Price to Pay, A (27 page)

‘This is it, Tal. It’s happening right now. Target is the woman Khan just spoke to. Come on!’

His colleague hurriedly placed the camera on the floor and slipped under the sheet of dark material. ‘We’re following Khan?’

‘Yes. She’s going to meet the woman calling herself Dubianko. Eli and Haim are following her.’

The other man was checking the wall display in the rear office. ‘Red Micra.’

The man in the baseball cap was already making for the door. ‘I know. Registration starts MY09.’

I
ona tried Martin’s phone twice more on the way round the M60. Answerphone. What was he playing at? Ignoring work calls like that: if Sullivan had been unable to get hold of him, he would find himself in serious trouble. Then again, he’d probably answer a call from his boss in a flash.

The Renault felt quite good once she got it into fifth. It was one of those people carriers. Pale green exterior, grey interior. As it sped along in the fast lane, she mulled over the situation. Could Nina and Martin really have been … Would Martin be so unprofessional? Would Nina? She was hurrying to a business appointment, after all. She wouldn’t even have had time to shower. Iona grimaced.

Nina had been doing something; the strain in her voice gave it away. Samples of hair didn’t weigh much – so, when she said she was packing stock for a business meeting that was highly unlikely. Martin would probably ring at any moment, claiming he’d got a flat tyre or something. He’d been changing the wheel and so hadn’t heard his mobile in the car. He’d say he’d just got to Nina’s house, but there was no one in. How convenient.

‘The Renault. She must have been in that green Renault. Fuck!’ He punched the dashboard. It was twenty-eight minutes to four. They’d been sitting in the lay-by along from Orion House for six minutes. He lifted his mobile and hit a speed dial number. ‘Where are you?’

‘Behind her. I think we’re somewhere near an airport.’

‘Is it called Woodford?’

‘That was on a sign we just passed.’

The man in the baseball cap clicked his fingers at his colleague. ‘We need the M60, westbound, now!’

The car pulled out. Immediately in front of them were blue motorway signs.

‘We’re on our way. Rendezvous is a Holiday Inn somewhere near Woodford.’ He scanned the map across his knees. ‘OK, I see it. Just stay with her, we’ll be there soon.’ By the small white square marked hotel was a large expanse. Dissecting it were two dotted channels in the shape of a cross. The words by it read, Woodford Aerodrome. Private airfield. He immediately hit another speed dial number. ‘We have a target. It’s happening.’

‘Where is the target?’

‘By a private airfield. I think she’s about to flee. What I can’t work out is why she’s trying to meet a female police detective first.’

‘How certain are you she’s connected?’

‘Very. She’s just taken out a member of the CTU who went to question her. I need a decision.’

‘Secure the target. Take her alive.’

‘And then?’

‘Be in contact. There is a safe house within thirty minutes of Manchester.’

‘The observation post by Orion House is unmanned. We left everything in there.’

‘That will be taken care of.’

‘What about sideliners?’

‘What sideliners?’

‘This female detective the target is meeting. She may obstruct us.’

‘Remove her.’

Iona reached the roundabout where the turning for the Eastern Link Road branched off. Manchester Airport was probably a mile away; a Virgin plane was hanging in the sky above. Its wheels were down and the thing was low enough for her to see into the housing of its landing gear. Stowaways sometimes hide in there, she thought. Clinging to a ledge, suffocated or frozen within minutes of leaving Nigeria or Liberia or wherever it was they were trying to escape from. Tiny, illegal cargos. How many dropped from the planes to fall, unnoticed, into the desert or sea?

The Holiday Inn came into view. The roof of the low building was almost level with the raised link road. Iona peered down into the car park as she took the slip road. There were only about a dozen cars there. She didn’t spot Nina’s Range Rover until she was at the very end of the slip road. There it was, parked right at the back, as far from the motel as it could possibly be. The woman really was nervous. Iona spotted her then. Smoking, as usual, her gaze fixed on the traffic up on the road above.

Of course, Iona realized. She’s expecting me to be in something small and red. Iona went to signal left. Her fingers recoiled from the indicator as if the lever carried an electric charge. Nina Dubianko was wearing a cream-coloured parka. It had a fur-lined hood. The exact same coat from the CCTV of Teah Rice’s suicide.

