Ultimatum (18 page)

She didn’t miss the place. It was a big ugly building next door to an even uglier Sainsbury’s superstore, and most of the memories only made her unhappy on those few occasions she chose to dwell on them. It was, after all, events that had happened there that had driven her to alcoholism and the steady decline into darkness that had followed.

So it was with a hint of trepidation that she stepped through the doors, nodding briefly to a couple of civilian workers she didn’t recognize who were smoking just outside, and went into the reception area. The first thing she noticed was that there was no sense of urgency as a result of the bombs that morning and the terrorists’ ultimatum that had followed. The custody sergeant, an old timer called Barnes, was booking in a smiling drunk who appeared to have forgotten his own name and who was having to be held up by two PCSOs, while a second prisoner – young and feral – was arguing loudly with his escort as they tried to get him through the door to the cells. Other people – the lawyers, the civilian workers and the civilians caught up in the police system – wandered in and out, ignoring the dramas going on around them.

Mike Bolt was already in reception. ‘The interview team should be here in the next fifteen minutes,’ he said as they took the stairs to the second floor of the building. ‘But Brozi’s refusing to say a word without his lawyer present, and we’re not expecting him until five thirty. Plus he wants an Albanian translator, and we’re still trying to sort one out.’

‘He spoke English well enough to me,’ said Tina.

Bolt frowned. ‘The problem is, he’s not acting like a man who’s scared. I think his experience of the British justice system has made him pretty complacent.’

‘I’d have thought the fact that he’s being charged with the attempted murder of two police officers would have concentrated his mind.’

‘You know what it’s like, Tina. In this business, nothing’s cut and dried.’

And it wasn’t. A clever lawyer could easily twist the facts to suit his client’s case, particularly as none of the bullets Brozi had fired had come anywhere near hitting either her or Bolt. Ironically, it would have been a lot better for the case, and for scaring Brozi into cooperating, if one of them had actually been shot.

‘Listen, Mike,’ she said as they walked out of the lift and turned in the direction of the CID offices, ‘that message on Brozi’s PC might be a clue to something. Can you run it by the Albanian translator whenever he turns up?’ She took out her mobile. ‘I photographed it on here.’

‘Text me the photo and I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, not sounding particularly interested.

By now they were in an empty office where two phones sat on a desk with chairs at either end. ‘We’ve set up the secure line so you can talk to Fox from here.’ His expression was tense as he looked at her. ‘If he knows the names of the people involved in the attacks today, and he wants to help himself, then he’s got to tell us now, because we’re running short on time.’

‘Let’s get on with it then,’ said Tina, picking up one of the phones, while Bolt picked up the other so he could listen in.

After being patched through to the prison governor’s office, and given a short lecture from Governor Goodman on how talking to a prisoner like this was highly unorthodox, she was rerouted to the office where Fox had been taken along with his escort to receive the call.

‘So the lead I gave you this morning was useful?’ said Fox calmly as he came on the line.

‘We have Mr Brozi in custody, yes.’

‘Would that have anything to do with the events in Islington this afternoon?’

‘How do you know about them?’

‘I’ve got a TV in my cell, and I like to keep up with current affairs. It’s all over the news that two police officers were shot at by an armed man, who was arrested at the scene. It was Brozi, wasn’t it?’

Tina could tell he was trying to knock her off balance, as he’d done that morning. It was working too. The speed with which the media covered events, and Fox’s own access to their coverage, meant that even in prison he was only a few steps behind them. Briefly, she told him what had happened.

‘I’m impressed,’ he said when Tina had finished. ‘You get shot at by a suspect and still you stay on duty. I admire you. I really do.’

Tina ignored him. ‘We’ve found evidence that links Brozi to the attacks this morning. Which links them to what happened at the Stanhope.’

‘Exactly as I predicted.’

‘But we still need the names of the people involved.’

‘I know you do,’ said Fox, a hard edge to his voice. ‘But you need to help me first.’

‘We’re already in the process of organizing your move to a safehouse but it requires approval at the highest level. We can’t move you before tomorrow.’ Tina glanced across at Bolt as she said this, and he gave her an approving nod. ‘If you give me another name, you’ll put yourself in a very advantageous position ahead of your trial.’

