The DCI Isaac Cook Thriller Series: Books 4 - 6: Murder (The DCI Isaac Cook Thrillers Series Boxset)

by Phillip Strang

  ‘And yet you still maintain your humour. It is good to see,’ the Mullah laughed.

  ‘I am always in good humour after a successful result. Do you have willing martyrs ready for paradise?’

  ‘They will be available. I only require forty-eight hours to arrange,’ the Mullah said.

  ‘Please give them some intelligence. This requires precision planning and timing. The uneducated donkeys will only ruin it. One out of time and the result is substantially reduced,’

  ‘You can rely on me, but I cannot always guarantee the same level of intellect that you had for the last bombing.’

  ‘No donkeys, that’s all I ask.’ However, the bomb maker had a solution if the next batch of martyrs had no more brains than a dumb four-legged beast of burden.

  ***

  Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh could not be described as a model prison. It was, however, measurably better than the prisons that Wali Hasan would have found in his father’s home country of Pakistan. There was education, a gym, a library and even television, although its viewing content was regulated. Nothing violent or religious or contentious, but then this was a prison where those convicted of terrorism offences were held. Not that the facilities would be of any concern to Wali Hasan. He was in solitary and, whereas he was fed well and could offer prayer five times a day, he was certainly not going to be given free rein to wander around and to interact with the other prisoners. He had seen some as he arrived. One or two had blown him a kiss, some had even shown him a disgusting sign of the left index finger pushed through a hole formed by the other index finger and a thumb. He knew what it meant. He was glad to be in solitary.

  ‘Wali, you’re in serious trouble here.’ DCI Isaac Cook had been given the opportunity to question the prisoner.

  ‘I want a lawyer,’ replied Wali. His friend, Ahmed, had been caught shoplifting some months earlier, and the lawyer they had brought in had got him off with no more than a rap on the knuckles.

  ‘You’re here under the Counter Terrorism Act of 2008.’

  ‘I want a lawyer,’ Wali Hasan was adamant.

  ‘How many times do I have to explain this to you? You have no rights. I can do whatever I want, and no one will listen or complain, is that clear?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing. You can’t hold me here. I have my rights. I’m a citizen of this country.’

  ‘Does that mean you can go around blowing up people just because they’re out shopping?’

  ‘I haven’t blown up anyone,’ replied Wali, protesting his innocence.

  ‘Your friend Duraid did, and you were with him. Or do you deny that?’

  ‘I thought we were going for a drive, nothing else. How was I to know he was mad, that he was going to blow himself up?’

  ‘Why did you drive his car back to London?’ DCI Cook raised the pressure.

  ‘I was scared. I knew he was up to something when he hugged me in the car and wished me well. I panicked.’

  ‘You’re lying. You drove down there, helped him fit the explosives and hugged him with joy. We’ve got cameras, did you know that?’

  ‘I demand a lawyer.’

  ‘Wali, be sensible,’ the police inspector said, aiming to be seen as the detainee’s friend. ‘You know you’re not getting a lawyer. What do I need to convince you that I’m on your side? I’m trying to help you, and from what I see you’ve been an idiot so far but you haven’t killed anyone. If you cooperate, then maybe five years in here, take advantage of the education and leave with a trade.’

  ‘I don’t want any time in here.’

  ‘And why is that, Wali? Afraid you might lose your soap in the showers?’

  ‘They’re perverts in here. They’ll fuck me with their big dicks.’ Wali had a school friend who had ended up in Brixton prison for robbing a newsagent at gunpoint. When he came out, he had told Wali what happened behind the closed bars when the guards weren’t looking.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like that, a big hairy man up your tight little arse?’ Isaac Cook prided himself that he rarely swore, but it was necessary to scare the frightened British-Pakistani youth. One minute the bomber’s friend, the next, his frightener.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. I want a lawyer,’ Wali nervously replied.

  ‘No lawyer, no rights, and if I don’t get some answers soon, I’ll get the prison guards to strip you naked and throw you through the metal gate out into the prison courtyard. I’ll even have some soap thrown in.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Wali, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you twelve hours to think it over. I’ll be back here tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp, and then we’ll have a cosy little chat. If you play fair with me, I’ll play fair with you, is that okay?’

