‘He’s in here, in bed.’
Hakim Tarar was curled up in the foetal position under the bedclothes, running a fever. Above his head was a poster of Amir Khan, World Light Welterweight Champion, and on a shelf below, a few small trophies.
‘You don’t look too clever,’ said Mercy. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Got the flu, that’s all,’ said Tarar. ‘What you want?’
‘That’s funny, because I heard you were out and about last night, went to visit your friend MK, took a look at his unit on Branch Place,’ said Mercy. ‘Did you find anybody in there, Hakim?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Mercy,’ said George, from the bathroom.
She called one of the officers in to keep an eye on Tarar, went to the bathroom. George was pointing at a pair of sodden underpants on the floor in a pool of dirty water.
‘I think our friend ended up in the canal last night.’
‘Get an evidence bag, run it down to the lab with a comparative sample from the canal outside the Branch Place unit,’ said Mercy. ‘I’ll take Hakim down to Bethnal Green for a chat.’
Boxer and Mistry came out of Hammersmith onto the Great West Road and drove in silence to the Hogarth roundabout.
‘So what are you doing in London, Deepak?’
No reply. Boxer could see the complications from the intensity in the man’s face.
‘Hoping for reconciliation with Alyshia?’
‘I just want to help.’
‘Somehow you’re going to have to appease Frank.’
‘Impossible,’ said Mistry. ‘He’s spent the last three months trying to kill me.’
‘How would you describe your relationship to Chhota Tambe now?’
‘It’s finished. It’s one thing for him to attack Frank, but Alyshia? A mock execution? That’s unacceptable.’
‘Do you know where Chhota Tambe is now?’
‘Yash told me he’s in London, hoping for some kind of victory.’
‘Do you know where?’
Mistry nodded.
‘So tell me what you’re doing in London, Deepak.’
Another long silence.
‘You’re right,’ he said finally.
‘And you hope that by giving up Chhota Tambe to Frank, he’ll stop trying to have you killed and allow you to see his daughter again?’
They reached a traffic light and went into the right hand filter lane. They crossed the road into Turnham Green.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Some friends who live in the States have a big house in Chiswick with a small flat at the bottom of the garden. It’s quiet and nobody knows about it.’
‘You’re going to put me there and do what?’
‘I’m thinking,’ said Boxer. ‘We have to be careful how we do this.’
‘How we do what?’
‘Achieve what you want to achieve.’
‘And why should you help me?’
‘Maybe it’s because I’m a romantic,’ said Boxer. ‘Do you have any of the recordings you made in the Juhu Beach house with you?’
‘No.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Some of them are with Chhota Tambe and the rest were in my flat in Mumbai.’
‘Can you remember what was in those recordings? Any names?’
‘I listened to them all several times. I supplied notes to Chhota Tambe so he could understand what was going on. I remember everything pretty well.’
‘Maybe you heard something that wasn’t significant to you or Chhota Tambe, but which Frank doesn’t want anybody else to know about.’
‘But only Frank would know that.’
‘Maybe. I’m thinking that if I get a friend of mine from MI6 to come and talk to you, he might be able to clarify if that’s the case.’
31
11.00 A.M., WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH 2012
Wycombe Square, Aubrey Walk, London W8
Boxer jerked awake. Only four and a half hours’ sleep, but brain instantly sharp. Isabel was standing at the door, fully dressed, cup of tea in hand.
‘I didn’t know if you wanted to be woken up.’
‘I did. That’s good.’
‘There’s been no news,’ she said, sitting on his bed, giving him the tea. ‘Total silence since she disappeared again last night. No contact. Nothing.’
‘It’ll come,’ said Boxer.
‘Rick Barnes said he saw you leaving the house with someone last night. You didn’t come back until after six this morning.’
‘Deepak Mistry turned up,’ said Boxer. ‘Frank’s been looking for him. He’d been spying on Frank and using Alyshia to do it.’
