‘And he was … perfect, you know? Whatever, whoever had made him, he was just this perfect little boy and it made everything else, all the horrible things and the hurtful things, seem unimportant. So I just got on with it. I found a new flat, and it was just the two of us twenty-four hours a day, and sometimes I’d look right into his eyes and I’d tell him he looked just like his dad. I’d be telling myself he was Paul’s, because I wanted it so much. Because he had to be. Because that would be the fairest thing. Telling myself or telling other people that he had Paul’s nose or his mannerisms or whatever else, and it was nothing but a lovely, stupid lie, because there’d be other times when I’d look at him and he looked nothing like Paul at all.
‘When he wasn’t so perfect.’
She reached across to rub at the wrist of her left hand, where the handcuff had taken away the skin. It had become a tic. ‘There’s other people that know. My sister and my dad. They know what happened and they know it was just before I got pregnant, and I know damn well they’ve wondered about who Alfie’s father was. But nobody says anything. They just carry on as if I’ve got a husband or a boyfriend who’s working in another country or something, or else my sister’s trying to get me fixed up with some sad case that nobody else wants.’ She shrugged, and for just a moment there was the hint of laughter, somewhere low in her throat. ‘Nobody ever … talks about Paul. Only very occasionally, when they forget themselves or one of my sister’s kids says something and even then it’s like he’s just some private joke. Like he’s somebody I’ve made up. That’s what makes everything so much worse … that hateful, pathetic fear of embarrassment, of saying something awkward, and I’m just as bad as they are, because I’m too embarrassed to tell them how shitty and awful it’s making me feel. To tell them that sometimes it seems as if Paul can’t possibly be Alfie’s dad, because he was never there at all.
‘I’m scared,’ she said, quietly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Akhtar said.
‘No, not just about all this. I’m scared about what I’m going to say to my son when he’s old enough to want to know who his father was. I’m scared to find out the truth.’
Akhtar looked at her. ‘There is some way to find out?’
‘Paul was a copper, same as me. So his DNA’s on record. I could get a test done, but I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t the right result.’
‘Would it really be so bad?’
‘I know there are worse things.’ She looked at him. ‘I know there are, but second to anything happening to Alfie, this would be my worst thing.’
‘Thorne told me yesterday that I should prepare myself for the truth,’ Akhtar said. ‘He told me that it might not be particularly pleasant. Well, I can only say to you what I said to him. You have suffered, same as I have, and you must surely realise that the truth, however unpleasant, cannot compare to that sort of pain. That it can only make things more bearable in the long run.’ He stood up slowly. ‘Ignorance is not bliss, Helen. Trust me on that. Ignorance is torment.’ He took a few steps towards the shop, then stopped and cocked his head towards the sound of a siren that was quickly growing louder.
Less than ten feet from where Javed Akhtar was standing – outside, on the rutted, overgrown path that snaked from a crumbling block of garages to the rear of the premises – Chivers was watching as his method-of-entry specialist knelt in the mud and carefully laid the last of the explosive charges at the base of the back door.
Five minutes from a ‘go’.
Once the charges were in position, Chivers would brief each member of his team once more on the action plan. Each would have a specific function to carry out. One that would hopefully last no more than a few seconds, but which would prove crucial as part of a six-man operation and upon which their own lives as well as the lives of those in the building would depend.
The ballistic shield officer.
The baton officer.
The ‘cover’ officer.
The prison reception officer, responsible for handling the hostage taker until such time as he could be taken into custody.
The dog handler.
Following that final briefing, there would be a last-minute equipment check. Helmets, goggles, earplugs and body armour. All rifles, handguns and Tasers. The CS canisters and the 8-Bang stun grenades designed to create as much noise and chaos as possible, to distract and disorient the hostage taker in those first few seconds after breaching had been effected. A faulty bit of kit would always be a firearms officer’s worst nightmare and with good reason. Chivers firmly believed that his men had been well trained and that equipment failure was far more likely than any human error.
