Readers should read the previous ‘Body’ stories to get the full back story for Maxine, as well as the first two ‘Cuz’ stories for Andy and Maria. This is a little Christmas bonus. This one is each day until the end of the week.
Thank you all for staying with Willow, there isn’t anything that long in my brain – yet!
Marianne.
Chapter 1
It was a lovely day; the sun was out, and all was good in my world. I was driving my second love, my Daimler SP250 Dart. It was a car that encompassed so much of my history.
Let me start. My birth name was Maxine Fawcett, and I first started my working life as a police cadet, only to mess it all up, some years later, my being overly cock-happy in the back of a police car. The only problem was getting caught in the act. Not that way, I was almost religious about my pill-taking. No, we were rumbled, mid-coitus, by a fellow officer.
My partner in crime got a rap over the knuckles and a pat on the back, while I was, politely, told to keep my knickers on as I went out the door. After that, I went freelance as a budding Private Investigator, solved a few bigger cases, gained a lot of brownie points with the police, and made enough money to buy an upstairs office in Soho.
Along the way, I collected Lena, my business partner and now manager. I also gained a husband, one Lord Bertie Woodward. I moved out of the flat above the office to live with Bertie in his Canary Wharf apartment. We were Lord and Lady Woodward, well known around town whenever a party was being planned.
The reason for that was that Bertie was a music promoter and tour organiser, so we knew a lot of famous people by working with them on a daily basis. I had been given the contract to supply security to the shows, so had gone from a one-woman office to having a staff in the hundreds, most being part-timers. We had about ten in the Soho office. Some to handle the security business, a few working on the private investigations, and a couple to handle the car club that we had founded.
The car club came about from one of our cases, and was called ‘The Replicants Car Club’, because it welcomed owners of replica vehicles, ones that looked old but were brand new and modern under the body. Like my Dart. This one had started life as a pursuit car on the motorways and I had driven one during my training in the police. Mine was a long way ahead of that early one. Grayson Smythe had rebuilt in from the chassis up, with modern suspension, reinforced chassis, racing brakes and a tweaked engine. I just loved driving it as much as I loved driving Berties’ Aston Martin.
Today, Lena and I were on a little break from work. Bertie was off with a band that was touring America, and the office was ticking over. We had organised a tour for the car club, a drive around France in our exceptional vehicles. This weekend, we were all booked into a bed and breakfast near Laon, just north of Paris. Well, the Gite Lorengrain was more than a hotel, as it was more of a wellness spa.
The five guys in the tour group got to drive their cars and talk BS over a beer, which allowed the ladies to get a massage, spa treatment and talk girls talk over our wines. It wasn’t a cheap place to stay, which is how we had managed to book our small group there. Our club members were generally well-off enough to have car collections worth millions. A couple had brought their genuine cars. My shiny black SP250 stood out, though, as did Lenas’ dark blue Triumph Stag drop-head, with a similar treatment to mine.
We were here for the car get-together in Laon. It happened every year, and this was to be the thirty-eighth one. It had a fixed format, easy-going touring, a lot of socialising, and the drive around closed roads in the old town on the Sunday. When I say ‘closed roads’, I’m not talking racetrack. No, these are cobbled streets in the old town, laid down when horses were the biggest transport around, and mainly just wide enough for a Cadillac, as long as the pedestrians breathed in.
We had arrived at Gite Lorengrain on Thursday morning, and I already felt like a new woman. This trip was Lenas’ first real outing as a new woman. When we had met, she was Len, an ex-SAS killer with PTSD, with wearing softer clothing helping her sleep. She had taken three months off to have her SRS and would be back in the office when we got back to the UK.
We were in convoy, and doing a wide loop around Laon, to sign in for the weekend. I was following one of our members, in his more modern Jaguar, with him following the orders of his GPS. He led us until we turned onto the Crepy to Laon Road, finally arriving at the Park Foch, where we were directed to join the other early arrivals.
We got our paperwork that outlined our weekend, and I sat in Lenas’ Stag with her to look through it. Today was fairly open. We were invited to look around the town and look at all the shops that were supporting the car event. There were directions to the Promenade Yitzhak Rabin, a long road that ran along the northern edge of the old town, where all of the parking had been set aside for entrants over the weekend.
We found our way there and parked with a lot of other classic cars. We spent the day looking at cars, looking at the shops, buying trinkets and tea towels, had lunch in one of the many cafés, and dinner was in a larger restaurant, as guests of the Jaguar Owners, our club patron being a life member.
It was a lovely day, followed by a good sleep and a healthy breakfast. Saturday was a scenic tour around the countryside, followed by another dinner, this time in the company of the Rolls Royce Owners. Sunday was the fun day, and the one that filled the town. Because of the amount of cars, we were parked in several different places. I was to follow our member with the Jaguar, along with Lena and another member with an Aston Martin DB4.
When we arrived at the parking area, a guy looked at the sticker on my windscreen and directed me to one side. We were a large group of sports cars and speciality vehicles; I estimated about eighty. There would be around three times as many spread around the town in various car parks. I was directed to back into a slot and turned off.
When I got out and had a good look around, I realised that I was parked in front of the Laon Police Station, with the Municipal Building on another edge of the square. I was parked beside a number of police cars. There were a couple of Peugeot 203s from the fifties, and a few 403 and 404 estates from the sixties, as well as one that really interested me, a Matra Djet from 1967, which they used for a pursuit car on the highways as part of the Vehicule Rapide d’Intervention fleet. There was also a couple of the Citroen Traction Avant cars they used from the thirties and well into the sixties, easily recognised in England by those who were old enough to watch old French films on the TV.
The Dart wasn’t the only example from England. There was a forties Wolseley with the bell on the front, a quite rare Ford V8 Pilot that was the forerunner of the high-speed UK pursuit vehicles, as well as one that came after mine, an Audi A4 Quattro, painted in a burnt orange.
I joined everyone in walking around to look at the cars lined up until we were called up to join in the parade through the city streets. There was quite a crowd of onlookers, as well as the owners looking at the cars. I saw a lot of beautiful old cars, as well as some radical new ones, part of the inclusive nature of the event. I had seen a lot of more modern cars over the last couple of days, and I had almost filled the memory card in my phone.
I was looking at the older Wolseley police car with Lena when there was a voice I knew.
“No wonder there were so many big heists in those days, with ancient equipment like that.”
I looked around.
“Hi, Rudy. This was top of the range at the time. Some forces used Jaguars, but they were too expensive for general use. You know what governments do, call for tenders and always take the cheapest. These handled pretty well, for their day. I did hear of a force in Australia that bought a fleet of the new, locally built cars in the late forties, only having so many roll over on high-speed corners, they had to weld a couple of lengths of railway line to the chassis to lower the centre of gravity. You really have to remember what the general public were driving at the time, old Austins, Hillmans, Sunbeams.”
“You’re a font of knowledge, as usual, Maxie. Is Bertie around?”
“No. He’s in America with a tour. Where’s your band?”
“We got them settled in Reims on Thursday and will clear them out on Tuesday. Next weekend they’re playing in Châlons for four shows and then we go further south for the summer. I think that we may be playing in England next summer. That will be interesting.”
“I’ll make sure I’ll catch you then. Do you have a car here?”
“What, little old me with a car like these. I may have something to drive in England. Our drummer has a friend in Turin with a few cars, and he’s keen to have a couple there. He’s particularly keen to attend the one at Blenheim Palace at the end of August.”
“You’ll have to hide your tats if you’re there. That’s one very high-powered gathering.”
“I might have to tell him that, thank you. I haven’t worn a suit since I became the band roadie. Anyway, I think that I see someone with a bullhorn, so you may be getting the word to saddle up. See you again, Maxie.”
“See you, Rudy.”
I made my way back to the Dart, with a couple walking beside me. The guy laughed.
“Good looking friends you have, Miss.”
“Just a guy I know from my job providing security for bands. What are you driving?”
“We’ve got the Audi.”
“Does it have the blues and twos?”
“I does, but we are very careful where we use them.”
“I’ve got them in my SP250 as well, the guy that rebuilt it found some in an auction. The original bell is just for show. Perhaps we’ll be able to have some fun during the parade. If some of the locals use theirs, we should be able to add to the cacophony. I’m Maxine Woodward, by the way. I have a company called Max Force. We do the security and PI work, as well as running the Replicants Car Club.”
“Good to meet you, Maxine. Why did you get the Dart?”
“I drove one at Hendon.”
The woman laughed.
“If you’re talking about that clapped out red one, I was trained with that one, as well. I’m Maria Barton, and this is my husband, Andy. We both resigned from the force to take over his parents’ dress shop, when it was passed to him. This weekend is a few days off in a buying trip. We have a week of appointments in Paris that start on Monday afternoon.”
We exchanged business cards when we got back to our cars. I warmed mine as I sat and thought. Being in the business, I followed the news, and the name of Andy Barton niggled at my brain. I got it as we pulled out. He had been instrumental in a couple of well reported cases, a few years ago. If Maria had been training at Hendon, she had probably gone further than me, as my course was originally a favour for several nights of passion with one of the instructors. I joined the line behind the Audi, and then didn’t think much more about the meeting as we trundled through the streets of the old town, joining in with the mayhem as one of the locals in a Peugeot sounded his own siren.
That evening, Lena and I found a quiet restaurant as a bit of peace before herding our few members during a trip to Paris and then home. Over dinner, we talked about the tour and the fun of the afternoon. Lena wasn’t impressed.
“At least you got to play with your lights and siren, Maxie. I just edged along in first for most of it in those narrow lanes. I think that the event has got too big for the venue.”
“I’ll have to agree on the slow bits of the parade. Still, there were a lot of very nice cars to look at.”
“That couple that you walked back to the Dart with. They looked like coppers.”
“Supposedly retired to run a dress shop, or so they told me. They acted as if they were still active, when you know what to look for.”
“A bit like you, Maxie. You still have that aura of being aware of your surroundings, no matter how peaceful it is. I’ll take a bet that you have noted most of the other diners, graded them by their clothes and general attitude, and have ranked them in their order of dangerousness.”
“I’m not that bad, am I?”
“Don’t worry, love. I’m the same. When you’ve been at the pointy end a few times, it comes naturally. Did their names strike a chord?”
“He was Andy Barton. You may have read about that case, a few years ago, where they pulled a girl out of a cave. She was to be the seventeenth victim of a bastard that made girls prisoner, raped them over a period of weeks or months, and then drowned and dumped them. It never went to trial, as he died of a heart attack on his way to the airport.”
“I seem to recall that one. Didn’t they praise Barton for his doggedness in pursuing a line of enquiry that appeared too stupid to be true?”
“I think so. But, as you and I know, sometimes it’s the stupid answers that end up as right. I doubt that anyone would have ever thought that there could ever be a bookie that made money by giving it away.”
“That was difficult for me to comprehend, until we got further involved. We did well out of it, though. That, alone, has made me the woman I am now.”
“A very striking one as well, I may add. The operation gave you a new outlook on life, I think.”
“It did, Maxie, love. I’m going to be a bit less dramatic in my outfits, as befitting the lady I now am. I’m looking forward to a bit of shopping in Paris.”
We were both in her Stag, that evening, and she drove us to the hotel with the top down, the wind in our hair and the radio playing French pop songs. Next day, we all had breakfast, checked out, and were on the road to Paris.
We had four days in Paris, with everyone going their own way. Lena and I asked about shops that were easier on the purse and did quite well for ourselves. Our companions hit the more upmarket ones, seeing that they could afford it, as well as having more occasions where you didn’t wear anything under a couple of thousand pounds.
Two days later, I was following Lena to Soho. We were both keen for some home food and were both going into the office to make sure everything was ticking over nicely. After that, I drove back to Canary Wharf and parked in my spot, then carried my bags and shopping up to the apartment. I put my washing in the hamper, hung my new acquisitions, and stripped off for a good shower and hair wash.
That evening, I rang Bertie and we spoke for about an hour, with him telling me about the bands on the tour. One of them was very new to the business and had to be taught that you don’t give a long list of needed items to be in your rooms and dressing room. Those days were long gone except for the few big stars. Newbies had to suck it up for a few years before they had earned the right. I told him about my car tour and the fun I’d had. He promised that we would do it as a couple next year.
After that, I didn’t want to watch TV, so put the computer on and looked at events we may be able to take in with our two cars in the UK. I checked my emails and then loaded all my photos in a new file. I looked through them and took more care looking at the ones by the police station on Sunday.
I had a couple with Lena in the background, as well as a few with either Andy, Maria, or both in the shot. There was a couple with Rudy looking at cars, and one where he was talking to a guy I recognised. He was a roadie with another one of the bands that had toured on the same gig as Rudys’ band. There was another picture of an Aston Martin, where Rudy was in the background and a young lad was two cars over, pointing a long lens at him, rather than the cars. That was weird. It could have been that It was merely that I had captured the fraction of a second when he was moving to get another picture.
A week later, my mobile rang.
“Hello. Maxine Woodward speaking.”
“Maxine, it’s Maria Barton. We met at Laon.”
“Hello, Maria. How was your buying trip? I left a lot with some of the shops I went to in Paris.”
