Die Alone

by Simon Kernick

  Zafir Rasaq was one of those. A thief, minor drug dealer and occasional fraudster, he seemed to know everything that was going on in his area of west London, and information he’d provided about possible radicals had led to us breaking up two potentially very dangerous terrorist cells, long before they could properly get going.

  I’d left CT two years earlier, and hadn’t seen Zafir for a year prior to that, but he wasn’t the type of man who would have travelled far, and during the time I’d known him – a period of close to four years – he’d lived in the same Hounslow flat. I was hoping he still lived there now.

  I knew I was taking a big risk by leaving the safehouse for an extended period of time. I couldn’t take the phone they’d supplied me with in case Lane had placed a tracker in it, and if she called to check up on me and I didn’t answer, she might call the whole thing off. I didn’t think I’d miss Sheridan turning up at the brothel, though. I had a feeling he’d turn up at night when he could relax rather than on a working day, especially as today was the last day before Parliament broke up for summer. Either way, I figured it worth the risk.

  I left by the front door and just over an hour and a half later, after a mix of walking and a ride in a minicab with a supremely disinterested driver, I arrived at my destination.

  Hounslow’s not the most attractive London borough, and where Zafir had lived in the old days was in one of the crappier parts, not far north of the Mogden Sewage Treatment Works where, if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, it was best to hold your breath. Today, with the air temperature already in the mid-twenties, it was certainly best to hold your breath. It was also right beneath the flight path into nearby Heathrow and the planes were passing only a few hundred feet overhead with a deafening roar as I made my way up to a group of five tower blocks formed in a rough semi-circle around a litter-strewn green with a kids’ playground in the middle. A couple of mums were watching their toddlers but otherwise the place was deserted.

  Zafir’s flat was on the fifth floor of the central block. Number 27, set right back in the south-western corner. I remembered all this because I’d helped kick the door in on my one and only visit. That had been on a raid, and we’d led him out in handcuffs, one of six men arrested as part of a major anti-terrorist operation his information had initiated in the first place. The raid had been a sham to deflect attention away from him and he’d been expecting us, but had played the part perfectly, being dragged yelling and cursing from the building as neighbours looked on, and the plan had worked. Three of the six had gone down for a total of twenty-two years, whereas Zafir had been released without charge after four days, and had received a payment of £5,000 a few weeks later for his services, courtesy of the taxpayer, which I have to say was money well spent.

  I climbed the concrete staircase, sweating under my jacket, found number 27 and knocked hard on the door, hoping I hadn’t had a wasted journey.

  There was no answer, but that wasn’t unexpected. Zafir was a career criminal and, like many of that ilk, wasn’t an especially early riser.

  I knocked again, harder this time, and put my ear to the door. I could definitely hear movement. I knocked a third time, keeping it going for a good ten seconds, then waited until I heard footfalls.

  ‘Who is it?’ came a voice slurred with sleep that I recognized immediately as belonging to Zafir.

  ‘Police. Open up.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ he said wearily, opening the door a few inches on a heavy chain. His face appeared in the gap, staring at me. There was no immediate sign of recognition, which meant that either he hadn’t been watching the news much or that my new disguise, which I’d added to on the way here by buying a baseball cap and sunglasses, was working. ‘You’re not the police.’

  I took off the glasses and gave him a smile. ‘Hello, Zafir. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

  He frowned, still not entirely sure, then it dawned on him. ‘Shit. Ray Mason?’

  I put a finger to my lips. ‘Keep it down.’

  He didn’t look happy to see me but removed the chain and moved aside to let me in.

  His flat was tidier than I remembered but there was still a stale food smell in the air.

  ‘Are you on your own?’ I asked, following him into his sitting room.

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ he said, pulling on a pair of sweat pants that were conveniently lying in the middle of the floor. ‘Luckily for you.’ He turned to face me. ‘What do you want? You’re taking a big risk coming here.’

  ‘Am I? No one’s given me a second glance so far. Even you didn’t recognize me. I’m here because I need a new passport and preferably a driving licence fast. I’ve got the cash to pay for it.’

  ‘I’ve never been in that game,’ said Zafir.

  ‘But you know who is, and you’re going to take me to him.’

  ‘No way,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend now. I don’t need to take risks helping you.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to involve you either, but I’ve got no choice. Help me and I’ll be out of your hair. But if you don’t, I’ll make sure the whole world knows you’re an informant, and that you’ve been putting your friends and associates away for years. You won’t last five minutes.’

  Zafir sat down hard on his sofa, and it made a squeaking noise. He wasn’t a big man but he was running to fat, no doubt courtesy of spending his life idling in this place. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair and looked up at me.

  ‘You got the money to pay for it, right?’ he said.

  ‘I told you I did.’

  ‘I know a brother who might be able to help. But he’ll charge top dollar.’

  ‘As long as it’s top quality, I don’t care. But I need it done fast.’

  He nodded, and fished a brand-new smartphone from somewhere in his sweat pants.

  I listened while he made a call to his guy. It was clear they knew each other well and they had some quick banter before Zafir got down to business, asking about the service and vouching for me as a good friend. He’d recovered his poise and I remembered that he’d always been a smooth liar, which was why he’d lasted as long as he had.

