by Andrew Grant
“And he’s obviously involved with some pretty dodgy people, so whatever’s happening may not have anything to do with us, anyway.”
“Let’s come back, first thing in the morning, and see if we can pick him up on his way in.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“In the meantime, let’s drop this tractor off back at my office. Then we could maybe grab a late bite of lunch.”
“Count me in.”
Melissa suggested we should eat at the Mint hotel, since it was almost next door to Thames House. Neither of us spoke much as we wound our back through the city traffic, and she dropped me outside while she went to sign the car back into the pool. I found a table in an alcove under a set of stairs, and was still getting to grips with the menu when she slid into the seat next to mine.
“David, are you really hungry?” she said.
“I could eat,” I said. “But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t starve. Why?”
“It’s just, I’m uneasy about doing nothing. I don’t want to wait till the morning to go after Sole. It feels like too much of a risk. So, I was thinking, how would you feel about heading over to his house and seeing if we can pick him up there?”
“Now?”
“We could be there when he gets back from this mysterious meeting he was summoned to.”
“How will we find out where he lives?”
Melissa pulled a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of her jacket, set it on the table, and pushed it towards me.
“I took a minute when I was back at the office,” she said.
I picked up the note and unfolded it. An address in south London was written in smooth, flowing handwriting.
“Morden?” I said. “That’s not too far. OK. Let’s give it a try.”
“Thanks,” she said. “It might not lead to anything - he might not even come home tonight - but trying will make me feel a lot better.”
“It would be interesting to see what his place is like, too. It could give us an idea of how discrete this guy is, since his hands are apparently in the till.”
“It should.”
“How are we going to get there? Tube?”
“I have a confession. I didn’t turn the Land Rover back in, after all. It’s parked outside. I was hoping you’d say, yes.”
The drive to Sole’s house took forty-four minutes, allowing for a set of road works on the Balham High Road, a stop at Pret a Manger to pick up sandwiches, and another at a petrol station to refill the Land Rover’s tank.
“This guy must have excellent self control,” Melissa said, as she guided the Land Rover expertly into a narrow space diagonally opposite a modest semi, a quarter of a mile from Morden station. “Unless he’s got a couple of Rolls Royces in a lock-up round the corner.”
“Either that, or someone’s controlling him with something other than money,” I said.
“Could be either. We need to find out which. Let’s see if he’s in first, shall we?”
“I’ll go, if you like.”
“No. You better stay put. What if he is there? We don’t want him taking to his heels.”
“Why do you keep saying things like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. What happened with Tim Jones, the first time you met him, maybe. Or the kids in the hospital garden. Or the city boys, outside the Frog and Turtle.”
“I was very restrained, with all of those.”
“You’re like the iron fist in the velvet glove, aren’t you?”
I allowed myself a hint of a smile.
“Only sometimes, it seems like you forget to bring the glove.”
I watched Melissa saunter across the road and pick her way along the path through Sole’s narrow front garden, and had to agree she could make herself look pretty non-threatening. I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if he opened the door and showed any of the smarminess he’s apparently employed on Amany, though.
Melissa rang the doorbell, then stepped back and started to subtly peek through the two downstairs windows. She waited a couple of minutes, then rang again. There must have been no answer, because she moved to her right and tried the gate that blocked the passage between Sole’s house and the next pair of semis. I could see that the handle wouldn’t turn. She glanced around behind her, then put her right foot up on the wall, pushed herself up, pivoted around, and disappeared feet first from view.
She was out of sight for just over three minutes, then the gate opened and she strolled back out, moving calmly as if she owned the place. Two minutes after that she was behind the wheel, next to me.
“It’s a very modest place,” she said. “There’s no sign of a sudden influx of ill-gotten cash.”
“Maybe they don’t live there anymore,” I said. “Maybe they’ve rented the place out.”
“It’s possible. We’ll just have to see when someone gets home. At least we know the place is occupied. There were dirty breakfast things still on the kitchen table.”
Over the next four hours and ten minutes we talked about many things. We started with the first records we’d bought. Then the first concerts we’d been to. The first person we’d kissed. Our favourite books. And movies. And paintings. And buildings. And countries. For two hundred and fifty minutes we sounded like normal members of society, with no place in our conversation for violence or deception or death. The only subject Melissa stayed resolutely away from was her family. And before I could change that, her phone rang.
“They say dead men tell no tales,” she said, looking several shades paler. “What do you think? And what about dead men’s houses? Or dead men’s dead mistresses?”
“Sole’s dead?” I said.
“Yes. He is. And so’s Amany Shakram. That was the desk sergeant at the police station round the corner from St Joseph’s. The guy knew I still have an eye on the place, so when two hospital employees turned up dead tonight, he had the nouse to call me.”
“Were they murdered?”
“Oh, yes. It sounds like they were very much murdered.”
“Where?”
