Liz Carlyle - 06 - Rip Tide (39 page)

‘
Namaste
,’ the crowd roared back.

‘
Salaam,
’ he shouted.

‘
Salaam
,’ they roared back.

And finally ‘Hello,’ and back from the crowd ‘Hello.’

‘Are you enjoying yourselves?’

‘Yes,’ the crowd shouted back.

‘Well, now you’re in for the treat of the afternoon. They’re here, straight from their successful European tour, already booked for a US tour and waiting to perform, just for you. Put your hands together. It’s . . . the Chick Peas!’

A huge answering roar came from the crowd.

Tahira was watching the big screen beside her as the group’s band began to play a heavy bass line accompanied by loud insistent drums. Suddenly from the wings the lead singer, Banditti Kahab, marched on to the stage wearing a white leather miniskirt, stamping her tall, shiny, high-heeled boots in time to the beat. She had huge silver hoop earrings in her ears, silver bangles on her arms, and her hair was brushed out in a lustrous black mane.

The two other Chick Peas now came on to the stage, one in wide-bottomed silk trousers displaying a bare midriff, the other in skintight crops and what looked like a bra made of sequins.

They stood side by side at the front of the stage, waving and smiling at the audience. Then suddenly the band started to play the intro to their hit single and the girls began to sing. Banditti waved to the crowd to join in and the resulting noise was deafening.

Tahira sang too, and glanced over at Malik to see if he was joining in. But he wasn’t singing; he was looking at her. She smiled but he didn’t smile back. She felt uneasy again. What was the matter? As the song ended and the applause died down a bit, she said, ‘That was great, wasn’t it?’

He didn’t reply. A guitar was being tuned before the next song and over Malik’s shoulder, on the screen, Tahira could see Banditti moving around the stage, waiting till the band was ready. Malik said, ‘Listen, I have to go now.’

‘What do you mean, go?’ She couldn’t believe it.

He nodded. She said, ‘So you
aren’t
enjoying it.’

‘No, no. It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I just have to leave.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why have you got to leave?’

He gave a thin smile. ‘It doesn’t matter. Just trust me.’

‘But where are you going? You’ll never be able to get out in this crush. When will I see you again?’

He looked at her and said, ‘I can’t predict that. But I am sure we will meet again. Maybe not in this world, but certainly in the next one.’

As he said these words, Tahira went cold from head to toe. She stared at him open-mouthed. There was a dreamy look on his face now, as if he was already somewhere else.

She didn’t want to think about that. Instead she said, ‘Why are you talking like this? Why can’t you stay here with me? You wanted to come,’ she added accusingly.

But he wasn’t listening. Malik seemed to be drifting away from her, right before her eyes. She was helpless to call him back.

He said slowly, ‘You are very special, Tahira. Please always remember that I said that. Goodbye.’ And he reached out his hand and touched her lightly on the cheek, then turned and walked away. She watched, mystified, as he headed towards the gates.

Then Malik suddenly changed direction, angling sideways into the back of the crowd. She lost sight of him for a moment, then saw the orange baseball cap bobbing among the excited teenage girls. What was he doing?

And then she realised he was heading for the stage, and suddenly she knew. It had all been a sham. He hadn’t changed his mind about the Chick Peas, or the West, or the evil he seemed to see in everything Tahira enjoyed. He had tricked her, pretending to have changed; he’d used her as cover to get into the concert. He was going to do something terrible.

Chapter 60

‘We’ve lost them.’

Lamb’s voice came over the radio just as Fontana pulled up at the back entrance to the park. By coming this way, he’d managed to avoid the worst of the traffic. ‘no access to concert’ read a makeshift notice stuck on the gate. A couple of stewards wearing armbands were directing hopefuls around to the other side of the park.

The radio crackled and Lamb’s voice came through again: ‘Both targets were together outside the entrance gates two minutes ago, but we lost them in the crowd.’

‘Damn!’ said Fontana, banging his hand on the steering wheel in frustration.

‘Come on,’ said Liz. ‘Everyone’s looking for them. Let’s go and help.’

They left the car by the entrance. Fontana flashed his badge at the stewards and one of them opened the gate to let them in. The combined noise of the music and the audience was ear-splitting, even here behind the stage. Liz could see the vast crowd gathered in front of it, swaying to the music as the girls began to sing. A group of roadies stood smoking by the short flight of steps that led up to the rear of the stage. As a policeman walked towards them, waving his arm, they ground their cigarettes out in the grass.

Fontana was on his radio, talking to the crowd-control officer in charge of the concert, who was saying, ‘Four armed officers in the front few rows, ready to intercept anyone trying to reach the stage. The others combing the crowd. All uniform have the description of the suspect and the girl.’

The officer went on, ‘We’ve taken the decision to let the concert carry on. There’s a serious risk the crowd will panic and stampede for the exit if we make any announcement or try to stop it now.’

Fontana shook his head. ‘I’m sure he’s right,’ he said to Liz. ‘But I’m glad it’s his call and not mine.’

From where she now stood, by the side of the open-air stage, Liz had a clear view of the crowd. At the front it was overwhelmingly female, young Asian girls happily singing along with the group. Many of them were dancing to the music; a few sat on the shoulders of their friends, waving their hands from side to side in time to the rhythm. Finding anyone in this throng was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The only hope was that a single male figure would stick out in this predominantly female crowd. But the audience stretched almost to Stratford Road, and further back there were couples and families. If Tahira and Malik were still together and towards the back of the crowd, finding them would be well-nigh impossible. Liz did a rough calculation and reckoned there must be five thousand people in the park.

And then, incredibly, she saw Tahira. She was standing by herself to one side, just outside the ropes that cordoned off the audience enclosure, near a huge television screen. She was holding something in her hand, and looking to one side. There was no sign of Malik.

