Price to Pay, A (24 page)

‘Is everything ready?’

‘Almost.’

‘The laptop – its contents …’

She glanced back at the window. ‘Being burned right now. I can see the flames.’ Liam was burying the machine beneath another layer of office records.

‘And the female detective?’

‘She’s next. I’m making the call.’ Her eyes lowered to the floor, to where Chloe waited. She’d told the girl to pack. ‘As soon as the girl I have here’s safely in the car, I’ll ring the policewoman.’

‘You must be at the airfield at four o’clock. Not arriving at four o’clock: you must be there at four o’clock, ready to go. Is that clear?’

She’d never heard him sound like this before. He was nervous. She suddenly felt afraid. ‘I understand. We will be—’

‘You must be there. It’s … this is something …’

Now he was fumbling with his words. As if he was a schoolboy. She could hardly believe her ears.

‘I will explain to you …’ The reception faded, his words fragmenting into a disjointed buzz.

‘I cannot hear.’

‘Hello?’ His voice was clear once more. ‘I have made certain decisions. Ones that I now regret – but am unable to escape from. Zara. I am talking about Zara.’

Nina sagged against the worktop, felt the edge of it dig into her midriff. Zara: the name I gave to Jade Cummings. The girl who exploded at the checkpoint on the Israeli border. She closed her eyes.

‘They want … the people who I am doing business with, they want this other British girl. I agreed it would be possible. Do you understand me?’

Chloe, Nina thought. Chloe is to carry a bomb for them. ‘Yes.’

‘We must get the one you have out of Britain and to these people. Then my obligations are fulfilled. I can – we can – start again somewhere new. As we were before, my jewel. Supplying the clients we know.’

‘And the police detective? Where will she go?’

‘To someone who uses girls only for pleasure.’

‘The yacht?’

There was a pause. ‘You are too perceptive. Yes, the yacht. Both women, Nina: we need both of them. The people I have made arrangements with, they have other information. They told me the Israelis are there – in Britain. Mossad. There is a team of them there.’

She said nothing. They should never be in such danger. Why had he placed them in such a position? He had always been so good at business decisions. Now she was having to risk everything, sacrifice everything she’d worked so hard for. Her eyes alighted on the holdall stuffed with boxes of human hair. Madison’s was in there. A shade of yellow that delicate would get an excellent price. One day, she thought, I will build up my business again.

‘I will see you at four o’clock.’

She lifted her chin. He was coming! In person. She knew he would. ‘You will be there? You are on the plane?’

‘Of course.’

His voice had that faint, metallic buzz once more. He’s in the air, she realized. A satellite phone.

‘I will see you soon, OK?’

‘OK.’ She placed her mobile down as the back door opened and Liam stepped through. Dark specks were stuck in his short hair. His fingers were black. She was back again in the mining town of Vorkuta. The line of men she had to service. They didn’t even wash their hands before grabbing at her flesh. Filthy fingered animals.

‘What?’ He was looking at her with an uncomfortable expression.

She smiled. ‘Nothing. A memory, that’s all.’

‘It’s done. The fire.’

‘Yes, I saw. Thank you, Liam.’

‘So we get Chloe into your car. Then what’s next?’

‘There is one more thing before we can go.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I will ask for someone to come and see me.’

He looked nonplussed. ‘Who?’

‘Just a woman. Someone we’re taking with us. When she arrives, we need to subdue her. She must be with us on that plane.’ She reached into her pocket and took out the business card Iona Khan had handed over to Martin Everington.

Liam stepped over and peered down at it. His eyes widened. ‘Why are you ringing the fucking police?’

‘Because the woman we need works for them.’

He laughed shrilly. ‘That was a joke, yeah?’

‘No.’

‘We’re kidnapping a policewoman? Is that what you’re saying? Is it?’

She lowered the phone and stared at him contemptuously. ‘How else do we start another life? Tell me. Do we earn our money picking fruit, maybe? Apricots and plums? Is that how we pay for a place by the beach? Will that buy us through the border so we just disappear?’

He raised both hands and pressed all his fingers into his temples. ‘This is so, so fucked.’

‘This is the last thing we do in this country, Liam. The money I know I can get for this particular woman – and it must be this woman – buys us a new start. Do you understand?’

