Denial (Sam Keddie Thriller Book 2)

by Paddy Magrane

  There was another video clip, this one showing Gillian Mayer outside Number 10, flanked by about ten men and two women. Tapper knew three of the men personally. In fact, they’d all attended his Valentine’s party.

  ‘I want to thank the Foreign Secretary for his work,’ the PM was saying, ‘and, in particular, his efforts to spearhead international agreement on the need for destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles, as well as his pivotal role in the Anti-ISIL Coalition Conference, held here in London last year.’

  Mayer’s voice, once known for its piercing tones, had been given a Thatcher-style make-over. She’d learnt to soften it, to slow and deepen her enunciation.

  There was an incoming call from Wallace. Tapper paused the clip and answered.

  ‘Pat.’

  ‘I haven’t got long. The Rome flight’s leaving soon.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I’ve accessed the laptops.’

  ‘And?’ Tapper tensed.

  ‘Fitzgerald’s machine had a dense file on Zahra Idris, but it’s all harmless stuff, correspondence with the barrister who was going to represent her in court, legal notes and brief write-ups of his meetings with her at Creech Hill. Nothing that mentions you.’

  Tapper felt himself relax a fraction.

  ‘The date on the last entry was the day before we first spoke, so I’m thinking that Zahra Idris hadn’t talked to Fitzgerald about you until their final meeting in Islington.’

  After which, thought Tapper, Fitzgerald wasn’t writing any more entries. ‘What about the other laptop?’

  ‘No case notes about Idris. But there are no notes about any client. So he either has them on another computer or writes them all up by hand.’

  Wallace’s voice was drowned out by a tannoy announcement. He stopped to let it finish. Tapper drummed the fingers of his free hand against the arm of the chair.

  ‘All I found were his emails. There’s no reference to Zahra Idris apart from some information-only exchanges with some woman at Creech Hill. But there is one thing that might be worth a gander.’

  ‘Oh?’ Tapper’s pulse quickened.

  ‘Turns out Idris is from Eritrea,’ said Wallace. ‘Keddie’s done some research on the country. A while back, by the looks of thing. Stuff about Eritrea’s history, the government, refugees. I’ll send you a link to one item. Might be a good place to start.’

  Tapper felt another wave of relief wash through him. The file was clearly nothing to do with him.

  There was another tannoy announcement.

  ‘It’s my flight,’ said Wallace. ‘Gotta go. I’ll see you at the airport.’

  Seconds later, Tapper’s phone pinged with the arrival of Wallace’s message. He opened it and clicked on the link. It was a short video on YouTube, an Al Jazeera news report about a ghetto on the outskirts of Rome known as Salaam Palace. An abandoned office building, it was now home to hundreds of African immigrants, among them large numbers of Eritreans. The commentary claimed that the place was now so well known in Africa that many migrants leaving Libya had already decided to make it their destination, more often than not as a place to stay before they continued their journey to northern Europe. But some got stuck, caught in limbo by the Dublin Regulation, designed to clamp down on multiple asylum applications by forcing migrants to stay in the country they first enter. Salaam Place was now so overcrowded that the underground car park was filling up, with new arrivals sleeping on soiled mattresses.

  Tapper closed the clip and sat back. He cast an eye over the room, at the people waiting for their flights in this corner of the airport. A ruddy, overweight man barking into his mobile; a sullen, rake-thin woman plastered in make-up; a couple in their early twenties leaning into each other, faces hidden by sunglasses.

  Would this building in Rome be where they’d find Idris and Keddie? It was a possibility. Hotel bookings, certainly in Tapper’s experience, demanded passports, and he doubted Zahra Idris had one.

  Even if they weren’t there, it was a place to start, to gather intelligence from other Eritreans. It was, he realised with a feeling of dread, the only place to start.

  He returned to his phone and the story about the Foreign Secretary, watching Mayer’s speech again, this time to its conclusion.

  His stomach rose and fell with a wave of nausea.

  The stakes in this operation had just been upped tenfold.

  There was no longer any margin for failure. Idris and Keddie had to be found and destroyed.

