‘You’ll get there,’ Thorne said.
‘Or I won’t.’
‘Right, or you won’t.’
‘Then all I’m left with is a hideous mess. All they’re left with is a hideous mess.’
Thorne said nothing, thinking suddenly about his own father. Towards the end, the old man had developed the habit of taking apart vintage radios and TVs, carefully dismantling them piece by piece, until their innards lay spread out across his kitchen table. Afterwards he would become agitated, unable to put the things back together again, but the delicate process of separating each valve, tube and circuit board had unquestionably been therapeutic; calming him and dampening down, for a few hours at least, each misfiring synapse.
Slowing the decline.
‘Tom…?’
Thorne knew that it was never about the mess, but the reason you made it.
SIXTY-SEVEN
In the end, they had plumped for the 01:05 train from King’s Cross; the Northern City line, overground towards Hatfield and Welwyn. The train an hour earlier was not direct, and anything before that would probably have been too crowded.
No point making things hard for themselves.
Muldoon had no idea where Hakim had taken his sister that evening and didn’t care a great deal. Riaz was the one for the details. All that mattered was that, afterwards, the two of them caught this train home together and from that point on there shouldn’t be any problem, with the brother on board in more ways than one.
Muldoon was pleased with the pun he had thought of, checking his watch as the train began to move, and happy to see that they were on time.
Twenty minutes until Hakim and his sister were due to be getting off.
Thirteen until they would be.
He dropped into the seat opposite them just as the train pulled out of Finsbury Park, five minutes in.
He was wearing stained jeans and a paint-spattered sweatshirt beneath his old green jacket. A pair of muddy Timberlands. Just your average meat-headed paddy working man, which was exactly what he might have been in another life, had he not discovered talents that had taken him in a very different direction.
There was a moment’s eye contact with the brother. He looked suitably nervous. The sister was staring at her phone, as yet unaware of him.
Sulky little cow.
There were two other people in the carriage, a man and a woman, but Muldoon didn’t anticipate a problem. Even if either of them fancied chipping in, they would almost certainly bite their tongues and leave it to Riaz once he’d joined the party. Happy to stare at the floor and let someone else risk a beating; to pretend it wasn’t happening.
He waited another few minutes – just a bit of drunken muttering, enough to make the girl look at him – before kicking things off properly. Leaning across, as the train rattled through the dark between Harringay and Hornsey.
‘Look at you pair.’ His voice thickened, a growl in it. ‘Been anywhere nice?’
The girl wasn’t looking at her phone any more.
‘Pakis on the piss, was it? What does Allah have to say about that? Eh? Fucking Isis chopping up our soldiers and you two sit there like you own the place.’
Funny, but the girl was the bolshie one, same as last time. Her brother with his eyes screwed up, like he was trying not to wet himself, while she stared straight back and told Muldoon to shut his mouth.
Standard stuff after that, into Hornsey station and out again. Shouting over the stroppy little mare, waiting for Riaz to step in: a cod-Paki accent; the joke about the Muslim who was bisexual because he owned a camel and a goat; a nice phlegmy spit for good measure.
Then it was the boss’s turn.
Riaz was on top form, Muldoon had to give him that much. Even more convincing than he’d been a few weeks before, when they’d taken that couple off the Tube. Angry enough, but still reasonable. Someone the poor, put-upon brother and sister could trust.
Telling Muldoon, or the character he was playing, exactly what he thought of him.
A bully, a coward, a disgrace…
With just a minute or two to go, Muldoon looked away, giving Riaz a chance to whisper his instructions, and when he looked back, he knew they were on.
A smile on the girl’s face, something like defiance.
The second the doors opened at Alexandra Palace, the three of them were up and away. Muldoon stayed in his seat, shouting after them, glaring at the onlookers. He knew exactly how long he had before the doors would close again and, for those few seconds until he stepped off after them, he sat marvelling at Jad Hakim; at the stone-cold front of the bastard.
