was up to judges to set prison sentences. Since then, I’ve learned a lot of things I didn’t know about.
Bolt was heading up a team trying to find out who else had been involved in setting up the Stanhope attacks, and it seemed he had a lot of clout. He was also convinced that one of the terrorists involved — William Garrett, aka Fox — could provide the answers. The idea was that I’d be placed on remand alongside him, my brief being to build up a rapport and try to glean what information I could from him, and then pass it back to Bolt and his team. As an ex-soldier, just like Fox, who’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who’d also committed a serious crime, I was the perfect candidate.
There was another reason too. I’d lost someone in the Stanhope siege. I wouldn’t say I’d ever been that close to my cousin Martin, but we’d seen a lot of each other as kids, and we’d met up at family events now and again, and we’d always got on well. He’d died inside the hotel trying to disarm one of the terrorists, and I remember how angry that had made me. He was one of the good guys, and he’d died a hero, murdered trying to protect other people, just because he’d ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like those people in the cafe this morning.
You see, that’s the thing with terrorists. They don’t care who dies in the pursuit of their cause.
Well, I did. Which was why I’d agreed to help Bolt.
I spent six months in the cell next to Fox. I talked to him a lot in that time. I’d even say we got on quite well, given our shared background. But he was no fool, and he steadfastly refused to talk about his part in the siege, so I was never able to give Bolt anything of use. No names. No evidence. Nothing.
When I came out, having served eight months for my crime — much to the anger of Alfonse Webber and his extremely vocal supporters — Bolt wanted me to continue working for him, and the man he wanted me to go after was none other than Cecil Boorman, one of my old army colleagues. Cecil was suspected of being an associate of some of those involved in the Stanhope siege, and being part of a larger network of extreme right-wing terrorists. I found that part difficult to believe. Cecil was a hard man and a stone-cold killer, but the evidence against him seemed pretty scant.
I could have said no. Should have done really. I was under no obligation to continue helping Bolt. I’d been given my sentence and served it, so there was no way of putting me back inside. But in the end, what else was I going to do? I was an ex-con; I’d been fired from the Met; my criminal record prevented me from going back into the army; my wife had left me. I was facing the scrapheap. At least doing this gave me a chance for some excitement.
My brief had been simple: find out what Cecil is up to and who he’s working for.
At the time he’d been running an outfit providing security for nightclub doors in north London and the occasional bodyguard work, and I’d asked him for work. We might not have seen each other for close to five years, but we’d hit it off again straight away. I was an angry man after my time inside, and it hadn’t been hard to convince him of my right-wing credentials. Nor to let him believe that I would be up for more lucrative, illegal work if it was available.
I knew straight away he was involved in something bad, but like Fox, he was very careful not to give too much away. So I’d made the classic mistake and compromised myself to gain his trust.
The robbery should have sorted everything. We’d hold up a scumbag drug dealer, put the fear of God into him, and leave with plenty of cash, knowing that he’d never report what had happened to the police. But you know the rest. And now suddenly I was in a lot of trouble. If Cecil went down, he’d take me with him. I’d debated long and hard this morning whether I should say anything to Bolt, but in the end I’d decided I had no choice. I needed to see this through, and if I played my cards right, when Cecil went down he’d have no idea that I’d been the one to betray him.
All I had to do was make it happen.
Nineteen
12.15
As Bolt walked past a small cafe on his left, his informant, Richard Burnham-Jones, got up from where he’d been sitting at one of the outside tables and fell into step beside him. He was dressed in jogging gear and carrying a bottle of water. Jones was a tall guy, close to Bolt’s height, with thick dark hair and handsome chiselled features that were enhanced rather than spoilt by a thin, twisting scar an inch and a half long above his left eye, which he’d received when he’d been hit by a piece of skull bone from a fellow soldier who’d just been shot in the head.
‘So?’ Bolt said without looking at him as they walked on through the park.
‘I’m in. Cecil introduced me to a guy called Cain who’s obviously the boss. Cain wants me to work for him and he’s willing to pay good money. My first job’s to accompany him and Cecil to a meeting today. He wants us to provide security.’
Jesus, thought Bolt, it was all happening today. He’d been running Jones as an informant for close to a year now with virtually nothing to show for it, and now he had a breakthrough on the day when London had once again come under terrorist attack. ‘Did you get a photo of him?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? That’s what I gave you the camera for.’ A month earlier, Bolt had supplied Jones with a Nike baseball cap with a tiny camera sewn into the front lining. To take a photo, the person wearing the cap pressed a button in the side lining, an action Jones could easily have disguised by scratching the side of his head.
‘It was just too risky. Cecil searched me before the meet, and I told you before: I’ve never worn a baseball cap in my life. He’d have noticed, and then if he’d searched it and found the camera …’
‘He wouldn’t have. It’s too small.’
‘It’s the kind of thing he looks for. Cecil knows what he’s doing, and he’s paranoid as hell. If he’d found it, it would have got me killed.’
Which Bolt had to admit was true. Cecil Boorman was a difficult customer. A former soldier, he’d been ID’d as an occasional associate of several of the mercenaries involved in the Stanhope siege, and at one time had done work in Iraq for the security consultancy that Fox had run. The only problem was, there was nothing concrete linking him to the siege itself, and he was seriously adept at counter-surveillance, making an intelligence-gathering op against him near enough impossible. Bolt, though, had always thought he was worth pursuing, and if Cecil was being that careful about covering his tracks, it meant he had to have something big to hide.
‘Describe Cain to me.’
‘My height, early forties, short blonde hair, lean and very pale — almost vampire pale — with a big vein running down his right cheek that really stands out. He doesn’t look ordinary, put it like that. He’s also ex-military, an officer by the looks of him, and speaks with a middle-class Home Counties accent. He served in Lashkar Gah a few years ago, and there was a green on blue incident in his battalion.’
‘Green on blue?’
‘Where an Afghan working with coalition forces attacks them. A translator called Abdul shot two of Cain’s men while he was there. If you look hard enough, you should be able to get an ID on him from all that.’
Bolt nodded. He was recording the conversation so there was no need to write anything down. ‘Did Cain mention anything about the bombs this morning?’
‘Yeah. He said that it was Islamic terrorists, and gave me this spiel about how if I worked for him, I’d get a chance to fight against all the people doing the country harm. He was pretty extreme in his views.’
‘But he didn’t suggest that the bombs might be something to do with him?’
‘You think they might be?’
Bolt sighed. ‘I don’t know.’ He needed more than this if they were ever going to get a breakthrough. Even if they managed to ID Cain from Jones’s description, it didn’t push them any further forward. ‘This meeting Cain wants you to go to. Do you know what it’s about?’
‘He didn’t give many details, but I get the impression he’s buying something, and that he doesn’t trust the people he’s buying it from.’
‘Did you get a look at his car?’
Jones shook his head. ‘He was on foot when I saw him.’
‘The thing is, he may not be as good at counter-surveillance as Cecil, so it’s possible we can get a tail on him.
