Siege

Sixty-one

21.12

TINA LIT A cigarette and turned on the car’s engine to stay warm. A chill wind blew down the street making the foliage shiver, and it had started to rain.

Sitting there in the dim light of the streetlight, with the BBC news on the radio, she wondered what the hell she was doing, risking her neck to help a woman she hadn’t spoken to in months, and who was an acquaintance at best.

And yet somehow she was here in the cold, having been dragged into the middle of a case that had global implications. So far tonight she’d impersonated a police officer, interfered with a crime scene, and withheld vital information in what was shaping up to be one of the biggest single crimes in modern policing history.

But that was Tina. She never did anything by halves. And so far she still believed that she was doing the right thing, although the more she thought about it, the more the doubts gnawed away at her. She understood why Arley hadn’t wanted to say anything to her bosses, but at the same time Tina herself didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of any SAS men. After all, they had families too.

Her phone rang. It was Arley.

‘What have you got?’ Tina asked her.

‘The vehicle with the registration you gave me was last picked up on the ANPR cameras in Willesden,’ stated Arley. Her voice was calm, but only just, as if she was only a wrong word away from hysteria. ‘That was at eight twenty-seven a.m. this morning, and it hasn’t moved within camera-range since. And it’s definitely the same vehicle because it was caught on camera a few hundred metres from our house at five to eight.’

‘How big’s the area it could be in?’

‘About four hundred metres by six hundred. And it’s high-density residential. The Hendon guys are contacting the local council to see if there are any other cameras that might narrow it down, but that’s going to take time, and it’s unlikely.’

‘Driving there’s going to take time too, and unless I strike bloody lucky, I could still be looking round for it tomorrow morning.’

‘It doesn’t look like there’s much off-road parking or garages,’ said Arley hopefully.

Tina didn’t share her optimism. ‘Any news on the location of your husband’s phone?’

‘It’s been switched off most of the day, but on those occasions it has been on, it’s been nowhere near Willesden.’

‘Have any calls been made on it today?’

‘Only the ones to my mobile.’

Tina suppressed a frustrated sigh. The man dealing with Arley was a canny operator with a thorough knowledge of police tactics, and he was being careful to give away as little information as possible. ‘You need to get me a map of the area where the van could be. I’ve just set up an anonymous hotmail account. Send it to me there.’ Tina gave her the address.

‘Will you be able to go over there right away?’

‘Yes, but it still might take me time when I get there. And I’m guessing that now they’ve killed a hostage, that’s something we haven’t got a lot of.’

‘You know about that?’ Arley sounded surprised.

‘The whole world knows about it, Arley.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Listen, I’ve got an idea. The next time you speak to the kidnapper, demand proof of life. Demand to speak to your family. Say that if you don’t, you won’t cooperate.’

‘What if he doesn’t go for it?’

‘Make him go for it. Put him on the back foot for once. You haven’t got anything to lose.’

‘I’ve got everything to lose, Tina. My children, for God’s sake.’

‘But you need to know they’re still alive. And you need to make him want to keep them alive so that you do what he wants. And the only way you’re going to do that is by being firm. It’s the only way.’

‘OK,’ said Arley uncertainly. ‘But wait, he doesn’t have the children. He told me he was in contact every fifteen minutes with the man holding them.’

‘That doesn’t change anything. Insist on speaking to your family – not just the children, or he’ll know you know that Howard’s dead. And if he won’t go with that – which I suspect he won’t – demand that he send a video message from them, and insist that one of the children says a certain word or phrase, something that tells you that the footage has been taken after you demanded it.’

‘But how will that help us locate them? He’s obviously using a different phone to stay in touch with the man holding the twins.’

‘The man who makes the video will send it via a phone to the man you’re in contact with. He won’t have time to do it all through email. I reckon your man will get him to send the video to Howard’s phone so that he can send it straight on to you, and as soon as he does that we’ve got the other guy’s number, and we’ll be able to track his location.’

‘But he’ll see through it, surely? It seems too obvious.’

‘Not if you sound frightened enough. He’ll think you genuinely want to hear from them, which of course you do. And remember, he’ll be under pressure himself by now, and people under pressure make mistakes.’

There was a silence on the other end of the line. ‘Unless, of course, they’re already dead,’ said Arley at last. ‘They killed Howard easily enough.’

‘We can’t think like that,’ Tina told her firmly. ‘I’m on my way to Willesden.’

Tina ended the call and pulled the car away from the kerb. For the first time that evening she felt in control, now that she was actually doing something rather than sitting around watching events unfold without her.