02-A Price to Pay

by Chris Simms

  Iona dropped her eyes to the meeting room table. When members of the senior team started falling out in front of everyone, things were going really badly.

  ‘Time’s ticking with Mossad, too. They’re pushing for a meeting first thing Monday morning. I’ll be there via a video link, so what have we got? Andy?’

  DCI Sullivan looked up. ‘Crime site analysis indicates there’s nothing more to recover from the premises of PCs To Go. As it happens, among the debris are several parts that appear to be from a Dell laptop. Whether we’ll ever be able to ascertain if it’s the fourth one from CityPads I cannot say at this stage.’

  ‘What about Nirpal Haziq?’ O’Dowd demanded moodily.

  ‘We’re outside his home address,’ Sullivan answered. ‘Officers are calling on his friends and family, but nothing so far.’

  ‘Has he links to anything dodgy? Has he come to our attention before?’

  ‘No – on both counts. We found his passport during the search of his flat. Unless he has another, he won’t go far.’

  O’Dowd pursed his lips, obviously sceptical. ‘We need him. Increase pressure on the family – search their homes and make a mess of them – see if that encourages them to cooperate. OK, the computer Philip Young brought in. Alan, tell me you found something?’

  The IT guy pulled at the collar of his T-shirt. ‘Kind of. When I did an audit of the hard drive’s memory, something interesting appeared.’ He glanced quickly about. ‘Without bogging you down in detail, the memory of a hard drive is made up of partitions – back-up partitions, recovery partitions and so on. The standard for personal computers is a type of partition called NTFS – that’s what Windows is designed to read. When I compared the memory available on Philip’s hard drive with what the manufacturer specified should be there, I found a discrepancy of two gigabytes. Not a huge anomaly, but worth looking at more closely. So I checked disc management and there I discovered a two-gigabyte partition of RAW memory. This can’t be opened with Windows.’

  ‘You mean one that survived the formatting?’ Martin asked, forearms casually draped across the armrests of his chair.

  ‘I believe so. But it’s under a very good lock; one I can’t open for the moment at least.’

  Martin frowned. ‘Can’t you just look at what type of file it is and get the appropriate programme?’

  The IT guy gave a regretful shake of his head. ‘Double clicking on it only gives you the option of reformatting it – and that would wipe it clean.’

  O’Dowd started tapping his fingers. ‘What are your next steps, then?’

  ‘I’ve removed the hard drive and plugged it into a dock. Next is to figure out what to plug the dock into.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s designed to work with something, just not a personal computer.’

  ‘You mean an Apple or something like that?’ Martin asked.

  ‘Something with a USB port; we’ve tried a range of phones and tablets but it’s not having it. We’ve yet to try any digital cameras …’

  ‘But that could take days,’ someone muttered.

  O’Dowd placed his palms on the table. ‘Keep going at it. There’s been no joy from Pakistan yet, either. The embassy rang half an hour ago to say that Khaldoon and his sister haven’t shown up on any internal flights or trains heading into the north of the country. Of course, they may have been collected by car or taken by bus. Who knows.’

  O’Dowd turned his attention to Roebuck. ‘The two missing girls?’

  Roebuck looked along the table. ‘Dean?’

  A tired-looking sergeant puffed his cheeks out. ‘OK, every care home in the Greater Manchester Area who’s had girls abscond in the past eight weeks was contacted by phone. We asked them to send us documentation that would allow the girl to be identified. However, many of the photos were of extremely poor quality – or were several years old.

  ‘Of those photos, five are reasonable fits for Rihanna, three reasonable fits for Shandy. What we’re doing now is arranging visits to those care homes with a copy of the profiles recovered from the laptops. That way, we should get a definite yes or no from a staff member.’

  ‘Why has this not been done already?’ O’Dowd growled.

  ‘Reports have only just started coming in – and are still coming in, actually. Only just now, a photo came in that could be Shandy.’

  ‘Who’s working with him on this?’ O’Dowd cut in, his face turned to Roebuck. ‘It needs more resources.’

