‘You startled me,’ she said, feeling flustered at first, then fearful as she realised who it was.
‘Did I now?’ said Lester Jackson mildly. ‘Maybe you were expecting the police instead of me.’
‘Why would I be expecting them?’ Katya managed to say.
Jackson shrugged. ‘There has to be someone in the force you’re friends with. Seeing as you were the first one sprung last night. Why don’t you sit down and tell me who your friend is?’
He gestured at the chair next to him, and Katya stiffened. ‘I would, Mr Jackson, but I have to go out now …’
Jackson was smiling as he shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Sit down, Katya,’ and there was something so steely in his voice that reluctantly she did.
‘Now,’ Jackson continued, his voice mild again. ‘Was it DCI Lansley or DCI Robertson? Or is it your friend from Special Branch – maybe Detective Halliday?’
When the French girl Michele came back from work later that day she was surprised to find the front door of the house unlocked. She went in and called out for Katya, who was usually at home at this time, getting dressed for work at the club. Michele didn’t care what Katya said; Slim’s sounded fun, and a thousand times more exciting than her own job, typing the correspondence of a fat and unsuccessful property developer. She was going to tackle Katya again about it; Michele knew she was attractive enough to work at Slim’s – it was only the older woman who was standing in her way.
‘Katya,’ she called out, but there was no reply. Funny that, thought Michele, as she walked towards the kitchen at the back of the house. She couldn’t remember the last time Katya wasn’t at home when she came back from work.
And sure enough, Katya was at home – and in the kitchen too. It was when Michele found her that the screaming started.
Chapter 26
Dinner alone. God knows, Martin was used to it, but it seemed strange to have seen Liz only so briefly in Paris, considering how close they had become. He knew that she found it awkward to be working so closely with him, and particularly to be the cause of delaying what she knew Martin had been working for years to achieve, the trial and conviction of Antoine Milraud. He saw that she had been relieved to go straight back to London the other evening after seeing Milraud, and though he understood the reason why, it made him sad.
He hoped the slight chill in their relationship was only temporary. Even in the fog that seemed to distort everything connected with Milraud, he knew that Liz promised a happy life ahead and Milraud only represented the past.
He was annoyed when the phone rang on the table in his study and broke into his reverie. It turned out to be his young colleague from the safe house in Montreuil, Jacques Thibault.
‘Yes? What is it?’ he asked sharply.
‘He’s had an email.’
Seurat was alert now. ‘What did it say?’
‘It’s calling him to another meeting – in London. It’s encoded in the form he described when your British colleague was here. He says it’s from the Arab.’
So Liz was right, and the UK connection was proving key. ‘When’s the meeting and where?’
‘Two days from now. We’re working out exactly where but I wanted to tell you straightaway. The instructions are in the form of coordinates disguised as sports scores. As soon as we’ve unzipped it, I’ll let you know.’
‘Do you know the time?’
‘Four o’clock in the afternoon.’
Dusk at this time of year, which would make surveillance of the meeting more difficult. ‘I’ll let London know. Contact me as soon as you’ve worked out all the details.’
‘OK. I’ll get back to you shortly.’
Young Thibault was a computer genius, a real geek, thought Martin. Let’s hope he can get more out of that message than the time and place of the meeting.
Chapter 27
When the all-clear came through from the A4 team looking for counter-surveillance, Milraud was let out of the car. He walked along Regent’s Park Road, and turned left through the open gate of Primrose Hill Park. Eight pairs of eyes watched him go.
The light was fading now after a bright late-autumn day. It was 3.45 in the afternoon and it would be practically dark by 4.30 at this time of the year. Maureen Hayes, sitting in an apparently closed up and deserted park-keepers’ shed, was observing Milraud’s progress across the park. His light-coloured raincoat made him easy to spot as he sat down on a bench at the top of the hill. She didn’t envy him sitting out there on this chilly evening.
His was the only bench occupied; the wind was getting up and everyone else in the park seemed to be hurrying home. A woman in a fake fur coat was dawdling along, holding a little plastic bag in one hand and apparently urging the terrier she had on an extending lead to do his business so they could leave. Three small boys in school uniform went out of the gate chattering, one holding a football under his arm. A faint aroma of burning leaves seeped through the wooden slats of Maureen’s hut.
For a second the setting sun caught a window of one of the tall glass buildings somewhere in the City to the south, and a flash of brilliance lit up Milraud’s figure, sitting alone at the top of the hill, and momentarily blinded Maureen as she peered at him through her binoculars.
When she could see again, she noticed several people were walking into the park through the same gate Milraud had used. Perhaps an underground train had just come in or maybe they’d got off a bus. Then, as she watched, a young man separated from the others and turned up the path that led to the seat where Milraud still waited.
Could this be Zara, as Milraud’s Arab contact was now codenamed? She had been told to expect a tall, thin young Arab, dressed scruffily like a student. But this young man was wearing a dark business suit and carrying a briefcase and a rolled-up copy of the Evening Standard. He was tall and thin all right, and dark-skinned, but he looked more like a City worker returning to his flat in this expensive part of London than a student or a jihadi.
