Smoke and Mirrors (The Acer Sansom Novels Book 3)

by Oliver Tidy

  There was a grubby baseball cap on the top of the dashboard. He snatched it up, got out of the vehicle, stuffed the second pistol in the back of his trousers and the first in his front coat pocket and went after Niki, pulling the collar of his coat up and the visor of the hat down.

  He crossed the road and peered around the corner of a brick wall to see Niki fifty metres in front of him. There were not many people on the street braving the rain. He went after her, keeping well back. He concentrated on looking normal, not looking like himself, not looking like a man following someone. They passed shops and a bus stop sheltering people from the continuing drizzle. He put his hands in his pockets and curled his fingers around the grip of the pistol for the comfort it gave him. He stopped and felt his pockets for the phone. It was not with him. He could not remember picking it up from the seat of the van.

  Niki was striding ahead, opening up a gap. He went after her and despite the cool rain his body prickled with the heat of his incompetence. He wouldn’t be there to take the call when Crouch’s men showed up. They’d look for him. They’d inform Crouch. Crouch would get them following the signal of the satellite phone. But Niki would now know that the opposition understood she had the satellite phone and might use it to track her. She would have dumped it. He had to accept he was on his own, without any means to communicate his position, or, more importantly, Niki’s.

  He considered taking Niki now, on the street, in broad daylight, rather than risk losing her wherever she was going. But that could go wrong. She would scream and protest. He would be a white man attacking a pious ethnic minority woman and that could rarely be expected to go well in London. He could find himself in trouble, attacked. He could lose her in any ensuing melee. He followed her and kept his distance.

  She continued under the iron railway bridge and turned right into Atlantic Road. He jogged a few paces so as not to lose her in the more densely crowded shopping street as a train thundered overhead, drowning out all the ambient street noise. At the end of Atlantic Road she turned left onto Brixton Road and crossed to the far pavement. In his haste and distraction he misjudged the approach of a car from his right. The driver hit the brakes and then his horn as Acer jumped out of his way, narrowly avoiding the promised collision. As he made the pavement he heard a volley of abuse behind him. He turned his back on Niki, in case she turned to see what all the fuss was about.

  Onwards and under another of the steel bridges that took the mainline trains into London. Fifty metres past, she cut back across the traffic and disappeared into the mouth of Brixton Underground Station. Acer looked both ways and trotted after her.

  He was just in time to see her swipe a card and push through the turnstiles for the escalators that would take her down to platform level.

  He patted his pockets, hoping to God he hadn’t lost the wallet with the Oyster card. He found it quickly, held his breath while he swiped it, breathed out when it let him through and went after her. She was at the bottom of the escalator. He pushed and excused his way down the moving walkway, earning some tutting and some comments about his rudeness and his impatience.

  There were more people on the platform. A good crowd had gathered awaiting the next train on the Victoria Line. He glimpsed her further along. She was keeping her head bowed. He pulled again at the bill of the cap and stepped back to put a pillar between them.

  The information board said the next train would be along in three minutes. As he waited more people arrived. Acer understood this to be both good and bad.

  A growing rumble signalled the approach of the train. The noise grew steadily louder and Acer caught the light of the locomotive brightening the tunnel. A rush of warm, stale air was pushed along in front of it as it hove into view to the sound of the brakes being applied.

  The carriages were empty. Doors swished open and the people were sucked in to grab a seat while there were seats to be had. Acer hung back, waiting until he saw Niki board and then he hopped on and stood by the doors. They hissed shut. The train gently accelerated away.

  It was only then it occurred to him that Niki might be carrying a bomb.

  ***

  94

  He couldn’t see her through the viewing panel of the carriage door. He looked up at the Tube map to see where they were heading, where she could get out and what he could do.

  A young man was scribbling on an A4 pad on his lap. Acer sat beside him.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The young man ignored him.

  Acer said it louder.

  The young man looked up blankly.

  Acer said, ‘Can I have one piece of paper and borrow something to write with. Please. It’ll take seconds. It’s important.’

  The young man hesitated briefly before tearing off a page and passing over his pencil.

  Acer started writing on his knee. In his haste he put the pencil through the paper and swore softly. The young man offered his pad and Acer took it with mumbled thanks. He scribbled his note and handed back the pad and pencil with a thank you.

  He folded the paper into four and held it. The train was slowing. Stockwell Station. He stood and crossed to the doors. No one was getting out of his carriage. There were people waiting to board. They parted for him and he stepped onto the platform. Niki did not get out. He got back in.

  He repeated the process at Vauxhall, Pimlico and Victoria. The carriage was now filled with passengers. He forced his way back in and was aware that those who’d got on with him at Brixton were watching him for his odd behaviour.

  At Green Park Niki was out before him and striding towards the exit through the crowds of commuters.

  The lad Acer had taken paper from was in front of him walking for the exit. Acer overtook him, got in his way, made him stop and turned to face him. The youth looked up and he looked afraid. Acer tried to smile but there wasn’t time and he was so full of dread. People jostled them without apology.

