They sat in silence in the darkness of the Golf under the yellow lighting on Cable Street. Boxer held out his hand palm up. She placed hers on top and he enclosed it and brought it to his lips.
Isabel’s phone rang, making her start.
‘Your friend: what’s his name?’
‘Charles Boxer.’
‘Tell him to get the money out of the boot and put it on your lap. Go.’
The phone cut.
They sat in silence again. The sports bag on her lap. The tension occupying too much of her mind to allow conversation. Barely any traffic. The car’s computer telling them the outside temperature was now zero.
The phone rang. Dan gave the next batch of instructions to Lowell Street.
‘Wait there until I call you again.’
‘We’re getting close now,’ said Boxer.
‘How do you know?’
‘The phone calls are from Dan. Skin’s gone to the drop point to receive. He’s not around to get people to stick messages on our windscreen.’
Boxer pulled up on Lowell Street. Empty. No parked cars even. Below freezing now. The tension building as they came to the moment of releasing the money. The terrible point when the kidnappers had everything and the family nothing.
‘We’ve still got to have our proof of life,’ said Boxer. ‘Don’t let him forget it.’
The phone rang.
‘Hello, Mum, it’s me,’ said Alyshia brightly.
‘Oh my God,’ said Isabel. ‘It really is you. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, Mum. Just do as Dan says and everything will work out. They’re all right, these two. You can trust them.’
‘Listen very carefully, Isabel,’ said Dan, taking over the phone. ‘I’m going to give you all the instructions now and you must obey them to the letter.’
Dan talked her through the drop in detail.
‘When you’ve let go of the sports bag, don’t look over the wall, just go straight to the car, no looking back. Your friend, Charles, stays behind the wheel. He’ll drive you back to the Rich Mix Cinema. You wait there until the money’s been counted and I’ll call you with the address. Everything understood?’
The wait at the traffic lights at the end of Lowell Street was interminable. They turned onto Commercial Road, found the drop point and pulled over. Isabel got out, gasped at the sub-zero wind that cut straight through her thin white paper suit. She clambered over the railings and walked quickly back over the bridge to where the numbers were painted on the wall. She dropped the bag into the darkness. No sound came back. She jogged back to the car. Two men came running towards her, really sprinting, at full pace. She flinched as they flashed past her. She vaulted the railings, looked back to where they’d gone. One went down some steps at the side of the apartment building while the other ran across the bridge and disappeared through the gap in the wall to go down to the towpath. Boxer was out of the car watching them, leaning on the roof, shaking his head.
Two cars shot past on the other side of Commercial Road; one pulled up in front of the Tequila Wharf development. Two men got out and ran down the steps to the canal. The other car shot across the road and went down the street on the other side of the canal, heading for the blocks of flats around the marina.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Isabel.
‘The Met,’ said Boxer. ‘Going for their big moment.’
27
11.00 P.M., TUESDAY 13TH MARCH 2012
Boleyn Road, London E7
‘Anybody accompanying the girl must be shot immediately,’ said Amir Jat.
Jat had drawn up a layout of the buildings, roads and the canal around the workshop on Branch Place. Tarar’s other two men had not been recalled from their lookout points. Jat was addressing the four men who were going to perform the operation, describing the best way to mount a successful assault on the flat, how they should move from room to room.
‘What if he grabs the girl and holds a gun to her head?’ asked Rahim.
‘You will have the advantage of surprise so you must move quickly to ensure that does not happen,’ said Jat.
‘But if it does?’
‘Are you a good enough shot to kill the man without harming the girl?’
‘He’s good,’ said Tarar. ‘He just doesn’t want the responsibility if it goes wrong.’
‘And I haven’t been trained in assault situations,’ said Rahim.
‘Nor has this ex-nurse,’ said Jat. ‘He will be in such a state of shock, I doubt he will be able to react. It’s possible, too, that the girl will still be secured in another room. We must put our faith in Allah for a beneficial outcome.’