  Chapter 34

  Rome

  Sam drove through a dense sprawl of light industrial parkland and characterless apartment buildings, balconies strung with washing lines – clothes hanging limply in feeble winter sunshine – and rusting satellite dishes. Pausing at some traffic lights, he saw a wall covered with layers of graffiti. Artful tagging and colourful imagery had been consumed with messages and symbols in black. One read ‘Contra la crisi’ – no arguments there, thought Sam – while another read ‘L’unica famiglia e’ quella tradizionale’.

  His eye was caught by one message in stark, angry capitals: ‘Immigrati cazzo’. Sam knew enough Italian to know that it translated, simply, as ‘Fuck immigrants’. There were other aggressive symbols sprayed hastily in black – a circle with a cross, and several swastikas. He turned to Zahra, but she was fast asleep in the seat beside him.

  It was just over twenty hours since they’d left Amsterdam. Aside from filling up, they’d stopped just once, at a service station north of Lyons in the late afternoon. Sam was hungry and exhausted and needed to eat and rest. They parked some distance from the only building on the site, a large cafeteria serving dead-eyed truck drivers. Sam went in to buy sandwiches and coffee and returned to the car, half-expecting Zahra to have run away. But she was still there.

  They consumed the sandwiches and coffee in silence. Despite the hit of caffeine, the overwhelming sensation was of a full belly, and Sam’s eyes dropped. He woke with a start about an hour later. It was now much darker, orange street lamps casting a miserable glow over trucks and cars. He turned to Zahra. She was watching him, her face in darkness but her eyes catching the glow of a distant light. ‘We should go,’ she said.

  The lights turned green and Sam moved forward. He noticed a large supermarket to his left, a cut-out cartoon figure of a jolly, smiling chef on the roof. He hastily indicated and pulled left, prompting a honk of horn from the car behind.

  He drew into a space in the empty car park, killing the engine. The lack of motion woke Zahra. Her eyes blinked open and she shot Sam and her new surroundings a nervous glance.

  Seeing her, Sam felt something gnawing at his insides. Now that he’d got her to Rome, would she still choose to help him, as she’d offered in Amsterdam? Or would she decide to go her own way? Evaporate. She was probably safer doing that. The sight of them together was far more memorable than the two of them apart.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘Rome.’ Though he had to admit these grim suburbs were a far cry from the backstreets of Trastevere, which he and Eleanor had explored when they’d visited in the autumn. He felt a sharp pain in his chest.

  ‘Where do you want to go now?’ he asked.

  Zahra rubbed the back of her fists against her eyes and then turned to look straight at him. ‘The centre,’ she said. ‘There’s a camp there.’

  When Zahra had talked about a community, Sam had not envisaged a camp, let alone one that had taken root in the heart of a major European capital.

  ‘I’ll ask around, Sam. And then you must go home.’

  Sam nodded, though he had no intention of returning home without answers.

  They left the car in the supermarket car park. Sam had the feeling that they would not be returning to retrieve Ruby’s battered old Opel.

  The windows of the Metro train were covered with more graffiti, giving the interior a dark, gloomy feel, despite the bright winter sunshine outside.

  Twenty minutes later, the train pulled into Circo Massimo. Sam held a hand
over his eyes as they emerged on to a busy street, the daylight momentarily blinding. The air was filled with the hum of engines and a cloud of exhaust fumes. Ahead, at an intersection, a traffic policeman in dark blue uniform, white gloves and hat was directing cars, vans and mopeds with agitated waves of his arms and shrill bursts of a whistle. It seemed the lights were out.

  A black man in a thick coat moved languidly between the vehicles, offering to clean windscreens with a sponge and squeegee.

  ‘This way,’ said Zahra, pointing to an area of parkland just north.

  They waited for the policeman to halt the traffic and then crossed, moving up a narrower, quieter road. On their right, a couple of coaches were parked bumper to bumper, their sides inscribed with the names of French and German tourist companies.

  The camp was obvious from some distance. It was concentrated on the edge of the park on a terrace just below road level, its borders makeshift walls of tarpaulin and plastic sheeting flapping in a slight breeze. Sam passed a line of smart apartment buildings and houses that enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the camp. Two worlds, poles apart, separated by a strip of tarmac.