Sadly, the same could not be said for others on the operation. There would certainly be an inquiry into why it had taken a trained hostage negotiator the best part of two days to notice that one of her hostages was dead.
Chivers doubted he’d be seeing DS Susan Pascoe again.
He had not even been aware of the siren until it became clear that it was somewhere very close. He immediately moved back towards the garages, well away from the earshot of anyone behind the door and called Donnelly on the radio.
‘What’s happening, Mike?’
‘I don’t believe this.’
The rain was noisy against his helmet, his body armour. ‘Say again.’
‘He’s come right through the fucking cordon, almost took out a couple of the uniforms.’
‘Who?’
‘Thorne. Listen, Bob, you’d better hold off for the time being and get yourself and your lads back round to the front … ’
SIXTY-NINE
As Thorne got out of the car and jogged around to the passenger side, he was forced to shield his eyes against the glare from a cluster of powerful arc lights that had been arranged on the pavement opposite the shop. In front of them was a line of emergency vehicles – ARVs, ambulances, rapid response cars – behind which the CO19 officers had taken up their firing positions earlier on.
Thorne’s phone began to ring, but he knew very well who was calling.
He opened the door and dragged Prosser out. The light, bouncing back from the metal shutters of Akhtar’s shop, washed across the judge’s face, worsened its already sickly pallor. Thorne pushed him back against the side of the car. He pressed the flat of one hand hard into Prosser’s chest, then answered his phone with the other.
‘Mike.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘I’ve got what Akhtar wanted, so you can stand the CO19 boys down.’
‘Who’s that with you?’
Thorne guessed that Donnelly and the rest of the team were gathered in the TSU vehicle, watching him on the monitors that carried the CCTV feed. He squinted up through the rain and stared straight at the camera mounted high on a lamppost on the opposite side of the road. ‘This is the man who killed Akhtar’s son,’ he said. ‘Who arranged for him to be killed.’ He turned back to Prosser and looked him in the eye. ‘He’s the reason we’re all here.’
‘You need to move away from the shop, Tom.’
‘I’m taking him inside,’ Thorne said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘It makes about as much sense as sending Chivers and his mates in.’
‘We’ll talk to Akhtar,’ Donnelly said. ‘You tell him you’ve done what he asked. You tell him you’ve got the individual responsible for his son’s death in custody and he walks out of there.’
‘Never going to happen,’ Thorne said. ‘He doesn’t trust us enough. He doesn’t trust me enough.’ He heaved Prosser away from the car and marched him towards the newsagent’s. Just before he dropped the phone into his pocket, he heard Donnelly shout, ‘Stay where you bloody well are.’
Thorne pushed Prosser back against the shutters, then began hammering at them, his fist smashing against the dirty metal, no more than a few inches from Prosser’s face. He shouted, ‘Javed, it’s Tom Thorne. I’m out here with the man you asked me to find.’ He ban
ged again, Prosser flinching at every blow. ‘Javed … ’
He waited for a few seconds. He pressed his ear to the metal.
Looking up at the sound of footsteps to his left, he saw Chivers and five CO19 officers emerge at speed from the entrance to a small alleyway three shops down. They slowed when they caught sight of him and, after grabbing a ballistic shield from one of them, Chivers waved his team back behind the line of vehicles where they stood, looking somewhat bemused, waiting for orders. None the wiser himself, Chivers stayed where he was, in the middle of the road, thirty feet or so away from Thorne and Prosser.
Behind the shutters, Javed Akhtar said, ‘I’m here.’
Chivers and Thorne both turned at the sound of more footsteps and watched as Donnelly, Pascoe and half a dozen others came running from the direction of the school towards the main road. All except Donnelly stopped at the line of arc lamps. He carried on that little bit further forward into the road, before stopping just a few feet away from Chivers.
A few feet behind him.
‘Mr Thorne?’
‘I’ve got him with me right now, Javed.’ Thorne leaned close to the shutters. ‘If I bring him in there, you have to promise me that once you have heard exactly what happened to Amin, you will give yourself up. No questions asked, OK?’
