Scratch Deeper (34 page)

‘No one else?'

‘As far as I'm aware, no.'

‘The house number you're in and location within the house, please.'

‘Thirty-four, first floor, bedroom overlooking the street.'

‘OK. My two planners will be with you any second. Good lads, the both of them. They're about two properties away, coming along the back alley.'

‘You're here?'

‘No, I'm in the CCTV control room in Manchester. There's a helicopter above you. Live images are being relayed from it. Don't worry, it's too high for anyone on the ground to know it's there.'

‘Do I stay where I am?'

‘For the moment. How much charge is on your phone?'

She held it away from her face. ‘Down to one bar.'

‘Stay on the line. One moment.' She could hear vague voices in the earpiece. From downstairs came three quiet knocks. ‘That's them.'

‘Sarah!' Iona called over her shoulder. ‘Can you let them in? It's fine, they're police.'

Alex spoke. ‘Are they with you?'

‘The owner is letting them in.'

‘Great. Well done, Detective, I hear you've been doing this on your own. I'm hanging up, OK?'

Footsteps were coming up the stairs. She glanced round. Two scruffy-looking blokes in civilian clothes were approaching the doorway. The taller one was carrying a large green kit bag.

‘Yes, she's here,' the other one said into his earpiece, removing a laptop from his jacket. ‘OK, will do.'

The taller one was unzipping the kit bag. After removing a shotgun from inside, he held up a packet of sandwiches and a can of drink to Iona. ‘Brought you some scoff. Now, which house is it?'

Iona pointed to thirty-seven.

J
im stepped back out into the lobby of the CCTV control centre. To his relief, the two Sub-Urban Explorers were still there. Both looked bored and pissed off. ‘Sorry, lads, that took a minute or two longer than I thought.'

He went over to the main door and pulled it open. The knowledge that Iona was safe and the situation under control filled him with a sense of exhilaration. He wanted to skip off to the nearest pub and have a drink. Only the fact that the MI6 officer wanted to question him further stopped him from giving in to the urge. One thing seemed certain: Wallace was well and truly screwed.

‘Thanks for your help in this. Sorry if it got heavy-handed.' He stepped aside. ‘You better know that there's every chance you'll be contacted again about this.'

‘That's it, then?' Fraser scowled, getting off the sofa.

‘Yup. Free to go.'

They moved past him and out into the cold of the NCP car park. An uneasy glance passed between them. Jim stopped the door from fully closing and poked his head out. ‘What's up?'

Chas' lips twisted as if he was trying to remove something unsavoury from his mouth.

Fraser started to step away. ‘Doesn't matter. Come on, let's do one.'

Jim looked from one to the other. ‘Hey, may as well say it – if you reckon it's important.'

Chas shrugged. ‘We were thinking about the tunnels – any near the convention centre that might have been overlooked.'

‘And?'

‘That bloke from Sri Lanka or wherever he's really from. There's this one location. We're pretty sure it was talked about in front of him. He could have gone looking for it himself.'

Jim pulled the door fully open. ‘Come in,' he announced resignedly. ‘You'd better give me the details.'

They re-entered the lobby and Jim gestured to the sofa. ‘Have a seat.' He was sinking into the armchair when a call came in from Iona. Pushing himself back up, he turned to face the wall. The clock on it read ten thirty-eight. Seeing the time made Jim feel uncomfortable, but he couldn't put his finger on why. ‘You OK?'

‘Fine. I've had no word from Wallace yet.'

‘I wouldn't worry about him,' Jim replied, thinking he would probably have packed his things and left Orion House before Iona got back.

‘The crew who showed up here – it's more like a military operation. People are now in the houses on each side of number thirty-seven. They've got those devices up against the walls, the ones for detecting sounds and thermal images.'

‘Where are you?'

‘Still in the house opposite.'

‘No sign of them?'

‘Not as yet. How about the old guy?'

Jim felt his spirits drop like a stone. Oh, shit. His eyes went back to the clock. The tram would have arrived in town over ten minutes ago. Plenty of time for him to have got into the convention centre.

‘Did they lift him as he came off the tram?' Iona asked. ‘What was in the backpack?'

