lately.’
‘Don’t you ever take a holiday or anything? I mean, you never seem to be closed.’
Akhtar shook his head. ‘I get up at a quarter to four and get here an hour after that. I sort out the newspapers, do the paper round then get back to open the shop ready for the morning rush. I stay open until half- past six Monday to Friday, five o’clock on Saturdays, two o’clock on Sundays. No holidays.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Helen said.
‘I think I have worked hard.’ Akhtar’s face had changed again. He leaned forward in his chair, angry suddenly. ‘I thought that would make me the sort of person that deserved to be taken seriously. That would be respected. I thought I was the kind of person, that we were the kind of family, the law should be protecting.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Helen said.
‘ Now they are taking me seriously though.’ He picked up the gun and pointed it. ‘This thing gets you plenty of bloody respect.’ He stared at her for a few moments, then looked at his watch. Said, ‘They should be calling again soon.’
Helen closed her eyes.
She leaned her head back against the radiator and tried to forget about the metal cuff eating the flesh from her wrist, the stiffness in her back and neck and the terrible cramp in her legs.
She tried to empty her mind.
To get back to that beach, and her two beautiful boys.
FORTY-THREE
Thorne had called on his way back from Hackney, and while they were waiting for him to arrive, Donnelly, Chivers and Pascoe gathered for a pre-contact briefing in the small room behind the school stage. Pascoe listened while Chivers continued to press for technical support, arguing that the operation was not moving forward, that the information they were getting back from the phone calls was limited. Donnelly nodded and grunted, casting the occasional glance in Pascoe’s direction. He had not been in the best of moods since they had relieved the overnight team a couple of hours before.
‘Everything OK?’ Pascoe asked.
Chivers looked at her, annoyed, as though he had almost forgotten she was there at all. Pascoe ignored it. She had been trying to do the same with him.
‘Just the usual carry-on,’ Donnelly said.
Pascoe waited.
‘My boss is getting it in the neck from the Commissioner, who’s getting it in the neck from the Mayor’s office because Transport for London are kicking off.’
‘So now your boss is giving you grief.’
‘People need to get around.’ Chivers slurped at his coffee. ‘They want their lives back.’
‘So does Helen Weeks.’
‘It’s not your problem,’ Donnelly said. He turned back to Chivers and asked him to carry on.
‘We get a Technical Support Unit in, let them do their stuff and see how it pans out,’ Chivers said. ‘I don’t see what we’ve got to lose. At least with all that in place, we’ll be in a far better situation if anything does happen and we need to go in quickly.’
‘We’re all hoping that doesn’t happen though, obviously.’
‘I said “if”.’
‘What exactly are we talking about?’ Pascoe asked.
‘Microphones in the walls. Maybe some cameras in there if we’re lucky and depending on the set-up.’ Seeing that Pascoe was about to raise her usual objections, Chivers steamed on. ‘Listen, Akhtar won’t have a clue what we’re doing, all right? No need to worry on that score. Some of the gear these guys have got is so sophisticated they could slip a microphone in your knickers and you wouldn’t know it.’
‘You reckon?’
Chivers smiled. ‘They’re like ninjas.’
Nobody spoke for a long few seconds. The only sounds were the squawk of a radio from the hall and the rustle as Chivers adjusted the weapons belt around his waist. Pascoe saw that he had now added an M26 Taser to his personal armoury.
‘OK, we’ll see how this next call goes,’ Donnelly said. ‘If there’s no significant change we’ll bring in a TSU.’
Chivers nodded, happy.
‘Is this just because they want the bloody station reopened?’ Pascoe asked.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Donnelly said.
Pascoe knew she had overstepped the mark and looked away. A tiny, suspicious part of her thinking: is this because I knocked you back yesterday?
Donnelly stood up. ‘Like I said, we’ll see what happens when Thorne gets here and we put the one o’clock call in. That might change things.’ He gathered his notes together. ‘From what Thorne told me on the phone, it sounds like he’s planning to rattle Akhtar’s cage a bit.’
Chivers said, ‘Good,’ and Pascoe said nothing.
She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of what Thorne was planning at all.
FORTY-FOUR
Hendricks called as Thorne was on his way into the hall.
‘Queue-jumping again?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Peter Allen.’
‘It’s important, Phil, and I don’t think too many of your customers are likely to complain.’
‘ I can complain though.’
‘And just so you know, I still need help with the drug thing. Amin Akhtar’s overdose, I mean. Soon as you can, mate.’
‘I’m starting to see why Louise dumped you.’
‘It was mutual,’ Thorne said.
Hendricks laughed. ‘What, as in the two of you talking things over and mutually deciding you were a complete and utter cock?’
‘Something like that.’ Thorne nodded across to Donnelly, who was waiting with the others at the monitors. ‘Call me when you’re done, will you?’ He hung up before the abuse became rather less good-natured, and walked across to join them.
He took Pascoe’s seat and put on the headset while she gave him the usual instructions. Again she urged him to keep his tone nice and even when talking to Akhtar, to listen and to reassure, but Thorne could sense her uncertainty.
He told her that he was ready.
‘Do we really think this is a good idea?’ she asked.
‘It’s the only one I’ve got,’ Thorne said.
‘There’s no way of knowing how he’s going to react to this and that worries me.’ Pascoe looked to Donnelly. ‘Excitement, rage, guilt. None of them are exactly ideal.’
‘He wants answers,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s why he’s doing this. That’s why we’re all here and why Helen’s in there. We’re only going to get the right outcome if I start giving him some.’
‘Some,’ Chivers said, quietly.
‘Look, I can’t give him the one answer he really wants, not yet, but surely it’s important that he knows I’m
