‘You’re right, Liam – it does smell good,’ said Tom, sitting down and rubbing his hands.
Katra placed a stainless-steel bowl full of steaming dumplings on the table. ‘
‘You told me what to do,’ said Liam. ‘She’s a great cook, isn’t she, Grandma?’
Moira looked at Liam for several seconds, then she smiled. ‘Yes, she is,’ she said. She patted Katra’s arm. ‘It looks lovely, dear. And if it tastes half as good as it smells I think my husband will be fighting to keep you here!’
Katra blushed and giggled. She sat down and served Moira first, then heaped spoonfuls of the chicken on to the plates in front of Shepherd, Tom and Liam. When she’d helped herself, she reached over and took Moira’s hand. ‘Perhaps I could say a grace,’ she said.
Moira nodded enthusiastically. ‘That would be wonderful,’ she said, and gave Shepherd a meaningful look.
Shepherd smiled but didn’t rise to the bait. The fact that he had no religious leanings was one of the many reasons his mother-in-law had thought him an unsuitable husband for Sue. They had been married in Tom and Moira’s church in Hereford but he had had to bite his tongue during their pep talks with the local vicar. He had seen and been through too much to believe in God.
Moira took Liam’s hand and Shepherd took the other. They all bowed their heads as Katra prayed. When she raised her head she said, ‘I hope you all enjoy it.’
They did. Several times during the meal Shepherd caught Moira looking wistfully at Katra. He knew what she was thinking. Katra was physically different from Sue, but her smile and laugh were similar. Liam seemed to have picked up on it, albeit subconsciously. He behaved as if he had known her for years. When the meal was over he helped her clear the table and wash up.
‘What do you think, Moira?’ asked Shepherd, as they went back through to the sitting room for coffee.
‘She’ll do, I suppose,’ she said grudgingly, but Shepherd knew that Katra had won her over, big-time.
The explosives came into the country with some hand-carved furniture that had been ordered by a minor diplomat who was related by marriage to the Saudi royal family. The consignment carried diplomatic privilege and wasn’t even looked at by Customs. It wouldn’t have mattered even if they had inspected the container because the explosives were so well hidden they would never have found them. The furniture was taken to the diplomat’s five- bedroomed house in Mayfair where the Saudi used an electric saw to reduce a mahogany chest to firewood. In the process he retrieved forty plastic-wrapped packages of Semtex. It had been manufactured by the Czechs and shipped to Libya. A Libyan captain with two expensive mistresses had smuggled twenty kilos of it out of his barracks and sold it to a Palestinian, who paid in brand new hundred-dollar bills and took the explosives overland to Saudi Arabia, hidden in a false compartment in a four-wheel drive.
The Saudi already had the detonators. They had been brought into the country by a pilot with Emirates Airlines, hidden in a false compartment of his flight case. The pilot was sympathetic to the aims of the Saudi and his compatriots. He was a Palestinian and two of his teenage cousins had been killed by the Israelis for not stopping quickly enough at a roadblock. The boys were unarmed, just children, and the Israelis hadn’t even offered an apology.
The Saudi was able to buy the rest of the equipment he needed in London. Wire, digital alarm clocks, electrical switches, batteries and a soldering iron. The four vests were tight-fitting with ten pockets, each pocket a perfect fit for one of the packages of Semtex. He sewed the vests by hand, pricking his fingers so often that they were spotted with his blood.
He unwrapped the plastic packages, then used Sellotape to wrap dozens of two-inch nails around each block of explosive and placed them in the pockets. The explosions would be devastating but the shrapnel would do most damage.
He tested the electrical circuits on his dining-table, using flashlight bulbs in place of the detonators. Each vest had three detonators, all connected to one electrical switch. Pressing the electrical switch connected the detonators to the battery. Three was overkill, the Saudi knew, but the detonators couldn’t be tested in advance.
A second circuit ran parallel to the first. It connected the battery to the detonators via a digital alarm clock. Irrespective of whether the electrical switch was activated, the clock would close the second circuit at two minutes past five p.m. The men had been told to trigger their devices at five p.m. If they failed to do so, the bombs would detonate of their own accord. The men would not be told of the secondary circuit.
It was standard operating procedure, the Saudi knew. Most of the hijackers in the planes that had been flown into New York’s World Trade Center had not been told the true nature of their mission. Only the pilots had known. Until the last few seconds the majority of the hijackers had thought that they would be landing at JFK airport and the hostages held until America agreed to al-Qaeda’s terms. As far as the Saudi’s men in London were concerned, they would be the ones in control. They would decide if and when to press the switch. But the Saudi knew that the human element was the weak link in any operation. If the men were captured or injured they might not be able to press their switches. If they had a change of heart, the clock circuit would take over and override the switch mechanism. It was a necessary subterfuge, the Saudi knew. The operation was more important than the operatives.
Shepherd let Katra drive the CRV back to London. Liam wanted to sit in the front but hadn’t argued when Shepherd insisted that he was in the back. He wanted to learn more Slovenian words and Katra taught him a couple of songs. When they got back to Ealing he was singing on his own and could count up to twenty.
Shepherd had tried calling Miss Malcolm from Hereford to confirm that he wanted to hire Katra but had only reached the agency’s answering-machine. He decided that there wouldn’t be a problem and told Katra that she was hired. Katra had beamed.
Moira hadn’t been happy about Shepherd taking Liam to London. There had been tears in her eyes as she’d said goodbye and as the car drove away she’d collapsed into Tom’s arms. Shepherd told himself that his son belonged with him, and Liam was thrilled to be going back to London, especially when he realised that Katra would be taking care of him.
They drove via Battersea, where Katra picked up her suitcase and said goodbye to her friends.
Shepherd let them into the house and switched off the burglar alarm as Liam rushed upstairs with Katra to show her his room. He went into the kitchen. There was a photograph of Sue and Liam on the refrigerator door, held in place by a magnet in the shape of an apple. It had been taken at Hallowe’en the previous year. Liam had been invited to a school-friend’s fancy dress party and Sue had made him a pirate’s outfit. Shepherd had been away on an assignment in Bristol and the job had kept him away overnight so Liam had insisted that he and his mother take a photograph. It was the best photograph he’d ever seen of his wife and child: Sue’s arm was around Liam’s shoulders and they were both grinning from ear to ear.
He heard Liam and Katra laughing upstairs and suddenly felt guilty. He kissed the first and second fingers of his right hand and pressed them to his wife’s face. ‘I’ll always love you, Sue,’ he said softly. ‘She’s just here to keep us together as a family.’
A wave of sadness rushed over him. He was never going to see her again. The photographs and memories were all he had now.
‘Dad!’
Shepherd jumped.
‘Dad, come here!’
Liam was standing at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other pressed against the wall, swinging his legs backwards and forwards.
‘I’ve told you not to do that,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s dangerous.’
Liam stopped. ‘Where’s Katra sleeping?’
‘The spare room.’
‘Can’t she sleep with me?’
‘It’s not a sleepover party, Katra’s here to work,’ said Shepherd. ‘Anyway, boys and girls don’t share rooms.’
‘You and Mum did,’ said Liam.
‘Well, if you and Katra ever get married, you can share,’ laughed Shepherd, ‘but until then she has the spare