  He held the paper out in front of him.

  ‘Forget your day. Take this paper. Find a policeman. Give it to him. Tell him about me. Make him read it. Make him take it seriously. Lives may depend on it.’

  Acer turned and barged his way through the sea of heads hoping that his delay hadn’t lost him Niki.

  ***

  95

  He caught sight of her on the staircase heading for street level. A CCTV camera was facing in his direction. He quickly took off his cap and waved his arms at it, letting it get a good look at his face.

  By the time he made Piccadilly Niki had disappeared in the mass of people crowding the pavements. He looked across to the opposite side of the street, which was less crowded and she was not there. He dodged in and out of traffic heading in both directions to cross the road so that he might better see in either direction on the station side.

  Just when he was preparing to take off to his right on a guess, he glimpsed her to his left. He stayed on the side of the road he was on and walked fast to close the gap. He looked around for more cameras and was pleased to see some that Crouch could use if he got the message; if the young man had not simply thrown the paper into the nearest bin because he was too busy, or saw Acer as just another London weirdo to be dismissed and remembered only around the table with a pint in his hand, or when he was staring dumbly at the television after a terrorist outrage.

  A trio of London buses temporarily blocked his view and he took the opportunity to jog on a few metres. Behind them the traffic had eased as traffic lights further down had changed. Niki had stopped at a turning off Piccadilly. She was reading from a piece of paper and looking at the street name. He slowed so as not to overtake her. He felt horribly exposed and had to hope that Niki was just focussed on where she was going.

  Seeing a gap in the boundary fence of Green Park to his left he slipped in and followed the path that ran alongside the fence, using the foliage for cover.

  She continued on, head down and bending into her stride, and he was more convinced that whatever she had in her backpack was h
eavy for her.

  She stopped at a junction and looked around at the traffic coming from all directions before crossing over to carry on up Piccadilly. If he’d still been on the pavement she couldn’t have missed him.

  She continued on until she came to another narrow road off the main highway. She checked her paper and the street name and turned into it. Acer cursed. He was still in Green Park and there was no park exit close to him. He forced his way through the low hedge and vaulted the park railings.

  Traffic had picked up again as the lights had changed. He held up his hand to slow cars and vans as he crossed the two lanes of traffic going in one direction, vaulted the railings of the central divide, and then dodged in and out of the two lanes of traffic heading in the opposite direction.

  He was at the corner of Down Street. He looked down it just in time to see Niki entering a building twenty-five metres down on the left. He had another last look around for CCTV cameras, saw none and began walking.

  He walked past a big black door set between pillars of what looked like ox blood ceramic tiles, on past another door set into two reveals of newer brickwork, and a little newsagent. Down Street Mews was a narrow opening on the left immediately after the shop and then a row of uniform period properties stretched ahead of him to Brick Street.

  He crossed Down Street and took up a position on the corner of the junction with Brick Street from where he could get a better look at the building Niki had gone into. Seeing it from a distance it was clear that the door between the pillars, the door in the brickwork and the little shop were all part of one large frontage. Above it all, three large arched matching windows, looking like sleepy eyes, stared across at the building opposite. Up to the first floor level the same ox blood ceramic brickwork covered everything that was not window.

  Acer didn’t know what to do. The rain that had stopped while he was on the train had started up again, only harder. He pulled up the collar of his coat, checked the pistol in the back of his trousers and shoved his hands in his coat pockets where his right hand closed around the butt of the second weapon.

  He made the decision to walk past once more and get back onto Piccadilly. He’d be able to keep an eye on the building from around the corner and being on the main highway he would stand a better chance of a police car passing sooner or later - something he could wave down. Perhaps, he thought, with a jolt of hope, the youth had passed on his note, and Crouch was trawling CCTV images looking for him. Like a penance, he’d wait on the street in the rain as long as was necessary to atone for his earlier errors.

  Feeling he’d gone some way to redeeming himself through his surveillance, he began walking towards the comforting surge of traffic that was crossing at the end of the street on Piccadilly.

  He was almost level with the building Niki had gone into when the middle door opened. Acer turned his head instinctively to see a man framed in the doorway with what looked like a semi-automatic assault weapon pointed in his direction. Acer stopped. Another man came around the corner in front of him where the street joined Piccadilly. Despite the rain, he was not wearing his coat. It was draped over whatever weapon he was carrying under it that was extended in Acer’s direction. Behind him Acer heard footsteps. He turned his head to see another man moving slowly towards him. He cradled a small holdall with one arm. His other hand was inside it.

  ***

  96

  The man from the doorway stepped to one side. Niki showed herself. She was no longer wearing the niqab.

  She said, ‘Hands out of your pockets and walk this way.’

  Acer did not move.

  ‘Or end your life in the street. It matters not to me how you die.’

