Bombproof (24 page)

‘I’ll be in touch, Mr Murphy.’

He hangs up. His hands are shaking.

He hears an entry card being skimmed. The door opens. Sami slides the semi-automatic under the pillow and pretends to be asleep. Kate Tierney tiptoes around the bed and wakes him with a kiss.

She notices the gun peeking out from under the pillow.

‘Can I hold it? Please. I’ve never held a gun.’

‘It isn’t a toy.’

‘I know.’

Sami lets her.

‘Where is the safety catch?’

‘There.’

She flicks the switch; points the gun at his head. ‘I could call the police right now and have you arrested. I’d sell my story to the
News of the World
for fifty grand: “My night with the Tube bomber”.’

‘I didn’t bomb the Tube.’

‘They’re not going to care. I’ll say you had your evil way with me at gunpoint, six times.’

‘Nobody’s going to believe that.’

‘Four times then.’

Sami reaches out to retrieve the gun. Kate knocks his hand away.

‘You think I’m joking? I’m serious.’

For a fleeting moment the mad light in her eyes almost convinces him. Then she laughs and points the barrel of the Beretta at the knot on his bathrobe.

‘I’ll drop mine if you drop yours. I’m horny.’

47

Monday morning. Ruiz walks along a metal landing with prison cells along one side and a two-storey drop on the other. Every thirty yards a warder unlocks a heavy metal gate. Ruiz steps through, continues walking. Hand mirrors extend from hatches as he passes; disembodied eyes, watching him.

He climbs another set of metal stairs. Nets are strung between the railings to discourage heavy objects such as bodies being thrown from above.

This is the isolation wing where the sex offenders, ponces, prison snitches and the incorrigibly violent are separated from the general prison population.

The interview room has bare walls, three folding chairs and a scarred wooden table bolted to the floor. One of the chairs is already taken. Derek Raynor looks like an Irish navvy with a crop of ginger hair and a long beard reaching down his chest. His top lip is shaved. which makes the beard look like a ginger hammock slung between his ears.

‘I’d like to be alone with him,’ says Ruiz. ‘You can take off the cuffs.’

The older guard shrugs and unshackles the prisoner.

Raynor has made violence his vocation. Banged up at sixteen on a burglary conviction, he was sent to juvenile detention where he attacked a youth-worker, crushing his thorax and cracking open his skull. It was the first of three murders committed in prison. Now he’s never getting out.

‘Hello, Derek.’

‘My name is Abdul Mohammad.’

‘Is that right? How is Allah these days? He’s getting a higher profile.’

‘Are you mocking the Prophet, Mr Ruiz?’

‘Me? No. I’ve seen what happens to people who mock the Prophet. Writers. Cartoonists. Women. Allah isn’t famous for his sense of humour.’

Ruiz pulls up a chair opposite, rests his elbows on the table. He fixes Raynor with an ambivalent stare.

‘Tell me something, Derek. Does Allah think a murdering scumbag like you turning religious is taking the piss?’

Raynor doesn’t respond immediately. Behind the reinforced glass, Ruiz can see the screws at a table. One of them is doing a crossword, while the other is drinking coffee.

‘I wasn’t a violent man when I entered prison,’ says Raynor, his eyes flat and dry. ‘The system took a troubled teenage boy and turned him into a monster. Allah has forgiven me and he’s taught me to forgive.’

‘Who have you forgiven?’

‘All those who have wronged me.’

‘The youth worker you killed had a widow. I’ll be sure to tell her that you’ve forgiven her husband.’

Raynor stares hard at Ruiz. Small dark flecks are floating in his irises like dead flies caught in amber.

Ruiz changes the subject. ‘Ever had anything to do with a con called Sami Macbeth?’

Raynor shakes his head.

‘You don’t remember him coming to any prayer meetings or asking about joining the Brotherhood?’

‘The truth grows in men’s souls. I can’t see inside all of them.’

‘Is that so? Tell me, Derek, how far would you go for the faith? Would you blow up a train?’

Raynor smiles benignly. ‘I’d tear down the world so God could rebuild it again in six days.’

‘I thought that was the Bible.’

‘Read the Koran sometime.’

Ruiz leans across the table, keeping his palms flat on the scarred wood. ‘I don’t have a problem with you finding God, Derek, and I don’t even have an issue with you playing the downtrodden religious martyr, I just want to know if Macbeth mixed with the brothers while he was inside.’

