Tall Order: The 15th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  They were in the garage and the Toyota was parked on the forecourt outside. There were no windows in the building and the door was closed and bolted. There were two fluorescent lights overhead but Harper had only switched on one. There was space for half a dozen cars with an inspection pit at one end and workbenches pushed up against one wall. Behind the benches were racks of tools. Steel girders ran across the ceiling and the floor was bare concrete stained with oil.

  Farooqi rolled on to his back and looked around, blinking tears from his eyes. ‘Who are you?’ he gasped.

  Harper ignored the question. ‘Israr, you’re going to tell me what I want to know eventually, so you might as well tell me now and save yourself a lot of pain.’

  ‘Who are you?’ he repeated. ‘Why are you doing this?

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  ‘You’re not cops because cops aren’t allowed to do this to people, not in this country.’

  O’Hara drew back a foot and kicked Farooqi in the side. Farooqi screamed and tried to roll away from his attacker but O’Hara kicked him again.

  ‘We’re not cops, Israr,’ said Harper. ‘And we’re not spooks either. We’re nobodies. We don’t exist. Which is why we can do whatever we want to you and there will be absolutely zero consequences.’

  Farooqi frowned. His English wasn’t great, Harper realised. He stood over the man and glared down at him. ‘We can do what the fuck we want to you. Do you understand?’

  Farooqi nodded fearfully.

  ‘So, answer my questions and we won’t hurt you. But if you don’t answer …’ He nodded at O’Hara, who went over to the tool rack and selected a pair of bolt cutters. He went back to Farooqi and squatted down next to him and grabbed his right ankle. He was barefoot, his feet stained with dirt from the lock-up’s floor. Farooqi tried to pull his leg away but he had little strength left and he began to sob. ‘You get the picture, right?’ said Harper. ‘My friend will happily cut off all your toes. And your fingers. And probably make you eat them.’

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Farooqi.

  Harper took out the man’s phone. ‘The password for this, for a start.’

  Farooqi nodded and gave Harper the digits to open the phone. Harper tapped them in and nodded. ‘Well done,’ he said. He put the phone back in his pocket and went over to one of the workbenches where he’d put the laptop case. He unzipped it and took out the computer. He placed it on the bench and opened it. He pressed the button to boot it up. It was also password-protected. ‘And I want the password for this,’ he said.

  ‘Jihad,’ said Farooqi. ‘The password is Jihad.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ He tapped in JIHAD and it was accepted. Harper shook his head. ‘How stupid are you?’ he asked. He walked over to Farooqi and looked down at him. ‘You know the man who blew up the football stadium?’

  Farooqi shook his head. ‘No. No, I do not. I swear on the Koran, I swear on the life of my parents.’

  Harper frowned. ‘I thought you were an orphan,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that the story you told? A poor little orphan boy who needed asylum? But anyway I know you are lying – Naveed called you not long before he blew himself up.’ He nodded at O’Hara, who deftly inserted Farooqi’s middle toe between the blades of the bolt cutter and snapped the handles together. The steel blades snipped the toe off as easily as if they were cutting a piece of cheese. Blood spurted over the blades and Farooqi screamed and then went ashen. His whole body was shaking.

  O’Hara straightened up and nodded approvingly at the bolt cutters. ‘Nice bit of kit,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me the truth, Israr,’ said Harper. ‘You’ve got another nine toes and ten fingers. And a dick, of course. Though we’ll save the dick until last.’

  Farooqi swallowed nervously. ‘Yes, I knew him.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘We were fighters in Syria. We were both told to come to the UK and to seek asylum here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we are to bring the fight to the UK.’

  ‘You were to become a terrorist?’

  ‘Not a terrorist. A jihadist. It is the West who are the terrorists.’

  Harper sneered at the man. ‘I’m tempted to get my friend here to cut off another toe just to stop you talking shit,’ he said. ‘But I’m in a hurry. Who sent you to England?’

  ‘Our commander.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Mohammed al-Hafiz.’

  ‘And what did he tell you to do in England?’

