Die Alone

by Simon Kernick

  ‘He’s obviously been planning this whole thing a long time. And he’s got you backed into a corner.’

  I was beginning to experience that familiar feeling of being hunted again. It seemed that, whatever happened, there was going to be no rest for me. I’d been set up to do Alastair Sheridan’s bidding without even knowing about it and, although I could take at least a sliver of satisfaction from the fact that Cem Kalaman would no longer walk this earth, Sheridan was now more impregnable than ever. In the latest battle between us, he’d won. What was worse, he’d always been winning.

  I took a sip from the tea and tried not to look at Tina. She was my weakness, and I guess I was hers too.

  And then something occurred to me. A plan. It was vague, but it might work. And best of all, it didn’t involve Tina. I just needed to think it through.

  ‘I might have something,’ I said.

  Which was the moment when there was a loud knock on her front door.

  Tina stiffened.

  ‘Make the bed, get rid of those clothes and that tea, and hide in the cupboard,’ she hissed at Ray, then got up and headed downstairs with her cup of tea, trying to maintain as casual a pose as possible. Tina didn’t get many unexpected visitors. Occasionally her neighbour, Mrs West, knocked on her door to offer her tomatoes from the garden or homemade jam, but she didn’t knock as hard as that, and the timing was far too coincidental.

  Two men were facing her when she opened the door, both of whom she recognized instantly.

  ‘Morning, Tina,’ said Mike Bolt. He was dressed in jeans and a check shirt, while beside him, eight inches shorter, a lot leaner than she remembered, and dressed equally casually, stood his partner, Mo Khan.

  Tina had worked with both men for a few years between 2008 and 2010 as a detective in the now defunct Serious and Organized Crime Agency, and had been in a relationship with Mike for part of that time. It had been she who’d ended their relationship but they’d remained good friends afterwards. Mo, however, was different. He’d never liked Tina, and she’d always suspected that it was because he was jealous of her friendship with his partner. Although she’d lost touch with Mike in the last couple of years, she knew he and Mo now worked for the National Crime Agency.

  ‘Morning, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Long time no see. I’m assuming this is an official visit.’ She nodded towards the jeans. ‘Is this the new-look NCA kit?’

  Mike smiled. He might have been over fifty now but he was still a good-looking man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with piercing blue eyes and close-cut silver hair, he’d always reminded her of that old Hollywood actor her dad liked, Steve McQueen. Seeing him now, looking happy and healthy, made her wonder why she’d felt the need to finish their relationship.

  ‘It’s a Saturday,’ he said, looking down at his jeans. ‘But yes, this is an official visit. Do you mind if we come in?’

  ‘Please do,’ she said, and led them through to the kitchen.

  Mike asked her how she was but it was a perfunctory question, offered without much interest. She gave him an equally perfunctory answer and offered them both a coffee, which they declined, and they sat at the kitchen table, her on one side, the two of them on the other. Mo, she noticed, was looking at her suspiciously.

  ‘So what can I do for you both?’ she asked, taking a sip from her tea.

  ‘You heard about the shooting of Cem Kalaman last night,’ said Mike.

  It wasn’t a question, and there was no point Tina denying it, since the news was playing on the radio in the background.

  ‘They’re saying that Ray Mason’s responsible. That’s pretty quick, naming him like that. What makes you think it was him?’ she asked.

  ‘It was a professional hit,’ said Mike. ‘The intended victim was Cem Kalaman. The other casualties were one of his bodyguards and a woman caught in the crossfire. According to a reliable witness, the killer said to Kalaman before he shot him a final time: “This is for all your victims.” Mason had history with Kalaman, as you know, and he had a motive for wanting him dead.’

  ‘It all seems pretty thin.’

  Mike folded his arms on the table and leaned forward, giving Tina an appraising look. ‘There are other reasons why we believe it’s Mason that we can’t discuss with you right now. Now I know your history with him. We believe he had help organizing this hit.’

  Tina glared back at him, angry now. ‘So what exactly are you asking me? If I’m the one helping him? Be serious.’