He threw his hands at her. ‘Fine. Let’s fucking do it. Ring her. What’s kidnapping a pig?’ His voice was now wobbling with laughter. ‘Add it to the queue of other stuff, do I give a shit?’

T
he tech room couldn’t hold more than six people, so Alan Goss had set up his equipment on the table in a ground-floor meeting room.

Iona tried to get a clear view of what was going on, but every time the officers before her shifted, her sliver-thin view was lost. She considered asking to stand in front of them but decided that would be the sort of thing a child would ask. Worse, they’d probably stand aside for her with some comment that included the word baby.

‘Right,’ Alan resumed. ‘We had this RAW file on the hard drive, if you recall. Completely unreadable – and no way of getting at it: not until Nirpal decided to tell us what would run it.’

Which he was happy to do, Iona thought, as soon as he got an inkling of exactly what he was being accused of. He’d gone very pale according to the officers observing the interview. He hadn’t killed anyone. He knew nothing about what Khaldoon Khan was up to. He’d never heard of a Liam Collins. He certainly didn’t know anything about a British national exploding at a checkpoint on the Israeli border.

‘So,’ Alan stated. ‘I take the hard drive out of the laptop, insert it in the hard drive dock.’

Nirpal was claiming he had fled from CityPads because he thought they were there about his credit card fraud. That’s all he’d done and the RAW file on the laptop would prove it.

Iona caught a fleeting glimpse of a black device with the letters, AKASA.

The IT guy had one hand lying on it as he spoke again. ‘Then it’s just a case of bringing in my old PlayStation from home and plugging that into the dock. Bingo, our RAW file reveals itself to be for a PlayStation. This tab?’ He pointed at a little monitor. ‘Nirpal’s mystery file. The names, addresses and log-in details of several thousand PlayStation customers he’d managed to hack.’

A gruff voice spoke up from the other side of the room. ‘Sneaky bastard.’

The shoulder blocking Iona’s view shook as the officer laughed.

‘Nothing else in there, as you can see,’ Alan added.

‘No profiles of girls?’ Iona asked, fighting the urge to stand on her tiptoes.

‘No.’

Assuming Goss was scrolling through the spreadsheet, she looked at Martin. ‘Then he’s just a scammer?’

He shrugged. ‘Khaldoon Khan needed funds for whatever he’s up to. They reckon Nirpal was providing them.’

Iona almost shook her head. It didn’t make sense. ‘Why would Khan steal – and then flog – his own money-man’s laptop?’ she whispered. ‘Leaving Nirpal the focus of a huge manhunt, as a result?’

Martin shrugged again.

Iona knew the loft space of Nirpal’s parents’ house had been searched. There were several boxed smart phones and tablet devices up there which the parents could not explain. They did admit, however, that Nirpal regularly went up there to retrieve items he had no room to store at his flat.

‘We need more on him than just a charge of credit card fraud,’ Roebuck said with a clap of his hands. ‘The guy is neck-deep in this. He’ll have a lock-up somewhere, a rented flat, a garage. We keep going at him. Khaldoon’s due at a high security police station in Islamabad within the hour. I have a strong suspicion things will get a lot clearer then. Back to work, everyone.’

Iona moved away from the press of bodies heading for the door. Martin hung back beside her.

‘You’re not happy,’ he murmured.

She watched her colleagues filing out. ‘Haziq has never felt right for the murders.’

Martin sighed. ‘Which is where Collins comes in.’

‘Maybe. But not as part of a team with Haziq.’

‘That’s the theory they’re running with. And we’re in the wrong room.’

She thought about the Gold Command they were setting up along the corridor. People from MI5 and MI6 working alongside most of Sullivan’s team, all focusing on Khaldoon Khan, Nirpal Haziq and Liam Collins as a terror cell.

They made their way out into the corridor. ‘There’s still Club Soda,’ Iona stated.

‘What about it?’ Martin replied despondently.

‘I still reckon there’s something in it. The woman on that bridge. I don’t know … it just seems odd, the whole encounter before Teah Rice jumped.’

‘And you think the woman is also the person who approached Chloe Shilling with the promise of a well-paid job at Club Soda?’

She shrugged. ‘Or am I just clutching at straws?’

He put his hands into his pockets and peered down at his feet. ‘We haven’t got much else to go at. Who do you want to take it to? Roebuck?’

She glanced at him. ‘I don’t mind. Whoever’s free, I suppose. But it’s us, Martin. We’re a team on this.’