‘Is this the Mumbai problem? Why it all fell apart?’
‘More or less,’ said Boxer, and gave her the full story about Chhota Tambe and what Alyshia had seen at the Juhu Beach house. Isabel’s face was locked in horror, mouth slightly open, eyes unblinking.
‘He made Sharmila do that?’ she said in the ensuing silence. ‘You see what I mean about him?’
‘You said Sharmila was from that world. You described her as a “gangster’s moll”. Do you know which gangster?’
Isabel was shaking her head, looking at nothing, barely listening.
‘Chico’s downstairs, you know. He’s been asking me what happened last night,’ she said. ‘There’s something wrong with him.’
‘Physically? Mentally?’
‘Both. He looks as sick as a dog on green meat. He’s depressed and I think he’s scared – which is scaring me.’
‘And he’s still not talking?’
She shook her head. Boxer kissed her on the mouth and could feel all her worry in the tension within her lips. He hugged her and she clung to him.
‘Just tell me it’s going to be all right.’
‘Everything is going to be fine,’ said Boxer, with all the remembered confidence he could muster.
He showered and dressed, went downstairs to the kitchen. D’Cruz watched him eating his breakfast in silence.
‘How did it go with the MI5 debrief last night?’ asked Boxer.
‘It was long and exhausting.’
‘Did you tell them anything interesting?’
‘Only what I told you about corrupting Amir Jat and how he hated me for it.’
‘I don’t want you to disappear again,’ said Boxer. ‘I’m going to need to talk to you later today. It’s important; you’ll want to know.’
‘Talk to me now. I’m here.’
Boxer wiped his mouth with a piece of kitchen roll, shook his head. He went into the drawing room and called his best friend, Simon Deacon.
‘We have to talk,’ said Boxer. ‘I have new information that could help. I think you know what I’m talking about.’
‘I’m on my way somewhere,’ said Deacon. ‘In fact, it could be interesting for you to see this. Let’s meet in London Fields. You’ll see where I am. Near the lido. The police have taped it all off.’
It took Boxer well over an hour to get to Hackney. He’d always imagined, with such a name, that there would be something significant about London Fields, but it was just a large, flat piece of greenery with big bare trees, a cricket pitch, a lido, tennis courts and some playgrounds all empty of people. He wasn’t sure what else he’d been expecting: the sheep still grazing before going to market? He saw the police cordon and Simon Deacon standing within it. He went over and called to him. Deacon beckoned to him; a constable lifted the tape.
White-suited, masked forensics were working around a body. Deacon was looking down at it, hands in his coat pockets.
‘Good to see you, Charlie,’ said Deacon, shaking hands. They grabbed each other by the shoulder, genuinely pleased. ‘Takes me back to the good old days. It’s been a pleasure working with you again, even if it has been at one remove.’
‘I’ve felt your hands on the controls, which has been very reassuring,’ said Boxer. ‘Who have we got here?’
‘This
is Amir Jat,’ said Deacon. ‘You’ve probably heard of him.’
‘A little more in the last day than in the rest of my life.’
‘We were rather hoping he wouldn’t be in this state,’ said Deacon.
‘Did you know he was coming?’
‘Only after debriefing Frank D’Cruz last night,’ said Deacon. ‘We’d begun to suspect this kidnap of Frank’s daughter might have some sort of terrorist connection. We gave him some freedom of movement yesterday in the hope that he would take us to a valuable intelligence source, but . . .’
‘He told me he was in contact with people he described as “intermediaries”.’
‘We don’t know who he spoke to. He went through some complex series of internet relays to a scrambled line. We suspect he might have been talking to his Pakistani friend, Lt General Abdel Iqbal.’
‘So what do you think happened here?’