“We did pretty well, although we go to the manufacturers, rather than retail outlets. I wonder if we could meet. There’s a little café near Covent Garden that is pleasant. Did you take lots of pictures?”
“Yes, I did. I’ve loaded them on my computer.”
“Can you do me a favour, please. Can you put your ones from the place we met onto a USB stick. We didn’t take any, ourselves, and we would like to show a friend of ours what it was like.”
“Any subject in particular? You did look as if you were active on the day.”
“We weren’t that obvious, were we?”
“Not for anyone without my experience and intuition. My friend, Lena, picked up on it as well, but she had spent a lot of time in the SAS, in a war zone.”
“Have her come along, as well, if she can. I’ll give you the café address and I’d like to meet, tomorrow at ten.”
I called Lena to tell her about the morning meeting. She was happy to come along, telling me that it may add a little spice to the humdrum. Next morning, I found the café. There were outside and inside tables. Maria was sitting at one with an older man opposite. She motioned for me to sit next to the man. I was ordering tea and cake when Lena arrived, so we ordered for both of us. The other two already had theirs in front of them.
I did the introductions for us, and Maria did the introductions for them. The man had a name so obviously fake, it made Lenas’ eyebrow rise. He was Justin Thyme, and he had a laptop in a bag. He asked me if I had brought the USB. I gave it to him, and he plugged it into a slot and started looking at the pictures.
At one picture, he looked at Maria.
“Nice one of you and Andy, my dear.”
When he got the picture with Rudy, he turned to me.
“I believe that you know this man?”
“That’s Rudy. He’s a roadie with a band called ‘Exarctics’. He told me that they were playing in Reims that weekend. There’s another picture of him in the background, talking to another roadie.”
When he got to that one, he turned the screen so that Maria could see it. She looked surprised. Not as surprised as when they arrived at the picture of the lad taking a picture. He showed it to Maria, and she paled. He turned the screen so that Lena could see it.
“You haven’t said much, my dear. What would you say about this picture, if I tell you that the lad taking the picture was on a training mission from the French service?”
“If that lad is in the service, he must be very wet behind the ears. That may have been a lucky shot that Maxie took, but he wasn’t being very careful.”
He closed the laptop.
“If you don’t mind, Maxine, I’ll borrow that stick. There are others that need to see these pictures. Do you have any questions?”
“I’ll take a guess, sir, that you’re high up in one of the anti-terrorist branches, and that either Rudy or his friend are being looked at. I’ll also take a guess that something else happened that brought this meeting about. Both I, and Lena, have been at the pointy end often enough to see similar vibes in others. We both guessed that Andy and Maria are still active in some way. You’ve had time to look at your files on both of us, so you may have come to a decision that we can either be told to butt out, or else you want us to give you more information. Either here, or somewhere with bright lights.”
He smiled, without it reaching his eyes.
“I’ve read your files, and I’ve spoken to others who were mentioned in them. I find it hard to reconcile the two ladies at this table with the exploits that are in the files. Your taking down many of the government was amazing. You have both shown exceptional bravery in the past. I’m surprised that one of the spook departments haven’t already sounded you out. You have given me a dilemma. You’re absolutely right, as anyone with this much information has usually signed a whole book of paperwork. What would you do, in my shoes, Maxine?”
“I’d talk to me to see what else I know and hang the secrecy. Obviously, you will have someone following the two roadies, and I’m the one at this table who has worked on a tour with both of them, and their bands. I don’t know what you want, but I’m prepared to meet somewhere with a tape running. What happened that stirred the pot?”
“Take a guess.”
“The lad taking the picture was rumbled.”
“Quite right. When the cleaning crew went around on Monday morning, they found his body in a refuse bin, without the camera. He had been stabbed with a thin dagger. He was a new signing in the French secret service, and the day was supposed to be a test for him. He was just asked to take pictures of anyone who looked wrong. He had been given no specific task, but he must have taken one picture that somebody didn’t want taken. Whoever killed him has the same knack of reading people that you both have.”
Marianne Gregory © 2025
Chapter 2
I looked at him. He was sitting there, as nonchalant as if he’d told us that it had rained yesterday. Lena chuckled.
“I guess that we’re now drawn into the web of intrigue now. I’ve met a few spooks when I was in the SAS, but none of them were as spooky as you, my friend. I say, ‘my friend’ as I would hate to be on the wrong side.”
He stood up and put his hand out to me. We shook hands and then he held it out to Lena.
“Ladies, Maria will now take up some of your time, if you don’t mind. Do you keep tour details in Soho or Canary Wharf?”
“It’s all at Canary Wharf. That side of it is my husbands’ dealings. I have the venue details so that I can co-ordinate the security. I suppose the starting point is the tour that the two bands played on as warm-up for the main act. I have the band member names and contact details, as well as the names of the crew, if not all their details. Their manager will have that information, unless the crew are sub-contracted. I don’t go into that, just needing the numbers we need to get lanyards for.”
“We’ll start there. Are you prepared to give Maria the details on a USB?”
“I can do that. I gather we won’t have your number to contact.”
“Correct. You have Andy and Marias’ card, and you should use those details, but make sure you say nothing other than asking about clothes when you ring. Maria can give you a brief outline, so you can understand why you should only meet somewhere safe. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot at stake, and we’re dealing with a dangerous enemy. Maria will tell you more when you’re safe in your apartment.”
He nodded to Maria and left us. She went and paid the bill, then came back.
“My car is around the corner. I’ll drive you.”
In the apartment, I sat them down and got some drinks.
“Talk while I print the tour detail, then you can look at it while I compile a list of people. I’ll do that for all three bands, but the stars have been around long enough not to be suspicious.”
“Don’t be so certain of that, Maxine. The Cambridge Five had been in the business a long time as well.”
I printed the rest and went back to them and replenished the drinks.
“Now, this is a list of members of the star band, along with the others that were on stage to provide the bigger sound, as well as the regular roadies and the company that provides big tour roadies. Next, we have a listing of ‘Exarctics’ and the other, supplementary lists. Last is the lists for ‘Dominerter’, the band that the other guy in the picture is a roadie for, and their other lists.”
Maria was looking at the second set.
“There are a lot of names here that don’t sound normal.”
“That’s because the two founders of the band are Russian. They were quite happily working at a Gulag in northern Russia when Putin had them, and a load of others, rounded up and sent south to fight in Ukraine. He was running out of guys able to hold a gun.”
“You say that they were working at a Gulag?”
“As far as I know, the story was that they were in the admin, but they’re far too fit to have been sitting behind a desk. If I tell you that they were able to desert, walk through the Ukrainian lines and get to Poland, then you’ll have an idea of how good they were. They formed a band in Poland, first, and then refined it in Germany to the line-up they now have. They do have a few of their own songs, but the bulk of the show are covers, mainly bands like Jefferson Airplane. They have a lead singer who does a mean Grace Slick.”
“I see this picture shows a white rabbit on the bass drum. This other band, ‘Dominerter’, what do they do?”
“They’re purely a cover band, anything that catches their fancy. They’re all right as an opening show, plenty of energy and beat. They’re half French, and half Italian, which is why they were on the bill. That tour went all over Europe, from Estonia to Greece. It took six months and was interesting. I only popped over for a few of the shows, in the better cities, as a way to show my face, catch up with Bertie, and do some shopping. Now, Mister Spice said that you’d give us more information.”
“If I do that, I’ll need to take you somewhere so that you can sign some papers. I know that you’ve already signed, Lena, but as Len at the time. Maxine, I have to say, that although you weren’t in the force as long as I’ve been, I’ve never had to face danger the way you had to. It would have freaked me out to have a machine gun pointed at me when a sniper took the brains out of the guy holding it.”
“It was set on automatic, and the bastard destroyed my car with the full clip. It’s still on the roof of a car yard in Lowestoft. From what I remember from the papers, you and Andy had a fair time of things, yourself.”
“We had our moments, but that was pure sleuthing, none of your derring-do. OK. The facts are that there have been a spate of assassinations through Europe. Not all well-known people, but mainly people with influence, both male and female. There hasn’t been a single factor that has the links we need. That’s why this situation in Laon is being looked at so closely. There wasn’t any need to kill the French agent unless he had captured something important. Otherwise, it would have been easier just to browbeat him into deleting the picture that you didn’t want seen. The killer had to have sussed him as a member of a force. It may go nowhere, but we’re clutching at straws.”
“What about the link being car events. Rudy mentioned that he was looking forward to being at Blenheim next year. I haven’t seen anything about a tour, yet, and I’ll have to ask Bertie if there’s something in the wings. He did say that the band was playing in Reims that weekend.”
“We’ll research the links between them all. I thank you for your help, today. I’ll get in touch about the signing bit, but that will be if what you’ve given me is something we’ll follow up. If that’s the case, you may be pulled in to help find likely future events close to people with influence. If the car thing is part of it, both Blenheim and Hampton Court would be magnets for terrorists, seeing how many of the upper crust and royalty attend those.”
Lena put her cup down.
“One other thing that Rudy said was that their drummer had a friend, in Turin, with a car good enough for Blenheim. With the concours being by invitation, the organisers should have a list.”
“Good one, Lena. I’ll make a note of that. Italy seems to have more than its fair share of troublemakers, and one that’s a millionaire could fund an operation. Thank you for your time. I’ll get in touch if we need you again. Obviously, what was discussed today is between us, with any breach of confidentiality being likely to lead to unwanted consequences.”
Lena grinned.
“We’ll keep quiet, Maria. I was told something similar about things we did while deployed. There was an occasional ‘accidental stray bullet’ over there that was kept under wraps. The problem with secrets is that they don’t remain secret if someone wants to be applauded and gets drunk.”
I put everything on a USB for Maria, and she stood. We had a hug before she left. Lena stayed a while longer as I made us lunch. After that, it would be a good time to ring Bertie.
“Hello, darling, how’s it going?”
“Pretty good, love. We have a day off before the next gig. How’s lovely London?”
“Just the usual. I have a quick question that I want to run by you.”
“Fire away.”
“Is there a UK tour being planned with ‘Dominerter’ and ‘Exarctics’ on the list?”
“You really are a mind reader. I only got an email a couple of days ago. It should also be on my computer, by now. It’s being led by an Italian band, ‘Che Macello’, that’s big there and wants to expand into the UK. They do sing in English, so it could work. I’m happy to organise the tour, as we get paid, no matter what happens with their popularity. How did you know?”
“I spoke to Rudy at Laon, and he said that there was a tour coming up. I’ll need to get the dates and venues for the security.”
“Have a look in my computer for the email. I’ll create a new file when I get more information. It will be called ‘whatamess’, as that’s what the band name translates as.”
“I’ll create it for you, then. You’ll be home in a couple of weeks, as planned?”
“That’s right. I’m looking forward to being in my own bed, with my woman.”
“I’ll blow her up in readiness, then.”
“Love you, Maxie.”
“Love you, too, your Lordship.”
Lena was stifling a laugh, as I had the phone on speaker.
“If you walk funny after he gets back, we’ll know why. Let’s go and check his computer.”
We went into his office, turned his computer on and brought up his emails. There were a lot, so I scrolled through to get to the later ones, finding one from a band manager in Turin. I forwarded it to my own laptop. Then I created the new file in his ‘Tours’ section and copied it into that. I went and turned my laptop on and waited until the email appeared, then sent it to the email address I had for the Bartons, with a note saying that I thought they may want to see this show.
I drove Lena home and then went back to my apartment. Something was niggling in my mind. I turned my laptop on and asked the AI what ‘Che Macello’ meant in Italian. It did tell me that the full phrase meant ‘What a mess’, but it was an extra line that got me closing my eyes. Macello was a slang word for ‘slaughterhouse’.
Justin hadn’t given us any details off the assassinations, only that the lad had been stabbed by a thin-bladed knife. The sort of knife that abattoir workers would use. For the next few days, I co-ordinated with Lena and the club girls in the office to put out a flyer to see if any members wanted to make up groups, next year, for Laon again, for the Festival of the Unexceptional in July, the Vintage Prescott meeting in August, or the Silverstone Festival in September. We would be allowed to gather together, or even put on a club display. We now had banners and a portable information booth we could set up.
I kept monitoring Berties’ emails for more suggested details about the upcoming tour. One arrived the following Monday and I printed a copy for me, as well as sending it to my inbox. I checked the dates and venues against the list that I had of car events, most taking place on set weekends. There wasn’t anything close to the Festival of the Unexceptional, but that was to be expected, seeing that it was for ordinary car collectors.
There was a performance, in Cheltenham, when the Prescott Hillclimb was to be on, another in Oxford at the same time as Blenheim, and one in Streatham on the same weekend as Hampton Court, with a few others in the London area into October. There were others, before and after, not related to car events, and it would be up to Marias’ office link the venues with any targets that lived nearby, so I forwarded the email to her. There was almost a year before that tour started.
At the end of the week, I took our Mercedes E Class to Heathrow to collect Bertie, giving him a big smooch as he came out of the door, holding up a few other passengers. One told us to get a room, so I took Bertie home to a room. We didn’t leave it, except to eat, drink, and pee, for over twenty-four hours. I did walk a bit funny for a day or two afterwards.
