The Judas gate

9

Other things had been happening the previous evening, too, while Dillon and Holley were racing to make their flight to Belfast.

After the death threat from 'number one man', Kalid Hasim had felt extremely nervous. His friend, Sajid, was still in St Luke's Hospital with the broken arm. Omar, who had swum into the darkness of the Thames, had vanished. Alone, he felt very vulnerable.

But he was no coward, and he soon got restless. Tired of staying in the furnished room he rented, he ventured out at seven-thirty in the evening and went to his usual gym for a training session, a baseball bat in the long sports bag he carried, just in case.

It wasn't particularly busy and there was no one to spar with, so he just worked out for an hour, then showered, dressed and left, unsure of where he was going to go. There was a lamp shining down from a bracket about ten feet above the end of the narrow street, the beam causing a reflection of his image in the shop window, so that he was aware of the other image merging into his own, a gun in its right hand.

'I told you you were a dead man,' the voice said from behind him. 'Now keep walking and turn into the alley on the right. The canal's at the end. Very convenient, that, I'm sure you'll agree.'

'Just give me a break.' Hasim half sobbed for effect as he said it, then stumbled, dropped the bag, the baseball bat in his right hand, and swung wildly against the man's left thigh.

'Number one man' cursed and stumbled, the silenced pistol discharging. Hasim dropped the baseball bat at the sound, and ran out into the road blindly, dodging through traffic. He stopped in the safety of the far side, pedestrians around, and stepped into a doorway from where he could observe the alley. When a figure emerged, he gave himself away by carrying Hasim's sports bag in one hand.

He must have assumed Hasim was running for his life. Hasim had not been able to get a good look at his assailant on the street, but now he stepped back into the darkness of the doorway and watched him. The lights on a silver Mercedes down the street came on – must be a remote control. Hasim found a pen in a pocket of his tracksuit and wrote the licence plate number across the palm of his hand.

The man drove away, and Hasim stood, thinking. There was no point going home. That would be the equivalent of committing suicide. He had twenty-five or thirty pounds in his pocket. A limited future indeed, whichever way you looked at it. 'Number one man' was obviously serious about killing him, and it only gave him one choice. He waved down a cab, got in, and told the driver to take him to the Dark Man on Cable Wharf. It was time to talk to the Salters. Harry and Billy Salter were in the corner booth, Dora serving them with two plates of sandwiches. 'Ham and pickles,' she said, 'and salad for the vegetarian teetotaller.'

'So kind, Dora.' Billy reached for one. Harry said, 'Well, look what the cat's brought in.'

Hasim stood uncertainly just inside the door, and Joe Baxter went and grabbed his arm. 'Shall I give him the heave-ho, boss?'

'Just listen to me, Mr Salter,' Hasim pleaded.

'Why should I?'

'The guy I told you about who's just a voice on the phone?'

'The one you'd never met?' Billy said.

'He just tried to shoot me.'

There was complete silence, then Harry said, 'Now why would he do that?'

'After you gave me the money and told me to find my friend, I took him to the hospital. He's still there. The man I'm talking about called me. He said I'd shot my mouth off to you. He added that you now knew it was connected to Al Qaeda and it was my fault and I was a dead man.'

'And he's had a go?' Billy demanded.

Hasim described exactly what had happened when he'd left the gym in Camden.

'What a bastard,' Salter said. 'We can't have this. Let's have a look at your palm.' He examined it, turned to Billy, and read off the licence plate number Hasim had written there. 'Roper should take at least five minutes to trace this bleeder on his computer, wouldn't you say?'

'Absolutely.' Billy was already on his mobile, calling Holland Park. He got up, walking away as he talked to Roper.

Harry said, 'You look half starved. Have a sandwich. There's salad there. I know you Muslims don't go for ham.'

'Actually, I'm rather partial to it, so if you don't mind.' Hasim helped himself. 'There are Muslims and Muslims.'

'You'd better stay here for a bit while we sort this out,' Dora said as she brought him a drink. She ruffled his hair. 'Can't have a nice young lad like you running round in fear for his life.'

'God help us, she'll be adopting you next,' Harry said. 'But she's got a point. Go on, have another sandwich, build yourself up.' The licence plate number was the key that unlocked everything.

