Dead Men

by Leather, Stephen

  She tossed the phone on to the bed. Zoë was their only child and there had been complications that made it unlikely they’d have more. Not that she and Graham had planned a big family. Zoë had been an accident, a happy one but an accident nevertheless, and neither Button nor her husband had ever put her in front of their careers. They loved Zoë, of course, but Graham wanted to build his business and Button had always been determined to get to the top of her profession. And to do that she had had to make sacrifices. Button didn’t regret the decision they’d made, but that didn’t make Zoë’s coldness any easier to bear.

  She picked up the phone and pressed redial, then cancelled the call. Zoë had lessons to go to, and she wouldn’t appreciate being dragged back to the phone. In any case, what could she say to her? That she loved her? That she missed her? That she wished she was there to give her a hug? She caught sight of herself in the mirror above the dressing-table and flinched. She looked scared.

  She stood up and stared out of the window over the city. It was impossible to have everything, no matter what the glossy women’s magazines said. You couldn’t have a successful career, a fulfilling sex life and an adoring family. You had to make choices, and more often than not those choices led to sacrifices. No one had forced her to send Zoë to boarding-school, just as no one had forced her to join MI5 or SOCA. Suddenly she craved a cigarette, and laughed. Once a smoker, always a smoker.

  Salih watched the two men from across the restaurant. They were young Pakistanis, with glossy gelled hair, dark brown skin and black eyes. They looked like a couple of male models, tall with broad shoulders and tight stomachs. He toyed with his coffee cup and wondered why two such good-looking young men would consider blowing themselves into a thousand pieces. They were British-born, which meant they had access to the country’s health and education systems, they lived in a country where the police didn’t shoot rubber bullets or worse into crowds, where civilians weren’t dragged off the streets and searched or roughed up, where soldiers couldn’t kill children and receive nothing worse than a reprimand.

  Salih had been born in Israeli-occupied Gaza, where children died because hospitals lacked equipment and medicine, where schools had no textbooks, where two-thirds of the population had no jobs and where most families lived on less than ten dollars a month. Salih understood why so many Palestinians wanted to take up arms against the Israelis, and why so many were prepared to give up their own lives. But Mazur and Tariq weren’t Palestinians. They hadn’t grown up under the heel of an occupying power. They were free men in a free country, which was what made their decision to give up everything for Allah so mystifying.

  The slightly taller of the two, who was sporting a small gold earring in his left ear, laughed at something the other had said, showing perfect white teeth. A waiter brought them cups of coffee and a hookah pipe, which he lit for them. The guy with the earring took the first smoke, then handed the mouthpiece to his friend. They were early. Salih had told them to be in the café at midday, but it was only half past eleven.

  Salih toyed with the almond croissant on his plate. He preferred to work alone but there were times when he needed assistance and this was such an occasion. One person alone could not do what he had planned. There had to be three, which meant he needed Mazur and Tariq. He took out his mobile phone and called the number Hakeem had given him. A few seconds later an Asian pop tune sounded from the taller man’s pocket. He fished in his jacket and pressed his phone to his ear. ‘I am here,’ said Salih.

  The man frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Across the room.’

  The man looked round and Salih held up his coffee cup, then cut the connection. The man said something to his friend and they both looked in Salih’s direction. Salih sipped his coffee, then put down his cup and beckoned them over.

  ‘You are Hassan?’ asked the taller of the two.

  Salih held up the mobile phone and smiled.

  ‘Of course it is. He called you, didn’t he?’ said the other man. He held out his hand. ‘I am Mazur.’

  Salih shook it. ‘Yes, I am Hassan. Please sit.’ Salih took the tall man’s hand. ‘You are Tariq?’

  ‘I am.’

  He had a tight grip and his nails had been neatly trimmed. Salih could smell expensive cologne. Tariq sat down opposite Salih, and Mazur on Salih’s right.

  The waiter brought over the hookah. Salih caught the fragrance of green apples from the smouldering tobacco. ‘May I?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Tariq.

