He stood very still, short of breath, trying not to breathe too hard lest someone hear him wheeze. Then he noticed that one of the machinists on the very last row of workers was looking at him. Black and probably somewhere in his middle age, the man stared at him with huge, wounded eyes. His face, which was emaciated and out of which teeth poked at strange and crazy angles, was one of the saddest things Çetin İkmen had ever seen. With trembling hands, İkmen put a finger up to his lips and shook his head. The man did not respond. All İkmen could hope was that he had seen and understood, and didn’t summon a foreman. The man turned back to his work and İkmen pressed his ear to the side of the little wooden office. The conversation in there was in English.
‘Derek, it isn’t about you!’ he heard Ülker’s raised voice say. ‘You do what you have to do to help Ali, then you get out. End of story.’
‘Ahmet, this is the chance I’ve been waiting for,’ the Englishman countered. ‘To get even!’
‘With a tube station? Derek—’
‘Moorgate, a tube station, robbed me of my future. Now another station can pay for that,’ Harrison said.
Tube station? Why were they talking about tube stations? Not Mark Lane or even Fenchurch Street station. İkmen felt his body go cold. Oh Allah, they were going to hit the underground!
‘I want to see—’
‘Unless you want to die, you can’t stay to watch Ali detonate his device!’ Ülker said.
‘And anyway,’ Ali Reza said, ‘when I do what I do, I am doing it for the greater glory of Islam. You people forget that! That is why I am doing this,
that
is the point!’
‘Yes,’ Ülker said. ‘That is the point – or one of them.’ He paused for a moment. ‘That and what will follow on from Ali’s martyrdom.’
‘And you won’t count me in on that either!’ Derek Harrison roared. ‘You and your holy man have picked—’
‘Derek, your job is to get Ali in, help him with his equipment and then get out,’ Ülker said. ‘You must get away, Derek! I am giving you this opportunity because you are my friend. Once that station goes up, the police will be everywhere. I do not want you to get arrested, I do not want you to tell the police about me!’
‘I wouldn’t! Christ, you do know that, don’t you, Ahmet?’ Harrison said. ‘What do you take me for?’
‘What are you doing?’ The voice came from directly behind İkmen. But the words were in English and so he couldn’t react immediately.
‘Oi!’
İkmen took his ear away from the side of the office and turned. The man behind him looked Turkish, though he spoke in English. The main thing İkmen noticed about him was that he was pointing a gun at him.
‘What you doin’, guy?’ the man said again.
İkmen shrugged. ‘Er . . .’
‘Listening to what the boss is sayin’ ain’t healthy, man,’ he said and reached forward and grabbed İkmen by the front of his shirt.
‘Um, Mr! Sir!’ İkmen stammered.
‘You come with me,’ the man said, ‘and let’s see what Mr Ülker has to say about all this!’
Chapter 19
Wesley Simpson had told the Turkish bloke that he wasn’t interested in dodgy driving any more.
‘Listen, man,’ he told him, ‘I don’t do none of that no more.’
‘Don’t do none of what?’
‘That crazy fast getaway driving,’ Wesley had said. ‘I don’t do it! Happy to drive in your moody pills and take away your less than authentic handbags, but driving people? No way, man. Especially not at speed. I know what that means and I ain’t doin’ it!’
But then the Turk had made him, as the Godfather said, an offer he couldn’t refuse, and Wesley had not just weakened but totally collapsed.
That
was money! That was money that could make you disappear completely, and in some luxury too. Wesley had always fancied Rio de Janeiro. The scenery looked great, the beaches were beautiful, and as for the women . . . Also, there was that whole Ronnie Biggs connection. So even if the Old Bill did track him down to Rio, they couldn’t get him. Unless that whole situation had changed. That was a worry. That bothered Wesley almost as much as thinking about who or what he would be carrying in the car the Turk had given him. Nice motor. Subaru. Plain, though, not so much as a different-coloured fin on it. Wesley looked down at it parked outside on the street. Had it been his he would have pimped that thing till it shone. But this job was all about discretion. Discretion but no violence. Ahmet Ülker had promised no violence. All he had to do was get himself to somewhere in London he would be told about the next day and then he’d have to drive somewhere outside the capital. Simple! Money for old rope – except that there was no such thing.
