Babel bak-6

by Barry Maitland

  He was peering at a digital display in one corner. Kathy could see green numbers spinning fast, like the read-out on a VCR on fast-forward.

  ‘What is that?’

  The security man stepped back and said softly under his breath. ‘God.’ It sounded more like a prayer than an oath. ‘The labs are piped with gas. That’s the meter. All the bloody taps must be wide open.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘They’re filling the labs with gas.’ A note of panic had crept into the man’s voice. ‘They’re turning the building into a bloody great bomb, that’s what it means. One spark, one pilot light…’

  Kathy could hear the man’s breathing, suddenly hoarse as if he could taste the gas already filling his lungs. ‘Shit… We can turn the main off… Yeah, and throw the air-conditioning into exhaust. ..’ He lunged towards a row of colour-coded metal wheels.

  ‘Wait!’ Kathy called out. ‘Hang on. Will they know what you’re doing?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ The man was shouting at her, almost hysterical.

  ‘Will they know, when you shut down the gas?’

  ‘Probably… yes. And they’ll hear the extract fans go on.’

  ‘Then wait! How long would it take to clear the gas?’

  ‘Christ knows. Several minutes.’

  Kathy stood motionless, thinking, then said, ‘Don’t touch it. Go outside and warn them. Make sure the neighbouring buildings are evacuated. Give me two minutes, then cut off the gas to the whole campus.’

  The man stared blankly at her for a moment, as if half his mind was still struggling with the scale of the imminent catastrophe.

  ‘Give me your torch,’ she said. ‘Where’s the fire escape stair?’

  He handed it over and pointed, still in a state of shock.

  ‘Go!’ she shouted at him, and he seemed to wake up, and turned and ran.

  She was opening the door to the fire stair when she heard him call after her, ‘I can see a light on at level four!’

  The stairwell was bare concrete, and as soon as she smelled its sour smell, and heard the scuffling sounds of her progress in the half-light, she knew that her nightmare was in there, waiting for her if she allowed it. Her heart began to thump with panic, bile rose in her throat, and she came to a stop, halfway up a flight, forced to grip the handrail with trembling hands just to stay on her feet. She heard her own voice in her head, accusing herself. You can’t do this. You’re going to fail. You can’t even get up the stairs.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said aloud. He isn’t here. He’s dead. This is a memory of a smell, that’s all, an echo in the head. Move now or you and Brock and a million female cells will be blown into the night.

  She stumbled on, upward, numbly watching her feet as they climbed, step by step, level two, level three, level four.

  She hesitated in front of the door marked with a large red number four, then turned the handle and went in.

  And there he was, waiting for her, a dark hooded figure, silhouetted against the bench lights, and hissing. She froze, and it took her a moment to realise that it was the gas taps hissing, and that he had his back to her, and in the shadows beyond him she could make out Brock, sitting on a stool. They were talking, though their voices were low and she couldn’t make out what they said. She took a deep breath, and almost choked on the fumes of gas and petrol.

  She inched silently towards the figure. His right hand was held out and she saw the top of the cigarette lighter held ready to spark. He seemed smaller than she had expected. Was it the wild boy Ahmed? Or one of the Iraqis? Maybe the other was somewhere nearby.

  She remembered Leon’s description of the knife one of them had carried in the car, perhaps in his other hand, which she couldn’t see. She had her retractable baton in her coat pocket, but he would hear it snap open, and even if she struck his hand accurately, the flint might still spark.

  She would have to smother it with her hand, hang on to it long enough for Brock to get over and help. Meanwhile his other hand, with the knife, would be free.

  She could hear Brock’s voice now, calm and reasoned, as if pondering a question of law.

  ‘I always thought the most powerful bombs in the world were books. I think Abu believed that too. He left his book for us. Have you seen it? Look…’ He began to reach slowly to the pocket of his coat. The hooded figure seemed transfixed by what he was doing, then the all-pervasive hissing abruptly stopped, leaving a deafening silence in its place. The figure gave a cry and began to turn, and as Kathy threw herself at him she had a vision from her memory of him picking her bodily from the bed and throwing her against the wall. She yelled out, a wild cry of protest, and grabbed the hand that held the lighter. The figure wheeled round and Kathy forced herself to meet his face, and was astonished to see Briony Kidd gaping at her.

