THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (31 page)

‘Oh fucking great, I’ve created my own little storm in a teacup!’ muttered Lenny. ‘For fuck’s sake, boss. We only get sixty-five hours a fortnight off, sixty-five fucking hours! And we’re doing this now?’

He trampled across the broken digestive on the floor and toward the office door, which was already swinging shut behind his boss.

86

Friday

26 August 2005

1800 hours

Leeds city centre, West Yorkshire

The traffic was heavy. The revellers were already out in force. Stag and hen parties turned the streets into one great big fancy-dress do at weekends. A man dressed as a giant banana was talking to a group of girls wearing white T-shirts, candyfloss wigs and pink fluffy scarves. A man dressed as an onion was shouting at his friend, another banana, to hurry up.

Leeds was so small in comparison to London that Jake noticed the contrasts more easily here. Things were in closer proximity to one another. Side by side, they were more visibly in his face. As Jake looked at banana man and onion man, who were clearly drunk, he thought about how close they were to the place that had spawned suicide bombers; those who claimed they hated alcohol, music, women, money and capitalism. Jake wondered what Wasim would have said when he passed a scene like this just a few months ago on a Friday, the Muslim holy day. What would he have said on the day of prayer after a week of making explosives – explosives to blow exactly these sorts of people up?

Jake suddenly felt an affinity with banana man and onion man. They stood for the things he did. Life was for living, having fun.

‘We going the right way, Lenny?’ asked Jake. Lenny had the map book open on his lap.

‘Yeah, up here. Keep going straight. Up toward the brewery.’

They spotted the bright green and red signage of the Al Siddiq supermarket and parked in a road opposite.

The place was enormous and surprised Jake. Fresh fruit and veg were displayed in huge pallets outside on the pavement, watched over by Pakistani men who wore sandals with no socks. Loose, un-lidded bins overflowed with commercial waste and the street was strewn with rubbish. Inside were rows and rows of tinned produce with men stacking shelves down every other aisle. The lack of chilled cabinets, dearth of female staff and complete absence of an alcohol section all felt strange and unfamiliar to Jake.

Jake spotted Shahid before he’d even got through the door. He’d made sure to memorise his photo off the report Lenny had found. He was difficult to miss, a big, muscular bloke like that. There was something different about this fella, thought Jake. He noted straight away that he was wearing a lime-green Pakistani cricket top with a Pepsi logo emblazoned across the width of his chest.

‘Yes, sir. What can I do for you?’

‘DI Jake Flannagan, police. We spoke on the phone. We need to talk in private,’ said Jake, intentionally not checking his name first. He wanted Shahid to realise that they already knew what he looked like to put him on the back foot straight away.

Jake noted how, all of a sudden, the bulk of the sockless shelf stackers disappeared. He wondered if some of them were wary of their immigration status now that the police had turned up.

Shahid ushered them into a small, windowless office at the back. It was clad in pine that someone had applied some sort of dark stain to. There was a desk with chairs, and two large, pale-grey filing cabinets stood in the corner.

Shahid motioned for Lenny and Jake to sit. Lenny knew better than to sit. He knew the drill. He stayed by the door so there could be no swift exit or entrances for anyone.

‘Can I get you a drink? Perhaps some mint tea?’ Shahid asked

‘No, we’re fine. Thanks.’

‘So how can I help you?’ Shahid said as he sat behind the desk.

‘We’re investigating the London 7/7 bombings; I want to know how you knew Wasim Khan.’

‘Oh, yes, terrible thing that’s happened there.’ Shahid sounded calm and respectful. ‘But I don’t know him.’

‘You sure about that?’ asked Jake.

‘Yes,’ replied Shahid.

‘That’s an interesting response…’ Jake realised that this might be a long night. And no one knew that he and Lenny were there. They hadn’t asked for any approval or sign off for this and they hadn’t left details of where they’d gone. They were there on a whim, without backup. Then again, if he was going to have it out with this fella, the office was as good a place as any. He needed the seclusion from prying eyes just as much as Shahid did.