  ‘Look, no one’s accusing you of anything.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t sound that way. And to answer your question: no, I’m not helping him. From what I saw on the news over a fortnight ago, two people abducted him at gunpoint from a prison van taking him to hospital. Hasn’t it occurred to you that he might actually have been taken by people hoping to silence him before his trial came up, and that he could be lying dead in a hole somewhere, rather than going round shooting gangsters, who’ve got plenty of enemies of their own?’

  ‘Of course that scenario’s occurred to us,’ said Mike, keeping his voice calm, ‘but we’ve got to look at every possibility, and we’ve had information that he’s still alive. So we’re asking if you’ve seen or heard from him at all.’

  ‘No,’ said Tina emphatically, looking at them both in turn. ‘I haven’t. If I’d heard anything from him I’d have contacted you.’

  ‘Can you tell us where you were last night?’ asked Mo.

  ‘Are you not hearing me? I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘You were a police officer once,’ said Mo. ‘You know we have to ask these questions.’

  Tina thought fast. She knew that if they wanted to, they’d be able to track her movements using the ANPR, just as she’d been able to track the movements of the Range Rover that had carried Ray to London two days earlier. ‘It’s none of your business where I was last night,’ she told him, ‘but what I can tell you is I was nowhere near London, and consequently nowhere near where that shooting took place.’

  Mo and Mike exchanged glances.

  ‘Personally, I don’t think you’re involved in any of this, Tina,’ said Mike, ‘but we have to do our jobs, so do you mind if we have a quick look round?’

  Tina’s stomach did a somersault and she had to fight hard to keep a poker face. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Look, you know how it is, we’ve got to ask,’ said Mike, clearly embarrassed.

  ‘And you can refuse if you want,’ added Mo, but Tina knew that if she did they’d almost certainly come back with a warrant. There was too much at stake in the manhunt for Ray. The government, in enough trouble with the riots engulfing the nation’s prisons, needed a result fast.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ she said, trying to sound as casual as possible as she got up from the table. ‘Fill your boots. As you’ll see, there aren’t that many places here for a grown man to hide.’

  Mike gave her a sympathetic smile as he got up from the table, which just annoyed her. He was treating her like a criminal – even though technically that was exactly what she was. Mo’s reaction she could understand. He’d never trusted her and she had no doubt that he thought she was hiding something. As he too got up, he was watching her, clearly looking for any signs of nerves in her demeanour.

  Tina turned away from him, picking her cigarettes up from the kitchen top and lighting one, determined not to give him the satisfaction of smelling fear on her. She didn’t usually smoke in the house, but she knew neither of them liked it, especially in the confined space of her tiny cottage.

  Tina followed behind them, watching as they opened cupboards so small a cat couldn’t conceal itself inside, and ludicrously they even looked behind the sofa. But that was the problem. There wasn’t really anywhere to hide in this cottage, and Mike would know that. He’d been here enough times before. And Ray wouldn’t have been able to hear the conversation they’d been having down here from the bedroom, not with the radio on. Tina had thought about turning it off before she opened the door but had kept it p
laying because her floorboards creaked so badly and she hadn’t wanted them hearing any movement upstairs. Now she recognized it was a mistake.

  The search downstairs took Mike and Mo all of two minutes. Mike turned to her at the bottom of the staircase. ‘Do you mind if we go up?’

  ‘You know I do, but I don’t suppose that’s going to make any difference. You remember where everything is, don’t you?’

  He nodded, looking slightly embarrassed, and they started up the stairs, the floorboards groaning under their combined weight.

  Slowly, Tina followed, feeling like a condemned woman. If they caught Ray in here, then that would be it for her. He no longer had a gun so he couldn’t hurt either Mike or Mo, but he could still threaten them and make a break for it, leaving Tina behind. She’d be sentenced to the maximum ten years for harbouring Ray, there was no doubt about it. She had plenty of enemies as it was, and they’d want to make an example of her. She’d serve at least five, and because she was an ex-cop who’d pissed off the wrong people, it would be hard time, like Ray’s.