Wesley had bought himself a curry from the Indian on the corner by way of celebration, but now he found that even though the food looked and smelled great, he didn’t feel like eating it. The truth was that although the Turk said he wasn’t going to hurt anyone, he actually did hurt people all the time. Those pills for arthritis were a case in point. They didn’t work and so those taking them stayed in pain. That wasn’t good. That wasn’t like driving off from a robbery. No one had ever got hurt at any of the jobs he’d been on and that was something that Wes was proud of. But this job for Mr Ülker was making him anxious because it was Mr Ülker who’d asked him to do it. Not even the money was making him feel better about it.
The phone on Riley’s desk rang just as he was about to leave for what little sleep he could get that night. He answered it. It was the acting commissioner.
DC Ball, who was just finishing up some paperwork at his desk across the office, kept his head down and listened to the one-sided conversation. He was none the wiser when the call finished.
Riley looked over at Ball and smiled. ‘Religion, eh?’ he said as he put on his jacket and made ready to leave.
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t know about you, Ball,’ Riley said, ‘but I was brought up a Catholic. Went to Mass every Sunday, went to Catholic schools. Did it all in good faith, as it were. Believed it all for a long time too. I still respect those who do believe, whatever they may believe in. What I cannot abide are those who just pretend. Know what I mean?’
‘What, those who pretend to believe in something that they don’t?’
‘Yes. Although really it goes further than that,’ Riley said. ‘Those who just pretend for the sake of appearances are one thing. My dad went to church just to please my mum, I know that. But there are also those who use religion cynically for their own ends.’
DC Ball frowned. ‘Who we talking about here, sir?’
Riley smiled and changed the subject. ‘Back in the old days I would have probably asked you down the pub for a pre-op pint,’ he said. ‘But I imagine you’ll just be wanting either a good night’s sleep or a half-hour jog on the treadmill.’
‘I was, er, I was going to have a bit of swim and then get some shut-eye,’ Ball replied. ‘But if you fancy a pint . . .’
‘No, no. It’s all right,’ Riley said. ‘I should go home and get some kip.’ He began to move off.
‘Sir, about religion . . .’
‘Do your best tomorrow, Ball,’ Riley said. ‘If we’re good and lucky then everyone will get what’s coming to him. Just keep on your toes. Miss nothing, see everything. Goodnight.’
He left.
Ball wondered about the phone call. He didn’t know who had called but it was clearly one of Riley’s superiors. The subject of religion had come up in the briefing. So what was new? Obviously something had to be or Riley wouldn’t have brought up the subject again. This left Ball with the question that if these people they were watching weren’t blowing themselves up for their religion, why were they doing it?
Holding what remained of his nerve while at the same time continuing to maintain his lack of English was making Çetin İkmen’s heart pound and his whole body sweat. Everyone in that stuffy little office seemed to be speaking at once. Some, like Harrison, in English, Ülker and the man who had found İkmen in Turkish and English, and Ali Reza Hajizadeh and the ayatollah in what İkmen guessed was Farsi.
‘I’ll ask you again,’ Ülker said menacingly in Turkish to İkmen, ‘what were you doing listening to our conversation?’
İkmen took a breath to calm his nerves and then repeated his story yet again. ‘I came in to use the toilet, effendi,’ he said. ‘I have a bad stomach. The food here I think. I needed water. I was leaving.’
‘This man,’ Ülker said as he pointed to the person who had found İkmen outside the office, ‘says that you had your ear pressed to the side of this office. Listening.’
‘No, effendi, I—’
‘He was definitely listening, Mr Ülker,’ the man said. Then turning to Harrison he added in English, ‘He had his ear to the wall. His face was concentrated, you know?’
Derek Harrison scowled at him and said, ‘Who the fuck are you, mate?’ Then looking over at Ülker he said, ‘Bloody Yigit! It’s all his fault. He found him!’
‘He’s the uncle of the girl in the nail bar, Ayşe,’ Ülker said in English.
‘Yes, who comes from somewhere up bloody north!’ Harrison said.
‘Manchester.’
‘Yes, where we know—’
‘Derek, there is an Ertegrul family in Manchester. I checked,’ Ülker said. ‘You think I’d leave anything like this to chance? She is perfectly on the level, even if her uncle here isn’t.’
