‘You admired your father?’
‘Yes, I was grateful to him for what he’d done for me in England and I was impressed by what he was achieving in India.’
‘Were you happy?’
‘I didn’t have time to know what I was. I moved into a flat. My father said he wanted me to be independent from the beginning. I started work, being shown every aspect of the steel business by various expert guides.’
‘But not Deepak Mistry?’
‘No. I only saw the things that he was involved in after he’d moved on.’
‘And when you weren’t working?’
‘I was invited to all the parties. I had a mad social life in Mumbai high society. I had no time to myself for the first six months. It was calculated. My father wanted to put a gap between my time in the UK and this new life in India. It was also his way of bringing me into his sphere of influence. He managed my work and the people I met, but always at a distance. To start with it was a blur, but gradually a pattern emerged. I was being directed to families where my father had little or no influence, but who he considered important for the trajectory of Konkan Hills Securities. Sharmila was complicit in this and, as we became more friendly, she would question me about my likes and dislikes and report back.’
‘He must have found your attitude very frustrating.’
‘I told him I wasn’t interested in a new relationship. I told him through Sharmila, who he didn’t believe. Then I told him to his face. He seemed to take it well, only because he thought I wasn’t serious. It was just a question of finding the right guy.’
‘That was true, though, wasn’t it?’ said the voice. ‘It just wasn’t somebody Frank expected.’
‘Something happened before that,’ said Alyshia. ‘Something terrible and I needed somebody. Someone I could trust absolutely and he gave me that and more, which was why I fell so deeply in love with him.’
Dan parked the van where he always did, just in front of the previous shift’s old BMW. They got out, walked back to the door to a small office in the side of the building. Skin unlocked the door and locked it behind them. He tapped on the door to the warehouse, looked up into the camera, waited. The previous shift opened the door.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Skin.
‘Yeah, no probs.’
‘Still haven’t found the tunnel then?’
‘You what?’ they said, dull with lack of sleep or entertainment.
‘The Great Escape.’
‘No. Yeah, right. Don’t think she’s had much time for tunnelling. They’ve kept at her. See ya.’
They handed over the walkie-talkies. Skin took one and went into the refrigeration unit. Dan let the previous shift out and waited until their BMW took off before going back in. He heard faint voices from inside the refrigeration unit as he closed the main door and sealed it with the handle. Now there was no sound except for the faint rush from the air conditioning. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves, took a bottle of ethyl alcohol and, in a fit of obsessive/compulsive behaviour, methodically wiped down every door handle and surface he could possibly have touched.
The cold air knifed through his thin sweater as he went to the van and lifted out the roll of carpet, which he took into the warehouse, locked up again. Enjoyed the repetitive activity. He stood the roll up by the door to the refrigeration unit. Waited. Looked at his watch. Only eighteen minutes had passed and he was ready. He paced the huge freezing space of the warehouse, hoping the plodding movement of his feet would banish all negative thinking. It didn’t. For every vision he had of Skin and himself sitting on a bed with two sports bags and a million quid each, there were ten along the lines of: Reecey has probably done time in Baghdad looking for the tell-tale signs of a suicide bomber.
Time slowed down. He was convinced it had stopped. He had to listen to his watch to make sure it was still snickering past at its normal rate.
‘My father has a house near Juhu Beach,’ said Alyshia. ‘He’s had it for years, since his Bollywood days. Sometimes, if I couldn’t be bothered to go back to the city, I would spend the night up there. There were some studio apartments in the compound. The gateman was an old friend I’d known all my life and he couldn’t refuse me anything. He would let me in and I’d sleep there. One time my father found out and said I should always call him if I was going to spend the night there. Sometimes he had guests who wanted to be very private.’
‘What did that mean?’
‘I was no innocent by then,’ said Alyshia. ‘My mother had told me that one of Sharmila’s duties was to run an escort agency for my father’s business associates. There were parties at the Juhu Beach house. I knew about them. I just locked my door, slept and left in the morning. I wasn’t going to call and tell my father every time I wanted to do that. But I didn’t know what else happened out there.’
