Safe from Harm

by RJ Bailey

  ‘Not coffee,’ I said, listening to my body for once. ‘But I haven’t eaten in a while. A sandwich, maybe.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I waited a few moments before I asked my next question. ‘Swincoe, have you been photographing me? Or Nuzha?’

  He shook his head. ‘No? Why would we do that?’

  I explained about Brent Cross.

  ‘Not us. You have my word. It is a little alarming. If you read the situation correctly.’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘There is that.’

  As we set off down the slope he handed me a small, opaque plastic package. ‘The external hard drive. Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything. The moment you plug it in it’ll search and download. And it’s remarkably fast. There’s none of that clock ticking down nonsense you see in the movies. A few seconds is all it will take. A minute tops if there are a lot of images and video files.’

  I slipped it into one of my many jacket pockets. ‘And you were meant to give me the truth about Tom Buchan. Someone put a torch under his boat. Luckily he wasn’t on it at the time.’

  He flinched a little. ‘Really? Which someone?’

  ‘I reckon either the Albanians or you.’

  ‘Me?’ He looked genuinely taken aback. ‘What on earth do you say that for?’

  ‘Because I tell you about him and the next thing I know his barge burns out. Or is that one of those coincidences you don’t believe in?’

  ‘It must be,’ he admitted, ‘because MI5 is not in the arson business. You have to believe that.’

  ‘Did you check him out? You were going to see if his story hangs together.’

  ‘I’ll know on Monday,’ he said. ‘Even the security services slow down at the weekend.’

  I tapped my jacket pocket. ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the Sharifs. I was wondering if we’ve . . . you’ve . . . just started seeing bombers under the bed.’

  He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, as if I had suddenly broken into speaking Urdu. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because not every Muslim is a terrorist.’ I was thinking how wrong I had got Mrs Sharif.

  He stopped, well short of the café. ‘That’s true. But almost every terrorist is a Muslim. These days at least. And if he has nothing to hide, there will be nothing on that drive when you get it back to us. Nothing that would interest us, anyway. We delete, you go back to work, we carry on looking for The Tailor.’

  Swincoe turned on his heel and it took me three lengthy strides to catch up with him. ‘What’s brought this on?’ he asked without looking at me.

  ‘I thought you were barking up the wrong tree,’ I confessed. ‘I thought I’d discovered that Mrs Sharif was the bad apple.’

  That stopped him. He halted and spun to face me. ‘How so?’

  I told him about the phoney Pilates lesson, the secret drives, about the mosque and about what we eventually surmised was going on. ‘So you see, we ascribed base motives to everything. But it was a mother’s love for her son.’

  ‘This mosque is where?’

  ‘Bounds Green.’

  He took out his phone and tapped it. ‘It’s not on any watch list.’

  ‘I told you. It’s not about the mosque.’

  ‘So Mrs Sharif has a secret. Perhaps Mr Sharif has one too. A nastier one. You’ll copy the hard drive on the computer?’

  ‘I have said I am staying away. Until I figure out what is going on.’

  A ripple of irritation crossed his features. ‘You said what?’

  ‘That it’s best if I keep my distance from the Sharifs until I find out if I am the object of the curiosity.’

  ‘Really! I thought I had impressed upon you the urgency of this matter.’

  We had reached the café. We went inside and bought coffee and a KitKat for Swincoe and tea with a cheese and ham sandwich for me. The papers had again been arguing about whether processed meat was carcinogenic. Right then, it seemed like a chance worth taking.

  We sat outside, even though the temperature was dropping and a wind was keening through the tennis courts’ fencing. It had driven everybody else except a couple of hardened smokers inside. That was fine by us. I told him about the photographs, my ex-husband and the canal boat.

  ‘Where is Buchan now?’

  ‘Safe,’ I said.

  He nodded, recognising a need-to-know when he heard one.

  ‘This woman you’ll send in as a replacement. Freddie?’

  ‘Freddie. It’s not her real name. She’s called Judith Flint.’

  ‘Will she do it? Download the hard drive for us?’ He couldn’t hide the harsh, irritated edge to his voice.