  He looked up from the phone. ‘It’ll cost you two grand cash for a perfect UK passport, and he can have that done within three days of getting the photo. If you want it done faster, it’ll cost more.’

  ‘I want it done faster. How much for twenty-four hours?’

  Zafir asked him and they had a further to and fro on the phone, eventually settling on a figure of £3,000 for a passport and full UK driving licence, with half payable up front, which I agreed to without complaint.

  This is the modern criminal world. If you want something, know where to look, and have the money to pay, there’s very little you can’t buy, be it a new ID, a kilo of coke, or even an AK-47 and a belt of ammunition. The reason most criminals don’t have access to these things is because in general they’re not very forward-thinking and consequently no good at covering their tracks, which is why professional criminals ‒ the ones who make the real money ‒ tend to avoid selling to them. I knew that the person Zafir had called would be a pro, which was good on the one hand, but also meant I was going to have to be careful, because if he got wind of who I was, there’d be trouble. As well as the half-million bounty on my head from the Kalaman crime gang, there was now a further £50,000 put up by the Met Police. Unfortunately, I’d become a very valuable commodity in my own right.

  Less than half an hour later, Zafir and I were standing outside a curry house just off Hounslow High Street. This area was almost exclusively non-white but, with my shaved head and black beard, I could quite easily pass off as a local Muslim man, and once again no one bothered giving me a second look.

  Zafir pulled out his phone and made a call, telling the person on the other end that we were outside, and a minute later, a stocky Asian man with a much thicker beard than mine appeared and unlocked the door, letting us in. Zafir seemed to know him and they performed an e
laborate handshake.

  The big guy looked at me suspiciously but didn’t ask any questions as he locked the door again and led us through the empty restaurant and up a narrow flight of stairs at the back. I could hear clattering about and talking coming from the kitchen beyond, and the smell of cooking was already in the air, making me feel hungry.

  The big guy knocked on a door at the top and we were led into a surprisingly large but very cluttered office with a desk at the end, behind which sat a rotund Asian man in his fifties with a face like a toad, wearing a three-piece suit that looked like it hadn’t been dry-cleaned in a while. Two large fans on either side of him blasted cool air round the room. The window behind looked out onto a brick wall.

  ‘Hey Faz,’ said Zafir, approaching the man behind the desk, who stood up.

  The two of them embraced, and the man called Faz looked my way.

  ‘This is a bro of mine, Bobby,’ explained Zafir by way of introduction, using the name we’d agreed for me. ‘He’s the one I was telling you about on the phone.’

  Faz nodded and put out a hand, giving me a long, lingering look up and down.

  I shook hands quickly, keen to get on with this. ‘I need a passport and driving licence very quickly, and it’s got to be the best quality.’

  Faz nodded slowly and sat back down, picking up a pen and tapping it steadily on the desk. ‘How do you know Zafir?’ he asked.

  ‘We were in prison together a few years back, and kept in touch,’ I said, using the cover story we’d rehearsed on the way down here. ‘Sometimes we do a bit of business. But now I’ve got a problem, and I’ve got to get out of the country fast.’

  Faz didn’t look convinced, probably because he hadn’t been expecting a white man. Almost all of Zafir’s associates were Muslim Asians, and it’s often the case that criminals tend to stick within their own ethnic groups.

  ‘I can vouch for him,’ said Zafir confidently. ‘We’ve known each other a long time. He can be trusted.’

  Faz glared up at him suspiciously. ‘I haven’t seen you around much, not since the Ramses brothers got jail time over that drug stuff.’

  ‘I’ve been around,’ said Zafir, but there was an edge to his voice and I had no doubt that information he’d sold had been responsible for putting them away.

  Faz turned his attention back to me. ‘How do I know you’re not the police?’

  ‘Because I’m vouching for him,’ Zafir insisted.

  I didn’t like the way this conversation was going, although it was some consolation that he hadn’t recognized me. ‘Because undercover police in this country don’t carry guns and point them at people,’ I said, pulling out the SIG Sauer Lane had supplied me with from underneath my jacket. In one quick movement I turned and pointed it at the big bearded guy who immediately took a step backwards with his hands high in the air. I then shoved it back in the front of my jeans where it remained visible.

  Having deployed the stick to good effect, I now opted for the carrot. I pulled a wad containing £1,500 in cash that I’d counted out in Zafir’s flat earlier from the back pocket of my jeans, and threw it on the desk in front of a flustered Faz. ‘I just want the ID then I’ll be gone. OK?’

  Faz’s eyes darted from the money to the gun sticking out of my waistband, then to my face, and finally back to the money, because in the end, like all criminals, he was greedy. And all the time I could see he was making a steady stream of calculations as he tried to work out whether or not a real police officer would behave like this. I can tell you with hand on heart that there is no way an undercover cop would bring a gun on an op to nail a fraudster, still less wave it around at everyone in the room. He’d be out of a job in minutes.

