Close Call (29 page)

Although he hated leaving the job unfinished, Seurat couldn’t think of any reason to object to Isabelle’s plan, so they put everything back as it was in the flat and went towards the front door where the two officers were waiting in the passage.

They closed the door behind them and Isabelle and Martin Seurat began to walk off down the corridor as the officer rang the old lady’s bell. Nothing happened. So he rang again and put his ear to the door, listening for her. Then the officer called out to Isabelle, ‘I think you should come.’

‘What is it?’ she said as she and Seurat walked back.

‘Listen.’

Isabelle bent down and opened the letter box. She could hear a gasping, choking sound.

She said, ‘I think she’s ill. Sounds like a heart attack. Open the door.’

The lock was no more difficult than the one on the flat next door and within seconds the door was open. Martin elbowed Isabelle out of the way and went in first. He’s acting as if the old bird is his grandmother, Isabelle thought with amusement.

The flat had exactly the same layout as the one next door and the sounds were coming from behind the closed door to the living room in front. Martin pushed the door open and saw the old lady standing up, held on her feet by a thin, dark young man. He had one arm round her neck and with his other hand he was pushing a revolver hard into the side of her throat. The old lady’s eyes were open but only the whites were showing; her mouth was slack and saliva was dribbling out and down her chin. Her skin was a bluish white and there was a raw, rattling noise coming from her open mouth.

‘Let her go,’ shouted Martin. ‘Can’t you see? You’re suffocat­ing her.’

The young man, whom Isabelle recognised from the photos as Ramdani, tightened his grip on the old lady’s throat, and pointed his pistol at Martin. He didn’t look much more than twenty years old, thought Isabelle, and he looked frantic.

‘Stop it!’ Martin commanded. ‘She’s choking. She can’t breathe.’

Isabelle added, trying to sound calm, ‘Put the gun down. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. And let the lady go.’

The man stared at Isabelle, and for a moment she thought that her words had got through to him. Martin must have thought so too, for he took a step forward and extended his hand. ‘Just give me the gun.’

Ramdani relaxed his grip on the old lady’s throat, but instead of handing over the gun, he held his arm straight out and fired.

Isabelle watched in horror as the shot hit Martin square in the chest, its force knocking him to his knees. Immediately one of the armed officers behind her raised his own weapon and fired back.

Ramdani’s face creased in agonised surprise. He dropped the gun as his legs gave way, and he knocked down the old lady as he fell.

There were three bodies on the floor now, but only one of them was moving. The old lady was gasping and shuddering, the other two were still. One of the officers was on his phone calling for backup and medical assistance, Isabelle was kneeling on the floor, holding Martin’s head up, his blood running over her hands and down his jacket. She was shouting, ‘Martin, Martin,’ but he didn’t respond and she knew that he was dead.

Later Isabelle could only dimly recall the sequence of events that followed the shootings. Looking back she ­realised that she had acted automatically to try to prevent a public furore. She had sent the officers in their GAZ jackets outside to explain to interested bystanders, attracted by the ambulance and the presence of the police, that there had been a gas emergency, and that an old lady had had a heart attack, but the emergency was over and the old lady was still alive and was going to hospital.

She had insisted that the bodies of Martin and the young man, presumably Ramdani, once they had been formally declared dead, be left where they were until the middle of the night, when they could be taken out secretly.

She had stayed, at first sitting on the floor beside Martin, tears running down her cheeks, then sitting in the kitchen making the dreadful but necessary phone calls. Throughout this, some of her colleagues had thoroughly searched the old lady’s flat. It was obvious how Ramdani had got in. The grating in the bedroom was off and there was a gaping hole in the ceiling. Why he had chosen her flat no one could explain, unless he had gone into the ducting when he heard the knocking on his door and thought he could hide there. Or perhaps he had heard Seurat come up into the crawl space, and panicked. He might have thought it would be safe to hide in the old lady’s flat, or possibly he’d thought he could escape through her front door, until he’d realised that the officers were outside in the corridor. When they’d broken in, he must have intended to use her as a shield for his escape.