87

Friday

26 August 2005

1900 hours

Al Siddiq supermarket, Harehills, Leeds, West Yorkshire

Jake sat opposite Shahid. Shahid leaned back in the large, leather-backed office chair to put his hands behind his head and his feet up on the desk in front of him.

There was a long pause.

‘Do you have children, Shahid?’ Jake glanced back at Lenny; he wanted Lenny to know something was coming.

‘Yes, I have two boys, why do you ask?’

‘When one of your boys has done something wrong, would you know what that thing was, totally, before you bothered to go and speak to them about it?’

‘Yes,’ replied Shahid nonchalantly.

‘So when he lied to your face, while looking you in the eye, you could challenge him?’ Jake put on a deliberate, fake smile. He hoped Shahid could see just how false it was.

Shahid said nothing.

‘So that when the little fucker lied to you, you’d be ready to reprimand him? Ready to smack him?’ Jake had never smacked his kids but he knew plenty of people that did.

‘I probably would, yes.’

‘What makes you think I would come here without knowing things before I talk to you, Shahid? What makes you think you can look me in the eye and lie to me?’

Shahid crossed his legs on the desk. They were on his turf. He was showing them that this was his domain and he could do what he liked. That he thought he was still in charge.

‘If you have questions to ask me then ask me,’ he replied.

There was an arrogance about this man. He was arrogant in a way that Jake had previously seen whilst working with suspects on the Organised Crime Group. Arrogant like, ‘I’m better than you and you can’t touch me.’

But on this job, interviewing friends and family of the bombers, Jake hadn’t yet seen anyone quite like this. This man was a very different sort of Muslim.

Jake was used to the interviewees being helpful, humble, meek.

Then it clicked: it was bravado. His tone, his manner – bravado to cover his lies.

Victims often act one way. Witnesses act another way.

And suspects trying to cover their tracks acted like Shahid.

‘I’ve asked you two questions already, Shahid. And neither of your two answers I’m satisfied with. The first question I know you’re lying about, and the second one all you’ve done is ignore.’

‘Now hang on.’ Shahid took his feet off the desk and leaned forward.

‘No, Shahid, you fucking hang on.’ Jake stood up abruptly. His chair caught the back of his legs and fell backwards onto the floor with a crash. Jake’s voice was a half shout.

It caught Shahid off guard.

Because of this guy, they’d missed the early Friday-night getaway. Every time Shahid insisted to them that he didn’t know Wasim, some more of Lenny’s sixty-five hours with his wife would be eaten into.

Jake was getting pissed off. Still standing, both arms resting on the desk now, he leaned over and stared Shahid directly in the eyes. ‘I’m going to give you one last chance, Shahid. Answer me like you think I’m some sort of fucking idiot again and you will be
really
fucking sorry.’ Jake’s words were resolute and purposeful. He asked very slowly and deliberately this time. ‘I want… to know… how you… knew… Wasim?’

‘I didn’t.’

Jake had had enough. Shahid wasn’t going to tell the truth unless he put him under real pressure. He had to bluff it. But he was also banking on the fact that no one who was actually guilty had ever called him on a bluff.

He had nothing concrete except the phone records, and a complete and utter feeling of being given the runaround by someone who was clearly lying to them. But he couldn’t reveal what he knew. You hold back your kings and your aces. You play your fours. Just like in poker, he reminded himself.

He needed Shahid to think that they knew everything, without him finding out that they only had some phone links.

Jake glanced at the door. Lenny was acting like a bouncer. Shahid was cornered.

Neither he nor Lenny would now get home at a reasonable hour that evening, which made him angry but, equally, his aim was to use that anger to full effect in playing a part. It was all he had left in his armoury.

He stood up straight, to his full height, all the while looking Shahid in the eye. Then he picked up his notepad and, with huge force, slammed it down on the desk, bellowing in the loudest voice he had. ‘For fuck’s sake! Right, Len, I’ve had enough of this wanker! I’ve given him his chance. Ring London! Get the custody suite ready. We can keep him down south for a month! He can decide down there what lies to tell!’

Shahid looked alarmed. He obviously wasn’t used to the sight of a Metropolitan Police copper with a Cockney swagger getting loud and unpleasant in his office on a Friday evening. He was clearly very unsettled by it. His demeanour changed instantly.