‘I can’t allow you to take a civilian in there, Thorne.’ Donnelly was still struggling to get his breath back as he shouted. ‘Not while Akhtar still has a loaded weapon. What are you thinking?’
‘Not up for discussion,’ Chivers said. ‘Simple as that.’
The civilian in question, who up until now had remained relatively passive, suddenly became animated and began shouting. ‘My name is Jeffrey Prosser, QC, and if you’re the officer in charge you need to put a stop to this now.’ Thorne pushed him back against the shutters and told him to shut up. Prosser struggled and shouted his name out again.
‘Is this man under arrest?’ Donnelly asked.
‘No, I am not,’ Prosser shouted. ‘I have not been arrested, I have not been cautioned. This is kidnapping, plain and simple.’
The rain was heavier suddenly, hissing against the lamps.
From behind the shutters, Javed Akhtar said, ‘The judge? My God, is it the judge?’
‘Give the gun to Helen,’ Thorne said. ‘Give it to Helen and I can bring him in.’
‘Wait,’ Akhtar said.
The blue light was still flashing on top of the Passat and Thorne felt it move across his face every few seconds. He watched it dance across the windows of the cars opposite and the automatic weapons of the men crouched between them.
From further back inside the shop, Thorne heard the voice of Helen Weeks. ‘I’ve got the gun.’ There was a pause and then she shouted it a second time.
Thorne turned to look at Donnelly and Chivers. ‘Did you get that?’
‘Changes nothing,’ Chivers said.
Donnelly said, ‘Hang on.’
‘I want Nadira,’ Akhtar shouted. ‘I want my wife to hear this too.’
‘No chance,’ Chivers said.
Thorne turned back to Donnelly. ‘Helen has the gun, Mike. What’s the problem?’
Donnelly considered it for a few seconds, then brought a radio to his mouth and gave the order. Within a minute, a panda car was screaming down from the school gates and, when it had stopped near the line of emergency vehicles, a WPC helped a shaken-looking Nadira Akhtar from the passenger seat. She wore a headscarf embroidered with something that caught the light, and was all but lost inside a Met Police-issue quilted anorak.
Thorne called out to her.
When she looked over at him, Thorne waved and beckoned her across the road, nodding his encouragement as she took the first tentative steps towards him. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Nadira … it’s going to be all right. We’re going to go inside together and bring Javed out.’ The woman smiled nervously as she drew nearer to the shop, then Thorne saw the slow wash of recognition across her face. The confusion that quickly became alarm when she got to within a few feet of the man Thorne still had pinned to the shutters.
‘I don’t understand.’ She pointed. ‘Why is that man here?’
‘He’s going to tell Javed how Amin died,’ Thorne said. He tightened his grip on Prosser’s collar. ‘He’s going to tell both of you.’
Nadira shook her head slowly and continued to stare, and from behind the shutters, Akhtar called his wife’s name.
‘I’m here, Javee,’ she said.
‘OK, Javed … when I say so, you need to unlock the door to the shop and open it. Then you’re going to raise the shutters.’ Thorne became aware of Chivers and Donnelly whispering behind him and he could guess what was being suggested and by whom. If Akhtar no longer had the gun, then there was nothing to stop them rethinking their action plan on the spot. No reason not to … improvise a little. If the shutters were going to be raised, it would be relatively easy for Chivers to get in there and overpower Akhtar single-handed. One CS canister or an 8-Bang chucked in as soon as those shutters started to go up … job done.
‘Just a few feet, all right, Javed?’
Behind him, the hissed exchange was becoming more heated.
‘No need to open them any more than that. Then move back into the shop. Have you got that?’
Thorne turned and was relieved to see Donnelly raising his hands and Chivers shaking his head in frustration. He pulled Prosser away from the shutters, keeping one eye on the officers behind him.