The fact that, despite being the one who’d set the whole thing up, who’d signed his sister’s death warrant and paid good money for it, he had still been holding her hand as they ran.
SIXTY-EIGHT
It was no more than half a minute from the station exit to where he’d left the Astra, but with Hakim and his sister walking quickly just a few feet behind him, Riaz took careful note of everything.
Eyes everywhere as he shouted for them to hurry.
A couple of empty cars in the spaces next to his own. Another on the opposite side of the road, the dense line of trees beyond, at the edge of Nightingale Gardens. Up ahead, he saw two boys, fifty yards or so away, strolling down towards the station.
He wasn’t concerned.
After all, as he’d said to Muldoon in the café, what was there for anyone to see? For any camera to pick up? Three people in a rush to get to their car, that was all. A fourth joining them a few seconds later. He knew they’d been caught on camera plenty of times before, but it had never been a problem. They changed cars as often as they could and they always made sure to change their appearance regularly. They’d be gone soon enough anyway.
He turned when the girl shouted, ‘He’s coming,’ and was happy to see Muldoon on his way, lumbering along the pavement. The man was an animal, but Riaz could not fault his timing.
‘Quickly,’ he said.
He keyed the remote in his hand, and it was just as the indicators flashed that the door of one of the parked cars ahead of his opened, one of the cars he’d thought was empty, and a man stepped out.
Riaz saw the open wallet in the man’s hand, the face bleached beneath a streetlight, but still recognisable.
The police officer he’d seen on TV.
Thorne.
‘Stay where you are.’
Riaz slowed a little, but kept moving, and now just a few feet from his car, he turned quickly to Hakim and his sister, in time to see them stop and step back towards the shopfronts.
They too were brandishing warrant cards.
‘It’s all over,’ Hakim said.
For a few seconds, all Riaz could hear above the sound of his own ragged breathing was the noise of Muldoon’s boots, thundering towards them, then the cry of warning from Thorne, which only made Riaz smile, because he knew immediately it had come just a moment too late.
‘Is it?’ Riaz asked.
Hakim, or whoever the hell he really was, turned at the same moment as the girl shouted her own warning, but Muldoon was fast for a big man and on him before he could react; grunting with the effort of pushing him back against the shop window and punching the knife up into his ribs.
Even before the officer had fallen to the floor, Riaz had a knife of his own in his hand. Again, Thorne told him to stay where he was, but Riaz ignored the instruction. He ran towards the girl as Thorne began running towards him.
Then he heard another shout.
Two words which proved rather more effective at getting his attention.
SIXTY-NINE
‘Armed police!’
Thorne stopped and watched Dipak Chall drop a few seconds after Muldoon’s knife had clattered to the pavement. He turned to see the armed officers on the other side of the road. They had moved from their hiding place in the trees and now had their weapons levelled above the roof of a parked car.
They shouted again.
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Thorne shouted back immediately. ‘Hold your fire.’ He turned quickly towards to the two boys who had been walking towards them and now stood frozen; shouted at them to get down.
He spun around and saw Chall raising an arm, waving to let Thorne and the officers with the guns know that he was all right. Thorne was relieved to see that the stab vest Chall was wearing beneath his shirt – identical to the ones he and DC Charita Desai had on – had done its job. A broken rib perhaps, a few bruises, but that was all.
Then he heard Desai scream.
He had shifted focus for no more than a few seconds, but it was enough time for everything to change.
Muldoon had his hands in the air. In view of the situation, he was not quite brave enough to risk picking his weapon up again, but the grin on his face suggested that he was anything but afraid.
He nodded. ‘Nice one, boss.’
Riaz was standing by the boot of the Astra. He said, ‘I think everyone needs to calm down a little.’ One hand was wrapped across Desai’s face while the other pressed a knife to her neck. ‘Don’t you?’
He began to inch around the car, one small step at a time, keeping the female officer’s body between his own and the guns that were trained on him.