She let the Renault roll past the entrance and her hand clamped back on the wheel. Another forty metres of road then a sign. Deliveries only. A single lane led behind the main building. Iona risked another glance over her shoulder. It was the same coat. The one worn by the mystery woman on the motorway flyover. The corner of the building cut off her view.

‘Eli, what’s happening?’

‘Nothing. She’s by her car chain-smoking. Watching the traffic passing by. She keeps checking her watch.’

‘Any sign of the female detective, Khan? I think she’s in an olive-green Renault Scenic. She’s certainly not in a red Micra.’

‘Negative.’

‘Where exactly are you?’

‘To the left of the main entrance. We’re facing towards the building, parked alongside a black Mercedes. I’m watching in the rear-view mirror.’

‘Very well. Stay where you are. We’re ten minutes away. Be ready to acquire the target as soon as we arrive.’

‘No problem. She’s parked at the far end. There’s no one here to see.’

Iona drew to a stop in the loading bay and tried the rear entrance. Locked. She jogged to the corner and looked round it. A swathe of gravel ran along the side of the building to the next corner. A border of grass beside it, sloping up to a row of conifers at the top. She crawled up the shallow incline, head turned in the direction of the car park. As she got higher, the sound of traffic from the road grew louder. She made it to the small trees just before the end of the car park came into view. Perfect. She crawled between two of the narrow trunks. A chalky cluster of dry dog faeces lay next to the right-hand one. Once she’d squeezed through, the trees formed a barrier between her and the expanse of asphalt. She started forward. Nina was there, a phone held to her ear. Iona’s mobile went off. Shit! She lay flat, the phone digging into her stomach, its sound muffled. Five rings and then the answerphone kicked in. As soon as it did, she lifted her chest and took it out. Unknown number. She watched Nina as she spoke for a few more moments, then hang up and light a new cigarette.

Iona went to her messages. New one, received today at three forty-three p.m.

‘Detective Khan? It is me, Nina Dubianko. Can you please pick up?’ A pause. ‘I am here, at the Holiday Inn. You are late. I am parked at the end of the car park. It is easy to see me. I will wait for seven more minutes.’

The woman sounded more than stressed. She was freaking out. Iona called the office. Surprise, surprise, on asking for Roebuck, she was put through to Euan. ‘It’s me, Iona.’

‘Iona? The signal is atrocious, you’re hardly—’

‘I’m whispering. Listen, Euan; send a unit to the address of a Nina Dubianko. She was on the list of Heslin’s clients recovered from his offices. I think Detective Everington may be at her address. He could be injured.’

‘Martin’s at the address of—’

‘Listen! I am watching the Holiday Inn car park on the Manchester Airport Eastern Links Road. I need back-up. Nina Dubianko is here. She is the woman from the Teah Rice footage. I believe she knows the whereabouts of Madison Fisher and Chloe Shilling. She could well have recruited Jade Cummings. Got that?’

‘Jesus Christ, Iona.’

‘You must get this message to Roebuck.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll keep visual contact with Dubianko. Hurry!’

At exactly three fifty-five, Nina Dubianko slung her half-smoked cigarette to the ground. After studying the surrounding car park with great care, she opened the door to her Range Rover and got in.

As the man sitting in the passenger seat of a blue Volvo parked to the side of the Holiday Inn’s main entrance lifted his phone, Iona was crawling backwards to the gap in the trees. She raised herself to a crouch, shouldered her way through and raced down the grassy slope. When she reached the bottom her phone began to ring. She ignored the call, concentrating on retrieving her car keys instead.

Seconds later, as she turned right back on to the Links Road, her phone rang again. ‘Euan, she’s on the move!’

‘Roebuck just called you, why didn’t you pick up?’

‘I couldn’t. I was returning to my vehicle.’

‘Stay on the line.’ He spoke away from the phone. ‘Sir? She’s here.’

A second later, her boss’s voice filled the car. ‘Iona? What’s happening?’

‘She’s on the move, sir.’

‘State your position.’

‘Heading away from Manchester Airport. We’re almost back at the roundabout at the end of the East Links Road. Sir, has anyone got hold of Martin Everington?’

‘Iona, you sure she’s the one from that CCTV footage?’

‘Yes. Fisher and Shilling absconded from their care home because a female fed them the story of a well-paid job overseas.’