  Acer took his hands out of his pockets and let them hang loosely by his side. He crossed the narrow band of tarmac in the quiet and otherwise deserted street to stand on the pavement. The man in the building retreated a couple of steps but he still faced Acer and held his weapon aimed at Acer’s stomach.

  The other two men closed the gap behind him. Acer was poked in the back to cross the threshold and was then encouraged in further with a shove. The two men came in behind him and the door was shut with a heavy thump.

  Acer understood immediately that they were in what remained of the ticket hall of an abandoned Tube station. No one spoke because it would have been pointless. Somewhere deep below them a Tube train was speeding along whichever line ran under them and the roar that was funnelled up the stairwell was loud.

  The place was cluttered with all sorts of equipment and general paraphernalia that one might associate with a dumping ground of underground transport bits and pieces. It was a filthy neglected mess. A thick layer of dust covered every surface. The musty stench of neglect was strong and mixed with something fetid stirred up by the passage of the locomotive in the bowels of London. Acer could taste the dust in the air.

  Niki did not take her eyes off his. When the noise had subsided, she said, ‘Put your hands behind your head. You have a weapon?’

  ‘Coat pocket.’

  Niki nodded to the nearest man behind him. He approached, reached into Acer’s pocket and took out the pistol he had taken from the assassin at the hotel.

  Niki said, ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

  Acer did as he was told, careful to keep his hands well clear of the pistol he still had concealed in the waistband beneath his bulky jacket.

  The man who had removed his weapon moved back in and snapped handcuffs on his wrists.

  ‘I’m not alone,’ said Acer.

  For only the second time since he had met her, Niki smiled. And like before there was no warmth in it. It was more of an exaggerated sneer, the by-product of power being exerted over a beaten foe. She said, ‘Yes you are.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ said Acer.

  ‘It will be my pleasure to share it with you. But first we have some walking to do.’

  She exchanged some of her mother tongue with her accomplices, all three of whom looked as though they could have been plucked from any street corner of Tehran.

  ‘We have things to carry,’ said Niki. ‘You will help.’

  ***

  97

  One of the men behind him picked up the backpack Niki had been carrying and hooked the straps over Acer’s shoulders. It was weighty.

  Before they moved off, Niki indicated the man holding the assault rifle and said, ‘Gorazm was Jalil’s brother – the one sent to the hotel. He has asked that I let him kill you when the time comes.’

  Acer said nothing, not because he couldn’t think of anything to say but because he could not form the words. Jalil was staring at him without great emotion, but his eyes indicated that when Niki gave him permission he would embrace the opportunity to avenge his brother with cold indifference if not satisfaction and no consideration for the context.

  The men picked up packs and hefted them onto their shoulders. Acer had little choice but to watch them prepare. They fitted head torches, spoke in short clipped phrases and then they were ready.

  Jalil moved towards the stairs.

  ‘Now you,’ said Niki.

  Acer followed and heard the others forming up behind him.

  Their way was lit by a string of modern surface-mounted lights above them. They descended a narrow flight of stairs, arriving at the top of a modern metal spiral staircase. The original maroon and cream ceramic tiles of the station were still in evidence on the walls, although they were grubby and chipped and streaked with dirt and damage of the passing of countless careless visitors.

  The newness of the staircase and the light fittings and the few modern Health and Safety and information signs gave Acer to understand that though the station might be derelict it was still used by underground railway workers for storage and access.

  Robust paint-flaked rusting doors that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an old warship led off the staircase and were now welded shut against prying eyes.

  The bottom of the staircase gave onto the
typical Tube tunnel-shaped walkway. The ubiquitous cream and purple tiling, coated with a thick layer of filth, covered the walls. The air was rank and musty and getting worse.

  In places curious hands had rubbed away the years of grime to reveal hand-painted signs indicating that the station had played a role in the last war as some sort of refuge of the important.

  Their journey was accompanied by the regular noise of underground trains hurtling through a station that once they would have stopped at. The deeper they went the louder the roar, like some hungry prowling Minotaur in the labyrinth of the system.

  They followed the meandering passageway and descended another flight of stairs, emerging at the junction between the station’s two platforms. A modern sign on the wall informed them that they were almost exactly halfway between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner stations.

  To their left a metal wire grille with a locked gate had been fitted to deter those not meant to be down there from straying onto the westbound line. They paused for a moment and Acer felt the air began to stir. The charge built quickly into something resembling a strong gale and with it grew the rumble and the racket of a train approaching at speed. They stood waiting as it flashed by the other side of the grille in a stroboscopic display of light and dark. The air was choked with disturbed dust and filth so that Acer was forced to squint and blink away the particles.

  In the snatched images that Acer’s brain was able to process he saw hints of outlines of passengers standing and staring at their reflections in the carriage windows. The train, like some huge metal serpent slithering confidently through its lair, was quickly through and the rumbling died away to leave them in absolute stillness.

  Jalil was moving again. Acer was jabbed out of his dark trance to follow him.