  Roebuck looked at Iona and Martin. ‘Where are you two at with the names recovered from Eamon Heslin’s premises?’

  Martin replied, ‘We saw one company earlier on. But the owner hadn’t been offered a laptop. Heslin called in on her before he showed up at the student union trying to flog them. That leaves an accountancy firm, which we were going to visit immediately after this.’

  ‘OK, get that crossed off. Then you’re helping out Dean with tracing these girls. Both clear with that?’

  ‘Yes sir.’ Iona’s reply had been in perfect unison with that of Martin. It appeared she now had a partner for the investigation.

  O’Dowd had started to consult his file when a series of beeps came from his phone. He tilted the screen then grabbed it properly. ‘O’Dowd here. Yes. Yes, OK.’ A spark of excitement was now in his voice. There followed a lengthy silence during which he gave the occasional eager nod. ‘OK, I understand.’

  He hung up, a gleam in his eye. Iona sat up, sensing every officer in the room doing the same.

  ‘Has anyone heard of the Forced Marriage Unit?’ he asked. ‘It’s a government organization, something to do with the Foreign and Commonwealth office. If a British national is being forced into a marriage against their will, these guys can intervene.’

  He started gathering his file together. ‘They just received a phone call from a friend of Sravanti Khan. Sravanti texted her to say she’s being held by her brother in a hotel in Islamabad. He has her passport and he’s told her she is going to Waziristan for an arranged marriage. The friend is begging the unit to go and get her.’

  The four men stepped out from a rear door of the Israeli embassy in Kensington. All were under thirty years old. They were dressed in casual clothes, one with a baseball cap with the word Redskins across the front. They moved fluidly and with purpose – like athletes on the way to a training session. All had been chosen because they looked European. Three had travelled into the country using Italian passports; the one with the baseball cap had used a French passport.

  At the security gate set into the high fence that enclosed the gardens behind the large residence, they were allowed through without a word being spoken or anything being written down.

  A Ford Galaxy was waiting for them on Queen’s Gate Terrace, several streets away. Three got in the rear of the vehicle. The one with the baseball cap slid into the front passenger seat. ‘OK.’

  The driver started the car and pulled out. He made his way to the A315 which would lead them through Notting Hill and eventually the A40 and then M40.

  ‘Where are they?’ the man with the baseball cap eventually asked.

  ‘Parked at a service station on the M40. Keys are in the compartment in front of you.’

  The man removed two sets, swiftly selecting the bunch that had a small key. ‘Weapons box in the boot?’

  ‘No – beneath the floor of the passenger seat’s footwell. The carpet lifts off. Everything you need is in there.’

  ‘Comms?’

  ‘The works. All mobile phones have been pre-programmed with the numbers you need. There’s also a TETRA scanner.’

  ‘That works on the encryption used by the police up in Manchester?’

  ‘Yes. The entire British police use the same system; it’s fine.’ He glanced at his passenger. ‘So, a real rush, then.’

  The man in the baseball cap nodded. ‘If whoever’s behind this is taken into British custody, it’ll be months before we get an answer. If at all.’ By tilting his head, he could see his three colleagues in the rear-view mi
rror. One was already asleep; the other two were staring silently out the window, eyes scanning the lit London streets. Early evening on a Saturday. The pavements were busy with people out to enjoy everything the city had to offer. Twenty-one hours earlier, his team had been at a military base on Israeli-occupied land near the disputed border with Syria. The El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam had been busy; a kid a few rows down had screamed for most of it. From there, the ferry and drive had taken another ten or so hours. He yawned. ‘How long until these services?’

  The driver glanced at the dashboard clock. ‘Less than an hour.’

  ‘And from there, how long will it take us to get to Manchester?’

  ‘If the traffic is good, under four hours. But the M6 is normally slow.’