'His name's Selim Lancy,' Billy said when he returned to the booth. 'An interesting geezer. His father was an English seaman, his mother's Muslim. She's got cancer and she's a patient at St Luke's at the moment.'

'Just up the bleeding road,' Harry said. 'Bit of a coincidence.'

'Not really. They live in an old house on Tangier Wharf. That's no distance at all.'

'What's he do?' Harry asked. 'Has he got any form?'

'Not the kind you mean,' Billy said. 'A corporal in 3 Para. Couple of tours in Afghanistan, badly wounded, discharged. Roper's even got the amount of compensation he received from the Ministry of Defence. Seventeen grand.'

'Well, I think we should do better than that for our gallant lads,' Harry said. 'That isn't going to keep him for the rest of his life, is it?'

'He's bought a second-hand Mercedes and is a licensed private chauffeur.' Billy shrugged. 'It's a living, I suppose.'

'More than a living, I'd have thought,' Harry said. 'What's more glamorous than a war hero in a good suit driving a silver Mercedes? Those posh birds that go shopping to Harrods or Bond Street will lap him up. I bet he's making a fortune.'

'Which still leaves us with the Al Qaeda connection,' Billy said, and turned to Hasim, who'd been listening intently. 'What's that all about?'

'I honestly don't know,' Hasim said. 'He only mentioned the name Al Qaeda once, like I told you, when he sentenced me to death.' And then he frowned. 'I think he takes his religion seriously.'

'In what way?' Billy asked.

'He paid me and my friends once to smash up a shop selling anti-Muslim literature; then on another occasion to do the same to a place selling pornographic magazines.'

'Did you do that often?' Billy asked.

'We torched an old shop somebody had bought with the intention of turning it into a massage parlour. He told me over the phone that the people involved used young girls and that his boss thought it an offence against Allah.'

'Well, I agree with him there,' Harry said. 'But who was this boss he mentioned?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' Hasim said. 'That was the only time he said such a thing.'

Harry turned to Billy. 'What do you make of this?'

'It fits with the Al Qaeda attitude,' Billy told him. 'They follow the teachings of the Koran, they're moralists, and these joints Hasim and his pals turned over were purveyors of filth.'

'All very well, my old son, but the attack on the Dark Man was nothing to do with Allah or the Koran, and everything to do with some personal vendetta against all of us,' Harry said.

'I agree,' Billy told him.

'Then I suggest you do something about it, like getting your arse over to Tangier Wharf, grabbing Lancy by the scruff of his neck and bringing him back here where I can put a few pertinent questions to him.' Harry looked grim. 'I mean, Muslim morality is one thing, but he's got questions to answer. Take the boys as backup if you want.'

Billy nodded to Baxter. 'I'll take Joe as driver, and Hasim might be useful. I'm just going to check my laptop. Roper was putting an identity photo through from army records.'

Harry said to Hasim, 'Do you feel okay about this? He sounds like a bad bastard.'

'Yes, I think he is.' Hasim looked tired, but shrugged and tried to smile. 'It's as Allah wills, Mr Salter. I made a bad mistake getting involved with this man. I will do anything to get rid of him.'

Billy returned wearing a dark single-breasted raincoat. He produced a silenced Walther from the interior pocket, checked it and replaced it.

He said to Baxter, 'You tooled up, Joe?'

'In the car,' Baxter told him. 'A selection.'

'That's it then.' Billy put a hand on Hasim's shoulder. 'Let's get it done.' Selim Lancy had been visiting his mother in the oncology department at St Luke's. An operation for her skin cancer seemed to be working and they'd assured him the treatment had stopped the spread. He'd taken her flowers and sat with her for a while. She was a kind and simple person who divided her time between keeping the old Victorian flat on Tangier Wharf spotless and offering whatever services were required at the mosque.

She was overwhelmed by what seemed to her the luxury of her private room at the hospital, and Lancy had spent time assuring her that they could afford it. Except for pocket money, he'd always put everything into her deposit account, including the largesse from the Preacher, a total in excess of fifty thousand pounds. The dangerous game he had chosen to play carried the chance of instant death at any time, so it was his way of making things as simple as possible by leaving her everything in advance.

