First Response

LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (8.30 p.m.)

Chief Superintendent Gillard walked into the interview room holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a cheese sandwich from the canteen in the other. Kashif Talpur was sitting at the table and Inspector Mark Biddulph was next to him. ‘Apologies for me having to eat on the hoof,’ said Gillard, sitting opposite them. ‘I’m starving.’

‘You and me both,’ said Talpur. He was wearing a white paper forensic suit and had white paper slippers on his feet.

‘Haven’t they given you anything?’ asked Gillard. He pushed the sandwich over the table. ‘You have this. I’ll get some more sent in.’

‘We’re having something brought down from the canteen,’ said Biddulph. ‘It’s all been a bit frantic, obviously.’

On cue the door opened and a uniformed constable brought in a tray with two coffees and a selection of sandwiches and biscuits. He put the tray down on the table and left. Talpur had already started on Gillard’s sandwich so the chief superintendent reached for another. It was tuna salad but he didn’t care what it was: he just needed the calories. He took a bite, swallowed, and washed it down with coffee. ‘So, Kashif, how are you?’ he asked.

‘Still a bit shaken up, sir,’ said Talpur. ‘And everyone calls me Kash.’

‘Okay, Kash, I need you to tell us exactly what happened this morning.’

‘It started last night,’ said Talpur. ‘I was getting home and a couple of guys approached me. One pushed something over my face and I passed out.’

‘This was where? Your home?’

Talpur shook his head. ‘I’m in a small flat in Brentford,’ he said. ‘Part of my cover. The gang I’ve infiltrated have been bringing in heroin from overseas through Heathrow. Some of them are working as baggage handlers and they have a guy in Customs. He’s the one I’ve been after.’

‘So you’ve been undercover for how long?’ asked Gillard.

‘Three months. Almost four.’

‘And you’re in deep cover?’

Talpur nodded. ‘I haven’t been home in two months. I work part-time in a kebab shop owned by one of the targets.’

‘Okay, so they knocked you out. What then?’

‘I woke up in a warehouse. I was tied to a chair and there was a bag over my head. I don’t know how long I was out or how long I stayed tied to the chair. Hours. All night for sure. When they took the bag off my head there was light coming through the roof skylights. It was eight o’clock, maybe.’

‘You say “they”. How many were they?’

‘In the warehouse? Just one. Called himself Shahid. I never saw his face. He wore a ski mask. We all had ski masks on, under the hoods.’

‘So they took the hood off you. What then?’

‘Shahid told us what we had to do. We all had on suicide vests. He said we would each be given our instructions and that if we didn’t do as we were told the vest would detonate. There were triggers that we had to keep in our hands, but the triggers wouldn’t work. The vests could only be detonated by mobile phone. He said we were being watched and that if we didn’t do as we were told we would be blown up. There was a pack around our waists containing our instructions and a phone. The phone couldn’t be used to call out but he could call us.’

‘And your instructions were to board a bus?’

Talpur nodded. ‘They put us in a van and dropped us off one by one. We had to wear the hoods in the van and he took them off when we got to where we were going.’

‘Shahid took off the hood?’

‘Yes.’

‘So who was driving the van?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Talpur. He frowned. ‘No, I think it was Shahid who was driving. He drove, and when he had parked he climbed into the back.’

‘So he was working alone?’

‘I think so. Yes.’

Gillard took another bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully.

‘Is something wrong, sir?’ asked Talpur.

‘I just find it hard to believe that one man could have such complete control over all nine of you,’ he said.

‘We were scared,’ said Talpur. ‘Terrified. He could have killed any of us with just one phone call.’

‘There were no explosives,’ said Gillard. ‘They were all fake. You were never in any danger. No one was.’

Talpur shook his head fiercely. ‘I saw one of them explode. There was blood and shit everywhere. It was real, no question.’

‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ said Gillard.

‘One of the guys started screaming that he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Shahid told him to be quiet. He wouldn’t listen. He was hysterical. Shahid took him to the other end of the warehouse and used a phone to set off the vest. Fucking thing blew him into a thousand pieces.’ He grimaced. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to swear, sir. But it was intense. I was sure I was going to die.’

‘And you saw this man blown apart?’

Talpur nodded. ‘No question.’

‘But what about shrapnel? Why were none of you hurt? An explosion like that in a confined space…’

‘There was this metal screen hanging from the roof. Shahid pulled the guy behind it before he set off the vest.’

‘So you didn’t actually see the explosion?’

‘No, we saw it. And we heard it. There was a blast and blood and there was a leg.’

‘A leg?’

‘Part of a leg. A foot. In a trainer. Blood and bone and…’ He shuddered. ‘It scared the shit out of me. Out of all of us.’

Gillard wrinkled his nose. ‘I think that was the intention,’ he said.

Talpur frowned. ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at, sir.’

‘Shock and awe, Kash,’ said the chief superintendent. ‘He wanted you to follow instructions and for that he needed you terrified.’

‘We were, no question. Like I said, I was sure we were going to be killed.’

Kamran was watching the interview through a one-way mirror with Chris Thatcher. ‘What do you think?’ asked Kamran.

‘He’s nervous, but that’s understandable,’ said Thatcher. ‘But all his body language and micro-expressions suggest he’s telling the truth. He feared for his life, there’s no question of that. He really believed Shahid would detonate the vest he was wearing.’

Kamran nodded thoughtfully. ‘Let’s see what the rest of them have to say for themselves.’

Gillard left the interview room and a few seconds later joined Kamran and Thatcher. ‘What d’you think?’ he asked Kamran.

‘He seems to be telling the truth. And it makes sense. They thought they were going to die.’

‘Shahid killed one of them, I get that,’ said Gillard. ‘Blew him to bits in front of them. But why the fake explosives in the vests? If he had access to the real thing, why send the rest of them out with dummies?’

Kamran shrugged. ‘It doesn’t make sense, does it?’

‘We need to check that Talpur is telling us the whole story,’ said Gillard. ‘And we need to do that quickly. I suggest you and I lead the initial interviews. I’ll take Bhashir, Ahmed, Malik and Masood. You take Pasha, Hussain, Chaudhry and Osman. We need to find out if they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.’