Two weeks after that, I got an invitation in the mail. It was to the opening of a new Jolenes’ Dress Emporium, in Moorgate. It was the first one outside Birmingham. The leaflet in the envelope said that it was a new range of quality French products sourced during their recent buying trip, as well as some items from the original shop. Lena rang later in the day, to say that she also had an invitation.
Bertie claimed that he needed to work that day, so I ordered an Uber to pick me and Lena up. My old driver, Hassam, had moved on from driving an Uber, he now had a full-time job in our security firm, driving our people around. When we were dropped off, we could see that it was quite an affair, with streamers and balloons. They had either done very well for themselves in Birmingham, or else this shop was an experiment backed by their bank. Whatever was the case, when we got inside, it was seventh heaven for girls.
We just browsed the racks and picked out a few that we would like to try. At one stage, Andy came up to us.
“If you see things you’d like to try, there are changing rooms in the back. If the usual ones are occupied, there are a couple of more private ones for special customers.”
I picked a couple of the outfits that I liked most and followed him past the normal changing rooms and through a door. There were a couple more booths, bigger than the others, with a decent chair and small table to put your bag.
“If you try these on, Maxine, I’ll get Maria to help you. If you do go back to the front, wearing something different, it will maintain your cover.”
“Cover or no cover, Andy. I’ll be wearing one of these home, if not with the other in a bag. If you want to push the cover, go out and ask Lena if she would like to join Lady Woodward in the special booths. That may lift the interest of others out there who are only after a bargain.”
He laughed.
“I bow to your obvious experience in retail matters, my Lady.”
While he was away, I tried both outfits. One was labelled ‘Jolene’, and the other had a Paris label. Neither were cheap but both were bargains. As I was admiring my reflection, Maria came in.
“That looks good on you, my Lady. Your friend is trying something on in the next booth. I think that we were able to find something for her that really captures her new outlook.”
“Thank you, Maria. She really is embracing full womanhood, and it’s good to see.”
“If you’re happy with that outfit, I’ll take the tag.”
“Take the one for the other outfit, as well. If I can have a bag for the one, I arrived in, I think that I’ll wear this to dinner, with a new look Lena.”
“If you follow me, I have an office where you can settle up. There are a few bits of paperwork to fill in, for our warranty, you understand.”
She picked up my second choice, and my original outfit, and I followed her to another door, where she ushered me in. Mister Spice, whatever his name was, was sitting beside the desk. He stood and took my hand, leading me to another chair.
Maria was closing the door.
“I’ll pack these for you, Madam.”
Justin smiled and proffered a sheaf of papers.
“I’m sorry, Maxine, but I need you to sign these. Maria will keep Lena occupied until you finish, and then she’ll be brought in while you admire more of the stock. When you’ve signed, I can tell you more about our problem.”
I looked through the paperwork and signed in all the places required. They were mainly an updated version of the Official Secrets Act, and some more that absolved the government should I be killed, or injured, during the course of my involvement. There was one that showed that I was now re-activated as an Inspector, on full pay, working for the Parliamentary Security Detail, out of Whitehall. It even had all the correct details, including my banking to have my salary paid into. I pointed this one out to him, and he nodded.
“We’ve realised that this project may take more than a year to bring to completion, and that you deserve some recompense for the time that we’ll be asking of you. Your friend, Lena, will be re-activated into the SAS, as a Major, and classed as a liaison officer at Whitehall. You will be given appropriate identification that will bring you into our office. Maria will call you about a new range of clothing that she wants your ideas on and pick you both up. You’re to wear proper office outfits that will be suitable for Whitehall, you know, the blouse and straight skirt.”
“I gather that what we spoke about, before, has opened up some interesting avenues.”
“It did, and the connection of dates and places go back a few years. Now, say no more. I’ll speak to Miss Sergeant when you’re back in the shop. We’ll talk in the better security of Whitehall.”
I left, and went back out to the shop, where Andy made a great display of letting the other shoppers know how wonderful that outfit made ‘Your Ladyship’ look. I perused the racks and shelves, until Lena came out, looking radiant in a longer dress that made her look stunning. Maria led us to the counter, gave us our bags and took our payments. We walked out of the shop and into the street. Lena gave out a giggle.
“That was a major undertaking, if there ever was one.”
“Tell me about it, it was a lot more than I inspected.”
“Coming to the office?”
“I think that would be good. We could send Sue home and use the club office to talk.”
We flagged down a cab and went to Soho. In the office, Lena told Sue that she could have an early day as we needed to talk business. She gathered her things and thanked us as she left. Lena and I sat in the back office with cups of tea and a few biscuits.
“We’re up to our necks in this one, Maxi. They wouldn’t have given us covers in our own names if they didn’t think we weren’t worth it. I was once told that I wasn’t officer material, and now I am one. Open the brandy and call me Rupertina.”
“Yes, and I’m now an Inspector, not even getting out of probation before I was shown the door. We’ll just have to wait until Maria gets in touch. You may have to come to Canary Wharf so she can pick us up together. Do you have an office outfit?”
“Never needed one, before. I’ll ask the girls where I can get one, tomorrow. That’ll make them chortle. Have you any more information for friend Spice?”
“Just some explanation of the band names. There will be an Italian band joining them for a tour during next summer.”
“Old Spice did say that things may last a year. We’ve had some responses to that flyer. There’s about twenty who want to put on a display at the Festival of the Unexceptional, next month, and about thirty, so far, interested in Goodwood. A few of the eligible guys have offered to take any of our girls who want to sit in their passenger seats for that one, as they all have forties American cars that would go well as a group of mafia hoods and their floosies. They’ve even offered to pay for the flapper outfits.”
“I expect that the two of us will be roped in with the invitational shows, to suss out the security aspects. Lady Woodward and her lifetime companion wouldn’t stand out much.”
“Especially in Paris gowns. Neither of our cars would be acceptable.”
“I expect that we may find, when it comes around, that we have club members with good cars who are inside the circle of those with clearance, even if it had been while they were of working age. If they can re-activate the two of us, I’m sure that they could get a couple of ex-army brigadiers to drive us around.”
“Did Spicey tell you anything?”
“Only that a lot of dates and venues lined up. I’ve looked at the tour for next year, and there’s some links with shows and car events being close. Of course, until we get shown the links with the deaths, we wouldn’t be able to extrapolate anything. We’ll just have to be patient.”
“I’ve been in places where patience is the most valuable asset to have. Sitting under a camouflage net, waiting for a patrol to come by who should have been in front of you two days before is no joke. The biggest problem was making sure that your shit was well buried. Not that some of the enemy would have noticed, as you could smell them at a thousand yards.”
“Too much information, Lena. How about us letting the girls lock up and we get ourselves a nice dinner before I go home and feed Bertie some reheated lasagna. I expect that we should get a call to report for duty in a week or so. At least we won’t have to salute anyone if we’re in civvies.”
“Bugger! I was looking forward to having NCOs saluting me.”
Marianne Gregory © 2025
Chapter 3
Life carried on at its normal pace, but, for me, every hour seemed like two, except when I was with Bertie, and then it felt like twenty minutes. For the first time in a long time, I was thinking about a case, but it was a jigsaw puzzle with only a quarter of the pieces, and not even a picture to look at.
I had a number of tours to work out security for, so settled for that task to fill in time. We were organising three in the UK before the end of summer, and four in Europe. The one that had been in America had been our first, which was why Bertie had gone to make sure that it all went smoothly. When I could, I worked on my little side job.
Mister Spice would have far more access to details than I did, no doubt, so I limited myself to the things that I did know, having mixed with the bands. I made a list of the band members, along with what I did know about them from our records. With ‘Exarctics’, there was Vlad on lead and Igor on rhythm. These were the two Russians, but both had Polish passports that had been issued legally to help them assimilate into western society. They were both martial arts exponents and could probably be able to kill easily, but both were quiet and gentle, in that sort of dangerous way. I had got to like them both.
The singer and drummer were both Polish, and children of the revolution, as both their parents had been activists in the Solidarity Movement. Their names had more consonants than vowels, so they were generally called Elly and Butch. Elly was quite the diva, and deserved the accolades with her powerful, yet passionate, vocals. She had honed her craft in cafés and night clubs. Butch was her partner and looked like he’d stepped out of a Grimms story, a nuggety gnome who was a master percussionist. He had been the last to join the band, having spent his earlier years playing drums for a dance band in Italy. As I had noted, both spent their free time at any range they could find, with a pair of expensive rifles. I wasn’t sure if I liked them, but they hadn’t done anything to alienate me.
The bass player was pure musician, through and through. Klaus was like a statue on stage, letting his playing do the work. He was the only one from a classical background, graduating from a German academy with his skills being with the double bass. He had taken up electric after going to a few shows, seeing what freedom he would have if he moved over. He was quiet and studious, and the main writer of their own songs. I had the impression that he could be in a top-line band if he wanted, but he seemed happy to be where he was.
The only other regular was Rudy the road manager. He worked with temps who changed with every tour that they did, sometimes changing personnel during the season. Rudy was a bear of a man, full of life and a joy to see at parties, usually with a different girl on his arm, and I for one, could see the attraction. He was Bulgarian by birth, and a resident of Poland. In fact, they were all residents in Lagow, just a few miles from the border with Germany. I believe that they had clubbed together to buy a couple of houses with a forest across the road. The three guitarists lived in one, with the other three in the other, or so I had been told
As a band, they had been playing around Poland and Germany for some years, and all were in their thirties, with the Russians being somewhat older. They had opened for another band two summers before and had received good enough reviews for them to be added to the tour that we had organised.
The other band, ‘Dominerter’, were a different mix, all from more southern areas. They were a larger group, seven strong, with more brass and two singers out front, one playing keyboards. They did a compelling set of ska, bluebeat, and soul music. I hadn’t had a lot to do with them, as they were first on stage and usually had gone back to the hotel before the break. They had four members who were French, from Algerian roots, and three were northern Italian, with some Romany ancestors. They were very good at what they did and a lot of fun to listen to.
Their main roadie, who Rudy had been with at Laon, was Emile, a Spaniard from a small town north of Barcelona. That, I knew, from talking to Rudy at a party, where Emile had been getting on a few nerves, raving on about the Madrid government and the slave-like conditions they had placed on the Basque population. He had been a bit drunk at the time but had been quite strident in his disgust of democratically elected officials.
The new band, ‘Che Macello’, were all new to me, and we hadn’t been sent a listing of the group for the tour yet. I did look at their website and could see that they were an evolving band. That’s a nice way to say that the line-up looked different in almost every picture. The latest photos showed six on stage. Three guitars, drummer, keyboard and singer. All guys, and all looking like they could be members of one of those male revues. Magic Mike, Sixx Paxx, Dreamboys or Chippendales came to mind immediately. The best picture showed them playing beside the sea, in boardshorts and trainers. It was enough to raise ones’ pulse rate.
I went back to see who were named in the pictures. There seemed to be three who were the core, all from Turin. They played the three guitars. Previous photos showed almost identical looks, but the singer, drummer and keyboard players seemed to last about six months, with two changes of each player, all inside a year. I know of a lot of bands we’ve had similar turnover, but not inside twelve months.
Towards the end of summer, I had a phone call from Maria.
“Hello, Maxine. We have some stock for you to look at. Just you, this time. There will be more, later, that will suit your friend. If you’re outside your home at ten, tomorrow, I’ll pick you up and take you to the office.”
That was enough to let me know that there was more to be told, and that I should wear the office outfit to blend in. I told Bertie that I would be out the next day and gathered what information I had into a manila folder, putting it in a large shoulder bag. I expected that Lena would be brought into things once the case went operational.
The following day, at the allotted time, Maria pulled up in a Range Rover. I slid into the passenger seat with my bag in front of me and we were off. Although the vehicle looked like any other Rangie on the outside, I could see various slots under the dashboard for radios and other electronics.
She took me to Whitehall, not speaking much on the way, and waved a pass at a reader outside a quick-lift door. Once through that, there was another door and another card reader. Inside, we went down into a parking area, where she pulled into a space. That’s when she handed me a lanyard with my ID photo.
“This will get you through the doors that you’re allowed. It won’t get you through the entrance doors, so you’ll only visit when you’re escorted. Come along, and we’ll go to what I jokingly think of as the herb garden.”
She took me to the first door, which I had to get my card read, and then wait on the other side while she did the same. We were in a corridor with doors both sides and went along to one that had a button beside it. She pressed the button and we waited until the door slid aside to reveal a lift. We stepped into the lift, and she told me to put my ID against a panel, after which she presented hers. She pressed a button that was two under the one that was lit.
“As you can see, we have extreme security. A camera showed two entering the lift, so, nothing happens unless two IDs are presented. No numbers to show which floor, so the only people that use the lift have to know where they’re going.”
When the door opened, we had to present our passes to a soldier, who passed them over a reader and checked our names on a list. What was different was the other soldier, off to one side, with an assault rifle pointing our way. The first one gestured for me to let him look in my bag. Maria held hers out, having done this many times, no doubt.
