Price to Pay, A (18 page)

Someone had heard the mobile phone beeping on the windowsill, saw the missed call had come from Mum and then listened to her answerphone message. An address for her had then been found in a book on Andrew Williams’ bedside table; she lived in a sheltered housing unit called Hope Green on the far side of Poynton. A call had been made to the nearest police station. A few years ago, that would have been in Poynton itself. Cutbacks now meant it was only manned at certain times during the day. Instead, a patrol car was being sent from Hazel Grove.

‘Hazel Grove?’ Iona replied, jaw set tight as she pursued Roebuck’s tail-lights, the sound of his car’s siren clearly audible. ‘We’re going through that now.’

Martin looked at the line of shops zipping past. ‘Shit. We’ll only be just behind it, then.’

‘Just ring the bloody care home, surely?’ Iona demanded, keeping in Roebuck’s slipstream as traffic parted ahead of them.

‘Sergeant Fairfield’s doing that now,’ Martin responded, one hand reaching for the dashboard as Iona had to brake sharply. ‘He’s got hold of the concierge.’

The bus moved out of their way and Iona hit the accelerator once more. Barely five minutes later they’d gone through the main part of Poynton at high speed. Countryside was opening up around them when Roebuck started indicating right. As they slowed to take the turning, Iona could see a police car parked before the doors leading into a building trying to look like a normal residential house, only it was about three times too big.

A uniformed officer was visible in the lobby area. He was talking to a middle-aged man in a beige gilet who kept flapping one arm about. The gesture filled Iona with dread. Gravel caused them to skid slightly as the car came to a halt behind Roebuck’s. He was already out and asking questions. Sergeant Fairfield was at the rear of the vehicle, unlocking the weapons box in the boot.

‘She didn’t answer,’ the concierge said. ‘I knocked three times. Then I heard the police siren,’ he nodded at the uniformed officer, ‘and came back here.’

‘So you didn’t open her door?’ Roebuck asked.

The concierge shook his head.

‘Can you? You’ve got an access key?’

‘Yes.’ He removed a bunch from the pocket of his gilet. ‘But I only like to go into a resident’s room without their permission in exceptional circumstances.’

‘And you think she’s there?’

‘She rarely goes out. Just when her son takes her.’

‘OK. We need to go in.’ He looked to his side. ‘Sergeant Fairfield?’

He gave a nod, one hand hidden in the pocket of his overcoat. ‘Do you know the layout of her flat?’

The concierge turned to him. ‘I do. They’re all the same: bathroom opposite the bedroom in the corridor on the other side of the front door, sitting area and kitchen straight ahead.’

‘OK, cheers.’

The concierge led them all down the corridor to room six. Iona could hear someone coughing in number three. Really coughing, like a bit of lung had come away and got stuck. It ended in a loud spit. They were gathered outside number six when the door opposite half opened. A silver-haired man with a sharp nose looked out.

‘Back in your room!’ Martin whispered, badge raised. The door slowly closed as the concierge unlocked Libby Williams’ door and stepped away.

Roebuck pushed it open and Fairfield slipped inside, the barrel of a Glock directed at the floor.

‘Mrs Williams! Police! Are you here?’

No reply.

‘Mrs Williams?’ Fairfield nodded at the closed doors on the left and right before moving swiftly and silently past them and into the room at the far end of the short passage.

Iona felt cold air on her face. It was streaming out of the flat. A window must be wide open. Fairfield looked rapidly about him, gun swinging with each turn of his head. Something off to the side caught his attention for a moment. He vanished from view. When he reappeared, he moved back to the closed doors, checking one room then the other. There was no sign of the Glock when he came out of the bathroom. ‘Clear. Front room, boss.’

His voice was flat and Iona knew they were too late. Their man had gone, taking the laptop and leaving another body in his wake.

She whirled round and slapped the corridor wall with her palm.

Nina opened the lower door and knocked. ‘Hi, you two, it’s me! Watching telly, are you?’

The tinny noise of laughter cut out and Chloe’s voice called back. ‘Hi, Nina, we’re in here!’

She locked the door behind her and walked up the short corridor, bag swinging from one hand. They were slumped on the beanbags, faces turned inquisitively in her direction. ‘Anyone for ice cream?’

‘You are joking!’ Chloe rolled to the side and scrabbled to her knees. ‘Really?’

