02-A Price to Pay

by Chris Simms

  ‘Look at the makes.’

  Liam didn’t understand. She was angry. Was she angry with him? He’d done what she’d asked him. He thought back to the balls-up that had caused all of this. When Eamon Heslin had called round to sort out something with the network in her office, she’d also asked him to take away a load of old equipment. Printers, monitors, other bits and bobs. She didn’t need it any more, but she still used the stuff to negotiate a reduction in Eamon’s fee. Always watching the pennies, that was Nina. But he wasn’t meant to take her Dell laptop. It had been on the desk next to the other stuff, but not with it. And when she’d realized the mistake, it had been too late. Eamon didn’t have it any more. The wheeling-dealing little twat had already sold it on.

  ‘So …’ Liam hesitated, afraid of sounding stupid. ‘It’s a Dell laptop. But it’s not your one. Yours doesn’t have that mark in the corner where a label’s been scraped off.’

  She took another drag on her cigarette. He wished she wouldn’t smoke so much. It wasn’t good for her skin, all that smoking.

  ‘I’m not talking about the laptop, I’m talking about the carry case.’ She sent him a suspicious glance. ‘And you are sure there wasn’t another case in her room?’

  ‘No. I mean, yes. There wasn’t another computer or case in there.’

  ‘You’re sure? You said her bedroom was dark.’

  ‘Dark, but not so I couldn’t see.’

  ‘Shit. And the one from this morning, nothing was in his flat?’

  He thought about the student. Philip Young, Flat 1a, 109 Shawcross Grove, Rusholme. Two-bedroom flat, no computer in either. The woman he’d had to kill downstairs. The way she’d looked at him and not the hammer. She’d seemed sad, like he’d disappointed her. He shoved the memory back. ‘No, I went through everything. There was a printer in the front room. Computer games. But that was it.’

  ‘This,’ the tip of her cigarette waggled above the table. ‘It is not good.’

  It wasn’t often that traces of her accent crept back. Only when emotional. Or when she was wound up, like now. Her English was so good: miles better than his. Normally, you couldn’t tell she hadn’t been born in Britain. More than once, he’d wondered if she’d sound like that in bed. Maybe she’d even speak the language of where she was originally from.

  He wrenched his mind back to what was before him. Still, he was confused. ‘I … I don’t know what is not good.’

  She placed the edge of a thumbnail on her lower lip, nibbled at it like it was something incredibly expensive. ‘OK. This laptop you just got from the girl’s room – it’s in a case made by PC World, yes?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And the one from the street,’ she poked the end of her cigarette at the other case. ‘This is made by Binto.’

  Folding his arms, Liam nodded again.

  ‘This is what I think,’ she continued. ‘Heslin was mixing up carry cases and laptops. He told us – when we went to his shop to get my laptop back – that an Asian man had called in and sold him four Dells, remember? Same model as mine. This is how one Dell laptop is inside a Binto case and another is inside a PC World case – he buys in stuff, puts the laptops in one place, the bags in another, the keyboards in another, printers in another. So on. When he sells one on, he isn’t being careful to put the same items back together again.’

  He wasn’t going to argue: she was usually right. ‘So, you’re saying your laptop might not even still be with its carry case?’

  ‘Yes. That is what I’m afraid of.’

  ‘And you have to have the case and the computer back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Liam was silent again. ‘Why? Because of fingerprints?’

  ‘No. I am not known to the police. There were some sheets of paper in the carry case. About the girls downstairs.’

  ‘And your carry case is made by Dell?’

  ‘Yes, it’s made from black leather. Good quality leather. It cost quite a lot. We need the carry case and we also need the laptop.’

  The way she said it, he knew what she really meant. I need the carry case and the laptop – you must find them for me. He glanced at the second carry case on the table. The girl in the street with the black hair. That had been a waste of time, then. The student called Philip as well. Fucking students. Shouldn’t have been buying dodgy gear in the first place. It was their own fault.