‘Don’t worry about details. I need to know, is she alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘How close are you?’

‘One car behind. We are now at that roundabout. She’s indicating right.’

‘Back-up is minutes away. Just stay with her, Iona. Gavin, progress?’ A faint voice responded, too indistinct for Iona to make out actual words. ‘Iona? An armed unit is only a few minutes off. What’s happening now?’

‘We’ve reached another mini-roundabout. It’s now all fields, sir. We’re heading east on the A5149. She’s accelerating – no, she’s slowing, now. She’s indicating. Sir, it’s some kind of airfield, I think. I can see one of those windsocks behind the hedge. There’s a control tower. Is it a private airfield? I can see several small planes lined up by a runway. She’s driving towards the only building. The terminal, it must be. She’s stopped. I think she’s making a call.’

‘Keep your distance; they’re almost with you.’

‘Sir.’

‘That is an order, Iona. Support just got to Nina Dubianko’s property.’

‘Is Martin there?’

‘Iona, he’s dead.’

She felt cool air on the roof of her mouth. Her lips were open.

‘Iona? It’s likely the woman shot him. Do not approach her. Is that understood?’

The man with the baseball cap was hunched over the map, speaking calmly into his phone. ‘There’s a roundabout. The turn-off for the Eastern Links Road is off that. Do you mean that one?’

‘No, do not take that turn. Go straight over. I repeat, straight over. You get to another roundabout. Take the first left off that one.’

‘On to the A5149?’

‘Yes. Two hundred metres is a right turn. It’s for a private airfield.’

‘Woodford Aerodrome?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s in the main car park. A green Renault Scenic followed her in. It’s now parked on the far side.’

‘That’s the detective. Where are you?’

‘Out on the road.’

‘What’s the target doing?’

‘She’s in her car. Possibly talking on the – no, she’s moving. She’s approaching the security building. She is now going to the side of it. There’s an entry point for getting airside in the fence there: a barrier with metal panelling below it. The security guy has gone round to her window. They’re talking. Discussing something. He’s now walking away from the vehicle, going back to his hut. He’s raising the barrier! The barrier is – the detective. She’s out of her car.’

‘Repeat.’

‘She’s out of her car. She’s running. She’s running in the direction of the Range Rover!’

Iona’s vision bumped and jarred each time a foot struck the hard tarmac. She was aware of her keys bouncing about in her pocket. It set up a weird rhythm in her head, the thud of her trainers and the metallic chinking. When she’d seen the barrier starting to go up, she’d known she couldn’t stay in the Renault.

She’d run almost fifty metres and had yet to breathe. When her words came, they exploded out of her. ‘Lower that barrier! Lower the barrier!’

The man in the security booth looked through the window, the whites of his eyes clearly visible. Iona was holding her badge in front as she closed the remaining distance. ‘Police! Lower it!’

The far end of the barrier had lifted by about five feet. Now the hum of the motor cut and the thick metal pole stopped moving. The end of it quivered briefly. Iona also came to a halt. She was about twenty metres to the right of the Range Rover and about four metres away from the perimeter fence. Coils of razor wire looped along its top. At the base of the fence was a yellow container. Black letters on the lid said, rock salt.

For a second, no one moved. Then the door of the Range Rover swung open and Nina climbed out. She had a gun in one hand, a mobile phone in the other. ‘Get here!’ she shrieked at Iona.

Raising her hands, Iona stepped back. ‘Nina, just stop. Please, just—’

‘Here!’ She beckoned jerkily with the barrel. The security guard peeped from the doorway of his booth. The gun swung in his direction. ‘Back!’

Iona was judging distances. She could take cover behind the plastic container at the base of the fence. What would that buy her? Twenty seconds before Nina walked over and forced her back to her feet. Where was the back-up? Roebuck had said a few minutes. They must be close. The airfield seemed eerily deserted.

‘Now! You come here!’

Nina’s face was frightening. Her eyes had darkened to black and her lips were stretched tight against her teeth. Iona suddenly knew they were false. Too perfect. The woman took a few quick steps closer. ‘Now!’

Hands still raised, Iona edged forward.

‘Quick, quick!’ Nina was now walking backwards, retreating to the rear of the vehicle. ‘Quick!’ She put her phone in her pocket and released the catch of the Range Rover’s boot. ‘In! Get in!’