Latent Hazard rkadika-1

by Piers Venmore-Rowland

  Ben, a burly lad from the East End, who looked as if he’d missed the opportunity of being a second row rugby forward, was revving up for a long session. He and a group of his colleagues decided that it was the perfect evening to visit a nightclub. They’d recently returned from a stag night in Warsaw and had coined a new expression: zloty for totty. This was their war cry, which the dealer next to Rafi was chanting. It was going to be a very long and lively celebration. Ben and his friends decided that they’d have a few more drinks and then move on to a cocktail bar in the West End, for some visual entertainment.

  Rafi remembered looking down at his watch; it had been nearly six o’clock. Half an hour earlier, Jameel had given his apologies and had left to catch a flight to Paris. Rafi still hadn’t spoken to Callum. He rang his mobile without success, and then decided to ring his office and leave a voicemail message, but to his surprise his call was diverted.

  A kind-sounding woman from Landin Young’s HR team had answered the phone. ‘Mr Khan, I have some distressing news…’ She stopped and then, after a short pause, added, ‘I’m very sorry, but Callum Burns has been killed in a car accident. He was in Luxembourg on his way to Belgium when his Mercedes hit black ice, crashed and caught fire. Can I get one of his colleagues to phone you in the morning?’

  Rafi could not reply straight away. He was nearly sick on the spot. Utter disbelief had been his immediate reaction. Then the shock struck home and an overwhelming tiredness swept through him. His hands shook. ‘Thank you, that would be helpful,’ he said weakly before hanging up.

  He had tried to put on a brave face. He wanted to leave and go home there and then. But he did not want to draw attention to his premature departure. He had bought a couple of bottles of champagne, somehow managed to make some small talk, before quietly slipping outside and heading for home.

  Sitting on his hard cell bed, his thoughts remained on what had happened to Callum and whether his death might be linked to the bombing. Too many things just didn’t make sense: why was he driving a Mercedes and not a Porsche? Why had he been driving straight to Amsterdam via Belgium and not towards Germany and its Autobahns? What had Callum gleaned in Luxembourg? How many people were involved? Or could it all just be a coincidence? Rafi’s thoughts went round in circles. Eventually he came to the realisation that he simply didn’t have enough information to fully understand what was going on.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the cell door swinging open. The ugly guard stood a few feet away, scowling. Moments later Rafi was back in the austere interview room, facing his two interrogators.

  Andy started the ball rolling. ‘We are concerned that there will be further bombings. We have to stop further carnage and bloodshed. Our patience only goes so far. If you don’t cooperate, we have a good mind to lend you to the Yanks.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’ve any more information that will help you,’ replied Rafi.

  Andy erupted like a Roman candle. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at? You drag things out, waste our time and refuse to talk. Lives are at stake!’

  The grilling went on for what seemed like hours. Rafi answered the very few questions he could.

  The interrogators knew they were getting nowhere and their behaviour was becoming ever more intimidating.

  Rafi was yo-yoing from the interview room to the cell, never given chance to settle and rest. If he tried to sleep then, as soon as he had dropped off, he would be hauled back in front of his two interrogators. He had lost all sense of time – he guessed he had been questioned for all of Saturday and it was now probably Sunday. He wasn’t sure though. He was mentally drained and his recently acquired bruises ached like hell, as did his eyes. His head throbbed from the lack of sleep and the relentless stress. It dawned on him that he would not be able to withstand the verbal assault for much longer.

  Back in the interview room, Mike glowered at Rafi. ‘You’re close to your sister, aren’t you?’ It sounded like an accusation.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We think that she can help us. We’ve been looking into her research work at the University of Birmingham. She is, we’re informed, very bright. We think that she could be involved,’ said Mike.

  ‘How about we pull her in?’ added Andy

  Rafi felt the fury building up inside him. His little sister was the one person in the world he would protect with everything he possessed, even with his life. Shock followed by anger flowed through him.