‘I don't know,' he replied, walking towards the inner door. No means of calling the main room.

‘But they did pick him up?'

Now pulling open the main door, Jim held down the buzzer outside as Chas and Fraser watched him intently.

‘Jim?' Iona asked. ‘What are you up to?'

He kept his finger on the buzzer.

Wray's voice sounded from the speaker. ‘All right, Jim! Bloody hell—'

He cut across the team leader's complaint. ‘Let me back in, Colin. Now!'

‘OK.'

Iona was speaking again. ‘What's going on?'

‘I'll call you back.' He pressed red and pointed his mobile at Chas and Fraser. ‘You two, stay here.'

‘Don't worry,' Fraser smirked. ‘We will.'

The inner door opened a crack and Jim practically shoved Wray back into the corridor beyond. ‘We need to send out an alert to officers at the secure zone!'

Iona found herself staring at her phone. Oh my God, had the old man with the backpack been missed? He could be inside the convention centre by now. Was he the one really carrying out the attack? Were they all in the wrong place? She looked at the little TV. The sound had been turned down, but it was still tuned into BBC News 24.

The view was of the main plaza. It was now largely empty, just a few catering staff in white suits carrying crates of glasses. Police officers at the edges were looking out through the perimeter fence. A pair of delegates were jogging up the steps to the main entrance where more security personnel stood. Text appeared at the bottom of the screen. Clinton due on main stage.

The officer with the laptop was clicking his fingers at Iona. ‘They're not picking up any movement in number thirty-seven. You're sure the targets are inside?'

‘As sure as I can be. I . . . left my position for about twelve minutes to follow a third suspect as far as the tram station.'

He lowered his radio and gave her a disbelieving look. ‘No one had eyesight of the house for almost quarter of an hour?'

His outraged tone caused a stab of anger. ‘It was me, OK? Just me, I had no support. What was I meant to do?'

He looked away, speaking into the radio as he did so. ‘We need to go in. Move the teams into position.'

Iona turned back to the television. Coverage had now cut to inside the building. The main hall was rammed with people – every seat taken, thousands of faces looking expectantly in one direction. The camera swung through one hundred and eighty degrees to focus on the enormous stage. Spot lights angled up from the front edge swept slowly back and forth across the Labour Party emblem dominating the back wall. A figure was crouched before one of the podiums, busily adjusting something at its base.

Iona's mouth felt dry as she thought of her father in a room just seconds away from the main hall. Get out, she wanted to scream at the telly. Just get out of there! Her phone started to ring and she could only just summon the will to look down at it. A number with the Manchester prefix was on the screen. ‘Hello?'

‘DC Khan?'

She thought she recognized the voice. Softly spoken, but confident. ‘Yes.'

‘It's Professor Coe. You came to see me at the university? Vassen Bhujun was one of my tutees.'

‘Yes, I remember. Professor, can I call you back?'

‘Well – I think you need to hear this. I've put my finger on something very disturbing.'

She hunched forward, still watching the screen. ‘I'm listening.'

‘There they are,' whispered the officer at the window. Iona glanced down. Black-clad officers were in the garden of number thirty-seven, crawling along the base of the wall towards its front door.

‘It relates to the piece of equipment I suspected Bhujun of taking. The fraction collector.'

‘OK.' The footage on the TV had returned to the make-shift studio in the Sky Bar from earlier on. Iona suddenly wondered if the view across Manchester beyond the plate-glass windows was actually some kind of special effect. A computer image beamed on to giant screens in a studio that was really down in London.

‘His thesis was about manufacturing a less expensive alternative to cocoa butter.'

‘Yes, I recall.'

‘The raw product he was using was a processed form of mamona oil. I didn't even question what mamona oil was – to me it was just some kind of cash-crop they grow on Mauritius.'

The presenter on the screen paused in his questioning of a politician that Iona had seen countless times on the TV. He glanced at his watch and turned to camera. She was able to lip read him say, about ten minutes. ‘Please, Professor, get to the point.'

‘Mamona oil is known as castor oil in other parts of the world. There's an aqueous phase which is left once the oil is extracted from the castor beans—'

‘Aqueous phase?'

