The Ultimate Londoner by James Ward

Author:James Ward
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Political, General, Fiction, Thrillers, Crime, Espionage
Publisher: Cool Millennium
Published: 2019-08-26T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19: Therapy, Sham 69 Style

Mehreen Shah screamed , scrambled to her feet and held out her arm. The plain clothes officer who’d been shadowing her leapt down after her into the track well. Two arms reached from the crowd to pull her out. She fainted as she was launched to safety. The approaching train screeched menacingly, still a few seconds away. More helping hands extended. The officer grabbed them and also more or less levitated into the crowd. The train raced by. Men and women bellowed. Someone blew a whistle. An alarm sounded. The crowd surged in different directions as people tried to work out what was going on and concluded the worst. Further in, people were slammed against the walls. The tannoy calmly gave instructions that no one heard. People poured towards the escalators, and it was horribly obvious to everyone arriving that something was very wrong. Those coming down turned back and ran. Somewhere closer to the exits, a few witnesses had recognised Michael Preston. Someone pulled his hood away. Then his baseball cap off. People filmed him on their phones. But then, everyone was filming everyone and everything.

The following morning, as the daily swarm of commuters arrived in the capital for work, the Metropolitan Police and Transport for London held a joint press conference to explain the reason for the line’s temporary closure. Its gist: a person had apparently been pushed onto the track last night, no one was hurt, a man called Michael Preston was wanted in connection with the incident, the victim was probably targeted as a result of irresponsible media speculation about a ‘curse’, police were still appealing for witnesses. No mention was made of the Colander connection.

As the transport commissioner tried to explain in non-technical terms why the victim hadn’t been electrocuted by the line, a man slipped in hesitantly from the wings and handed the police commissioner a piece of card, then slinked off in the same manner. The police commissioner read it, frowned, stood up and left the building.

An hour later, the reason for his consternation was made public. Michael Preston had been found slumped in the middle seat of a carriage on the Circle line. He’d been there for several hours. Preliminary investigations suggested he’d died of a heart attack.

Ruby Parker recalled her core team to Thames House. Here was an excellent illustration of how quickly and radically things could turn around in intelligence. Six hours earlier, she’d been reasonably confident there was nothing to worry about. Now, bowing to the tidal wave of new evidence, she held the opposite view.

She got in touch with the Home Office and confirmed that the Ultimate Londoner competitors were to be offered police protection. Then she arranged for Mordred to leave Fowler’s for a safer location within the capital. All in all, she was beginning to incline to some of Gloria Shipton’s hypothesis, although she still thought it couldn’t be all, or even largely, correct. A tantalisingly just-out-of-reach fourth hypothesis lay around the corner somewhere.

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