Brute Force

44

The Golden Lane Estate was originally built for essential workers – firemen, nurses, that kind of stuff. But in the eighties' housing boom it all went private and now belonged to architects and traders. They're nice little two-bedroom flats rubbing shoulders with the City.

The only subject I had really liked at school was history, and I'd lapped up the sales leaflet I found when I went to check it out. In the eighteenth century it was a warren of slums and red-light areas. By the end of the nineteenth the slums had been replaced by warehouses and train yards. The Great Cripplegate fire of 1897 began in an ostrich-feather warehouse and swept away most of the remaining residential buildings.

By the start of the twentieth century only 6,000 people lived here. Then, on a single night in December 1940, the Luftwaffe destroyed virtually every building in the area. The bombsite lay abandoned until an architectural competition in 1951, and the Golden Lane Estate was born in all its glory: one eleven-storey block, twelve terrace blocks, and a leisure centre with a twenty-metre swimming pool and two all-weather tennis courts.

We couldn't go straight to the cache. I was going to have to clear the area, in case it had been discovered and it was linked to me as a known location. If that was the case, they would have a trigger on it to see if I turned up.

We were more or less level with the entrance to the estate. If I'd been triggered as I left the station or the coffee shop, they would now be behind me, thinking that I was heading for my security blanket. Unless the area was covered by enough CCTV cameras to cover me electronically.

Two attractive women approached from the opposite direction, sandwich-bar paper bags in their hands. I would have no more than three seconds in which to check. They passed, laughing and talking loudly. Now was the time. I turned to give them an admiring glance, in the way men think they do unobtrusively. The two women gave me a 'You should be so lucky' look and got back to their laughing.

There were three candidates beyond them. A middle-aged couple dressed for the office turned the corner behind me. They looked too preoccupied, staring into each other's eyes for as long as possible before getting back to the grindstone. Then again, good operators would always make it look that way. The other possible was coming from straight ahead, and on the estate side of the street. He looked like a builder; he was wearing blue jeans and a thick, dark blue shirt with the tail hanging out, the way I would if I wanted to cover my weapon and radio.

I turned back in the direction I'd been heading. If they were operators, the couple behind me would now look as though they were exchanging sweet nothings, but actually be reporting what I was getting up to, on a radio net, telling the Desk and the other operators where I was, what I was wearing, and the same for my friend. And if they were good, they would also say that I could be aware, because of the look back.

I carried on to the end of the estate and turned left. The couple were still with me. I stopped outside the last of the shops to read the cards in the window selling everything from second-hand vacuum cleaners to personal massage, before turning left again. Three corners in a circular route isn't natural. A good operator wouldn't turn the third corner, but if the lovers came past, I would bin the RV anyway. Better safe than sorry.

A target going static short-term is always awkward for a surveillance team. Everybody's got to get in position, so that next time the target goes mobile they've covered every possible option. That way, the target moves to the team, instead of the team crowding the target. But was there a trigger here? I'd find out soon enough.

Nothing happened during the five minutes it took me to read every card. Lynn stood nervously beside me.

'Don't worry. They're not going to hit us here in the middle of the city. If they know we're here, they'll wait.'

Moving off again, I eventually turned back onto Goswell Road and into the estate.

I went towards the chute where the big wheelie bins stood, where they threw the rubbish down onto the ground floor, and picked up a little plastic key fob hidden behind a pair of large metal doors.

Aglass- and steel-framed security door led into the stairwell. I rested the fob against the pad alongside it and it clicked open.

I didn't go into an apartment. I could never have afforded one here. My fob came from the Pizza Express about five minutes away. It was sheer luck: I'd found a set of keys in the toilet about five years ago. The dickhead had stuck his address on it. The keys didn't interest me – they'd have had them changed anyway. What did was the fact I could now enter and exit a secure area.

I led Lynn down into the basement, where the residents had little lock-ups for bikes and all that kind of shit.

I ducked under a tent that had been hung between the cages to dry and went and stood in the far corner, in front of a sign listing fire hazards.

I checked the flat screw heads. All of them should have had their recess at forty-five degrees. It was a simple tell-tale and one that any professional would have noticed. But that was exactly what I wanted them to see, to give them a false sense of security when they opened up the cache.

The screws were still in position. I twisted them open with a 5p piece. The next tell-tale was on top of the loose brick behind the board. I pulled it out gently, checking the top right-hand corner to reveal a disc-shaped piece of mortar that rested on top. I watched it fall into the small holding area as I removed the brick from the wall. No mortar disc? I would have walked away.

A clingfilm-wrapped bundle sat snugly in the holding area. It contained a passport, driver's licence and credit card in the name of Marc Richardson, and 6,000 US dollars in small denomination bills.

I checked that everything was exactly the way I'd left it: the end of the plastic cover cutting through the second S of the word passport.

I undid the package, removed its contents, replaced them with Nick Stone's passport, driving licence and credit cards, and wrapped it up again and slid it back in the hole.

'I'm shedding a skin.'

I slipped my new identity inside my Red Cross raincoat. 'I always knew there'd be a time when someone like you wouldn't want me around any more. This is my safety blanket.'

He didn't say a word – just took off his hat and ran his fingers absently across the scabs on his pate. I was beginning to sense a vulnerability in him that I hadn't expected. Fear I could have understood – but what I now saw in his eyes was sadness, and I couldn't think why. He was retired, he had a pension, a family, a big country seat. He should have been dancing a jig from dawn till dusk. Resignation, that's what it was – almost like he'd lost the will to live.

He put his hat back on and did up the flaps. 'No weapon?'

'No need. Next stop City Airport or the Eurostar.'

I headed out of the basement. 'I've got my new life. Now we'd better fix you one, so we can get out of here.'