  ‘Yes, that’s okay.’ Wali gave a sigh of relief that he had some time to come up with a convincing story that the black policeman would swallow.

  ***

  Mohammad Sohail Shafi was not a terrorist, but he was a violent man and fifteen years to serve in Belmarsh with no hope of parole had not tempered his violence or his anger over a false conviction. Buggering some hapless teenager in the showers was a temporary respite, but apart from Soapy, they had been few and far between in the past few months.

  He had not killed the man over some heroin, but he had been convicted of the crime. So why should the police lock him up for doing them a service? The man, Rajko Djuric, was a gypsy, one of the latest waves of immigrants to enter England. His death had even given satisfaction to the police. A thief, a drug addict and a dealer, he was not a person to be missed, and even the police constable at the lockup had shaken Shafi by the hand, even thanked him.

  It didn’t stop him slapping him in handcuffs when he was taken off to the local assizes to be formally detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure while awaiting trial, bail refused.

  Mohammad Sohail Shafi was not meant to have a mobile phone in Belmarsh, but he did, as did half the prisoners.

  ‘I need a killing, are you up to it?’ the voice at the other end of the line said.

  ‘What’s in it for me?’ Shafi asked.

  ‘Respect in prison, as many cigarettes as you want,’ the voice said.

  ‘I don’t smoke, you know that.’

  ‘You can trade them. They’re better than money where you are.’

  ‘Tell you what I can do,’ Shafi replied. ‘You send a thousand pounds to my mother back in the home country, and I’ll do it for you.’

  ‘You better take a strong cord and a bar of soap with you for this one,’ the voice said.

  ‘All the better, but I need a clear passage to this person and thirty minutes. Can you fix it?’

  ‘No problem, but it’s got to be tonight,’ the voice emphasised.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘One in the morning. The gate to the detention cell will be open.’

  ‘You want me to kill the fresh-looking kid that came in today?’ Shafi asked.

  ‘Wali Hasan’s his name, and I’m sure he looks pretty to you.’

  ‘He is pretty.’ Shafi was a crude man given to crude language and crude behaviour. ‘I better make sure of an extra big bar of soap and make it forty-five minutes. I don’t want to rush a good throttling.’

  ‘Forty-five minutes it is. Have fun, and I’ll send the money tonight. I know you’ll not let me down.’

  ***

  Seamus Gilligan was a decent prison officer, reasonably honest and diligent. However, he had a problem. Two years at Belmarsh and he had seen the scum come in and go out. He had total disdain for those in his charge, but his problem was severe, and Faisal Aslam knew what it was. In fact, he was carrying the debt for Gilligan’s gambling and, as long as he was willing to do the occasional favour, then he was not willing to call in the debt or, if that was unsuccessful, a couple of kneecaps. It had only been smuggling a few letters, half a dozen mobile phones, and a couple of blocks of cheese. Gilligan, meanwhile, was a happy man. He had a tame Paki keeping him out of trouble and, as lo
ng as he didn’t get too involved, he could still carry on gambling on the quiet.

  ‘Seamus, I need a favour.’ Faisal Aslam was about to call in the debt that he carried.

  ‘No problem, what do you want?’ said Seamus. ‘Some letters? Cigarette smuggling?’

  ‘Not this time. I want the gate to the detention cell left open.’

  ‘I can’t do that. There’s no way I can keep that concealed.’

  ‘You’ll do it. And, by the way, I’m covering another five thousand pound debt to your account.’

  ‘What do you mean by another five thousand? I’m not gambling anymore,’ Gilligan angrily denied.

  ‘You may be able to fool your dear grey-haired old mother back in Donegal. We’ve got her address, by the way, so never try to fool the people I work with and me.’

  ‘This is blackmail,’ Seamus Gilligan said firmly.

  ‘Blackmail, that’s such a nasty word. I need help, and you need someone to keep the debt collectors from putting you in a wheelchair. It’s a fair deal.’

  ‘They’ll know it’s me.’

