16

OVER TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES AWAY, AND NOT much more than an hour earlier, Commander Richard Burgess, Dirty Dick to his friends, was equally discombobulated when his phone rang at an ungodly hour of the morning, and the officer commanding the stakeout team watching Justin Peverell’s house requested his urgent presence there. The cheap lager Burgess had been drinking earlier down the pub had turned his stomach sour, and it rose up in a loud and tasty belch when he stood up. He glanced back at the bed to make sure he’d been sleeping alone that night. He had been. Then he pulled on yesterday’s clothes, helped himself to three paracetamol, two Rennies and a large glass of water fizzing with Alka Seltzer, grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge and headed out to the garage. If he had no time for coffee in a morning, he always found that Coke gave him the caffeine jolt he needed to get his brain into gear. These days, his body tended to lag a bit behind, but his work was rarely physically demanding. Getting up early was usually the hardest part of his day.

The traffic around the Canary Wharf wasn’t too bad in the predawn light, and he was heading northwest, driving through the fringes of Limehouse and Bethnal Green, then through Hoxton and Holloway in no time. His destination was just off Highgate Hill, past Junction Road, and all in all, it took him a little over half an hour.

The house they had commandeered for surveillance was on the opposite side of the street to Justin Peverell’s semi, a few houses down. Luxury surveillance was one of the perks of Burgess’s new position, which mostly involved counterterrorism and not shutting down a valuable people-trafficking network for the sake of an old friend’s daughter. Not for him a shitty old Subaru littered with McDonald’s wrappers and a plastic cup to piss in. That national security was at stake was all they had to say these days. That covered a multitude of sins and opened a multitude of doors, including this one. They had packed the occupiers off to a cheap hotel for the night, moved in and made themselves at home. According to DS Colin Linwood, the surveillance team leader, the owners couldn’t get away quick enough, visions in their minds of wild-eyed barbarians aiming portable missile shooters.

“So what’s so bloody important you have to wake me up before dawn?” Burgess demanded of Linwood as he stormed into the house.

“They’ve gone, boss,” Linwood said.

Burgess scratched his head. “Who’s gone? Where?”

“French and Brody, sir,” quipped DC Jones, who was now, in Burgess’s mind, about to remain a DC for an unusually long time.

“Ciaran and Darren, that is.”

“Hang on,” said Burgess. “Let me get this straight. I put you bozos on surveillance, and the first thing you tell me is that the men we’re waiting to see arrive have left? Am I even close?”

“They must have been already inside,” said Linwood. “There was no way we could have known.”

“Geez, I would never have thought of that.” Burgess flopped on the armchair and swigged some Coke.

“Fancy a coffee, sir?” said Jones. “They’ve got one of those fancy Bodum things and some of that nice fair-trade Colombian.”

“Might as well,” said Burgess, putting the Coke can down on a smooth polished table, where it made a sticky ring. “Black, two sugars. And strong.”

Jones disappeared into the kitchen. “So what time did you lot arrive?” Burgess asked Linwood. “Remind me.”

“Eleven fifty-four P.M.”

“And Ciaran and Darren left when?”

“Three thirty-six A.M.”

“That’s a bloody long time. You sure you couldn’t have missed them going in?”

“No way, boss. We’ve even got a man watching the back.” He smiled. “Not quite as comfortable as we are in here, but…”

“Someone’s got to get the short end of the stick.”

“Anyway, like I said, they must have been already in the house when we arrived.”

“Which means that their man in Yorkshire tipped them off as to where to find Peverell well before we did our little favor for our colleagues up north.”

“Well, boss,” said Linwood. “In all honesty, they’re pretty lucky we did it at all, given the circumstances.”

“So they were in there for over four hours?”

“Looks that way.”

“And you didn’t clock anyone else coming or going?”

“No way.”

Jones came back with the Bodum and cups on a silver tray. “We’ll just let it brew a few minutes, sir, huh?”

“Where did they go from here?” Burgess asked.

“Ferguson and Wilkes followed them to a hotel on the Old Compton Road. Mid-range. Nothing too ostentatious. Lot of tourists. Americans, mostly.”

“I don’t need the pedigree of the fucking hotel,” said Burgess. “I hope Fergie and Wilkes are sitting tight.”

“They are, boss. Nobody’s going anywhere without us knowing.” Jones poured the coffee and they all took grateful sips. “Well done, lad,” said Burgess. “Terrific coffee. We’ll make a detective of you yet. The way I see it is like this. Brody and French were in there an awfully long time. Either Peverell wasn’t in and they were waiting for him, or he was in and…”

“They worked him over, got what they wanted?”