Jat asked to see their weapons and had them check the mechanisms and load with a round in the chamber. He asked for any more questions. Silence. They left the house in pairs at intervals. Jat and Cheema met at the VW van they would use for the operation. They picked the others up at prearranged points and headed west.
Only two people in the van weren’t nervous: Amir Jat and Rahim. The rest were hyped up, Cheema more so than the rest of them. The steering wheel was skidding through his sweating hands. He was just the driver, but only he knew what he’d been instructed to do the moment this operation was over.
As soon as Skin had caught the bag, he’d turned and sprinted back towards Limehouse Basin. He wasn’t taking any chances, not with a hundred grand, which was the most money he’d ever held in his hands at one time. He turned left at the basin and ran in front of the blocks of flats, up some steps, along a walkway and through a small park, which took him to Narrow Street, where he’d parked the van. He got in panting, ducked below the dashboard and hot-wired it. He pulled away and weaved through the narrow streets to join the traffic on Commercial Road. He headed south through the Rotherhithe Tunnel and made his way to the Old Kent Road. He parked up in a side street, got into the back of the van over the front seats, opened the sports bag.
It was nearly unbelievable. Ten packs of ten grand each, just as they’d asked. He counted through one of the packs. Spot on. He riffled the other nine to make sure they were genuine. He clenched his fists, punched the air and did a little hobbled dance around the back of the transit.
Dan was in the living room with Alyshia. He’d removed the remaining handcuff and they were sitting at a table. Dan had one hand on the gun in between them while he played with the mobile in his other, willing it to vibrate. She’d dressed in the tracksuit, T-shirt and trainers he’d bought and she had a blanket from the bed around her shoulders. He’d called Skin several times but the phone was switched off. Dan sat back, tried to relax. Didn’t like the feel of Alyshia’s eyes constantly on him.
‘So what happened,’ he asked, going on the offensive, ‘between you and Skin?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I could see that,’ said Dan. ‘But you were getting on and then . . .?’
‘We weren’t.’
‘He tried it on?’
She shrugged, as if this happened all the time.
‘In the shower?’ said Dan. ‘That was leading him on a bit too much, maybe.’
‘I hadn’t had a shower for five days. I was filthy. I’ve been stripped down to my underwear all that time. I had nothing to hide,’ said Alyshia. ‘I drew the line when he asked to help, to get in there with me. I told him where to go.’
‘And he didn’t get . . . physical with you?’
‘No, I’ll give him that, he’s not a rapist. I just slapped him down verbally and that was it.’
‘I told him you were out of his league.’
‘It’s easy when you’re not interested,’ said Alyshia. ‘You’re not gay, are you, Dan?’
‘No, just careful,’ said Dan. ‘I’ve ended up in prison because of women like you.’
She smiled. He leaned back in his chair, looking at his watch.
‘Come on, Skin.’
‘What time is it?’ asked Alyshia.
‘Half an hour past midnight,’ said Dan. ‘And as usual, I don’
t know what the fuck he’s playing at. Mind of his own, that boy, and not all of it properly wired.’
‘Where are you going to meet him?’
‘We didn’t decide that,’ said Dan. ‘He was going to see where he ended up.’
‘You think he’s going to call?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Once someone like him sees a hundred grand, they get used to it being theirs. Don’t like the idea of sharing it.’
‘What’s your game, Alyshia?’ asked Dan, looking at her out of the corner of his face.
‘No game. Just telling you how greed works.’
‘You an expert?’
‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘I’ve watched people operating around money all my life. Very few don’t succumb.’
It annoyed him, because that was the little worm that had gnawed its way into his brain over the last hour. He hadn’t wanted it to, but that was the nature of little worms. It made him angry and nasty.
He waved the gun around a little in her general direction. She didn’t take her eyes off his.
‘You better pray he calls, because if he doesn’t, I’m walking out of here on my own and you’ll be—’
The phone rang.
