Capital Punishment (50 page)

‘Are the Pakistanis saying anything?’

‘We’ve told them what’s happened. I imagine they’re putting together a very involved statement, which will tell us very little.’

‘Can we go and talk somewhere?’ asked Boxer. ‘Like in the middle of the park.’

They set off towards the roped-off cricket wicket. Boxer gave Deacon a compressed version of his discussion with Deepak Mistry from earlier that morning. Deacon stood in silence for some moments afterwards.

‘Well, the news about the assassination attempt and the first kidnap is welcome. We were very concerned about that,’ said Deacon. ‘But we’re no less concerned by what happened last night and the appearance of Amir Jat’s body this morning. We still think there’s something going on. One of the preliminary forensic inspections here has revealed that Amir Jat’s clothes were wet but not soaked through. His front was stiff with partially frozen water.’

‘You think he was involved in taking over the kidnap down by the canal last night?’

‘Too early to say, but that’s one of the theories we’re developing.’

‘And that leads you to believe that Alyshia is now being held by some sort of terrorist organisation, or by people controlled by one?’

‘I’d like to talk to Deepak Mistry,’ said Deacon. ‘Even if he can’t tell us very much, I’d still like to know what happened in the shootout in the Dharavi slum. The person who he says was pretending to be Isabel Marks’ lawyer’s representative was one of our agents in Mumbai.’

‘I’ve seen Frank this morning,’ said Boxer. ‘I think there’s real pressure being put on him now. He’s saying even less than he was before and he’s frightened in a way that he didn’t seem to be during the first kidnap, which he always thought was going to be about money in the end.’

‘Yes,’ said Deacon. ‘We saw that in our interview with him last night. The shining inner light of unfounded confidence has finally been snuffed. Nice to see him taking some punishment at last. But yes, we’re concerned that this new threat to his daughter seems to have genuinely frightened him and made him even less forthcoming.’

‘On the way to the drop last night, I drove through the City and saw Frank’s cars,’ said Boxer. ‘I think you could call that the ultimate central position to create maximum awareness.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Charlie, but look:
because
those cars were being positioned in such sensitive areas of the city, they have been
very
carefully checked over. They went straight from the port to a police warehouse, where they were the subject of a close inspection by two Explosive Ordnance Disposal squads,’ said Deacon. ‘There was no trace of anything suspicious at all. The cars don’t even work. The batteries have been disconnected.’

‘Are the batteries still in the vehicles?’

‘Yes, because eventually they’re going to be reconnected and driven all over the country through various temporary switching stations that have been set up to show off the concept.’

‘What sort of work did the EOD squads do on the batteries themselves?’

‘I don’t know. I’d have to ask for the report they gave to the police and MI5 on that.’

‘I imagine the batteries are sealed units,’ said Boxer. ‘I doubt they would have taken them apart. Would they be able to detect a substance like PETN in a container within a sealed battery cell, from the outside?’

‘I’ll have to check,’ said Deacon. ‘I think I really would like to talk to Deepak Mistry now.’

Working with the local police and drug squad, Mercy and George Papadopoulos picked up the other four members of Hakim Tarar’s gang. They were all taken to Bethnal Green Police Station, where Mercy briefed an interviewing team who took the gang members off into separate rooms and worked them. Within an hour they’d come up with the name of the final member of the gang and Mercy telephoned her report to DCS Makepeace.

‘There’s only one member of the group missing now. His name is Rahim and, by all accounts, he’s the dangerous one, and armed. None of them will divulge his whereabouts, if they even know it. We still haven’t got any intelligence on where they’re holding Alyshia, but we’ve definitely picked on the right guys and we’ll keep banging away until they talk,’ she said.

‘Have you any suspicion of the possibility of a terrorist attack associated with this group?’

‘I can’t say,’ said Mercy. ‘We’re not that far in with them yet.’

Papadopoulos came in with a report he’d just torn from the hands of the lab technician. Mercy read it, nodded.

‘I’ve got to go now, sir,’ she said, and hung up.

She went back to the interview room; Hakim Tarar was flushed, his throat rasping. He had a temperature of 102 degrees. She organised two aspirin for him.