  ‘My sister is one hundred per cent innocent. She has nothing to do with this,’ he pleaded.

  ‘As we are not getting very far here, I think it’s time for a twopronged attack,’ said Mike. ‘We send him for a stint of solitary at Belmarsh prison. Meanwhile we can put pressure on his sister.’

  ‘Andy grimaced. ‘She’s bound to crack like an egg under a heavy weight.’

  Rafi was visibly shaking. ‘I’m not lying. Can’t you bloody well see I’ve been set up? Stuff you! I can’t frigging well help – I know sod all about the bomber.’

  Mike lent forward. ‘Don’t worry; your sister will tell us what we need to know!’

  Rafi weakly tried to swing a punch at Mike who, despite being inches away, caught his fist and smiled.

  ‘Last chance to come clean or Saara gets the full treatment!’ threatened Andy.

  Rafi said nothing.

  ‘Bog off back to your cell and think of the fun we’ll have with your sister.’ Mike stood up to emphasise his height over him. ‘You’ll talk, you know you will.’

  Back in his cell, Rafi thought long and hard. Time had run out; the case against him viewed from the interrogators’ standpoint was overwhelming. They didn’t give a shit about what he and Callum had found on the two listed companies. They’d played their trump card: his sister. He sat, shoulders hunched. The knowledge that he’d involved her in this frightening world scared him.

  His thoughts drifted back to happier times, living at home with her and their parents. He treasured the time he had spent with her. She was eighteen months younger than him, but at times she had treated him like a little brother. He was an able student; in contrast Saara was exceptionally bright. He watched with admiration as she excelled in everything academic: she had been top at school, achieved the highest mark in her undergraduate year and her PhD dissertation had been deemed exceptional by her professor.

  Saara’s successes had spurred him on. With a BSc in Business Studies and Accounting and a couple of years’ experience working in the accounts department of a bank under his belt, he had set his sights on working in the equities markets. He completed a full-time MBA and found a good corporate finance job. Eighteen months later his and Saara’s happy lives had been shattered by their parents’ untimely death in a car crash.

  The money from his parents’ estate and his savings had enabled him to muster the deposit needed to purchase his flat. He had worked on an old adage: ‘There are three important things to consider when purchasing property, namely: location, location, location.’ So, he had spent the summer evenings four years ago visiting smart residential areas in London. He had added a fourth criteria – access to public open space – and had zeroed in on Hampstead, purchasing a two-bedroom flat in the attic space of a large red-brick house in Well Walk, close to the Heath, and not far from the tube station. The entrance to his flat was off a narrow path in Well Passage.

  Rafi came back to reality, put his hands over his eyes and forced his brain to think. They were convinced that he knew the bomber. Why the hell wouldn’t they listen to him? It was as if they were not interested in the potential wrongdoing Callum and he had uncovered. The more he thought about it the more certain he became that there had to be a connection between his finding out about the dubious shareholdings in the two companies and his being set up. He had to find a way to get Andy and Mike to look at things from his perspective. But how?

  Rafi sat in his cell thinking jumbled thoughts. It slowly dawned on him that he had one piece of evidence that they might
want: a USB memory stick Callum had given him… His thoughts went back to the previous Thursday evening.

  The devastating news of Callum’s death had shaken him to the core. Once back home after the office party he had slumped in an armchair and done nothing for several hours. It had slowly dawned on him that he was wasting valuable time. He had to plan for the worst; he had to assume that someone had killed Callum. Furthermore, it might not be long before the Financial Services Authority and the fraud squad spotted what Prima Terra were up to. Callum’s USB stick might just be his insurance policy or even a valuable bargaining chip if he was confronted by the authorities.

  He had decided to hide the USB stick away from prying eyes. And remembered wondering whether he was being paranoid. He had concluded that he was not – after Callum’s suspicious death he could not afford to take chances.