‘I got Winter Berry Brownie, Peanut Butter Cup or Mint Chocolate Chunk.’

Both girls let out squeals of delight as Nina jumped on to the sofa and held up the bag. ‘Who wants what?’

‘Winter Berry Brownie, please, please, please,’ Chloe said, both hands outstretched.

Nina tossed her the tub. ‘Madison?’

‘Mint Chocolate Chunk!’

Nina lobbed it over. ‘Hey, I’ve got some other exciting news. You know your flights? I managed to bring them forward.’

Madison paused, the lid of her ice cream half-peeled back. ‘When?’

‘How does tomorrow morning sound?’ She dug out a lump of ice cream and regarded it with relish. ‘Different flights, still. I tried to get you going together.’ She cocked her head and looked at Madison. ‘I’ve been meaning to say, have you ever thought of a shorter hairstyle?’

‘How do you mean?’ Madison tentatively replied.

‘It’s just that, in Club Soda, the waitresses with short hair seem to get the best tips. Arab men are so used to their women having long hair. They just love a blonde bob. Don’t you think she’d look good with one, Chloe? I do.’

T
hey sat in silence, waiting for word from Roger Wilson, the Forced Marriage Unit manager stationed at the High Commission in Islamabad. Everyone’s eyes kept touching on the pyramid-shaped speaker at the centre of the table. Conference calls. Iona couldn’t stand them.

News had come that Sravanti had been successfully lifted from the hotel where she was being held. Someone – probably a member of staff – had phoned up to the room as the FMU staff and local police had appeared through the hotel doors. The brother, Khaldoon, had fled, but the girl was safe. She’d been answering questions for the last hour-and-a-quarter.

‘My apologies about this.’ The voice sounded tinny and artificial. A hiss of static smothered the ‘s’ sounds. ‘Mr Wilson is just attending to something with the local police, he won’t be long.’

O’Dowd needlessly craned his neck forward. ‘OK, we understand.’ His voice had been reasonable, but the look he sent round the room spoke of annoyance. It was now almost two in the morning. Everyone needed some sleep; things weren’t going to go any slower the next day.

‘So,’ O’Dowd said, turning to DCI Sullivan. ‘You think it was Nirpal Haziq sighted over in Levenshulme?’

There was a slightly wooden quality to O’Dowd’s voice that caused Iona to look up.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Sullivan sounded exactly the same.

Of course, Iona realized, glancing at the speaker phone. The knowledge of their voices being relayed to another location was making both men sound like bad actors.

‘We know Haziq’s parents live on Hopkins Avenue. A patrol car coming away from an incident at a betting shop on that road thinks they sighted him by the train station. He was gone by the time they’d turned the car round.’

‘How certain were they?’ O’Dowd asked.

‘Eighty per cent. Significantly, he was wearing a suit. If it’s the same one he was wearing when he ran from CityPads’ offices, he hasn’t even got access to a clean set of clothes.’

O’Dowd was looking pleased. ‘We’ll have him soon.’

‘How could he have made the journey out to Poynton?’ Iona asked quietly, not comfortable with the fact that Nirpal was their main suspect for all the murders. ‘Little cash, no car … It wouldn’t have been easy to—’

‘He could have nicked a car,’ Martin cut in.

Iona turned to him, irked by the cheerful note in his voice.

‘I suppose so. If he’s the type to know how you go about stealing one. He’s got no priors for that sort of stuff, though.’

‘That just means he’s never been caught before,’ someone else interjected.

Iona could sense the weight of opinion was against her. She could understand why: Nirpal bolting like he did was the act of a guilty person, no doubt. But was he really carrying out the killings? Believing it was him was certainly very tempting.

Whispers came from the speaker phone and O’Dowd slashed his hand for silence.

‘Hello, Superintendent O’Dowd? It’s Roger Wilson.’

‘Mr Wilson,’ O’Dowd’s head was bobbing eagerly at the lump of angular plastic. ‘Thanks for this. I realize you’ll—’

‘Don’t be thankful. I’m not sure how much help this will be.’

O’Dowd’s hopeful smile faded. ‘Well, we’ll be grateful for anything you might have. By the way, I’m here with DCIs Sullivan and Roebuck and a few of the officers on their teams.’

‘Very well. Shall I run you through the pick-up, first?’

‘Please.’