They stood aside and Maria opened a door, leading me into a room like no other I’d seen, outside sci-fi films. We were greeted by a lady in standard office attire.
“Hello, Maria. Hello, Lady Woodward. I’m Rosemary. Welcome to our little hide-away. We don’t get that many visitors down here. Justin is in his office.”
Maria led me to one side and knocked on a door. Hearing the enter command, we went in. Justin was sitting at a desk with three screens, two showing a scene, somewhere, and the third one with data. He stood up.
“Welcome, Maxine. Thank you for coming and thank you for those photos. A lot of work has gone into this case since I last saw you, and there are a lot of strange links being thrown up. Firstly, some seventy percent of known assassinations have taken place within fifty miles of a venue where those bands have played, as well as within forty-eight hours either side of the show. That, alone, was enough to get the attention of the upper levels.”
“Was that when both bands were on the bill or were some when there was only one band.”
“You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you? That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s one, the other, or both. If they are the killers, then there must be a killer in both bands.”
“I’ve been going through what I know about them, if you want to compare it with what you already know.”
“Good. Sit here. I’ll call up our information and you can add to it. Maria, can you take the other seat with the keyboard and add anything new.”
We started with the band members. As we worked through the lists, I was able to add the odd bits that I knew, which Maria added to the file. I wasn’t surprised that they had both the Russians’ full details from birth, including their impressive military record, right up to the point when they deserted. They had a long list of martial arts clubs that they belonged to or were able to spend the odd session at. Elly and Butch were there, with a similar listing of firing ranges that they had used, as well as the fact that Butch had served in the Polish army as a sniper. Both were children of Solidarity activists.
Klaus had a few notes about his low-level drug use, mainly weed. When I saw the names of his parents, I was shocked, as both were famous senior players in orchestras. I did a little maths in my head and deduced that the mother would have been over forty when he was born. There was no record of his early schooling and the record only started with his last years in secondary, in 2010. That would put his birth at around the early nineties. I pointed to this.
“Don’t you think that you could find out more about his early days? That’s a big gap in his history.”
Justin nodded and we carried on. Rudy had a sheet a mile long. Mainly for drunk and disorderly, or warnings not to use his strength too quickly when confronted. They were all listed as living in the two houses, as I had been told.
The ‘Dominerter’ band were almost normal people in comparison. The only stand-out was Emile, who had been picked up several times in his earlier days, while protesting in support of Basque separatists. His only job, after he left school, was in a fish-processing plant in Port de la Selva, called the Vent del Nord Peixateria. I pointed the screen.
“If he was processing the catch, he would be well used to using a filleting knife. They are usually slim and thin. Does that match the wound in the French agent?”
“It does, Maxine. As well as the wounds in seven of the suspicious deaths.”
“I suppose that some would have been shot, possibly with a sniper shot?”
“Correct. That correlates with several of the deaths, as well as dates and venues for the bands. There are others, though, who don’t fit the picture. What do you know about this new group?”
“Other than they’re all very fit and use their bodies to advantage, you mean?”
Maria giggled. I asked him if we could pull up the website. When we had it on the screen, he could see what I meant. I pointed out the three core members, and then got him to go through the other pictures. I pulled my file out of my bag and showed them the band list.
“Other than those three, none of the other players have lasted more than six months. I have a list of names of the ones who left, but such a turnover is unusual. You may want to check them all out, on top of the current band. I’m not sure if you’ve looked at the band name, seeing that it translates to ‘What a mess’. The odd thing is that the word ‘Macello’ is short slang for a ‘slaughterhouse’.”
He sat and looked at me, at the screen, at the paperwork, and then back at me.
“Maria, can you get Rosemary in here, please.”
She got up and left, coming back with Rosemary. Justin gave her a quick outline of what I had told him, and then turned to me.
“Maxine. You’ve dealt with the oddest people in your career. Take a stab in the dark and give us the most outlandish scenario that you can think of.”
“OK. I’ll have to say that I think that the previous deaths are only linked by the people involved. The one person that we haven’t spoken about is the Italian with the car collection. I don’t know how it will be achieved, but I think that those who didn’t make the grade in ‘Che Macello’ failed in some way and were eliminated to ensure their silence. I think that the future tour will be for just one purpose, and that will be to have one, or more, cars explode with important people around them. The drivers will be pulled in, if they don’t die, and the rich Italian will have left the country well before the event. If Butch knows him from his time in Turin, and is already in the picture as a sniper, then he may well be in one of the cars.”
“So, you think that this may well be the big event, with all the bands being implicated, while the money man gets off.”
“If his car, or cars, have been invited to that event, it would be a brave customs agent who would strip them to the chassis, and that would be the only way to find any explosives. It could be something like C4, that doesn’t have an odour. It could even be nuclear, a small tactical weapon. They are already around. If it is, the crime scene would be pretty big, as well as being impossible to check forensically. If it happened, out of the blue, without any forewarning, it would be impossible to know where the initial explosion occurred, or even who had been killed.”
“I asked for outlandish. I didn’t expect horrific. Rosemary, can you organise a meeting of the Tactical Group, please. We’ll have to put this to them as something to consider. We do have time to make plans. Now we’re surer that the bands are involved, we’ll need to put extra security on every likely target between now and next summer, within fifty miles of their shows. If we pull them in, the big event may get changed to somewhere that we won’t have a lead, so will have to leave them out there, for now. Maxine. Do you have anything else to add?”
“My lists are here, in this folder. The only other thing that I can offer is the alternative meaning to the band names. ‘Exarctics’ not only refers to the two Russians from above the Circle, but the rabbit on the drumskin is an arctic hare, and if you add the ‘X’ you get ‘Crosshairs’ as in what you see in a telescopic sight. I expect that Butch thought of that. The other thing, other than the slaughterhouse tag, is that I have been doing those nine-letter things where you find lots of words, including one that uses all nine letters. Dominerter is such an odd use of letters, even in this day and age, that I wondered if it was an anagram. Seeing that most of the band are French, it was no wonder that I came up with ‘dernier mot’, meaning the Last Word.”
“Oh! Lovely. Three bands with really suspicious names and a scenario out of a scary movie. That’s all I need.”
“Have you found out who this Italian car collector is?”
“We have an idea. We have an agent getting pally with the Blenheim event, to find out what this years’ focus is, and also about next year. He’s acting as a serious collector from America with a hidden hoard. I do have an idea, but need it confirmed. Rosemary, do we have any updates from Sage yet?”
“I’m expecting something in a couple of days, Justin.”
I looked at the screen but didn’t see what I was looking for.
“Justin. You said that some killings were by knife, and others by a long gun. How many different ways did the others die?”
“The majority were strangled. The thumbs had been pressed into the neck hard enough to crush the thyroid cartilage. A few had been garroted with something very thin, but the garrote has never been left at the scene. The forensic guys have suggested cheese wire or similar.”
“Like the ‘E’ string on a guitar? Something that all the bands would have in abundance.”
“Exactly. Sit here with Maria and go through what we do know. I’ll go and talk to the Tactical Group to see what we can do. One thing depends on how the car is brought into the country. If I was organising it, it would arrive close to Blenheim by air. That would be expensive. If it comes in by sea or train, it could be diverted to a customs shed for examination,”
“If it’s a very important one, it may not be driven, so the train is out. The usual way of transporting very rare classics is by container. If it’s coming from Italy, there will have to be a time when it’s submitted for examination, whether at the point of departure or the point of arrival. If it leaves Italy from Genoa, it will likely pass through Mafia controlled customs, if enough palms were greased.”
“That means that well have to find an excuse to hold it here. Of course, all the paperwork will have to be submitted to get in into the country, so we’ll have some advance notice.”
He and Rosemary left us, and I sat with Maria to look at the evidence. There was an interactive map, with the positions of the deaths and the venues where the bands had been playing. All told, there were about twenty-five, and one of the bands had been within fifty miles within the four-day window.
As we looked closely, Maria typed up an algorithm to see who was more likely to be the assassin. Every one of them, by long gun, had Elly and Butch close by, and every one of the stiletto murders took place near a Dominerter gig. I pointed to the timing of those ones.
“Those killings must have taken place while the band was at the venue. There’s no way any of them could have made it to the murder site and back. All of those were found on the Sunday morning, so the killing took place on Saturday night. That points directly to Emile, as he would be free to move around.”
“So, if we can put a trace on him, we could track him to his next target. If we take him down, that may stop further attempts, so we wouldn’t get the others.”
“If the band doesn’t know about the killing, they’ll just get another roadie. It would be inconvenient, but not enough to stop a tour. If you take him out of the equation this year, it will narrow the focus for next year.”
“We have a small group that we can put onto that while he’s overseas. They’re known as the Paramilitary Action/Reaction Squad, Legal Elimination – Yonder. They’re not allowed to operate in this country and would be disavowed by our government if caught. That’s Parsley, for short. They’ve worked with the French security before, or so I’m told.”
I refrained from giggling, but it was hard to keep a straight face.
“Do you have a listing of where Dominerter is playing for the rest of the year?”
“We do. There haven’t been any killings for a while, so we’ll put our people on him to see if we can find out his patterns. I’ve made notes of what else you’ve told us. I’ll take you home, now. Justin won’t be back for ages if he’s with Tactical. They take forever to be convinced to get into gear. It does stop kneejerk reactions and ghastly failures, but Andy and I find it tedious. I know that you’d be pushing to round them all up and search their homes and devices.”
She led me back to the car, being checked over along the way for any items we may have carried out of the inner sanctum. When she dropped me off at Canary Wharf, I went up to my apartment and tried to do something normal. There was an email from Lena, telling me that we had a large group that wanted to display at the Festival of the Unexceptional. This year was at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire. A lot of our members had enough money to buy something fitting for this, just to have a good day out. I had a Cortina, the same model and year of the one that got shot up in Yarmouth, as it had been my favourite until I got the Daimler.
That event was to be a couple of weeks away, so I took the Mercedes to my lock-up and swapped it for the Cortina. I sent Lena a message to book me in for the event and get me some accommodation. I suggested that she try for Friday to Monday at the Royal Oak at Swayfield, a place I had been to previously.
That evening, I managed to convince Bertie that it could be fun, as well as something to release some of the tension of organising. It only took me telling him that they had Whitley Neill gin for him to agree to a weekend away, even if he did have to put up with traveling in a mere Cortina.
Marianne Gregory © 2025
Chapter 4
The Cortina wasn’t a true copy of Tina, my original one, which ended her life bullet-ridden and on the roof of a Lowestoft car yard. Tina Too was tweaked by my pal Grayson, with better suspension, brakes, and some work on the Lotus engine, as well as a competition gearbox and high-ratio differential. She was placid around the city, but very hard to beat on the open road.
Being Canary Yellow, she stood out in a crowd. I had used her several times at car shows as the site of our information table for the club. Bertie actually enjoyed driving her when we went to a country show, and I didn’t expect to have a lot of time behind the wheel for the FOTU display.
When the show weekend came around, Bertie was up to date with his tour organisation, so we had a clear couple of days to enjoy. I took us out of the city, and he took the wheel once we reached the Connects Plus Services on the M11. That Friday night, we slept at the hotel, and went to the display site on Saturday morning.
The gathering didn’t disappoint, with almost a couple of thousand cars lined up. Lena had got there early and saved enough spaces for our club, not an easy job with the officials worrying if there would be space for everyone. None of our club members had entered the concours, as they all had cars that weren’t quite right under the bodywork. We did, however, get a lot of praise from the sightseers, because all of ours were so well presented. With the money our members had, it wasn’t hard for them to have a good car.
I was admiring one of the cars, a Lancia Beta Spider from the seventies, with some of the race parts from the Stratos rally cars, with Hector, a lover of all Italian automobiles.
“Pity we can’t put these in the better rallies, Hector. At least you have your Bugatti collection for those.”
“It’s all very well, Maxie, but it’s having to put up with all those snooty owners that gets to me. At least this crowd appreciate the vehicles for what they are, and not for how much they’re worth. The cars at Blenheim, this year, don’t have a particular make, but I’ve been asked to finish off my Type 55 Roadster for next year. A little bird has told me that they’re working on getting one of the Type 41 replicas over from Italy. We haven’t had them in the country since Goodwood in the mid-eighties.”
“How close is it to original?”
“They’ve used one of the engines from a railcar. It dates from the late eighties and was based in Nice. I heard that they picked up four engines in a scrap auction. The club magazine said that they were building another one of the Royale Esders Coupes like the one in the old Schlumpf collection. Seeing that the original was rebodied in the thirties, it’s a good one to build. A fourteen-foot wheelbase would be hard to get around some of the roads here, so I expect that it will be trucked in.”
“That will be an interesting show to visit. How are they reconciling with the fact that it’s a replica?”
“The owner has refused to have it entered for any awards. He’s happy just to bring it as a display only. Being an all-Italian show, mainly Bugatti, they’ve said that they’re getting an Italian band for the music.”
“I think that’s the band that Bertie will be organising, so I may be there with my security company.”