  He recalled looking at his watch early on Friday morning; it had been 3 a.m. and inky dark outside. Where could he hide it? He considered places in the building and its small garden, but ruled them out as being too obvious or too close to home. So where then? It needed to be within walking distance of his flat and easy to find but, perversely, somewhere people wouldn’t look.

  An idea had come to him. He had changed into warm, darkcoloured clothes and wrapped a black cashmere scarf around his neck. He looked at himself in the mirror: with his dark skin he would be practically invisible in the shadows – or so he hoped. He picked up his gloves, put them with a number of things into his pockets and slipped quietly out of his front door onto the landing. Slowly, in the pitch black, he went down the three flights of stairs towards the communal front door leading out into the alleyway.

  He was about to open the front door, when the seriousness of his predicament sank in. What were the chances he was being watched? Could someone be outside waiting for him to make a move? He felt a cold shiver run down his spine. It was preposterous, but he needed to be careful. His friend Callum was dead.

  He checked in his left pocket: keys, torch, and gloves – all there. And in his other pocket: USB stick and chewing gum – excellent. Tentatively he opened the front door. The catch clicked back like the bolt of a gun being cocked. He jumped, imagining that everyone could hear him. He recovered his composure. His heart raced, but everything around him remained silent. He pulled the door ajar, stopping for a moment to test his night vision. Quietly, he slipped outside, closing the door behind him. The passage was sheathed in darkness. He turned right and, hugging the wall, walked slowly up the murky passage towards the next street.

  At the top of the alley, Rafi was about to take a right turn towards the Heath, when he stopped and looked back towards the bottom of the alley and Well Walk. Across the other side of the road, was the silhouette of a Mercedes car parked sidewayson.

  Large Mercedes cars were popular around where he lived. Rafi was about to turn away, when his heart missed a beat. Was he seeing things? Inside the car there was a small orange glow. The glow of a cigarette tip brightening as someone inhaled. He was petrified, his feet glued to the spot. The small blob of light moved. Oh sod it! There was someone there, watching. He wished the path would swallow him up. If the person had seen him slip out of the front door, surely he would have followed him? Or perhaps he was waiting to see which way he went? Whether they were on to him or not, Rafi knew he had to keep moving.

  Warily he headed towards the Heath, and to The Pryors, an upmarket, Edwardian-style apartment block. He turned left off the pavement and made his way carefully down the path alongside the tall wall of The Pryors. The trees on the edge of the Heath appeared ghostlike, just visible, towering over him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. There was stillness, a cloak of silence around him. A rustling in the undergrowth startled him. His senses were on their peak setting. He stood still, utterly terrified. The noise faded and he moved on again, his heart racing.

  He put his hand into his pocket, pulled out the packet of chewing gum, quietly unwrapped four pieces and put them into his mouth. Sod it, his mouth was parched. Fear had turned off his saliva glands. ‘Think lemons, think lemons,’ he said to himself.

  Rafi turned right and followed the garden wall around a corner for a short distance. In summer, the deep verge between the wall and the path was overgrown with nettles and brambles. In winter long grass, dead brambles and weeds remained. There, against the wall, was a small, dark object, barely visible in the gloom. He had first spotted it a couple of summers earlier, when he had gone to retrieve a ball for a child; it had intrigued him and he had carefully inspected it. He now approached it tentatively, stopped and turned around to check that there was no one behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief; everything was still. He stepped forward, took off his glove and placed his hand on top of the frost-covered metal, slid his fingers over the curved front and felt for the protruding letters. Yes, this was the marker post. The raised lettering on its front clearly stated: London County Council Boundary. There was a small gap between the post and the wall. Unlike the other boundary posts next to the wall, the flat metal back of this one had been broken, leaving a small but hidden hole near its top.

  Rafi put his hand back into his pocket and pulled out the USB stick; he raised his hand to his mouth, spat out the blob of chewing gum and pressed it to the side of the USB stick. He put his hand around the back of the cold iron post and with his fingertips felt for the irregular hole. He reached inside and pushed the USB stick firmly up into the top section of the post. He smiled as the chewing gum stuck.