  23

  ‘B ut that was such a terrible thing to ask anybody to do!’ Kathy said. ‘Imagine how Abu must have felt when Springer put it to him, to help the man he worshipped to kill himself.’

  ‘Oh, I think it was much worse than that,’ Brock said, lifting the pint mug to his mouth.

  They were in The Three Crowns, a dozen of the team that had been working on the case. It had seemed the most appropriate place to go to celebrate, and a mini-bus had been ordered for closing time to take them all home. Qasim Ali and his brother George had wandered in for a quiet beer during the course of the evening, and had been invited to join them. They and Bren and PC Greg Talbot from the local station were currently locked in a deadly serious struggle at the darts board.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t say it to Briony, because I was worried how she’d react, but I think Springer intended all along for Abu to be caught. I think he was prepared to sacrifice Abu, and Briony’s betrayal of him to Sanjeev Manzoor and his subsequent death suited his purposes very well.’

  ‘But why? If he’d saved Abu, and helped him throughout his life. Why destroy him?’

  ‘To make the case against Haygill stick. He needed to connect Haygill to the assassin, and to do that we had to discover who the killer was. The hints that he’d left us about an Islamic connection led us to Abu, and the gun he’d told Abu to plant in Haygill’s room and the money should have done the rest. And when you think about it, he’d begun to manipulate Abu and use him for his own purposes for some time. If Abu was the child that Max had saved in the camp, then he must have kept in touch with him all those years while he lived with his adopted family, and sent them money for his education. And when Max learned that Haygill was working with people at the University of Qatar, where Abu was studying, he must have arranged for him to approach Haygill and ask for a job here at UCLE. He then used Abu as his spy inside CAB-Tech, to try to get something solid to attack Haygill with, like the BRCA4 protocol. Perhaps it was his failure to find this that drove him to the ultimate solution.’

  A roar from the people clustered around the dartboard announced a winning bullseye from Greg Talbot, and Qasim and his brother were sent off to the bar to buy another round.

  ‘He must have been obsessed with Haygill,’ Kathy said. ‘I could never follow why. I mean, that stuff about truth and freedom, and science being like a fundamentalist religion, I couldn’t understand that.’

  ‘I think most of the people who reviewed Springer’s last book shared your opinion, Kathy.’ Brock drained his glass in anticipation of the drinks which the barman was stacking on Qasim’s tray. ‘I don’t know how it began, but I think his obsession ended up being purely personal. I think Haygill was right when he said that Springer hated him because he came to realise that what Haygill was doing mattered, and what Springer was doing didn’t. Haygill had achieved everything that Max Springer might have aspired to, and he couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘Pure spite.’

  ‘A total obsession. In the end Springer became a victim of the condition he despised. He lost his freedom to think straight because his mind turned a theory into an absolute truth.’

/>   ‘I think Abu knew,’ Kathy said suddenly. She was thinking of her first encounter with Abu, the look of recognition and resignation on his face. ‘I think he must have realised the fate that Max had planned for him. Yet he still went through with it.’

  ‘You may be right. Now that is tragedy, isn’t it? I’d be intrigued to know where Springer got the gun though.’

  ‘You don’t think Abu got it?’

  ‘I doubt it. Springer carefully stage-managed every detail of his death. I don’t think he’d have left something as important as that to Abu. He might have messed it up, got caught trying to buy it, and that would have ruined everything.’ Greg Talbot wandered over, face flushed with his success at the dartboard. ‘Here, Kathy,’ he said, ‘I still don’t get it, that weird old bloke setting the whole thing up-setting me up, come to that. But you know what bothers me the most? That day when he came in to Shadwell Road to make his report about being threatened, he stood there for the best part of an hour listening to old man Manzoor ranting on about his missing daughter and how some bloke had abducted her.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, did he know that the bloke was Abu?’