‘I’ve got it, Nurse. I’ve fucking got it. It’s all here. One hundred grand. Get out of there. I’m waiting—’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Dan quickly. ‘I’ll call you again in half an hour. Your phone was switched off.’
‘I didn’t want calls during the drop, and after the dexy my brain was still whizzing. Didn’t turn it back on until just now.’
They hung up.
‘He called,’ said Dan. ‘You’re free to go.’
The VW van pulled up in Branch Place. They’d checked the unit from Canal Walk and seen shadows moving in the room above the workshop on the canal side. They’d left Tarar there with one other. They’d picked up the lookout at one end of Branch Place and driven around the block. Now they were parked just around the corner. They all got out. The second lookout confirmed that no one had come in or gone out. The four men walked towards the unit, with Rahim out front. He unlocked the main double doors. The four went in, pulled the door closed behind them.
Isabel had her face in her hands, couldn’t stop crying; the pressure of the drop and the thought that it might have been for nothing because of the Met had been too much for her. Boxer stroked her back while he made phone calls, trying to find out what had happened. He’d already been outside to inspect the car, couldn’t find any tracking device. He hadn’t expected to. The money had been clean, he’d checked that. Nothing in the boot, or the back seat. He called Fox.
‘The Met were at the drop,’ he said. ‘You heard anything?’
‘What do you mean they were there?’
‘They tracked us. Isabel made the drop and guys and cars appeared out of nowhere.’
‘I’ll talk to Makepeace, call you back.’
Boxer called Rick Barnes.
‘I didn’t think you’d be able to keep your noses out of it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Barnes. ‘That’s all I can say, Charles.’
‘I’m already worried. Isabel’s in tears,’ said Boxer. ‘We’ve heard nothing from the kidnappers.’
‘It’s all under control. Just don’t rock the boat. As soon as you get the address—’
‘You broke the deal, Rick. You said you wouldn’t follow and you did. So why should I keep my end up and give you the address, if they give it to us.’
‘They will,’ said Barnes. ‘It’s just a surveillance operation. No armed men. We want them alive and in possession of the money.’
‘Where did you put the tracking device?’
‘In her handbag. The old tricks are always the best.’
Boxer hung up. Stupid, he thought. Hadn’t even seen the handbag, too preoccupied with the sports bag and what D’Cruz had been saying. The handbag was under Isabel’s legs. He got out, emptied the contents onto his seat, found the device, hurled it across the road.
‘My fault,’ he said. ‘I lost concentration.’
The phone rang. Isabel snatched at it.
‘Your daughter is waiting for you at Unit 6b, Branch Place, London N1, just off Bridport Place. Good luck. Here she is.’
Dan handed the phone to Alyshia and left the room, gun in hand. He opened the door to the flat, looked downstairs and came eye to eye with Rahim, who, having thought he would have the advantage of surprise, now found it savagely torn from him. His fraction of a second hesitation was enough. The man behind knocked into him. The shot from his gun hit the brickwork and Dan fired as he fell back into the corridor, which ricocheted off the brick wall high above Rahim’s head. Dan slammed the door shut with a wild bicycle kick of his feet.
Staying on the ground, he crabbed his way up the corridor back into the living room, where Alyshia was standing rigid as a statue, wrapped in her blanket, phone just off her head, mouth open, stunned by the gunshots. Dan came up off the floor and ran at her. As he collided with her, the phone span out of her grasp and he heard Isabel’s crackly voice shouting.
He picked her up off her feet, kept running and turned at the last moment as he smashed into the floor-to-ceiling panes of glass, his back crashing against the lattice work. The old and weathered wood cracked and splintered, the glass shattering, and they were through it and out into the freezing night air and falling, with Alyshia kicking out her legs in desperation at finding them no longer connected to the floor.