‘We’ve just had the analysis back from your underpants, the soaking wet ones we found on your bathroom floor,’ said Mercy. ‘The water extracted from them is an exact match for the canal water outside Unit 6b on Branch Place, where Alyshia D’Cruz was being held hostage. That must mean you were there last night.’

‘Yesterday afternoon I went for a run. It’s part of my boxing training. I tripped and fell in the canal. I got cold. I went to bed. I woke up this morning with a fever. I don’t know any Unit 6b. I don’t know any Alyshia D’Cruz.’

‘You supply the drug dealer known as MK with heroin.’

‘So
you
say.’

‘No, so says another dealer on the Colville Estate: Delroy Dread.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Delroy Dread said that two of your gang members went to see him last night and asked him if he knew anything about an Indian girl being held hostage somewhere on the estate by two white guys,’ said Mercy. ‘He even showed me the Met police flyer they left with him. Now why would two of your boys do something like that?’

‘Ask them. I don’t know.’

‘You ever met someone called Xan Palmer—Alexander Palmer?’

‘Never heard that name.’

‘Twenty-two years old. Pale face, big hair. He deals pills for MK in the clubs.’

‘Sorry, I can’t help you.’

‘He remembers you, and the blonde girl who was with him clocked you, too. And that big guy you brought along for support. Rahim “with eyes that could turn a man to stone”. You all met in MK’s flat last night. I’m surprised you have no recollection of all this, Hakim. You know what the desk sergeant just told me? They found MK’s body snagged in Bow Creek in Canning Town. He’d taken quite a beating before being strangled and he had some cigarette burns to the skin around his eyes. That ring any bells with you?’

Tarar looked up into his head.

‘None,’ he said. ‘And I know a bell when I hear one.’

2.00 P.M., WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH 2012

Fairlawn Grove, Chiswick, London W4

‘I’ve heard the report from the EOD squads. The batteries were X-rayed in position and found to be normal, which meant they didn’t feel the need to remove them, dismantle them and give them an internal visual inspection,’ said Simon Deacon. ‘Now the EOD guys concede that the batteries
are
big enough that something explosive could be disguised to look like a cell, which would not show up clearly on an X-ray.’

‘So what now?’ asked Boxer.

‘You know what intelligence work is all about, Charlie,’ said Deacon. ‘We have disparate pieces of information and all we’re trying to do is put the right pieces of information together to achieve the correct picture. Deepak might be able to verify or clarify one of those pieces.’

‘Can I ask you what it’s to do with?’

‘A break-in at D’Cruz’s car plant in early January this year.’

They went through the garden door at the side of the house and down the path to the small flat. Boxer knocked on the door. No answer. He took out his key, opened up the flat, which was empty.

‘Shit,’ said Boxer, as they walked through the empty rooms.

‘Too nervous,’ said Deacon. ‘Maybe, given that Frank’s after him, he started to feel like a sitting duck.’

‘Put your hands on your head,’ said Mistry, from the front door, gun in hand. ‘Don’t turn around. Just put your hands on your head. That’s both of you.’

Mistry crept forward, put the gun on Deacon’s spine and frisked him, found nothing, withdrew back to the door.

‘Turn around slowly, hands on head,’ said Mistry. ‘You sit on the sofa in the middle. Charles, you stay where you are.’

‘I can understand why you’re nervous,’ said Deacon, lowering himself onto the sofa. ‘All I can say is that we are who we say we are and we believe that you might have valuable intelligence—’

‘I need proof.’

‘I can only show you my ID card, which gives me access to the MI6 building.’

Mistry nodded. Deacon slowly produced his ID.

‘How do you know each other?’

‘He was my commanding officer in the 1991 Gulf War,’ said Boxer.

Silence. Mistry gave the ID back, lowered the gun.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been on the run now for a few months. I just got paranoid, that’s all.’

Mistry sat down, put the gun on the table.

‘You want to talk to me about Alyshia and Frank D’Cruz?’

Deacon produced a voice recorder, set it on a table between them. Boxer made some tea, put out a plate of biscuits.

‘You worked in the Konkan Hills steelworks,’ said Deacon. ‘Did you ever visit other companies that were going to take your steel; the car factories, for instance?’

‘Yes. I had close contacts with the various line managers to make sure that I was producing the right quality steel for them.’

