Ken McClure - The Secret

Steven had to smile as he couldn’t help but see the funny side of it. It had been his idea and Malloy was probably right but Macmillan had been the one to suffer the brunt of the policeman’s attack on the ‘bloody madness’ of expecting the Met to plant porn on university computers in order to hand them over for examination. What was he thinking of? Macmillan had confessed to feeling like a naughty schoolboy being dressed down in the headmaster’s study by the time Malloy was finished. The thought of silver-haired mandarin, John Macmillan, standing with head bowed, nervously examining his shoes while biting his lip brought another smile from Steven and a slight shake of the head.

So where do we go from here? he pondered. He still hadn’t heard anything back from Liam so he had to assume that the boy had drawn a complete blank in trying to locate the disk. Another possible avenue had closed. He made a mental note to contact Liam on Friday to arrange a meeting. Maybe searching through Hausman’s stuff in the middle of the night really was becoming the only option — another depressing thought.

He turned on the TV and flicked through the channels looking for diversion. A documentary on fishing failed to excite, similarly, a programme on house renovation. A few seconds of an ‘alternative’ comedian only made him realise how much he missed Morecambe and Wise. Maybe it was the way he was feeling but nothing appealed for more than half a minute. Conceding defeat before his thumb grew tired, he made coffee and put Stan Getz on the stereo instead, only to find that Jazz Samba seemed totally at odds with the sound of rain battering on his window. He waited up until he’d heard from Tally that she was home safe before turning in.

Steven’s hopes of a good night’s sleep to put an end to his day of frustration and disappointment and set him up for the challenges of a brand new dawn proved elusive. He tossed and turned as elements of both his investigative and personal life swirled around in the margins between sleep and consciousness like pieces in a weightless jigsaw, all stubbornly refusing to click into any cohesive picture. It was almost a relief when his phone insisted he wake up at 3 a.m. It was John Macmillan.

‘I’ve just had Charlie Malloy on the phone. Two bodies have been discovered by night security at City College.’

Steven was suddenly very wide awake. Knowing that he wasn’t going to like the answer, he asked, ‘Do we know who?’

‘Dan Hausman and Liam Kelly.’

Steven felt a tsunami of conflicting emotions engulf him. ‘Oh Christ,’ he murmured. He was already playing out a scenario where Liam had taken matters into his own hands to investigate Hausman and had been caught in the act. Somehow, in the resulting altercation, both men had died.

Macmillan wiped out the imagined scenario. ‘Both were shot. Charlie thinks a pro job, back of the head.’

Steven was attempting to think up a new scenario when a sudden thought diverted him and he asked, ‘Why did Charlie call you ?’

‘Because he’s a nice man,’ replied Macmillan. ‘He saw the opportunity to help us out despite his earlier misgivings about our sanity. His boys will remove every bit of computer equipment they can lay their hands on, ostensibly as part of their murder investigation. They’re doing that right now. He said he’s got a feeling that official shutters are going to come down on these killings as soon as MI5 and their pals get their act together. Charlie will let us know where and when we can access the computers just as soon as he can. I’ll see about calling in a couple of our consultants. I take it you’ll make yourself available to brief them on what they’re looking for?’

‘Of course,’ said Steven. He recognised that this was a big step forward but Liam Kelly’s death was stopping him sounding enthusiastic. ‘It had to be Khan,’ he said. He was trying to think clearly and logically but thoughts of Liam kept intruding. Liam was little more than a boy, a bright student at the very outset of his career with everything to live for and now he was dead... thanks to him. The accusation was loud and clear. If he hadn’t approached Liam, none of this would have happened. Live with that Dunbar, if you can.

Macmillan picked up on a few muttered expletives at the other end of the phone. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked Steven.

Steven ignored the question and asked, ‘Did Charlie have anything else to say about the deaths?’

‘Quite a bit, none of it good. Hausman was tortured. Acid was involved.’

Steven screwed up his face as the horror levels kept rising. ‘So Khan wanted something... or wanted to know something... but he’s Pakistani Intelligence; he knows what’s been going on,’ he argued.

‘Maybe not everything,’ said Macmillan. ‘Pakistan’s a mess. No one knows who to trust in government. The political parties loathe each other and no one’s sure what the army has in mind. The intelligence services are fractured and probably pursuing their own agenda while the Americans are reluctant to tell them anything they don’t have to know. That’s how they got to Bin Laden. There are those who say if the Pakistani government had been told in advance of the operation, Bin Laden would have disappeared like snow in July.’

Steven nodded and took everything on board. ‘So it’s possible Khan knows something but not everything.’

‘But he wants to know everything... badly.’

‘And Liam?’ Steven asked in trepidation.

‘It’s cold comfort I know but there was no sign of torture.’

Steven was ready to snatch at any crumb of comfort that was offered. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Khan must have accepted that Liam didn’t know anything...’

‘Possibly, or maybe Liam appeared on the scene later, maybe even by accident, by which time Hausman had told Khan what he wanted to know,’ suggested Macmillan.

Steven wanted to embrace this suggestion with all his heart — the idea that Liam had gone into the lab for some reason unconnected with this whole sorry business — maybe something to do with his research — and had come across Khan and Hausman by accident was exactly what he wanted to believe but... There was always a but... ‘You said Dan Hausman was tortured. Did Charlie say... how badly?’

‘He was a real mess. His face was practically unrecognisable according to Charlie.’

‘So he must have held out for quite some time... or couldn’t tell Khan what he wanted to know... because he didn’t know himself... and Khan didn’t believe him.’

Both men imagined this nightmare situation for a few moments.

‘Charlie said the bodies were discovered during a routine security patrol in the small hours,’ said Macmillan. ‘By that time, Khan was long gone. That suggests he wasn’t interrupted during his interrogation. The fact that he executed both men at the end of it suggests strongly that he did get what he wanted.’

‘Unless of course, it was Liam who disturbed him and panicked him into giving up and leaving?’

Macmillan knocked that idea on the head. ‘Charlie says both men were found tied to chairs in a small office. He’d been questioning both.’

‘Okay, so he wasn’t disturbed,’ said Steven, sounding resigned.

Macmillan read his mind. ‘I think we have to accept that Khan now knows what we don’t.

Steven took this as a gentle reminder that he focus on the matter in hand and not dwell on things he could do nothing about like Liam’s death and how much he might be to blame. He took a deep breath and said, ‘We’ll need copies of the PM reports, particularly ballistics. We can ask Le Grice in Paris to check them against the bullet used to kill Aline Lagarde.’

‘Let’s get a couple of hours sleep,’ said Macmillan.