The splash was colossal and catastrophic for Dan, who landed first, with Alyshia on top of him. The force of the impact slammed all the air out of him and ripped them apart. The icy water closed around Dan’s head, filled his lungs. His chest felt slashed by machetes. The shock seemed to have arrested his heart and paralysed all motor reflexes, so that he found himself trying to remember how to breathe. He struggled. The water peeled back from his face for a moment and he saw the hole he’d made in the window, with a man standing in it. He mouthed to the night like a fish. He heard shouts and another splash, before the water closed back over him and he sank back down into the freezing darkness, his new friend.
Rahim hurtled back down the stairs and crashed out through the double doors, bringing along the two lookouts, still with the door breach between them. They hailed the VW van, which came towards them with a lurching screech. They piled in and took off with the side door still open, legs hanging out, Rahim pulling them in against the G-force. They rounded the corner, crossed the bridge and tore down the slope to the towpath. They all piled out. Cheema and Jat had torches. They scanned the canal.
‘Hakim is in the water,’ shouted a voice.
They ran down the towpath.
‘Where’s the girl?’ roared Jat.
‘She’s here, she’s here,’ gasped Tarar, barely able to speak from the black iciness.
He had her hair wrapped around his fist and he was pulling her towards the bank. Two of them grabbed the girl, hauled her out, carried her straight to the van, laid her down on the floor. Jat followed, pushed them out of the way and, grabbing her around the abdomen, pulled her upright and gave her a jolting squeeze. Water shot out of her mouth into the back of the van. She coughed and more water followed. He let her down to her knees where she coughed and retched up more of the foul canal.
‘Put a blanket around her and get her into the recovery position,’ said Jat. ‘Stay with her.’
He went back to the towpath, where they were pulling Tarar out of the water.
‘Where’s the nurse?’ asked Jat.
‘He’s in the water,’ said one of the boys, shining his torch into the middle. ‘He’s not moving.’
‘Is he dead?’ asked Jat. ‘Did Rahim shoot him?’
‘No,’ said Rahim.
‘Let’s go,’ said Cheema. ‘We have the girl.’
‘Make sure he’s dead,’ said Jat. ‘He must have seen Rahim.’
Tarar dived back in.
‘Everybody back in the
van ready to leave,’ said Cheema.
‘You stay with me, Rahim,’ said Jat.
Tarar swam back, dragging Dan’s body by the collar. Jat felt for a neck pulse. Nothing. Rahim hauled Tarar out. They ran for the van. Cheema pulled away with no lights on. Tarar shivered uncontrollably in the back.
Boxer drove at terrifying speeds, along roads with no traffic. By the time they pulled up into Branch Place, he could hear the sirens coming from all directions. He pulled up outside Unit 6b. The doors were open, the lights on. He left Isabel in the car, stepped into the parallelogram of light on the pavement and looked around. He had his FN57 handgun in his right hand.
The studio was empty. He went upstairs to the flat. A deathly quiet and an icy wind greeted him. Only the whoop of approaching sirens came walloping through the night. He put the gun down the back of his trousers, covered it. He looked into the living room, saw the broken window. He stood in the jagged hole in the shattered panes and stared down into the canal, where the vague light cast across the water showed a humped body close to the far bank.
He turned to find two armed policemen pointing guns at him.
‘We’re too late,’ he said.
The officers of the Serious Crime Command, who’d sprinted into the Limehouse Basin in pursuit of Skin after the drop, were intent on one thing only: the make, model, colour and registration of the vehicle Skin was using. They telephoned it through to central command and melted away. A number of motorised units took over, handing the vehicle over to different squads, who took it in turns to follow the white transit until it came to rest in a side street off the Old Kent Road.
At that point they called in CO19, the armed response squad, who sent in two teams. Both parked up in an adjacent street and prepared themselves – one on the ground and the other in their vehicle, in case Skin suddenly moved off.
They picked up Skin’s call telling Dan the money was all accounted for and that he should release the girl. A report went back to central command, but still the armed response squad were not activated. Only when the four units that had converged on Branch Place confirmed that the girl had not been found, and the other kidnapper had been killed at the scene, was CO19 activated, with the express instructions to bring the surviving kidnapper in alive.