‘After receiving the call from Sravanti’s friend, we asked for the number of the mobile she’d texted her on. We then were able to ring Sravanti back and get her exact location. Just over two hours later we’d obtained permission from the authorities here to pick her up. We set off for the hotel with a police car in support.

‘As I think you know, Khaldoon Khan was tipped off we were on our way up to the room. He’d tried to drag his sister out – presumably to a new location – but she’d fought back and he was forced to flee without her.’

‘Is she OK?’ Iona had asked without thinking. ‘Sorry, Detective Khan here. Is Sravanti OK?’

‘Yes. A few lumps and bumps, but she’s fine.’

‘Did it appear anyone else was part of the operation?’ asked O’Dowd. ‘Or was it just the brother?’

‘It appears to be just the brother, why?’

‘If Khaldoon was in Pakistan for terror-related activities, would there not have been –’

‘Oh, she’s convinced the trip was in order to marry her against her will. She has not mentioned anything else. It was to be to a son from a family in the village where her parents grew up.’

‘DCI Sullivan speaking: that village is located in the tribal areas of Waziristan?’

‘Correct. She’d even been given a photo of him by the brother, Khaldoon.’

‘Why then,’ asked Sullivan, ‘did the brother flee? Is an arranged marriage attempt – if that’s the correct terminology – such a serious offence?’

‘That’s a fair point,’ Wilson replied. ‘She’d been tricked into the trip in the first place. It was, she’d been told, their last chance to visit an ailing grandmother, who, as it happens, isn’t so ill after all. Sravanti had told her brother she would get him locked up for his part in the deception.’

O’Dowd placed his elbows on the table. ‘Do you think that’s why she was there?’

‘It all seems to fit, why?’

‘We’re looking at it from this angle: Sravanti was really going to be carrying a bomb. That’s what she had come to Pakistan for.’

Wilson said nothing for a second. ‘You think she is some kind of jihadist? A suicide bomber?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Whether she knew that was why she was there is another question.’ O’Dowd’s jaw was tight.

‘Erm, that’s … frankly, that seems unlikely to me. I’ve just spent over an hour with the girl. She’s thoroughly Westernised. The fact she was tricked into coming out here – she’s angry, upset, confused …’

‘A change of heart, maybe?’ O’Dowd said. ‘A loss of nerve? What about if the arranged marriage story was a cover the brother was using to lure her into Waziristan?’

Iona could hear it in O’Dowd’s voice; he was trying to make the facts fit the theory. The pressure of making progress with the case was skewing his judgement.

‘So,’ Wilson replied cautiously. ‘The brother first gets Sravanti out here with a sick grandmother story. He then changes it to an arranged marriage one. But really, he’s lining her up – and this is his own sister, remember – as a suicide bomber.’

‘Why run when he knew the police were coming?’ Sullivan demanded, shooting a supportive look at O’Dowd.

‘He was keeping someone against her will, for a start,’ Wilson replied calmly. ‘He just assaulted her while trying to get her out of there. Have you seen the
lathis
– the sticks – the police carry out here? They really like to swing those things, believe me. Khaldoon will have known that.’

O’Dowd placed a clenched fist on the table. ‘Mr Wilson, you’re not party to a lot of the information we have at this end. We have evidence to strongly indicate Khaldoon was involved in terror-related activities. So would you mind going back and questioning this girl from the angle we’re talking about? Either as a knowing or unknowing accomplice of the brother.’

They all heard the sigh come from the speaker. ‘OK, I’ll try. She’s with the embassy doctor now. Emotionally, she’s all over the place. She knows she’s shamed her family – she’s terrified now that she’s on her own. And she’s probably right.’

The door opened and Fairfield stepped into the room, a laptop in his hand. He looked at the super with raised eyebrows. O’Dowd held up a finger. There was a hectoring note in his voice as he spoke again. ‘We need to know if she has ever met an individual called Nirpal Haziq. He worked in the same office as Khaldoon. We are currently seeking Haziq in relation to several recent murders here in Manchester.’

‘Right, I’ve got that.’

‘We are also trying to locate two girls who’ve gone missing from care homes in this region. Khaldoon had only booked seats for himself and his sister on that flight, but we need to know if the sister is aware of him arranging transit for any other females recently.’

‘You think she’ll be able to answer that? I’m pretty sure she was duped into all this.’

‘Would you just ask her?’ O’Dowd’s face was going red.

‘Fine. Have you any names?’

‘We have profiles, not actual names. I’ll have the details emailed over.’