When he'd had enough, he kissed her hand and said to her in Arabic, 'Sleep well, Mother, Allah and all the angels protect you.'

Her eyes already closing, she murmured something and he eased out. Turning from the busy right lane traffic of Wapping High Street into the gloom of Tangier Street was like a journey back in time, the old warehouse buildings, several storeys high, rearing up into the night, obviously waiting for the developer.

The streetlights were museum pieces, many of them originally gas lamps from the look of them. There was a strange, brooding air to the place, as if it was waiting for something to happen, as Joe Baxter cut his engine and coasted down over the cobbles to the Thames below.

'What a bleeding place to live,' Billy said. 'You'd only need the cameras to make a Jack the Ripper film.'

'It gives me the creeps,' Hasim said. 'I'm already imagining a bogey man waiting to jump out at me.'

They coasted silently down to a Victorian tower-like rookery about five storeys high, the wharf below it creating a basin of deep water where ship and barge traffic had been able to ply their trade. A gateway, its gates long gone, gave entrance to a courtyard, and the only light came from a lamp bracketed over the main door. A rotting sign said: 'Tangier Wharf, Hart amp; Son, General Shipping, 1852'.

'Christ,' Billy said. 'It's like Charles Dickens is writing the script.'

There was a modern sign at one side of the entrance, advertising a development of apartments and offices the following year with unsurpassed river frontage.

'I don't care what they do,' Hasim said, 'this place would still give me the creeps.'

'Never mind that,' Billy said. 'The important thing is there's no sign of a silver Mercedes in the courtyard, so we'll go and suss out the situation. Joe, just put the car across the street in that turning, so that it's out of sight.' Baxter switched on for a moment and turned into the yard across the way, then killed his engine again.

Billy opened the glove compartment and took out a Smith amp; Wesson revolver. 'Have you ever fired one of these?'

'Never,' Hasim said.

'Well, you've been to the movies, so you know what to do.' Billy replaced the weapon in the glove compartment. 'You know where it is if you need it. Stay here and keep your eyes open. We'll check where he lives.'

They moved across to the courtyard and Baxter tried the front door, which swung open. There was a tenant listing beside the door, most of the slots blank, and Billy read it quickly.

'They've all gone, except for Mrs Lancy. She's on the top floor.'

'And she's in the hospital, isn't she?' Baxter said.

'She certainly is, so let's get up there and see if we can arrange a surprise for her son when he returns home.' Hasim sat there, not enjoying himself at all. The whole atmosphere of the place was threatening, and sitting in the Mercedes he felt claustrophobic, so he took the Smith amp; Wesson from the glove compartment, opened the door, got out and stood looking down at the river. A boat passed, lit up, the sound of people and music echoing across the water, and then the muzzle of a pistol was rammed into the side of his head and the Smith amp; Wesson torn from his hand.

'Now then, you young bastard,' Selim Lancy said. 'Let's have some answers. What the hell is going on here? Don't try lying to me. I know who Salter is, and I recognize the geezer with him from my visit to the Dark Man when you dropped me in it. You've been doing it again.'

'Come off it,' Hasim said. 'I didn't know your name, never mind your address, until they picked me up.'

'And how did they know where to find you?'

'Salter had a look at my Social Security card when they turned me over that night at the Dark Man.'

'And how do they know about me?'

'Salter said he had one of his men follow me a couple of times and he noticed you in the silver Mercedes. He thought it odd, so they checked your licence plate number.'

'So what are they up to now?' The muzzle of the gun bored painfully into Hasim's right ear.

'Checking on your place to see if you're at home. He said your mother was in the hospital.'

The fact that they knew about his mother disturbed Lancy and made him angry. 'The bastards,' he said. 'Bringing my mother into it. Well, we'll see if I can provide a nice surprise. Get moving, across the courtyard and straight down the left side and round the back.'

Hasim did as he was told, wondering what had gone wrong. It was, in fact, very simple. Lancy parked in a yard on the high street by arrangement with a shopkeeper. It was sheer chance that he'd walked down Tangier Street just after Baxter's silent approach and had – from the shadows – witnessed what had gone on.

