40

I came round feeling like I’d been on a four-day bender. My mouth was as dry as sand and my teeth were coated with fur. I breathed out and the blanket bounced it back at me. It wasn’t my best day out.

I forced my eyes open and looked around. I was in an orange jumpsuit. I was in a cell. There weren’t any windows, just a fluorescent light with a mesh cover fixed flush with the ceiling. The walls were plain plaster. I could see scrawls in English. There was a familiar institutional smell, a mixture of school dinners and cleaning fluid.

I vaguely remembered being moved and shoved about . . .lying on a stretcher . . . the horrible feeling of waking up wet because I’d pissed myself.

I rubbed my face. My hands grazed a good two days’ worth of stubble.

They definitely had eyes on me. It wasn’t more than a minute before I heard boots squeaking down a corridor. I studied the sheet-metal door. There was no peephole or any of that stuff off The Bill. There’d be fibre-optics or some sort of shit chased into the walls.

Keys jangled and the lock turned with a heavy clunk. I got my head under my arms, curled up and waited.

The door burst open and boots and blue trousers headed my way. They were black Hi-Tec, high-leg boots. This was feeling more familiar by the second. I ventured an eye upwards to see two Brit policemen in white short-sleeved shirts, one balding, one with a shaven head. Neither looked in much of a mood to fuck about. They grabbed hold of me. The shaven-headed one had ginger-freckled hands. He did the business with issue cuffs, the ones with a rigid link between them. Even the sight of those was comforting.

His massive fist closed around the link and jerked me to my feet. No words, just actions. He tugged the link behind him and I followed as fast as I could to relieve the pain of the steel against my wrists. My legs took a while to spark up and I had to keep my arms horizontal.

Metal doors lined the narrow corridor. Every one of them was closed, and the ID plates bore no name, blood group or religion. Either I was the only one in here, or they were playing mind games.

Were they trying to disorient me? Then why wear watches that agreed with the big wall clock ahead of us? They all said just after three o’clock. A.m. or p.m., what did I care? At least I wasn’t lying dead on an airstrip or banged up next to Sherry’s old man. Whatever, it was time to buckle up. Things could still get hairy, depending who had brought me here.

They hauled me into an interrogation room. Why they called them interview rooms I hadn’t a clue. We all knew what went on inside them.

The steel table in the middle had four tubular legs bolted to the floor. The two bench seats either side were also fixed. The walls were cream. The paint, I could smell, was fresh. I wondered what had happened to the last occupant to prompt a makeover.

Fluorescent lights were set into the ceiling, like in the cell. Nothing to grab, nothing to pull out.

The two handlers’ boots squeaked over the polished tiles and came to a halt. They turned me round and plonked me by the bench furthest from the door. I kept looking down. My bare feet had left a trail of sweaty prints across the floor.

I was allowed to sit myself down, but they attached my cuffs to the retaining chain welded to the table. I was free to move my hands, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

They turned and left the room. I was being watched, of course. There weren’t any two-way mirrors. This place had cameras in each corner.

I sat there with the strange sense of comfort that came from being somewhere that felt familiar. Red Ken and Dex had been right. There was no way I was going to fester in a Dubai jail.

The squeaks came down the corridor once more, and the door was unbolted. It wasn’t Ginger who came in armed with two steaming mugs, but Julian, the Premiership player from the funeral.

He unbuttoned his single-breasted pinstripe. Even though he was dressed like an upmarket estate agent, always had an annoyingly perfect Windsor knot in his tie and an immaculately pressed, double-cuffed shirt, I had him down as one of the good guys from the Security Service.

I’d been hoping this had something to do with him, and couldn’t hide my relief. But now that he was in front of me I couldn’t be sure if it was going to be good or bad. After all, he still had me chained up.

At least he was smiling. That made me feel a little better.

I smiled weakly back. ‘Hello, mate.’

The door closed behind him but it wasn’t locked. Ginger and his baldy mate would be hovering just in case I did a Houdini and went for the throat of one of MI5’s big cheeses.

He sat down opposite me and passed across a mug of mud-coloured instant. ‘I’m not sure if you wanted it, but I added sugar.’

I picked it up between my manacled hands and went to get it down my neck. Old habits die hard. You never know when the next one’s coming, or whether they’ll whisk this one away just as you take your first sip.

Julian put down his mug. His expression was sympathetic, but his body language was confident and assured. On the phone, he sounded like he’d shared a school desk with Dex. Maybe he had. If I hadn’t had to keep this job from the others, I might have asked old Biggles if they’d ever run the 100 metres together.

I got the brew in both hands and did the squaddie trick of testing my tongue against the mug. Gulp straight from a metal mug and you could peel the roof off your mouth. It was too hot. That was a good sign. It meant I was trusted with scalding liquids.

He looked at me with concern. ‘It wasn’t us who wanted you lifted, Nick. I hope you know that.’

I held up the cuffs. ‘What about these, mate?’

‘In case you misunderstood why you’re here.’

‘You got any water? I’m gagging here.’

He looked over my shoulder and nodded.

I shifted on the hard seat. ‘They’re both dead – so’s Spag.’