  The main part of his job done, Rafi retraced his tracks to Heath Road. He’d been gone probably no more than twenty minutes. His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and he could clearly pick out the outline of the houses fronting on to the road. He looked up into the sky. The cloud cover, thankfully, remained impenetrable. He glanced across at a small bedroom light in the distance. Early birds, he thought. If it had been a normal working day, he would only have another couple of hours in bed; he needed to get back home as quickly as possible. Although it was still dark, he was aware that just one light switched on near his front door would scupper his return, making him clearly visible to the person in the Mercedes.

  Rafi slipped across the road and retraced his steps back to the passageway. At the corner he stopped; in front of him was the last straight leading to his front door.

  Gingerly, he peeped down the passageway. Was the Mercedes car still there? Oh hell! It was. On the way out he’d initially been oblivious to it. Now the black silhouette was straight in front of him. It looked menacing. He studied the car carefully. There was no sign of a lit cigarette. Either the person had stopped smoking, or he had got out to follow him. Oh damn, he thought, what if he was in the shadows waiting for him? Rafi hesitated and then forced himself to move, lest the light of an early-rising neighbour gave him away.

  He moved carefully down the path, hugging the wall on his left, and reached his front door. Everything around him was dark. He slipped his key into the lock and turned it. At that precise moment the light from a nearby flat came on. It was as if he had been caught in the arc of a spotlight. He pushed open the door, slipped inside and closed the door. Had he been spotted? Only time would tell. He was relieved to be back on home territory. Quickly, with a bounce in his step, he climbed the stairs in the dark. As he reached the landing, he froze. Could he smell cigarette smoke? Was the person from the car waiting for him? He peered up the last flight of stairs into the darkness, but could make nothing out. He stood still, listening for anything.

  Not eight feet away his neighbour’s front door opened, lighting up the landing.

  ‘Oh bejesus!’ exclaimed the neighbour. ‘What the bleeding hell are you doing here? You scared the holy shit out of me.’

  If he knew what he’d done to Rafi’s nerves, he would have apologised.

  Rafi stuttered, ‘Sorry mate, just got back from a night with the girlfriend. I was creeping in trying not to make any noise.’

  ‘You lucky so and so,’ he
commented, smiling at Rafi, and turned on the stairwell light. He closed his front door and muttered, ‘Must get going, I’ve got the early shift at work today. See you around,’ and went on his way in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  Rafi climbed the last flight of stairs, went into his flat and stood there, shaking. He felt as if he’d aged years.

  Was the Mercedes still on guard duty out front? He needed to check, so he climbed the narrow staircase to the top floor bedroom. It was in darkness. He stopped before the window, dropped to his knees and shuffled forward, resting his elbows on the windowsill in order to peer down towards the road. It was still there, its dark shape hauntingly visible, but he couldn’t make out if the person was still inside the car. He stayed on his knees, who could it be? Did he really want to find out? His mind was full of questions and precious few answers. He dozed off.

  The distant buzz of his alarm clock woke him. Rafi raised his weary head from the windowsill and looked outside; it was still dark. He came back to reality with a bump. The Mercedes was still there. He shuffled backwards, stood up and hurried downstairs.

  He was being watched, but by whom? Rafi decided that he had no option but to continue as normal. He slipped into his early-morning routine. Twenty minutes later, he was sitting at the small kitchen table, staring at a bowl of cereal and milk. Normally he ate breakfast quickly. This morning, his appetite had vanished and the coffee tasted bitter. He gathered up his things and left for work.

  Rafi carefully opened the front door. Would the Mercedes still be there? If so, would he have the courage to walk by it on his way to the underground station? He stepped out into the shadows of the narrow alleyway and looked left towards the road. The Mercedes was nowhere to be seen.