Now, he shoved Hasim roughly ahead of him, and paused. The rear of the building dropped five storeys down into forty feet of water in the basin, but at the side, another ancient lamp illuminated an old goods lift, the doors long since gone.

'Get in,' Lancy said. 'It still works, so hang on at that rail. We wouldn't want you to fall out, would we?'

Hasim was desperate, but there seemed no way out of his predicament. They stopped, and Lancy shoved him out on a flat roof. There were the remains of a low wall, which in some places had crumbled already. Hasim could see only the dark waters of the basin far below, the dim glow of a lamp.

'A fast route to hell,' Lancy said. 'A good seventy feet, so behave yourself or I'll shove you over. Now put your hands on your head.'

Hasim did as he was told. There was a stairhead with a door. Lancy got out his mobile and punched the right button and it was answered at once.

'Preacher. Is there a problem?'

'You could say that. I've got Billy Salter and one of his goons trying to invade the flat at Tangier Wharf. I'm hoping to ambush them, but you never can tell.'

'How much does Salter know?'

'That Al Qaeda is a problem for them.'

'And how could they know that?'

'I was trying to do you a favour and it backfired. I haven't got time to explain now. But promise me one thing, Preacher. If things go sour, see to my mother for me, all right? I hear sounds now. I've got to go.'

He put a finger to his lips, nodded to Hasim, and gently eased the door open. A short flight of stairs dropped to the top landing and he could see the front door of the apartment, a dim light above it. There was the slightest of movements, the old stairs creaking, and he took aim and waited.

Hasim pushed him with all his force, screaming, 'Salter, he's got a gun!'

Lancy cursed, fired blindly three times down into the stairhead, then turned to fire at Hasim as he ran, head down, for the edge of the roof. A bullet plucked at his sleeve and he leapt out into space and fell to the basin, arms whirling.

Lancy kicked the door shut as bullets ploughed through it, then turned and ran to the lift, jumped in and pressed the button. It descended more rapidly than it had gone up. A couple of bullets chased him, ripping through the roof, but he made it to the ground floor, crossed the courtyard and ran up the steep slope towards Wapping High Street.

Billy and Baxter were right behind him. 'I'll get after him; you see what's happened to the boy.' Billy started to run.

As neither cigarettes nor alcohol featured in his life, he was very fit and, in spite of the steep slope and cobbled street, was gaining on the other man fast. Lancy glanced back and realized he was being overtaken, those Afghanistan wounds not helping. He put everything into that final spurt and ran straight out in front of a bus in Wapping High Street.

A woman screamed, people cried out, horns sounded as traffic was halted. Lancy lay on his back, blood on his face, and the driver got out of the bus, distraught. Other people approached as a lone policeman, who'd been on foot patrol, appealed for order and dropped down on his knees and went through the motions. He shook his head and stood up, spreading his arms to herd people back.

Somebody said, 'My God, he's dead.'

The bus driver wailed, 'He ran straight in front of me,' turning in appeal to people around him, and then there were the sounds of sirens approaching, police and ambulance, and Billy turned away and went back down Tangier Street.

As he reached the Wharf, Baxter came round the side of the building and started across the courtyard. 'Did he get away?' he asked.

'Ran headlong into traffic and got mown down by a bus,' Billy said. 'What about Hasim?'

'I've been all over the roof.' Baxter shook his head. 'Not a sign. He was a brave young bastard, warning us like he did, but Lancy did a lot of shooting up there. Must have knocked Hasim over. I've been looking round the side, but he isn't there.'

'Damn it to hell,' Billy said. 'I'm going to take a look.'

'Waste of time, Billy. There are seven floors on that building!'

Billy ignored him and walked along the wharf. There were lights here and there, but the basin was a dark pool, and when he looked up at the height of the rookery, it said it all. In spite of that, he called out at the top of his voice.

'Hasim, where the bloody hell are you?' His voice echoed between the old buildings and he turned to walk away.

'Over here, Mr Salter, I'm trying to get up this ladder.'

Billy ran along the wharf, Baxter following him, and they found Hasim in the light of a single lamp, halfway up an iron ladder. Baxter reached down, managed to grasp his right wrist, and heaved him up. He was shaking with cold and Billy took off his raincoat.