‘I see the girl,’ Liz shouted at Fontana over the din. ‘Tell your men Malik will be on his own.’

She ran along the edge of the vast crowd, outside the ropes. No one paid any attention to her; all eyes were glued to the stage as Banditti began to sing a new song. The noise was deafening, and when Liz shouted at Tahira as she drew closer, it was like shouting into the mouth of a gale. Liz could see the girl clearly now; she was holding her mobile, looking as if she were trying to make a call. When Liz reached her, out of breath and panting, Tahira still hadn’t seen her. She tapped her on the shoulder and Tahira looked up in astonishment.

‘I was just ringing you,’ she said.

‘Where’s Malik?’

‘He’s gone.’

Fontana joined them as Liz asked urgently, ‘Did he leave the park?’ Tahira shook her head. ‘He started to, but then he moved into the crowd.’ She pointed at the semi-hysterical mass of girls.

Fontana shook his head. ‘How are we going to find him in that?’

‘You might spot him,’ said Tahira. ‘He’s wearing a baseball cap now. He put it on when we got inside the gates. It’s orange.’

Fontana began shouting into his radio while Liz scanned the audience. Her heart sank as she scanned a sea of pulsating bodies and countless flashes of orange – baseball caps, and Chick Peas T-shirts emblazoned on the back with the band’s bright orange logo.

Then she felt a sharp nudge in her ribs. ‘I can see him,’ cried an agitated Tahira. ‘He’s taken his cap off. Look, he’s that one there, pushing through the crowd.’ She gestured towards the middle of the audience, about halfway between where they stood and the stage. Liz peered at the waving throng, then she suddenly spotted a bareheaded man, moving through the crowd, slowly working his way towards the stage. It was Malik.

‘Look, can you see him?’ Liz said to Fontana, lifting her arm to point to the figure forcing his way through the onlookers.

Fontana stared and stared, then suddenly said, ‘Got him!’ He spoke into his radio, and listened to the response crackling back. He shook his head in frustration. ‘There’s no one near him. We’re going to lose him again.’

But Malik was clearly visible now. He was no longer heading for the stage, but was moving slowly towards the rope cordoning off their side of the crowd. Fontana was on the radio again, giving a running commentary. ‘He’s coming out of the crowd. Left-hand side facing the stage . . . halfway down . . .’

He turned to Liz. ‘He must have found he couldn’t get through all those people.’

They stood watching, the distant figure becoming clearer with every second that passed. Two armed policeman came running from the side of the stage just as Malik – distinguishable now in his suit jacket – pushed his way out of the heaving mob of girls and started to run along beside the rope towards the stage.

Then he saw the two policemen ahead of him and hesitated. One hand moved towards his jacket pocket, and for a moment Liz thought he was going to blow himself up right there. One of the policemen shouted at him – Liz could see his lips working furiously. His colleague was crouching, his weapon held in both hands, aimed and ready to fire.

But Malik must have changed his mind. His hand came out of his pocket again and he turned round, now facing their little group of three, less than a hundred yards away. He started running towards them, moving awkwardly in his heavy jacket.

Liz heard Tahira shriek, and Fontana stepped in front to shield them. The two policemen sprinting after Malik were catching up fast. Both had their weapons out now, and both were shouting – though with the music so loud there was no chance Malik would hear them.

He was now only fifty yards away from Liz and Tahira, but the two Special Branch men were very close behind. They were trying to get into a position where they could fire away from the crowd and avoid hitting Liz and her two companions.

Malik was within thirty yards now and suddenly his hand moved quickly into his jacket again. Both policemen fired. The Glock pistols made a flat metallic noise, hardly audible over the beat of the Chick Peas’ backing band.

As Tahira screamed Malik fell, flat on his face. He lay unmoving on the ground as blood seeped slowly out of his head.

Chapter 61

Amazingly, virtually no one in the crowd had paid any attention to what was going on at the side of the park. The armed officers quickly put away their weapons, as uniformed police arrived to shield the body from view, and gently but firmly move the crowd away from the ropes, telling them that someone had had an accident. People were happy to comply since they were far more interested in the music being played on stage than in someone who’d been taken ill.

Whatever explosives there were beneath Malik’s jacket, the man was not alive to detonate them. But within minutes the bomb squad arrived, coming in discreetly from the back of the ground while the police finished erecting a tent over the body and placing a cordon round the area. The concert was nearly over now, and people were beginning to drift away from the back of the crowd. Soon the rest of the audience would be on the move, shepherded out by the police; then the park would be closed while the forensic team moved in.

Liz walked with Tahira to the back entrance where they sat in Fontana’s car watching as various police units came and went. Tahira had said nothing since Malik was shot. She was shaking and was obviously in deep shock. Suddenly she started to cry – big shuddering sobs. Liz put an arm round her. ‘You were very brave,’ she said, meaning every word.

Tahira was trying to speak through her sobs, ‘He was heading straight for me. He wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill all of us.’

Liz had no doubt that Malik had decided to take them with him once he saw he couldn’t get near the stage. Ten more seconds and he would have succeeded. But that wouldn’t help Tahira. So she said gently, ‘You know death didn’t mean the same thing to him as it does to you and me.’

Tahira looked up, wiping her streaming eyes with the back of her hand. ‘What do you mean?’

‘For Malik this was only a temporary world, a brief stop on the way to Paradise. That’s why he wanted to kill himself. Death is welcomed by someone who thinks they’re going to another, better life.’

‘But we would all have died! And he said he cared about me. He told me I should always remember that. He said I was special . . .’

‘I know. And he meant it. But he also believed you would meet again – in this other, better world of his.’