Nick Oldham - Instinct

Henry nodded slowly. ‘This looks incredibly like the scarf that Natalie Philips had around her neck on the photo her mum provided for us.’

‘I know,’ Rik whispered. Both men could have been sick there and then.

Henry’s mobile rang. He slowly replaced the scarf back into the bag and answered it.

‘Henry — you awake?’ It was Karl Donaldson.

‘I am now.’

‘Good, can you speak, or are you… y’know?’

‘I am just a bit busy, actually. Police work busy.’

‘Henry — do you know what time it is?’

‘Yeah, well as they say on TV, crime won’t crack itself.’

‘But you’re a superintendent! Aren’t you supposed to be tucked up, beddy-byes? You’re not setting a good example.’

‘Never have done… anyway, why’re you still up? You’ve been living in this country long enough, surely you’re not still suffering from jet-lag?’

‘Funny guy, huh? Even us Yanks work late occasionally.’

‘OK, banter over and out. What do you want?’

‘That apartment those suicide bombers were using?’

‘Apartment?’ Henry said. ‘That’s a bit strong. Even calling it a flat is pushing it.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Just teasing.’

‘You got any CSIs on call could do something for me?’

‘At the flat? Hasn’t it all been done?’

‘Yep, at the flat.’

‘When, now?’

‘Yes, and you might need a plumber, too.’

‘Karl — what the fuck are you talking about? It’s late and I’m dealing with something unpleasant.’

‘I wanna stick my fingers in a U-bend.’

‘Why, exactly?’

Donaldson told him but he sounded like he was talking with his head in a bucket, and though Henry listened hard he only got half a tale. Irritably, Henry said, ‘Where are you now?’

‘M6 northbound, just passing Rugby.’

‘Two hours away,’ Henry calculated, even on empty roads and especially in Donaldson’s hulking four-wheel drive monstrosity. Henry pondered a second, mulling logistics. ‘Tell you what, head for my house and I’ll meet you there. Get a couple of hours sleep, nothing’s going to spoil in the meantime, and I’ll arrange to meet a CSI at seven this morning. How does that sound?’

‘Too lazy, but I’ll go for it.’

At the same moment as Henry ended that call, Steve Flynn was making a call on his mobile phone to a number in the UK.

The phone in the bedroom rang out shrilly, but only the man in the bed stirred and reached out for it, almost knocking everything off the bedside cabinet in his grogginess. The woman next to him, his wife, turned over and dragged the duvet off him and continued to snore softly.

‘Un-huh,’ the man said.

‘It’s me, Steve Flynn — and don’t you dare fucking hang up Jerry.’

The man in the bed, Detective Constable Jerry Tope, squinted at the bedside clock and muttered something which, though indecipherable, was clear in its meaning.

‘I take it you’re in bed,’ Flynn said.

Tope gave an affirmative grunt and said, ‘Whajjawan?’

Flynn managed a slight grin. ‘Get yourself out of there, away from the warm clutches of your lovely missus, and get your brain working — I need to pick it.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Just hand the phone over to Marina, and I’ll have a little discussion with her.’

By that time, Tope had sat up and swung his legs out of bed, the phone to his right ear, his left hand scrunching his face into life.

‘I can’t talk to you, Flynn, you get me in shit,’ Tope whined.

‘If you don’t talk to me, you’ll be in real shit — personally and professionally, guaranteed.’

Tope glanced at the sleeping mound in the bed, exhaled wearily and said, ‘Give us a second.’

He stood up and padded out of the bedroom in his PJs, his top tucked neatly into the bottoms, cursing the fact he had ever become involved in a cover-up with Flynn.

Way back they had been police buddies, colleagues verging on friends, in the halcyon days before Flynn fell out with the police hierarchy and became a pariah. After a particularly riotous night out in Preston, a Tuesday, on one of those nights known colloquially as ‘Grab-a-granny’, when it was alleged that slightly older and more experienced women were out on the razz and were easy prey, Tope, amazing himself, had done something very silly with a lady who was actually a grandmother — at the ripe old age of thirty-four. It was a sordid tryst that ended up with Tope pleading with Flynn to provide a cover story for him in order to put his highly suspicious wife off the scent. Flynn had done him the favour, saved the marriage and Tope had learned a very salutary lesson.

What neither man expected was that Flynn would eventually use this piece of knowledge to prise information out of Tope after leaving the police. Flynn had only done this on a couple of desperate occasions and, in truth, got no joy from doing it. But it was certainly handy to have a lever on someone like Tope who worked as a DC on the Intelligence Unit, which gave him a position of great knowledge. It also helped that Tope was also a highly skilled interrogator of computers. A hacker, in other words.

‘What is it?’ Tope asked bluntly, sitting down heavily on the settee in the lounge.

‘Serious stuff. I need some information.’

‘I will lose my fucking job,’ Tope hissed. He looked around to check he wasn’t being watched by the surveillance branch.

‘Not on this one, you won’t. This time it’s commendations all round.’

‘Not with you, Steve.’ Tope’s voice rose towards hysterical.

‘OK — how does this grab you as an opener? Where is Jamil Akram?’

The phone went silent as Tope digested this. ‘Who?’

‘Don’t fuck with me, Jerry, or I’ll catch the next flight to Blackpool and come knocking on your door.’

‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘Does anybody?’

‘I wouldn’t know, would I?’

‘He managed to get out of the UK and disappear, didn’t he?’

‘Common knowledge.’

‘After he’d set up two stupid lads as suicide bombers.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do. Look, I’m not screwing around here,’ Flynn growled. ‘What would you say if I told you I knew where he’d run to, where he was less than forty-eight hours ago and where he probably is now?’

‘I’d say talk to Henry Christie.’

‘That twat?’

‘First name that came to mind… er… er… yes, him. If you purport to know so much, you’ll know he had some serious involvement with one of the suicide bombers. He’s a good port of call.’

Flynn closed his eyes in despair. Being told to speak to Henry Christie was like being told to stuff razor blades into his mouth — painful. Ever since he had left the cops under a cloud of suspicion, Flynn had harboured a festering dislike and distrust of Henry, who he saw as the person who’d pushed him out of the job. Not that Flynn really had evidence to back that up, but Henry was a good target for his ire.

‘Give me his number.’

Tope did so and Flynn ended the call.

Flynn was still in the bedroom of the house in Banjul. Four dead men lay in spreading pools of blood in the living area and Aleef, the middleman, sat shaking in one corner of the room, his face a bruised, swollen and bloody mess. He nursed his left hand, the little finger of which had been bent backwards and snapped like a dry twig by Flynn. He had been prepared to go for every single finger, one at a time, but Aleef had screamed, pleaded for mercy and promised to tell him everything he knew. Just let him live.

Flynn turned slowly back to him like the devil and Aleef whimpered under his gaze.

Over three thousand miles to the north of Flynn’s position, a communications operative/intelligence analyst based at the government listening station, GCHQ, in Gloucestershire sat back in his comfortable chair and removed his earphones. He held up a finger and signalled to his supervisor, who rushed down from her raised dais and leaned over his shoulder.