‘Not that I can remember. What’s he done?’

‘The police say he’s an Islamic terrorist.’

Raynor smiles to himself. ‘Like I said, I can’t look into a man’s soul.’

The assistant governor turns sideways on a swivel chair, blinking at Ruiz from behind rimless glasses that seem to make his eyes float an inch from his face.

On the windowsill behind him there are dozens of small origami birds, flowers and animals, a white menagerie seemingly frozen in a blizzard.

Ruiz takes a seat. The assistant governor is folding a piece of paper into some sort of antelope, hardly bothering to look at his fingers.

‘You released a parolee on Thursday. Sami Macbeth. Name mean anything?’

‘Not since yesterday when I turned on the box.’

‘They say he’s a terrorist.’

‘Human beings do bad things sometimes.’

‘You normally keep track on the Islamists?’

‘Where possible.’

‘Did Macbeth ever attend a meeting or ask for a copy of the Koran or a prayer mat?’

‘Nope.’

‘Didn’t mingle with the Brotherhood?’

‘Kept pretty much to himself.’

‘He ever kick off about anything?’

‘Nope.’

‘He get hassled by any of the prison sisters?’

‘Didn’t complain.’

So we got a fresh fish, mid-twenties, good-looking and nobody touches him in nearly three years. All of which means he either had a benefactor or a reputation that kept him safe.

‘What did you hear about the Hampstead jewellery job?’

‘I heard Macbeth did it.’

‘He only got done for possession.’

‘Everyone knew he did it.’

‘Why?’

‘He played up to it.’

That’s not an argument, thinks Ruiz, as he pops a boiled sweet into his mouth. He offers one to the assistant governor, who shakes his head and pats his waistline.

The lolly rattles against Ruiz’s teeth. ‘Did Macbeth have any regular visitors?’

‘His sister.’

‘Anybody else?’

The assistant governor swings in his chair; opens a filing cabinet; licks his thumb; pulls out a file. The cover sheet is a history. The second sheet is a log.

‘Nobody visited him more than twice.’

‘What about letters?’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘We’re on dangerous ground here, Mr Ruiz. Normally I’d want to see a warrant.’

‘Or we could save time and I could look over your shoulder. ’

The assistant governor blinks his magnified eyes and rolls back on his chair.

‘Have you seen the view from this side of the desk?’

48

The morning papers are tucked under Sami’s door. His face is on every front page.

TUBE BOMBER SLAIN, declares the
Sun
while
The Times
gives him the benefit of the doubt and calls him a ‘Terror Suspect’.

Being reported dead is an odd feeling. It’s like imagining your own funeral and trying to picture those who might turn up. Sami’s friends and old workmates have been contacted by reporters. Nothing positive emerges from the quotes, most of which seem to suggest that Sami’s fall from grace was always on the cards.

Kate zips up her skirt. ‘You can’t stay. They’re going to be cleaning the rooms.’

Sami knows she’s right, but the streets will be crawling with police and they’re all looking for him.

‘You need a disguise,’ says Kate.

‘Like what?’

‘Leave it to me.’

She disappears for ten minutes and comes back with a set of scissors and a bottle of hair dye. Sami sits on a chair in the bathroom while Kate trims his hair, giving him a fringe. Then he leans over the sink and she applies the hair dye.

Kate talks a lot when she’s nervous. It’s a constant, stream of thought monologue about her job and her family and how she wants to tell her friends about Sami, but she can’t because nobody can know and they probably wouldn’t believe her anyway.

This whole fugitive business seems to excite her as though she imagines herself to be Bonnie to Sami’s Clyde or she’s Patricia Arquette and he’s Christian Slater in
True Romance
.

‘What do you think?’

Sami looks in the mirror. ‘I look like the sixth Beatle.’

‘I think black hair suits you. Now you need some new clothes.’

She takes him to a storeroom on the floor below. His hair is damp and leaving dark stains on the towel around his neck.

She unlocks the door. There are clothes racks, boxes and suitcases. Kate pulls a charcoal grey pinstriped suit from a hanger. ‘These are clothes that guests have left behind,’ she explains, as she finds Sami a business shirt and holds up half a dozen ties until she’s satisfied.

‘You can’t carry that rucksack around.’

She moves boxes and pulls an attaché case from the back of the storeroom, blowing dust off the handle.

‘The ensemble is complete.’

