being fired. Something fell above them.
Somehow she got a grip on herself and, dimly remembering the first aid course she once attended during IONEC training, she began to conduct a hurried triage. Of the three, Harland was the best off. The bullet had sliced across his back like a sword stroke, giving him a gash of six to seven inches long on the left side. Dolph had been hit just below his collar-bone and there was a nasty exit wound in the middle of his shoulder blade. When she saw the massive amount of blood pouring from just below Lapping’s groin on his right thigh, she knew she had to act.
‘We can’t wait,’ she shouted. ‘Let’s get all of them to St Mary’s right now. It’s only minutes away.’ The commanding officer agreed. St Mary’s was alerted and two of the unmarked police cars moved to the front of the shop. Dolph was placed in the back seat of the first car, which tore off towards Paddington with a single blue light clamped haphazardly to its roof and a siren wailing. Lapping went in the second car, Harland having elected to wait for the ambulance. To show that he was going to be okay, he insisted on getting to his feet and then bent over so that a policeman could press a field dressing to the wound.
By now, the men who had gone up to the flat were spilling down the stairs. None was hurt, but they were evidently very shocked and couldn’t answer Herrick’s questions. She got up and physically accosted one of the men.
‘What the hell happened?’
‘Look for yourself,’ said the young officer quietly.
Driven now by an insane need to complete what she had come for, she mounted the stairs to the flat and entered a kitchen. Sunlight streamed through a window. She passed through a living room at the front of the building and then turned left towards a bathroom and bedroom. It was here she found Youssef Rahe lying dead beneath an open window. Net curtains ballooned into the room. Beside him was a gun.
It was obvious what had happened. Having heard the shots from his wife’s gun, Rahe had pushed at the door of a secret compartment built behind the headboard of the double bed, causing the bed to shift a few inches across the room. He had then attempted to escape through the window, but hearing the police already in the flat, had turned round to fire on them and been shot himself. There were four or five bullet wounds in his upper body and a number of holes around the walls and furnishings.
Herrick crouched down by the body to make sure it was Rahe. He had lost weight and grown a beard, and in his final expression there was a hardness and strain which was never evident in the film of him from Heathrow, but it was definitely the man she had thought of as a harmless little butterball. Two silver bangles on his left arm caught her attention, and then just beyond them, under the bed, the mobile phone. It must have flown from his pocket as he was hit by the hail of police bullets. She retrieved it and slipped it into her pocket, all the while looking at his face and half praying that his eyes would open and all the knowledge of what he had planned with his group would be restored. Already she understood that his death was a disaster.
She rose, stepped over the corpse and hefted the bed a little further into the room so she could get at the wall-hanging that disguised the entrance to the compartment. She lifted it and felt along the side of the entrance for possible booby traps. Satisfied that the entrance was clear, she reached inside and pulled at the cord switch. A single fluorescent strip flickered. She squeezed through the opening and immediately realised that the compartment had not just been taken from the bedroom, but ran the entire length of the flat, shaving space from three different rooms. At the far end there was another door which opened into the utility cupboard in the kitchen. Judging by the dusty impression of his hands around its edge, this was the preferred way in and out, even though it must have required Rahe to crouch down. She turned round. The compartment was oppressively narrow, measuring only four feet across, and was without natural light or ventilation. There was an air freshener at each end, yet there was still a marked staleness in the air, the odour of tedium and sweat. At the end nearest the street there was an old- fashioned army camp bed propped against the wall. Next to this was a rolled up prayer mat and some lifting weights.
Her eyes moved to a shelf where there was a cloth laid out with half an apple, an open packet of cheese crackers and a bottle of mineral water. Underneath she noticed a small red lightbulb. The wire from the socket ran down the wall and through the floor to the bookshop below. She guessed this was a warning light, operated from the cashier’s desk. But there were no other power points – nowhere to plug in a computer or charge a phone.
She moved towards two wire coat hangers on a waste pipe that ran from the flats above. On one of these was an old brown suit jacket with biro stains in the lining. She felt the jacket with a clapping motion, then stopped, delved inside the pocket and withdrew a passport and a wallet. She was about to examine these when a man’s voice called out from the bedroom. ‘Don’t shoot,’ she shouted.
She left the foetid atmosphere to find four policemen in the room, two of them wearing body armour and carrying Heckler and Koch machine guns. One of them said, ‘You have to leave the building now, Miss.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You know where to find me when you need a statement.’
‘You can tell the officer downstairs,’ came the reply.
In the event, she slipped away without being challenged and melted into the crowds that had gathered in the street to watch Harland being helped into an ambulance.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Herrick rushed to St Mary’s Hospital but was told she would have to wait for news. After an hour, a woman in her thirties, still dressed for theatre, came to speak to her. Lapping’s injury was far more dangerous than Dolph’s because the bullet had grazed the femoral artery and he had been on the point of dying from blood loss when he was brought into casualty. He was now very weak, but out of danger. Dolph’s injuries would take a lot longer to heal. The collar-bone had been shattered by the impact of the 9mm bullet and his shoulder blade would need further surgery. It would be three or four months before he was able to work again. Harland was also still under anaesthetic, having had an operation to repair the damage done to the muscle tissue and skin on his back. He wouldn’t be fit to see anyone until the following day.
As the doctor spoke, she touched Herrick’s shoulder. ‘You know, you look pretty drained yourself. If you were involved in the shooting, you may experience some shock.’
She shook her head and said she had better be getting back to work. She left the hospital by the main entrance and walked through the courtyard. As she hit the street she saw a couple hurrying from a cab. They were unmistakably Dolph’s parents. The man in his sixties moved with Dolph’s heavy, rolling walk while the woman had his alert eyes. They looked modest people and somehow ashamed of the worry. Herrick turned to say something as they passed but suddenly couldn’t find the words. She stopped in her tracks, realising she needed to sit down and collect herself, maybe have something to eat. Across the street there was a pub named the The Three Feathers, festooned with hanging baskets of petunias. She entered an almost empty lounge bar, where a barman and the few customers were glued to Channel Four News. A distant shot of the Pan Arab Library was being shown: police tape was stretched across the road, forensics were entering the building as plain-clothes officers left with boxes.
Herrick ordered a double whisky and a meat pie that was sitting unappetisingly in the display cabinet. She perched on a bar stool while the pie was microwaved and tried to get a hold of herself by concentrating on the pocket of anxiety lodged at the top of her diaphragm.
As the pie was presented to her on a paper plate, she heard a voice from her left. Walter Vigo stood with one hand on the bar. ‘A bad business, Isis. Are they all right?’ He attempted a sympathetic smile but produced only a leer.
She turned and examined him for a moment. ‘No, they’re bloody well not all right. Joe Lapping nearly died. What the fuck are you doing here anyway?’ She cut into the pie. Vigo looked down at the flow of gravy with acute distaste.
‘I was concerned to see how they were and spotted you crossing the road.’
‘Right,’ said Herrick, grimacing. ‘What is it you really want?’
‘A word – somewhere more private, perhaps.’
‘I’ve got to go back to the office in a few minutes.’
‘This can’t wait,’ he said.
‘Then say it now.’
