At Risk (25 page)

The police know nothing, she told herself, snapping off Frank and Nancy Sinatra mid-croon. They have no coherent line of inquiry. As far as she could tell there had been no CCTV system at the Fairmile Café, and even if there had been they would have had trouble identifying the Astra. Black cars gave a notoriously poor signature at night, which was why the planners had told her to insist on one. But she was pretty sure that there hadn’t been a CCTV system there anyway; it was one of the principal reasons, she guessed, that the place had been selected for the RV in the first place.

The only possible weak links in the chain were the spent PSS round and the truck driver involved in the pick-up from the German ship. And the truck driver’s business surely depended on his absolute discretion; to betray his cargo would be to betray himself. On balance, she told herself, they were safe from the truck driver. It was the PSS round that worried her, as she was certain it would worry the police, and without doubt the anti-terrorism organisations too.

She had explained this to Faraj, but he had shrugged fatalistically and repeated that their task had to be performed on the appointed day. If the waiting increased the likelihood of failure, and of their own violent deaths at the hands of the SAS or a police firearms unit, then so be it. The task was immutable, its parameters unalterable. He had told her the bare minimum, she knew. Not out of mistrust, but in case she was taken.

Acceptance, she told herself. In acceptance lay strength. Remote-locking the Astra behind her with a muted electronic squawk, she walked quietly into the bungalow. The door to the bathroom was half open, and Faraj was standing stripped to the waist at the sink, washing.

For a moment she stood there in the centre of the room, staring at him. His body was narrow as a snake’s, but corded with muscle, and a long pale scar ran diagonally from his left hip to his right shoulder blade. How had he acquired a disfigurement like that? Certainly not in the operating theatre; it looked more like a sabre slash. Without the smart British clothes that she had brought him, he looked like the Tajik that he was. The son of a warrior and perhaps the father of warriors. Was he married? Was there, even now, some fierce-eyed mountain woman praying for his safe return?

He turned then, and stared back at her. Stared with that pale, incurious assassin’s gaze. She felt naked for a moment, and self-conscious, and a little shameful. She had begun to realise that, more than anything else in the world, she wanted his respect. That she was not wholly indifferent to his regard. That if this was the last human relationship she was to enjoy on this earth, then she did not want it to be a thing of lowered glances and self-abnegating silences.

Raising her chin a millimetre or two, she returned his gaze. Returned it with something like anger. She was a fighter now, just as he was. She had the right to a fighter’s recognition. She stood her ground.

Unhurriedly, he turned away. Dragged his wet hands through his cropped hair. Then walked towards her, still expressionless, and stopped with his face inches from hers, so that she could smell the soap that he had been using, and hear him breathing. Still she neither lowered her eyes nor moved.

“Tell me your Islamic name,” he said in Urdu.

“Asimat,” she answered, although she was sure that he already knew it.

He nodded. “Like the consort of Salah-ud-din.”

She said nothing, just stared forwards, looking over his shoulder. In contrast with the weathered brown of his face, neck and hands, the skin of his torso was pale, the colour of bone.

Something in the sight froze her. We are already dead, she thought. We look at each other and we see the future. No gardens, no golden minarets, no desire. Just the darkness of the grave and the cold, pitiless winds of eternity.

His hand rose by his side, taking a hanging strand of her hair and looping it carefully behind her ear.

“It will be soon, Asimat,” he promised her. “Now sleep.”

T
ell us again about the Germans,” said DS Don Whitten, smoothing down his moustache. This time Bob Morrison was sitting next to him in the interview suite. Both Whitten and Kieran Mitchell had chain-smoked their way steadily through the last hour’s interrogation. A wavering blue-brown pall now hung in the strip-lit air over the interview table.

Mitchell glanced at his lawyer, who nodded. Mitchell’s eyelids drooped, and against the dour backdrop of the interview room he looked cheap and gangsterish in his designer clothes. To Liz, watching through the one-way glass screen, it was clear that he was desperately trying to hold things together, to display a helpful patience rather than the snappish exhaustion that he felt.

“Like I said, I know nothing about the Germans. I only know that the organisation was called the Caravan. I think the cutter was crewed by Germans and I think that Germans organised the runners’ transit from mainland Europe to the point when me and Gunter picked them up off the Norfolk coast.”

“The runners being the migrants?” said Whitten, glancing at his Styrofoam coffee cup and finding it empty.

“The runners being the migrants,” Mitchell confirmed.

“And the boat’s point of origin?”

“I never asked. There were two boats, both converted fishing cutters. I think one was called
Albertina Q,
registered port Cuxhaven, and the other
Susanne
something, registered Bremen . . . Breminger . . .”

“Bremerhaven,” murmured Liz. On the chair beside her in the observation suite, Steve Goss was opening a greaseproof-paper-wrapped clutch of double Gloucester cheese sandwiches. He nudged the packet in her direction and she took the smallest. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but she sensed that Goss would feel self-conscious munching through all four sandwiches in front of Mackay. Was there a Mrs. Goss?

“To be honest,” Mitchell was saying, “the name of the boat was the last thing on my mind. And it was Eastman who always called them the Germans, or the Krauts. If they’d been Dutch or Belgian I wouldn’t have known the difference. But I do know that the organisation was known as the Caravan.”

“And the Caravan paid Eastman?” asked Whitten.

“I assume so. He was responsible from the pick-up at sea to the delivery point in Ilford.”

“The warehouse?”

“Yeah, the warehouse,” said Mitchell tiredly. “I’d drive in, there would be a head count, and I’d sign them over. There’d be another crew waiting there with documents, and they’d take them on to . . . wherever.”

“And there would be how many again in each consignment?”

Whitten was repeating earlier questions, checking the answers against his notes for inconsistencies. So far, Mitchell’s answers seemed steady.