‘I look like a prat.’

‘You look kinda cute.’

‘If you’re into stockbrokers.’

‘Only if they’re naughty.’

It’s almost midday. Sami dumps his old clothes in the rubbish-chute while Kate checks him out of the room. He ponders what to do with the semi-automatic, the drugs and the money. He doesn’t want to get caught with them.

Looking around the room he spies the air-conditioning vent. Everyone always hides shit in the air-conditioning vent, he thinks, but maybe there’s a reason for that. He pulls off the panel and pushes the bags of cocaine, the money and the gun inside, before replacing the panel again.

Kate knocks on the door.

‘Are you ready?’

‘I guess so.’

She presses a piece of paper into his hand. It’s her address in Barnes. ‘Don’t answer the phone. Don’t read my emails. Don’t look at the mess.’

‘When will you be home?’

‘Soon.’

She kisses him on the lips. The kiss might not mean much in itself, but when she touches his cheek with her fingertip it’s as though she doesn’t want to let him go. Sami feels his heart turn to porridge.

The lift carries him down and the doors open. Sami walks across the hotel foyer, trying to look like he’s a businessman on his way to an important meeting in the city.

‘Can I get you a cab, sir?’

Sami nods.

The doorman whistles.

A black cab pulls up.

Sami slips the doorman a fiver and slides into the back seat. He used to think that suits were like straitjackets but this one feels good, expensive, well-cut. Maybe clothes do maketh the man.

49

Vincent Ruiz steps outside the inner door of Wormwood Scrubs and discovers the weather has turned. Dark clouds are tumbling across the sky and rain threatens.

He glances at the name and address in his battered notebook:

Kate Tierney
58 Brook Gardens
Barnes

It’s a long shot but Sami Macbeth doesn’t have many friends left. Right now he’s probably gone to ground but he can’t stay hidden forever. He’s going to need help.

Ruiz ponders what happened last night. A hundred coppers were outside the restaurant, two helicopters hovered above it and a small army of reporters were camped less than a block away. Police searched every cupboard, every corner, every crawlspace, yet somehow Macbeth managed to slip away. He wasn’t in the restaurant. He wasn’t in the building. He wasn’t on the rooftop. The kid is fucking Houdini.

Bob Piper is claiming police didn’t shoot the van driver, which is too outrageous a declaration to be a lie. Which means someone else wanted Macbeth dead and wanted it badly enough to risk taking a shot over the heads of a dozen firearms officers.

This has nothing to do with terrorism. The notion is ridiculous. Macbeth was an unlikely jewel thief and an even less likely extremist.

Reaching his car, Ruiz slides behind the wheel and calls Fiona Taylor.

‘Can you talk?’

‘I have a meeting in five minutes.’ She sounds amused. ‘Your name came up in the morning briefing.’

‘How so?’

‘Bob Piper wants you investigated.’

‘What did I do?’

‘He says you’ve been in contact with Sami Macbeth.’

‘The kid called me once. He’s looking for his sister.’

‘So you said. You might be getting a visit.’

‘Thanks for the heads-up. Listen, I’m interested in the bombing at the Old Bailey. What was the target?’

‘They blew up the evidence room.’

‘Anything taken?’

‘Eight kilos of cocaine. Cash. A semi-automatic pistol.’

‘How much cash?’

‘Just shy of fifty thousand pounds.’

Ruiz considers the haul. It’s not big enough to warrant the risk.

‘Islamic terrorists don’t normally steal drugs.’

‘We got a call from an Al Qaeda splinter group claiming responsibility.’

‘How many other groups claimed it?’

‘Six at last count.’

That’s the thing about would-be bombers and terror groups: hoax callers outnumber genuine ones and without a code word there’s no way of confirming their claims.

Ruiz asks about the shooter.

Fiona Taylor reads off the manifest: ‘A Beretta 93R machine pistol with a twenty round magazine and eighteen bullets in the clip.’

‘What was it doing in the strong room?’

‘It’s evidence in an attempted murder case. The perp fired a shot at police.’

‘Ray Garza’s kid.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Lucky guess.’

Ruiz is trying to get his head around the coincidences. Ray Jnr turned up at Murphy’s garden party. The two must know each other. Maybe Ray Garza organised the robbery to get the boy off, although it’s not Garza’s style. He’d rather blackmail a judge or bribe a jury than rely on something as clumsy and outdated as blowing up a strong room.