‘It’s difficult to say, but I think we might be looking at the end result of a power struggle within the Pakistani intelligence service,’ said Deacon. ‘Perhaps Amir Jat was holding too tightly to the reins and not prepared to let go. We know he was becoming an embarrassment to the Pakistanis in their relationship with the Americans. CIA field agents have not been happy about him for some time. Pressure has been applied at the very highest level since they suspected Amir Jat’s involvement in the NATO fuel convoy bombings and hiding Osama bin Laden.’
‘Are the Pakistanis saying anything?’
‘We’ve told them what’s happened. I imagine they’re putting together a very involved statement, which will tell us very little.’
‘Can we go and talk somewhere?’ asked Boxer. ‘Like in the middle of the park.’
They set off towards the roped-off cricket wicket. Boxer gave Deacon a compressed version of his discussion with Deepak Mistry from earlier that morning. Deacon stood in silence for some moments afterwards.
‘Well, the news about the assassination attempt and the first kidnap is welcome. We were very concerned about that,’ said Deacon. ‘But we’re no less concerned by what happened last night and the appearance of Amir Jat’s body this morning. We still think there’s something going on. One of the preliminary forensic inspections here has revealed that Amir Jat’s clothes were wet but not soaked through. His front was stiff with partially frozen water.’
‘You think he was involved in taking over the kidnap down by the canal last night?’
‘Too early to say, but that’s one of the theories we’re developing.’
‘And that leads you to believe that Alyshia is now being held by some sort of terrorist organisation, or by people controlled by one?’
‘I’d like to talk to Deepak Mistry,’ said Deacon. ‘Even if he can’t tell us very much, I’d still like to know what happened in the shootout in the Dharavi slum. The person who he says was pretending to be Isabel Marks’ lawyer’s representative was one of our agents in Mumbai.’
‘I’ve seen Frank this morning,’ said Boxer. ‘I think there’s real pressure being put on him now. He’s saying even less than he was before and he’s frightened in a way that he didn’t seem to be during the first kidnap, which he always thought was going to be about money in the end.’
‘Yes,’ said Deacon. ‘We saw that in our interview with him last night. The shining inner light of unfounded confidence has finally been snuffed. Nice to see him taking some punishment at last. But yes, we’re concerned that this new threat to his daughter seems to have genuinely frightened him and made him even less forthcoming.’
‘On the way to the drop last night, I drove through the City and saw Frank’s cars,’ said Boxer. ‘I think you could call that the ultimate central position to create maximum awareness.’
‘I hear what you’re saying, Charlie, but look: because those cars were being positioned in such sensitive areas of the city, they have been very carefully checked over. They went straight from the port to a police warehouse, where they were the subject of a close inspection by two Explosive Ordnance Disposal squads,’ said Deacon. ‘There was no trace of anything suspicious at all. The cars don’t even work. The batteries have been disconnected.’
‘Are the batteries still in the vehicles?’
‘Yes, because eventually they’re going to be reconnected and driven all over the country through various temporary switching stations that have been set up to show off the concept.’
‘What sort of work did the EOD squads do on the batteries themselves?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to ask for the report they gave to the police and MI5 on that.’
‘I imagine the batteries are sealed units,’ said Boxer. ‘I doubt they would have taken them apart. Would they be able to detect a substance like PETN in a container within a sealed battery cell, from the outside?’
‘I’ll have to check,’ said Deacon. ‘I think I really would like to talk to Deepak Mistry now.’
Working with the local police and drug squad, Mercy and George Papadopoulos picked up the other four members of Hakim Tarar’s gang. They were all taken to Bethnal Green Police Station, where Mercy briefed an interviewing team who took the gang members off into separate rooms and worked them. Within an hour they’d come up with the name of the final member of the gang and Mercy telephoned her report to DCS Makepeace.
‘There’s only one member of the group missing now. His name is Rahim and, by all accounts, he’s the dangerous one, and armed. None of them will divulge his whereabouts, if they even know it. We still haven’t got any intelligence on where they’re holding Alyshia, but we’ve definitely picked on the right guys and we’ll keep banging away until they talk,’ she said.