Muldoon said, ‘Right, so I’ll just walk slowly to the car now.’ He was still grinning, nodding across the road. ‘You boys be OK with that?’ He took a step. ‘Yeah, I guess you will.’ Arms still raised, he held up both thumbs. ‘That’s grand.’
‘This is a really stupid idea,’ Thorne said.
Still moving slowly, his back pressed against the side of his car, Riaz kept his eyes fixed on the vehicle opposite. On the men taking aim from behind it. ‘You think so?’
‘You really want to add kidnap to the list of charges?’ Thorne took a small step towards him. ‘On top of everything else?’
‘I don’t think it will make a lot of difference.’
‘Course it bloody won’t.’ Muldoon was reaching for the handle of the passenger side door. ‘So we’ll probably just kill her anyway.’
‘In retrospect,’ Riaz said. ‘Yours was the stupid idea.’ He pulled Desai’s head back. The knife was drawing blood. ‘I’m sure your colleague here would agree.’
Thorne froze and held out his arms. As Muldoon slowly opened the car door, Thorne glanced across the road. He saw one of the officers look up and shake his head.
They had no shot.
‘It’s OK, Charita.’
The woman moaned against Riaz’s hand.
Thorne saw her eyes straining to meet his own. He knew that, like any other officer, she was trained for situations such as this. He knew she would not panic, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified.
Muldoon climbed into the car and immediately reached across to open the door on the driver’s side.
‘Give it up now,’ Thorne said. ‘Give it up and co-operate and things will be easier.’
‘What, twenty years instead of twenty-five? That kind of thing?’ Riaz took a final step then began to shuffle back towards the open car doorway. ‘I’ve never gambled, but even I know that this way the odds are on my side.’
‘Jesus,’ Muldoon shouted. ‘Enough jabber. Get in.’
Riaz took a deep breath, then fell backwards like a dead man on to the driver’s seat, pulling Charita Desai down, screaming, on top of him. There was a moment of focus, of recalibration from the officers on the other side of the road, but it was clear there was still no possibility of shooting without risk to their colleague, and by the time they had looked up from their weapons, Muldoon had hauled the policewoman’s body across to his side and Riaz had closed the door.
Thorne turned and ran to his car.
By the time he had started the engine, Riaz was pulling out and accelerating away, and the armed officers had finally begun to shoot.
SEVENTY
Muldoon heaved the female cop across the seat and into the back of the car, then reached over to punch her hard in the face. He wrapped a hand around her neck before turning to talk to his partner.
‘Well, you’re full of surprises.’
Riaz kept his eyes on the road. He raced along the edge of Nightingale Gardens, then, with only the most perfunctory check for oncoming traffic, turned hard left on to Bounds Green Road heading north.
‘Didn’t think you had it in you.’ Muldoon shook his head. ‘All I’m saying.’
‘You do whatever is necessary.’
‘Yeah, obviously. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen what you’re capable of when it’s just you and some teenage girl. Like cutting a pig’s throat or whatever you said. You know, when it’s work.’ He opened the passenger side window, just an inch or two, and leaned towards the rush of air. ‘Armed police though… that’s a different thing altogether.’
‘If we’re caught then there won’t be any more work. So you do what you have to, to make sure that doesn’t happen.’
The girl in the back seat moaned, so Muldoon leaned over and squeezed a little harder. He looked up and saw the headlights of the car that was following, growing in size through the rear window. He said, ‘Behind us.’
‘I know.’
‘So, what’s the plan?’
‘I don’t have a plan.’
‘Well, don’t look at me.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Riaz said.
Muldoon grunted. ‘I think the first thing we do when we get a chance is to go and pay your friend a visit.’
‘My friend?’
‘Well, you’re the one who talks to him, sets things up.’ The Irishman took another breath of air. ‘I mean this is down to him, has to be. He’s the one who arranges everything, so the way I look at it, this holy fucking balls-up is all his fault. He’s got to carry the can. Am I right?’