“Something like that. Either way, soon as we’ve finished our coffee, we’d better get over there and suss out the situation.”

“It might be an ambulance job, boss,” said Linwood. “If they were in there that long. Maybe we should go in right away.”

“After DC Jones has taken the trouble to make us this wonderful coffee? Peverell is a scumbag who helps smuggle in underage girls forced into prostitution,” said Burgess, ever fond of the crude American slang he picked up from TV and movies. “Letting him bleed a few minutes longer won’t do anything but good for the human gene pool. It’s Brody and French who’ll lead us to McCready and the DCI’s daughter now.”

So they finished their coffee in peace as the light grew slowly outside. A weary-looking shift worker got out of his car a few houses down. It was still a dull, overcast morning, and bedroom lights started going on as people got up to get ready for work. This was a decent neighborhood, Burgess thought. People had worked hard for their little piece of England, and while they weren’t rich, they were mostly comfortable in their middle age, despite the recent credit crunch. Perfect protective coloration for a smooth operator like Justin Peverell. Not that he’d be home all that often, anyway, in his line of work. But if Peverell was expecting McCready, and, more to the point, expecting handsome payment for forged documents, then there was every chance he would have thought it worthwhile hanging around for a day or two.

“Okay,” said Burgess, putting down his empty coffee cup and getting to his feet. “Let’s go. You got the door-opener, Col?”

“In the boot.”

First they picked up the battering-ram on their way. They wouldn’t use it unless they had to, a quiet entry being far more desirable than waking up the entire street. Then they would have to send for reinforcements just to keep the neighbors back if anything went awry, as things so often did when Burgess was around.

The door was maroon, with pebble-glass windows at the top. First, Burgess knocked gently and rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. He glanced over at Linwood, who shrugged, then tried the handle. The door opened. The three of them paused a moment on the threshold, then entered.

They found themselves in the hall, with hooks for coats and a mat for shoes. Burgess calculated that the living room was off to the right, through another door. The front curtains had been drawn, so they hadn’t been able to see inside from the street.

Burgess went in first and switched on the overhead light. He stood transfixed and appalled for a split second, then he turned and stumbled into Linwood and Jones before he doubled up and vomited up last night’s curry and lager all over the hall mat. The other two held on to him as he gasped for air and cursed. It was the first time he had ever been sick on the job since he’d been a cadet, and he had seen some things in his time.

When Burgess had regained his equilibrium, helped by a glass of water Jones brought from the kitchen at the back, he took a deep breath and led them in. The scene was so posed, so markedly surreal, that it took everyone a few moments to put the pieces together and work out exactly what they were looking at. Then Jones and Linwood staggered back, handkerchiefs over their mouths. The smell was awful. Piss, shit and fear desecrating a nice upper-middle-class London semi.

Two hard-backed chairs, the kind that had probably been at the dining table, faced each other about eight feet apart. In one chair sat what had once been a very beautiful woman. Probably Peverell’s girlfriend Martina, Burgess guessed, long black hair trailing over her pale naked shoulders. Naked as the rest of her, as far as he could see.

From what Burgess could make out on a preliminary examination, it had taken her a long time to die, and it had been a very painful process. Gray duct tape covered her mouth and bound her hands to the chair behind her back, one ankle to each front leg. It was hard to say exactly what had killed her. There were cuts and areas where the skin had been stripped, or peeled, from her flesh, blood between her legs. On her left hand, her index and middle fingers had been docked at the first joint, the flesh peeled off and the bone sharpened like a pencil point. One eye was wide open, dead and staring, but the other socket contained only the raw remains of an eyeball; a viscous trail streaked down her cheek like bloody, unset blobs of egg white.

There was more, much more, things the likes of which Burgess had never imagined before and would remember till the day they put his body in the ground. He was crying, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Such beauty. Such pain and horror. Linwood and Jones weren’t in any condition to notice his tears, anyway.

In the other chair sat Peverell, fully clothed, also gagged and secured with gray duct tape. At first glance he seemed dead, too, nobody home behind the glazed eyes, but Burgess noticed that when he looked carefully, he could see Peverell’s chest rising and falling. There wasn’t a mark on him, but if Burgess had to choose, he couldn’t for the life of him decide in which position he would rather be.

“Right,” he said, turning to his men. “Stop staring at her tits, Jone-sey. Get on to Fergie and Wilkes and tell them to bring French and Brody back here right now. Back here. Got it? I want a word with those bastards before we have to get the brass and the lawyers involved. And Col, the SOCOs will have our balls for this, but get a sheet from upstairs and cover the poor cow up, would you? Then somebody see if they can’t find a bottle of decent whiskey in the place.”