  ‘For Queen and Country?’

  ‘Something like that. For the lives and limbs of people she has never met is another.’

  ‘I’ll ask.’ But I had a feeling Freddie wouldn’t be quite the soft touch I was. After all, she didn’t have a murdered husband to avenge.

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘Sorry. Let’s just go back to Mrs Sharif. You are sure that this person she is meeting on a regular basis is her son?’

  ‘Well, despite everything, yes, that’s one thing I am certain of. They look just like sisters.’

  I slumped down next to Freddie in the Cayman. Her own car was parked in Swain’s Lane. But she showed no sign of going to fetch it.

  ‘Where you sleeping tonight?’

  ‘Good question,’ I said. ‘Probably at Asparov’s.’

  ‘With Tom?’

  ‘In the same house, yes,’ I replied tartly. ‘I don’t think I’m up for anything else. What’s wrong? You’ve got a face like a slapped arse.’

  ‘Something’s off.’

  ‘I could do with a shower maybe, but—’

  ‘No, shut up. Something is way off beam here.’ I hadn’t seen or heard Freddie like this outside a combat situation. She held up the monocular. ‘I got a good look at the pair of you through this. Your Mr Swincoe. You didn’t recognise him?’

  I felt ice pool in my stomach. ‘No. Should I have?’

  ‘You probably didn’t see him at his best last time.’

  ‘Last time?’

  ‘When he was fucking me in the medical stores that day you barged in.’

  ‘No.’ I almost shouted in my disbelief. ‘The Rupert?’

  ‘Yes. And his name’s not Swincoe. And as my dear old dad used to say, if he’s MI5 my prick’s a kipper.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘You caught the sun? You’re very red.’

  I was standing in the doorway of one of Jack’s hangars. I’d been there a couple of minutes before he noticed me. He had been under the bonnet of a Rolls-Royce of a certain age.

  ‘Water pump’s gone,’ he explained. ‘Thing is, they don’t make them except to order. You have to wait for five other people’s water pumps to break before they can be arsed to do a run of them. So could be a week, could be six months. I’ve a mind to go about sabotaging people’s water pumps to speed the process up.’ He wiped his hands on a paper towel and then ran a palm over his bald pate, as if checking whether some of his long-departed hair had decided to return.

  ‘You sure you’re all right?’

  ‘It’s my blood pressure, Jack.’

  I went outside and lit a cigarette. I’d picked them up on the way out to the airfield. As I lit up I had a what’s-wrong-with-this-picture moment. ‘The planes have gone.’

  ‘I got tired of them all moaning and the council coming round saying they was a health hazard,’ said Jack from behind me. ‘Cut ’em up, sold them to Lenny Crane for a hundred sovs. I must admit, it looks less cluttered. What’s giving you blood pressure?’

  I turned around and before I could formulate words, I began to cry. The cigarette slipped from my fingers onto the tarmac. His sinewy arms snaked round me like fat steel cables and for a brief second I felt safe in there.

  ‘Tak
e your time. I’ll get you a drink in a minute.’ He squeezed me tentatively, in that way men do when they are sending a clear signal that the sexual content of a hug was zero.

  My chest stopped heaving and I sniffed.

  ‘What kind of drink?’

  He gave a little laugh. ‘You was always a fussy cow. How about a beer?’

  I nodded. He returned with a couple of Kronenbourgs, both opened. ‘Nothin’ fancy,’ he said.

  It was cold and I gulped half of it down. Then I lit a second cigarette, unable to hide the tremor in my hands. ‘I think I’m being played,’ I said.

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘That is the question. Freddie Flint is trying to find out.’

  ‘Freddie? I thought she’d packed it in.’

  ‘She’s come out of retirement for me.’ I gave a cough-laugh that sounded like I was a forty-a-day barmaid. ‘Christ.’ I looked accusingly at the cigarette.

  ‘What can I do?’

  I took out the hard drive Swincoe had given me. ‘Check this out.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re the computer geek.’

  ‘Jordan! Jordan, get out here.’

