up his trousers his body stiffened when he felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel press into the back of his neck. A familiar voice, speaking in Russian, said:

‘My instincts were right. I knew you were a traitor, Peskov. You deserve to die, you two-faced, imperialist pig!’

Then came the dull hiss of a gun fitted with a silencer and Peskov collapsed onto the toilet.

‘…Sorry I'm a bit late,’ said Stan Baker.

Peskov opened his eyes to see his fellow KGB agent slumped at his feet with a splintered bullet hole in this right temple.

‘That was a close call,’ noted Baker, unscrewing the silencer from his Glock. ‘That Visotsky guy is very popular, the bar is jammed full of his supporters.’

Peskov’s legs suddenly felt like jelly and he had to grab the cubicle door to support himself.

Baker then said:

‘Let’s get him in and lock the door.’ Both men then lifted the dead KGB agent and propped him on the toilet. They then quickly wiped the blood splashes from the side wall, floor and cubicles. With adrenaline pumping through his veins Peskov pulled himself up onto the top of the cubicle door and leaning over the top, pulled it shut, before reaching down and sliding the door latch across, locking the dead agent—precariously balanced on the toilet—in the cubicle. Peskov looked down at the open mouthed, contorted face of his fellow agent; who seemed to be looking up at him with an expression of utter disbelief. He shuddered as he realised just how close he’d come to being shot in the head.

Stan Baker glanced at his watch and said:

‘Come on! Let’s get out of here! It’ll be a while before they find him and we’ve got a busy few hours ahead of us. It’s time we made our way to the airport so that you can welcome your British defector to the USSR.’

Peskov dropped down to the floor, turned and placed his hands on the Englishman’s shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ he said… ‘You were right about him. How did you know?’

Stan Baker smiled and replied:

‘I’ve always been a good judge of character.’

‘Thankfully,’ replied an ashen-faced Yuri Peskov and glancing down, confessed:

‘I’ve pissed myself!’

Stan Baker laughed and said:

‘You can blame me for that.

Chapter Two

Metropolitan Police Headquarters,

Victoria Embankment, London.

Present day

T

hat’s all I fucking need! thought Detective Inspector Ronnie Jarvis as he ended the call from the incident room. ‘What the fuck is going on?’ He grabbed his cigarettes and headed down the corridor to the lifts.

Moments later he was out in the warm, afternoon sunshine lighting a cigarette on the embankment and gazing over at the large, white, observation wheel that was the London Eye, on the South Bank of the tranquil River Thames.

Unlike the tranquil river, DI Jarvis, was agitated more than usual. He was never relaxed but today he was really agitated. His desk was stacked with ‘open’ files and the workload was getting worse. There simply wasn’t enough hours in the day and there certainly wasn’t enough understanding or appreciation from above, and certainly not enough financial reward for the amount of hours he spent on the job. But the main reason for his agitation today was, Fran. Fran—his ‘latest bird’—as he liked to describe her, had called him at one in the morning, half pissed again, to call off their somewhat turbulent, relationship of six weeks. Jarvis was rocked to the core. Was the woman insane, dumping DI Ronnie Jarvis? He knew he was a catch and he knew he was good in bed, so why on earth would she want to call it off? Admittedly he wasn’t a young stud anymore but he knew he was still a looker.

Then came the cold-blooded moment of self doubt.

‘Are you kidding yourself?’ he asked himself, as he walked along the embankment…‘Are you becoming delusional?’

And then he remembered just how much he’d spent on his teeth, tanning booths and botox—and the self doubt evaporated as quickly as it had materialised. Thankfully, he was unaware that his colleagues had nicknamed him, ‘Strictly.’

‘…Fuck you, Fran! I don’t need you,’ he said, loud enough to turn the heads of a few nearby pedestrians. ‘It’s your loss—not mine,’ he concluded.

After he’d finished his cigarette he took his mobile out of his pocket and fast dialled his colleague, Detective Sergeant Colin Nakalembe.

‘Yes, boss?’ came the reply.

‘Bring the car around to the front, Colin, I’ll meet you there. We’ve got another murder on our hands.’

‘Who is it this time?’

‘Another old-aged-pensioner.’

‘Yeah. A seventy-one-year-old by the name of Arthur Lewis.’

‘What’s going on? That’s four in the last two weeks!’

Jarvis stepped on his cigarette butt and ground it into the pavement. ‘I know,’ he replied, trying to muster a morsel of enthusiasm. ‘Someone is getting a kick out of killing old men. And it’s not for their money either. I hate to admit it, Colin, but I fear that we’ve got yet another serial killer on the loose.’

Ronnie Jarvis walked back to the front of the building and DS Nakalembe was sitting in his car outside the main entrance waiting for him. Jarvis opened the passenger door and got in.

Looking at each other, Nakalembe asked:

‘Same MO?’

‘Yeah. Throat cut from ear-to-ear. And, Colin, there will be no witnesses and no fucking fingerprints either.’ Jarvis popped a chewing gum into his mouth.

‘Professional killers, for sure.’

‘Yeah. But what do these old men have in common—if anything? and why does someone want ‘em dead? Looking at their profiles, they’re just ordinary people. And I bet this case will be the same. No evidence of a robbery—just a mutilated, dead pensioner.’

‘Where are we going?’ asked DS Nakalembe.

‘Lily Mews, Elephant and Castle. Just follow my Google Maps.’

‘Revenge killings?’ Nakalembe suggested.

Jarvis sighed. ‘Or just another psychopath feeding their sadistic appetite. Do you know what, mate?—nothing surprises me anymore.’

‘You okay, Boss?’

‘What do you mean, am I okay?’

‘Well, you seem a bit—stressed.’

Jarvis glanced at his colleague with a look of astonishment. ‘…I’m a fucking DI, you nob! It goes with the territory. Come on, switch the disco lights on and put your big fucking foot down.’

Moments later DS Nakalembe smiled contentedly as they headed south over the River Thames with the car’s blue lights flashing and siren sounding. He knew it was, without doubt, the best way to get around London.

When they arrived at the murder scene in Lily Mews, the forensics team were already there; together with a number of police vehicles and ambulances sporting a plethora of flashing blue lights. ‘Crime scene’ tape was draped across the road, blocking off the area to pedestrians and vehicles. The victim’s house was a normal, middle of terrace, three-story building and like most of the other dwellings in the mews, made of London Brick, with protruding cream