‘Of course. But it should be Roebuck. You made the link, he’s your boss.’

She stole another quick glance. ‘It probably makes more sense. Roebuck’s still got responsibility for the girls’ disappearance.’

‘Yeah, it makes sense.’ He pushed open the door to the main office and ushered her through.

More desks of civilian support workers were empty. They’ve scaled it back too soon in here, Iona thought. There’s more to run with this. A lot more, I feel certain. And now we lack the resources to keep up. Roebuck was in his office, already talking on the phone. ‘I’ll catch him when he comes off.’

She sat down, spotted the call slip on her desk and groaned.

‘What’s up?’ Martin asked, eyes hungrily sweeping Sullivan’s office. Iona had already checked; he wasn’t back down from the fourth floor, yet. She lifted the piece of paper. ‘The Ice Maiden has rung. Wants me to nip out and see her.’

‘Who?’

‘Nina Dubianko.’

Martin’s head turned. ‘She rang? What about?’

He’d tried to sound casual, but Iona caught the interest in his voice.

‘She’s got some stuff about another client of Eamon Heslin. Needs to go through it in person.’

‘And she asked specifically for you?’

There was no mistaking it: he sounded disappointed. It was showing, too, at the corners of his mouth. Nina hadn’t asked to see him.

‘That’s what it says.’

‘Oh.’

Such a simple word, but so loaded with feeling. It triggered a hollowness at the base of her throat. If he fancied me, she thought, he wouldn’t look so gutted about her not asking to see him.

‘And it has to be right now?’ His head was bowed over his desk.

‘Says it’s urgent, yeah.’ She keyed in the number and listened to it ring. The call was soon answered. ‘Nina Dubianko? It’s Detective Khan. You rang—’

The woman cut across her, speaking too fast. Her voice was more squeaky than she remembered. It had a whine of something that sounded close to alarm.

Iona listened to what she had to say.

‘All right, madam, I understand. It’s fine; if you only feel comfortable sharing this at your home, that’s not a problem.’

Dubianko spoke again.

‘I could be there within thirty minutes. OK. See you soon.’ She cut the call and frowned.

‘That sounded interesting,’ Martin said, moving his keyboard closer to his monitor and starting to type laboriously with each forefinger.

She examined the slip of paper again as the slow click of his keyboard continued. ‘Interesting and a bit strange,’ she replied, thinking about how the woman’s foreign accent had been showing through. She’d sounded tense and, at the same time, insistent. Maybe where her parents came from the police had time to make home visits whenever they were summonsed.

‘Go on,’ Martin said, busily stabbing at the keys.

He’ll damage the micromesh, she thought, typing with that much force. She studied the top of his head. His shoulders were hunched as he hit the delete key several times in quick succession. Is he sulking? I think he is. One way to find out. She took a breath in. ‘Why don’t you go?’

He looked up. ‘Mmm?’

She folded the piece of paper over and tossed it across the narrow crack dividing their desks. ‘She probably only asked for me because it was my name on that card we left.’

She saw the look on his face: a kid on Christmas Day. She squashed down her own feelings of sadness. What were you thinking? A tall, statuesque blonde with pearly white teeth and sapphire eyes, or you? Who did you think he’d go for, given the choice?

‘Seriously? What did she say?’

‘It was about a client Heslin introduced her to once. A man who really creeped her out. She wouldn’t say why.’

‘And you want me to follow it up?’ The typing was forgotten.

‘I could sort out the FMU report miles quicker. And if Roebuck becomes free, I can collar him with the CCTV theory.’

He sat back. ‘If you’re sure …’

‘It doesn’t need two of us – and I think you’ll enjoy feasting your eyes on the East European Goddess more than me.’

He gave her a rakish grin. ‘Well, in terms of effective time management, it would be a more suitable arrangement.’

She nodded sagely, trying to look happy as she played along. ‘Yes. I fully understand the professional nature of your decision.’ Watching him eagerly grab his coat, her smile felt like it was painted on.

‘I owe you, Iona.’ He stood up and gave her a big wink.

She wanted to die. He winked! He actually winked at me. She waved a hand. ‘Go on. Just try not to drool all over her nice carpet.’

He was now moving round the desk, one thumb directed at his computer. ‘The document’s on the screen … notes are all next to it …’