  When they’d called in on Eamon in his shitty little shop, he said straightaway the laptop he’d taken wasn’t there. That he’d sold it. He stuck to the story, eventually mumbling it through missing teeth and mashed-up lips, hands tied behind him. She’d stared down at him for a long time waiting for his sobbing to stop. Once it had, she asked for details of every person he’d sold a laptop to in the past few days.

  It was all in the computer by the till, he’d said. She went downstairs. While she was gone, he’d asked Eamon if he had any food in the place. There’d been biscuits in the tiny kitchen. He’d run his hand under the cold tap for a while to make the throb in his knuckles die down. Then he checked the cupboards. Ginger snaps. Eamon hadn’t wanted one. That was fair enough: wouldn’t be easy crunching up those things with a mouth the state of his. He leaned against the wall and ate quite a few while they waited for Nina. Eamon had started sobbing again. At one point, air caught in the blood and snot up his nose. A shiny balloon had emerged from his nostril. Liam had almost choked on his biscuit – it looked so funny! A red nose balloon!

  When Nina came back up the stairs, she had printed off a list. She was clever; found it, no messing. Asked Eamon if the names were the ones. Emily Dickinson. Philip Young. Teresa Donaghue. Andrew Williams. The four people who had bought a laptop since he’d walked off with Nina’s. Eamon’s head had bobbed up and down. One of them has it, they must have, he’d said. If it wasn’t downstairs. Nina had said it wasn’t. ‘Liam?’

  They’d gone to the top of the stairs. She brought her face close to his. Close enough so he felt the heat coming off her smooth skin. She’d placed a hand on his arm. ‘Finish him then burn this place and everything in it. There is a load of equipment downstairs, including a Dell laptop. For a minute, I thought it was mine, but it’s not. Destroy it and everything else down there. I’ll see you back at mine.’

  Nina stubbed her cigarette out, looking disdainfully down at the two laptops as she did so. Then she unfolded the list she’d printed in Eamon’s shop. It made a cracking sound as she opened it out. There was just one more name on the list. Andrew Williams, 41 Victoria Drive, Brinnington. ‘You know where this place is?’

  ‘Brinny? Yeah, I grew up near there. It’s close to Stockport. Not the sort of place you get many students, though.’

  ‘I hope this person has my laptop and its carry case. If not … it is bad.’

  ‘You want me to deal with him, too? Not just break into his house and take the computer and case?’

  ‘He might have seen the profiles. He might have seen what’s on the computer.’

  ‘Eamon said he’d wiped the memory, though.’

  ‘He would have, wouldn’t he? It’s safer this way.’

  Liam said nothing for a second or two. ‘The police don’t know about you. But they do me. I’ve got a record, Nina.’ He watched her as she took another cigarette from her pack and lit it. The ones she smoked were black. They had a funny name. Soberoni or something. ‘All I’m saying is, we’re getting out of here after this, aren’t we?’

  Her pale blue eyes glittered. ‘Mmm?’

  ‘This guy in Brinny. That’ll be the fifth I’ve done over this – six if you include the woman living in the ground-floor flat. I can’t be in the country if the police start piecing it together. Neither of us can.’

  Her shoulders dropped and her features softened. She cupped the side of his face with one hand. ‘Yes, we’ll be together soon. The money I’ll get for the two we have downstairs, that will be enough. You will love it so much where I’ll take you. There is a beach and, right behind it, the mountains
. The slopes are a carpet of vineyards – you just fill up jugs at the farm. It costs almost nothing.’

  Her palm and fingers on his face; they seemed to suck away his ability to speak. ‘And the beer?’ he mumbled. ‘You said that’s good.’

  ‘The beer?’ Her eyes almost closed. ‘So good.’

  She dropped her hand and lifted her eyelids. The spell was broken. ‘But first we must finish this thing. Then we can be free.’

  He nodded his agreement, so wanting to feel her touch once more.

  THIRTEEN

  They were crowded round the table in a side briefing room. Too many men, not enough space, Iona thought, as a slightly stale smell began to permeate the air. People with coffee on their breath and shirts that had been worn for a few hours too long. She glanced at the condensation-covered window. If it wasn’t mid-winter, I’d open that as wide as it would go.

  ‘OK, everyone,’ Roebuck said. ‘I’m due in the super’s office in under thirty minutes. Marko, what have you got?’