TRACY AWOKE with a start, Jaff shaking her shoulder, and realized that she must have dozed off in the early dawn light. Perhaps Jaff had, too. But now he was wide awake, fully dressed and looming over her, fiddling with the ripped sheet to untie her. “Come on, wake up,” he said. “Wake up. It’s time to go.”

Tracy opened her eyes and moved her head groggily. Jaff was fresh out of the shower, but she hadn’t heard a thing. The curtains were open, and she could see people already at their desks in the office tower. She gathered the sheet around her and headed for the bathroom. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Eight o’clock. Get a move on. You’ve got ten minutes.”

Tracy showered as fast as she could. There was no time to do anything with her hair except give it a quick rub with the towel. Luckily, it was short and it would dry quickly. She wished she had more clean underwear, but she was wearing the last of her new pairs of knickers. The best she could do was turn them inside out before she put them on. She binned her bra. She had always thought her breasts were too small, anyway, so she really didn’t need one. The outer clothes she had put on last night in the van were still fine.

Before she could even finish brushing her teeth, Jaff was standing at the door. “You ready yet?”

“Coming,” Tracy said. “Coming.” She glanced desperately around the small bathroom for an escape hatch or a weapon of some sort. There was nothing. It would be no use, anyway, as Jaff hadn’t allowed her to lock, or even to close, the bathroom door. Resignedly she rinsed out her mouth and went back into the room. Jaff was just finishing off a line of coke, probably not his first of the day.

Everything went smoothly at checkout. There was a different girl at the desk this morning, a tanned brunette, but the smile was the same, the flirtatious body language. When he had finished, Jaff strode over to Tracy with that cocky, confident walk of his, hold-all still in his hand, and nodded toward the door. She left with him.

Tracy had expected that they would take a taxi to the garage, but Jaff clearly had other ideas. Taxis could be traced, he explained, when she asked, and taxi drivers could be questioned. Caution, or paranoia, seemed to be his natural state of mind now. They walked all the way to the Corn Exchange among the hordes of city workers dashing to their little hutches for the day. How Tracy wished she were one of them. Everything seemed so normal, yet so completely unreal. At one point Tracy realized that she wasn’t too far from Waterstone’s, where she worked, and she wondered if she should make a dash for it. Then she remembered the things Jaff had said, the threats of retribution he had made, and she believed them. She couldn’t live her life like that, always feeling scared, in fear, always looking over her shoulder. She had to go through with this right to the end. Whatever that end might be.

They caught a bus to Harehills and Jaff sat silently all the way, tapping his fingers on his knee and gazing out of the window. Soon they would be in a new car racing down to London, where Jaff would get his new identity, sell his wares, pack enough cash to start somewhere else, and disappear. Tracy didn’t believe he would sell her into slavery, and she still couldn’t believe that he would just kill her in cold blood, despite the evidence of his violence she had witnessed. With any luck, once he got where he was going and got what he wanted, he would simply lose interest in her, dump her and forget all about her. She hoped.

“Next stop,” said Jaff, and they walked to the front. She could see him scanning the faces of the other passengers, processing them. They got off at Roundhay Road and Harehills Lane, then turned a few corners. “It’s down here,” said Jaff finally, turning left.

The small garage was sandwiched between a sewing-machine repair shop and an Asian music imports emporium, from which some very odd sounds indeed were drifting out into the air. Tracy couldn’t even recognize what instruments were being played. Next to the music shop was a greasy spoon with plastic chairs and tables. Dead flies lay scattered on the inside window ledge, and the mingled smells of cumin and coriander wafted through the door. Tracy liked curry, but she didn’t fancy it for breakfast.

On the opposite side of the street stood a closed school, a late-nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century building, Tracy could tell, which was due for demolition. There were so many of them in Leeds, the old redbrick kind, darkened by years of industrial soot, like the houses around them, surrounded by high pointed metal railings embedded in a low concrete wall; weeds already growing through the cracked tarmac playground. Some of the windows were boarded up, others simply broken, and a liberal sprinkling of graffiti adorned both the boarding and the red brick. A faded sign read HAREHILLS PARK. Tracy couldn’t see any park. The place gave her the shivers. A few yards past the school was a redbrick mosque.

Tracy was so busy looking at the school and the mosque that at first she didn’t notice what had happened until she heard Jaff kicking at the garage door and yelling for someone to open up. Then she saw the GOING OUT OF THE BUSINESS sign half covered with pasted bills and graffiti.

“They’re gone, Jaff,” she said. “There’s nobody here.”