‘Special, private parties?’
‘Sometimes my father would make the house available on a very private basis. Just one person staying. No servants. Only the gateman.’
‘Did you know who he did this for?’
‘By this time I’d been travelling with my father on selling trips. He’d introduced me to his Pakistani network, mainly in Karachi, but also in Hyderabad, Multan, Lahore and Islamabad. They were all men and they were either military, retired military, or government officials. Most of them were prepared to accept me as an alternative to my father. But I was introduced to two of them who, my father told me beforehand, would never do business with me. They were very strict Muslims. I had to have my head covered at all times. Contact was restricted to the minimum. They behaved as if I wasn’t there. I was glad I didn’t have to deal with them, and one of them in particular.’
‘Who was that?’
‘Amir Jat. He was a military officer and officially retired, but he still seemed to me to be very active. There was something, I don’t know, about the way he checked people out that made me think he was in intelligence. I took one look at him and thought this is the kind of man who could have you killed and it wouldn’t bother him for a moment. I’m pretty sure my father was scared of him, too, or at least his power, if not personally. Amir Jat had tremendous presence, but it wasn’t in the least bit attractive. He was a man who would not stop at anything. He would have you horribly tortured if it would serve his purpose. It was the only time I ever saw my father’s charisma slightly diminished.’
‘And was Amir Jat a special guest at the Juhu Beach house one night when you were there?’
‘It was the only time that the gateman wouldn’t let me in. Not only that, he said I wouldn’t want to be there. I begged him. I couldn’t face the trip back into the city. I promised to be silent and not turn on any lights. As I said, he couldn’t refuse me anything, but he did take the main fuse out of the junction box in case I forgot about the lights. Of course, he didn’t know who was staying, didn’t know the guest by name. But I was intrigued and I stayed up to see who it was.
‘It was terrible,’ Alyshia said, face in hands. ‘I mean, I didn’t see anything truly awful, nothing . . . graphic. It was what it meant that was the true horror.’
‘And what did you see?’
Skin sat on an empty shelf, knees up, looking at the back of Jordan’s head, the red hair thinning, pretty well bald on top. Broad shoulders hunched over the desk, headphones clamped to his head. He was dying for a ciggie, but Jordan had a smoking ban. He was waiting for Reecey to start his exercise routine, thinking this would give him the slight advantage he needed. Time in here was battering on at top speed towards 1.30 a.m. and Reecey was taking his time reading a hardback with no cover, feet planted on the floor, both hands cradling the book.
‘What’s that you’re reading?’ asked Skin.
Reecey didn’t answer, shook his head as if it was way beyond Skin’s level.
Skin shrugged, swung his legs off the shelf, took off his jacket. Started doing the exercises he’d seen Reecey doing: lunges, squats, crunches and press-ups, but not the one-a
rmed kind that were Reecey’s speciality.
‘You’re a joke,’ said Reecey.
‘Got to start somewhere.’
‘Do any more of those power lunges and you won’t be able to walk for a week.’
‘Know what you mean,’ said Skin. ‘Gets you on the inner thighs.’
‘Build up to it,’ said Reecey. ‘You don’t train to run a marathon by running marathons.’
‘Right, so what should I be doing?’
‘Warming up for a kick off,’ said Reecey, putting his book down.
‘I’m doing this because I’m bored,’ said Skin. ‘Warming up sounds more boring than sitting on my arse doing fuck all. So let’s get straight down to the hard stuff.’
‘If you don’t warm up you’ll have to be hoisted out of bed in the morning.’
‘Go on, then.’
Reecey showed him some stretching exercises, which were quite a challenge to someone who hadn’t touched his toes since football training when he was fourteen.
‘My hamstrings feel as if they’re going to snap up round my arse like roller blinds,’ said Skin, face reddened, eyeballs pounding in his head.