“Woolwich. In a half-abandoned council estate about thirty-five minutes from here.”
“OK. So what would you rather do? Head to the murder scene? Or see what we can turn up inside the house?”
“It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
“I agree. But if I had to pick one, I’d go for the murder scene. Recent violence is much more fertile ground than somewhere someone’s had years to hide and conceal everything. And judging by the outside, at least, this guy was pretty careful not to give anything away.”
“That works for me,” she said, reaching out and turning the key.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Melissa drove much more aggressively on our way out of Morden than she had done on our way in. The chunky SUV wasn’t exactly nimble, but what it lacked in precision she made up for with power as she zigzagged through Colliers Wood and Tooting and Streatham, before turning right onto the A205 and blazing west through Dulwich and Forest Hill and Catford. She slowed right down when she turned left, heading north again, and then my heart sank when I realised what was happening. We were nearly at our destination. Melissa was looking for somewhere to park. I just hoped she had plenty of taxi money with her, because one look out of the window was enough to tell you the Land Rover wasn’t likely to be there when we came back for it.
“What just happened?” I said, as Melissa pulled the Land Rover into a layby next to a burnt out bus shelter. “Did you drive so fast that we went back in time, and somehow ended up in Soviet era East Germany? What is this place?”
“Welcome to the Queen’s Grove Estate,” she said, opening her door. “Some say it’s the closest you can get to hell without being dead.”
“It looks like they’re right,” I said, following her out on to the pavement.
“Last year, two guys were stabbed to death here on a Friday night. Their bodies were left lying in one of the gardens - and I say gardens in the loosest sen
se of the word - for a whole weekend before anyone bothered to call the police.”
“Charming. And this is where Sole ended up? Amany, too?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m told.”
“Where, exactly? This place is huge.”
“I have the name of the block.”
“Well, good luck finding it,” I said, pointing to what used to be a map of the estate. It was still standing, attached to a pair of stout metal girders, but its surface was entirely obliterated with dozens of layers of paint.
“We should be able to find it,” she said. “Half the place has been demolished already.”
“Why only half?”
“You might not believe it, but a handful of the residents have refused to leave. They can’t knock down any more till they get them to move out.”
“Why won’t they go?”
“These are people who’ve been here for years. Since it was built. It’s their home. They like it.”
“But just look at the place,” I said, scanning the acres of stained concrete and smashed glass.
“They think there wasn’t a problem with the buildings,” she said. “The problem was with the people. The ones who chose to use the walkways for muggings or selling drugs. To piss in the stairwells. Or to set fire to the lifts, just for fun.”
“I can see how that wouldn’t add to the sense of community,” I said, thinking about the friends who’d died, alone and away from home, protecting people who did things like this. “Maybe we could have a nose around, later. I wouldn’t mind meeting some of these muggers and drug dealers and incontinents. I could pass on the regards from some of my absent friends.”
“Don’t start with that, again,” she said. “Let’s see what we need to see, then just get out of here.”
I followed her through a kind of rectangular courtyard, boxed in on all sides by the decaying husks of square, soulless excuses for buildings. We passed through a gap in the far corner where the whole sidewall of one of the blocks was missing, and found ourselves at the entrance to another, identical courtyard.
“How many of these are there?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Thirty? Forty?”
“Heaven help us. We’ll be here all night.”
“No, we won’t. Look, back there.”
Melissa had turned round, and was pointing to the empty space where a window had been, ten floors above us. It was glowing with harsh, white light while all the others around it were dark and derelict.
We made our way to the nearest entrance and pulled aside the remnants of the twisted metal screen that was supposed to have kept the place secure.
“Take a deep breath,” Melissa said, and disappeared inside.
I followed her, and we started up the filthy concrete stairs. Even with both hands clamped over my mouth and nose, it was impossible to escape the stench. We climbed steadily, and after seven flights I began to make out the sound of voices above us.
“Oy!” a male voice said, after we’d reached the ninth landing and started on the final set of steps. “Where do you think you’re going?”
We kept on climbing, and in another moment I saw a nineteen or twenty-year-old in a police constable’s uniform blocking our path. Melissa and didn’t say anything, but she showed him her ID and he stepped back without question.
The landing stretched away into the darkness. One side was open to the elements. The other was harsh, textured concrete, interrupted by random panels of black tiles which extended up from the floor, and a regular series of doorways. Only now, the openings were covered by more metal grills. All of them, except for the one closest to us. I took a reluctant step towards it.
“You might not want to go in there, sir,” the young constable said.
I stepped past him, looked inside, and saw a large rectangular space. It would probably have been the living room, when the flat was habitable. It was a decent size, and it looked like the wide window would have made the place pleasantly bright to live in. But it was far from pleasant now. Strips of garish, almost psychedelic wallpaper were hanging from the walls. Clods of paint were dangling from the ceiling. The floor was covered with broken glass and mouse droppings. It stank even worse than the stairwell, and the two men who were already in the room had breathing masks over their faces. They were police technicians. Both were wearing white overalls. One was standing between a pair of tripod-mounted floodlights, and the other was crouching down, fiddling with the portable generator that powered them.