Fox grunted dismissively. ‘Surely you can do better than that, Tina. You’ve got a reputation for getting things done. That’s why I chose to see you and not some patsy in a cheap suit bound by all the rules.’

‘Like I said, the authorities are prepared to cut a deal with you, I can guarantee that. And you
will
be moved to a safehouse.’

‘And when I’ve got that in writing, and I’m in this safehouse, then I’ll help you. But not until then.’

Tina felt her frustration building. She pictured Fox on the other end of the phone, a smug expression on his face. A man with an ordinary demeanour but who’d been responsible for dozens of murders and felt not a moment’s remorse. She wanted to grab him by his short, thinning hair and drive his head into the table again and again. To make him spill his guts and tell her everything he knew.

But she couldn’t.

And he knew it.

‘Get me out of here and we’ll talk,’ he said quietly.

‘I can’t get you out of there tonight. I’ve just told you that.’

‘Then put me on to someone who can. Or as far as I’m concerned, this conversation’s over.’

Tina was aware of Bolt shaking his head beside her, warning her to take it easy. But she no longer cared.

‘If people die because you won’t help—’

‘Then what?’ he said. ‘What’ll you do exactly?’

‘I’ll fuck you up. I don’t care how long it takes, I don’t know how I’ll do it, but make no mistake, I will.’

Fox let out a dismissive sigh. ‘You won’t have to. If you leave me in here, other people will do it for you. And then it’ll be too late. For both of us.’

Thirty-three

17.25

NIGHT WAS CLOSING
in fast as the car headed south through Bermondsey, passing through a series of featureless industrial estates and retail parks in the direction of the Old Kent Road.

Since Cecil had picked me up at the old family home over an hour earlier, we’d followed a round-about U-turn-filled route across north-east London, before detouring through the grand, ostentatious wealth of the City of London, and crossing the river at Tower Bridge. We’d met Cain a few minutes after that on a back street lined with trendy apartments near Jamaica Road, and it was there that we’d changed cars. We were now in an Audi A5 estate I hadn’t seen before. If anything, traffic had been lighter than usual and I wondered whether a lot of people had left work early as a result of the bomb threat that hung over the city like a black, menacing cloud.

Once again Cecil had run the bug finder over me, and made me turn off my phone. I’d protested, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Not that it mattered. Bolt had been right. The bug finder hadn’t picked up the two GPS devices in my wallet, but it had still been a nerve-racking few seconds.

Cain was driving now, with me in the front passenger seat next to him. Cecil was on his own in the back, sitting directly behind me, which was making me paranoid. We turned on to a quiet, poorly lit back road, flanked on one side by empty-looking warehouses, and on the other by a row of immense gas towers that stretched up into the cold dark sky behind a high brick wall. A car came past the other way, but otherwise the road was empty and there was a bleakness about the place that made it difficult to believe we were in the middle of a city. I suddenly wondered whether they’d somehow found out I’d met up with Bolt and concluded, quite rightly, that I was working for the cops. If they had, this would be as good a place as any to kill me. All Cecil had to do was put a gun against the back of my headrest and pull the trigger, and that would be that. It only takes half a second to die. I’ve seen it happen in war zones. A single explosion; a sniper’s bullet. Bang, it’s all over. Just like that. It took all my willpower to stop myself from turning round to see what Cecil was doing.

Don’t panic, I told myself. They don’t know. They can’t. Mike Bolt’s the only man who knows my identity. If they suspected me, they’d drop me like a stone, not lure me into the middle of nowhere.

Cain slowed the car and turned it into a short dead-end road with a high fence at the end and scrubland behind it. He turned to face us. ‘OK, these people we’re going to see. I’ve dealt with them before, and they’ve been reliable, but this is the biggest deal we’ve done together. I’m buying some contraband from them – contraband that’s going to be passed on very quickly, so neither of you needs to know what it is.’ He looked at us both in turn. ‘But I can guarantee you this. It’s going to be used to strike a real blow against the establishment, which is what we all want. I’m using the bulk of the money the two of you earned this morning as payment, which is why we’ve got to be careful. Men can do stupid things where big money’s involved – we all know that.’