Hasim tried to wave it away. 'I think I'm bleeding, I'd ruin it. He tried to shoot me, so I had to jump off the roof.'

'I can't believe it,' Billy said. 'It's a miracle you're in one piece. Get this bloody coat on and we'll get out of it.'

'He's got away, has he?'

'He was knocked down by a bus and killed up on the high street,' Billy said as they walked to the car. 'How the hell did you come to be up there with him?'

Hasim explained, teeth chattering. As he finished, he said, 'He was going to kill all of us, no question, but something else happened on the roof. He called someone on his mobile. He said he had you two trying to invade the flat. He mentioned you by name. He said that Al Qaeda was a problem for them, which I figured meant you. He called the guy he was talking to "Preacher", and asked him to look after his mother if things went sour.'

They were at the Mercedes now, and Billy felt for the wound, got out his handkerchief and bound it tightly. He pushed Hasim into the back of the car and sat beside Baxter.

'St Luke's accident and emergency, Joe. I'll take over the car when we get there and you stay with Hasim – the story is that he fell in the river and hurt himself on the ladder. When everything's okay, we'll come up from the Dark Man and fetch you.'

'You mean me as well, Mr Salter?' Hasim said.

'Who else do I mean? You're a bleeding hero, sunshine. After what you did tonight, you're a made man. Harry Salter will see to that.' Harry was over the moon as Billy sat in the corner booth and told him exactly what had happened, Sam Hall and Dora hanging on his every word. They were still discussing it when Joe Baxter appeared, having come down in a taxi with the news that Hasim was being kept in the hospital for a day or two.

'Hypothermia,' he said. 'And he needed a few stitches in his arm. He was more worried about that than anything else – said it would give him a problem boxing.'

Harry shook his head. 'He's got guts, that kid, to do what he did. Have a word with Chuck Green, Billy. He's opened another health club, in Wandsworth. That makes seven. We've got money in that. Get him to take Hasim on, keep an eye on him.'

'I'll do that,' Billy said. 'But I'm going to take a run up to Holland Park and report in to Roper. I'll see you later. In West Hampstead, Professor Hassan Shah sat at the desk in his ornate Edwardian villa, thinking about everything as calmly as he could. Lancy's telephone call had set every alarm bell going. Lancy didn't do panic, it wasn't in his nature; he was a hard-knocks paratrooper who'd done his time in Afghanistan and paid the price with his wounds. More than that, he'd killed on Shah's behalf without the slightest compunction. He was a man who could handle anything, and yet he hadn't been in touch since his call from Tangier Wharf. So Shah did the obvious and called him on his mobile. After all, he couldn't be traced if someone else answered.

It rang for a long time and he simply sat there listening. He was about to give up when a woman answered. 'Grange Street Morgue.'

Hassan Shah said calmly, 'I'm so sorry, I must have called the wrong number.'

'Probably not, sir. This is the personal effects room, where we store the belongings of those brought in dead, to be claimed later, of course. Could you give me the name of the individual you were trying to call?'

Shah took a huge breath to steady himself. 'Selim Lancy.'

She answered at once. 'Oh, yes, he was brought in quite recently. Knocked down by a bus in Wapping High Street.'

'And killed,' Shah said. It was a stupid remark, but involuntary.

'Of course, sir, he's here waiting for a post mortem. You're a relative?' she asked.

'No, I employed him on occasion.'

'Could I have your name? It may be of use if there are identification problems.'

'I'm so sorry, but I suddenly feel very upset. I'll have to call you back.'

He switched off and sat there. The consequence of the business he was in was death, sometimes of a few, sometimes of many. You had to harden your heart: he had learned that a long time ago. Strange, then, that he felt genuine sadness in Lancy's case. Considering what had gone before, it was obviously not an accident. The Salters had to be behind it – them and Ferguson.

Ferguson had been a problem for too long, but he seemed to live a charmed life; it was rumoured he had even walked away from a car bomb. Perhaps, after all, the best solution was the old-fashioned way as used by the IRA for years. A silenced pistol loaded with hollow point cartridges, the bullet in the back of the head one lonely night in the rain and dark. Or in the back in a crowd, the target falling to the ground, the assassin calmly walking away.