İkmen breathed a little easier; the Met and Greater Manchester police forces had obviously built Ayşe’s cover story well.
‘Doesn’t stop him being—’
Ülker cut across Harrison’s words and said to İkmen, ‘What were you doing, Çetin? Were you trying to get information to maybe use to blackmail me?’
‘No. I came to the toilet.’
‘So you keep saying. But Çetin,’ Ülker raised the knife that he had been pointing at İkmen’s chest up to his throat and said, ‘I just can’t believe you. As my friend Derek has just said, although I know your niece Ayşe, I don’t know you. You could have an agenda that Ayşe doesn’t know about, you could be working for one of my rivals—’
‘I swear—’
‘And secondly, I have something very important I have to do tomorrow which means I cannot afford any slips-ups, weak links or other problems.’ He smiled and then said to the others in English. ‘I don’t think we have any choice but to kill him.’
‘His niece will come looking for him,’ Harrison said. ‘You going to kill her too?’
Ülker shrugged. ‘If necessary. But by that time some missing girl and her illegal uncle will be the least of the authorities’ worries in this city.’
‘True.’
‘Unless of course this man is actually a police officer,’ a very cultured voice said in English from behind Harrison’s tall body. Ayatollah Nourazar moved into the middle of the room as if his feet were on casters. ‘Killing a police officer attracts a serious prison sentence in this country.’
‘It is not in my plan to get caught,’ Ülker replied acidly, also in English.
‘No, but should something go wrong, a police officer as hostage gives us some power. If we kill him, they will hunt us down relentlessly. The police do not like to lose one of their own.’
‘Yes, but is he a copper?’ Harrison asked.
They all looked at İkmen who just stood breathing heavily. Was this a trick on the ayatollah’s part to get him to reveal himself to them or was the cleric making a genuine point about the virtues of having a police hostage? He couldn’t make up his mind. His thoughts and his heart were racing far too fast for him to be able to come to any sort of rational conclusion. All he felt was that it was for the moment essential he didn’t speak English. He clung to that one coherent thought.
After what seemed like forever, Ali Reza Hajizadeh spoke. ‘I am inclined to go along with the ayatollah—’
‘You bloody would!’ Harrison cut in.
‘Derek! Let him speak!’ Ülker said.
‘I will be beyond such things by then but if this man is a police officer then maybe you can use him to bargain if you need to. Dead, he will be useless to us. Alive . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I am sure, Ahmet, that he can be kept secure here for the time being.’
Frowning, Ahmet Ülker looked at İkmen and then pushed the knife a little harder against his throat. İkmen gulped and then gulped again as he felt his mouth go bone dry.
Chapter 20
Based in an office loaned to the Met by a firm of accountants on the fifth floor of Minster Court, Patrick Riley and Carla Fratelli looked down into Mark Lane at the first commuters of the day coming into the city from Fenchurch Street station. It was 7 a.m. and he’d only had one hour’s sleep and was feeling as grey and dismal as the weather. She, on the other hand, was as fresh as new-mown grass.
‘Squash,’ she said in answer to his unspoken question. ‘That’s the secret of my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed look.’
‘Playing squash.’
‘As soon as I finished last night I was on that court,’ she said. ‘Hammering away until I was knackered. Then bed for three hours and here I am.’
‘Minus coffee and fags,’ Riley said as he peered down mournfully into his paper cup of muddy coffee.
Fratelli didn’t answer. She knew that he drank far too much coffee. She also knew that he still smoked occasionally. She didn’t approve.
‘The super’s arrived at the station,’ Fratelli said as she took a swig from her small bottle of water. ‘The first shift is in place.’
The early shift, which consisted of ten officers in plain clothes, were positioned in and around Mark Lane and Fenchurch Street station. Superintendent Williams was already in an office above the station with a small team of junior CID officers. Riley and Fratelli were in place and the acting and assistant commissioners were coordinating the operation from Scotland Yard. In addition, three counter-terrorism security advisers were in attendance, as was a CO19 armed response unit. Nothing was being left to chance.
‘Do you think they’ll go for the rush hour?’ Fratelli asked Riley as she looked down into the grey street below.