‘But I can’t go down to London. I’m giving Dawah. Me and my brother in Bristol this weekend!’ he said anxiously. ‘My voluntary work. It’s all planned. There’s ten of us going. I can’t be in London. We’re staying at the mosque over there. It’s all arranged. We’re doing our neighbourhood visits.’

Jake knew he had no authority to arrest him. He was making his own luck here, but it seemed to be working. He grabbed his handcuffs and swiftly moved around behind the desk as if to arrest Shahid, but just before Jake made contact with him, Shahid threw his arms up in the air.

‘Stop, look I didn’t know him. He just used to visit someone that I rent a room to!’

Fuck me, that worked, thought Jake.

Jake and Lenny exchanged glances. If there was really nothing fishy here, why would he have covered that up?

‘Right,’ said Jake. ‘Get up. Follow my good detective sergeant to our car. Take us to this friend.’

‘Err, well, he’s done a runner. I can’t take you to him,’ replied Shahid, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Where’s the place you used to rent out to him?’

‘I’ve got a sandwich shop. There’s a flat above there.’

‘Right, Len, you’re driving,’ shouted Jake as he chucked the car keys at Lenny.

They marched Shahid out of the office and through the supermarket to the car parked across the road.

‘You’re in the back with me, mate,
with
the handcuffs on,’ said Jake.

Shahid might have lost some of his front, but Jake had no intention of dropping his.

88

Friday

26 August 2005

1930 hours

The flat above the sandwich shop, Chapeltown, Leeds, West Yorkshire

Shahid was quiet. He spoke only to give a rough indication of where the flat was located. Jake was glad he’d put the handcuffs on him. It was still a game of cat and mouse and Jake had to show that he was in control. Shahid could still be dangerous, even if he was looking fairly worried.

And look worried he did. Jake watched as a bead of sweat danced its way down his face and onto his lip. As they got into the back seat of the vehicle, Jake moved toward Shahid, pushing him right across the vehicle and against the car door, behind the passenger seat on the other side. The child locks were on in the back; they couldn’t be opened from the inside. Shahid was trapped.

You always sat prisoners behind the front passenger seat, not behind the driver. Jake had learned that the hard way when still in his probationary period as a uniformed constable. He’d arrested a shoplifter; she’d been playing the buy-one-get-one-free game at Asda. On the way to the station, Jake had sat the shoplifter behind Stan, the officer driving the patrol car. The shoplifter hadn’t been handcuffed and had been chatting away happily the whole time. Halfway there, the woman had suddenly gone crazy and grabbed Stan round the throat from behind. Jake had been too slow to stop her; their vehicle had left the road and hit a lamp post. Luckily it was just the car and the lamp post that had been hurt, but Stan blamed Jake for the mistake and refused to work with him ever again.

Jake had six months in the job versus Stan’s twenty-two years, but he still got the blame. She’d been his prisoner and he had been sitting next to her.

All three of them could have died that day. He never forgot that lesson from the panda car.

Looking across at Shahid, Jake couldn’t help but wonder what this bloke had done. Finding out what that thing was – that was going to be hard work.

Shahid directed them to a pay-and-display, council-owned car park.

‘The room is in there, above the sandwich shop,’ Shahid said, pointing with both handcuffed hands to a large, external staircase that ran from the car park up to some first-floor flats above the retail units.

They got out of the car, climbed the wrought-iron stairs and passed through a shabby wooden door that was unlocked. The place smelled of cooking fat. The beige carpet underfoot was filthy, black and sticky in places.

‘That door there, Wasim knew the guy who used to live there,’ Shahid said, indicating a blue door with the letter ‘C’ on it.

Jake knocked on the door and a short black guy with a goatee beard answered. The stench of cannabis almost knocked Jake out.

‘Yeah? Whadda ya want?’ asked the black guy.

‘I need you to step out of the room and go and wait downstairs for me, mate,’ said Jake, flashing his badge. ‘Police business. Nothing to do with you – it’s the room I’m interested in.’