“Evening,” the standing technician said. “You took your time. We need to get wrapped up. Where’s your stuff?”
“What stuff?” Melissa said. “Oh, I see. No. We’re not with the coroner. It looks like you’ll have to hang on a little longer, for them. Have you been here for a while? Can you tell us what happened?”
Two bodies were lying in the middle of the floor. A man - presumably Stewart Sole - and Amany Shakran. Both were naked. Both had their wrists and ankles bound with plastic ties. Sole’s hands were behind his back. Amany’s were in front of her abdomen, which was grossly swollen and distended. It hadn’t been that way, earlier when we’d spoken to her. A double ring of continuous, deep, jagged, cuts ran round her belly, like a dark belt. Blood had seeped out from the wounds and stained the floor on either side of her, stranding a swarm of wriggling insects in a slowly congealing slick. They looked like some kind of huge ants, and more were caught in the bigger, darker puddles that surrounded the victims’ heads.
Both of them had been shot, twice. I could see where the bullets had entered, but there were no visible exit wounds. It looked like someone who knew what they were doing had been to work with a .22. There was no sign of any shell casings, either. But four other items were on the floor, lined up tidily next to Amany’s body. Two pale-blue twenty-litre NATO jerrycans. A galvanised steel funnel. And a length of red, sticky barbed wire, about five feet long.
“I think it’s pretty obvious, don’t you?” he said. “An interrogation? A punishment? An execution? Take your pick.”
“What makes someone do this?” Melissa said.
The technician just shrugged.
“I mean, what makes a person capable of doing this?” Melissa said. “Are they uniquely twisted? Or is it something in their blood?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Melissa told me another progress meeting had been scheduled for the following morning, I started to worry. I could see an abyss opening up at our feet, and another fruitless NATO exercise – No Action Talk Only, as one of my old instructors used to say – lying in wait for us in its rocky depths. But when I reached Thames House and made my way upstairs to our usual meeting room, I found my concern was premature. Only Melissa and Jones were there. The others were spread out across London, following through with their various actions from our previous session. The meeting was being replaced with a conference call, apparently. Which would have been doubly fine if they’d thought to tell us before we’d done battle with the morning’s traffic.
Melissa reached across and pulled the spider phone to our side of the table so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice when she spoke, but for the first twenty minutes she needn’t have bothered. The others had been busy, and had plenty to say about the gaps they’d found in the security arrangements at the Houses of Parliament. The revised precautions they were implementing. The discussions they were having with the Queen’s protection detail, and the difficulty of persuading her bodyguards to change their existing procedures.
The only area where limited progress had been made was in investigating the group that Leckie’s informer had penetrated. None of the existing network of informers could throw any light on them, and GCHQ had been unable to uncover anything on any phone networks, email, or internet interactions that Melissa hadn’t already found out. So when she did finally get the chance to report, the satisfaction of having uncovered how the caesium was stolen was outweighed by the disappointment that the only two people definitely know
n to be involved had been killed.
“This is very worrying,” Hardwicke said when Melissa had relayed the last of her information, speaking for the first time and nearly deafening everyone with a blast of background traffic noise as he took his phone off mute. “The fact that another batch of caesium is in the wrong hands is extremely serious. But panic will serve no one’s interests - other than the wrongdoers. Chaston?”
“Here, sir,” Melissa’s boss said.
“If the bath is overflowing, what’s the first thing you do?”
“Turn off the tap.”
“Correct. So, now that we know the procedure has been compromised, there are to be no further transfers of hospital waste until further notice. Take care of that, will you?”
“Sir.”
“We’re making good progress on most fronts, but there is zero room for complacency. The existing precautions are good. We’re making them better. But in a day’s time, they’ll be tested. We need to pass that test. And our efforts to penetrate the suspect group - they need to be redoubled. Also, I want to know why GCHQ hasn’t turned anything up about the additional material we now know to be out there.”
“I’ll chase them up, sir,” Chaston said.
“Good. Wainwright?”
“Sir?” Melissa said.
“Our deceased friends from the hospital? Good work uncovering them. Now, stay on that tack. It’s clear that Sole recruited Shakram, but who recruited Sole? Did it happen before he worked at the hospital, or once he was there? Who was his contact? How did he get his instructions? I want the link back to al-Aqsaba’a nailed down and clearly understood.”
“Yes, sir,” Melissa said. “And sir? Another thing occurs to me, coming out of what we found.”
“I see. What is it?”
“Well, they stole two separate batches of caesium. After the business with the fire, they stored it in two separate places. Or maybe it was always kept separate. But my question is, does this mean they’re aiming for twice the damage? Or are they going after two separate targets?”