Passing the buck, Silva thought. Both governments suspected Brandon Hope could well be a conduit between Haddad and the terrorists, but they weren’t prepared to risk the loss of the lucrative arms trade. The death of innocent civilians didn’t appear to have weighed on their consciences at all.
Silva knew that kind of moral myopia would have incensed her mother, and she could well imagine the memo being the catalyst that had triggered the investigation into the Hopes. The problem was that her mother had miscalculated the lengths the family would go to in order to fulfil their political ambitions. In short, Francisca da Silva had been murdered so Karen Hope could become president.
They finished their tour of the port after speaking to Border Force officials and the port police but without telling anyone the purpose of their visit. As good as her word, Cornish took them to a truckers’ cafe just up the road. A huge mug of dark tea and a plate of sausages, eggs, hash browns and baked beans put Holm in a much better mood. He mopped up the last of his egg with a piece of bread and pushed his plate away.
‘This doesn’t go any further,’ he said. ‘We need to keep a lid on it to prevent anybody getting tipped off. So nothing up the ranks or down, OK?’
Cornish nodded. ‘Sure.’
‘You suspected people smuggling, right?’ Holm couldn’t help but glance to his left where two truckers conversed in a language he couldn’t place. Cornish nodded again. ‘Well I think you’re bang on.’
‘Right. My preliminary hunch is this is something to do with Eastern European women sold into sex slavery.’
‘We’re MI5, remember? As unpleasant as your hunch sounds, that wouldn’t interest us.’ Holm turned his head to look out the window. Next door was yet another haulier’s. Dozens of containers. Truck cabs parked in a line. ‘Imagine if a couple of terrorists were hiding in the depths of a container. Their chance of being discovered would be minimal.’
‘Aren’t there easier ways of getting into the UK?’
‘Not if these people don’t have the right passport, not if they’re on a watch list, not if they want to pass undetected, not if they’re taking equipment with them. And by equipment I mean weapons and explosives. There could be people arriving at this port tonight who are on Europol’s most wanted list. They could have travelled from anywhere. All they have to do is board a cargo ship and slip into the UK unnoticed. Then…’ Holm clenched both his hands into fists and placed them together before pulling them apart and spreading his fingers. ‘Boom!’
‘Bloody hell, Stephen, do you have proof of this?’
‘Until a few days ago we had nothing.’
‘But this is a priority with the security services, I guess. I imagine you’ll be in contact with my chief constable so we can pool resources?’
‘Not exactly.’ Holm glanced at Javed. The young man gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head as if to confirm Holm’s words. ‘You see…’
‘What?’ Cornish looked from Holm to Javed and back again. ‘Tell me!’
‘Nothing,’ Holm said. He leaned forward. ‘I’d like to know more about the new operations manager of SeaPak.’
For a moment Cornish appeared perturbed, but then she gave a half smile.
‘Spooks,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The word trust simply isn’t in your vocabulary, right?’
‘Well…’
‘Come on, then, rather than tell you, I’ll show you. Let’s go.’
Outside, they piled into Cornish’s car and went on a twenty-mile drive through the quiet Suffolk countryside. They left the main road and negotiated a tangle of tiny lanes which ran through prime agricultural land. Fields of corn rolled gently into the distance, bisected by occasional pockets of woodland. Heat haze rose at every crest of the road and they barely saw another vehicle. Then they rounded a corner and Cornish slowed. On one side of the lane stood a newish dwelling. There was a separate garage and out front a blue Mercedes glowed with a fresh wax sheen.
Cornish stopped their car well before the house. She gestured through the windscreen.
‘The current SeaPak operations manager lives here. Paul Henderson. A couple of my lads have spent the best part of two days dissecting his life. Apparently the Merc is his wife’s new car. He’s had major work done on the house in the last couple of months – a new bathroom and kitchen for a start. There’s a paddock to the side of the house and a stable block has been erected. He’s bought his daughter a pony and—’
‘I get the picture. Ben Western wouldn’t cooperate or discovered something he shouldn’t have. He was threatened and left his job. Perhaps he then tried blackmail or said he’d go to the police. The ultimate result of which led to his murder. Henderson, on the other hand, was happy to take a bung.’
‘Yes, if the containers hold what you say they do, then all of a sudden Mr Henderson has some questions to answer.’
‘I told you, we don’t know for sure what’s coming in yet.’ Holm turned to the back. ‘Farakh, anything to add?’
‘I’m wondering how this works,’ Javed said. ‘How altering the shipping manifests helps the smugglers out. I mean it doesn’t stop the Border Force from picking out individual containers.’
‘You think Border Force officers could have been paid off too?’
‘No,’ Cornish said. ‘That’s unlikely because they’re on constant rotation. You’d have to nobble more than one of them. Plus their bank accounts and lifestyles are monitored.’
‘Port security?’ Javed wasn’t giving up.
‘We’re talking about a twenty- or forty-foot container weighing several tonnes. You can’t just pop it through a gap in the fence. Each container going in and out is recorded and there are number-plate recognition cameras to check each vehicle. Only registered truckers can get access to the port area.’
‘There