Riaz pushed the car up to sixty-five past the tube station, the treeline a dark blur to their left. ‘We can have this discussion later on, but for now we need to get rid of this car.’
‘What about the girl?’
‘Not important.’
Muldoon looked over his shoulder. The headlights were still there. ‘Can’t you lose him?’
Riaz shook his head and pulled hard on the wheel, fighting the car’s drift towards the middle of the road, as he had been since they’d first driven away from Alexandra Palace.
‘They shot one of the tyres out.’
Vehicle pursuit had never been Thorne’s strong point.
He was grateful that there was very little traffic on the road, that it wasn’t raining, that the armed officers had managed to hit at least one of the tyres on the car he was chasing. The Astra would struggle to go any faster than it was, and even without the benefit of blues and twos on his BMW he wasn’t having too much trouble keeping it in sight.
Enough time to think, which, in reality, meant a few seconds of blind panic for every ten he spent shouting at himself. Slamming his hands against the steering wheel and telling himself what an arrogant idiot he’d been.
Planning was clearly not his strong point either.
They had guessed that the men they were after would be armed, which was why Brigstocke had stepped up and authorised a couple of officers from SO19. They had not banked on things playing out the way they had, though, and Thorne knew that they should have done.
That he should have done.
Why the hell had he ever thought they would simply give themselves up quietly?
Perhaps if Chall had been quicker… if Desai had seen the danger earlier…
He slammed a hand against the wheel again, a fist against the window.
There was nothing to be gained by blaming anyone but himself. He should probably just have let them shoot the Irishman when they had the chance, but he’d known that Chall was in no real danger and they had all agreed that the use of lethal force was to be a last resort.
He wanted these men alive.
He watched the Astra cross the North Circular, touching seventy past New Southgate station, where ‘Jad H
akim’ and his sister had been supposed to get off. It turned right on to Friern Barnet Road and barrelled across a major roundabout without stopping.
Thorne could only see the silhouettes of two occupants and guessed that Charita Desai was down on the back seat, being thrown about as the driver struggled to keep control of the car.
Unless they had killed her already.
Some people who should have known better didn’t do enough to talk some sense into her.
She’s stubborn.
I should have done more…
Remembering his conversation with Chall about Nicola Tanner, Thorne knew deep down that this whole half-arsed operation had been, at some level, about dealing with his guilt. Now, the plan he had hatched with Chall at Tanner’s bedside had put another officer in harm’s way.
Charita Desai was only twenty-eight, with two kids under six.
What had he been thinking as he’d left Tanner’s hospital room the day before?
Some shit about chaos…?
Ahead of him, a car emerged from a side street without looking and straightened up dangerously close to him. Fucking boy racer. Thorne flashed his headlights and the driver slowed, braking once, twice; trying to wind him up. Thorne leaned on his horn and watched the driver calmly stick his arm out of the window to give him the finger.
‘Good,’ Riaz said, accelerating as much as he dared, his eyes on the rear-view. ‘That may help us.’
Muldoon wasn’t really listening. With one arm still reaching behind him to pin down the female copper in the back seat, he continued to rant about the man he clearly believed to be responsible for their current predicament.
‘I mean he’s supposed to check everything out, isn’t he? Before he brings us in. He’s supposed to make sure it’s all kosher.’ He flashed a grim smile. ‘No offence, like. It’s his job to, what do you call it, facilitate everything and see that the risks are kept to a minimum. Right?’ He glanced across at Riaz, but wasn’t really expecting an answer. ‘Yeah, well, he dropped the ball big time with this one, far as I can see. Coppers, for Christ’s sake. I mean come on, how messed up is that?’ He leaned towards the open window again, sucked in some more fresh air. ‘Seems to me he’s getting careless because he’s getting greedy. Cutting corners when he smells money, and now we’re the ones in the deep end for it. Couldn’t say no to another payday, could he?’
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