  Frankly, the thought terrified her.

  When they got to the top of the stairs, Mo turned left into the bathroom while Mike checked in the spare room. Tina had closed her bedroom door when she’d gone downstairs to answer the front door and she tried not to stare at it now. When Mike came out of the spare room, he asked if she had a loft. It was as if he wanted to avoid going in her bedroom and being reminded of something he’d rather forget, which ordinarily might have upset her, but not now.

  She pointed out the hatch and gave him the pole to open it with, while she watched Mo open the main bedroom door and walk inside.

  The curtains had been drawn and the window was open, the bed was neatly made, and Ray’s clothes and cup of tea were gone.

  ‘Don’t make a mess,’ she said as Mo got on his hands and knees and looked under the bed.

  He didn’t answer, and she watched as he climbed slowly to his feet and went to the cupboard where she’d told Ray to hide.

  Tina stiffened as he opened it, aware of Mike coming slowly back down the loft ladder, knowing that this was the moment of truth. If Ray was in there …

  But the cupboard was empty bar Tina’s clothes neatly hanging from the rail.

  Mo poked his head inside – just, it seemed, to make doubly sure – then closed it, and turned round.

  ‘I’m assuming you don’t want to check if he’s hiding in my drawers, do you?’ Tina asked, finding it hard to mask her relief.

  ‘We’re just doing our job, Tina,’ Mo said, stopping at the open window and looking out across her garden before walking past her back into the hallway.

  ‘Well, you’re looking in the wrong place,’ she told them. ‘Now, if you’ve quite finished, I’d like to get on with my day.’

  ‘Thanks for your help, Tina,’ said Mike, motioning for Mo to follow him down the stairs. ‘It’s good to see you again. You look well.’

  She felt like saying that it wasn’t so good to see him but she resisted. Even now, she still had a soft spot for him. ‘Thanks,’ she said, walking down after them. ‘You too. How’s life treating you?’

  ‘I got married,’ he said as they stopped at the front door, showing her the ring she hadn’t even noticed. ‘A few weeks back now. It was only the two of us in Barbados. We didn’t really want any fuss.’

  ‘Well then, congratulations are in order,’ she said, forcing a smile, and ignoring Mo’s triumphant look. ‘I hope you’re both happy together.’

  She opened the door for them and they stepped out into the morning sunshine.

  Mike smiled at her. He did look genuinely happy and she was pleased for him. He was a good man. Which was probably why it hadn’t worked for them. ‘Thanks, Tina. And if you do hear anything from Ray Mason, please do the right thing and call us. It’ll be a lot easier that way.’

  She nodded and closed the door, and it was only when she was back in the kitchen that she allowed herself a huge sigh of relief. She felt a little hurt that Mike had got married without telling her, but that paled into insignificance compared to the fact that she’d just dodged the possibility of a long prison sentence. But where the hell was Ray hiding? He must have got out of the bedroom window but there weren’t really any places to hide in Tina’s garden, plus they would have heard and seen him from the kitchen.

  She stubbed out the cigarette and opened the back door, enjoying the feel of the sun on her face. Her garden backed directly onto a hill that rose up to woodland at the top. It was a lovely view, and was the main reason she’d bought this house. It soothed her to look at it, even though, in truth, it made her home less secure because there was direct access to it from the back. But it was a trade-off she was prepared to tolerate. She kept the gate double-locked, and the fence around it was high and overgrown with thorn bushes she’d planted herself several years earlier, so it was hard to get in. It was also hard to get out, so there was no way Ray would have made it out that way either.

  She’d been standing there a good five minutes and was still trying to work out what Houdini-like escape Ray had managed when she heard a whisper from above her.

  ‘Have they gone yet?’

  She looked up and there he was, lying flat like a lizard on the cottage roof, his head poking over the guttering.

  ‘They’re gone, so get down from there quickly,’ she hissed back at him. ‘The neighbours might see you.’