  Evidently Faz had come to the same conclusion because he picked up the wad and counted out the notes with a practised yet shaky hand, while I stepped away from the desk so I could keep my eye on Beardie, who’d dropped his hands now and was scowling at me from behind the beard. I gave him a long look back and he was the one who turned away first.

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Faz, pocketing the money. ‘I can do this for you.’ He got to his feet and walked over to an adjoining door. ‘This way please. We need to take some photos.’

  I pushed past Zafir who looked away fast, like he didn’t want to be seen with me – which to be fair to him he didn’t – and followed Faz into what looked like a tiny stock cupboard containing nothing more than office stationery; but then he knocked three times on the far wall, and it was suddenly opened from the other side, revealing a larger room much of which was taken up with high-end computer equipment, including a bank of fridge-sized printers. A group of three men sat working at adjoining desks. One of them was hunched over, painstakingly modifying a UK residence card, while another had a pile of passports on the desk next to him as he typed away on a keyboard. It was an impressive set-up but, unlike next door, the room was stiflingly hot with only one window, opening onto a flight of fire escape steps, letting in any air.

  I wiped sweat from my brow and moved the gun so it was hidden by my jacket before going inside. A chair had been placed against the wall at the other end of the room facing a camera on a tripod, next to a photographer’s umbrella, and Faz invited me to sit down. None of the three young men paid me any heed as I took a seat but I did notice that Faz spent a long time looking through the camera as he took the photos, as if he was inspecting me from behind the lens. He was obviously curious to know more about me but had the good sense not to ask questions. I knew he’d speak to Zafir afterwards though, and that was a concern.

  We finished up quickly and he showed me the photos. I wasn’t sure if it was paranoia or not but the images of the bearded bald man staring blankly at the camera suddenly seemed to look a lot more like me than I’d been expecting.

  I told him the photos looked fine.

  He nodded. ‘Good. You come here with Zafir tomorrow evening at six o’clock and the documents will be ready for you. The passport will even fool airport scanners.’

  ‘It’d better do for three grand.’

  ‘You’re getting a bargain, my friend, I can promise you that. Six p.m. tomorrow, OK?’

  I didn’t like the way he looked at me as he spoke. He was smiling but there was something reptilian in his expression, as if somewhere behind his eyes he was sizing me up as prey.

  I gave him a hard look. ‘Just don’t try to fuck me about.’

  The smile disappeared and his eyes narrowed. ‘I’m a businessman. I don’t fuck anyone about.’

  Which was almost certainly not the first lie he’d told today but I let it go.

  However, when I was outside with Zafir I laid my cards on the table. ‘You come with me tomorrow to get the stuff,’ I said, leaning in close to him, ‘and make sure he doesn’t try anything stupid or I’ll kill you both. You got me?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he said, leaning backwards. ‘Chill out.’

  ‘Give me your phone number.’

  He reeled it out and I keyed it into the phone Tina had given me, then immediately called it. It started ringing in his pocket.

  ‘You really don’t trust me, do you?’ said Zafir, looking genuinely put out.

  ‘I don’t think I need to answer that,’ I told him, then turned and left him there.

  11

  Alastair Sheridan loved his Chelsea mews house, tucked away behind the King’s Road, an oasis of calm amid the bustle of the city. He spent as much time as possible here, away from his wife and child back in their constituency home. His wife bored him. He’d only married her for appearances’ sake. She was attractive – ten years his junior and a former model – and adequate in bed, but she had no real sense of adventure, of excitement. She’d never push any boundaries. She was a good breeder, but that was it. They’d produced a fine-looking boy whom Alastair supposed he loved, although he still wasn’t entirely sure since he had very little concept of what love actually was. When people talked seriously and passionately about how they’d die for their child
ren, Alastair smiled and nodded and agreed with them, but inside he wondered what on earth they were talking about. He wouldn’t die for anyone. Why would you? The most important person in Alastair’s world was Alastair, and this was never going to change.

  It always amused him to think that his wife didn’t know him at all, yet thought she knew him perfectly. He’d enjoyed manipulating her in the early days, making her believe what a kind, generous man he was, and remembered getting a huge kick from proposing to her during a candlelit dinner at Le Gavroche in Paris, barely forty-eight hours after he and Cem had tortured to death an eighteen-year-old Estonian girl with the most exquisite skin Alastair had ever seen, slices of which they’d carefully removed while she’d still been alive.

  He and his wife lived near enough separate lives these days. Even so, Alastair knew he’d chosen well. His wife hadn’t come from money so she was content to live the life of a wealthy yummy mummy, lunching and playing tennis and keeping well out of Alastair’s hair, and leaving him to enjoy life’s pleasures.

  Alastair had seen things that others could only dream about. He’d wielded the ultimate power – that of life and death – and it was a pleasure so intense as to make all others pale in comparison. The downside was that such pleasure could only be shared with a handful of people.

  One of those people was Cem. Alastair had known him since childhood. They’d grown up together. They’d carried out their first kill together, snatching that Brennan girl from her bike as she cycled down a country lane and taking her out to Cem’s old school by the Thames. There the two of them had dispatched her and buried the remains in the grounds, where they would have stayed for ever if it hadn’t been for the greedy bastards on the school board selling a plot of land for development.