  ‘What do I care? Just open the cell and close it afterwards. What you do then is of no concern to me. Just make sure you give us a forwarding address. Otherwise, we’ll arrange a trip over the water to Donegal. You do understand what I am saying?’

  ‘I understand, you bastard.’ Gilligan was cornered. He had no option but to comply.

  ‘You can call me what you like, but at one in the morning, you will open that gate and forty-five minutes later – no, you better make it sixty minutes – you close it. You will see no one, and you will make sure none of your soon to be ex-colleagues come anywhere near. Is this clear?’

  ‘It’s clear, but I won’t forget how you’ve screwed me.’ Gilligan regretted his addiction, but the regret was too late. He knew he would follow instructions.

  ‘Forget or not forget, that’s your problem. If you can’t control your gambling, that’s not my concern.’

  ***

  At the nominated time, Seamus Gilligan opened the gate. He saw a shadowy figure. He was fairly certain who it was, but he was no longer in a position to be concerned, and he couldn’t go to the authorities. He was guilty as charged of smuggling in one of Her Majesty’s prisons, involved in the aiding and abetting of convicted felons, and he knew he’d get at least five years minimum. Besides, there was his mother in Donegal. She was grey-haired and ailing and totally devoted to her son. Proudly she would tell her neighbours that Seamus was over there in England, a prison officer, a man to be respected. His transfer to the wrong side of the prison cell bars would kill her, even if the once tame Paki didn’t.

  ‘Wali, I’m here for a little loving,’ Shafi said as he entered the cell where the timid and scared terrorist was held.

  ‘Leave me alone. I’m not interested,’ Wali Hasan cried out, hoping that a guard would hear him. The only guard that could have possibly heard him, had no intention of becoming further involved.

  ‘Come on, it’s only a little thing, and if you want an easy life in here then you need a friend,’ Shafi said.

  ‘I’m not staying. They’re getting me out of here.’ Wali Hasan was in fear of his life, as well as his rear-end, and he had nowhere to turn.

  ‘Who’s getting you out of here?’ Shafi asked.

  ‘The police inspector. He said he would if I gave him some information.’

  ‘And what information would you possibly have that would cause them to let you out? You know what happens to informers in here.’

  ‘I’ll make up a story. He’ll never know, and besides, I don’t know anything.’

  ‘You were there when that idiot blew himself up, weren’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t know he was going to kill himself.’

  ‘I did the police a service,’ Mohammad Sohail Shafi bitterly said. ‘Accidently killed some gypsy crap and they bang me up in here. You’ll be in here for a long time, so you better get used to my dick up your arse.’

  ‘Leave me alone! I’m a good person. I’ve got a girlfriend,’ Wali Hasan lied, attempting to protect himself.

  ‘A girlfriend, that’s good. Then you’ll know all about screwing.’

  ‘No, she’s a good Muslim girl. We’re waiting till we get married.’ He lied again, but he was desperate.

  ‘I’m tired of this silly talk. I don’t have all night. I’ve got the soap, and you’ve got the arse. We’d better get on with it.’ Shafi, an unpleasant bear of a man with rough hands, a full beard, and bad breath, entered the cell where Wali Hasan cowered in a corner.

  ‘Ah, fresh meat,’ said Shafi. ‘You’re as pretty as I thought you were. Come here and suck my dick.’

  ‘The screws will be back soon.’

  ‘It’s been fixed. It’s you and me and a little loving.’

  Wali Hasan resisted for as long as he could, but he was frail and weak compared to a man who ensured double helpings in the prison canteen and worked out in the gym three times a week. Shafi was rough in his approach; the more Wali Hasan struggled, the more vicious he became. It was futile and, in the end, the big Pakistani was sated in his lust.

  It had taken no more than twenty minutes and, conscious of the time, the burly prisoner realised he still had one further commitment. He had to kill his reluctant, if no longer virginal, lover. It was regrettable as he would have preferred a more permanent arrangement, but there was his mother back in the home country - one thousand English pounds would go a long way. The voice at the end of the phone wanted a death and a death he would get. He had killed before. This one, pretty as he was, would not cause him undue concern.