Reecey showed him how to do the exercises properly. Skin did a full circuit with fifteen repetitions of each. After the stomach crunches, he lay on his back spreadeagled, his heart leaping in his chest like a dog going up for a ball.
‘That’s about a tenth of what I do every day,’ said Reecey.
Skin rolled over, got himself up onto all fours, crawled back to the shelf, put his jacket back on, rested his head on his fists, playing at it.
‘How much do you smoke?’ asked Reecey.
‘Couple of packs a day,’ said Skin, to the floor.
‘You’re an idiot.’
‘I like doing things I’m good at.’
‘Smoking?’
‘Always had a huge talent for it.’
‘Blowing smoke rings out your arse?’
‘Only if you ask me nicely,’ said Skin. ‘Show me how you do those one-armed press-ups. I want to be able to do them down the pub.’
‘You weren’t too hot with two arms.’
‘Yeah, but it’s not about strength, is it?’ said Skin. ‘It’s all in the technique.’
Reecey got down on all fours, lay face down, legs outstretched.
‘The first thing,’ he said, ‘is you’ve got to get yourself stiff as a board. You do that by tightening your thighs, buttocks and abdominals. Lift yourself up on two arms and bring your right hand—’
Those were his last words. Skin had him just where he wanted. At his feet. He took his gun out of the inside of his jacket and fired straight into the back of Reecey’s head. No silencer. Too cumbersome. The noise exploded in the confines of the room.
‘And what did you see?’ repeated Jordan.
‘At about midnight,’ said Alyshia, ‘the gates opened and a car rolled in. I knew the car—’
The noise of the shot blasted through Jordan’s skull. He tore the headphones off his ears and, rising from his chair and turning, staggered back against the desk as he saw the gun barrel smoking and Skin behind it.
‘Hands on your head,’ said Skin.
Jordan looked down at the plume of blood emanating from Reecey’s shattered skull, clasped his hands over his own pate.
‘On your knees,’ said Skin.
Jordan dropped heavily to the floor.
‘Who are you working for?’ asked Skin.
‘How do you know I’m not doing it for my own amusement?’
‘You make phone calls after the sessions. You’re recording everything,’ said Skin. ‘So who’s paying you?’
‘You want to know who you’ve got to be afraid of?’ said Jordan, smiling.
‘I’m not afraid of anyone.’
‘Try McManus when he finds out you shot his friend.’
‘The Irish fucker?’
‘He might not come for you tomorrow,’ said Jordan, nodding, ‘but he’ll find you.’
Skin put a bullet through the glass panel in front of the desk. It shattered and fell to the ground in diamonds. Jordan instinctively ducked. Alyshia found that she was no longer looking at her own image sitting on the edge of the bed, with the horror of what she’d seen running through her mind, but rather the real world. A man on his knees and behind him someone with a shaven head, standing erect, arm outstretched, gun at the end of it.
‘All fours like a dog,’ said Skin.
Jordan fell forward on his hands.
‘Grovel like you made her grovel,’ said Skin.
Jordan put his nose to the floor, crawled around.
Skin shot him in the leg.
Jordan collapsed face first into the concrete and slumped to one side. Skin turned to Alyshia and shouted: ‘Put the sleeping mask on now.’
She fumbled for it, found it by the pillow, pulled it on.
‘Are you—?’ she started.
‘Shut up!’ roared Skin. ‘Hands on head. Do not move until you’re told to.’
Skin went to Jordan, who was panting, holding onto his leg, eyes closed. He kicked him over. The sweat was standing out on Jordan’s face. Skin put the second bullet into his head. Alyshia jumped up off the bed as if it were live.
‘Sit!’ roared Skin.
‘I know your voice,’ she said, couldn’t help herself, brain fizzing with shock, thoughts tumbling out unfiltered. ‘I think . . . I think you might have just done something very stupid.’
‘But nobody’s fucking laughing, are they?’ said Skin.
