Tall Order: The 15th Spider Shepherd Thriller

by Stephen Leather

  Shepherd was only looking for sightings for the past three days, and all inquiries from the unit were automatically approved by Inspector Hughes.

  He sat back and looked at the results of his search. The Avensis had been seen and videoed in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leicester, more than a hundred times in all. The sightings were in chronological order and his heart began to race when he realised what route the car had taken. The car had started in London and then driven up to Manchester. After Manchester the car had travelled down to Birmingham and then on to London. In London the car was photographed twice in Acton, not far from where Khuram Zaghba had been killed. One of the cameras had caught the car at just before midnight but there was a sighting just thirty minutes earlier in Leicester, which didn’t make any sense.

  The fact that the car was in Acton was suspicious enough, but it was then seen driving back to Birmingham. It was in the Birmingham area for more than two hours before being driven to Bolton in the early hours of the morning. That couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence. The car had been in the area of all three murder scenes.

  But it was the Leicester sightings that made no sense and on some occasions the car seemed to be in two places at the same time.

  He went back into the ANPR database and requested all sightings of the Avensis between four days ago and eight days ago. He got his answer within seconds. There were several dozen matches – all of them in the Leicester area. Shepherd sat back and stretched out his legs. There was only one conclusion to be drawn – the car that was in London, Manchester and Birmingham was a ringer, using the same plate as Mr Brett’s vehicle. That suggested a professional was at work, which meant that Shepherd was definitely on the right track.

  He went back to the list of sightings and began checking the ones in London. Most of them were traffic cameras and enforcement cameras and, while they gave a decent view of the car and the registration plate, they were no help in identifying the driver.

  There were several decent shots of the front windscreen in some of the footage from cameras in Birmingham and Manchester. In the Manchester shots it looked as if the driver was alone but in some of the Birmingham footage Shepherd was fairly sure there was someone in the front passenger seat.

  In one of the Highways Agency camera feeds he saw the Avensis turn off a major road and head for a service station. He froze the image several times but he couldn’t ever get a clear look at the driver. He called over to Sergeant Hurry, who was watching a CCTV feed on fast-forward. ‘George, can you do me a favour?’

  The sergeant froze his feed and looked over. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ve got a Highways camera covering a service station to the west of Manchester. If I ping over the time and date and the location can you see what feeds we can pull in from the station itself? Ideally covering the pumps.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Hurry.

  Shepherd copied the details and sent them in an email. ‘I’ll do a canteen run,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’d love a bacon roll and a coffee,’ said Hurry.

  ‘Ketchup or HP sauce?’

  Hurry laughed. ‘The eternal question. Surprise me. But no sugar in the coffee. No surprises there.’

  More than a dozen officers immediately chimed in with orders for bacon rolls and coffee and it was half an hour later when Shepherd returned with a laden tray. He handed out the food and drinks, then sat down at his desk.

  George Hurry came over and patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’re good to go. I sent you links to three downloads, there are two cameras covering the forecourt and another at the cash register.’

  ‘You’re a star,’ said Shepherd. ‘Brilliant.’

  He sipped his coffee and checked his emails. There were three links as Hurry had promised. He clicked on the first one and opened the video file. It was from a camera covering the approach to the pumps. He fast-forwarded it until he saw the Avensis arrive, then watched it at regular speed. It was the right car but there was too much glare on the windscreen, so it was all he could do to make out the outline of the driver. There didn’t seem to be a front seat passenger.

  He clicked on the second link. This was footage from a camera covering the exit from the pump area. He fast-forwarded to the same time and saw the nose of the Avensis but it stopped just short of giving him a full view of the car. The driver got out but at no point was his face visible as he put petrol in the tank.

  Shepherd clicked through to the final link. It was from a camera high up in a corner, looking down at the cash register and showing a section of the floor between the door and the counter. Shepherd played the footage at regular speed, keeping a close eye on the time code. His heart began to pound as he reached the time when the driver of the Avensis was putting fuel in. Then the door opened and a man walked in. Five feet ten, maybe five feet eleven, wearing a black jacket and dark jeans. Shepherd couldn’t see all of the face but it was already clear it wasn’t Nicholas Brett, the Leicester dentist. The man had his head down as he walked towards the counter, his hand pulling a wallet from the jeans. He kept his head down as he took two twenty-pound notes from the wallet.

  ‘Look up, look up, damn you,’ whispered Shepherd, leaning towards the screen. Almost as if he had heard, the man lifted his head and smiled at the man by the cash register. Shepherd’s mouth fell open as the cashier took the cash. He pressed the mouse to freeze the image and he stared at the image in amazement. ‘Lex fucking Harper,’ he whispered. ‘What the hell are you up to?’

  Chapter 60

  Present Day, Surrey

  T here were almost a hundred mourners at the funeral. Eleanor and Sarah Coles were laid to rest in a pretty churchyard in Surrey. The Coles family were regulars at the church and counted the vicar as a friend. The sky was cloudless, it was a warm day and those who had turned up in dark coats had them unbuttoned.