‘The waste. A dark, syrupy sludge. That, Detective, is very toxic. Processed castor oil is known as PGPR. Polyglycerol polyricinoleate. Do you follow?'

‘No, I don't.'

‘Ricin, Detective. The aqueous phase contains ten per cent ricin. Separate it with a fraction collector and you can obtain the poison in its pure form.'

Iona turned to the window. The team were now crouched below the ground-floor windows and to either side of the front door. ‘Call them off!'

The officer's head whipped round. ‘What?'

‘Call your team back! The house. They've been using it to make ricin.'

Jim crashed back out into the lobby. Chas and Fraser were sitting on the sofa like audience members of a show.

‘You've got a big problem, haven't you?' Chas asked cautiously.

‘Fuck, yes. You were mentioning a tunnel just before. Where is it?'

‘It's more of an access point. Part of the Deansgate tunnel.'

‘Deansgate tunnel?'

Chas nodded. ‘I made it down there, just the once. I told your colleague, the one in the Counter Terrorism Unit.'

‘Tell me.'

‘It was when they were building the new offices and stuff in front of the law courts a few years ago. Where the
Manchester Evening Chronicle
is based.'

Jim knew where he was talking about – the new complex contained a Wagamama noodle bar and Armani shop on its ground floor.

‘To build it, they had to dig up a big section right on the edge of Deansgate itself.'

‘And that's where you found the tunnel?'

‘Just a section of it. I made it down there during one lunch hour. Only had time for a quick look about. The section was about sixty, seventy metres long, bricked up at both ends. Fucking big it was, once. There was loads of silt and rubble on the floor, though. Some places almost to the roof. My guess was—'

‘Chas, get to the point.'

He blinked. ‘Yeah, sorry. Right, I followed it in the direction of the cathedral. Just before it ended at the bricked off part, I spotted this little door. Wooden – well knackered. The lock was half-hanging off. I got it open and there was this passageway sloping up. Very narrow, not much more than shoulder width. Stone floor, like cobbles, but flatter. So I walk along it for about twenty steps, using the light from my mobile phone. It ends at another door, this one metal and newer. Much newer. No way I could get that open – but there was a key hole in it. So I look through it. Some of the view was blocked by boxes or something, but through the cracks I could see this narrow room on the other side. The walls were lined with these glass-fronted cabinets. Narrow metal frames to them. Inside were loads of old books, some of them—'

‘How far did the Deansgate tunnel go in the other direction – towards the conference centre?' Jim interrupted.

‘As far as Saint John Street, maybe a bit further.'

‘How far – roughly – is that from the centre?'

‘A long way,' Fraser said. ‘Well over a hundred metres.'

Jim couldn't see how two men – maybe assisted by an old man – could dig a tunnel that length. And besides, what would it join? The subterranean canal Iona had inspected only a couple of days before?'

‘Only possibility is if this Muttiah bloke knocked through the brick partition sealing the tunnel off below Saint John Street,' Chas continued. ‘Say he did and there's another navigable stretch beyond. Say then there's a side tunnel off that bit going in an easterly direction. It would be getting you very close to the conference centre. Chance is miniscule, but you never know with these tunnels . . .'

Jim's mind was back on the CCTV footage from outside the Central Library. Vassen shaking dust from his thick mop of hair. The missing rucksack. They'd deposited that thing somewhere. ‘But this way in you found on the construction site. That building was finished ages ago.'

‘You're right,' Chas replied. ‘Next time I tried to go back, it had all been back-filled with concrete. Then the new building went up over the top of it.'

‘So how could anyone –' Jim paused. ‘The metal door looking in on that store room?'

They both nodded.

‘The room was lit by this single bulb up in the ceiling,' Chas said. ‘The fitting was really distinctive.'

‘Why?'

‘It was like a metal tube. The thing went up and then ran all the way across the ceiling and out through the wall. We worked it out eventually. The place was closed for about four years. Big heritage project. We've been back since it re-opened. The security on the doors getting you out of the public areas was way beyond us. But Vassen? We know he's good with locks. He got up the clock tower of the town hall one time.'