Beneath the Bleeding

‘You can’t argue with the facts.’

‘We don’t know hardly any of the facts,’ Chris pointed out. ‘But if you think you’re on the right track, you’d better watch your back,’ she added, a tease in her voice.

‘What do you mean? I’m skint, me,’ Kevin said.

‘Yeah, but you drive a rich man’s car, she said, slowing for the final turn before their destination.

‘It’s not a rich man’s car. You could have it for sixteen grand,’ Kevin said. ‘Anyway, it’s not me I’m worried about. There’s other rich bastards around who went to the Double Aitch. Maybe we should be warning them.’

Chris shook her head, amused. ‘Do me a favour? Make sure I’m in the room when you run it past Jordan.’ She pulled up on double yellow lines outside their target address. ‘OK, here we are.’ She got out of the car but Kevin didn’t move. Chris leaned back into the car. ‘Come on, Kev. Brood on your own time. We’ve got Imperial Storm Troopers to piss off.’

He scratched his head and opened the door. ‘For once, I wish Tony Hill was around,’ he said as he followed Chris up the drive. ‘Poison, the Double Aitch and money. Times three. He’d make a case.’

It didn’t take long to find out which bedsit had belonged to Yousef Aziz. Two knocked doors and they had the answer. For form’s sake, Carol knocked and shouted, ‘Police, open up,’ before Sam and Kevin shoulder-charged the door. Checking that they were all gloved up, Carol led the way into the comfortless room. The bitter tang of chemicals hung in the air, making her eyes water and her sinuses prickle.

There wasn’t much to occupy the four of them. A fridge that contained nothing but labelled containers of chemicals; a draining board with rinsed glass apparatus; a torn packet of rocket engines with two still inside the clear plastic; and a small sports holdall.

‘Should we get the bomb guys up here to check out the holdall?’ Kevin asked, his face tight with nerves.

Her first instinct was to say, No, to hell with it. But when she examined that gut reaction, she couldn’t find a rationale for it. And without a rationale, she couldn’t take that level of risk with their lives. For a moment, she dithered, hating herself for it. She wanted to inspire her team, not give them grounds for worry. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said, stepping out on to the landing. She pulled out her phone and called Tony’s hospital room. He answered on the first ring. ‘Carol,’ he said before she spoke. It surprised her because the hospital phones had no called ID feature. Then she understood that he didn’t expect calls from anyone else.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine. But I need your help. Imagine we’re in the bedsit the bomber used to build his device. There’s no evidence of anybody else being involved. There’s a holdall sitting by the door. Is it likely to be booby-trapped?’

‘No,’ he said decisively.

‘Why? I mean, that was my gut reaction, but why?’

‘It’s another gesture of contempt. Look, here we are, right in the midst of you. This is how we work, this is who we are. We want to show you just how easy this is. Go ahead, Carol. Open the bag.’

She let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thanks.’

‘And if I’m wrong, and you do get blown to kingdom come, I’ll buy you dinner.’

She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

‘Come round when you’re done. It doesn’t matter how late it is, just come.’

‘I will She closed the phone and walked back in. The other three were clustered round the draining board reading a list of instructions on the wall.

‘Organized little shit,’ Chris said.

‘But still no sign of any accomplices,’ Sam noted.

‘We’re opening the bag,’ Carol said. ‘Well, I’m opening it. Out on the landing, you three.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Chris said. ‘If it’s safe enough for you, it’s safe enough for all of us, right, guys?’ Both men looked uncertain, but they made no move for the door. ‘Come on, the Al-Quaeda lot don’t booby-trap their bomb factories, they want us to see how clever they are.’ So saying, she grabbed the bag, swung it on to the narrow bed and unzipped it.

It was a moment of profound bathos. Nothing could have been further from what they expected. A pair of jeans, a pair of chinos. A pair of blue Converse shoes. Five T-shirts. Two striped Ralph Lauren shirts. A lightweight fleece hoodie. Four pairs of boxers, four pairs of black sports socks. ‘Looks as if he was planning on coming back here,’ Carol said, puzzled. ‘What kind of suicide bomber packs for his trip to paradise?’

Chris had her hand inside the bag, fumbling with a zip. ‘There’s more,’ she said, reaching in. A state-of-the-art mobile WAP phone, a digital camera, an EU passport, a driving licence and a folded sheet of paper. Chris handed the paper to Carol who unfolded it.

‘It’s an e-ticket. For this evening’s flight to Toronto,’ she said. ‘Booked through hopefully.co.uk.’

Chris reached for her phone. ‘Christ, I hope Stacey’s still got his machine.’ She dialled and said, ‘Stace? It’s Chris. You still got Aziz’s laptop?…Great. He’s got a flight booked through hopefully.co.uk. I need you to…yeah, that’s it. Call me back.’ She ended the call. ‘She’s going to see whether he saved his ID and password on the computer. If he did, then she can access his booking history, see what else comes up.’

Kevin was studying the passport and the driving licence. This is very odd,’ he said. ‘Not only does it look like he was planning to come back, it also looks like he didn’t expect to be a suspect. He’s using his own passport and his own driving licence, as if he doesn’t expect anybody in Canada to be looking for him. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Maybe it was his own little fantasy,’ Sam said. ‘What got him through it.’

Carol picked up the mobile phone and bagged it. This goes to Stacey. The rest of it, put it back together again the way you found it, Chris. Time to come clean.’ She took out her phone and the card she’d been given earlier and keyed in the unfamiliar number. When it was answered, she said, ‘David? This is Carol Jordan. I think we’ve found