check-in, travellers carrying only hand luggage don’t have to queue at check-in desks any more, not on these budget airlines, anyway. They just take their self-printed boarding passes and passports to immigration, which get scanned into the system, and then they’re through into the departure lounge after security checks.’ He paused and surveyed the faces of the three men, got little response, so carried on. ‘Obviously I knew a bit about what happened at Blackpool, but there wasn’t a full APB out, so there was nothing about border controls at the time of this flight out.’ He sounded guilty, but didn’t have to. Proper circulations took time. ‘When the Spanish detective got through to me, that was only when I really had a proper delve into anything. The thing is, with on-line check-in, it means that passengers can leave it to the last minute to arrive, or turn up hours before. They’re not obliged to turn up just within the two or three hour pre-flight time any more. And, of course, there are lots of flights leaving, so people coming through passport control could be there for any one of a dozen flights.’
FB waved his hand. ‘We get the picture.’
‘OK,’ McMullen said ‘- anyway, what I’ve done is got the passenger list from the airline, then cross-checked with the boarding card and passport database and I now know the exact time every passenger on last night’s flight to Las Palmas went through security here in Liverpool. I’ve gone through CCTV footage and watched every person go through, all two hundred and fifty-eight of them, to be exact. Quite a task, I might add.’
Freakin’ hero, Donaldson thought.
‘So, I’ve got this… this guy, wearing a peaked cap which more or less hid his face from the cameras without it being too obvious he was hiding it, is the only Asian on the flight. All the rest are the great unwashed out for a lager-fuelled holiday. He seems to be travelling alone, one piece of hand luggage — and that’s it.’
He pressed a switch on the TV remote and the screen came to life, showing a baseball-cap-wearing man approaching the desk at which boarding cards were scanned. He had a small bag over his left shoulder and his travel documents in his left hand. His right arm was held tightly up to his ribcage and hardly moved. He passed his self-generated boarding card over, that being a barcode printed on a piece of A4 paper, which was scanned by the official and handed back to the man, who then walked on, the whole interchange lasting about twenty seconds at most.
The efficiency of modern travel, Donaldson thought. Ripe for terrorists, despite all the crap about heightened security.
The screen then chopped to the next shot: the man passing through security. Placing his bag on the conveyor belt that ran through the X-ray machine, then walking through the body scanner without setting it off. He collected his bag then walked out of shot into the departure area. All the time, his right arm was held against his body, but not in a way that would have brought any attention to him. It was only watching it now that it looked odd, and each man watching the screen knew the reason why.
McMullen flicked off the screen.
Donaldson’s mouth was dry, every pulse beating.
‘He boarded the Las Palmas flight fifteen minutes later, then made it through their customs at the other end unchallenged — then gone!’
Donaldson said, ‘Passport?’
McMullen picked up a piece of paper. ‘Seems to be a genuine British passport in the name of Ali Karim. I have the details here. I’m getting it checked now. Question is — is that your man?’
‘It is. That’s Jamil Akram,’ Donaldson said.
‘Can you be sure?’ Beckham said. ‘Those images are not completely clear.’
‘It is,’ Donaldson said dully. ‘We need to check the booking,’ he said, thinking out loud, ‘see where it originated from, how long it had been made for, whose computer it was made from. And the passport.’
‘We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the cop in Las Palmas. He did well,’ McMullen said. ‘Followed his instinct.’
‘Did his job, you mean?’ Donaldson said.
‘Whatever,’ McMullen said, seeing he wasn’t going to get much praise or anything from these three. Fact was, a top-class terrorist had escaped right under their noses by simply walking into an airport and jumping on to a flight. No one was feeling good about that.
‘He must have started to bleed again on the plane,’ FB said. ‘He must be in real pain.’
‘And now he’s made it to the Canary Islands — but he won’t be there for long,’ Donaldson said. ‘I’ll lay odds he’s already gone.’ His lips pursed and he felt a dark shadow in his brain as his mind juggled all the angles. Some had already been mentioned, such as the origin of the passport and backtracking the on-line booking. Everything would have been in place for Akram to get out of the UK quickly, the only complication was that he — hopefully — still had a bullet in him. It was therefore vital to discover who helped Akram in the hours between him escaping from the car park, getting Rashid Rahman to take over the car, and walking into Liverpool Airport. It was a window of over eight hours.
‘Guys,’ McMullen said. ‘The plane he was on is due to land back here any time now. The seat he sat in and the two next to it have been kept free… would you be interested in having a look?’
‘Can we also get CSI to have a look?’ Donaldson asked. ‘Get a sample from the blood, check for prints… if anything it could help us get Akram’s DNA — which would be good.’
‘Grande latte, wet, extra hot, skinny, decaff,’ Henry said to the barista at Starbucks, ‘and a normal, small latte, too, and a couple of those iced buns,’ he added. He was in the short queue in the coffee shop, his eyes constantly checking out the woman he’d arranged to meet.
He paid for and collected the drinks and the buns on a tray and ferried them across to Alison at the small circular table she had managed to snaffle by the window. He slid the mugs and food off the tray, then propped it up next to the window.
‘Sorry about the food,’ he said. ‘Major peckish.’
‘Me too. Shopping’s hell. I heard your order, by the way,’ she grinned. ‘You obviously spend too much time in coffee houses.’
‘It’s become a habit I don’t seem capable of breaking. Costing me a small fortune.’ He took a sip of his extra hot coffee, which wasn’t that hot, but tasted good. He had always subsisted on the kick of coffee, it had sustained him through many a long inquiry, but now he was a little bit addicted to it and lurking around cafes, alone. It felt a bit shameful, like frequenting brothels, but less fun.
Alison sipped hers, her eyes shining across the rim of her mug. ‘Well, here we are.’
‘Mm.’ Henry wiped his lips. ‘Yep — here we are.’
He had literally no idea what to say to this lady.
‘You never called or came to see me,’ she said. It wasn’t spoken in a belligerent way, just factual.
‘I thought it better not to. For personal and professional reasons.’
Her brow furrowed.
‘The personal reasons may have skewed professional judgement, so I thought it better to delegate and let others reach conclusions, maybe with a few nudges from me.’
So he knows, she thought wildly.
Henry drank more coffee. It wasn’t hot at all any more.
‘I’m so sorry about your wife,’ Alison said.
Henry opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. Instead, he heated up from the neck and felt slightly nauseous. In the end, he half-shrugged and drank more coffee, the flow of which took away the sickly sensation. She reached across and laid her cool fingertips on the back of his hand, genuine tenderness in her eyes.
Henry knew that Alison had lost her husband a few years earlier in Afghanistan where they had both been serving in the armed forces, she as a medic. On leaving the forces she had bought the Tawny Owl pub in Kendleton, where she lived with her husband’s daughter from a previous marriage, and they ran the place between them.
Hesitantly his hand covered hers. He puffed out a long sigh that ended with a chuckle. ‘What a pair,’ he said. ‘Us, I mean… not …’
‘Henry,’ she said solemnly, ‘talk to me. Say what you need to say about you and Kate. Unload — because I get the feeling that so far it’s all still bottled up inside.’ She paused, her eyes searching for acknowledgement of this truth — which she got when his eyes refused to meet hers. ‘I won’t judge you,’ she promised. ‘I’ll listen, nod, ask questions and then, when you’ve finished, maybe we can possibly think about us. What do you say?’
He squinted, then said weakly, ‘I’m not sure where to begin.’
