Isaac left his chief superintendent’s office and travelled out to Shaikh’s flat.
‘Everyone’s curious as to why we’re here,’ one of the armed officers said.
‘We’re moving the family,’ Isaac said. ‘A safe house.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes. I need to go in.’
Isaac knocked on the door, Wendy answered it. ‘I need to talk to Mr Shaikh.’
‘He’s frightened. They had a rough time back in Pakistan, and neither he nor his wife wants to go back.’
‘We can get him a year in the UK, and DCS Goddard’s trying for more. Becali’s conviction will go in his favour.’
After five minutes, while Fahad Shaikh’s wife moved to one of the bedrooms, Isaac entered the previously forbidden flat. He explained the situation, offered no guarantees, only emphasised the British sense of fair play and decency. Shaikh listened intently, finally agreeing with what he had been told. Two hours later, Wendy left with the family and five suitcases, the extent of their worldly goods in England. It wasn’t much, Wendy had to admit, but it was probably more than where they had come from. Shaikh’s wife grabbed her arm as they left the flat for a small house in the country. Fahad carried one of the children, his wife, another, and Wendy held the hand of a pretty girl of four.
Downstairs, a four-wheel drive waited for them. Wendy followed in her car for the fifty-minute drive. Whatever the future held for the Shaikhs, it was better than the depressing little flat they had left, Wendy thought.
***
An all-points warning had been put out for the arrest of Ion Becali, possibly armed and dangerous. Oscar Braxton was in Isaac’s office, as was Richard Goddard, who left soon after to phone Commissioner Alwyn Davies about the breakthrough.
At the same time, a desperate man, unaware of his fate, sat in a café two streets from Ivanov’s home. He knew what needed to be done, but not how to do it. He had walked up Ivanov’s street fifteen minutes earlier, suitably disguised, and had seen the security, professional and alert, not like the Russians who stood to attention when needed, slouched when no one was looking.
Becali left the café. He was not thinking straight, and his plan, which had seemed plausible at Cojocaru’s, now seemed foolish. There he had been willing to sacrifice his life for the man who had saved him from a life of subsistence and had brought him to England, but now he did not want to die, only to live. The future lay with Ivanov. He walked the two streets to Ivanov’s house and shouted to the bodyguards on the road.
‘I want to see Ivanov,’ Becali shouted. ‘I’m laying my weapon down.’
‘Slow and easy. Which side of the body is the gun, right or left?’ one of the men shouted back.
‘Left.’
The four men standing outside the house moved behind a Range Rover on the street.
‘Remove the weapon using your left hand and put it on the ground.’
Becali complied. He knew that the men ahead of him were English and unarmed, but from one of the windows to the left of them, two pairs of eyes watched. They would be armed, he knew.
‘Now lie down spread-eagled, arms and legs stretched out. One of us will come over and check that you’re not carrying any other weapons.’
Becali complied with the request; another man came over. He placed one of his boots firmly on the Romanian’s back, pinning him to the ground.
‘Don’t move, not till one of the others has checked you out.’
A second man came over and frisked Becali thoroughly, pulling his wrists together behind his back and securing them with a cable tie.
‘You can stand now,’ the man said.
‘I need to meet with Stanislav Ivanov,’ Becali said. The cable tie was unexpected, and he knew it had to be removed.
‘The police have issued an all-points for your arrest.’
‘I need to see Ivanov first, it’s important.’
‘We’re here to protect the man, not to let scum like you through. A police car will be here soon enough. You can either comply, or I’ll flatten you. Your choice.’
‘I’ll comply.’
Becali realised that his chance to strike a deal with Ivanov was gone, but he was still alive. It wasn’t the outcome that he had wanted, but it could have been worse.
Chapter 26
Nicolae Cojocaru realised forty-eight minutes after Ion Becali had left that he had made the wrong decision. A man stood in front of him, a man he had not expected to see.
‘Becali has been seen close to Stanislav Ivanov’s house. What did you expect? Did you imagine that he would be successful on his third attempt?’
‘I killed you in France,’ Cojocaru said.
‘Ivanov was right. You are a fool, easily duped.’
‘We were friends.’
‘We never were. To you, I was a man who committed violence when it was needed, nothing more. You were willing to kill me to save your life.’
‘I had no option. Neither of us would have left Ivanov’s villa if I hadn’t.’
‘You were told to kill Becali. Stanislav Ivanov is a forgiving man to those who are loyal to him, indifferent to those who aren’t.’
‘I could not kill Becali. He has always been loyal to me.’
‘Ivanov was willing to abide by his agreement, the same as he has with me, but now, your fate is sealed.’
‘Can we make a deal? It is not too late to save us, you included. Anyone who knows what Ivanov is in England, the crimes he has committed, will die.’
‘I have seen nothing, nor will I. The man has my allegiance, you do not.’
‘But I shot you.’
‘A subterfuge to test you. You did not check the gun, it contained a blank, and I was wearing a bulletproof vest. Ivanov wanted to