  A man with medium-length blond hair and a thin nose sat back. Like most fieldwork officers in the unit, there was nothing to make him stand out in a crowd. ‘All four laptops that went missing from CityPads were Dell Latitudes that had been stickered. The laptop Philip Young brought in had obviously had that sticker removed, with resulting damage to the case in its bottom-right-hand corner. We can assume, therefore, the other three laptops will be similarly disfigured.’

  ‘And marked with a UV pen on the inner surface of the battery compartment lid,’ Roebuck added. ‘I asked that of Shazan Quereni and he confirmed that he had personally written his company’s name on each.’

  ‘How did he strike you?’ Iona asked.

  ‘Quereni? Pissed off. A lot of important company data was on those laptops. He said several accounts had been jeopardized.’

  ‘Including people looking to purchase Western girls?’ Martin Everington questioned.

  Roebuck hunched a shoulder. ‘Obviously, I made no mention of the profiles. But he seemed entirely unconcerned about us having one of his laptops in our possession – other than wanting to know if and when it would be returned.’

  Someone gave a mocking laugh.

  ‘And the employee who ran?’ Iona asked.

  ‘Nirpal Haziq?’ Roebuck responded.

  ‘Yeah, how did Quereni react to that?’

  ‘He seemed just as surprised as the rest of us. Embarrassed, too.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘Because he gave up the bloke’s file there and then, we were able to get a car to his address within minutes of Haziq doing one. No sign of him, as yet.’

  ‘Do we reckon him and the other one – Khaldoon what’s-his-face – are working together?’ Marko asked.

  ‘Can’t say at this stage,’ Roebuck replied. ‘We’ve already put a block on his bank cards. No significant sums withdrawn today. So, unless he had an exit plan in place, he won’t be going far. The entire City Centre division have him as a top priority.’ He moved that sheet of paper aside. ‘Any more on the two missing girls, Dean?’

  A detective in his late thirties placed his elbows on the table. ‘Not so far. We’re still working with social services to compile a list of kids who’ve gone missing from care homes in the area.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And because so many of them are now privately owned, it’s proving a nightmare, frankly.’

  ‘There’s no record kept centrally by social services?’

  ‘Officially, there is. But some homes are better at submitting figures than others. There’s been a lot of phoning places is all I can say at this stage.’

  ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of privatisation,’ Roebuck muttered. ‘I’ll need some kind of numbers for the super. What can you give me?’

  Dean pulled his notes closer. ‘In the last two months, forty-six have run away from homes in the central Manchester area. Twenty-nine are back in care, seven are in custody and ten are still unaccounted for.’

  ‘You’re not waiting for a final list, are you?’ Roebuck stated. ‘Start looking into the ten we know are still missing now. Deal with other missing reports as they filter in, OK?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Right, next on the list is the laptop handed in by Philip Young.’

  ‘Any luck getting past the password?’ Martin jumped in.

  Iona flashed him a glance: I’d been about to ask that, she thought.

  Roebuck looked across at an overweight man with a wedge of brown hair hanging low over one eye. ‘Sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  He nodded, clearing his throat as he did so. ‘Alan Goss.’

  ‘Go ahead, Alan.’

  ‘It’s not as easy as I’d hoped. Initially, I thought I could use OPH Crack to get in. But whoever the owner is, they’ve built in a couple of extra layers. I’ve just finished trying all the passwords provided by the employees at CityPads who were able to give them: no joy.’

  ‘So it must be Khaldoon’s or Nirpal’s,’ Iona stated.

  ‘If they’re working together, why would Khaldoon flog Nirpal’s laptop – dropping him in the shit as a result?’ Martin asked. ‘I mean, there’s something important on it, or he wouldn’t have run. To me, that suggests they’re not a team.’

  Good point, Iona begrudgingly thought to herself.

  ‘How long before you do anticipate getting access?’ Roebuck asked Alan.

  ‘I’d say hours. There are a couple of things I’ve yet to try.’

  ‘OK, you get going.’ As the IT guy shuffled out of the room, Roebuck consulted his checklist. ‘Simon, latest from the Border Agency, please.’