Jaff turned on her. “I can bloody well see that for myself. Why don’t you stop stating the obvious and contribute something here?”

“Like what?”

“Like some ideas.”

“You seem to be forgetting I’m not in this with you. I’m not here to help you. I’m your hostage.”

“Whatever we’re in, we’re in it together. Make no mistake about that. Your fate depends on mine. So a little contribution wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I’ve already told you what I think. Let me go, and you take off alone. Then you’ll have a chance.”

Jaff shook his head. “No. No way I’m letting go of my greatest asset.”

“Oh, really? I thought that was your gun.”

“Guns are just tools. You’re a bargaining chip.” He paused. “Goddamn, that’s it!”

“What is?”

“You. I’ve been holding you in reserve all this time, and now it’s time to use you. Of course! What a bloody idiot I’ve been.”

“What do you mean? You’re scaring me.”

Jaff pulled out his mobile. “What’s your father’s number? His mobile, not the fucking police station.”

“My father-”

“His mobile number. Now!”

Numbly, Tracy told him. She could see his hand shaking as he keyed in the numbers and mumbled to himself, then he put the phone to his ear.


“ARE YOU ALONE?”

This wasn’t the usual opening of a telephone conversation, and it alerted Banks to possible danger. “Yes,” he lied, though he didn’t recognize the voice. He was actually in the boardroom of Western Area Headquarters with Gervaise, Winsome, Geraldine Masterson, Harry Potter and Stefan Nowak discussing the fate of Justin Peverell and his dead girlfriend, Martina Varakova.

Burgess had just reported from the Highgate house again, and Ciaran and Darren had finally been taken from their hotel in an ambulance under police guard. Ciaran had apparently broken his arm in two places while trying to escape police custody, as well as sustaining other minor cuts and bruises, including one groin injury that might impair his sexual performance for some years to come. Neither had given up The Farmer, but Banks planned on paying the bastard another visit soon, anyway, now he had a little more ammunition up his sleeve. And if they let Burgess into the interview room down south, anything could happen. Banks had never heard him sound so upset and enraged.

He excused himself from the conversation and went out into the corridor. “Right,” said the voice on the phone. “I’ve got a job for you.”

“And you are?”

“Never mind that. Here’s someone you might recognize.” There was a brief pause, during which Banks could have sworn he heard sitar music in the background, then a girl’s voice came on. “Dad, it’s me! Tracy. Please do what he says. If you don’t he’ll-”

“Tracy? Are you all right?”

But before she could reply, the other voice came back on again. Jaff’s voice, Banks now knew. “She’s fine,” he said. “And if you want her to stay that way, you’ll listen carefully to what I have to say. We’re in Leeds, in Harehills, outside a closed-down garage opposite a boarded-up school called Harehills Park. Got that?”

“Leeds. Harehills Park. Yes. If you so much as lay a finger on her-”

“I know. I know. You’ll kill me. How long will it take you to get here?”

“About an hour.”

“Bollocks,” said Jaff. “Forty, forty-five minutes max. But I’ll give you one hour. Not a minute more. We’ll be watching for you. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t even think of bringing a friend or arranging a welcome party. Believe me, if I see any signs of police activity in the area, your daughter gets it. Understand?”

“I understand,” said Banks. “What do you want from me?”

“I’ll tell you that when you get here. You’re wasting time. Get going.” And the connection broke.

Banks popped quickly back into the boardroom and said that one of his informants had called, and he had to go out for a while. Gervaise nodded, and everyone got back to the conversation. For a moment he was in two minds whether to tell Gervaise the truth, as he knew he should, and let her organize the cavalry, but he also knew from experience what the red tape was like, the necessary levels of approval, documents in triplicate. He also had the recent example of the Patrick Doyle fiasco if he needed any concrete reminder of what could go wrong. His daughter’s life was at stake this time. He remembered Jaff’s warning and believed it. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, dashed down the stairs and out back.

He had no trouble signing a car out of the pool. It was just after nine o’clock in the morning, and what passed for rush hour in Eastvale was already beginning to abate by the time he had negotiated the one-way streets and joined York Road. The weather was fine, the traffic running smoothly, and he made it to the Leeds Ringroad in about forty minutes. He didn’t even put any music on. He didn’t want any distractions. He needed a plan, needed to think.