  Kathy thought about that. ‘It’s possible,’ she said, ‘if not then, then later. Abu told him enough to know that they needed that money.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. He could have shown Springer a photo of his girlfriend, and Springer would have seen her picture on the missing persons poster in our front window.’

  ‘What are you saying, exactly, Greg?’

  ‘Well, he was such a devious old bugger, that if that student hadn’t told you she did it, I’d have said that he was the one that sent that photo to Manzoor, and got Abu killed, so that he wouldn’t be able to spill the beans after it was all over.’

  It was a chilling thought, and Kathy had been pondering Abu’s state of mind at the end, torn between two loyalties. How strongly had he felt about the work of his CAB-Tech colleagues, the generosity of Haygill, which Springer had forced him to betray? ‘But Briony did admit that she was the one who sent the photo to Manzoor.’

  ‘Oh yes, she said that, but could she be trying to cover up just what a totally ruthless old bastard her hero really was?’

  ‘Greg, you have a truly devious mind yourself. You’ll be a great loss to the Met.’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah, well, I made my choice, Kathy. I’m not going to put that uniform on again. But you? The lads were saying you’re back on board again. I thought you were going to jack it in too?’

  ‘Changed my mind. Found I couldn’t do without it.’

  She watched Qasim and George weaving back through the crowd, their hands full with the trays of pint glasses, when she noticed them abruptly stop. Across the bar the babble of conversation faded suddenly as everyone turned to stare at the man standing in the pub doorway. Sanjeev Manzoor was holding a brown cardboard box. The tension in his face was apparent to everyone as he stepped slowly forward towards the two men with the drinks. They seemed stunned and uncertain what to do, burdened as they were. At the last moment he glided past them and came to the table by which Kathy was standing, and placed the package in front of her, as carefully as if the slightest jolt might be fatal. A voice somewhere in the room broke the silence with a muttered ‘Shit!’ as Manzoor began to ease the lid of the box up.

  He straightened upright with the box lid in his hand. Inside they could see something beneath a layer of green tissue paper. He addressed himself to Kathy.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said, very tense and formal, ‘I have completed your suit.’ He drew back the tissue and lifted a hanger on which was draped a black jacket and skirt.

  A roar of laughter filled the pub. Some joker called for a camera to get a picture for the front page of The Job, another for the phone number of the CIB.

  Kathy took in a deep breath and said, ‘Mr Manzoor, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘It is not a gift, of course. That would be misconstrued. But it is a fair price, my best price. The invoice is in the pocket. When you have tried it on, I shall make final adjustments. And I would ask one favour. It concerns my daughter, Nargis.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Yes. I have a message for her, and I would beg you to deliver it for me. Since you are my enemy, she will believe it from you. Despite all that has happened between us, I want only what is good for my daughter. I hear that she is with child. I do not know if the child is of her husband, or of the other man, but I do not care. It is my grandchild, and I want to help her. If she wishes I shall instruct my nephew in Kashmir to divorce her. Please tell her this.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Thank you. And to you, sir…’ he gave a little bow to Brock, then to Bren, ‘… and you, I offer my humble apologies for any discomfort my actions may have caused you.’

  Bren nodded and offered his hand, but Brock, less forgiving and suspecting Manzoor’s motives, did not. Someone told him to stay and have a drink, but he shook his head. ‘That is not possible. I have done what I came for,’ and he turned and left.

  ‘Blimey!’ Qasim marched forward and put his tray down on the next table. His face was red, whether from the excitement or the strain of holding the drinks Kathy wasn’t sure. ‘Never thought I’d ever see Manzoor inside a pub.’ He passed drinks to Brock and Kathy and raised his glass in a toast. ‘To old enemies.’ He hesitated a moment with the glass almost at his lips as he saw the door open again and another Asian face appear, then he relaxed and smiled, recognising Leon Desai. He had been attending another crime scene, and he looked uncharacteristically tired and grimy as he came over.