  ‘Khaldoon and his sister, Sravanti, boarded PIA flight three-o-two to Islamabad on Monday the nineteenth. Their seats were paid for with cash and the booking requested they sit together. Sravanti is Khaldoon’s fifteen-year-old sister.’

  Someone gave a low whistle.

  ‘We’ve made contact with the embassy in Islamabad and they’re going to try and establish where they might have gone.’

  ‘They’re British nationals, then?’ someone asked from over near the doors.

  Simon nodded. ‘The family are from Droylesden, west of the city centre. It’s an area with quite a large ethnic community.’

  ‘Craig and Nigel have gone to speak with the parents,’ Roebuck stated. ‘We’ll soon know if their son and daughter left the country with their blessing. We know Khaldoon’s absence from his office is unauthorised. Has the daughter permission to be away? This trip of hers is, remember, during term-time. Anything for Khaldoon on the PNC?’

  A bald man wearing a muted green tie with thin red stripes spoke. ‘Nope. Never been so much as cautioned.’

  ‘So, at the moment, we have an otherwise hardworking, law-abiding individual suddenly ripping off his employer and taking a morning flight to Islamabad – along with his younger sister. Something ugly is going on. Iona, you’re looking into the identity of the female student who purchased that other laptop. Progress?’

  She straightened up in her seat. ‘I’ve had the posters printed and – as soon as this meeting’s over – I’ll start distributing them round the university campus. Four laptops were taken from CityPads; two of those were, we know, flogged to students. I think there’s a good chance the other two could have been, as well.’

  Roebuck nodded. ‘If you need more uniforms to expedite that, I’ll try my best – we need all these things in our possession.’ He lifted his final piece of paper, a slightly sour look now on his face. ‘O’Dowd asked that I inform you about this. It’s from the CC himself.’

  Chief constable, Iona thought. The very top.

  ‘As I mentioned earlier, establishing whether the girl called Zara was the one who blew up at the Israeli checkpoint meant contacting that country’s security services. They quickly confirmed it was and now we have their ambassador demanding that a team of agents from his country are granted full access to the investigation.’

  A voice came from the back. ‘Mossad? We’l
l be working with Mossad on this?’

  As soon as Roebuck nodded, murmurs of excitement rippled across the room.

  ‘These guys,’ he added, raising his voice, ‘as I’m sure you’re all aware, do not mess around. The Israelis have years – decades – of experience in counter terrorism. All that knowledge is funnelled into Mossad. They’ve demonstrated time and again that rules don’t come into it when they want someone.’

  Iona pictured her father, a lecturer in Persian Studies. She knew from reading his pieces how much he abhorred Israel’s long tradition of sending agents into other countries to execute opposition figures. Car bombs, letter bombs, shootings, poisonings. She recalled how a honey trap sprung in Britain led to the abduction of the person who’d blown the whistle on the country’s illegal nuclear programme. He’d then been shipped back to Israel, charged with treason and locked away.

  ‘Now,’ Roebuck continued. ‘The powers-that-be have agreed to keep the Israelis abreast of developments as they happen. But let’s not fool ourselves, Mossad will not happily sit back and wait for us to provide them with answers on this.’

  A heavy-set man hunched forward, the material of his shirt taut across his shoulders. His eyes were on Roebuck. ‘They’ll be conducting a parallel investigation to ours?’

  ‘Put it this way: they’ll have their own leads and their own sources, I’m certain. And I’m not convinced they’ll be keeping us as closely informed as we are them.’

  The man grunted dismissively. ‘So why are we showing them our cards? Bollocks to that.’

  Roebuck sat back. ‘We’ll show them what we want them to see. It’s called diplomacy, Lewis. I know you rugby league players don’t have much time for it.’ He grinned.

  Lewis lifted the corners of his mouth in return. ‘You don’t win matches by being nice to the opposition.’

  A few people started to chuckle as the door opened. Stuart Edwards, the office manager, poked his head through the door. ‘Boss, got an urgent one. Relating to the stolen laptops.’

  Roebuck’s chin came up. ‘Fire away.’