By the time the medical team returned to remove the bodies, Isabelle was back in the living room sitting beside Martin. Before Ramdani was taken out, she ordered a policeman to search his body thoroughly. She was glad she did – in a trouser pocket they found a folded train schedule. It was for the Eurostar from Paris’s Gare du Nord to London.

Watching as Martin was zipped into a bag and taken away, Isabelle thought how unnecessary his death was, and cursed herself for letting him push ahead of her as they came into the flat. Like the grandmother he had been telling her about, and like the old lady who had now been taken despite her protests to hospital, Martin had been absolutely fearless. And curious, fatally curious.

The only good thing to come out of this whole dreadful night, she told herself, was that it was now pretty certain that the terrorists were heading for England.

Chapter 48

At the safe flat in Paris, Annette Milraud was in the kitchen making a late supper. Her husband Antoine was with her. Martin Seurat had decided to move Antoine from the Montreuil house to share the flat, judging that he was likely to cooperate more if he was with his wife than if they were kept separated. As well as the guards, Jacques Thibault was there this evening too. He was monitoring Milraud’s laptop and phone for any messages from Zara or the contact in Dagestan – any communication at all that might throw light on what might happen next. If need be, he could immediately ask Milraud to explain.

Annette poked her head round the sitting-room door. ‘Would you like to join us for supper?’

‘No, thanks,’ said Thibault. ‘I’ll stay here.’

As well as Milraud’s laptop, he kept checking his own for any news of the operation at Ramdani’s flat. From the kitchen he could hear the low murmur of the Milrauds’ conversation. Once Annette gave out a loud groan, and he heard Antoine say, ‘It will be all right, I promise.’

It was about eleven o’clock when the landline phone rang. Thibault picked it up, thinking with relief it must be Isabelle at last. But it was a man’s voice. He identified himself as a senior police officer. ‘Am I speaking to Monsieur Thibault?’

‘Yes,’ said Jacques, warily, wondering why on earth a police officer had his name and this number.

‘I have been asked to ring you by Madame Isabelle Florian.’

‘Is she all right?’ asked Thibault.

‘Yes. But she wished me to tell you that there has been some shooting at a flat in Seine-Saint-Denis. The occupant of an apartment has been shot dead.’

The policeman seemed to hesitate and Thibault sensed that there was more to come. ‘Is he the only casualty?’

The policeman said slowly, ‘One other person was shot. He is also dead, alas.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Thibault, thinking it must be some poor policeman who had gone first into the flat. Thibault barely registered what the caller said next – ‘A Monsieur Martin Seurat from your Service, I believe’ – but then the words sank in.

‘Martin Seurat? Are you sure?’

‘Positive, Monsieur. He was dead when he reached the hospital. I am so very sorry.’

In the background Thibault heard Annette clearing the table in the kitchen. He thanked the policeman for calling and hung up. He would learn the details later on; right now, he was too stunned to take in much more than the death of a senior officer of the DGSE.

‘What’s wrong?’ Milraud was in the doorway to the kitchen, eyeing him suspiciously.

Thibault stared back at him. ‘There’s been a shooting.’

‘Where?’ Milraud asked, bewildered. Milraud had not been told anything about Ramdani or the anticipated arrival in Paris of the group of jihadis, but that didn’t stop Thibault’s mounting anger.

‘In a tower block The wrong man got shot. Martin Seurat is dead.’

‘What?’

‘I said Seurat is dead.’

A plate shattered on the floor in the kitchen. A moment later Annette appeared in the doorway. ‘What did you say?’

‘I think you heard me.’

She looked at Thibault with disbelief, her arms outstretched. For once Antoine didn’t try to comfort her but sat down heavily in one of the sitting-room chairs. He was clearly stunned, one hand on his forehead, his head bowed.

