Haji conceded that he was correct. ‘It’s up to you to arrange for him to take an official trip outside.’
‘Even if I agreed…’
‘You’ll agree. You have no option.’
‘Even if I agreed, how could it be arranged?’ Seb DeLeon realised he was compromised. He only hoped that DCI Cook could get him out of this.
‘It is for you to make sure that this person is ill enough for an immediate transfer to hospital,’ Haji said.
‘There’ll still be strong security. How will you pull it off?’
‘That’s for us to worry about. Your part is simple, make the person ill enough and then let the other prison officers arrange the hospital transfer. For your part, we will ensure five thousand pounds.’
‘I have no option.’
‘You are a wise man, Seb.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Haji, a simple old man doing what I can. Like you, just trying to make a few extra pounds for a few luxuries that make life a little easier.’
‘I mean, who are you really?’ DeLeon repeated the question.
‘Seb, do not expect an answer that would only place your life in jeopardy. You have been given the opportunity to realise your dream. Do not realise your death. It is best if you just see me as a simple old man.’
‘I will. But simple? I don’t think that fits the description.’
‘I will deliver a bottle to you in the next few days. You will give it to the prisoner at the agreed time. You will conclude your shift and leave the prison. That is all.’
Haji left the café smiling, resolute that Seb DeLeon would never serve a meal in the restaurant that he was determined to take over. Seb DeLeon knew too much. He was a liability and, to Haji, that marked him for elimination.
Seb DeLeon left the café and headed to the nearest railway station. He took the first train leaving as previously agreed. ‘Did you hear all that?’ he asked.
‘We were across the road, the first floor above the hairdressing salon,’ Ed Pickles confirmed.
‘What am I to do?’
‘Carry out his wishes. What else is there for you to do?’ Ed replied.
‘But we’re talking about releasing a terrorist from Belmarsh. A bit of smuggling is one thing, but a person who could kill others? I’m not so keen on that.’
‘You’re being squeamish. We’re not going to let anyone be killed as a result of your actions.’
‘Did you put a tail on Haji?’
‘We’ll soon know who he is.’
‘Good, I can’t wait to be out of this business,’ Seb DeLeon said. ‘If I had known what a little bit of smuggling would have led to, I wouldn’t have started.’
‘But you did,’ said Ed. ‘And now you’ve got to conclude what Haji wants of you, and what we want of you.’
‘I’m screwed. I only hope you guys know what you’re doing.’
‘We do,’ Ed Pickles said as they parted on the train in the noisy carriage.
***
Anne Argento was in a furious mood. Her fury as usual related to her new best friend, the Right Honourable Clifford Bell, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
‘He made it clear that my serving as his deputy would ensure that, in all matters relating to the current crisis, I would be invited to any discussions, kept abreast of any meetings on the subject.’
‘You’ve been fully informed as agreed.’ Rohan Jones was stuck between a rock and a hard place. His loyalties divided between the Prime Minister, his friend, and the one person who may be able to salvage the situation. The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff could see clearly that, in another few months, he would need a new position and a new person to advise.
‘Look, Rohan,’ continued Anne Argento, ‘I know you’re showing loyalty to an old friend, but this can’t go on. I know he met up with Goddard, the head of the Counter Terrorism Command. Why was I not told?’
‘Deputy Prime Minister, the meeting had been arranged some weeks previously. It was thought that the agreement was not retrospective.’
‘Rubbish and you know it,’ she responded. ‘Rohan, I’m not blaming you, but you’re on the wrong side. At some stage, you’ll need to decide who you’re going to run with, the has-been or the new team.’
‘Is there to be a new team?’
‘You know there is. There’s a place on it if you’re interested.’
‘My loyalty is with Clifford Bell, the current Prime Minister.’ Rohan Jones felt his statement was politically neutral.
‘And if I’m the Prime Minister?’
‘I believe my previous statement was clear. I support the title, not the name.’