Banks knew the general Harehills area, but not the back streets, and it was one of those rare occasions when the satnav actually proved its worth. This time he didn’t end up facing a brick wall while being told he had arrived at his destination, nor was he in Guiseborough when he had set the thing for Northallerton. The boarded-up school came into view on his right, about a hundred feet ahead, as he turned into the street, and opposite it stood the out-of-business garage and a greasy spoon. It was an odd place to arrange a meeting, and Banks guessed that Jaff had come to the area looking for something he had expected but hadn’t found. The garage was the most obvious clue. If it came to it, he could find the owner’s name and see if he had any links to McCready or Fanthorpe. For now, though, he wanted to see for himself that Tracy was unharmed.

Banks came to a halt outside the garage, as instructed. He scanned the street in both directions but saw nothing out of place. A few men in traditional costume coming in or out of the mosque. A couple of women in black burkas chatting as they walked down the street carrying their shopping. A normal day in a normal street.

There were plenty of parked cars, facing all directions, and most of them were in need of rust treatment and a new tire here and there, but nothing stood out. A silver Honda hatchback had pulled into the street after Banks and parked on the other side, behind a yellow Fiesta with a dented door, but a youth in a dark blue hoodie and black tracksuit bottoms got out and went into the sewing-machine repair shop without so much as glancing in Banks’s direction.

In his rearview mirror, Banks saw two figures emerge from the greasy spoon, huddled close together like lovers, one of them carrying a bulky hold-all, the other a leather shoulder bag. The slighter one was Tracy, and his heart lurched in his chest at the sight of her. They got in the back door of his car and the voice from the telephone said, “Drive.”

Banks drove.

“Give me your mobile,” Jaff said when they were on the main road. Banks took it out of his pocket and passed it back. He noticed Jaff switch it off. He was a tall, good-looking kid with long eyelashes, a burnished gold complexion and big brown eyes. Banks could see why women found him attractive. Tracy sat huddled as far away from him as she could get, at the far edge of the seat, hunched in on herself, pale and frightened-looking. Banks wanted to tell her it was all right, Daddy was here, everything would be fine, but he couldn’t force out the words in Jaff’s presence. It had to be enough for him just to know that she was still alive and, apparently, unharmed.

Seeing her like this reminded him of the time she was twelve and finally confessed to him in tears that one of the girls at school had been bullying her and extorting her dinner money from her. Banks wanted to hug her, as he had then, and make all her pain go away.

“We’re heading for London,” Jaff said. “I suppose you know the way?”

Banks nodded. He also knew there was no point in going to London, that Martina Varakova was dead and Justin Peverell’s reason had taken a hike, maybe forever. And the fake documents were in the hands of the Metropolitan Police. But he wasn’t about to tell Jaff that. Everything depended on Jaff believing he was on his way to freedom.

“Whereabouts?”

“King’s Cross. You can drop us there, and I’ll let her go in half an hour.”

Banks didn’t like the sound of that, but now was far too early to negotiate. By the time they got to King’s Cross the balance of power might have shifted a little in his favor. They were probably not meeting at the Highgate house, Banks thought. That was why Ciaran and Darren had left after they had finished with Justin and Martina. They were going to lie in wait for Jaff and Tracy, but they hadn’t said where. “You’ve been causing us quite a bit of trouble, Jaff,” he said, without turning his head.

“It’s Mr. McCready to you. And you’ve only got yourselves to blame for that. Live and let live, that’s what I say.”

“That what you said to Annie when you shot her?”

A sly smile spread over Jaff’s face. “She your girl, was she? I know it’s a waste, a tasty morsel like that, but needs must. Just drive. I’m not in the mood for conversation.”

“Are you okay, Tracy? Are you comf-”

“I said just drive.” Banks felt a hard metallic circle push against the back of his neck, and he knew it was the Baikal’s silencer.

“Shooting me right now wouldn’t be a great idea,” he said. “That’s just to let you know that I’m still in charge. Besides, I could shoot her, not you. Maybe just in the leg or something. Or the gut. I said just shut up and drive. And don’t draw attention to us by your driving, or you’ll regret it.”

Banks drove east to the Ring Road, then turned right and followed it down through Seacroft, Killingbeck and Cross Gates to the M1 at Selby Road. He knew that he would show up on dozens of CCTV cameras but that no one would take the slightest bit of notice because his papers were all in order, the car wasn’t stolen, and he wasn’t a wanted man. Unless someone flagged him as a stray and questioned Western Area as to where he was going, which wasn’t very likely. The police drove all over the place in unmarked cars all the time.

“Put some music on,” said Jaff.

“What’s to your taste?”

“Got any Beatles?”

“I do.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t stand them. What about some jazz?”

Banks didn’t often listen to jazz when he was driving, but he had plenty on his iPod. “Anything in particular?”

“Kind of Blue.”

“No problem.”