  After the service the mourners walked out into the graveyard and watched as the two coffins were lowered into the ground. Eleanor’s was glistening pine, but Sarah’s smaller coffin had been painted in United’s colours. They were placed next to each other in a single grave.

  Lucy and Clive Coles stood silent in grief, and from the glazed look in the mother’s eyes it appeared she had taken some form of medication to help her get through the day. Her husband stood on her left, his arm protectively around her, but he seemed more in need of support than she did. Patsy Ellis stood on Lucy’s right, her arm linked through her friend’s, her face stone hard.

  The vicar finished speaking over the grave and the mourners drifted away. Lucy Coles burst into tears and her husband clasped her to his chest.

  Ellis left the grieving parents and walked over to join Button.

  ‘It was a lovely service,’ said Button, though she knew the words were empty. What could be lovely about consigning two girls to the ground? Parents should never have to bury their children; it was against the natural order of things.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Ellis. ‘And it’s a lovely church.’ She nodded at the grave. ‘Lucy and Clive have the plot next to where Eleanor and Sarah are buried. Lucy said it comforted her to think that one day they would all be together. How fucking sad is that?’

  Button felt her eyes prick with tears. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said and stepped forward and hugged Ellis.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ said Ellis. She sniffed and blinked back her own tears. ‘So, we have a location for Saladin,’ she said.

  ‘Really? Where?’

  ‘The Afghan–Pakistan border. There is a network of caves there that ISIS uses as a training camp. We placed a message in Farooqi’s email draft folder, talking about the stadium bombing and saying that he wanted to be used in the service of jihad.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Bloody nonsense, right? You wonder what goes through their heads.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, Saladin got back the following day with a load of nonsense from the Koran, basically telling him to be patient. Amar Singh had rigged it so that it looked as if there was a technical pr
oblem – he froze the page and then made it look as if the message hadn’t loaded so Saladin had to retype it. They ended up keeping him online for almost twenty minutes. He was using a sat phone just outside the cave complex. We have the sat phone number, which is a bonus.’

  ‘It means he could be targeted with a drone, right?’

  Ellis grimaced as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. ‘The problem is we still don’t know his real name or what he looks like. Yes, we could target the phone but there’s no guarantee that the person using it at the time would be Saladin.’

  ‘So how do we move forward?’

  ‘At the moment we don’t. I’m still waiting to hear back from the Americans, though the delay suggests to me that they have nothing on him. The French haven’t come across the name and the Germans are being their usual unhelpful selves. All we can do now is wait to see if Saladin gets back in touch with Farooqi.’

  ‘And what about Yussuf?’

  ‘Still no sign of him. It’s possible he left the country before we started looking for him.’ She took Button’s arm and gently squeezed it. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming and thank you for everything you’ve done.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me,’ said Button.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Ellis.

  Chapter 61

  Ten Years Ago, London

  ‘T hat’s him,’ said Dalton. He pointed at a man pulling a wheeled suitcase from his Toyota Prius over to the elevator that led to the building above. They were in an underground car park and had been waiting the best part of an hour for Paul Bradshaw to arrive. Dalton was in the driver’s seat of the black Range Rover, Yokely was sitting next to him and Leclerc was in the back. The man was wearing a leather jacket and chinos. He was wearing glasses and his hair seemed unnaturally black, as if it had been dyed. It was certainly darker than it had been in the al-Qaeda video that Yokely had seen.

  They watched as Bradshaw disappeared into the elevator with his suitcase.

  ‘Well, he doesn’t have a Grail in there, the shape’s not right,’ said Yokely.

  ‘This is his third trip today,’ said Dalton.

  ‘He had a case each time?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘He takes it in and about fifteen minutes later he brings it out,’ said Dalton. He was holding an iPad and he showed it to Yokely. It was a view of the corridor in the building. ‘Twelfth floor,’ he said.

  Dalton had put a small camera in the corridor, a Wi-Fi model with enough battery power to keep it going for a few hours. Yokely looked at the screen and watched as the man emerged from the elevator, pulled the suitcase down the corridor and then unlocked an office door. After a few seconds he disappeared inside.

  ‘What would his target be?’

  ‘The office is riverside so he has a clear view of the South Bank – the National Theatre, Royal Festival Hall and the London Eye.’

  Yokely raised his eyebrows. ‘The London Eye? That makes sense.’

  The London Eye was the huge Ferris wheel that dominated the South Bank of the Thames. There were thirty-two pods on the wheel and each of the pods could carry a maximum of twenty-five passengers, which meant that when the Eye was full there were eight hundred men, women and children on board, the equivalent of two fully loaded jumbo jets. The giant wheel was sponsored by British Airways and access to it involved passing through full security screening including metal detectors. But a single Grail missile fired from the other side of the river would destroy it in seconds.

  ‘How do we play this?’ asked Leclerc.

  ‘We’re going to have to take him out ourselves, and handle the disposal. If the authorities are involved it’ll fuck up our operation.’

  Leclerc nodded. ‘I can handle the lock.’

  The door to the office opened and Bradshaw walked out, pulling the suitcase. ‘Where does he go?’

