She hadn’t told Helen. Helen was back in Dundee, and wouldn’t necessarily think it odd if she didn’t hear from Dana for a day.
Helen would have argued that it was foolish. Too great a risk. That Dana was neither trained in undercover work nor properly prepared for the operation. She’d have been right.
Fighting off a sudden urge to panic, Dana turned to look back over Raashid’s shoulder. Fred had disappeared, but somewhere in the gloom of the river was an unmarked RIB, staffed by officers from the Marine Unit and an armed sergeant from SO10. In a few hours they’d be replaced by another identical unit and then later by a third, each working an eight-hour shift. They were her protection. They wouldn’t go more than a hundred metres from her until she was safely back with them. If she pressed her panic button, they’d be the first to respond. It would have been good to be able to see them, just to know they were definitely there, but that was impossible.
It was all about trust, going undercover, the sergeant had told her. You had to trust your back-up was there. She did trust Neil, in charge of the operation in her absence, she trusted David Cook and his officers. But how Mark had done this for the last ten years was beyond her.
Across the river, close to the north bank, would be the Targa that was currently the command centre of the operation, although that would move back to Lewisham as the night wore on. Every available craft belonging to the Marine Unit was out on the river tonight, with the specific instruction to stay well clear of Deptford but to be ready to respond if necessary. She was as safe as it was possible to be and it was about time she started feeling that way.
Around her neck was a cheap-looking metal locket that appeared to be sealed shut. It was particularly important that no one succeeded in opening it, because it concealed a tracking device. As long as she wore it, her colleagues would know where she was. If the plan went wrong, she had to open the locket and break the device. That would be the signal to get her out.
She wasn’t wired. They’d discussed bugging her and it had been considered too risky. Aamil and Raashid both were, though, and as long as she was with them, anything she or they said would be heard by the surveillance team.
They were passing Greenwich now, hugging the south bank. She couldn’t imagine how Maya and the others had felt, on this cold, massive river, with no idea of where they were heading or what would be waiting for them, without even the most basic protection of the life-jackets that Cook had absolutely insisted that she and the men wear.
‘If I lose you in the river, that’s my job and my pension,’ he’d told her when she’d tried to argue that it might make the reception committee suspicious. ‘This is not negotiable.’ Dana had taken one look at his face and realized it probably wasn’t. Chugging along now, watching waves break over the bow, realizing how low in the water she was, she was glad he’d put his foot down.
The huge circular structure that marked the entrance to Deptford Creek was getting closer. She could see the differing flow in the river as the creek water hit the Thames. She wrapped the headscarf closer to her head as they went on.
They couldn’t be too far away now. So far, the two men had done exactly what they’d been told. The tricky part would be when they arrived. She’d watch them closely. Any sign at all that they were trying to alert others to the police surveillance and her instructions had been clear. To break the tracking device, get her head down and wait for rescue. They were slowing down.
‘We go in here,’ said Raashid behind her.
‘That’s Sayes Creek,’ said Lacey, on the control boat. ‘I know that piece of water. It’s very narrow. There’s only one turning point, about a quarter of a mile up, near a big house called Sayes Court.’
On the computer monitor, they watched the red dot that was Dana move up the narrow creek. The small boat went the full length, turned outside Sayes Court and then set off back again, Dana still on board. About a hundred yards from the entrance to the Thames, the boat stopped moving. They’d moored up.
‘Thank you,’ they heard Dana saying over the wires attached to her two escorts. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Be quiet,’ a woman’s voice answered. ‘People are asleep.’
‘She’s going in,’ said Anderson.
Dana was led up the narrow, concrete river steps and inside the building. She heard the boat engine firing up and glanced back. Aamil and Raashid were at the entrance to the creek. A second later she was inside and the door closed behind her.
A dimly lit corridor, painted a pale beige colour. Two doors on the left. At the end of the corridor, stairs going up. Outside, she’d counted four floors, including one that seemed to be slightly below the water line. A tall, narrow building.
So far, so good.
Outside, the crew on the river would already be in touch with their colleagues on land. They’d put an unmarked car in the street outside. They’d use thermal-imaging equipment to find out how many people were in the building. They’d think about accessing the buildings on either side, to see if listening devices could be implanted. They were close. Even if it didn’t feel that way. The woman guiding her along the corridor had spoken to her. She’d stopped, had turned round, was waiting.
‘What is your name?’ she repeated, enunciating every word, as though used to people whose grasp of English was weak.
‘Maya,’ said Dana.
The woman looked at Dana. Then she let her eyes run up and down, taking in her face, clothes, even shoes. Earlier in the day, Dana had run cooking oil through her hair to make it look as though it hadn’t been washed recently. Before getting into the boat, she’d rubbed dirt into her hands and fingernails. Her appearance was convincing. She had black hair, coffee-coloured skin, even the light-green eyes that were common among Pashtun women. It would be her voice, if anything, that let her down.
Dana spoke Hindi and Arabic, and could adopt a regional accent that would fool most Westerners. Native Afghans, on the other hand, would be a different story.