“One of my mother’s boyfriends in Mumbai used to play Kind of Blue all the time,” Jaff said, so softly he might have been speaking to himself. “Every time I saw him, I used to say, ‘Play Miles for me, play Miles for me.’ My mother had a lot of boyfriends. I learned all sorts of things from them.” Then he lapsed into silence as Bill Evans’s piano intro to “So What?” started up, followed by the bass, and soon the music filled the car, Miles’s trumpet, Coltrane’s tenor…It was surreal, Banks thought. Here he was hurtling toward the M1, and only God knew what fate, a desperate man with a gun holding him and his daughter hostage, and one of his favorite jazz albums of all time blasting out of the speakers. Not a word was spoken. Banks chipped away at the edge of the speed limit, but never went so much beyond it that he would raise any unwanted interest. Occasionally he would look in the rearview mirror and see Tracy sucking her thumb with her eyes closed as she did when she was a little child, clearly not asleep, the tension still tight around her mouth, eyelids twitching now and again. Jaff was just staring out of the window looking grim.

It wasn’t until they had passed Sheffield that Banks became certain the silver Honda hatchback he had seen in Harehills was the same one that had been keeping a respectable distance behind him all the way down the motorway. And when he came to think of it, though he didn’t want to appear prejudiced at all, it had seemed odd at the time that a person dressed in a hoodie and a tracksuit bottom had gone into a sewing-machine repair shop in the first place.


DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT Catherine Gervaise took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. It was years since she had stopped up practically all night, catching only a quick nap in her office between two and three, and she felt exhausted. Naps were all very well, but these days they often left her more tired than before. While she was proud of her origins as a street copper before she made the fast track, and she liked to let people know that she’d done many of the tough jobs they complained to her about, she had to admit that for the most part she’d been on training courses, studying for a university degree, sitting exams, transferring back and forth to uniform and, for the most part, she had become an administrator rather than a working detective. Now her eyes were sore, her brain slow and her body felt weak. She just wanted to go home to bed, but she had important decisions to make.

Gervaise sipped the strong coffee that Winsome Jackman had brought her, but it didn’t seem to do much good. Now they were well into the morning, her tiredness was beyond coffee. Still, at least the taste and warmth of the dark liquid kept her at subsistence level consciousness, though she still felt like one of those zombies out of the movies her son liked to watch so much. Winsome sat opposite her, at the other side of the large desk. She seemed fine, Gervaise thought; but then she was twenty years younger and far more used to the hours.

“I’ve just had Dirty Dick-I mean Commander Burgess-on the phone, ma’am,” said Winsome.

“My, my, you two are getting familiar. Be careful. That man sounds like a walking toxic waste dump to me,” Gervaise said. “What did he say?”

“Still nothing from the two suspects about The Farmer’s involvement.”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” said Gervaise.

Winsome smiled. “But the one thing they did give up-rather, Darren Brody gave up-was the location for the meet.”

“Justin Peverell with Jaff and Tracy?”

“Yes. Hampstead Heath, near Highgate Ponds.”

Gervaise thought for a moment. “That means McCready’s probably still on his way. And he was being extra careful just in case someone had located Peverell’s house.”

“But he can’t have bargained for what actually happened.”

“No. I’m sure he doesn’t know, or he’d be heading as fast as he could in the other direction. Maybe he is.” Gervaise shook her head. “I don’t know, Winsome. What the hell are we to do?”

“Commander Burgess suggested organizing an armed reception committee for McCready at the Heath.”

Gervaise snorted. “He would. What about Tracy Banks?”

“He said he thought he could keep it low-key enough, that McCready wouldn’t spot what was happening until they were on him.”

“I doubt it. We know how easily these things go pear-shaped. Where’s DCI Banks, anyway? He’s been gone ages.”

“I don’t know,” said Winsome. “He’s not around here, that’s for certain.”

Gervaise frowned. “Where did he say he was going?”

“To meet with an informant, I think. I don’t really know where. We were all so busy talking about what had happened to Justin Peverell and his poor girlfriend.”

Gervaise checked her watch. “Whatever it was, it shouldn’t have taken him this long. Especially given his concern over Tracy. Try his mobile, Winsome.”

Winsome keyed in Banks’s mobile number. “It’s turned off, ma’am,” she said.

“That’s not like him. Why would he turn off his mobile at the crucial point of an investigation that involves him personally?” Gervaise felt her brain springing to life, though it was a chaotic sort of life, sparks flying everywhere, but none of them lighting up the bulbs they should, or making the connections they were aiming for. Her thinking felt like a badly played game of pinball, but something was definitely happening. “Help me out here, Winsome. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” said Winsome. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless DCI Banks was…lying about the informant.”