  Salih drew the fragrant smoke into his mouth, then blew it out and sighed. ‘That’s good,’ he said. He handed the pipe back to Tariq.

  ‘Hakeem said you needed help,’ said Tariq.

  Salih kept his voice low. ‘There is something I need doing, and I need the services of men who are prepared to do whatever it takes to serve Allah.’

  ‘That’s us,’ said Mazur.

  ‘You were trained in Pakistan?’

  Both men nodded.

  ‘Do you mind telling me why?’

  ‘We learnt what we could in London, through the Internet and books, but we needed real training,’ said Tariq. ‘We had to know how to use weapons and explosives.’

  ‘But why did you want such training?’ pressed Salih.

  ‘To fight for Islam,’ said Mazur.

  ‘But you’re British,’ said Salih.

  ‘We’re Muslims first,’said Tariq,‘Pakistanis second,British third. If we don’t stand and fight as Muslims, the infidels will crush us.’ His eyes were burning with the intensity of a zealot.

  ‘What started you on this journey?’he asked. ‘Nine Eleven?’

  Mazur nodded, but Tariq shook his head. ‘I realised long ago that Muslims were in danger of being exterminated from the face of the earth,’ he said. ‘Look at what happened in Kosovo, in Palestine, in Chechnya. When I was a kid Abu Hamza came to our mosque to give a talk and collect funds. I had never heard a man who spoke like him. Afterwards he said he recognised something in me and that when I was ready I should seek him out at the Finsbury Park mosque. As soon as I was old enough I went to see him and that was when I learnt about jihad, that Muslims have to fight our oppressors until we have established a true Islamic state.’

  ‘It was Nine Eleven that changed me,’ said Mazur. ‘It was the way the Americans reacted. The Saudis flew the planes into the World Trade Center, but the Americans were too cowardly to attack them. Instead they attacked the Muslims in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. What did Afghanistan have to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center? Nothing. And the Iraqis? Saddam Hussein hated al-Qaeda. Hated bin Laden.’

  ‘It’s true,’ agreed Tariq. ‘And then what did the Americans do? They picked up Muslims around the world and took them to Cuba to interrogate and torture them. The Americans are on a crusade, a crusade to destroy all Muslims. We have to defend ourselves, we have to meet violence with violence.’ Tariq had a movie-star smile, but there was no doubting his sincerity.

  Salih understood why the two men had become such hard-line fundamentalists. It had all been part of al-Qaeda’s grand plan. Until the moment that the four planes had been hijacked in the United States, most Western countries had given little thought to the Muslim populations in their midst. Muslims and Christians were getting on just fine, but Islamic fundamentalists knew that peaceful coexistence was a threat to their religion. Religions spread best when fired by fundamentalism, and fundamentalists need someone to struggle against. It was the backlash after Nine Eleven that had fired Muslims like Tariq and Mazur and thousands more like them. The man with the beard and the Kalashnikov had known exactly what he was doing when he attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He had no interest in the men, women and children who had died. Neither did he care about the damage to the buildings. What he wanted was for the West to lash out at Muslims, and he had succeeded. The West had gone to war with Afghanistan and Iraq, and Muslims round the world had united to rise up in protest.

  Salih h
ad watched the second airliner smash into the World Trade Center live on CNN as he sat in a hotel room in Zurich. He had been paid a quarter of a million dollars to kill an Iraqi biochemist who was planning to defect to America with details of Saddam Hussein’s biological-warfare programme. Salih had watched the towers collapse and had realised then that the world had changed for ever – and changed for the worse.

  Salih was a Muslim but he wasn’t a fundamentalist. He hated the Israelis but he hated them because of what they had done to his country, not because of their religion. Salih killed for money, not for his beliefs. He did it coldly and dispassionately. But men like Tariq and Mazur would kill because they were angry and because they hated non-Muslims. And because they believed that if they died for Allah, they would go to Heaven. That was what made them so dangerous.

  Salih sipped his coffee. ‘I need your total obedience,’ he said. ‘Whatever I ask you to do, you must do without question.’

  Mazur and Tariq looked at each other, then nodded. ‘Hakeem said we can trust you,’ said Tariq.

