First Response

BAYSWATER (11.35 p.m.)

‘There you go, Mr Ahmed,’ said the female constable in the passenger seat in front of him. ‘I’m sorry about the clothes. You’ll get them back eventually.’

‘That’s okay. I’m just glad to be home,’ said Ahmed. He climbed out of the car. He was holding a small plastic bag containing his wallet, mobile phone, spare change and keys. A woman with several carrier bags stared at him as she walked by, frowning. He knew how strange he looked in the paper suit and paper shoes, but the police had explained they needed all his clothing as evidence.

He let himself into the building and went up the stairs to his second-floor studio flat. Once inside he made himself a mug of tea, then spent the next hour carefully wiping down every surface in the flat, taking particular care to clean every knob, handle and switch he had touched. He used disposable cloths and placed the used ones in a black rubbish bag. When he was satisfied, he stripped off his paper suit, put it with the disposable shoes into the rubbish bag, and went into the cramped bathroom.

He stood in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection for several seconds. He had hated the beard from the start, but it had been necessary. He used a pair of scissors to hack away most of the facial hair then took a can of shaving foam and a Gillette razor and shaved off the rest.

He showered and changed into brand new clothes he’d bought a week earlier. Then he placed all of his old clothes in the black rubbish bags. Also into the bags went anything that identified him as Zach Ahmed. That wasn’t his real name: it was an identity he’d carefully cultivated over the past two years. His real name was Daniel Khan.

He peered out of the window and saw the police car parked across the road. The two officers had bought coffees from one of the all-night cafés and were sipping them as they chatted.

He had a large nylon kitbag under his bed and pushed the rubbish bags into it, then zipped it up. He went around the flat one last time, checking he hadn’t forgotten anything, then headed downstairs. One of the reasons Daniel had rented the flat in Bayswater was that it had a way out through a small backyard where the rubbish bins were stored. He locked the flat and went downstairs, out of the back door to the yard and through a wooden gate into the alley that ran behind the terrace.

He caught a black cab in Queensway and had the driver drop him at Victoria station. He caught a second cab to south London and got out in Peckham. He walked for a good ten minutes with the kitbag, doubling back several times to reassure himself that he wasn’t being followed.

The warehouse had a for-sale sign over its door. It had been on the market for more than two years but planning restrictions meant it was proving difficult to sell. There was a chain-link fence running around it and the surrounding yard. The gate was unlocked and he walked through and around to the rear of the building where there was a delivery bay and a metal shutter that had been raised. He went inside.

The nine chairs were still standing in a circle. Shahid had taken off his ski mask and overalls and was wearing a pink polo shirt and faded blue jeans. He was taking the SIM card out of a phone as Daniel walked in. He grinned. ‘Hello, bruv.’

Daniel dropped his bag and hugged his brother. Adam Khan was three years older than Daniel but they were often mistaken for twins. ‘Did you get the money?’ asked Daniel, as he stepped back.

‘Of course. All five million.’

Daniel punched the air. ‘Fucking ace.’

‘I had it collected and put into the banking system. I’ll move it around a bit but it’s pretty much untraceable already. And you got the recording?’

Daniel pulled his mobile phone out of his back pocket. ‘The quality’s great. You can hear every word.’

‘And the cops didn’t examine it?’

‘They took the other phone but I told them this was my personal one and they let me keep it.’

‘How did the interrogation go?’

‘Piece of cake. But there’s something you need to know. The guy you sent to Tavistock Square? He was a cop.’

Adam’s jaw dropped. ‘No fucking way.’

‘Undercover with the NCA. We thought he was a paedo but he was undercover.’

‘Fuck me, he looked the part.’

Daniel grinned. ‘Any Asian with a beard is a paedo or a jihadist? That’s racial profiling, bruv. But once he told them what had happened here, they had to believe him. And us.’

Adam shook his head. ‘Shit, that’s not good. We went to a lot of trouble making sure they were bad. If not potential jihadists, at least they were criminals.’

‘He was good at his job, that’s for sure,’ said Daniel. ‘He looked as if he was part of that gang.’

‘We were lucky he wasn’t hurt,’ said Adam.

‘The plan was never for anyone to get hurt,’ said Daniel. ‘The only way he’d have got hurt is if the cops had overreacted. But, yeah, we were lucky.’

The two men embraced again. ‘Time to move,’ said Adam. ‘I cleaned up the body.’

Daniel laughed and went to look behind the screen. ‘It worked a fucking treat, didn’t it? They shat themselves.’

‘It looked real, all right,’ said Adam. ‘That bit of leg sticking out of the trainer was the clincher.’

‘Bog-standard special effects,’ said Daniel. ‘Shows you my degree wasn’t a total waste of money.’ He nodded at the kitbag. ‘The stuff in there needs burning.’

‘Put it in the car with the rest of the rubbish.’ He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘I’m looking forward to getting back to the real world.’

‘Me too,’ said Daniel.