  ‘Please, my foot, it hurts,’ said Farooqi.

  ‘It’ll hurt a lot more if we cut off another toe,’ said Harper. ‘What were you told to do?’

  ‘The commander said we were to make our way to England. If we couldn’t get to England we were to go to France. We were to claim asylum. And we were to wait.’

  ‘Wait? For what?’

  ‘He said someone would contact us. A man. A man called Saladin.’

  ‘Saladin?’

  Farooqi nodded. ‘We were told Saladin would contact us and tell us what to do. That was why Ali called me. To tell me that Saladin had contacted him and that he was ready to die for Allah.’

  ‘Ali?’

  ‘The jihadist who attacked the stadium. His name is Ali.’

  ‘You say Saladin contacted Ali. How?’

  ‘By email. And they met in London, two weeks ago. At a mosque.’

  ‘Which mosque?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Have you met him? This Saladin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has he contacted you?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Harper frowned. ‘So what, he just sends you an email when he wants you?’

  Farooqi shook his head. ‘Before we left Syria we were given an email address to check. We check it every day.’

  ‘A draft folder?’

  Farooqi nodded again. ‘When Saladin is ready, that is how he will contact me.’

  ‘What’s the email address?’

  Farooqi told him.

  ‘And the password?’

  Farooqi gave him the password.

  ‘What will this Saladin want you to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. We are just told to wait.’

  Harper rubbed the back of his neck. He was dog-tired, but they still had a lot to do. ‘Okay, we’re done,’ said Harper. He nodded at O’Hara. ‘Do the honours, will you?’ O’Hara pulled out his Glock and was about to screw in the silencer when Harper held up his hand. ‘Let’s keep the gunshots to a minimum, shall we?’

  O’Hara shrugged and put the gun away. ‘Saves me money,’ he said. ‘Jony’ll buy it back if it hasn’t been used.’ He walked over to the tool racks and stood with his hands on his hips for a while before selecting a bodywork hammer. He took it off the rack, hefted it in his right hand and then walked over to Farooqi.

  Farooqi knew what was coming and tried to push himself along the floor but there was nothing he could do. He began to babble incoherently as O’Hara raised the hammer and brought it crashing down in the middle of his forehead. The skull splintered and the hammer went in a good inch. O’Hara grunted as he wrenched it out and brought it crashing down a second time. Farooqi went still and blood pooled around his head. O’Hara straightened up and tossed the bloody hammer on to the floor.

  Harper put the laptop back in its case. Blood was still oozing from the shattered skull and spreading across the floor. There were several cans of spray paint on the bench and he picked up one at random. It was red and he sprayed ‘DEATH TO MUSLIM PIGS’ on the wall, then sprayed a rough cross on Farooqi’s chest. He put the spray can in the laptop case and nodded at O’Hara. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  ‘Bolton?’

  Harper nodded.

  ‘You are a fucking machine, Lex,’ said the Irishman.

  Harper laughed and headed for the door. On the way he picked up the hammer, wrapped it in a piece of cloth and put it into the laptop bag.

  Chapter 33

&
nbsp; Present Day, London

  S hepherd walked into the office with a tray of coffees from the canteen and as soon as he saw the look of triumph on the face of George Hurry and Eric Fitzpatrick he knew that something was up. The sergeant waved Shepherd over. He was standing behind Fitzpatrick and they were looking at CCTV footage on the big screen on the wall. It was from the camera overlooking one of the toilets. ‘Not long after Yussuf put the bag in the storage room, he visited the same toilet that Naveed went to.’

  ‘So he hid the keycard there? That’s why Naveed went in?’

  Hurry nodded enthusiastically ‘That’s what it looks like. It’s possible that Yussuf had never met Naveed, he was just told to drop the vest in the storage room and leave the keycard in a hiding place in the toilet.’

  Shepherd stared at the screen and watched as Yussuf walked into the toilet. He was inside for three minutes, then he came out and walked purposefully away.