The man was passing Milraud without a glance, when he suddenly stopped, and seemed to be admiring the view. To Maureen’s practised eye he was looking for signs of surveillance. Then he stepped behind Milraud’s bench and seemed to be rubbing his hands up and down the Frenchman’s back. Maureen stared at them through her binoculars, thinking that in other circumstances this would look like some kind of gay encounter.
The newcomer slowly circled around the bench and sat down at the far end from Milraud. There was a pause and the two men seemed to be talking. Then Milraud got up and took off his raincoat, folding it and laying it on the bench. Again the smart young man appeared to be stroking Milraud’s body, his chest this time. Whatever was going on? After a short time, Milraud got up, put his raincoat on again and the two men conversed, apparently calmly. After a further ten minutes, the young man stood up and walked away down the hill, in the opposite direction from which he had come, and Milraud retraced his steps to the waiting car.
As Zara headed for the far gate, Maureen alerted the Ops Room, and as he left the park six of Maureen’s colleagues were on his tail.
Chapter 28
Liz had had a bit of a struggle persuading the Home Office that she had enough on Lester Jackson to justify a warrant to intercept his communications. On the face of it, a small-time Manchester club owner with no criminal record, let alone any proved involvement in terrorist-related activity, did not present any threat to national security. She had argued strongly that his covert contact with Milraud, a man well known to the French as an arms supplier, in an apparent plot to supply weapons to a group of jihadis, justified the warrant. Eventually she had won the day, but the warrant was to be reviewed after two weeks and if by then no information indicating a national security threat had emerged, it would be cancelled. She had come away from the meeting in Whitehall feeling disgruntled. Two weeks was a very short time in which to prove anything.
She was reading the first transcripts when her phone buzzed – an internal call. She picked it up,
impatient at the interruption.
‘Liz, you’d better come down.’ It was Wally Woods in the A4 Operations room.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Your Zara operation. The meeting took place and we’ve got the Frenchman back safely in our custody. That’s all OK, but we’re following Zara and I need to know how you want us to handle it.’
‘Give me five minutes?’
‘Make it three.’
She rang off and looked at the transcripts again. At 16:45 the day before, Jackson had taken a call on his mobile. The caller had been located two thousand miles away, though they still hadn’t tracked the signal down specifically. The conversation had been in English, with the caller speaking fluently but with what sounded like a Russian accent. The transcript read:
Caller: It’s Tag here.
Jackson: What’s the state of play?
Caller: It’s ready to go.
Jackson: There may be some more to come. But for now, have you got everything?
Caller: Yeah, all of it.
Jackson: Twenty pieces?
Caller: (Impatiently) Yes, yes. They all look good to me, though I’m no expert.
Jackson: Can you confirm the route?
Caller: Same as last time.
Jackson: Why not a different port?
Caller: That’s up to me, my friend. Once I deliver, the shipment’s all yours. Until then it’s my worry.
Jackson: Have you got a date?
Caller: Not yet, but it won’t be long now. We have some snow so it is hard to be more specific than that.
Jackson: I need 12 hours’ warning.
Caller: I can do better than that – I’ll give you 24.
Jackson: OK, I’ll hold you to that.
Liz shook her head, trying to make sense of it, then got up and walked to the lifts in the centre of Thames House. As she went, she thought about the transcript. Given Jackson’s background, it would be fair to assume the conversation was about human trafficking – the goods being East European women shipped over on a lorry for service in places like Slim’s.
But something was wrong with that – Liz simply didn’t believe twenty would be coming in one shipment, one lorry perhaps. Not to work at Slim’s at any rate, where Halliday had explained only half a dozen women were on the game upstairs in the club. And even if Jackson was involved in trafficking women for other places, twenty pieces seemed an improbably large number at one time and an odd term (‘pieces’) to use, even if the caller was not speaking in his native language and was trying to be discreet. And wasn’t it rather strange to say he was no expert, if he was talking about women?
So what on earth was Jackson importing? If it was guns, why only twenty, if they were then going to be re-sent to … God knows where? Was this what Milraud had been talking to him about?
She pondered all this as she walked along to the A4 Ops Room. Inside Wally Woods and two colleagues sat, headphones on, in front of a row of TV monitors. Wally was talking into the microphone on the desk and waved her to the battered old leather sofa just inside the door that was kept specially for visiting case officers. The Ops Room was Wally’s domain and no one was welcome when an operation was going on except by invitation.
‘Which side of Pentonville Road?’ he asked the microphone.
Over the speaker a voice Liz recognised as Daley, a veteran surveillance officer, replied, ‘South side and walking fast.’
‘I have him,’ said another voice, more muffled.
Wally kept his eye on the screen but spoke to Liz. ‘This Zara’s led us a pretty dance. He walked all the way to Great Portland Street station and went into the Tube. We had to rush in there, but then the bugger came out again and caught a bus.’
‘Do you think he saw you?’
Wally shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. You told us to take extra care and we have. I just think he’s been trained, and he’s being extra careful too.’
‘Where did he get off?’
