out Dan’s toys. I asked Janice to get you to cover Tony McCarthy as he came out of hospital. Didn’t she come and talk to you?”
“No. I saw her go out a while back. She didn’t say where she was going.”
“Stubborn bloody woman! Has she got one of those things?”
“Yeah.”
“Then see if you can raise her. And get after whoever it is you’re supposed to be following.”
“Nikos Nicolau. He’s been sitting on his fat arse in an Internet cafe in Tottenham Court Road for the past two hours.”
“And what if he suddenly disappears? Where have the others gone?”
“Dan’s gone after the stroppy Indian fella, Sangeeta; Colin’s got Toby Brooke; Meera’s got the rich one, Fontvieille; John’s covering Ruby Cates. Raymond’s in his room having a massive row with someone from the Home Office.”
“And I know exactly what Janice is up to,” added Bryant. “Find someone to cover Nicolau – use Raymond if you have to; he’ll kick up a fuss but we need everyone we can lay our hands on. Find out where Janice is, and bloody go after her. If it turns out that Mr Fox is following them, she’ll need all the backup she can get. This has the potential to blow up in our faces. We’re close now, so I don’t want anything to go wrong.”
“We’re close?” Renfield was surprised. “That’s news to me. Hang on, I’ve got Dan on the line.” He talked with the CSM for a moment, then covered the phone. “He just spoke to Janice. She’s on the Euston Road with McCarthy in tow, heading east.”
“I know what she’s up to. She’s taking him back to the station, where it all began. Your bug won’t be any use there if they go down onto the platforms. Get to her first. Stay as close as you can, and keep in contact.”
“How can I if she goes underground?”
“I don’t know, run up the stairs and call me as soon as you get a signal. You’ll have to figure it out. I’ll stay here. Someone has to keep an eye on you all.”
“You know me,” said Renfield, heading out, “I’ll have a go at anyone, but we could do with some more backup than this.”
Moments later, Fraternity DuCaine appeared in the doorway.
“Good God, you’re not dead,” said Bryant, clutching theatrically at his heart.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m his brother,” said Fraternity. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump. You don’t know how long the DS will be, do you?”
“You could give us a hand while you’re waiting,” said Bryant.
DuCaine shrugged amiably. “Sure, no problem.”
“Good.” Bryant unleashed a gruesome smile. “What do you know about card tricks?”
¦
Anjam Dutta badly wanted a cigarette. He couldn’t drink any more coffee. His nerves were on fire. Something very big and very bad was happening at his station. He had called his bosses, but all they could suggest was closing the entire interchange down. Dutta’s eyes flicked from screen to screen, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “We’ve got a camera out on the District & Circle, Sandwich. Did you call Maintenance?”
“Twenty minutes ago,” Sandwich told him. “They’re having trouble getting to their equipment.”
“I’m not surprised.” Dutta could see the problem; a knot of passengers blocking the path to one of the supply stores. Usually he could register travel patterns just by glancing at the screens. Football days were the easiest because supporters were helpfully dressed in their team colours. Other groups offered subtler clues. Rush hour commuters knew their way around the system, and rarely strayed from their routes. They didn’t queue at the ticket windows because they all had travel cards. Tourists stood in line for tickets and clustered around the two main maps. Schoolchildren, students, hen night parties, clubbers aiming to arrive in in time for cheap admissions, concert-goers – they were all easy enough to spot.
But this one had him puzzled. There was no pattern – just a massive increase in traffic, right across the station. Passengers of all types and ages were pouring in from every entrance, despite the fact that access had already been restricted. He checked the arrival times of the Eurostar trains and found no correlation there. The wall clock read 1434. It was as if rush hour had decided to start three hours early.
“What the hell is going on? I think we’ll have to shut the East Gate completely.”
“We’ve never done that before,” objected Sandwich. “The BTP will be pissed off if you back passengers up onto the street.”
“The British Transport Police should be telling us about this, not the other way around. The Northern Line southbound platform is overloaded. They’re virtually falling onto the rails.”
The system worked so long as the law of averages operated normally and only a fraction of those who held travel cards decided to travel at the same time. Today, though, it seemed as if the law of averages was on hold.
“So long as the trains keep coming in on time we should be all right, but if one of them gets a signal delay, we’re screwed. Where are all these people going? You’d better get everyone in here.”
¦
Nikos Nicolau sat by the window in Costa Coffee, monitoring the messages on his laptop. They were climbing fast now. A few minutes ago they had stuck at 3,700, but suddenly they were hitting 7,000 and rising. There was a gullibility factor in people that you had to target by appealing to their vanity, he decided, as he posted another instruction. He figured the PCU had probably sent one of their drones to keep an eye on him, but what would they see? An overweight geek sitting alone at his laptop in a coffee shop. He played on the cliche, because he knew it would blind them to his real nature.
Time for another post. He typed THIRTY-TWO MINUTES TO REACH KING’S CROSS. Skipping through the messages, he felt like a chef adding flavours to a stew.
He wanted to be there, but it was smarter and safer to handle the event remotely. This way he could keep it going right up until the last minute. Nikos wiped a patch of condensation from the window and peered out into the afternoon rain.
? Off the Rails ?
45
Kill Proximity
Ruby Cates had unclipped the plastic cast on her leg and dropped it off at the University College Hospital outpatients’ department. She emerged from the entrance a few hundred yards behind Tony McCarthy.
Now she was heading along the rain-battered pavements of the Euston Road toward King’s Cross station. Her mind was racing. The police were suspicious. She had seen various members of the PCU lurking about outside the house, and for all she knew one could be following her right now.
In the past week, it seemed as if the world had turned upside down. Matt gone, Cassie dead. Everything that had seemed exciting a week ago had been wrecked or tainted. The true horror of what she had done was only now starting to sink in.
¦
Toby Brooke could see the man with no neck watching him in the reflection of the furniture store window. He was wearing a black padded jacket and jeans, but couldn’t stop himself from looking like a copper. He thumped miserably from one boot to the other and wiped the rain from his shaved head, but seemed sort of content, just standing there in the downpour like a dumb animal.