  ‘It’s not about trust,’ said Salih. ‘It’s about obedience. If I do not have that, we should part company now.’

  ‘We shall obey you,’ said Mazur. ‘Whatever you ask, we shall do.’

  Salih stared at them for several seconds, then he nodded slowly. ‘There is a girl that has to die,’ he said quietly. ‘She betrayed two of our men in Pakistan, and because of that one of the men is dead and another is being held by the Americans.’

  ‘Bitch,’ said Tariq, venomously.

  ‘She has to be killed, and she has to be killed with violence,’ said Salih. ‘Are you prepared to do that?’

  Mazur swallowed nervously. ‘I am,’ he said, his voice a hoarse croak.

  Tariq nodded enthusiastically. ‘I am too,’ he said.

  ‘There is one more thing,’ said Salih.

  Mazur and Tariq leant forward, eager to hear more.

  Shepherd woke up just after eight. He shaved, showered, pulled on a pair of jeans and a polo shirt, then went downstairs. He cooked himself eggs and bacon, made a cup of coffee and read the Belfast Telegraph as he ate. A packet of Marlboro lay on the table in front of him but at no point did he consider lighting up. The cigarettes were a prop, nothing more. He couldn’t go more than a few hours without a cup of coffee, but he had never craved nicotine.

  He washed up, then looked out of the sitting-room window. Elaine’s driveway was empty. He sat down to watch daytime television with the sound low so that he would hear her return. At just after midday he made himself another cup of coffee and gazed out of the sitting-room window as he drank it. The driveway was still empty. When he’d finished his coffee he washed his mug, then paced round the kitchen. He hated doing nothing. At least if he was penetrating a criminal gang he could hang out with villains. He felt like a dog that had been locked in the house while his master was at work and could see why it might chew the furniture.

  He’d taken a risk in searching Elaine’s house, and he’d only gone through the rooms on the ground floor before he’d called it quits. But he knew, too, that the only way to find out whether or not she had a gun was to be proactive. He opened the front door. There wasn’t a car or a pedestrian in sight. Everyone was either at work or in front of the television. Shepherd closed the door behind him and went to Elaine’s front door. He pressed the bell and heard it buzz in the hallway. He pressed it again, for longer this time, but there was no response. Her car wasn’t in the driveway but the garage door was down. Perhaps it was inside.

  He stood back. All the curtains were drawn at the upstairs windows. He took the keys out of his pocket and inserted the first in the lock. As he turned it he heard a car driving up the road. He pulled out the key, palmed it, pressed the doorbell and took a pace back. He heard the car slow and pressed the bell again.

  A horn beeped twice and he looked over his shoulder. It was Elaine in her white VW Golf. He waved with his left hand as he slipped the key into his back pocket. His heart was pounding. If she’d been a minute later she’d have caught him red-handed and the whole operation would have been blown.

  She pulled up in the driveway and climbed out of the Golf. ‘Hi, Jamie, what’s up?’ she called.

  ‘You’ll never guess what happened,’ he said. ‘I’ve got your phone and your purse.’

  ‘You have not,’ she said.

  ‘A couple of cops came round this morning. They stopped a car and the guys in it did a runner, but they left behind half a dozen stolen mobile phones, your purse and my wallet.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said.

  ‘Sometimes you get lucky,’ said Shepherd. ‘Put the kettle on and I’ll bring your stuff round.’

  Tariq looked down at the girl. She had been bound and gagged with strips of insulation tape. ‘She’s awake,’ he said. ‘She’s pretending to be unconscious.’

  Salih walked over and stood next to him. He kicked the girl’s side and her eyes opened. She stared up at the two men in horror. ‘Good,’ said Salih. ‘We can begin.’

  Mazur was sitting on the sofa, drinking a can of orange Fanta. ‘Why don’t we wear masks?’ he asked.

  ‘Because the people in Pakistan who want this done want it done by Muslims,’ said Salih. ‘Don’t worry, once I’ve shown them the picture I’ll delete it.’

