Osama

would show a ship in a storm. His eyes panned round the room. There was a table in the middle, piled high with books. Boxes were piled up in corners and against the walls. The room was chaotic.

And it was clear nobody was at home.

Joe stepped over to the bed. Something had caught his eye. He bent down and picked it up off the blanket: a small, grey elephant, patched up and the worse for wear.

He flung the toy down on the ground, hissing with frustration. There was nobody here. Less than six hours till the RV that was only a couple of klicks away. Was it really likely that they’d already set out?

Joe raced through the rest of the house – two more bedrooms upstairs, a large sitting room and a fourth bedroom on the ground floor. He knew it was pointless. He knew the house was deserted apart from him, an old lady’s body and a restless cat. Back in the room where Conor had been held he was almost careless enough to switch on the light. He stopped himself at the last second: if he could observe the place from afar, anybody could. And if Conor’s abductor had even an inkling that events were not unfolding as he had planned, that could only be bad for the boy. He stalked round the room, seeking anything that might help him. It was only thanks to the moonlight streaking in through the window that he saw it.

The passport was in plain view, sitting atop one of the piles of books on the round table. On the front it had the words ‘United States of America’. Joe examined the identification page. There was no mistaking the features of the man in the photograph. Joe had seen that face once before. Until now he had been unable to recall its features, but as it stared out of the passport at him, he was transported back to the visiting room at Barfield.

This was him. Mr Ashe.

But the name on the passport was Mahmood Ashkani.

Only two thoughts spun around Joe’s head. Two simple statements of fact.

First: the Middle Eastern man who had abducted his son held an American passport.

And second, if he wanted to see Conor again, the only option open to him was to turn up at the RV tomorrow at 0600 hours. At which point, Mr Ashe, or Mahmood Ashkani, or whoever the fuck he really was, would undoubtedly try to kill him.

Eva was shivering with cold.

For ten minutes after Joe had left, she’d kept one hand on the key in the ignition. Now she was hugging herself to keep warm. More than once she found herself glancing at the door, checking that the central locking was on. She didn’t know quite what she was scared of. But she was scared.

One seventeen. She was dazzled by the sight of a single headlight turning at high speed into the car park. She fumbled for the keys, one arm covering her eyes to block out the brightness, but then the light disappeared and she could just make out Joe, jumping off the bike and letting it fall to one side. A fist on the driver’s window, and he was shouting: ‘Open up!’

Eva had released the lock before she registered that Joe had returned alone. She twisted round as she heard Joe opening the rear door. His face was illuminated by the small internal light, and the look on it chilled her. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Conor? Joe, what happened?’

When he didn’t answer she opened the driver’s door and ran round to the back of the vehicle. Joe had pulled out the body armour and was examining the Kevlar helmet. She grabbed his right arm but he shrugged her off.

‘I was too late,’ he spat. ‘They’ve already left.’

‘Are you sure it was the right place?’

He nodded. ‘Conor was there.’

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘The only thing I can do,’ Joe said. ‘Turn up.’ He started to pull on the body armour.

Eva peered nervously at him. ‘Joe, you can’t,’ she said. ‘He’ll try to—’

‘What do you want me to do, Eva?’ he shouted. ‘He’s got my son! ’

‘But—’

Joe put one hand to his forehead and paused for a moment, clearly trying to calm himself down after his outburst. Eva noticed that his hand was shaking, and she had to fight a sudden urge to put her arms round him.

‘If I lose Conor,’ Joe said, in a low voice that was on the verge of cracking, ‘I lose everything. I’ll have nothing left in the world.’

He wasn’t even looking at Eva when he said it, so he could have had no idea of the effect the blunt truth of his words had on her.

‘Wait,’ she said.

He turned towards her.

She pointed at the body armour. ‘How safe is it?’

‘Depends on the round, distance, trajectory,’ he said. ‘He’ll try to take me out from the clifftop, I reckon. It’ll protect my vital organs, keep me alive to go after them. Probably.’

Eva nodded. She remembered how, when they were younger, Joe would do anything to keep her from harm. She remembered the look on his face when he told her that Conor had been abducted.

‘Give it to me,’ she said.

NINETEEN

0330 hours.

Mahmood Ashkani, aka Mr Ashe, aka any number of other names at different times and different places around the world, would be glad to get rid of the boy. Ashkani knew that he had a gift for terror. It was not surprising the boy should be scared. He had gone to very great lengths to ensure it. But to be encumbered by someone so silently helpless was wearisome. And his frail, child’s mind was so damaged by what he had been exposed to that really he would be better off dead.

The grey light of dawn was still two hours away. The only light came from a street lamp ten metres to his right and it was further dimmed by the thick layer of condensation that covered the window of his grey Peugeot, parked in the car park at Thornbridge station. The first train would not leave here for another hour, so he knew the place would be deserted for as long as he needed it. The boy was in the back seat. Ashkani hadn’t bothered to bind his hands. The child didn’t seem to know where he was, or who he was. He just stared into space, never speaking, never moving.

Ashkani’s left hand lightly touched the laptop that lay on the passenger seat. His fingertips brushed against the satellite phone resting on top of it, and against a 4GB data stick.

At 5.10 a.m. the headlights of a second car filled the rear-view mirror. It parked to the left of Ashkani. The driver exited and Ashkani gathered up the computer, phone and data stick so that the man could sit beside him. The newcomer looked not unlike Ashkani. He was a similar age and build, with black hair and dark skin. But he had a harsher, crueller face. The lack of lines around the side of his mouth did not make him look younger. It just made him look as though he seldom smiled.

‘Do you really think he’s coming?’ The newcomer spoke in Arabic.

Ashkani sniffed, then replied in the same language: ‘I killed his wife. I kidnapped his son.’ Turning to look at the other man, he asked: ‘Do you really think he’s not?’

‘I would have expected him to call the police.’

‘I have eyes and ears among the police. He has spoken to nobody.’

This reassurance seemed to be good enough for the other man.

‘You understand what you need to do?’ asked Ashkani.

‘It won’t be a problem.’

Ashkani failed to stop a wave of annoyance entering his voice. ‘If I knew it wasn’t going to be a problem,’ he said, ‘I would not have insisted upon my best marksman. This man is good at staying alive. Do not underestimate