  The man pushed the baseball cap over his eyes and settled back in his seat.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Liam let himself into the kitchen of Nina’s house. She was perched on a bar stool, cigarette in hand. As he’d opened the door her head had jerked stiffly round. He remembered a lurching ferry trip to the Isle of Man, the look on passengers’ faces when they knew they would soon be throwing up.

  ‘Have you got it?’

  ‘No.’ He placed the partly open laptop on the table. ‘But we’re a step closer.’

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ Her voice was shrill. Desperate. ‘How can we be a step closer?’

  ‘Just listen, right? Let me explain. I went into his house. He was on the sofa with the telly on. It was dark. So I dealt with him and grabbed the laptop next to him. It’s not a Dell, but this window opens up on its screen – a video link thing to an old woman talking.’

  ‘Skype?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably. This old woman was there, thinking I’m her son.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She was there, on the screen. I thought she could see me at first.’

  ‘His mum? He gave the Dell to his mum?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Nina took a long drag of her cigarette. She lifted her chin, and as she blew smoke up at the halogen light above her, Liam gazed at the smooth skin of her throat. A tracery of faint veins showed just beneath the porcelain surface. He wanted to kiss her there, pinch the skin gently with his teeth. Maybe trap blood there, leave his mark.

  ‘What did this woman say?’

  ‘Asked me to put the light on because she can’t make anything out. Then someone the son works with turns up at the front door. He’s calling for him, banging on the door, so I grabbed the laptop and got out the back. Only just made it.’

  Nina studied him. ‘Were you seen?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so – he was coming round the side of the house, but I was on the street by then. I made sure the laptop didn’t shut. It logs you out if it does, yeah?’

  Nina nodded.

  ‘So, she carried on for a bit – the mum – moaning about it not working properly. Eventually she gave up. I pressed a button now and again to stop it from shutting down.’

  ‘You did well.’ She ran a hand along his arm and the breath caught in his throat. ‘I wonder …’ She crushed her cigarette out. ‘Put the lights on low.’

  Liam crossed to the doorway and turned several rows of lights off. Nina opened the laptop and clicked on the Skype icon. All his contacts were in the panel on the left of the screen. Near the bottom was Mum.

  ‘I reckon she lives nearby. If someone wasn’t trying to get in, I could have found you an address.’

  Nina wasn’t sure if clicking on the woman’s icon would immediately open a connection. ‘Maybe. Let’s check the email.’ Nina opened up Thunderbird and clicked on the contacts tab. She then scrolled down to the letter M. ‘Here – a phone number for Mum. No address.’

  Liam looked over her shoulder. Her ear was inches from his lips. It was hard to speak. ‘That’s the area code for Poynton. I was sha— I was seeing a girl from there, once. It’s not far from here.’

  Nina moved away from him. He looked wrathfully at the expanse of floor now separating them. It felt so good when they were close.

  She lit another cigarette and turned round. ‘OK, he gives her the computer. They Skype each other; she’s unable to work out what’s going wrong with the picture. She’s new to it; he sets it all up for her. He must have. Now she’s confused.’ Drawing on her cigarette, she regarded the laptop through narrowed eyes. Then she reached for her mobile and keyed in the number on the laptop’s screen. ‘Is that Mrs Williams?’

  Nina’s voice was friendly, but businesslike. Liam also noticed she was speaking with a slight accent.

  ‘Mrs Williams, I work for Dell computers. Their technical support department? How are you today? That’s right, Dell. Ah, did he? That was very kind of him. He also registered that laptop with us. This is a courtesy call to let you know there are some connectivity issues at the moment.’ She listened for a moment. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. OK, it might be a problem with the service in your area. Where do you live, Mrs Williams? Poynton, in Cheshire. I’m just checking now. And what’s your actual address there? OK, thank you. Mrs Williams, the good news is a technician is now en route.’

  She looked at Liam and raised her eyebrows. ‘Are you planning on leaving your flat, Mrs Williams? Because I might need to call you back. You’re not. That’s good. Don’t worry. He’ll be able to reset your computer settings, if needs be. How long? He should be with you in under thirty minutes.’