  A nylon cord, ninety centimetres long, taken from one of the weightlifting machines in the gym, was ideal for the purpose. Quickly, he looped it over the head of Wali Hasan, twisted it at the back of his neck and tightened. Wali, legs outstretched, clawing at the rope and emitting a weak gasping sound, lasted for thirty seconds before his body relaxed.

  Shafi then placed the body in a resting position on the bed in the cell, loosely covered it with a blanket and made his way back to his part of the prison. It would be the morning call for breakfast before any of the prison officers realised that the detainee was dead. No one would know who it was that had killed him. The cord of death would be back on the weightlifting machine before anyone visited the gym.

  He could only reflect as he made his way back to his cell that it had been a good night. Maybe prison isn’t so bad if there’s the occasional young boy for buggering, he thought.

  Seamus Gilligan saw the figure returning through the gate he had opened earlier. Closing the gate and setting the lock, he realised that it signified the end of his career and that he was as dead as the inmate in the cell probably was, although he did not attempt to check. Ten minutes later he exited the prison, location unknown, as was his future.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Wali Hasan is dead,’ the Governor of Belmarsh Prison said sheepishly as Isaac Cook entered the Governor’s office at eight in the morning. If the DCI had not been taken aback by the statement, he would have noticed a pleasant room, compared to the gloomy cell where his main hope for a breakthrough in the recent spate of bombings had been incarcerated, and where he now laid covered with a sheet. Two leather chairs, a desk with a fake walnut top, and a window that caught the morning sun, would have been an ideal place under normal circumstances to spend a couple of hours, discussing villains and crimes that the Detective Chief Inspector and Governor Harry Sheldon had dealt with over the years.

  Harry Sheldon had been in the prison service for twenty-five years. He had seen a few villains in his time. Wali Hasan had been a terrorist, although he looked like an innocent, almost a child when they had brought him in the day before. Now he was dead and he, as the Governor, was to be held responsible.

  ‘How did this happen? He was in your custody,’ DCI Cook asked bluntly.

  ‘One of the prison officers is missing,’ the Governor replied.

  ‘Are you saying a
serving prison officer killed him?’

  ‘It seems unlikely.’ Sheldon knew the missing officer, and there was nothing in his profile to indicate he had the ability to commit cold-blooded murder.

  ‘Then what are you saying? An inmate?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘I need a full report. I need to know details. The identity of the prison officer, possible suspects, murder weapon, the normal information and I want it today.’ DCI Cook had the weight of Counter Terrorism Command behind him, the Governor would comply.

  ‘He was raped.’ The Governor anticipated the DCI’s reply.

  ‘Raped? What do you mean?’

  ‘He was buggered, up the arse, sodomised.’

  ‘I threatened that as a possibility to get him to talk. I said I’d throw him in the main prison if he didn’t talk.’

  ‘Did he talk?’ the Governor asked.

  ‘No, that’s why I’m back here today. I gave him a few hours to calm down, get his story together. He would still have lied through his teeth, but he was freaking out yesterday, too much nervous verbiage. It was too difficult to disseminate the truth from the lies.’

  ‘The person who raped him probably killed him as well,’ Governor Sheldon said.

  ‘Who in the prison population would be capable of rape?’

  ‘Virtually all of them. Unless they’re too old or at the receiving end in the shower block.’

  ‘And someone of strength,’ DCI Cook added. ‘Hasan would have put up a fight.’

  ‘Not much of a fight. He was skinny, almost undernourished. Of course, it would have needed some strength to strangle him.

  ‘DNA, you must have some DNA?’ DCI Cook asked.

  ‘Yes, your forensics people are checking the crime scene, and we do have samples from everyone in the prison,’ the Governor confirmed.

  ***

  Literate, street smart, able to calculate a good deal on the buying and selling of drugs on the street – the concept of forensic science baffled Mohammad Sohail Shafi. He had been born in Pakistan, schooled there until his eighth year when his parents, as with so many others, had made the trip to England. At the age of fourteen, he had decided that school and his burgeoning business enterprise of selling ganja, or marijuana, to the teens at the local youth clubs were no longer compatible. What could a school give him? A job in a supermarket packing shelves earning a hundred pounds a week? Here he was, pulling in well over a thousand.