“It should be a show that’s right up my street, I think that they’re trying to get a sample of every one of the model numbers in a line-up, along with the new models that VW have put out. I may be getting old, but having a car that goes well over two hundred miles an hour but has a problem of where your wives’ handbag is stored isn’t my cup of tea.”
“How close is the 55?”
“Almost there. I need to source a few bits and pieces. I may have to borrow a couple and get them copied. Grayson has some good contacts in that field.”
“He is certainly a good man to know.”
I left Hector and moved along the line of cars, thinking hard. I was trying to remember details of the Royale. It was huge, and the motor was big enough to be used in railcars after the production finished with the war coming along. It was, I thought, a straight eight of more than twelve litres. That, alone, gave enough space to fit a decent sized bomb inside the engine block, especially if it wasn’t expected to be started. Showing it as display only wouldn’t stop anyone wanting to hear it, but there could be someone on hand to explain why it wouldn’t start.
The weekend was good. We gave out a lot of information sheets and signed on a few new club members. I also looked at a lot of delightful cars that brought back memories of my childhood. On Sunday, we drove to Spalding and wandered around the Springfields Retail Outlets, leaving some money and loading bags into Tina to take home. We had a very filling meal at the Pied café and went back to our hotel for a drink, a light tea, and a night of loving.
Monday morning, I rang the number on the Jolenes’ card. Andy answered.
“Jolenes’. Andy speaking.”
“Andy, this is Maxine Woodward. I was talking to Maria when I last saw her about a range of Italian products. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember any details to let her find the maker. I wonder if she and I could get together and discuss it again.”
“I’ll talk to her, Lady Woodward, and get her to meet you. She’s at the London shop this week. Would you like to see her there?”
“Actually, I’d like to repay her for the snack we had in Covent Garden. It was very nice, and the cake was a little spicy. I think that I’d like to try it again.”
“All right. I’ll get her to email you with a pick-up time. Thank you for wearing our products.”
Tuesday afternoon, I had a text on my phone.
‘PU Wed 10. Wear necklace.’
So, we were going to the basement to talk in private. I printed off all the information I could get on the Bugatti Royale, with a picture of the Esders Coupe and one of the railcar engines. I made sure that my bag was clear of anything that I didn’t need. That afternoon, I took Tina Too back to the lock-up and retrieved the Mercedes.
Wednesday morning, I was outside at the allotted time and Maria pulled up with Lena in the passenger seat. I got in the back, and we went off to Whitehall, going into the underground car park.
Maria took Lena through the security procedure as we tapped our cards on the panel in the lift, got them scanned by the soldier and had our bags checked. Inside the secure room, we were greeted by Rosemary and taken to Justins’ office. We were given drinks and offered seats before he got on with the business.
“Since you were last here, Maxine, we have put several teams into the field to monitor all of the three bands and the roadies. So far, the main result is with Emile meeting with a man that we have already suspected is a member of the FAI, an Italian revolutionary organisation that promotes direct action, which loosely means killing people who you don’t like.”
“That sounds logical, seeing his past-time.”
“The odd thing is that Klaus also met this man in a bar, on another occasion, if only for a few minutes. He didn’t show as a likely killer, given his musical history.”
“I’ve thought about that. The parents have no other children, and she would have been close to being too old to fall. I’ve looked at her internet details and there’s no trace of her taking time out to carry a child. What if Klause was adopted? His birthday was listed as January, ninety-two, and the first time he shows up as part of the family was in twenty-o-five, in high school as a child prodigy. He may have spent time in foster homes.”
“I’ll get our friends in Germany to follow that up. Now, there’s something you want to tell us?’
“Yes. On the weekend, I was talking to Hector at the car meeting. He’s been asked to finish restoring his Bugatti Type 55 sports car, in time for Blenheim next year. He told me that they’re planning an all-Italian show, with a sample of each of the original Bugatti models, as well as some of the later version and other Italian cars. He gave me two bits of other information that relates to what we’ve discussed. They’re talking about having a live band from Italy, and the ‘Che Macello’ band will be in the country on tour at that time. The other thing is that they have been in discussion with an Italian owner of a Bugatti Royale replica, currently being constructed. He has offered to show it as a display only, which means that it won’t need to be started to be eligible for judging.”
Lena laughed.
“That would be a sight to see. If they pack the engine with explosive, it will make one hell of a bang!”
I showed Justin the pictures and explained that the engine was a straight-eight of over twelve litres, and that the sump was huge.
“The other thing with this model is that there isn’t a gearbox attached to the back as we normally see it. Instead, in order to counteract the weight of the engine, the gears are in the separate gearbox in the centre of the car, which creates a second bomb case, and then there’s another driveshaft to the transaxle box.”
Justin and Rosemary looked at the pictures and the other information. Rosemary looked at Justin.
“If what you proposed is correct, Maxine, that engine is big enough to carry a two or three megaton warhead. The blast would totally destroy everything for about five miles, and the fall-out would be a lot wider. It would certainly make Oxford and Bicester uninhabitable for a very long time. If someone was looking towards the explosion, there would be flash blindness almost as far as London, as well as other places up to fifty miles away. I’ve taken in what you said, last time, Maxine, and this would be truly catastrophic.”
Justin took over.
“It’s a good job we have some time to prepare. We’ll keep the teams working on the band members. Hopefully, we’ll catch one of them in the act. If we take the two bands out of the picture, we can concentrate on the new one from Italy. Did you get a name of this Royale owner?”
“No, but I expect that if you talk to the Owners Club, they’ll be able to tell you. It could be as an approach from someone from the Customs to make sure that the imports go smoothly.”
“Look, thank you for this. We’ll get our tactical group looking at the problem. Lena, if you stay, we’ll get you up to speed on this. Maria will take you home, Maxine. I’d like to say that this has been helpful, but it’s going to give me bad dreams.”
Maria drove me home, via her dress shop where I tried a few new things on and only bought one. August and September passed without any upheavals. We had a club display at the Silverstone Festival, with some of our members entering their historic racing cars. Hampton Court and Blenheim were far over my social strata, they passed with just a mention in our club newsletter.
In October, I had a text on my phone, from Maria, telling me that she would pick me up the next morning to show me some new stock. Once again, when she arrived, Lena was with her, and we went to Whitehall again. Down in Justins’ office, he was deadly serious.
“Maxine and Lena, I have a few things to tell you. The first is that the team following Emile were behind him when he left a French venue, as the band was playing, and drove ten miles to the house of a person that we had already identified as a possible target. The target, and the officers in his house, were all wearing stab vests under their jackets, just in case he got into the house.”
He looked at his notes.
“He approached the front door, rang the bell and called out that he was from the targets’ office and that there was important information for him. An agent opened the door, on the chain, to get a spray of gas in his face. As he fell back, Emile barged the door and entered the house, brandishing his knife. The followers, by now, had caught up and rushed inside, catching Emile unawares. He was shot, from the front and back, by the agents, who take no chances.”
I wasn’t surprised that the death was the outcome but hadn’t heard about him dying. Justin continued.
“The agents followed through with an organised plan. They took his body to his car and arranged a high-speed meeting with a bridge support, on the way back to the venue. It was also accompanied by an incendiary device and whispers to the local police to not look too closely. As far as the band is concerned, Emile went for a drive and left the road at speed. He was cremated, for the second time, in a small ceremony and life, for ‘Dominerter’, goes on. The target was told not to say anything, and his home was tidied up.”
Lena nodded.
“The rest of the band aren’t suspect, are they?”
“No. As far as it goes, they seem to be a bunch of lads with just music and sex on their minds. The surveillance on them has been reduced until they do something out of the ordinary. So far, the only one that has stepped out of line in ‘Exarctics’ is Klaus, by meeting a known FAI agent. The Russians are exceedingly regular in what they do. It’s a constant round of martial arts and band work. Their only fun is visiting a few gay bars.”
“Did you find out about Klaus’ childhood?”
“We have done. It took many weeks and some highly placed suggestions to the right people, but we did get his Social Services file from the German authorities. Our good bass player, that has only some minor drug cases against him, is actually the closest one to a revolutionary in the band. He was taken into care in March ’93, by the police raiding the address of Wolfgang Grams and Birgit Hoyefeld. Grams was shot on a railway station while resisting arrest, and Hoyefeld was arrested at the time. He was placed with several families over the years, with all of them reporting that he had a terrible anger and had killed a number of family pets. It was only when they put him with the last couple that he discovered music.”
“What had his real parents done to have them in a shoot-out?”
“They, my friends, were the last two active members of the Baader-Meinhof gang, more commonly known as the Red Army Faction. You may be old enough to have heard about the hijacking of an Air France airliner, which was raided by the Israeli commandos at Entebbe. There were two of the gang helping the hijack. After nineteen-ninety, searches in East Germany discovered paperwork linking the gang to the Stasi, who had armed and trained them.”
“But he hasn’t done anything after meeting the FAI member?”
“No. We’ve pulled all of their bank records, and he deposited a large amount, the next time he was near his bank, so I think that he was getting his payment for a job well done. In that game, you don’t issue invoices. So far, looking at the records, we’ve been able to pinpoint times that the other two have made deposits outside normal band payments, that also correlate with the shooting deaths that we know about. We’re going back to see if we can find the extra payments at times before we had started picking up the assassinations.”
Lena looked at him.
“Justin. I’m not well up with normal spook procedures, but this is looking as if the FAI were controlling Emile and Klaus, but not the other two. If nothing has happened with Elly and Butch, could it be that they’ve been told to go quiet, until after the main attack? Or, at least, if they’re still alive after that.”
“You could be right, Lena, but we’re still keeping an eye on them. Now, the other thing is that we’ve now discovered, from the Bugatti Owners Club and the Blenheim organisers, who will be bringing old cars to the show. Two are out of the UK, and you already know one. Two are from France and are long-time collectors. Their cars will be transported by road and will be held in customs with enough time to be checked. The fifth is that Royale from Turin. We haven’t pushed, but it was suggested that it will come by sea, in a container, leaving from the port of Genoa.”
He looked at his notes.
“The owner is a Count Luigi Spanasiotta. He is a very rich man with several businesses. He has a stake in an agency that looks after musicians, actors, and dancers. It is the one that handles ‘Che Macello’. He also runs an import/export company out of Genoa. That, alone, raises a danger flag. The port of Genoa is well-known for being controlled by two Mafia gangs, who have split the port between them. The Count isn’t known to have any links with those gangs, but he must have to be able to ship things in and out of the port.”
Lena grinned.
“That would make it very easy to have a certain container put on board a ship without any customs inspection.”
“It does, and, unfortunately, also makes it easy to arrive in this country, if enough money is spread around. We can’t plan anything more until we get confirmation on times, dates, and places. If you make an appointment with Maria, as soon as you get more information, we can start planning further.”
We left his office and Maria took us to Soho. I stayed with Lena, and we found ourselves at our usual restaurant, to have lunch. Lena was quiet, until we were on our coffee.
“You know, Maxie, love. I was thinking a big bundle of C4 until he mentioned the other. If that’s the case, it would make much of Oxfordshire a wasteland. We have to stop it.”
I put my hand on her arm.
“We will, Lena, we will.”
I went into the office with her and checked that things were running smoothly. The security side was flat out with the summer tours winding up. We had a few that were set for winter, and we usually called for volunteers over the Christmas period. The investigation part was quiet, but that wasn’t a problem, with all the other things going on.
The car club was slowly getting big enough to take over the other desks. We were organising visits to events, driving tours, track days, and keeping up with new members. We had one girl working full-time on a monthly newsletter, with stories, a calendar of events, and a ‘sale and wanted’ section. She was compiling a list of contacts for parts and automotive work to be added as a Christmas bonus. The biggest part of the club was with owners of ‘kit cars’, the Austin Seven Hillclimb models and the Caterham derivatives, as well as those with the AC Cobra and GT40 look-alikes. These took up more than seventy percent of our office time, and we were now attracting overseas members, so needed to start organising get-togethers in other countries. The turn-over from the club was enough to pay its way and then some extra.
Things, for me, stayed normal, until the end of November. I had a text from Maria to tell me that there was some new, and exciting, stock to look at. The following day, I joined her and Lena on a trip to Whitehall. In Justins’ office, he was very serious, sitting us down without any offer of drinks.
“Ladies, I’ve brought you in because there have been a few developments that you should be aware of. The first is that Elly and Butch are now out of the picture. They were followed to a house where another one of our likely targets lived. They parked some way away and walked in with both carrying guns. It’s a rural area and there are plenty of trees around the house. The agents stayed well back as they split up. They texted the guards in the house that an attempt was going to happen. Elly took up a position where she could see the front of the house, while Butch went to where he could see the side. What is odd that they chose vantage points where the two main rooms that the target used are located.”
He took a sip of a glass of water.
“The French had enough time to set up the trap. They had life-size cutouts of the target. He is a very well-known figure in French politics. They set the cutouts next to the two main rooms and pulled the curtains on a countdown. Elly and Butch both fired at the same time, thinking that they had the shot. That was the last thing that they did. The French have no desire to parade murderers on the media.”
I thought that this was a much deadlier case than anything I had been involved with. He looked at his notes.