‘But why?’ asked Annette, as tears began to trickle from her eyes.

Thibault sensed that she must have had feelings for Seurat. He said, ‘I don’t know the details. Obviously something went badly wrong.’ He stared angrily at Milraud.

Annette was crying openly now. ‘But this is too dreadful.’

‘I know,’ said Thibault in a cold voice.

Milraud looked up. ‘How can that have happened? I never imagined anything like this.’

‘Oh no?’ said Thibault. ‘What did you think was going to happen when you met that Arab in the Luxembourg Gardens? What did you think would result from your meeting in Berlin? Did you think it was all just a harmless game?’

Milraud said, ‘Martin was my colleague for years. Whatever our later differences, he and I were once very close.’

Thibault looked at him incredulously. ‘You talk as if you were old pals who sadly no longer saw each other. We all know your story – they use you as a case history of betrayal in the Ethics lecture when we join the Service. So don’t try to whitewash your past; it just dirties the name of a man who was widely admired. One who died trying to prevent the harm you were encouraging.’

Milraud sat up. ‘You are blaming me for his death? I’ve told you everything I know.’

‘No doubt.’  Thibault shook his head in contempt. ‘What a pity you couldn’t have done it earlier.’

Ten minutes later Thibault sat gazing at the screen of his laptop but not seeing it. He could not have tolerated any more talking with either Milraud, but thankfully they had withdrawn to their bedroom. There was no one for him to phone: Isabelle would be busy for hours now, or she wouldn’t have asked a police officer to break the news.

Then his mobile phone bleeped and the screen lit up. It was a text message from Peggy in London:

Charlie has just unzipped message: expected party in Paris cancelled. Group delayed leaving Yemen, now going straight on to UK. Ramdani to make own way and join them there. Sorry so late in letting you know. Problem with decoding. Peggy.

He stared blankly at the screen now, trying to still a surge of nausea. Perhaps if there hadn’t been a decoding problem and the message had come through earlier, Martin Seurat would still be alive.

Chapter 49

Liz was lying on her bed in her Kentish Town flat, shoes off but still fully dressed. Isabelle had promised to let her know as soon as there was news of the group of jihadis, due to arrive at four o’clock at the flat in Paris. But she had heard nothing before she left work at seven and still nothing three hours later, by which time she had stretched out on her bed, with both her phones beside her. She was half asleep when her landline started ringing. She sat up and grabbed the handset.

‘Hello.’

‘Liz, it’s Peggy.’

‘Oh, Peggy. I thought you might be Isabelle. Have you heard anything from Paris?’

‘No. But it will have been a no-show. That’s probably why they haven’t rung. I’ve just heard from Charlie Simmons. There’s been a message in the cooking code. It was sent this morning but it’s taken him ages to decrypt because it was full of mistakes. He thinks whoever sent it didn’t properly understand the rules and it was badly encoded. Anyway he’s managed to get into it and apparently it says that they’re not going to Paris after all. They’re coming straight on to Britain. I’m just about to text Jacques Thibault. They must all have been wondering why no one turned up at the flat. They were probably hanging on, hoping they were just late.’

‘Yes, but I’m surprised they didn’t let us know that no one had appeared. I wonder what they’ve been doing. I’m going to ring Isabelle now to see what’s going on.’

‘OK. While you do that I’ll text Jacques. Then I think we need to warn A4 that Zara might be on the move soon. Because if his friends are on the way here, they may arrive tonight, and he’s the only angle we’ve got on them.’

‘Yes, and when I’ve spoken to Isabelle, or Martin if I can’t get her, I’ll warn the Manchester Counter-Terrorist Group that we may have some action for them soon. Our friends may well be heading for one of those warehouses.’

Liz put the phone down and was just about to pick it up again to ring Isabelle when her mobile suddenly came to life.

‘Liz, it’s Isabelle.’