  He took a while coming, but eventually a lanky boy with a thick, bushy beard emerged from one of the other hangars. He was wearing long shorts and a skater T-shirt. His left arm was crooked across his chest, his left leg dragged as he walked and when he spoke his face contorted. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘My eldest, Jordan.’ Jack introduced us and we shook hands. Jack passed the hard drive across. ‘See what you make of that. And quick.’ The young man nodded and slouched off at what to him was probably top speed.

  ‘Cerebral palsy, before you ask. Difficult birth. Don’t let this fool you.’ He mimicked Jordan’s bad arm. ‘Sharp as a tack.’

  He walked over and sat in one of the scruffy plastic chairs that were scattered about the place. He invited me to do the same. I did so, stiffly. I was seizing up. Lack of sleep was catching up on me.

  ‘It’s not me who does all the advanced computer shit, you know. I can do the on-board diagnostics stuff, but beyond that most of it is double Dutch to me. But you know, doesn’t do to admit weakness in this game. I used to outsource all the tech, but then I discovered why Jordan hadn’t left his room for five years. I just assumed he was having a particularly long wank, but it turns out he was busy turning himself into a bit of a genius.’

  We sat in silence for a moment watching the sun break free of the clouds as it approached the horizon. An orange glow crept over the hangars. I shivered, thinking of the flames on my living-room wall.

  ‘Want to tell me?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I haven’t got it in me. Nothing personal, Jack. And besides, I haven’t made sense of it myself. I just think I’m being taken for a fool by the man who gave me that box of tricks.’

  I had just finished my beer and was contemplating asking for a second when Jordan reappeared. He looked even paler than before, his beard a solid black against the pallor of his skin. ‘Dad. Will you come here?’

  I rose as well, but Jordan’s voice squeaked up an octave. ‘No, Dad. Just you.’

  I exchanged glances with Jack. I hoped I got across what I was thinking. Don’t let the tears fool you. It happens now and then. But it’s just an overflow system. It relieves the pressure on the internal dam. Standard operating procedure. Back to normal now.

  ‘She’s good, son. Stand on me.’

  Jordan gave an on-your-head-be-it shrug and limped back into the hangar.

  I took up the rear as we trooped solemnly inside. The front section of the space was the usual chaos of cars, some of which looked like they had been the victim of an automotive Jack the Ripper; others were sitting dusted with a layer of powder and grime that could be measured in centimetres. I noticed an old Lancia, a marque I hadn’t seen in a while, a beautiful Alfa Spider from the 1960s and various Fiats.

  ‘Welcome to the Michael Caine shed,’ said Jack.

  I looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘The Italian Job.’

  Jordan’s domain was in the latter third of the hangar, delineated by a stud partition wall and a half-glazed door marked Private. There was a sticker that said: ‘You Know Nothing, Jon Snow’ on the glass. I knew how Jon Snow felt.

  We followed Jordan inside into a work area dominated by screens, from tiny six inches to massive Mac monitors. There were computers and drives of every vintage, some looking as if they were old enough to be props in 2001: A Space Odyssey (another film Paul insisted was a masterpiece; I quite liked the furnishings).

  Jordan sat down in a leather chair that had seen better days and stabbed at a keyboard. I could see that Swincoe’s little hard drive was plugged into the side of it. The screen came alive as Jordan’s good hand danced over the keys.

  ‘This is what’s on the drive,’ he said.

  It was blank.

  Nothing but white. It was the sort of image Asparov would probably pay a million dollars for if you told him it was Robert Ryman.

  ‘It’s empty?’ I asked, disappointment in my voice.

  ‘What were you expecting?’ Jordan asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Some sort of virus?’

  Jordan glanced at his dad. ‘It’s a multi-layered hypodrive.’

  ‘Like in Star Trek?’ I asked, still gliding on Paul’s coat tails. I was wishing I’d paid more attention to his fanboy ramblings.

  ‘That’s hyperdrive,’ Jordan corrected.

  ‘Jordan,’ admonished Jack. ‘We can’t all be Kevin Mitnick, can we?’

  I nodded sagely, as if I knew what that meant.