  ‘A house in Kilburn. Gerry follows him on his bike. Full-on security. CCTV, reinforced doors. Always at least two occupants.’

  They watched the floor indicator above the door click up to number twelve and then stop. Five minutes later, the elevator went down three floors, stopped and returned to the parking garage. The doors opened and two young men in suits carrying briefcases went over to a black BMW.

  Over the next fifteen minutes, a dozen people came down in the elevator and drove away. Then the elevator went up to the twelfth floor, stopped and came down to the parking garage. Bradshaw came out, pulling the suitcase. It was clear that the case was now empty. He swung it into the back of his Toyota and drove off.

  Dalton called McNee on his mobile. ‘Target heading out now.’

  McNee was outside on his high-powered motorbike. He confirmed that he had eyes on the target and that he was following him.

  Yokely considered his options. He needed to know exactly what was happening in the office on the twelfth floor, and sooner rather than later. Bradshaw was obviously taking something into the office, but was the missile already there? If it was, he could fire it at any point. But if they broke into the office and Bradshaw realised he’d been discovered, he could bolt.

  Dalton could see that Yokely was deep in thought so he sat quietly.

  ‘Okay,’ said Yokely eventually. ‘We wait. For a while longer at least.’

  It took Bradshaw half an hour to drive to the house in Kilburn. Once he’d gone inside, McNee phoned Dalton. He called again twenty minutes later to say that Bradshaw was leaving the house, this time with a metal trunk.

  ‘Large enough for a Grail missile launcher?’ asked Yokely.

  ‘Affirmative,’ said McNee.

  Yokely ended the call and twisted around in his seat. ‘Right, Peter, time to demonstrate your lock-picking skills.’

  ‘You’re going in?’ asked Dalton.

  Yokely nodded. ‘You keep a watch here. As soon as he arrives, call me.’

  Yokely and Leclerc got out of the Range Rover and went over to the elevator. Leclerc had a keycard that he tapped against a reader before pressing the button to summon the elevator. They rode up to the twelfth floor.

  The door to the office that Bradshaw was using was also accessed with a keycard. Leclerc had a piece of specialist kit designed to open keycard locks. He slotted in a card that was connected to a small handheld computer unit. The card was able to read the opening code in the lock’s memory and the computer played it back. It took less than five seconds to open the door and they slipped inside.

  The views over the Thames were spectacular. Yokely went over to the window and phoned Dalton. ‘We’re in,’ he said.

  ‘You need to see this,’ said Leclerc.

  Yokely turned to look at Leclerc. He was at the far end of the office. Against the wall were boxes of Calor gas cylinders and stacks of jerry cans. Leclerc opened one of the cans and sniffed. ‘Petrol,’ he said. ‘This is what he’s been bringing in inside the suitcases.’

  Yokely nodded. The backblast from the Grail missile would ignite the petrol and the heat would explode the gas cylinders, blowing out a big chunk of the front of the building. It probably wouldn’t be enough to bring the building down, but that wasn’t his intention. Bradshaw just wanted to make sure that his mission was a suicide one. He intended to die in a blaze of glory.

  At the far end of the main office was a door that led to a windowless storeroom. Yokely nodded at the bare shelves. ‘We can wait here,’ he said. They both had Glocks in underarm holsters and were carrying silencers.

  They stayed by the window until Dalton phoned them to let them know that Bradshaw had arrived downstairs. Yokely and Leclerc slipped into the storeroom and pulled the door closed.

  Dalton called again. ‘He’s in the elevator now.’ Yokely ended the call and made sure that his phone was on silent. They took out their guns and screwed in the silencers.

  Yokely and Leclerc stood where they were, their guns at the ready. They heard the door open, then the sound of something heavy being placed on the floor and the door being closed.

  There was
the sound of something being opened, and then a grunt. Then Bradshaw began mumbling something, something that sounded like an Islamic prayer.

  Yokely nodded at Leclerc, who reached for the door handle. Yokely had the gun in his right hand and he counted off 3-2-1 with his left. Leclerc pulled the door open in one smooth motion and Yokely stepped into the main office.

  Bradshaw was kneeling in the middle of the office, the Grail launcher on his shoulder. There was a metal trunk at his side, the lid open. The missile was pointing at the window. In the distance, on the other side of the river, the London Eye, turning so slowly that there was no perceptible movement.

  ‘ Allahu Akbar,’ Bradshaw muttered.

  Yokely could see Bradshaw’s finger slipping over the trigger mechanism so he fired three times in quick succession, all the shots aimed at the man’s head. The head exploded in a mass of blood and brain matter that splattered across the carpet. The Grail launcher hit the ground with a dull thud and for a second Yokely’s heart was in his mouth even though he knew a blow wouldn’t be enough to launch the missile.

  Leclerc stood next to him and looked down at the body. ‘Nice grouping,’ he said.

  ‘The third shot went a bit wide.’

  ‘Still hit the target,’ said Leclerc.

  Yokely unscrewed the silencer and slid his Glock into its underarm holster. He took out his cell phone to call Dalton to tell him that they were ready for him to arrange disposal, but then he saw that he had an incoming call. The caller was withholding their number.