  ‘Good job, Eric,’ said Shepherd. He put a coffee down on Fitzpatrick’s desk and gave one to Hurry. ‘So, have we accounted for Naveed’s every movement within the stadium?’ he asked.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Hurry. ‘There are a few gaps but never more than a minute or so. I doubt that the missing periods will add anything to our understanding of what happened.’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘I agree. Okay, let’s start looking more closely at that van and see if we can nail down when it picked up Naveed.’

  ‘We have the van leaving the restaurant at five p.m. with just Zaghba on board. And we have it dropping Naveed off a short walk from the stadium. But filling in the gaps is going to take time. There are several possible routes and there’s a good chance he’ll have taken a detour to pick up Naveed.’

  ‘I know it’s not going to be easy. Also, once the day shift reports in, we need to get people looking at Naveed’s life before the bombing, who he met, where he went. We need to see if he was meeting up with any known jihadists.’

  Shepherd dropped down on to his chair. ‘Someone clearly put this together,’ he said. ‘Someone must have briefed Naveed, and Yussuf, and Zaghba, and whoever made the vest.’ He rubbed his chin as he stared at the screen. It had frozen, with Yussuf almost out of view. ‘He must have had some way of contacting them, and he’d know that phones can be tracked and that most of London is covered by CCTV.’

  ‘You’re thinking email?’ said Hurry.

  ‘Emails can be read by GCHQ. The bad guys tend to communicate through draft folders. They’ve been doing it for years and the system is pretty much uncrackable.’

  ‘The anti-terrorist boys will have been around to Naveed’s house already,’ said Hurry. ‘If he had a computer they’ll have it and their technical boys will be on it.’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Sure. But Naveed was in foster care. I’m not sure how many foster parents give their charges laptops. Maybe they did, and I’ll check first thing, but in the meantime why don’t you get someone to identify all the Internet cafés within a mile of where Naveed lived. I doubt there’ll be too many. Then see if we can get CCTV outside those premises and get sight of Naveed going in.’

  Hurry nodded. ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘Naveed must have been in contact with his handler either on the day he blew up the stadium or at least the previous day. He’d need confirmation that he was to go ahead. So time-frame wise let’s stick with forty-eight hours.’

  ‘I’ll switch Eric on to it,’ he said. ‘Eric, you okay with that?’

  ‘I’m on it, said Fitzpatrick, his fingers playing across his keyboard.

  Chapter 34

  Present Day, Bolton

  H arper and O’Hara reached Bolton at five o’clock in the morning. Dawn was just a couple of hours away. Imran Masood lived in a terraced house in a run-down area of the town. The doors and window frames were rotting, there were missing tiles on the roofs and the cars parked in the roads were old and uncared for. Discarded fast-food wrappers lined the gutters and even the feral cats that slinked by seemed reluctant to linger in the area.

  ‘Salubrious,’ said O’Hara. ‘Reminds me of parts of Belfast. The nasty bits.’ He nodded over at the house. ‘So what’s the story?’

  ‘This guy is the uncle of the guy who bombed the stadium. We just take him out.’

  ‘Collateral damage?’

  Harper shrugged. ‘He’s bad and anyone who lives with him has to be bad, too.’

  ‘And we make it look racial again?’

  ‘Nah, this one we can just slot, no need for anything fancy.’

  ‘You want me to do it?’

  ‘I want to use my gun but I don’t have a silencer,’ said Harper. He looked up and down the road. ‘I’m not happy about firing an unsuppressed weapon in an area like this.’

  ‘Most people don’t give a fuck,’ said O’Hara. ‘If they don’t know what it is they’ll assume it’s a car backfiring. If they recognise it for what it is they usually don’t want to get involved.’

  Harper nodded. The house hadn’t been converted into flats, which meant Masood almost certainly wasn’t living there alone. He used his smartphone to check the electoral register. There were five registered voters at the house, including Masood. They all had the same surname so Harper figured the man lived with his wife and grown-up children.

  ‘I’m happy to use the Glock,’ said O’Hara.

  ‘Might be best,’ said Harper. ‘But I’ll need it afterwards. Someone else is going to take the fall for it.’