“The bodies have been incinerated in a nearby furnace. The guns have been destroyed. Their personal effects were used to create a false trail. They were carrying their passports and banking cards, so a couple of agents, dressed to look like the two, drove their car to a distant railway station, where they bought two one-way tickets to Belarus. The car was left in the carpark, unlocked. The target made an important speech, two days later. On the face of it, the attempt failed, and the assassins have made a run for it.”
I was thinking about that.
“Surely, their controllers would be suspicious. Are you still monitoring their house?”
“We are. A week after the speech, the house was firebombed. The culprits were arrested a few miles away. They’re members of a small wing of the National Rally, a group not known for direct action, more likely to protest. From what I’ve been told, it’s a very small wing, likely to be a lot smaller, by now.”
“No prisoners?”
“No, not with the stakes that this case has thrown up. Stakes that have got a lot bigger this week, which is why I’ve called you in. The Palace will announce a State Visit from the Italian President, set for next August, with a number of the Italian government joining the party. If the planned assassination happens, we’ll be facing an unsure future in this country, as well as Italy losing many of its leaders. Our friends, in Rome, have been made aware of most of what we know, and will be monitoring the revolutionary groups, as well as the Mafia gangs. We have told them that we have it in hand, and that they can move whenever they see a gathering of armed men.”
Marianne Gregory © 2025
Chapter 5
We sat there with our jaws dropped. Talk about upping the stakes.
“We haven’t been told where the band tour will want to play yet. I expect that Oxford will feature, sometime in September. We usually get six or seven months to organise them, so should get a message soon. If ‘Exarctics’ have lost the singer and drummer, it will take some time before they can play again.”
“Yes. Your friend, Rudy, was helping ‘Dominerter’ and has moved in with them, now his house is just a shell. They’re playing a series of venues in Spain, at the moment. What’s that look for, Maxine?”
“Look, Justin. It’s just that I feel as if I’m not really needed here. I’ve passed on information, agreed, but this is all going on and I’m just getting told what’s happened. I’ve always been more ‘hands on’ with a case, and this doesn’t feel right.”
“I can understand what the two of you are thinking. The point is that it was you meeting the Bartons and providing us with that photo, along with the name of Rudy and the bands that got us looking closely at them and their links. That, alone, has saved lives and eliminated three assassins who were responsible for many deaths. With investigations at this level, there are no egos. You have as much right to be here as anybody. Andy and Maria feel the same. I know, as we’ve spoken about it. While things are happening in Europe, it’s up to the authorities there to deal with it, with us getting points for providing them with the information.”
“I know, but it all seems as if I’m being told a story, with a new chapter when I come here.”
“As far as we know, there’s one more chapter to be written, and that’s what Klaus does next. Without playing, he may start reaching out for his handler, and that could give more closure. The Russians seem happy, just working out and seeing agents to try and recruit more players. They’re doing exactly what a band leader should do. No, you’re not being sidelined, as the finale of the story could be here, in Blenheim, next September, and your input into that will be vital in us saving thousands of lives, including our heads of state.”
“I suppose, if you put it like that. Have you any plans for looking at the car?”
“Our tactical group have been working through modelling scenarios. If it comes from Genoa to a port here, we’ll need to know the port of entry. I expect that Southampton will be the most likely.”
“That would be on the loading details, so you have about a week to set something up. If it’s taken from the container at the dock, he would have booked a long transporter to take it to Blenheim, to further the story that it can’t be started. Given that he wants to leave before the big bang, I would expect that he would have his own car. It may be in a separate container, but I would expect that he’d use a forty foot one with both in.”
“That’s an interesting thought, Maxine. If we want to put his container into a safe place, we could say that we have a tip that there’s a drug shipment in a forty-foot container from Genoa, and quarantine all of them for inspection”.
“It would pay to find out the ratio of twenty to forty-foot ones in an average unloading. You wouldn’t want too many.”
“This is all good. If his own is in the container, so he could follow the truck, it would be another pointer to him getting away early. If we do use the customs ploy, we could have a container in the shed, filled with the inspection team and bomb experts, to do their job overnight. I doubt that we could hold his container for more than two days, unless we organise a strike with the lifter operators. That may expand into a full-blown stevedore strike that would lock up the docks for weeks. We would like to avoid that!”
“If your team can work through the night, the normal customs inspections could take place during the days. If there is a bomb, and it’s removed, you don’t want to leave him enough time to double check, so he should get it back a day before the show.”
“Good thinking. There’s a lot of details that can only be planned at the last minute. Never fear, ladies, there will be plenty for you as the event gets close. We have a lot of agents out there, watching and checking, from our service and other European services. Genoa is going to be a problem, seeing that the port is run by the Mafia gangs and knowing their need for security. We’re trying to put someone inside the shipping office as a clerk. They won’t be going for Mafia secrets, just the paperwork for the car.”
We spoke about likely scenarios and then Maria drove us back to my home. I made some sandwiches for Lena and I and we spoke more about what we had got ourselves into.
“I’m not sure about this, Maxie. Justin is sounding like the officers that used to plan operations when I was serving. All bright sayings and wishful thinking. That used to get troops killed.”
“I’m with you on that, Lena. It’s everything happening without us that bugs me. It’s all very well to be told that we’ll be involved in the final phase, it’s just that I can’t see our place in it. Let’s take it that the bomb is removed or made inoperative. The whole thing will be an anticlimax when nothing happens. I know that nothing happening is what we’re working towards, but it all seems so, well, pointless.”
“There is taking the Count into custody, as well as any accomplices. That might get exciting. Thinking about the Count, that’s the odd thing about the whole business. He has to have a reason to try this. There’s a lot of loose ends. Where he’s getting a nuke is the main one. Even if he’s picked up a tactical shell, they don’t grow on trees. Then there’s the expertise needed to enable it to be detonated. It’s something that terrorist groups dream about, but only found in the nuclear arms world.”
“You’re thinking that it may all be part of a bigger plan?”
“That would make sense. Russia is constantly rattling sabres, and so is America, these days. Then you can add China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, France, and good old Blighty to the nuclear countries. China has never said, openly, that it would use them. North Korea isn’t that far ahead to have something small enough with the sort of result we’re talking about. Both India and Pakistan have declared that theirs are only for deterrent purposes. Ours are deployed on submarines or as big bombs, and so are French ones. That leaves three possibilities, the US, Russia, or Israel. We know that the US has depleted uranium shells, and they do send a lot of weapons to Israel. Russia could have almost anything you could think of. Who knows, we may not even have a nuke. It could be a chemical weapon that is short lasting but highly contagious.”
“You’re talking about something that would wipe out the country but would leave it habitable in a few weeks?”
“It’s logical, from a military viewpoint. You end up with a small number of survivors who are easily overcome. You just need to clean up all the bodies, and then you just take over the entire country. If you think about it, any one of the three countries that we’re left with would be happy to have our island as a blank canvas to occupy. The US would be able to dominate Europe by being this close. Russia would have Europe in a pincer situation, and Israel would be able to send a load of settlers to take over the agriculture, a long way from the thorns in their side from closer enemies. If you like conspiracies, it could be a joint venture between the US and Israel.”
Her logic stopped me in mid-chew. As I finished my mouthful, I was thinking hard.
“We’ve never been told what the assassinated people were thinking, and who they were trying to influence. If there’s a common thread, it could point us to the likely instigators. The use of different terrorist organisations could be a way to hide the real reason for this all, If it’s really some Italian group wanting to eliminate the government, they could do that at home, without all this complication.”
“That’s all something we’ll need to talk to Andy and Maria about. I don’t trust Justin, completely. He’s so sure of himself, a lot like the officers that we started talking about.”
The next day, I sent a text to Maria, asking if I could talk to her about a new trend in fashion that I was keen to explore, and inviting both her and Andy to the apartment for lunch. Bertie was in Scotland for the week, listening to a couple of new bands. She texted back to say that they would come. I called Lena to say that we would host the Bartons for lunch to talk about trends.
That morning, I went to the shops to get some good things for lunch and tidied up in the apartment. I laid the table for four and opened a bottle of good wine. Lena arrived early and helped me get lunch ready. Maria buzzed at the outer door, so I pressed the button to let them in, then waited by the open apartment door to welcome them when the lift doors opened. We didn’t talk business, and I served lunch. Andy was looking around.
“Nice place you have, Maxine.”
“It was Berties’ before we got married. He was like a lot of titled folks, asset rich and money poor. In the case where I met Lena, we all came out of it very well off, mainly from horses doing the right thing. Since then, we’ve built his original business into something quite impressive. I’ve only added a womans’ touch, mainly having something to eat in the fridge.”
“You’ve brought us here for a reason.”
“Yes, Andy. You’re right. We’ll talk further after we’ve eaten, but, until then, I want the two of you to think hard about my first question. Would you trust Justin Thyme with your life?”
They both looked surprised and then at each other. We finished the meal, and I cleared the table, bringing out a coffee pot that had been percolating. When we were comfortable, Maria spoke first.
“Do you have a particular reason for your question, Maxine?”
“Both Lena and I have been at the pointy end a few times. Lena more than me. We have both developed a healthy knack of being able to read people. Lena thinks that he’s like one of those back-room officers who send troops to their death without any thought. For me, he reminds me of a certain, highly ranked, police officer who was planning my own death, after being gang raped.”
Andy took Marias’ hand.
“This is against everything that has been pounded into us since we left the normal force. I’m not sure what his game is, but, no, I wouldn’t be running in front of him if he was holding a gun. This is something we’ve spoken about, in private, since we first met him.”
“Next question. Were you working for him when we met at Laon?”
“No, we weren’t. Our boss knew that we were there, but it was just a stop on a buying trip. We followed normal procedure and put a report in with everything we had done and everyone we’d met. It was a couple of weeks later that we were told about the murdered agent and told to report to Justin. We went down into that command centre for the first time with him. I expect that our report was remembered at one of the many meetings, when the murdered agent was discussed. We, and our own group, weren’t aware of the other assassinations.”
“Yes, the assassinations. From what we’ve been told, Elly and Butch did the shootings and Emile did the stabbings, both controlled by the FAI. Klause has a dark past but hasn’t done anything that we’ve been told of. There are a few things that aren’t adding up. Can you tell us what the targets were doing that got them killed?”
“For some reason, Maxine, I think that you’re on to something that you’ll chew at until you get an answer. All of the targets that were shot or stabbed, were pro-Israel, and pro-America. I believe that we’ve gained some points from our cousins by putting a stop to that.”
“And the others?”
“Various reasons, mainly political firebrands and pro-Palestine rabble-rousers.”
“And those killings have stopped. Since when?”
“About three weeks before we met in Laon. There hasn’t been one since then.”
“So, the murder of the French agent, your report, and my information about the bands stopped the assassinations of pro-Americans. Do you think that there may have been two organisations operating? One that killed the pro-Americans and other one, or more, organising the other deaths?”
“If I was on a normal case, that would be something I would have followed.”
“So, why has nothing more been done to follow up the other cases. Why hasn’t Justin debriefed us more. Or, more importantly, why hasn’t he passed us on to other agencies who are following them up? More importantly, what makes this case so different?”
“The likely attack at Blenheim, for one.”
“You’re dead right. It’s an attack that is being planned by the same people who killed that mix of rabble rousers. Tell me. Before you met Justin, had you ever heard of Parsley?”
“No. We do move in interesting circles in the service, but that’s something very new, and unlikely to be an organisation that our own service would approve of. Execution without a trial isn’t our way.”
“No more than extradition without a hearing? Abduction without question?”
They looked surprised and then looked hard at each other. Maria spoke.
“What you’re saying has helped us to reconstruct our own thoughts. We’ve spent our time with Justine as the hired help. Both he, and Rosemary, have spent several years in Washington, as exchange agents to learn how they operate. They went over in twenty-seventeen and came back after the next election. That’s all in their public record. What’s not known is why they went there before the latest election, for three months, supposedly to cement our ties with the likely winner. You asked if we trusted him, well, I wouldn’t trust him to bring home some fish and chips. Now, you must have a notion based on this discussion.”
“When I offered the nuclear idea, Rosemary picked up on it and Justin followed her lead. We were talking about where an Italian Count could get a small nuke and realised that it would need the backing of one of the nuclear countries. We came down to three that were likely to be able to supply a tactical warhead. Russia, America, and Israel.”
“Wait! Are you saying that one of our friends is behind this? Russia, I can understand, but that would bring down a rain of missiles on their head. A nuke in England would be tantamount to declaring war on the rest of the world. That’s preposterous!”
“What if it’s not a nuke. What if it’s a virus or nerve agent. The explosion in the engine would be enough to rupture the gearbox which could have enough in it to kill everyone locally, and so easily transmitted to be passed to every person within a few feet, spreading out through the country, until everyone is dead.”
“Then you wait until coming in and just inhabiting the empty country, killing any survivors. That is almost logical to work. What does Justin have to do with it, though?”
“He was brought in to keep a lid on it, until the final day. You two, and us, have been brought into the inner circle to keep us quiet. We will have a role in Blenheim, and that will be as victims. Probably along with the Count and his band. I expect that there will be a show of taking the container and inspecting the car, but, in reality, it will just be show.”