For a moment, he looked defeated. I knew he wasn’t to blame for what had happened. Why would he have compromised the job before the end?

‘I guess it made sense for them to drop the four of us after we delivered. The three bar they paid us in advance is peanuts compared to what they’ve got now.’

I stopped talking shop as the door opened and Ginger delivered two bottles of Tesco’s own sparkling and a couple of white plastic cups. Fuck knows why – everything was being recorded and there were plenty of people listening in. ‘Where am I, Julian?’

He gave Ginger a nod. He seemed a bit confused, having a white guy in these cells. ‘Paddington.’

That made sense. Out came the keys as Ginger was given the go-ahead to unlock.

Julian had recruited me immediately after Tenny’s death. Up until then, Tenny had been Julian’s man on the crew. He’d applied to join the Security Service when he’d finished his time. This was to have been his early entry job. Red Ken and Dex hadn’t had a clue what was going on. All they knew was that they were getting fronted by Spag, and it was a commercial job for their own slice of the world’s best steak. Then Tenny’d got zapped, and that was why I was here.

I’d accepted the job on the same condition that Tenny had: Red Ken and Dex would never be prosecuted, and they – we – would lose in the Isle of Man whatever cash was left. I had a document tucked away to prove it, signed by the prime minister himself. As I’d told Red Ken at the mall, I was looking out for them both. Mates have to cover each other’s back, because no one else will. I just wished I’d done a better job of it.

My task had been simple: follow the gold, find out who handled it, find out what it bought and from whom. Then follow the weapons, drugs, trafficked women or whatever, and find out who planned to use them. Only then would the job be compromised – once Julian could be sure of hitting everybody in the chain. There’d be a terrorist connection somewhere along the line. This job had one for sure – it was just that Julian didn’t know who, where, when or how.

Julian had been on Spag’s case from the moment he’d come into the UK to recruit Red Ken, who had brought in Dex and Tenny. That was what the Security Service did: they protected the UK. Spag had been making hay while the war on terror’s sun was shining. The problem was, since binning the CIA he’d been doing it for the wrong side. No one could claim he wasn’t loyal: he’d had a long-running love affair with the greenback.

I’d been part of HMG’s revised Counter-terrorism Strategy, CONTEST. It felt strange to be part of a strategy. Its four strands, known as the four Ps, were:

Pursue terrorists wherever they are and stop terrorist attacks;

Prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism;

Protect the UK by strengthening our defence against terrorism; and

Prepare to respond to an attack to lessen its impact.

The first P was where I came in.

Ginger left the room, still looking a bit perplexed. The last time the high-security cells at Paddington Green had played host to white faces, they’d had Irish accents.

With some Tesco’s own tipped into the brew I could start getting the muddy liquid down my neck.

Julian sat there, watched and waited. I liked and trusted him, and you didn’t get many of those to the pound. In all the dealings I’d had with him so far, he’d played it absolutely straight. He was the one who’d pushed for the MOU, the memorandum of understanding covering their immunity from prosecution. He might just have been an excellent conman who’d fuck me over like the rest of these people always had – but my instincts told me he was a good guy in a world full of bottom-feeders.

I knew what he was waiting for. ‘It was a French-built Dassault Falcon. The reg was RF89702.’

He didn’t have to write anything down. He had people to do that for him.

‘I had to be careful not to piss off Spag or the lads by banging on and asking too much.’ I took another sip. ‘But, Jules, I saw a face.’

Go on.

I explained everything that had happened on the ground. I went through the whole job, finishing with the face at the cargo door and the shoot-out. I even came close to telling him that not all the gold had left the country, but something held me back. Maybe I sensed he didn’t want to know. A man like Julian would always feel he had to do the right thing. The cash might be pissed against a wall via some MP’s expense account, but he would have done his duty.

‘How did the UAE ping us?’

‘Spicciati was flagged up by their internal security. They don’t have too many illusions about him. They pinged him playing golf with three Brits and came to us after finding out where you were staying.

‘We’ve done a deal with them. They don’t want any adverse publicity or talk of anti-terror operations within their borders. They still have no idea about the gold. They were supposed to lift all three of you so we could bring you back here for questioning. We hoped they wouldn’t get you until after the gold had left the country. That would keep the UAE happy, while removing any potential problem and still keeping the operation covert.’

‘You going to try and find the lads’ bodies?’

He’d known Red Ken and Dex even less well than I knew Sherry, but I could tell he was genuinely upset about them. ‘If the bodies were left at the strip they would have been found by now. Anything picked up by UAE will have been made to disappear. They don’t want anything to dull their shine. But the guys who killed them probably took them in the aircraft for op sec. I’m afraid I don’t think we’ll ever see them again.’

‘What about next of kin? How are you going to cover it?’

‘The normal, I suppose: no knowledge of anything, and if the bodies show up the Foreign Office will put it down to criminal activity.’ Julian got to his feet. ‘Get yourself cleaned up and into your own clothes. I’ll see if we can get the ball rolling for the Canadian couple. I’ll be back soon.’

He got up but didn’t turn for the door. ‘Nick, I’m very sorry about Red and Dex. I know you all went way back.’

‘Yep, we did, mate. Let’s find these fuckers, yeah?’