‘All right, Javed, off you go.’ Thorne heard the key in the lock, then the sound of the bell as the door was opened behind the shutters. ‘Right, open them up … ’
The mechanised growl was painfully loud up close, but it took only a few seconds until the gap was big enough. Thorne banged and shouted, ‘That’s enough,’ and the shutters juddered to a halt. He turned and nodded once to Donnelly then carefully helped Nadira to bend underneath. Once she was inside, he pushed Prosser down and followed him. Ducking quickly under the shutters, he heard Donnelly shout, ‘Five minutes, that’s all. If you’re not out of there, we go back to the original plan.’ Chivers shouted something after that, as Thorne stood up and his eyes began to adjust to the semi-darkness of Javed Akhtar’s shop, but it was drowned out by the grind of the shutters coming down again and clanging shut behind him.
SEVENTY
It was the smell that hit everybody first.
Thorne moved across to Nadira who was leaning against the wall, moaning gently, a hand clamped tight across her mouth. He rubbed her back, shushed her like a baby. Then he walked across to Prosser. The judge had dropped to his knees the second he was clear of the shutters and stayed that way. He coughed and retched, his arms braced against the shop window and a string of drool running from his chin to his chest.
Thorne leaned back against the door.
‘You’ll never forget that smell,’ he said. ‘Never. And other people will smell it on you, long after you’ve left this shop, long after you think you’ve washed it off even. Because you’ll actually absorb it … particularly through your hair and fingernails apparently. Believe me, for the next few days, you’ll belch it and fart it and breathe it.’ He leaned down. ‘And I think that’s only right and proper, considering. Don’t you?’
He lifted Prosser to his feet, spun him around and pushed him towards the rear of the shop. Ahead, Thorne could see the figure of Javed Akhtar, waiting, in semi-silhouette behind the counter. Nadira was a few steps behind as they walked towards her husband.
The shop had been torn apart.
They moved cautiously, negotiating a mess of scattered magazines, sweets and crisps, the debris of tinned food and broken bottles. They stepped over the fridge which was lying on its side and were careful to avoid slipping on the small puddles of melted ice cream and sodden newspapers underfoot. The body of Stephen Mitchell lay close to the counter. The tattered black bin-bags in which it had been wrapped were submerged in shadow and only the face was clearly visi
ble where the thin plastic had been torn open to reveal it.
‘In here,’ Akhtar said.
He nodded towards the room behind him. He held out an arm as if welcoming them to a drinks party or inviting a select group of friends into a well-appointed sitting room.
Thorne shoved Prosser through the doorway and followed. It took him no more than a few seconds to take in the tiny room. To his left, a desk and chair, assorted boxes, a sink and a small fridge, a kettle, a television. Ahead, the back door with a filing cabinet pushed against it, a small toilet.
He looked to his right, and nodded down to Helen Weeks.
A stupid thought: her hair’s different.
He saw the blood on the floor and guessed that this was where Stephen Mitchell had died, the brown streak on the linoleum where the body had been hauled from the room.
‘I don’t understand what’s happening,’ Helen said.
‘This’ll only take a minute,’ Thorne said.
Helen was holding the gun in her right hand. She lifted her left and rattled the cuff against the radiator pipe. ‘The key’s on the desk,’ she said.
Thorne half turned to look for it, but his attention was seized by a loud crack from the doorway just behind him. He wheeled round to see Nadira Akhtar slap her husband again, the noise even louder this time, crying out with the effort of it. There was a fine spray of spittle as Akhtar’s head snapped to the side. He righted it slowly and closed his eyes, then began to mutter something soft in Hindi as his wife stepped weeping into his outstretched arms and he eased her into the room with him.
The storeroom was crowded suddenly and though close proximity to the others in the room was unavoidable, people quickly did whatever they could to find themselves another few inches of space. Helen pulled her knees up to her chest, while Akhtar pushed the camp bed to one side so that he and his wife could stand against the rack of metal shelves at the far end of the room. Prosser had pressed himself against the back door, but Thorne dragged him away and stood him in the middle of the room, facing the Akhtars.
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