Anne Argento needed Rohan Jones onboard. He had just made it clear as to where his loyalties lay. ‘You should have been a diplomat.’
‘Thank you,’ Rohan Jones said, confident in the belief that he had a longer future in politics than his friend Clifford Bell.
‘What was said at the meeting with the Counter Terrorism Command?’ she tested her new ally.
‘It was confidential,’ Rohan Jones replied.
‘Are you saying that I can’t keep a secret?’
‘Not at all. It’s just that it would not be ethical for me to reveal what was said, that’s all.’
‘You missed your calling, Rohan. The diplomatic service would have had you as our Ambassador in Washington.’
‘Maybe that’s still possible?’ Rohan Jones saw the potential of the plum diplomatic position within his grasp.
‘I’d think there’s an excellent chance. What do you think?’ Anne Argento acknowledged that, if he supported her, she would support him.
‘Deputy Prime Minister, the diplomatic service missed out on you as well.’
‘Not me, I’m a politician. I ferret around in the dirt of politics. That’s where I thrive, not the cocktail set at an Ambassadorial party. Where do I go from here? Do I talk to Goddard?’
‘I’d recommend against that course of action unless you want the Prime Minister informed.’ Rohan Jones opened up a little more.
‘You’re right. He’d be knocking on the door telling tales within the hour,’ Anne Argento agreed.
‘He’s not the person with the inside information, anyway.’
‘Then who is?’ Anne asked.
‘I’d try a Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook.’
‘Where will I find him?’
‘I’ll give you a phone number, confidentially of course. Your electorate office may be a good place for a meeting.’
‘You’re right. My office in the Admiralty has too many eyes. What does he look like? How will I recognise him?’ she asked.
‘You can’t mistake him. Tall, athletic, and black.’
‘He sounds my type of person.’
‘He may well be. He’s been touted as a future Commissioner of Police.’
‘Then he’s definitely my type.’ The Deputy Prime Minister was intrigued, not only by the knowledge that DCI Isaac Cook may possess, but also by DCI Isaac Cook, the tall, athletic, black man.
***
‘Did they check out all the religious sites in the country, especially the cathedrals?’ Frederick Vane asked of Ed Pickles as they met for a sandwich and a cup of coffee not far from the Office of National Statistics.
‘There were three with some significant restoration work,’ said Ed Pickles. ‘Winchester, Rochester and York Minster.’
‘Were they all checked thoroughly?’
‘I asked for a full report. Winchester was thorough, so was Rochester, but York Minster was unstable, or at least the roof was. They had to leave it to the cathedral police,’ Ed said.
‘Do they know what they were looking for?’ asked Frederick. ‘Did they even follow through?’
‘The cathedral police, probably not.’
Frederick expressed alarm. ‘It would be only too easy to state it was unstable and leave it at that. Who’s doing the work?’
‘An English company, they’re well-respected.’
‘Have you checked them out?’ Frederick asked.
‘Well, no. The assumption is that, if they’re English, they’re fine.’ Ed realised immediately that they had been remiss in their inspection of York Minster.
‘Ed, we can’t work on assumptions. We must always be totally diligent.’
‘Frederick, I’ll contact the Yorkshire police and get them to check again. I’ll send up someone from the office to assist.’
‘Do it today,’ said Frederick. ‘It may amount to nothing, but Andrew and I are convinced that another attack is pending. It’s got to be a target of significance. The submarine doesn’t rate a mention in the newspapers these days, and everyone is numbed to the shopping centres being blown up. The Islamic State needs a big explosion, and it’s coming soon. One week at most. We cannot afford to delay.’
***
Alexandra Hainsworth was not the most attractive person that the Counter Terrorism Command had taken on in the last six months. She was heavy-boned, fat some would say, with a raucous laughter deepened by a daily habit of too many cigarettes and, in her wild and abandoned youth, too many beers. She was single, late thirties, with an unusual style in dated clothes, and matronly. The need of a man, long dispensed with, as was the beer and the need of compliments that had helped to quell her inferiority complex as a tall, gangly girl through puberty.