  He nodded, crawled on his front along the edge of the roof, and manoeuvred his way feet first back inside her bedroom window.

  Tina couldn’t help but smile as she went back inside the house. Ray was bad news in so many ways but she had to admire his resourcefulness.

  When she got back to the bedroom, he was sitting on the bed. He opened his mouth to say something but she shook her head and put a finger to her lips. The reason Tina was alive and free was that she was paranoid. She’d been following Mike and Mo too closely for them to have planted a camera in her house, but they might have managed to slip an audio device somewhere. It would have been totally illegal of course, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.

  She took a state-of-the-art bug finder she’d bought on the internet a few months earlier from one of the bedroom drawers and proceeded to walk the whole house with it. Only when she was convinced that there was no device anywhere did she finally return to the bedroom.

  ‘Well, Ray,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you this. It’s never boring with you around.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he said with a grin. ‘But you’ll be pleased to know I’m going to leave in a couple of hours, as soon as the coast’s well clear.’

  ‘They may have this place under surveillance.’

  ‘Would they? They’ve searched the house so they must be pretty certain I’m not here. I suppose it’s possible they might put you under surveillance. But that could work to our advantage. If you drive off somewhere, you’ll draw any surveillance team with you. Then I can make my move.’

  ‘But where are you going to go? You’re on foot.’

  ‘I think I might have someone who can help.’

  Tina frowned. ‘Who?’

  ‘Someone who owes me a big favour.’

  19

  As Mike Bolt walked back to the car with Mo along the village high street, he passed the pub where a long time ago he and Tina had spent some happy evenings. He didn’t miss her. It hadn’t been a smooth relationship. Mike knew he wasn’t easy to be with, and Tina sure as hell wasn’t either. But they’d had some good times, and their relationship had ended amicably, and it was for those reasons that he still cared about her. He genuinely wanted her to be innocent of any wrongdoing where Ray Mason was concerned, and he was relieved she hadn’t been harbouring him. However, he also knew Tina was a woman who was prepared to risk everything in the pursuit of justice, and this had always made her dangerous and unpredictable.

  He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to ten and he’d been at work for three h
ours already. If the Kalaman killing hadn’t occurred last night, he would have been enjoying a day out in Brighton with his new wife, Leanne, something they’d both been looking forward to. He’d be glad when all this was over and he was retired, which if all went well was going to be less than a year away.

  ‘So what do you think, boss?’ said Mo. ‘Has she been in touch with him?’

  Bolt looked at him. ‘God knows. To be honest, Tina could be right. Ray Mason may have nothing to do with this. For all we know, he was abducted from that prison van by people who then killed him. He had enough enemies.’

  ‘We’ve got a witness sighting of a man matching his description leaving the scene,’ said Mo.

  ‘An anonymous one. That raises more questions than it does answers.’

  ‘What about Andy Reeves’ testimony?’

  They’d interviewed the man who’d briefly been taken hostage in his apartment by Kalaman’s killer, and whose car the killer had stolen, only an hour earlier. Although the killer’s face had been concealed, he fitted the overall description of Mason, and when they’d played Reeves an audio clip of Mason’s voice they’d found from a police press conference several years ago, he’d claimed to be 90 per cent sure that the man in the clip was the same one who’d held him hostage. He’d also described his assailant as calm, professional, and even courteous, and that fitted with what Bolt knew of Mason too.

  ‘No, you’re right,’ said Bolt. ‘On balance, I think Mason’s still alive, and I think it was him who carried out the killing last night.’

  Mo gave him a sidelong smile. ‘I know I’m right, boss. Listen, I don’t want to speak out of turn, because you know I respect you more than anyone, but don’t go soft on Tina because of your past.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he said, resentful of Mo for pointing out the obvious. ‘But the fact remains Mason wasn’t at Tina’s house just now.’

  ‘That’s true, but you know as well as I do that he’s been getting help from somewhere, otherwise we’d have found him by now. And he and Tina have got history, you can’t deny that. I think it’s worth putting surveillance on her, just in case she leads us to him.’