“Don’t sound so horrified at the thought. People do. Sometimes for good reasons.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Winsome, tight-lipped.

“So, if Alan was lying, or making an excuse-he did go into the corridor to take the call-then perhaps it was Tracy. He would certainly lie for her.”

“It could have been McCready.”

“Either way, he might be in trouble.”

“It’s McCready I’d be worried about,” said Winsome. “He’s had a lot of trouble with transport. Perhaps he needs DCI Banks to drive him to Hampstead.”

The neurons were firing a lot better now, and the pinball score was racking up. “Look,” said Gervaise, “let’s find out which car Alan signed out from the pool and see if we can access Automatic Number Plate Recognition control, find out where he is. If you’re right, he’ll be on his way to London, to Hampstead Heath, and we should be able to track his progress.”

“Should we alert all the motorway patrol units?”

“Not yet. We don’t want a car chase on our hands. Not if Alan and Tracy are in one of the cars and McCready is armed. Let’s keep it low profile for now, until we know what’s happened. If they’re still on their way to Hampstead we’ve got a while yet to work something out. Get on to Burgess again, too. Try to persuade him that softly softly’s the way to go for now.”

“Do you have a plan, ma’am?”

“I wish to God I did, Winsome. I wish to God I did.”


BANKS WAS also desperately trying to work out a plan as he drove down the M1 with his silent passengers and loud music. He had already figured out that Jaff’s mood shifts were volatile. Perhaps the pressure of being on the run was getting to him, and he had also been snorting cocaine in the car. So much had gone wrong so far that he had to be becoming increasingly worried about making it. Whatever plan Banks came up with, he knew he would have to take great care and choose his moment.

Separating Jaff from his gun was the key. Without it, he was nothing. The gun was in the hold-all; of that Banks was certain. There was something about the way Jaff held it close to him all the time, often thrusting one hand inside it for a while, gripping something that gave him comfort and confidence, that made it obvious. It wouldn’t be easy to get it away from him, and there was no way it was going to happen if he dropped Jaff and Tracy off at King’s Cross. He couldn’t let that happen.

“I need to go to the toilet.”

It was Tracy, speaking up from the back. Banks turned the music down. More Miles: Someday My Prince Will Come. “What was that, love?” he asked.

“Well, you can’t,” Jaff cut in. “We’re not stopping.”

“It won’t take five minutes,” Tracy argued.

“I told you. We’re not stopping.”

“What do you expect me to do? Piss in the car?”

“I expect you to wait.”

“I can’t wait. I’ve been crossing my legs for the past half hour. I can’t wait anymore. There’s a services coming up soon. I need to go to the toilet.”

Jaff’s hand dug deep inside his hold-all. “I told-”

Tracy turned to face him. “What kind of a person are you? What harm’s it going to do? Do you think I’m going to make a run for it across the car park after you’ve told me what you’ll do? When you’ve got my dad here, too? Do you think I’ll run away if you’ve got your gun on him? What are you scared of? What do you really think I’m going to do? Start shouting out that you’ve got a gun so you can shoot a few more innocent people? For Christ’s sake, get a grip, Jaff. I need to go to the toilet. Simple as that.”

There was a short silence after Tracy’s outburst. Banks held his breath, admiring his daughter for her guts, but uncertain about which direction it would tip Jaff’s erratic brain.

“Fine,” Jaff said eventually. He tapped Banks on the shoulder. “I could do with a cup of coffee, myself. You heard the lady, James. Next services-.”

Banks thought furiously. Could this be his best opportunity? How could he do it? Throw a cup of hot coffee in Jaff’s face, snatch the hold-all, toss it to Tracy, take on Jaff hand-to-hand? It was a possibility, maybe the only one.

Jaff stared out of the window, tapping his fingers on his thighs. He was working it out, Banks knew, figuring out every angle, every moment, every move that could possibly go wrong for him, like so many had before. He would be at his edgiest, his most unpredictable and dangerous from the moment they left the car. As Banks turned onto the slip road, he looked for the silver Honda hatchback in his rearview mirror, but he couldn’t see it. Maybe he’d been imagining things.


THE CAR park was only about half full. As soon as Banks had pulled into the spot Jaff had chosen for him and turned off the engine, he opened the door and felt the wind on his face. It had just started to drizzle.

“Not so fast,” said Jaff. “We need to set a few ground rules before we go anywhere.”

Banks closed the door again.

“Hurry up,” said Tracy. “It hurts.”