  ‘A hypodrive will act like a normal drive. This, for instance, has enough memory to copy a hefty hard drive. Which will show up on this screen.’ He tapped the monitor with a knuckle. ‘If you let it, that is. But as it copies, it injects data into the computer at a deep level. Like a hypodermic syringe.’

  So it was like a virus, I thought, at least as I understood it, but I kept quiet. ‘Such as?’

  ‘What we are seeing here is only the ground floor of the drive. There is a basement level. At least one, maybe two, but I’ve only got one.’

  ‘What’s on that?’ I asked.

  ‘You sure you want to see?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I lied.

  ‘There is no visible way to access this layer, but usually there are ghost buttons. Ones you can’t see, but if you drag the cursor over them, it changes shape. Like here. And here.’ He moved the cursor to the bottom left- and bottom right-hand corners. ‘You have to click them in a sequence of three – left, right, left. Like . . .’ He looked at me. ‘Are you ready?’

  I took a breath. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Like this. It starts the slide show.’

  I might have lasted thirty seconds. I’m not sure it was that long. But it felt like an eternity before I walked quickly outside and threw up that old sandwich all over Jack’s tarmac.

  Jess asks if she and Laura can go out for Wagamama and a movie.

  I looked at the text on the tiny Nokia screen for an age before the words made sense. It was like my cognitive skills had come free from their mooring and were spinning down some river wild towards a massive waterfall. I was partially looking forward to the oblivion when I went over the edge. Anything to stop those computer images flashing into my mind. No matter how high and how tough I built the barricades, they found a way through.

  No, I replied to Nina. Please keep her in the house.

  There was a long pause before the reply came. Too late. Sorry. It’s only down the road.

  Jack came out with a second beer. It was getting dark now and tiny flies and the odd moth were clustering around the external lights. I could see at least one bat dancing through the beam out of the dusk, gorging on insects. I rinsed my mouth with the beer and spat. Then took a proper hit.

  ‘They’re fake,’ I said.

  ‘Of course they’re fake,’ he said. ‘Jordan reckons he can prove it pretty quickly.�
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  ‘My own daughter. Fuck’s sake, Jack, do you really think—?’

  I was getting screechy and he grabbed my bicep and squeezed. It was like his fingers were iron in my flesh. ‘Hold it together.’

  I thought about lighting up again, felt the familiar snake writhe in my stomach, but I killed it stone dead.

  ‘Someone is setting you up. You, Jess and that other little girl. Who is the man in the photos?’

  ‘Mr Sharif. If I’m a patsy, so is he. But it’s not about who is the patsy, is it? The question is: why? Why do that?’

  Jack nodded. ‘When I was a copper—’

  ‘Hold the phone,’ I said in genuine surprise. ‘When you were a what?’

  ‘A copper. Plod, you know. This was a long time ago, mind. More Dixon of Dock Green than The Sweeney.’

  I didn’t think it was polite to ask who Dixon of Dock Green was or to point out that The Sweeney was hardly contemporary. Jess pulled that sort of when-dinosaurs-roamed-the-earth stunt on me all the time. Just the thought of her name caused a spasm in my stomach. I’d call her, soon, but first I had to get everything straight in my head.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Look, back then, the police was more bent than the crims. Straight up. We took backhanders off pimps and thieves, you went to Soho, free shag if you showed your warrant card. The Flying Squad, most of them was on retainers from the likes of the Adamses and the Richardsons. Real villains, not clowns like the Krays. So I resigned. Went in and told my Super. He asked: “Why are you resigning, exactly?” I said I was appalled by the endemic corruption. Except I didn’t know what the word endemic meant then. I might have said total. The bloke looked at me and said: “We’ll put down dissatisfied with pay and conditions.” After that, I thought, well, whatever I do on this side of the thin blue line is no worse than what they’re doing over on that side. Why am I telling you this?’

  ‘You said, and I quote: “When I was a copper” dot, dot, dot.’

  ‘Oh yeah. We always used to say, take it from the top. Go back to the very beginning. Because somewhere along the way, you took a fork in the road you didn’t mean to. Know what I mean? Come inside, cup of tea, hot toddy, whatever, and tell me and Jordan everything.’