  ‘You do like to overcomplicate things, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s a complicated business,’ said Harper. He sighed. He wasn’t happy about the way they were rushing, but there was nothing he could about that – Button had made it clear that he was up against a tight deadline. There were no lights on in Masood’s house or in the houses either side. But the street was far from empty, despite the late hour. At the end of the road, three young Muslim men were standing next to a small hatchback passing what looked like a marijuana cigarette between them. An Asian man in a long robe and a knitted skullcap was walking purposefully along the pavement followed by two heavyset women in full burkhas. Four houses down from Masood’s home, two elderly men with straggly beards were deep in conversation.

  Harper had parked in a side road and switched off the lights and didn’t appear to have attracted any attention. But the area was clearly populated, in the main by immigrant families, and two white men knocking on a door at that hour was obviously going to be noticed.

  He started the engine and drove away from the house. He took a left. There was an alleyway running behind the houses, dotted with wheelie bins. ‘We’ll go in the back way,’ he said.

  ‘Makes sense,’ said O’Hara.

  Harper found a parking space at the side of the road, reversed in and switched off the engine. The entrance to the alley was about fifty feet away. The good news was that there were no CCTV cameras in the vicinity and it didn’t look as if it was the sort of area where the police patrolled, certainly not on foot. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘Let’s do it.’

  They got out of the car and walked towards the alley. A Toyota Prius drove by, probably an Uber taxi, and they turned their faces away. The alley was in darkness but there was enough moonlight to make out the potholes in the ground and the rubbish left behind last time the bins were emptied. Wooden doors led to the backyards of the houses left and right. Harper counted off the doors until he reached what he was sure was Masood’s house. The door wasn’t locked and Harper pushed it open. Behind was a small paved yard. They slipped inside and Harper closed the door behind them.

  They stood in silence for almost a minute, then tiptoed over to the kitchen door. The top half was composed of six glass panels. Harper tried the handle but wasn’t surprised to find it locked. To the right of the door was the kitchen window. Harper peered through. The door to the hallway was closed.

  He used his elbow to break the glass panel closest to the handle, one blow that made a cracking sound followed by the tinkle of glass hittin
g the ground. Harper winced and waited to see if there was any reaction from inside the house. The lights stayed off and they didn’t hear anything from inside. Harper gingerly removed the rest of the broken glass from the panel and placed it on the ground, then reached through and felt around. The key was in the lock and he turned it until it clicked. He turned the handle and pushed open the door.

  They stepped inside and Harper gently closed the door. He led the way across the kitchen. A tap was dripping and the fridge motor was humming but other than that the house was silent.

  O’Hara followed him through the kitchen and into the hallway, where they stopped again and listened for a minute or so before tiptoeing up the stairs.

  They reached the top of the landing. There was a door to the left and as they listened they heard a soft snoring. Harper eased the door open. The sound of snoring got louder. There was enough light coming in through the window to make out two figures on the bed – a middle-aged man and a woman who was almost twice his size. It was the woman who was snoring, lying on her back with her mouth open. Her husband was curled up on his side with his back to her.

  Harper closed the door and turned to face O’Hara. ‘Let’s see who else is here,’ he whispered.

  O’Hara nodded and gently opened the next door. It was a smaller bedroom with a single bed. A bearded Asian man in his late twenties was fast asleep. O’Hara pulled the door closed. There was another man, this one in his early twenties, asleep in a third bedroom. There were two single beds in the room and one was empty. The only other door led to a bathroom. Either the electoral roll was wrong or one of the occupants was missing.

  Harper ran through his options. He really wanted to use the Beretta but even if he shot through a pillow or wrapped a towel around the gun, the noise would wake up everyone in the house. That meant they would all have to die. He wasn’t against the idea in principle – if Masood was a hardline Islamic fundamentalist then his family would almost certainly be the same way. After what Masood’s nephew had done, Harper didn’t really care whether his family lived or died. He was more concerned about the logistics of the operation, and it would be a lot messier if there were four victims.