  Sam followed Zahra as she crossed the road. A sign ahead offered visitors information about the park in a number of languages. As he passed the sign, he noticed a brief phrase in English explaining how the Circus Maximus was once a place of entertainment, where Romans had come to watch gladiatorial contests, chariot races and beast hunts. He was reminded of the man who’d chased them in Amsterdam, and swallowed hard.

  As they got closer to the camp, Sam saw a group at its edge, one which had been concealed by the coaches. There were about twenty men, all white. They wore a mix of bomber jackets, combat fatigues and black leather coats. Some had shaved heads – the back of one was tattooed with an image of a Viking wearing a horned helmet. A pile of banners and flags lay to one side on the pavement. One flag had unfurled and Sam saw a white circle against red. Inside the circle, there was a symbol in black – a ring over a cross – the same one he’d seen on the wall earlier in the day. The men were huddled in conspiratorial circles, as if planning their next move.

  If Zahra was upset or frightened by their appearance, she didn’t show it. About ten metres from the group, she stopped and turned to Sam.

  ‘We need to separate,’ she said.

  He knew this was coming, but now felt fearful, suddenly convinced she’d disappear inside and slip away. The presence of the men merely exacerbated his feelings.

  ‘There’s a church at the end of this road.’ She pointed down the street. ‘I can meet you there at 4pm. It’s quiet at that time. We can talk.’

  Behind Zahra there was a gap in the walls of tarpaulin and plastic, what appeared to be a narrow alleyway. Sam caught a glimpse of an old canvas tent, its front open to reveal a floor of dirty old mattresses – blankets neatly folded at the ends – and a small pile of soup cans. People struggling to live a form of existence in the midst of chronic uncertainty. A cold breeze picked up and a high note of raw sewage caught in Sam’s nostrils.

  ‘What about them?’ asked Sam, pointing to the men.

  Zahra shrugged nonchalantly, as if she’d seen worse. She nodded at Sam, then entered the gap. He watched her for a moment before she turned a corner and disappeared, swallowed up by the camp.

  Chapter 35

  Rome

  Wallace was waiting at arrivals as Tapper emerged from customs. He felt a surge of warmth in his gut, and an eagerness to get going.

  Tapper deposited his bag in left luggage and they caught a cab outside the airport, giving the driver an address in the north of Rome. Tapper saw an eyebrow rise in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Giornalisti?’ asked the driver.

  ‘Si,’ replied Tapper, nodding to Wallace. ‘Giornalisti.’

  As they headed north, Tapper realised that being journalists might be the only way to explain their presence at the building. And if that was their story, then at least he looked vaguely convincing in his bland ensemble of grey cotton trousers, navy wind cheater and the fawn hiking trainers he’d bought at Heathrow. Wallace, in his tight stone-washed jeans, bomber jacket and close-cropped hair, looked more like a night club bouncer, but there was little he could do about that right now.

  Within half an hour, the cab was pelting down a busy four-lane highway, high walls of graffiti-clad concrete to their sides blocking views of the city. The warm interior of the taxi had filled with Wallace’s odour, his unmistakeable cocktail of after-shave and armpits. Tapper found himself transported back in time to their cell in Ipswich.

  Before he could reminisce, the driver indicated and the cab peeled off, rising up a slip road. As they emerged above ground, Tapper saw an area of scrubland, a handful of pinched looking trees and grass that suggested it might once have been a park. It was now most definitely a waste ground, the rusting hulk of a burned-out car the only play equipment.

  The cab drove round the edge of the scrubland. To their left were rows of office blocks, tatty and uninspiring lumps of concrete. Then, up ahead, was a larger building, its façade one of steel and brown-tinted glass. Many of the windows appeared to be broken. Curtains billowed in the wind, as if signalling for help.

  The driver pulled up. ‘Salaam Palace,’ he said, indicating to his left with a contemptuous flick of his hand.

  Tapper handed the driver a wad of cash. ‘Aspetta, per favore,’ he said.