  ‘Get anyone a drink?’

  Kathy said, ‘We’ve just been refilled. I’ll get you one. Sit down, you look beat.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll have a wash first.’

  They crossed the bar together, and when they were out of earshot of the others he said, ‘I won’t stay long. Can I give you a lift home?’

  She hesitated, then said, ‘I chipped in for the mini-bus. I’d better go with the others, Leon.’

  He gave a resigned little smile and turned away.

  The following day Kathy kept her promise to Sanjeev Manzoor and called on Nargis at Chandler’s Yard. Alone in her room she wasn’t wearing a headscarf, and Kathy saw again her beautiful, long, gleaming black hair.

  ‘It’s a shame you have to cover that up,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve thought about giving up the hijab often, but I never did. Not for the same reasons as Fran. While Abu was alive I did it for his sake, and now, with the baby, I feel I need my faith to hang on to. Qasim told me about Dad turning up at the pub last night, but he didn’t say what he wanted.’

  ‘He asked me to give you a message. Apparently he thought it would come better from me, since I’m what he described as his enemy.’

  ‘That sounds like the way he thinks, yeah.’ She listened expressionless as Kathy told her what her father had said. At the end she gave a quick shake of her head. ‘That’s easy for him to say, isn’t it? He wasn’t raped, was he? He didn’t have his friend stabbed to death in the street…’

  For the first time Kathy saw the turmoil beneath Nargis’ extraordinary composure. Her mouth curled with the pain of grief and she covered her face with both hands and began to sob. Kathy put an arm round her and held her till the wave of despair passed.

  ‘You know everything now, don’t you?’ Nargis whispered. ‘Briony told you?’

  ‘Yes, almost everything. If it’s any comfort, I believe they will let you keep the money Abu gave you.’

  ‘It’s for the baby, you see. I don’t need dad.’

  ‘We’d still like to know where the gun came from. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’

  ‘Qasim tried to find out. He thought he could prove Abu innocent if he tracked it down, but nothing came of it.’

  On the way out, Kathy stopped at the counter of the Horria to speak to Qasim. For once the jukebox was silent. There were no customers and he
was buttering bread slices, eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette in his mouth.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘It’s going to take time, Qasim.’

  ‘Sure, sure. Anyway, she’ll always have a place here if she wants it.’

  ‘You’re a good friend. She tells me you tried to trace the gun Abu used, to help his case.’

  She wondered exactly how he’d gone about it.

  ‘Right. I just couldn’t believe that Abu could shoot somebody in cold blood like that. Well, I was both wrong and right, wasn’t I?’

  ‘We all were. So you had no more luck than us then, with the gun.’

  He squinted at her through the smoke. ‘I didn’t say that. Only it didn’t help him, so I said nothing.’

  ‘You found out where it came from?’

  ‘Maybe. But I couldn’t tell you if I did. My sources wouldn’t appreciate it.’

  ‘Really?’ Kathy was filled with curiosity, and she thought she detected something teasing in Qasim’s manner. ‘Not even to the enemy of Sanjeev Manzoor?’

  He gave a grin. ‘Well, I might drop a hint to a friend, Kathy, but I couldn’t go on the record, see?’

  ‘I understand.’ She leaned across the counter, all ears.

  ‘Young PC Talbot told me what you’d found out about the gun from the slugs-7.62 mill, probably Russian or the like, and used once before in a punch-up in North London, when a drug dealer got shot. Now it happens I may have an acquaintance who knows someone who knows someone who was mixed up in that. And through these contacts, I may have heard that someone else, a customer of one of these characters, had made inquiries about purchasing a certain item of hardware from them, and had in fact done so, round about last Christmas.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, that’s it.’

  ‘No it’s not. How did you know that this wouldn’t help Abu?’

  Qasim scowled with fake reluctance. ‘Because…’ his voice dropping to a whisper, ‘… the party in question was at the same university as Abu, so it just made matters look worse.’