“So, you think that the cousins are behind this?”
“It’s entirely possible, seeing the crazy people in charge. It follows the ‘warrior’ mentality, gives them a new country on the doorstep of Europe, and leaves them with a whole new economy to build. Tell me, have you met Sage?”
“No. We don’t think that Sage is a person, a bit like Parsley. The only unit with that name was the Special Agency for Government Expansion, set up a few days after Musk was given the Department of Government Efficiency, but has never sat, as far as we know. Oh dear! With what you’ve proposed, it’s starting to look as if you’re right.”
“Do you have friends within your own service who you can trust with your lives, because that’s what it will be?”
“We do. We also have ways to talk to them to appear all above board. What do you suggest?”
“That you pass on the suspicions. They could set up a parallel unit. The first thing is to find out how much of this they know. If the danger is so real, they should be aware. I would open a communication link, so that I can let them know where the container is arriving. They should then set up a couple of low-light cameras in the customs shed, to see if any inspection was done on the container. I’m sure that there will be inspections of any other container, and it’s very likely that something will be found, seeing where they’ve been loaded.”
“How do we stop the explosion?”
“Stop the truck on the way, offload the container and wrap it in concrete, then drop it in a quarry, with a microphone in the water to hear any blast. Hopefully, the virus will be contained. The other thing that they can do is monitor any evacuation of US organisations or their bases late in August. The show is from the twenty-sixth to the thirtieth.”
“What about the car show, the Count, and Thyme?”
“The car show will go on without a replica Bugatti, you could put a team on the other two to see what they do. If Thyme follows others of his ilk, he’ll never expect to be monitored. You’ll need to follow Rosemary as well, as I have the feeling that she’s the one really in charge. You could take the Count down at any remote spot and grill him quietly. I doubt that he would hold out for long, even if he does know the plan. It’s possible that he was told that the engine and gearbox are both good as show, but not to look inside.”
They stood and Andy held out his hand to me.
“Thank you for a good, and interesting lunch, Maxine. It’s been good to talk to the two of you. We’ll follow through with our true friends and will invite you to our shop in Birmingham for a browse of our better stock. Some of it would look good on both of you.”
We shook hands and hugged Maria, and then they left. Lena refilled her wine glass and sat in my lounge. I refilled mine and joined her.
“That’s let the cat out of the bag, Maxie, love.”
“That it does, Lena. It does make more sense, even if it’s crazier than an Italian Count wanting to eliminate his government.”
“We’ll have to be patient until they come back to us.”
“After reading about his way of working, I would say that Andy is on his phone, right now, to set up a meeting.”
The rest of the year was quiet, with no word from Andy, nothing from Spicy, but our usual round of working out tours, going to, and hosting, parties. Bertie and I had a lovely Christmas and flew to southern Spain for a couple of weeks in the sun. We were lazing by the pool at our hotel in Marbella, after a nice lunch and a few drinks. The couple on the sunbeds next to me remarked that the sun was too hot, and they left. Another couple took their place. I had my eyes shut when I heard the woman speak.
“Lady Woodward, my name is Jenny Anderson, and I used to work with Maria in a station in Birmingham.”
I opened my eyes and turned to look at her.
“Pleased to meet you, Jenny. I expect that this isn’t a chance meeting.”
“No. My husband is very keen to talk to you. Andy and Maria have spoken to him about your remarkable brain. I gather that the snoring guy next to you is the Lord Bertie.”
“It is, and he knows nothing about what Maria, and I, have talked about. In fact, he hasn’t met either of the Bartons, just that I’ve bought clothing from them.”
“We’ll keep it that way. If you leave him to have his snooze, I’ll look after him and tell him, if he wakes, that you went for a walk as you got too hot. Head for the bar and Dave will join you.”
I got off the lounger and walked towards the hotel building, taking a look at the man beside her as I left. I got a cool drink from the bar and sat in a booth. The man wasn’t far behind me. He had a soft drink in his hand and the aura of someone with some considerable authority.
“Good afternoon, Lady Woodward. Do you mind if I join you? My name is David Anderson.”
“It’s Maxine, David, and you can sit. Your wife told me that she used to work with Maria.”
“She did. I met Andy and Maria when they were working on their first serial murder, and my brother trained Andy in cave diving with their second. They’re a remarkable couple, just on thirty murders solved in those two cases. That’s why I was instrumental in getting them recruited in the arm of the force that I’ve been in for a while. They came to visit us, before Christmas, and presented me with one of the strangest stories I’ve ever heard.”
“I hope that they were believable.”
“Enough for me to ask some questions. My job, and theirs, is mainly anti-terrorism, which is why they were sent to Whitehall when the request came in. The odd thing was that we were never told what the reason was. You would think that a huge danger to the very fabric of our society would ensure that we would get involved, if only out of politeness.”
“From what I’ve been told, in that office, tells me that politeness doesn’t figure in their modus operandi.”
“Quite! They sat me down and gave me the whole story. I have to say that I was amazed. The idea of a state-sponsored hit squad is totally out of our guidelines. The rest of it was almost the stuff of a horror film. I, and my colleagues, worked on it over Christmas, and we found out a lot that made me check where you were, so we could talk. If you weren’t so busy, I’d pitch a job offer. Now, how long are you here?”
“Another ten days, and then back to Canary Wharf to organise the full year of tours, should I live so long.”
“I’ll get Maria to invite you to their shop in Birmingham. Expect to stay overnight, I’ll organise a good hotel. You’ll meet my boss, and, maybe, a couple of others. Andys’ office is very secure, and you’ll leave with a new outfit, both you and your very brave friend, Lena Sergeant. I’m sure that she has never told you about her service, just as you don’t brag about your own. However, her having PTSD is the least that she could have come home with, just as I expect that you have some bad dreams of your own.”
“The dreams aren’t that bad, David, it’s just that I can’t forget the smell of decaying bodies.”
Marianne Gregory © 2025
Chapter 6
When we went back to the pool, Bertie was snuffling, a sure sign that he was starting to wake up. Jenny grinned.
“He’s a world class snorer. How do you put up with it?”
“He’s much better than he was when I first met him. He wondered why no girl would stay the night, so I told him to see a doctor to fix his deviated septum. I think that he appreciated my telling him the truth. Good earplugs help as well.”
I went to Bertie and gave him a kiss on his forehead. His eyes opened.
“Come on Chainsaw, you need to go inside for a drink before you pop up like a piece of burnt toast. Our neighbours, here, want to employ you as an alarm siren. I told them that you already have a steady job at the fire station.”
Bertie stood up, said hello to Dave and Jenny, and I took him inside and up to our room, where I rubbed cream over him, then rubbed it in with parts of my body.
We had a lovely holiday and went back to London to continue building our financial empire. One of the first things we had to deal with was changing the ‘Che Macello’ tour, to fill in the space that the removal of ‘Exarctics’ had opened. We were able to call on some old friends, the band that had taken Bertie away from me when we had first met. They were big enough to draw the crowds, and I could only hope that the Italians were good enough to make the show worth seeing.
The tour started in late June and finished in London in the middle of August. The gig at Blenheim was the last show for ‘Che Marcello’, with ‘Dominerter’ going back to Europe after the last big show. As far as I knew, there were no criminals in that band, the only one left, with an interesting background, was Klaus. He hadn’t cropped up as certain, just a suspect of the strangling deaths, and, possibly, the garrotting’s.
During January, I heard nothing from anyone, until Maria sent me a text in the last week to give her a call at the Birmingham shop. When I did, she invited both me and Lena to a special showing of some new spring outfits that had arrived. It was for the Wednesday, and to arrive at three and park behind the shop, describing its location. I called Lena to tell her that I would pick her up for the trip north and to pack an overnight bag.
When we arrived, it looked like an ordinary, two-storey house that had been converted. The driveway went along one side and led me to the parking area at the back. I parked the Mercedes between the A4 Quattro and a BMW with very dark side windows. As we got out, the back door of the building opened to show Maria beckoning for us to come inside.
“Good morning, ladies, come on in. Andy’s in the cool room, sorting out some furs that need to be shipped to the owner. I’ve got a customer in the changing room. If you go up the stairs, Dave will meet you in the office.”
We went up the stairs and Dave was there to escort us into a room that looked like our office in the apartment. There was the usual big desk, with the obligatory monitor and a computer on the floor next to it. Behind the desk sat a man who rose to meet us. A man that I’ve met, a long time ago. He held out his hand to shake. I took it and smiled.
“Hello, Professor M. You gave a couple of lectures on terrorism when I was at Hendon. It was fascinating stuff, and a lot of it went way over my head at the time. Since then, I’ve seen more of life and found out that it wasn’t so black and white as I thought at the time.”
He laughed.
“The Maxine Fawcett of then was a babe in arms compared to who you are now, my dear. I’ve looked at the files where you have cropped up as a serious crime fighter. The force was the loser when you were hounded out, but you did get your own back by putting the officer that booted you out into prison.”
He shook Lenas hand.
“You, Miss Sergeant, have a file almost big enough to sit on. I’m very glad to meet a true heroine. You too, are a loss to our armed forces, but I can see why you had to be demobbed. Now, sit down and we can talk about the current case that David has brought to my attention.”
We took a couple of chairs while Dave stood by the door. The professor, or should I just say, ‘M’, sat at the desk.
“Now, ladies. Let me tell you what I know, and then we can expand on that. From what Andy and Maria have explained, there is a group operating out of a command room in Whitehall, that Maria calls the ‘Herb Garden’. It is run by a couple, Rosemary Smith and Justin Thyme. Both of them have spent some years in America, as exchanges with FBI or CIA agents, to learn how the other half operates. That’s where, I think, they were indoctrinated into their radical thinking.”
“That’s what we decided when we had lunch with the Bartons, last year.”
“Since then, my unit has been quietly checking the questions that you asked. The SAGE office is, indeed, tasked with locating areas where they can expand. Greenland and some parts of South America have been made known, publicly, but the idea that they think they can walk in and take over Great Britain is something so crazy that it never crossed our minds.”
Lena grinned.
“Maxie should be writing thrillers, sir. She has a knack of thinking up ridiculous scenes. I thought that her idea of a nuke was over the top, but Rosemary latched onto it as soon as it was proposed, as if it was a wonderful idea.”
“Exactly. It did serve as a viable concept. Now, the PARSLEY group are, we have found out, a hit squad. Whatever he told you about the French, they are no more bloodthirsty than us. They’re made up of very committed paramilitary types, drawn from the various militia groups that have come to the fore. Many have been taken on by ICE as an outlet for their hatred, but the worst of the worst are now roaming the world, taking out opponents to their brand of thinking. Those members of the band doing the killing of the influencers that were supporting their aims were eliminated. We’ve looked at the records, and have decided that Klaus is the other assassin, working for them, and has been stood down so that he drops off the radar.”
“It shows how well they hid themselves, if three were killing one lot and the other was killing the others. It makes you wonder if the two Russians had anything that they were doing.”
“I believe that they’ve been placed in the entertainment industry to monitor anti-Russian entertainers, and to create a list that will be acted on as the Russian expansion continues. The desertion story was just too easy to be true, without help. Now. We’ve had agents in France, examining the Royales in the museum there. They’ve reported that the aluminium gearbox is big enough to contain more than enough of a virus to contaminate an area the size of the Blenheim grounds. Our technical guys have made a mock-up of a drivetrain, taken from dimensions of a real one, and have developed a way that seems feasible. If the motor contains a short-barrel weapon, aimed at the gearbox, it could fire a projectile that would shatter the box and release the virus. It wouldn’t be loud enough to make everyone run, as it could have a silencer. That way, it would take people dropping dead before the alarm is raised. By then, it would be too late to put a lid on things.”
“So, if there was a way we could add an armour plating to the box, we may be able to let them carry on with their plan, up to the moment of the attempt? The projectile wouldn’t need a lot of force to penetrate aluminium. The extra plate would only need to look like the original and be glued in place.”
“Maxine, you really are one of a kind. We’ve decided to go along with what Thyme has already put in place and do the work inside the customs shed. He’ll go through with that, to make you think that the plan has been stopped in its tracks, and it will be, by our people who will be in a container in the shed. They have all the dimensions to make a realistic looking cover, in Kevlar and other material we now have. They’ll have the equipment, on hand, to manufacture something that will slow down the projectile at the muzzle, which they would be able to verify when they see the engine. If it is, in reality, a nuke, then we’ll have the celebrities quietly taken away before the detonation. We could have them all taken into a meal tent, with a coach behind it to take them away. If they’re told, by their own security, that they’ll have to be taken to safety, they won’t question it.”
“What about the plotters? I can’t see that the band has much to do with things, except provide a reason for the Count and his friends to be there.”
“We’ll organise enough manpower to round them up, if they’re still on site. Whatever it is, the main players will be far away, and we can nab them as they escape. If it’s the virus, I’m sure that the band was considered expendable.”