The cigarettes still consumed her, and her frequent trips outside the office to spend a penny or get some fresh air annoyed many who neither had the need nor the lame excuse to skive off for a puff of some obnoxious dead leaf. She always came back breathing her stale smoke over the office. Isaac Cook, her superior officer, complained on several occasions. He had even put it in writing once, but apart from the occasional mint to mask the taste, it was her colleagues who suffered. As clear a case of cancer due to passive smoking as any he had seen, the health officer from Head Office had put in his report.
She should have been removed from the force but for some unassailable facts: she was female, and it would have been viewed as discriminatory. She had committed no violation of government regulations. Breathing smoke over someone was not in the book, and she was good at her job.
‘Alex, I need you to go to York,’ Isaac said.
‘What for, boss?’
‘I need you to check out the cathedral there.’
‘Why? Is it missing?’ Alexandra Hainsworth had a dry sense of humour, not always appropriate.
‘It’s still there,’ Isaac replied curtly. ‘Now is not the time for flippancy.’
‘Sorry, boss. What’s the deal?’
‘Frederick Vane and Andrew Martin…’
‘The smart guys?’
‘Yes, as you say “the smart guys”. They reckon there’s a plan in place to hit a major target in the country.’
‘Yes, I know. We’ve been working on it,’ Alex said. ‘I was just about to come in and see you.’
‘York Minster, the local police didn’t conduct as thorough a search as they should have,’ said Isaac Cook.
‘And they didn’t check out the firm contracted to do the work,’ Alex added.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Barry Cardiff, the owner of the firm, was not christened with that name.’
‘How do you know this?’ Isaac asked.
‘Ed Pickles asked me to run some checks.’
‘What do you have?’
‘His father came from the Middle East.’
‘I assume his name was not Cardiff then?’ Isaac asked.
‘No, it was Muntasir.’
‘Why is he using the name of Cardiff?’
‘There would have been a lot of discrimination back then. He just changed it to a solid English name. That’s what I’d guess.’
‘Barry, is that his name?’
‘Bashir originally, but at school, he was probably called Barry.’
‘How soon can you be in York?’ Isaac Cook responded with alarm. York Minster was looking possible; the dots were starting to line up.
‘Three to four hours, depends on the traffic.’
‘Your skills at looking for explosives, as good as ever?’
‘Better, I’d say,’ Alex answered.
‘How are you with heights?’ asked Isaac. ‘It’s going to be precarious walking around in the rafters of a seven-hundred-year-old cathedral.’
‘Heights? They’ve never bothered me,’ replied Alex. ‘Although if there are bats in the belfry, I’m out of there.’
‘No need to go near the belfry. Where Barry Cardiff and his team have been working is your primary concern.’
‘Are we going to bring in Cardiff for questioning?’ Alex asked.
‘Not yet. If we give any warning, they’re likely to blow it.’
‘You sound pretty confident here?’ Alex said.
‘It’s the best lead we’ve got. It’s about time we had some success.’
***
York was not Alex Hainsworth’s kind of place. London was home, anywhere else felt a pale imitation. Still, it was a job, and she was dressed in overalls and ready for an inspection of the roof.
‘I’m from the National Heritage Council in London,’ she said.
‘We weren’t told about any inspections of our work,’ Munir Aboud, the site foreman, said. ‘It’s not safe up there.’
‘You’re Muslim?’ She was not always the most sensitive. Political correctness was an area in which she had failed a few times. She had arrested an overweight fifteen-year-old running out of a clothing store and accused her of either being pregnant or stealing. The girl was neither, and Alex had been slapped with a warning from her commanding officer at the police station for inflammatory statements against a member of the public with a genetic ailment that caused water retention and whose father was the mayor of the borough.
‘What’s that to you?’ Aboud responded.
‘My apologies, I was just making an observation.’