‘Say as little as possible,’ the SO10 sergeant had told her. ‘Act dumb. When you do speak, keep it to short, simple sentences and pitch your voice low.’
Finally, the woman seemed satisfied. ‘Follow me,’ she said.
Dana was shown into a room on the top floor that her sense of direction told her would face the creek.
‘May I take your bag?’ The woman was holding out her hand. Dana hesitated. She’d expected this. They would be bound to check what she’d brought with her, but no one would willingly hand over every possession they had in the world, would they?
‘You’ll get everything back,’ said the woman. ‘But we do need to know what you have with you.’
Dana held out her bag. The woman put it behind her against the door. She took a step closer to Dana and held her arms out by her sides.
Telling herself that getting bolshie would hardly be convincing, Dana submitted to being patted down, airport-security style. The woman found the money belt in seconds. She slid her hands under Dana’s tunic, unfastened the belt and looked inside.
The team had reproduced, exactly, what Maya’s money belt had been carrying, a mixture of Afghan notes, euros and sterling. The woman peered into each of the three pockets, zipped them back up and returned the belt to Dana. Not interested in money, then.
‘You should shower and change,’ said the woman. ‘I’ll take your clothes for laundry. And I’ll get you something to eat.’
Dana watched her guide leave the room. She was a woman in her fifties, about five foot seven and well built, wearing what looked like medical scrubs. Her hair was short and iron grey, her face sallow and coarse, but relatively unlined. Dana would know her again, would be able to identify her if necessary. The door closed and was locked on the outside.
‘The team are in place outside,’ said Detective Superintendent Weaver, when Lacey and Detective Sergeant Anderson arrived back at Lewisham. ‘East Street, built in the late seventeenth century. Originally warehouses and offices for shipping companies.
Some of the properties are offices now. A couple are residential.’
‘Do we know who owns the building?’ asked Anderson.
‘Registered to a company with an overseas head office,’ replied Weaver. ‘It will take time to track them down.’
Lacey watched the small red dot on the screen that was DI Tulloch. They had the bodies, they had the place where the women were being taken. They had at least some of the people involved in the operation.
It wasn’t enough.
Unable to stop herself, Dana ran to the door and pulled the handle. She was locked in. But, honestly, what had she expected? She’d learned a lot already, already the risk had been worth taking. And nothing bad had happened. She still had the lifeline round her neck. She just had to do her job and that meant finding out as much as she could about where she was.
A room, roughly ten feet by eight, resembling nothing so much as a private hospital room, although it would be difficult to say exactly why. There was no medical equipment, the single bed had a simple wooden headboard rather than a metal frame, and yet there was something about the tiled floor, the absence of pictures or ornamentation of any kind that looked institutional. There was another door that led to a small bathroom with basin, loo and shower. A few rough, white towels, a thin robe and some surprisingly nice toiletries. She was expected to be clean and presentable.
Back in the bedroom were a table and chair, a cabinet beside the bed, a TV on a cupboard and a tall chipboard wardrobe. In the cupboard were magazines and a few books aimed at students of the English language. Also some English-language DVDs. The occupants of this room were expected to improve their English while they were here. Which rather suggested they had a future beyond it, didn’t it?
There were clothes in the wardrobe. Leggings, T-shirts, long cardigans, long loose skirts, underwear and pyjamas, all in plain, dull blues and browns. None of them even remotely alluring. These were simple, modest clothes. They were all clean and ironed, but none had the crisp newness of clothes that have just been taken out of their packaging. Someone else had worn these clothes.
Dana took out pyjamas and a thin cotton robe, conscious that she was almost certainly being watched. Surveillance technology was extremely sophisticated and readily available, she’d been told earlier by Mark’s colleague. Cameras could be plastered into walls and ceilings, their lenses concealed as something as innocuous as large screw heads. Until she left this place, she had to assume that everything she did, everything she said, could be overheard or seen, and that meant she had to behave as though she had nothing to hide.
She walked to the window, because that seemed like the most natural thing to do. And yet the world beyond the opaque glass was black. This must be the creek side of the building. On the street side, there would be more lights. More of a sense of space beyond the window.
She’d been told to shower and change, to have her own clothes ready for laundry. Maya would probably have done that, so she had to as well.
The water was hot and the shampoo they’d provided had a heady scent of musk roses that reminded Dana of Turkish Delight. They’d included conditioner, too, and body moisturizer. Whatever plans were in store for these girls, they were being looked after. So far, Nadia’s account had been accurate.
When she’d rinsed her hair, Dana dressed quickly and went back into the bedroom. She wasn’t wearing a watch – Maya hadn’t been – but estimated it was close to midnight. She should be tired. She was tired, but to sleep in this strange place, with no idea why she was here or what would happen to her? Was that possible?
Footsteps outside. She backed up against the bed, her hand going to the locket around her throat. Break the chain, drop the locket on the floor and stamp down hard.
Not yet, not yet. It might be nothing.