‘Did that include the electric car business?’

‘I was given a tour of that facility and we had discussions.’

‘Were they producing the batteries in the same facility?’

‘Yes, but in a different building.’

‘The cars they were manufacturing for the European market, were they any different?’

‘There were some style differences, that’s all. The platform was the same.’

‘And the batteries?’

‘They were the same.’

‘Were those cars selling in the Indian market?’

‘Yes, but to an exclusive minority. They were expensive compared to the fossil fuel cars.’

Deacon and Mistry talked at some length about the recordings he’d made in the Juhu Beach house in November and December of last year. Nothing seemed to interest Deacon particularly until Mistry started talking about a meeting between Frank D’Cruz and an Afghan called Jawid Sahar.

‘Do you know how Frank had met Jawid Sahar originally?’

‘Interesting,’ said Mistry. ‘His was one of the few names that caught Chhota Tambe’s attention, too. Frank knew him through Amir Jat. He was a businessman with connections to Hamid Karzai’s family in Kabul. Frank was looking to sell his steel in Afghanistan.’

‘What did they talk about?’

‘They didn’t talk very much about steel. They spoke about Frank’s deal with the British government to set up the electric car factories in the UK,’ said Mistry. ‘There seemed to be no detail too small for him. I think Frank felt compelled to be so revealing because Jawid Sahar was a contact of Amir Jat’s. He wanted to be in there at the beginning of the rebuilding of Afghanistan, and a direct route into the Karzai family was very appealing.’

‘Did they happen to talk about the prototypes?’

‘They talked about everything,’ said Mistry. ‘Frank was very pleased with himself because he’d just got permission from the Mayor of London to install the advertising pitch for his cars in the middle of the City and out at Stratford, in front of the Olympic stadium. It gave him the opportunity to brag about all his ministerial connections.’

‘Did Jawid Sahar ever come back?’

‘Not in the following two weeks while I was still at Konkan Hills.’

‘Did you ever hear the name Mahmood Aziz mentioned in any conversation with Frank or any of the Juhu Beach house tapes?’

‘No.’

Deacon’s mobile rang, he took the call and listened for some minutes, hung up.

‘I think I’ve got all I need for the moment,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Just one last thing, Deepak. Do you know who shot the Englishman who came to see you in the Dharavi slum?’

‘I assume it was one of Anwar Masood’s men. They were looking for me and they’d shoot anybody.’

‘He was my agent and a good man.’

‘Then I’m sorry for that,’ said Mistry.

They exchanged mobile numbers in case there was a need for any further contact. Deacon left. Boxer walked him back to his car.

‘What was the significance of Jawid Sahar?’

‘He’s a known associate and supporter of Mahmood Aziz, who is Amir Jat’s main contact with the Afghan Taliban. Aziz is responsible for a number of bombing campaigns. He also has UK connections. He was born and lived here until he was twelve. And he has international ambitions on the scale of Osama bin Laden.’

‘And all those questions about the car factories?’

‘We’re still waiting to see the Indian police report about that break-in. We’ve been told that the warehouse holding the electric car prototypes for the UK market was accessed and that nothing of value had been stolen.’

‘You need to get your bomb squads back on the job,’ said Boxer.

‘The positive thing is that if any devices have been planted, they haven’t been detonated, which probably means they’re on a timer and they’re waiting for a specific moment,’ said Deacon. ‘And if there’s an override, they haven’t exercised it because they don’t know what we know.’

‘What do you think Frank knows about any of this?’

‘Everything and nothing. He obviously knows who he’s been speaking to but not necessarily their connections. He probably knows about the break-in to his car plant but not what it was about. I’m sure he doesn’t know detail because it would be too risky to have him out there knowing anything specific. I think he’s just been told to keep his mouth shut in a general way about anything potentially sensitive and if he’s lucky, they’ll release his daughter.’

‘I’m off her case now, but Alyshia still feels like my responsibility,’ said Boxer. ‘And I’m aware that eight million Londoners are more important than one young woman.’

Mercy went to the interview room door, knocked, sat back down. A few seconds later, the desk sergeant opened it. Xan Palmer and the girl were standing there, looking even paler and more panic-struck, having just been shown MK’s body.