“We stick together, right?” Jaff said. “Francesca by my side, you in front. And I’ll have my hand on the gun the whole time, so don’t even think of making a break for it. And both of you remember this: If one of you’s out of my sight, the other isn’t.”

Banks wanted to question Jaff on whether he would really start shooting in a public car park, but he didn’t bother. First of all, Tracy was desperate, and Banks wanted them all out of the car as quickly as possible to increase his chances of taking control of the situation. Secondly, he suspected that at this point Jaff was so wired that he probably would start shooting. Banks had noticed him snorting more lines of coke in the back of the car, seen how twitchy he was becoming.

“It’s your call,” said Banks, pulling the door handle again.

They all got out and started moving across the car park and the open space to the toilets and restaurant. There were a few amusement machines near the entrance, and a convenience store opposite. Next to the store were the ladies’ and gents’ toilets.

“So how are we all going to stick together now?” Banks asked, looking at the flow of people coming in and out of the toilets.

“Don’t be a clever bastard. Obviously we can’t. Francesca goes in. We stay here.”

“But I need to go, too,” said Banks. “And her name is Tracy.”

“I know that. I prefer Francesca. You can wait your turn. Go on, Francesca. And no tricks. Don’t try borrowing anyone’s mobile or trying to pass any messages. Remember what I told you. Your dad’s out here with me.”

Tracy dashed inside the ladies’. Jaff stood close to Banks, with his hand inside his hold-all, eyes on stalks, twitching in all directions.

“You’re not going to get away with this, you know,” Banks said casually, trying to discover just how far he could push Jaff.

“What do you know?”

“You could stop it now. It would count for you in court.”

“Rubbish. I shot a copper.”

“But you didn’t kill her.”

“I can’t do time in prison. I’d never survive.”

“There’s no way around that.”

“So we just do as I say.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s taking a long time.”

“She’s a woman,” said Banks.

Jaff actually laughed. It was a slightly mad laugh, and one or two passersby glanced curiously at him. Luckily, Tracy came out immediately after the comment, and Jaff gave her instructions to wait exactly where she was while he and Banks went. When they came out, she was still there, rooted to the spot.

“So far, so good,” said Jaff. “Let’s get something to eat.”

They went upstairs to the takeaway section and bought coffee and sandwiches, which Jaff directed Banks to carry, no doubt so he could keep a firm grip on his gun. The food was in a bag, which would make it more difficult for Banks to remove the top from the coffee unseen and toss it in Jaff’s face. But it was a long walk back to the car. Banks had had no time to talk to Tracy alone, to make her aware of what he might try. He had to depend on her survival instinct and her quick grasp of the changing situation. She would have to follow his lead.

Slowly they walked back, Banks slightly ahead, as he had been told, Jaff with his hand in his hold-all, Tracy beside him. Banks didn’t like walking blind to his adversary’s exact position and movements, but he thought he could shield the bag slightly with his body as he reached inside with his free hand and felt for the top of the coffee container. He knew that some of it might splatter on Tracy if Jaff was sticking close to her, but that couldn’t be helped. He would try to be as accurate as possible given the circumstances.

They made their way through the parked cars, sometimes having to walk in single file through a narrow space, getting closer and closer. Banks got the top off, and the hot black coffee scalded his fingers. He grimaced in pain but managed to avoid shouting out. He must have stumbled a little, though, because Jaff told him to turn around. There weren’t any people nearby, though Banks could hear the cars whizzing by on the M1 and wondered if that was the last sound he would hear.

He turned, the coffee cup in his hand, spillage burning the stretched webbing between his thumb and forefinger. Jaff had the gun out of his hold-all now, and he was pointing it at Tracy’s head. As Banks let go of the coffee and let the whole bag of food fall to the ground, a woman shepherding her two kids back to a car about four rows away screamed. Jaff turned to face the direction of the sound, but she had already dragged her children down behind their parked car.

Jaff turned back to Banks and pointed the gun toward him, his arm around Tracy’s neck. There were more screams, the sound of people running, car doors slamming, engines starting. Jaff’s face contorted in anger and confusion. He was losing it, Banks thought; he was going to shoot.

As Banks steeled himself to take the bullet, the upper right quadrant of Jaff’s head disappeared in a reddish-gray mist. The gun clattered to the tarmac. Jaff shuddered like a marionette out of control, spread his arms wide and lost his grip. Tracy threw herself forward into Banks’s arms. Banks dropped to his knees and held her close to his chest, shielding her from the sight behind her. He felt her arms around him, clinging on tightly for dear life, her face buried in his shoulder, her little voice crying daddy, daddy, daddy how sorry she was through her tears.

Загрузка...