All it required was a man with nerves of steel, and probably one who liked his work: a man like Lancy. Justin Talbot certainly liked his work, and was mad enough to take any chance. In fact, he was beginning to worry Shah, who for some time now had decided it was a good thing that Talbot did not know his identity. Perhaps the temptation of putting a bullet in the back of Shah's own head on a dark rainy night might have proved too great.

But all this would have to wait, for suddenly the most important thing in his life was an old Muslim woman in the cancer ward at St Luke's Hospital who did not know that her best beloved son had gone to paradise, leaving her alone. Professor Hassan Shah had no idea how to break the news to her, but it had to be done. It was a matter of honour, but at this time of night she would be asleep. He would leave it till the morning.

There was another matter that needed taking care of, also a matter of honour. He made a call on his special mobile and spoke to the man who answered it.

'Hamid, this is the Preacher. I have traffic for you, starting now. A photo and address will be in your laptop in five minutes. Deliver punishment at once with extreme prejudice. Osama's blessing on you.'

There was a short pause and then the reply. 'Allah is great and Osama is his Prophet.' It was just past midnight. Billy Salter had been with Roper for the past hour, getting filled in on the reason for Dillon's sudden trip to Ulster, and now he was driving down from Wapping High Street to the Dark Man. There were lamps here and there, three on the jetty that had the Linda Jones tied up to it, a few scattered around the car park. Not that there were many vehicles around at that time of night, with the pub closed since eleven, Dora's implacable house rules. There were lights on at the back of the building in the private quarters, but otherwise it was quiet and remote, with only the river noises to be heard.

He parked the red Alfa Romeo Spider, got out and stretched, for he was exhausted, hardly surprising after the events of the evening. He stood by one of the lamps at the beginning of the jetty and inhaled that wonderful river smell that was the Thames; it was where he'd grown up and it always made him feel better.

When he turned, a man was standing there, medium height with longish hair, wearing a leather bomber jacket. 'Mr Salter.' The voice was very soft.

'Who the hell are you?' Billy demanded.

'The Wrath of Osama.'

His hand swung up, there was the dull thud of a silenced weapon, and two rounds hit Billy around the heart. The force of the blow was enormous, sending him staggering on to his back. He breathed deeply as he had been trained to do, trying to stay conscious.

The man came forward to finish him, and Billy's right hand found the silenced Colt.25 with hollow point cartridges in his ankle holster. As the man leaned over, Billy shot him between the eyes.

Billy sat up, coughing and feeling sick, then unbuttoned his coat, ripped open his shirt, and felt for the two rounds sticking in the nylon-and-titanium vest he was wearing. Finally, he got up and went to the body and examined it. The face was covered in blood and the back of the skull was fragmented. He got down on his knees and searched it, but all he found were empty pockets. There wasn't even a mobile.

He went and sat on a bench by the pub entrance and called Roper, who answered at once. 'Did you forget something?'

'I've got a disposal. Make it fast. I'm outside the entrance to the Dark Man. The geezer was waiting for me. Said he was the Wrath of Osama, then shot me twice in the heart, or thought he did. He said my name. I think it was a revenge thing. I bet the bloody Preacher sent him.'

'I'm calling it in now. You go inside.'

'God damn it, no,' Billy said. 'I'm sick of it.'

He switched off his mobile, went down to the jetty to the Linda Jones, and sat on the stern seat, waiting.

After a while, a dark van appeared, pulled in front of the pub, and two men in black overalls got out, produced a body bag, eased the corpse into it and closed the door. They would see to it that the inconvenient corpse turned to six pounds of grey ash within two hours.

Billy walked down towards them and the door of the pub opened. Billy said to one of the men, 'Many thanks, Mr Teague.'

'Are you all right?' Teague asked.

'Well, the bastard did shoot me twice but, thanks to the Wilkinson Sword Company, I'm still here.'

'Thank God for that,' Teague said. 'We'll be on our way.'

Billy turned and found Harry looking grim and Dora in a dressing gown behind him. Harry Salter said, 'Well, at least we know where we are with this Preacher fellow. He means business and we've got to be ready for him.'

'Harry, I couldn't bloody care less,' Billy said. 'Just lock all the doors so nobody can break in, and let me go to bed. I've had it.'