‘You better be careful with your observations. There’s too many in this cathedral making the same comments, and I don’t appreciate it. This is a job, that’s all, and I wouldn’t care if it was Jewish or Christian or someone bowing down to an idol made of stone. I have a family to look after, and this pays well.’
‘Okay, okay, I get your point,’ Alex said abruptly. ‘I meant no offence. Just show me the way up.’
‘I’ll need to see your licenses to allow you to climb the scaffolding and permission from the Archbishop giving you the all-clear,’ said Aboud.
‘Sergeant Bhardwaj, you’ve arranged the permits?’ Alex turned to a pretty, English-born Indian policewoman of about twenty-five.
‘Yes, Alex, all’s in order. I’ll be coming up with you.’
‘You can’t take her up,’ said Aboud alarmed. ‘And why do you need someone from the police? If she falls off, it’ll be me that gets in trouble.’
‘It’s standard procedure to involve the local police in case of an accident,’ replied Alex. ‘Besides, Sergeant Bhardwaj goes potholing for pleasure, she’ll not fall. Why, for the life of me, someone would is beyond me.’ Alex attempted to defuse the tension so as not to be seen as authoritative and bossy. If the foreman suspected for a minute the ploy she was using, he might have become unpleasant, more unpleasant than he already was.
‘Okay, if you’re determined,’ Munir Aboud conceded. ‘I’ll go up with you, show you the way.’
‘Thanks, that will be fine,’ Alex said, although she would have preferred no belligerent witnesses as to the thoroughness of her examination, and what she knew about the roof of a cathedral would have filled the back of a postage stamp.
‘Where do you want to go first? Up near the transept?’ Aboud asked.
‘Transept first and then we’ll move up towards the main doors.’ Alex had found out that useful piece of information from the brochure at the side entry to the cathedral.
‘West or east wing? Which one do you want?’ Aboud asked.
‘The west wing will be fine,�
� Alex said.
‘That’s good. We’re working up near the east wing.’
‘My mistake, we need to see the east wing.’
‘Make up your mind,’ the foreman replied.
‘The east wing, please,’ said Alex. ‘Where you’ve been working.’
‘What’s the best way up?’ Sergeant Bhardwaj asked. She had been born in York, went to school in York, spoke with a broad Yorkshire accent, but still, she was always referred to as Indian, not that she complained. The police force had treated her well and her skills in the potholing community out on the Yorkshire moors were legendary.
‘There’s a staircase up to the central tower,’ Aboud said. ‘We’ll go partway out and then there are some narrow walkways. It’s dangerous, hope you’re not frightened of heights? But then, if the sergeant goes down holes in the ground, I suppose she isn’t.’
‘I don’t like heights very much, that’s why I don’t go climbing rocks,’ Sergeant Bhardwaj replied. ‘If I can’t see what’s beneath me then I’m fine.’
‘Then you better stay down below. I’m not here to carry a woman out.’ Aboud saw a woman’s place was in the house and covered up.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ the sergeant replied. ‘You worry about getting us up there safely and back again.’
Reluctantly, the site foreman commenced the climb. The air was stuffy and the climb uncomfortable until they were aligned with the roof beams, solid structures of oak that had stood through the eons.
‘You can tell the ones we put in. They’re a shade lighter.’
‘How many years before they blend in?’ Alex asked.
‘You’re the expert, you tell me?’ Aboud replied.
‘I’d say twenty-five years, at least.’ Alex Hainsworth had also found that interesting piece of information in the brochure. ‘Besides, no one will notice from down below.’
‘It’s a good job. There’s nothing for you to worry about up here.’ Aboud was proud of his work.
‘From what I’ve seen so far, I’m impressed,’ said Alex. ‘Must have been heavy lifting them up?’
‘Not so heavy as when they built this place,’ said Aboud. ‘Then it would have been manual labour. They were master craftsmen. We’re just amateurs compared to them.’
Murder Without Reason (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 5) Page 20