  Wallace and Tapper stepped out on to the pavement. There was a fence of thick steel railings and a bank of overgrown shrubs and weeds behind that divided the block from the street. They moved closer to peer through a gap. Six cars were parked haphazardly in front of the building, their windows thick with dust. Two had no tyres. A skip overflowed with detritus – old desks, chairs and office partition walls, concrete building blocks, smashed toilets. As if a gutting of the building had started and then been abandoned.

  They moved on down the pavement towards an opening in the fence. Just inside the building’s perimeter there was a ramp that dropped down to what was obviously an underground car park. There were two white vans parked – or more probably abandoned, given their rusting, dirty state – at the bottom.

  Near the vans two black boys were playing football. Tapper gestured for Wallace to follow him down the ramp. At the sound of Tapper’s trainers squeaking on the tarmac, the kids stopped kicking the ball and looked up.

  ‘Ciao,’ said Tapper, as he got closer.

  ‘Ciao,’ said one of the boys. He was a tall, skinny lad of around eleven or twelve, a crusty layer of dried snot around his nostrils.

  Tapper’s Italian stretched no further than basic phrases, so he reverted to English, hoping the kids understood.

  ‘I’m looking for an Eritrean woman.’

  The boys looked at each other without expression. Had they understood? Or were they weighing up what information like this might be worth?

  The snot-nosed kid flicked his head in the direction of the underground car park. And then gestured with his hand, inviting Tapper and Wallace to follow.

  They trailed the boys into subterranean gloom, the air bitterly cold and tinged with the smell of ammonia. The bays of the car park had been divided up by large walls of material – plastic sheets or cloth roughly stitched together, scant protection against a damp chill that was never lifted by sunshine. The kids turned right between two of the blocked-off areas. Tapper heard a crunch underfoot and looked down. The floor was strewn with food wrappers, empty plastic milk cartons and broken glass. Ahead, the boys had moved through a set of swing doors into a dimly lit stairwell. Wallace, as if acting like Tapper’s bodyguard, went first.

  The stairwell was marginally warmer than the car park, a difference that was clearly key to a handful of the building’s residents. Four or five mattresses were arranged on the landing. At their feet were dozens of candles of different sizes and states glued with blobs of wax to the floor – clearly the only source of light when darkness fell.

  On the next f
loor, Tapper and Wallace moved through another door into a long corridor. Through sepia-tinged windows Tapper saw the rusting vehicles at the front of the building and, across the road, the scrubland. It was like some image of a post-apocalyptic world. Not that things were much better inside.

  More mattresses were lined up against walls, a narrow footwell left for human traffic. As the kids led the way, it became obvious that there were people on the mattresses. Tapper looked down in horror at two or three bundles of body-shaped blankets huddled up in the foetal position against the cold.

  At the end of the corridor, the kids side-stepped a bright red child’s tricycle and pushed through more swing doors into what had once been a large office. There was a sound of chanting. Arranged to their right were neat rows of shoes – hundreds of sandals, flip-flops and trainers. Tapper turned and saw several lines of men on their knees, heads rising and falling.

  The kids moved on across the abandoned office, down a narrow path carved through an indoor refugee camp filled with yet more mattresses and tented ‘rooms’.

  Their men at prayer, women sat in clusters on the floor, looking up listlessly as they passed. They were clearly not the first visitors.

  ‘What if she’s in there?’ whispered Wallace. ‘What if she makes a fuss?’

  ‘One step at a time, Pat,’ said Tapper, who had no strategy if things kicked off. ‘We don’t even know she’s in the building.’

  The boys had stopped and were indicating another set of doors. It was as if they’d reached a border which they were reluctant to cross.

  ‘Piccola Asmara,’ said the tall, snot-nosed kid. A cupped hand reached towards them. Tapper opened his wallet and peeled out a twenty Euro note. The kid snatched the cash and the two boys disappeared back the way they’d come.

  There were small windows in the top half of the doors and Tapper and Wallace peered through them. It was another room like the one behind them, littered with mattresses and partitioned rooms, with figures shuffling around or seated on the floor. Tapper guessed that, if other floors mimicked this one, the building contained thousands of refugees. Who fed them? How did they live?