Price to Pay, A (8 page)

He brushed at his denim jacket. ‘Dress-down day. We have them each Saturday.’

‘Really?’

Iona rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t listen to Martin, he’s full of it. Yes, we’re detectives.’

‘In the normal police?’

‘I like to think I’m normal. Martin there, he can be a bit odd.’ She sent him a jokey look that wasn’t returned.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘I mean you’re with Greater Manchester Police?’

‘That’s right.’ Iona didn’t want the line of questioning to continue; the fact they were CTU was something the women, at this stage, didn’t need to know. ‘Which desk is Khaldoon’s?’

‘The one on the right.’

‘Thanks.’ She sat down in the man’s empty chair, getting an unwelcome impression of a bony behind from the dip in the cushioning. She leaned back to survey the workstation. The other officers started asking the three women usual background stuff: how did Khaldoon seem in the days before he disappeared? What sort of a person is he to work with? Has office equipment ever gone missing in the past?

Quietly slipping on a pair of latex gloves, Iona studied the surfaces before her. Empty leads trailed where the laptop once sat. A telephone. A Manchester United mug full of biros. A mouse mat calendar. A couple of folders, Perspex sheets inside profiling flats. She examined his whiteboard. Four sales already this month. Three properties awaiting contracts. She wondered if that was good. Probably was, if he was assistant manager.

She opened the slim drawer at the top. Paperclips, a lump of Blu Tack and a bottle of correction fluid. The middle drawer was locked, as was the large one at the bottom. She leaned forward to check right to the back of the top drawer. No key. She ran a hand along the underside of the desk, hoping it might have been secreted there. Nope. A glance at Nirpal’s desk revealed similar-looking leads. The three females all had a Dell laptop on their desks.

She waited for a pause in the questioning of the blonde-haired girl. ‘Excuse me? Sorry to interrupt. Your laptops – they’re replacement ones, yes?’

She nodded. ‘Shaz got them with his own money. The insurers are dragging their feet, surprise, surprise.’

‘And Nirpal’s?’

‘With him. That’s the idea, the mobile office. We can pick up emails and access the server wherever we are.’

Iona looked at the cables once again. ‘But when they went missing, was that overnight?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Ah – you’re wondering why we didn’t have them with us?’

Iona nodded.

‘Khaldoon was in charge of IT stuff. You know, backing up the system each evening, fixing it if the thing started running slowly. He called all our laptops in last Saturday for some updates or something. Said they’d all be ready for Monday morning. That’s the last we saw of them – and him.’ Her mouth turned down as she raked the chair Iona was sitting in with a seething look.

‘Petty cash, too?’

‘Yeah, that was in Rachel’s desk.’

The girl nearby looked over. ‘He had a spare key to my drawer. Unlocked it and emptied the lot.’

Iona pointed at the drawers of Khaldoon’s desk. ‘Anyone got a key for here?’

They shook their heads.

Iona wondered what might be in there. It seemed certain the man was behind the thefts. It had obviously been pre-planned. Gather in every laptop, grab the cash and go. But, in doing so, he’d sacrificed his job: maybe the life he had. Surely he knew we’d come after him? But if he was trafficking women – and worse – losing a job at an estate agent’s would have been no major loss. Not if –

A figure with short, spiky hair appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a suit and had a laptop carry case in one hand.

Iona started to stand. ‘Are you Nirpal Haziq? We’re with Greater Manchester—’

He took a step back and bolted to the side. Footsteps drummed down the corridor. ‘Bloody hell!’

The other officers’ heads were turning as Iona darted across the room. ‘Radio the car out front! Asian male, early twenties, charcoal suit!’

She emerged from the office and looked left. His bag was lying abandoned on the floor. The stairway door banged shut and she sprinted forward, kicking it open and checking he wasn’t waiting on the other side before jumping through.

Martin shouted out from behind her. ‘I’m with you!’

She ran through to the top of the stairs and bounded down the first flight, glancing over the handrail. People were down in the foyer, their loud voices drowning out any sound of footsteps.

She was at the bottom within seconds. ‘Where’d he go?’

The group looked at her blankly.

‘The bloke in a suit, about twenty!’

They turned to each other before one glanced back at her. ‘Who?’

She ran over to the doors and looked out on to the street. One of the drivers was out of his car, radio in hand. He looked at her with raised eyebrows. Turning on her heel, she barged back through the doors. Martin was on the landing. ‘First floor!’ she shouted. ‘He’s up there!’

He turned back and reached for the door as she sprinted up the steps. ‘You sure?’ he called over his shoulder.

‘Yes. Go on!’

They burst through together and started scanning the corridor. Empty.

‘I’ll go this way.’ Iona set off to the left. The corridor took a right-angled turn and, up ahead, she saw an open emergency exit door. A metal fire escape led down to street level. No sign of him. She met Martin back at the stairwell. ‘Gone. Out the fire escape.’

‘We’ll get uniformed support – he’s still close. Has to be.’

Iona pictured the warren of narrow streets that made up the Northern Quarter. ‘Damn it!’

They were halfway up the flight of stairs when her mobile started to ring. Office number. ‘Iona here.’

‘It’s Stuart. Is Roebuck with you?’

‘Yeah – well, no. He’s on the floor above. What’s up?’

‘Let him know we’ve had word from the Border Agency, will you?’

Iona kept climbing. ‘In relation to …?’

‘Khaldoon Khan.’

‘What did they say?’

‘He left the country on Monday the nineteenth. Early morning flight.’

The very day the laptops were reported as missing, Iona thought. ‘Going to?’

‘Islamabad. Left Manchester at seven fifty. Paid in cash.’

Now at the top of the steps, Iona glanced at Martin. ‘Don’t suppose it was a return, was it?’

‘No. And it wasn’t just him, either.’

‘He wasn’t travelling alone?’

‘No. He paid for two tickets. Him and a female.’

‘Really?’ Iona could now see Shandy and Rihanna in her head. Had he gone abroad with one of them? Was another bombing imminent? She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Have you a name?’

‘I do. It was a Sravanti Khan. His fifteen-year-old sister.’

N
ina’s arms were folded as she surveyed the table. On it were two Dell laptops. Beside each of them was a carry case and an assortment of cables.

Liam watched the cigarette that burned in her hand, following the smoke as it flowed up over the smooth, shiny folds of her silk blouse. He wanted to do the same with his finger, but her rigid posture made him worry that he’d done badly. To touch her now would be a mistake. He’d so wanted to do well. To put a smile on that troubled face.

She uncrossed an arm to drag deeply on her cigarette. Then she jabbed it at the laptop on the right. ‘It was in her bedroom?’

He gave a single nod.

‘Damn.’

‘What’s the problem? I mean, apart from it not being your computer …’

‘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.’