‘Have you any suspicion of the possibility of a terrorist attack associated with this group?’
‘I can’t say,’ said Mercy. ‘We’re not that far in with them yet.’
Papadopoulos came in with a report he’d just torn from the hands of the lab technician. Mercy read it, nodded.
‘I’ve got to go now, sir,’ she said, and hung up.
She went back to the interview room; Hakim Tarar was flushed, his throat rasping. He had a temperature of 102 degrees. She organised two aspirin for him.
‘We’ve just had the analysis back from your underpants, the soaking wet ones we found on your bathroom floor,’ said Mercy. ‘The water extracted from them is an exact match for the canal water outside Unit 6b on Branch Place, where Alyshia D’Cruz was being held hostage. That must mean you were there last night.’
‘Yesterday afternoon I went for a run. It’s part of my boxing training. I tripped and fell in the canal. I got cold. I went to bed. I woke up this morning with a fever. I don’t know any Unit 6b. I don’t know any Alyshia D’Cruz.’
‘You supply the drug dealer known as MK with heroin.’
‘So you say.’
‘No, so says another dealer on the Colville Estate: Delroy Dread.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Delroy Dread said that two of your gang members went to see him last night and asked him if he knew anything about an Indian girl being held hostage somewhere on the estate by two white guys,’ said Mercy. ‘He even showed me the Met police flyer they left with him. Now why would two of your boys do something like that?’
‘Ask them. I don’t know.’
‘You ever met someone called Xan Palmer – Alexander Palmer?’
‘Never heard that name.’
‘Twenty-two years old. Pale face, big hair. He deals pills for MK in the clubs.’
‘Sorry, I can’t help you.’
‘He remembers you, and the blonde girl who was with him clocked you, too. And that big guy you brought along for support. Rahim “with eyes that could turn a man to stone”. You all met in MK’s flat last night. I’m surprised you have no recollection of all this, Hakim. You know what the desk sergeant just told me? They found MK’s body snagged in Bow Creek in Canning Town. He’d taken quite a beating before being strangled and he had some cigarette burns to the sk
in around his eyes. That ring any bells with you?’
Tarar looked up into his head.
‘None,’ he said. ‘And I know a bell when I hear one.’
32
2.00 P.M., WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH 2012
Fairlawn Grove, Chiswick, London W4
‘I’ve heard the report from the EOD squads. The batteries were X-rayed in position and found to be normal, which meant they didn’t feel the need to remove them, dismantle them and give them an internal visual inspection,’ said Simon Deacon. ‘Now the EOD guys concede that the batteries are big enough that something explosive could be disguised to look like a cell, which would not show up clearly on an X-ray.’
‘So what now?’ asked Boxer.
‘You know what intelligence work is all about, Charlie,’ said Deacon. ‘We have disparate pieces of information and all we’re trying to do is put the right pieces of information together to achieve the correct picture. Deepak might be able to verify or clarify one of those pieces.’
‘Can I ask you what it’s to do with?’
‘A break-in at D’Cruz’s car plant in early January this year.’
They went through the garden door at the side of the house and down the path to the small flat. Boxer knocked on the door. No answer. He took out his key, opened up the flat, which was empty.
‘Shit,’ said Boxer, as they walked through the empty rooms.
‘Too nervous,’ said Deacon. ‘Maybe, given that Frank’s after him, he started to feel like a sitting duck.’
‘Put your hands on your head,’ said Mistry, from the front door, gun in hand. ‘Don’t turn around. Just put your hands on your head. That’s both of you.’
Mistry crept forward, put the gun on Deacon’s spine and frisked him, found nothing, withdrew back to the door.
‘Turn around slowly, hands on head,’ said Mistry. ‘You sit on the sofa in the middle. Charles, you stay where you are.’
‘I can understand why you’re nervous,’ said Deacon, lowering himself onto the sofa. ‘All I can say is that we are who we say we are and we believe that you might have valuable intelligence—’