18
1.00 A.M. (LONDON TIME,) 5.00 A.M. (LOCAL TIME) TUESDAY 13TH MARCH 2012
Lahore, Pakistan
Amir Jat’s special agent never came through the main gate. He’d been given a key to a door at the back of the property, which gave into a small garden so that he could come and go in secret. He was nervous as he made his way to the house to see his boss. Nervous but excited at the cataclysmic nature of his intelligence.
Although Lt General Amir Jat was officially retired from the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, he still worked as he always had done, getting up at 4.00 a.m. to do paperwork before receiving guests at 6.00 a.m. Today he was up at his usual time, but not for paperwork. He was on the rear verandah to receive this special agent, who only ever came to see him at night with intelligence exclusively on Frank D’Cruz. It was always delivered verbally, never in a written report, and only when the house was empty of other people.
Frank D’Cruz had a special place in Amir Jat’s world. He was the one person that the retired officer hated above all others. Not because D’Cruz was a non-Muslim, not because he was a vastly rich ex-actor, who was well worth envying, despising and resenting. No. He hated him because D’Cruz knew his one inadmissible weakness and Amir Jat was not in the business of being weak. He was a man to be feared and he knew D’Cruz was afraid of him, but Jat also knew, as a politically astute animal, that this could change in a moment and he could find himself hopelessly exposed. This was why he had to know everything he possibly could about Frank D’Cruz, even if it wasn’t strictly ISI business.
It was the nature of the ISI that nobody, not even the head of the ISI nor its officers, actually knew how the agency worked, or who it was influencing. Constitutionally, it was supposed to respond to the prime minister as an army unit responsible for collecting foreign and domestic intelligence. However, that was not necessarily the reality on the ground, where a lot happened that was not written up in reports or circulated amongst politicians. Benazir Bhutto had called the ISI ‘a state within a state’, and this was true.
The ISI was composed of officers ostensibly under the control of the Ministry of Defence but in reality, while they behaved like military officers, they also represented, lobbied for, supported, gave access to and found funds for all the factions that existed in the complicated, tribally divided, religiously disparate state of Pakistan. How could the members of an agency that had helped the CIA create a mujahideen insurgency
against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, who were afterwards dropped like wet lepers when the operation had succeeded, then turn their backs on their fellow countrymen, who had shown their allegiance in blood?
Even after thirty-seven years in the ISI, Amir Jat couldn’t pretend to know the inner workings of the whole agency, but he knew his own vital corner very well.
The CIA and MI6 would have been mystified by retired ISI officers retaining their power and influence, but to Amir Jat it was just life going on. He still controlled large amounts of money and, after thirty-two years in Joint Intelligence North, had powerful connections to the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Why should his employment status have any relevance? He was the same man, with the same sharp mind and, of course, a person for whom the accumulation of power had been a life’s work.
The special agent came up onto the verandah. Jat did not get up, but sipped his boiled water, waiting. The agent delivered his report, maintaining a steady, official tone despite his excitement at dropping the bombshell about D’Cruz’s sudden departure to London because of his daughter’s kidnap.
Amir Jat was a still man, but this news induced a different level of stillness that the agent immediately recognised as an intense interest. He was used to Amir Jat’s capacity for self-control. Even before the D’Cruz job, when he’d given reports describing death and terrible injury, interrogations and tribal retaliations, none of them had drawn a flicker of horror from Jat. But this development in the life of Frank D’Cruz quickened Jat’s blood so that the penetrating eyes became even more piercing and the hundreds of minor muscles affected by the adrenaline rush produced an increased tension, which made Jat’s left hand grip the arm of his chair.
‘Sources?’ he asked.
The agent knew that one was never enough.
‘I first got wind of this yesterday afternoon from my insider at the Indian Research and Analysis Wing. An enquiry had been made by a British MI6 agent as to whether an element of the Pakistani intelligence services could have been in any way responsible for the kidnap. And if so, were they using it to apply some kind of pressure on Frank D’Cruz.’