‘Who are we dealing with?’ I asked him.

‘Albanians from Kosovo. Ex-members of the KLA. They’re not nice people but, as I said, they’ve been reliable in the past. The meeting place is a scrapyard down a road off here. I reccied the place yesterday. There was no one around and the place was locked up, which means it’s probably not used much. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. We don’t want any unwanted attention, but it also means that if anything goes wrong, we’re on our own. Which is why we’re going in armed. Cecil, can you do the honours?’

Cecil leaned down behind the driver’s seat and brought up the battered Lonsdale holdall that LeShawn Lambden had been using to carry his crack takings before we’d taken it from him. He opened it up to reveal two pistols and an MP5, all sitting on a huge wedge of cash.

‘I’m sure everything’s going to be fine,’ said Cain, taking one of the pistols and handing me the other. ‘We’re businessmen, and no one wants a bloodbath. But I’m also not the kind of man who takes chances.’

I ejected the magazine, checked that it was loaded, then slipped the pistol into the back of my jeans where it couldn’t be seen beneath my jacket.

‘Jones, you and me are going to go in the front. I’ll do the talking. You’re just there for back-up. Follow my orders the whole time, OK?’

I nodded.

‘What about me?’ asked Cecil.

Cain pulled a sheet of A4 paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it, revealing a Google aerial-view map of the area. ‘You get out here and take the holdall and the MP5 with you, but keep the gun hidden just in case you run into anyone. Cut through the fence at the end of the road and turn left. There’s a dirt path that leads behind the buildings. Follow it round until you come to the scrapyard, here.’ He tapped his gloved finger on a building near the top of the map, which he’d marked with a cross. ‘When you’re level with the main building, you’ll see a small hole in the fence. I made it yesterday and there’ll be just enough room for you to get through with the holdall. Text me on today’s number as soon as you’re inside the perimeter, then stay within earshot of the main building but out of sight. There are wrecked cars everywhere, so there’ll be plenty of hiding places. Don’t move until you hear me call you. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

‘But if you hear either me or Jones shout the words “This whole thing’s wrong”, you come in straight away with your finger on the trigger because that means we’re in trouble. And you take out anyone who gets in your way.’

Cecil repeated the phrase and grinned. Those were just the kind of instructions he liked. ‘Got it.’

The way Cain was talking left me in no doubt that I was about to cross a major line. If this meeting turned violent and I ended up pulling the trigger, I knew Mike Bolt wouldn’t be able to protect me.

To be honest, I was sorely tempted to jump out of the car then and there, but there were way too many things stopping me, not least the fact that I might end up getting a bullet in the back of the head the moment I opened the door.

Behind me, Cecil finished checking the MP5 before replacing it in the holdall, and slinging it over one shoulder. He gave Cain and me a nod, then disappeared into the night.

We watched him jog down to the end of the road and disappear into the scrub. Above the trees and the flat roofs of the buildings, the tower at Canary Wharf rose up like a glowing finger in the distance, probably not much more than a mile away.

‘You know,’ said Cain after a couple of minutes, ‘the biggest robbers in the country work in there.’ He pointed at the tower. ‘Every day they steal thousands of times what you took from those crack dealers today. And they get away with it. Just like the MPs who fiddle their expenses and line their pockets. Or the pond scum like Alfonse Webber who laugh at the law and the justice system, and get stronger every day because no one’s able to stop them.’ He looked at me, something in his expression asking me for understanding. ‘All I want to do is create a fairer society. One that promotes hard work and decent values. Where the bad guys get punished and the good guys get rewarded. And you’ve got to fight for that. Sometimes it’s a lonely battle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting. Remember that.’

The frightening thing was, he was right. If you wanted to change the world, you had to stand up and be counted. But that didn’t mean you had to kill civilians. Cain was a twisted individual – a typical extremist, who believed totally in the rightness of his cause, even if it meant killing hundreds of innocent people.