you for coming to see me, anyway. I’m sure you’ve a lot on your plate at the moment.’ He showed her to the door. As he held it open he raised a finger. ‘Oh, do you have a card with a direct line, just in case I need to pick your brains?’
‘I don’t work from an office,’ said Button. She reached into her bag and pulled out a purse. ‘But I have a mobile.’ She fished out a business card and handed it to him.
‘Good luck in Belfast,’ said Khan, and closed the door behind her.
Khan sat at his desk for the best part of an hour, staring blankly at a file in front of him. Eventually he sighed and stood up. He took his overcoat off the hook on the back of his door. ‘I’m heading out for a while, Anita,’ he said to his secretary.
‘Do you need your car?’ she asked.
‘I’ll walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back before three.’
Khan took the lift to the ground floor, went through the metal detector and out into the street. Half a dozen civilian workers were clustered around the entrance, smoking and chatting. He lit a cigarette and strode away from the building. He hated himself for what he was doing but he had no choice. Hassan knew where he lived and Khan had no doubt that he would wreak terrible vengeance on his family if he didn’t do what he wanted. He had thought long and hard after Hassan had approached him, considering his options late into the night as he drank endless cups of coffee and smoked his way through two packets of cigarettes. If he went to his bosses and told them what had happened they could put him under police protection. But what would that mean? For the rest of his life he and his family would be virtual prisoners. His children’s education would be ruined, his family would lose their friends, his career would stall. Everything he had worked for, all the sacrifices he had made, would have been for nothing.
There were two phone boxes a short walk from his office but he passed them, deep in thought. He cursed under his breath. He should have listened to his parents and become a doctor. They had always wanted him to study medicine, but even as a teenager he had known he wasn’t cut out to be a medic. He didn’t want to be around sick people, he wanted to catch criminals. He wanted the uniform, the squad cars and the comradeship. He’d studied law at university, but only because he knew that a law degree would get him on to the police fast-track promotion scheme. He’d made inspector within five years, superintendent five years later, and eventually even his parents had accepted that he’d made the right choice. He was doing well in a job he loved, and all the signs were that he was destined for even greater things. He knew he was already spoken of as the first Asian police commissioner, and all he had to do was keep climbing the slippery pole, seizing opportunities as they presented themselves and ensuring he didn’t make any stupid mistakes. He chose his public appearances carefully and had two tame journalists, both Asian, one on a redtop tabloid, the other on a worthy broadsheet, who could be relied on to write puff pieces as needed.
He had planned his career perfectly, he had forged useful friendships and distanced himself from anyone who might have held him back, and now it was all to be wrecked because of a man called Hassan. A man who would kill an innocent girl to gain power over another human being. Hassan was pure evil, and Khan knew that even a high- ranking police officer was powerless in the face of such a man. He had dealt with hundreds of criminals over the years – thieves, drug-dealers, conmen, thugs and murderers – but he had never been confronted before by a man like Hassan. Khan knew that if he didn’t do what Hassan wanted, he would kill Khan’s family. He was as sure of that as he was that there was nothing the police could do to protect them. There was no way to hide from a man like Hassan.
He reached another phone box and stopped, checked that no one he knew was around, then took Button’s business card from his wallet, pushed a pound coin into the slot and tapped out the number Hassan had given him. The phone went straight to voicemail.
Khan cleared his throat. He was about to cross a line, and once he had crossed it there would be no going back. He closed his eyes. Images of Sara being murdered flashed through his mind and he shuddered. He had to protect his wife and family. They were all that mattered. If others had to be sacrificed so that his family were safe, so be it. ‘She lives in Surrey,’ he said. He cleared his throat again. ‘She’s married with one child. The daughter is at boarding-school. Her husband is an estate agent, close to where they live. She’s working on a case at the moment in Belfast and will be back and forth between London and Northern Ireland over the next couple of weeks.’ Khan took a deep breath and exhaled through clenched teeth. ‘Her mobile number . . .’ He hesitated. Hassan hadn’t said why he wanted information about Charlotte Button, but Khan knew there could be only one reason. He wanted her dead. He said a silent prayer, but knew that wouldn’t help. He closed his eyes and continued to talk into the phone, his voice a hushed whisper.
Shepherd went upstairs with the wooden pole where, on the landing ceiling, he found a hatch with a small brass ring between the two back bedrooms. He reached up with the pole, inserted the hook and pulled. As the hatch opened, a folding aluminium ladder came into view. Shepherd used the hook to draw it down, then climbed up it.
At the top he stepped into an attic and flicked a light switch. There were wooden beams running the length of the area and foam insulation had been sprayed into the gaps between the beams. A stack of cardboard boxes stood just inside the trapdoor. Shepherd opened one. It was full of women’s clothing. The old man who had lived there before him must have put it up here after his wife had died.
Shepherd sat back on his heels and picked up a blue woollen cardigan with cream buttons. After Sue had died, he couldn’t bring himself to take her clothes out of the wardrobe for four months. Then he had put them into black bags and left them in the spare bedroom at their house in Ealing. It wasn’t until Katra had arrived that he had thrown them out. He knew exactly how the old man had felt. He put the cardigan back into the box and closed it.
A brick wall divided his half of the attic from Elaine’s, with a plastic water tank at one end. He walked carefully across the beams to the dividing wall and banged it with the flat of his hand. He had hoped it would be plaster board that he could cut through it, but it was bricks.
He returned to the trapdoor, went down the aluminium ladder, folded it up and closed the hatch. He took the pole downstairs and went to the sitting room. Elaine’s driveway was still empty. He took out his mobile and called her. ‘Hey, where are you?’ he asked.
‘Bangor,’ she said. ‘I’ve a few calls to make here. Why, what’s up?’
‘I saw a guy in your back garden,’ said Shepherd. ‘Teenager, I think, prowling around. He was heading for the shed but when he saw me he bolted. I had a quick look around and there were no windows broken or anything so he was probably just trying his luck.’
‘The burglar alarm’s usually enough of a deterrent,’ said Elaine. ‘They see the box and go off in search of a house that’s less trouble.’
‘Like mine?’ said Shepherd.
Elaine laughed. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘You should get an alarm, too. Thanks for keeping an eye on things for me, Jamie.’
‘It’s the neighbourly thing to do,’ he said.
Salih walked out of Maida Vale Tube station and crossed Elgin Avenue. Viktor Merkulov was sitting outside a Starbucks cafe, sipping a
Merkulov waved as he walked over. ‘Come, my friend, sit down, what would you like to drink?’
‘Why are you sitting outside?’ asked Salih. ‘It’s freezing.’ He already knew that the Russian had chosen Maida Vale for their meeting because it was a short walk from St John’s Wood where he owned a three-bedroom penthouse apartment with views over Lord’s cricket ground.
‘This?’ laughed Merkulov. ‘This is nothing. I can tell you have never been to Siberia.’
Salih sat down. ‘No coffee for me,’ he said.
‘Tea, then,’ said Merkulov, standing up.
‘Tea,’ agreed Salih. ‘No milk. No sugar.’
The Russian went inside to fetch it. Salih shivered and folded his arms. He was wearing a reefer jacket over an Aran sweater but the wind chilled him. An elderly woman walked past with a Jack Russell on a tartan lead. She looked at him suspiciously and he smiled amiably. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Lovely dog.’
The woman’s jaw dropped, then her face creased into a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and hurried off. Salih’s smile tightened as he watched her go. All Muslims were regarded with suspicion in London, following the bombings