  As Liam’s car turned out of the drive, her mobile went off. Him. She felt the usual flutter in her lower stomach. ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s all over.’

  She looked at her startled reflection in the glass. ‘What is?’

  ‘There are new factors to account for.’

  ‘New factors?’ She climbed backwards on to a bar stool and pressed her knees tightly together. ‘What are they?’

  ‘It’s not just police any more. I have heard security forces are involved.’

  The girl who blew up, Nina thought. That’s what he’s talking about. ‘Which ones?’

  ‘The flights are now tomorrow. Madison Fisher: she is on a flight to Istanbul at seven fifteen in the morning. TK1994.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning? That’s in less than twelve hours.’

  ‘Yes. The flight goes on to Beirut, but she’ll be met in Istanbul. That is taken care of.’

  Nina looked round for her cigarettes as he spoke again.

  ‘The jet will be at Woodford Aerodrome at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You, Chloe and the policewoman. Normal arrangements, you drive airside and people will meet you from the plane. Leave nothing behind – no tracks, nothing.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Iona stepped out of the meeting room trying to focus on the latest task thrown her way. But her mind kept returning to the Forced Marriage Unit, sparking long-harboured questions about her own father, Wasim. He’d been brought up in a well-off, well-respected family in Islamabad. He’d excelled academically. Outside his studies, he was a gifted sportsman and had played for the Pakistan hockey team for nine years, winning gold with them at the 1982 hockey World Cup and at the 1984 Olympics.

  Life at the very top of the country awaited. Then, in his late twenties, he’d abandoned everything and come to Britain.

  It was only as she got older that Iona began to appreciate what a dramatic event such a move had been: yet the reasons for it had never been explained. She’d just assumed he had no contact with his family back home because of the geographical distance involved. As an explanation, it worked OK while she was young. Only by cornering her mother on a few occasions had Iona been able to form a hazy picture of what had happened. No wonder all contact with his family had been severed.

  ‘Sound fair to you?’

  She turned to Martin, vaguely aware he’d been talking into her ear for the entire length of the corridor. ‘Say all that again, can you?’

  His eyebrows lifted in exasperation. ‘The care home Dean wants us to check out? In Heaton Cha
pel?’

  There was a condescending note in his voice that immediately rankled her. ‘Yes, what about it?’

  ‘Give me two minutes. Just need to check in with my boss. Tell him what’s what.’ Martin headed for DCI Palmer’s private office.

  Iona made her way across the main incident room and sat down at her desk. The civilian support workers from the day shift were gone. No one seemed to be keeping an eye on the log to see what was happening round the city.

  She plonked herself down at her desk and logged on. What, she asked herself, am I even looking for? Aside from suspicious deaths, a flag had been put on any type of incident involving violence, muggings or thefts. Anything involving a student also automatically triggered a heads-up for the entire CTU.

  She scrolled past the usual medley of lost mobile phones, road traffic accidents and domestic disputes. A report was just coming in from outside a house in Brinnington, south of the city centre. The owner of the property – due on duty at the Aquatics Centre on Oxford Road – hadn’t responded to the front door being rung. The colleague had glanced into the kitchen and spotted signs of the place having been burgled. At that point he’d become uneasy and called the police.

  Iona went back to the workplace of the house owner. The Aquatics Centre. A two-minute walk from the student union and practically next door to Eamon Heslin’s shop. It was worth a try. She lifted the phone and, within seconds, had been patched through to the two uniformed constables who were just arriving at the scene. ‘DC Iona Khan, who is this, please?’

  The voice of the constable came back down the line. ‘Constable Gray. Michael.’

  He sounds younger than me, Iona thought. And very nervous. ‘Michael, what do you see? Describe it to me.’

  ‘Well, I’ve gone round the back, by the open door into the kitchen. The television is on – I can hear it – as are the kitchen lights. I can see car keys on the side and a mobile phone on the windowsill. There’s a jacket draped over a chair. You’d have thought he’s in.’

  ‘You’ve tried shouting his name?’