‘In Euston Road, by the British Library. He hung about for a bit – I think he wanted to see who else got off the bus. None of us was on it – I’ve got three cars on this so he was easy enough to follow. It must be the only time in my life I’ve been grateful for the traffic on the Euston Road.’
As they spoke, video pictures appeared on one of the TV screens of Zara walking up the Pentonville Road, just past King’s Cross. It was a hazy picture, taken through the window of one of the surveillance cars, but Liz could clearly see the tall, dark-suited figure striding along the pavement. She watched as it turned and moved towards the entrance of a large building set back from the road. A group of young people were talking by the front door.
Maureen Hayes’s voice came through the speaker. ‘Zara entering a building. It looks like some sort of college. Groups of young people outside.’
Wally replied, ‘Send Tia up to check it out.’
And as Liz watched, a young woman in a hooded jacket and headscarf walked to the front of the building. She threaded her way through the groups of chattering young people, went up the steps and inside.
She was gone about five minutes, and when she came out she said, ‘It’s called Dinwiddy House.’
Wally turned to Liz, who shrugged. Tia was saying, ‘It’s a hostel for students at London University. Most of them are at SOAS – School of African and Oriental Studies.’
It made sense. Zara was young, Middle Eastern, like any number of SOAS students.
‘Any sign of Zara?’ asked Wally.
‘No. There’s a common room and bar on the ground floor but I couldn’t see him in there, though it was pretty crowded and I might have missed him. But I think he went upstairs. That’s where their rooms are.’
Wally turned his swivel chair to face Liz. ‘You want us to ask around a bit? Try and find out if he lives there?’
Liz shook her head. ‘Too risky, especially if he comes downstairs again when you’re asking questions. But I’d like an eye kept overnight, just in case he’s only visiting. Maybe he’s got a girlfriend there. Can you do that?’
Wally nodded. ‘It’ll be another team but I’ll make sure they’re well briefed. What do you want us to do if he leaves? Follow him?’
Liz nodded. ‘Yes, please. And keep Peggy posted. I’ve got to go out now to debrief Milraud.’ She stood up. ‘Thanks, Wally. That’s a great help. Now I’ve got some chance of finding out who this Zara is.’
Two hours later, after Peggy had made a series of urgent phone calls resulting in a senior university administrator being rooted out of his home to consult the file in his office, Liz knew. Zara did indeed live in the hostel known as Dinwiddy House, and was studying for a Masters degree in International Relations at SOAS. He was a Yemeni called Samara and was in the UK on a temporary students’ visa. The address given on his visa application and supplied to the college was in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. He hadn’t drawn himself to the attention of the college authorities in any way and a search of the records in MI5 and MI6 came up ‘No Trace’. But then, thought Liz ruefully, if this guy was any good, that’s what you’d expect.
Chapter 29
The Royal Standard Hotel was in an undistinguished street between Victoria Station and Buckingham Palace. Though it billed itself as ‘situated in the shadow of Buckingham Palace’, it was in fact much nearer to Victoria Station. An anonymous sort of place, part of a small chain, it provided everything a mid-level businessman or official visiting London might require: wi-fi, cable TV with ‘adult’ films, in-room tea and coffee, minibar and even an ironing board and iron. All of its 361 rooms were furnished identically, and carpeted and upholstered in variations on the colour theme of beige and maroon.
All in all it was the sort of place where people could come and go without anyone taking much notice. Which is why, a few years ago, Liz Carlyle’s colleagues had identified it as perfect for the sort of rendezvous they occasionally needed to conduct. The manager had been recruited as what was called a ‘facilities agent’
, to provide a room or rooms as required, without asking any questions about who might occupy them or what might go on in them. In return he received a present at Christmas and the satisfaction of knowing that he was helping Her Majesty’s Government.
On this occasion, two pairs of interconnecting rooms had been booked on different floors. In one of the pair on the eighth floor, Liz Carlyle was sitting, waiting for Dicky Soames, the burly A4 officer and member of the team ‘minding’ Milraud while he was in London, to produce his charge, so she could find out what had happened at the meeting on Primrose Hill.
There was a light tap on the door and a deep cockney voice said, ‘Here we are. OK to come in?’ Milraud entered followed closely by Soames, who closed the door firmly behind him and put the lock on.
‘I’ll be next door, if you want anything,’ said Soames, and he went into the other room leaving the intercommunicating door slightly ajar.
Liz motioned the Frenchman to one of the two chairs. She thought how tired and strained he looked. Much more so than when she’d first met him in the safe house in Montreuil.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked. ‘There’s tea or coffee, or a drink from the minibar if you’d prefer.’
Milraud shook his head. ‘Non, merci,’ he said shortly. He had kept on his mackintosh, and he looked chilled, even though it was warm in the room.
Liz switched the kettle on, and as she waited for it to boil, she pointed out of the window at the coloured lights strung across the street. ‘Christmas starts earlier every year,’ she said cheerfully. Milraud glanced out and nodded, but he seemed a million miles away. Liz took her time making coffee for herself and chatting inconsequentially, hoping to relax the man a little.
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