“If it was girls, it went up to twenty-eight. Ordinary runners twenty-five, tops. Gunter’s boats couldn’t take more than that, especially if there was a heavy sea.”

“And Eastman paid you, and you paid Gunter?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me how much again.”

Mitchell’s head seemed to slump. “I got a grand per head for girls, one-five for runners, two for specials.”

“So on a good night you might be pulling down forty grand?”

“Thereabouts.”

“And how much did you pay Gunter?”

“Flat rate. Five grand per pick-up.”

“And Lakeby?”

“Five hundred a month.”

“Nice profit margin there!”

Mitchell shrugged and looked philosophically around him. “It was risky work. Can I take a piss?”

Whitten nodded, rose, spoke the time into the tape recorder, clicked it off, and called for the duty sergeant. When Mitchell had left the room, accompanied once again by Honan, there was a moment’s silence.

“Do we believe him?” asked Mackay, rubbing his eyes and reaching into the pocket of his Barbour jacket for his mobile phone.

“Why would he lie to us?” asked Goss. “He’d just be defending the person who murdered his partner, wrote off a nice forty K–a–month earner, and basically got him nicked in the first place.”

“Eastman could have asked him to feed us disinformation as part of a damage-limitation exercise,” said Mackay, stabbing the message button and pressing the phone to his ear. “Mitchell wouldn’t be the first career criminal to take the drop for his boss.”

Liz pressed the intercom button connecting the two suites. “Could you take him through the Fairmile Café stuff again?”

“As soon as he gets back,” said Whitten. He nodded at the Cona jug on the table. “Anyone want the last cup of coffee?”

Liz looked around at the others. It was 1:45 a.m., and in the indirect glow of the strip lights they looked grey-faced and drawn. The coffee, she could tell, was cold.

“Tell me about Gunter again,” Whitten began, when Mitchell was once more sitting opposite them. “Why was he in the cab of the lorry with you?”

“His car had broken down, or was in the garage or something. I said I’d drop him off at King’s Lynn. I think his sister lives there.”

“Go on.”

“So he got in, and we drove to the Fairmile Café, to drop off the special.”

“Tell us about the special.”

“Eastman told me he was some Asian fixer who was being brought in from Europe. He wasn’t a migrant, like the others; he’d paid to be brought in and then, in a month’s time, to be taken out again.”

“A month’s time?” interjected Mackay. “You’re sure of that?”

“Yeah, that’s what Eastman said. That he was due to go back to Germany with the cutter bringing January’s runners.”

“Had this happened before?” Whitten asked.

“No. The whole special idea was new on me.”

“Go on,” said Whitten.

“Ray and I picked up the runners at the headland—”

“Wait. Did the boats from Germany always drop off there? Or were there other places?”

“No. I think they considered other places, but in the end decided to stick with the headland.”

“OK. Carry on.”

“We picked the runners up, loaded them into the back of the truck, then I drove to the Fairmile Café, where the special was being dropped off. Ray let him out of the back—the special, that is—and followed him into the toilet.”

“Do you know why Gunter followed him?” asked Whitten. “Had he said anything to you about needing to use the toilet?”

“No. But the Paki guy, the special, had a heavy rucksack. Small, but good quality, and whatever was in it was heavy. The guy wouldn’t be separated from it.”

“So you saw him close up, this Pakistani guy? The special?”

“Yeah. I mean, it was pretty dark on the beach and there were a lot of people there and quite a few of them looked, you know, the same. Pakistani and Middle Eastern types, thin faces, cheap clothes. They looked . . . they looked beaten.”

“And the special was different?”

“Yeah. He carried himself differently. Like someone who’d been someone at one time and wasn’t going to let anyone grind him down. Not a big guy, by any means, but hard. You could tell that about him.”

“And what did he look like . . . physically? Did you see his face?”

“A couple of times, yeah. He was quite pale-skinned. Sharp features. Bit of a beard.”

“So you’d recognise him again?”

“I reckon so, yeah. Although you’ve got to remember, like I said, it was dark, everyone was very jumpy, and there were a lot of these guys milling around . . . I wouldn’t want to swear to anything, but if you showed me a photo I’d . . . I’d probably be able to say if it
wasn’t
him, put it like that.”

Behind the glass, Liz felt the steady drip feed of adrenalin. She felt weightless. Glancing at Goss and Mackay, she could see the same rapt attention, the same close focus.

“So why do you think Gunter followed him?” Whitten repeated.

“My guess is that he thought he had something valuable in the rucksack—the rich ones bring in gold, bullion, all sorts—and wanted to . . . well, take it off him, basically.”

“So Gunter hadn’t sussed him as a hard nut, then, like you had? He thought the Pakistani would be easy to rob?”

“I don’t know what was in his mind. He’d probably seen less of the guy than I had. I was the one who brought him ashore.”

“OK. So Gunter follows the guy into the toilets. You hear nothing. No shot . . .”

“No. Nothing at all. A few minutes later I saw the Paki walk across to a car, and get in. The car then drove off out of the car park.”

“And you saw the car?”

“Yeah. It was a black Vauxhall Astra 1.4 LS. Couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman at the wheel. I took its reg number, though.”

“Which was?”

Consulting a scrap of crumpled paper handed to him by his lawyer, Mitchell told them.

“Why did you take the number?”

“Because I hadn’t got any form of receipt for the guy. I hadn’t signed him off, and in case there was any trouble later I wanted something to show that I’d brought him in. He was worth two grand to me, remember.”

“Go on,” said Whitten.

“Well, I waited ten minutes, and Ray didn’t show. So I got out of the cab and walked over to the toilets and . . .”

“And?”

“And found Ray dead. Shot, with his brains all over the wall.”

“What told you he’d been shot?”