  ‘It’s okay, Mazur,’ said Tariq. ‘If it wasn’t okay, Hakeem wouldn’t have asked us to do this.’

  Mazur drained his can and dropped it into a black plastic bag. He stood up. ‘I’m ready,’ he said.

  The girl was lying on a large sheet of clear plastic. There would be blood. A lot of blood. Salih had rented the serviced apartment for a month. It was close to Paddington station and its two main attractions were that it had a varnished hardwood floor and that it could be accessed from a lift in the underground car park.

  Salih picked up his mobile phone. ‘You know what you have to do,’ he said. ‘Untie her, but keep the gag in place because there are other people in the building. Strip off her clothes.’ He handed Tariq a carving knife. ‘Then you slit her throat.’

  The girl bucked and writhed on the floor but she was helpless. The Valium injection Salih had given her when they had abducted her had worn off. It was important that she was conscious when she died, that she was fighting for her life. In an ideal world he’d have taken the gag off but he couldn’t risk her screams being heard.

  Salih stood back and raised his phone. He pressed the button to start its video camera, the signal that Tariq and Mazur should begin.

  Shepherd sipped his coffee. He was sitting on the black leather sofa in Elaine’s front room. She’d put an Oasis CD on her stereo before making them both coffee and putting out a plate of Jaffa Cakes. She sat down next to him. ‘Everything’s there,’ she said, closing her purse. ‘Even the money. There’s not a quid missing.’ A big-screen Panasonic plasma television hung on the wall in front of them, with Bang and Olufsen tower speakers at either side. A bookcase had been built into the wall and on it was a framed photograph of Elaine and Robbie Carter on their wedding day. He had worn his RUC uniform, and she was in a white dress. There was only one other photograph on show, of Elaine and Robbie on a sofa with a small boy lying across their laps, grinning. It was in a silver frame on the mantelpiece.

  ‘He was a good-looking man,’ said Shepherd, nodding at the wedding photograph.

  Elaine smiled fondly. ‘There must have been fifty cops there, it would have been a great day to carry out a robbery in the city.’

  ‘He died, you said.’

  ‘He was shot by the IRA,’ she said quietly. She reached for her packet of Marlboro and lit one, then passed the pack to Shepherd.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Shepherd, hating his fake sincerity. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, then added hurriedly, ‘I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to ask.’ He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  ‘I
t’s all right, Jamie. It was a long time ago. There were five of them and they burst into the house one night and shot him.’

  ‘Elaine, no! That’s terrible.’

  ‘It’s what it was like back then. It was a war.’

  ‘And you saw it happen?’

  ‘It was in the kitchen.’

  ‘Did they catch them?’

  ‘They caught four of them. They were sent to prison but they were all released under the Belfast Agreement.’

  ‘You mean the Good Friday Agreement?’

  Elaine sighed. ‘Depends which side of the divide you’re on,’ she said. ‘The Catholics call it the Good Friday Agreement.’

  ‘Because of the religious overtones, I suppose.’

  ‘Or because they want to make it seem like their own agreement,’ she said bitterly. ‘Anyway, whatever you call it, the politicians decided to set free the paramilitaries. All four walked free. The fifth had run away to America.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Elaine.’

  ‘It happened. I got over it.’

  ‘I don’t see how you could ever get over something like that,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘It’s the old cliché. Time heals all wounds.’

  Shepherd sipped his coffee. He knew he had to ask about her son. It was an obvious question for Jamie Pierce to ask, but he hated intruding into her personal grief. ‘Where’s your son now?’

  Elaine forced a smile. ‘He died too. A few years ago. Leukaemia.’

  ‘Elaine …’

  ‘Please don’t say you’re sorry, Jamie. I’ve had all the sympathy I need over the years.’

  ‘What a nightmare for you. What a bloody nightmare.’

  ‘I’ve had more than my share of bad luck.’ Elaine held up her cigarette. ‘That’s why I’ve got no fear of these things. The one thing I’ve learnt is that people die whether or not they smoke.’

  ‘Why didn’t you move?’ he asked. ‘How could you stay here after that?’