There wasn’t much more we could do except plan, and both of us were given our responsibilities for the day of the big show. Although Hector was the only club member to be invited to the main group of concours cars, there would be at least another fifteen hundred expensive vehicles on the Palace grounds on the Saturday. I would keep close to Maria and monitor the Count, while Lena would be with the tactical team to round up whoever else comes to light on the day. We would both be in the team that looked at the car when it arrived. We stayed the night in a hotel and spent the next morning looking at outfits.
For extra knowledge, we went to see Hector. He was surprised at our request, but he did have a huge library full of Bugatti literature. The thing about the Royale was that it was so long, with the huge engine at the front. Every model had the driver and passengers almost sitting over the rear axle, so the concept of having the gears located under the driving position, connected to the motor by a short shaft, was a simple variation of the normal gearbox. Lena told Hector that we had been bitten by the Bugatti Bug and were curious about this part of the design.
We also looked at pictures of the engines, as they looked towards the end of production, and noted where the drive was, leading to the gearbox. The main thing about the gearbox was that it was quite bulbous, very different to the conical shapes of today. A bullet, travelling just above the drive shaft, would strike it at a slightly inclined plane, so causing more of a tear than a simple hole. We were sure that the team would know all this, but it was good to know what we would be looking at.
That year was quite busy with tours and social outings. We were summoned to Whitehall, just the one time, to be told that the container would be a forty-foot one, and would also contain the Counts’ own transport, a new Bugatti Veyron. The Count would be flying in, with his driver taking the Veyron when the Royale was put on the transporter. The arrival, in Southampton, was a week before the event. Thyme said that we could see the film of the customs shed after the car had left.
The band tour was surprising. ‘Che Marcello’ were really good, in a sort of cheesy way. Maria had spoken to me when I was in her London shop, one day, and told me that the reason for the big turn-over of players was that the three core members were very choosy. Agents had spoken to a few who had left the band, and the main reason was that they were genuine musicians, and not happy with flaunting their pecs to generate fan frenzy.
Being aware of what to look for, I was particularly interested when a big war game session was announced, to take place in Northern Australia and the waters around New Guinea. It would be a combined exercise for the Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and some of the Pacific Islands, and would run for a month. The majority of the US forces would be going from the UK, in early August, leaving their heavy equipment behind, and then going directly home. Another deployment was going to arrive from the US in September and was being assembled.
Another odd thing was visitors complaining about the slow service from the US Embassy, and being told that there were more staff taking leave than usual, but things would be back to normal soon. Whatever normal was in American Embassies these days.
We had a few meetings with Dave and the Bartons, finalising plans. The day that the container arrived, it was taken to the customs shed, along with several others, for X-Ray and possible inspection. Ms’ people had been keeping the shed under surveillance for a week before that. Nothing was done on the first night it was there, and Lena and I were in a container, put into the shed on the second day, with six guys, a box of K-Rations and a Portaloo.
That night, we opened up our container, then broke the seal on the other, wheeling both cars out into an open space. Two guys looked over the Veyron, while the rest of us crawled under the Royale. One guy had a unit, similar to a stud finder, which he passed over the rear of the engine, finding a place that was thinner, big enough for a half-inch bullet. There was a similar thin point on the gearbox. The two places were covered. The engine got a piece of armour plate that was shaped to look like the original engine, and the gearbox had a flexible cover, which was securely glued and blended with the existing unit. Unless the car was up on a hoist, the coverings were undetectable.
Our container was moved, the next day, while the car one was opened two days later, after several others, with the driver getting a bit heated about the inconvenience to his employer, the Count. I was told that he seemed very agitated. In the meantime, there had been one discovery of a huge drug haul, which was probably not in Thymes’ plans. The two cars finally left Southampton for the trip north, with the Royale on a truck heading for Blenheim, with just enough time to be polished up before put in place. The Veyron went to London, to pick up the Count, who was cooling his heels in the Ritz, having arrived two days before.
Lena and I were summoned to Whitehall and shown a film of the cars taken out of the container, the Royale pushed up a ramp and the sump pan removed. The vision was as you would expect of a surveillance camera, in low light, but an obvious bomb shape was taken from the oil sump, after some suspenseful minutes, the sump cover was replaced, and the cars returned to the container, before the team tidied up and got in their own one.
All of us were ecstatic at the success of the operation, and we all had a glass of bubbly to celebrate, with Rosemary proposing a toast to me for saving so many lives. Lena and I were told to attend the event, to help rounding up any of the terrorists. Back at my apartment, Lena and I had a glass of wine and proposed a toast to ourselves.
“I hope we convinced the Herbs that we believed them, Maxie.”
“I think we did. If we hadn’t, we would never have left that room.”
“That film looked good. Not exactly like the shed where we were, but close enough, considering that we weren’t expected to have been there. The car looked a bit off, as if it was a fibreglass body. The whole thing looked like something out of Hollywood.”
“More like Tennessee, seeing that it’s one of their strongholds. What it did do was to put Rosemary and Thyme right into the soup, once the Bartons report to the good guys. We just need to go through with the rest of it. By Monday, we’ll either be feted or dead.”
I didn’t have anything to do at Blenheim until the Friday, which was when the band would be playing in the afternoon, when I would make sure that my security people were all in place and that the band were happy. Bertie and I went there on the Wednesday, seeing that we had special passes, and looked at the concours vehicles and the line of Bugatti’s. We complimented Hector on his 55 model, and I took pictures of all of them, including the Royale, gleaming in the sunshine.
All the distinguished guests arrived on Thursday and were shown around before the crowds that would be here on Saturday and Sunday. They all enjoyed a Dinner, that evening, in the Palace. I stayed in the background, with Maria, taking notes. When the Count arrived, I noted that his driver was Klaus, which I pointed out to Maria.
On the Friday, Andy and Maria were busy with their clothing line, as part of the Ladies Day fashion shows. The models were all ladies of breeding and wealth. And then there was me and a couple of footballers wives. I had to smile when Andy announced me as ‘the beautiful Lady Woodward’. Rosemary and Thyme turned up, that day, and I saw him talking to Lena as I strode along the catwalk. When I was back in my own outfit, I went and asked her what he had said.
“He just told me that there will be agents here on Sunday, to arrest the Count and impound the Royale. He was sure that the bomb would have been detonated yesterday, when the royal family and the guests were here. He has someone following the Count, who I just saw, polishing his car, seemingly unconcerned at the failure of his plan.”
“He obviously didn’t know that we saw the Count at the dinner. I doubt that there’s any of his people still in the country.”
I went to find Maria.
“Maria, I’ve just been told that Thyme has considered the operation over, and that he’ll have agents here to tidy up on Sunday. Do you have people on him?”
“We do. He has a flight to New York tonight, along with Rosemary and three others. They’ll be arrested once they’ve gone into the departure area, by armed officers, and taken to a very secure site. The Count has a flight out of Heathrow, to Turin, leaving at three on Saturday. I expect that the final act will be around one, when the place is packed. Stay with me and we’ll follow him in our car. There will be a roadblock on the A40. If we hold him there, he’ll be panicking about still being so close to the epicentre of the virus distribution.”
Bertie and I did our normal job with the band and their manager, telling them that everyone had been impressed with the shows. They would be playing on Saturday and Sunday, when the bigger crowds were around, and had a tent set up with albums and posters for sale, expecting that their final show in the country would be a good one.
When we arrived, on Saturday morning, the surrounding lawns was being filled with supercars and a lot of very well-off people. In the officials’ car park, I stopped next to the Burnt Orange Audi. Andy and Maria got out and said hello. I introduced Bertie, telling him that I had met the couple in France, last year, and that Maria was now my favourite dressmaker. He had known that I was in the fashion show, yesterday, but hadn’t been given the details.
He went off to make sure the band was all set to play, later on, and Maria gave me a small radio and an earpiece. When I followed her lead and put the earpiece in, I could hear someone directing agents into position. I heard a report that the Veyron had arrived, and saw it parked close to the exit. The Count got out and looked around, especially at the larger numbers that were rapidly arriving. Klause got out and also scanned the crowd. They went off towards the concours area. I stayed close to Maria, and Andy met Dave to look around to see if there were any other threats. The radio gave me up-to-date movements as we walked around. We were having a sandwich when the voice sounded excited.
“The Count has just polished his car and gave it a pat, then walked away with his driver.”
Maria and I walked quickly to the Audi, and she warmed it up. We pulled out some way behind the Veyron. We followed it onto the A40, and I saw a police car with flashing lights by the side of the road as we passed. My radio told me that the road was now closed. That’s when Maria hit the switches for the blues and twos and the Audi leapt forward like a gazelle. We came up behind the Veyron and Klaus sped up. It didn’t last long, though, as we could see a roadblock of four vehicles, all with lights flashing. As we got closer, I could see that there wasn’t any way around it, and that the officers standing on the road were in full armed response gear. I shouted in Marias’ ear.
“That’s left-hand drive. If he tries to reverse direction, he’ll favour the turn to the left!”
Sure enough, Klaus pulled over to the right, and Maria slowed slightly, but stayed where she was. When he pulled hard left, expecting us to be behind him, we were bearing down on his front left wing at a great rate. The impact was enough to send him out of control, into the bank by the side of the road, with the Audi attached to his front end. I got out while Maria was extricating herself from the seatbelt and the airbag. Klaus rolled out of the Veyron, leaping across the bonnet of the Audi, screaming.
“You bitch! Look what you’ve done! We’re all going to die! I’ll kill you first.”
His big hands reached for my neck and Maria shot him across the roof of the Audi.
The police pulled the Count out of the other side. He was panicking and telling them that he had a plane to catch. They didn’t take any notice and put him on the ground, with his hands cuffed behind him. He was starting to cry, telling them that we were all doomed. One of the officers was recording it all. The sound of a siren came from behind us, and an ambulance arrived. The paramedics attended to Klaus, but it was too late for him, his bass playing days were over. Maria started to shake and cry, so I just held her close until she settled.
“Your first time with a shooting? Lena has told me that years on a range doesn’t prepare you for the real thing.”
“I just saw his big hands going for your neck, and I remembered all the strangling deaths. I couldn’t let him kill my model, and my best customer, could I? On top of that, Andy is not going to be happy that I trashed his car!”
One of the armed guys came over and took her gun from her.
“It will be all right, lass. We saw the whole thing. You fired to protect one of your own team. Nice bit of driving, by the way. That Audi won’t be going far. When we break the roadblock down, well take you back to the Palace. I’ve reported that the Count is in our custody. He seems a mite upset.”
“He thinks that this could be his last day on earth, while he’s still here, officer. You’ll never hear the real reason that he’s scared. Take good care of him and keep him isolated. There’ll be others, way over our pay grade, who will take him from you.”
The roadblock was broken down, and the vehicles parked by the side of the road. A recovery truck was called for the Audi and the Veyron, so the traffic now flowing past us would have thought that it was just a crash site. We were taken back to Blenheim, where Andy was waiting to hold Maria. Dave came over to me.
“The gun went off about fifteen minutes ago. We put a camera under the car and there was no hole in the gearbox. We’ll leave the car there until we take it away on Sunday afternoon. I expect that there’s someone in your club who may like to own a replica Royale, once it’s been made safe. They may have to get another engine and gearbox, though.”
“I guess that I’m no longer needed, so I’ll go and talk to a few people and listen to the band.”
“You do that, we’ll be in touch later in the week. Oh! The main herbs are all in custody, and the French and Germans are cleaning up the PARSLEY group, now they know what to look for. In Thymes’ luggage was a laptop with a lot of interesting information. It’s been a good result, overall.”
I spent the rest of the day with Bertie and other club members. I spoke to Hector and asked him if he would like the Royale, if it came up for sale. He thought that he couldn’t afford it, so I laughed and told him that I would put in a good word for him.
Later, that afternoon, Lena and I were sitting in the refreshment tent, both with a glass of wine and a cream cake. We could hear the band playing. She smiled.
“I heard about your car chase, Maxie. The radio were all over it. The police rather liked Marias’ driving. You can now say that you’ve help write off a million-pound Bugatti supercar, as well as depriving a Bugatti Royale of its owner.”
“It was exciting, but just a normal day for an acting Bug Eradicator. How did you get on?”
“All very quiet. I think that the Count was the last one on site, and the band was just a distraction.”
Professor M came over and sat with us.
“Ladies, congratulations on a job well done. We’ve put a camera under the Royale, and the cover on the engine has a big hole torn in it. The gearbox was only scratched, so our boffins think that the projectile was a fifty-calibre hollow-point, which shattered on exit. We’ll keep an eye on the car and collect it on Sunday, when everyone else have left. I’ll be talking to you in the future, after we’ve found out what we were dealing with. This will have to be reported to the upper levels of Government, as it will change our friendship with the cousins, probably for a very long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if we cancel their leases on the military bases and refuse their forces entry to the country. Of course, nothing will be made public. I’ll leave you now, to eat your cake and listen to the band.”
“Thank you, Professor. That band gets a lot better, every time they play. I think that they’ll have a good future. Their own bodies work well, and if they add some more originals, they’ll have an impressive body of work. Listen to that, they’re starting to play an upgraded version of Scarborough Fair. I expect that they have no idea how ironic that is.”
Marianne Gregory © 2025