The door opened and the smell of food wafted in. The woman who’d met her carried a small casserole dish on a tray. There was also a half-litre bottle of water, an apple and a banana. The woman put the tray down, picked up the dirty clothes Dana had left on the chair and half smiled at her.
‘Wait!’
The woman turned back in the doorway, her smile already gone.
‘What will happen?’ said Dana.
‘Eat and sleep. Tomorrow, you’ll see the doctor.’
Then, as though wanting to be away before any more questions could be hurled at her, she strode out and locked the door again.
Tomorrow she’d see the doctor. Why did that send a chill around her heart?
‘That woman, Nadia Safi, I want her bringing in. First thing in the morning,’ said Weaver.
‘Is that wise, Guv?’ said Anderson. ‘The last thing we want to do is draw attention to the operation.’
‘She’s been where Dana is now. She can tell us exactly what’s happening to her.’
‘She’s in a room on the top floor.’ Lacey was sitting with the technician at the monitor. ‘There are four other people in the building. Two of them haven’t moved in the last hour, so I’m guessing they’re asleep. One of them seems to be in the room next to DI Tulloch’s, the other on the floor below. The third person is doing most of the moving around – it could be the woman who met the boss at the door. The other seems to be confined to the ground floor, but is moving, so not asleep.’
‘What’s Dana doing now?’ said Weaver.
‘Very little. She’s been moving quite a bit – you know, wandering to the window, maybe going to the bathroom. She’s been still for about four minutes now, so she may be trying to get some sleep.’
‘Which is exactly what we should do,’ said Anderson. ‘Nobody got much kip last night and this could go on for another twenty-four hours.’
The sergeant was right. The surveillance equipment would be monitored all night. If anything happened, they’d know about it.
Nobody moved.
‘She isn’t moving, she’s asleep,’ said Anderson.
‘No, the locket isn’t moving,’ said Weaver. ‘She could be anywhere.’
‘With respect, Sir, that just proves you’re too tired to think straight. There’s a red and orange glow on the thermal-imaging camera that is a warm, healthy body in exactly the same spot as the tracker. Not wishing to put too fine a point on it, if that healthy glow starts to look a bit blue, then we can panic. For now, she’s fine.’
76
Dana and Lacey
WHEN DANA WOKE in the night, it was with the immediate thought that she hadn’t expected to sleep, and yet she felt strangely rested, if a little groggy. Had the food she’d eaten been drugged? If so, it had been with a sleeping draught only, no harm done.
She’d heard something. Something had woken her, and yet now there was complete silence, as though, around her, everyone slept.
The room wasn’t as dark as she remembered it being when she’d switched off the light, and a pale-grey glow surrounded the window. She got up and pressed her face against the glass. Yes, definitely getting light out there, and if she listened hard, she might be able to hear early-morning traffic on the river. So the day was coming. She’d survived the night.
The doctor will see you. Christ, she wanted to see the doctor like she wanted a hole in her head.
The table and chair she’d pushed against the door before getting into bed were still in place. They’d have made useless barriers, but the sound of them scraping along the floor would have given her a couple of seconds. And there was that noise again. Listening to it properly, it was definitely the sound that had woken her, just an hour or two before her body was ready to be woken. The sound of someone crying near by.
When Lacey woke in the night, it was to the sound of the tide coming in. It sounded different on Ray and Eileen’s boat. A soft movement in the main cabin told her that the officer guarding her was still on board. She sat up, opened the hatch above her head and climbed out.
The air around her was heavy with the chill of night and the moon was a sliver of cheese, about to fall below the horizon. High tide would be in about
an hour. Her own boat swayed gently on its moorings, rocking and pitching in time with the bigger boat at its side. They looked like two drunk dancers, clinging together on the dance floor at the end of the evening.
Lacey crept forward until she could sit on the edge of the cabin roof and look out at the water. She could see quite well. It couldn’t be long till dawn.
Some time during the day, the operation at Sayes Creek would come to a head. With luck and a fair wind they’d get DI Tulloch out safely and find out what had been going on. They’d make arrests, close the operation down. The bodies bobbing on the river bed at South Dock Marina would be brought to the surface, identified and, eventually, laid to rest properly. It would be over.
Except why, when the ongoing criminal operation depended upon the bodies not being discovered, had someone been practically hurling them into her path? She’d assumed the killer was playing games, had chosen her as a conduit to the police, as a means of taunting them, but did that really make sense? What little they knew of the set-up suggested something big and organized. Professional. Generally speaking, professionals with big sums of money at stake didn’t play games.
It was surprising how quickly one lost track of time on the river. There was something almost hypnotic about the relentless flow of the water, broken only by debris that was big enough to be seen and pale enough to catch the starlight.
Sudden movement on the water made Lacey jump, as a dozing bird was disturbed and flapped its way to safety. The sky was definitely getting lighter. The sounds of avian panic faded, the ruffles in the water settled and for a moment the incoming tide moved smoothly. Then, about twenty yards from the boat, the rounded shape of a human head emerged.
WEDNESDAY, 2 JULY
77
Dana and Lacey
A Dark and Twisted Tide Page 27
