Tony Park - Silent Predator

Before either of them could order the stranger to stop, the house exploded.

A fireman found Steve the Anorak’s body after the blaze had been extinguished. Harry sat with his feet in the gutter, his head in his hands. There was the smell of fresh vomit near him.

Tom sat on the bonnet of a police Mondeo, his hands wrapped around a takeaway tea in a Styrofoam cup. The local residents had long since foregone their television sets — in fact, some of them were on TV now, fodder for the reporters who roamed from person to person, looking for the neighbour who could describe the conflagration in the most graphic detail. He tenderly fingered the cut above his left eye. A shard of flying glass from number fourteen’s front windows had sliced a furrow parallel to his eyebrow, but the ambulance paramedics had been able to close the wound with adhesive butterfly stitches. Despite the crusted blood down his cheek he would be okay.

‘Not much left of our computer wizard,’ Chief Inspector David Shuttleworth said, his breath clouding as he strode over. ‘Looks like the bomb was planted somewhere in the centre of the front room — perhaps even under the computer desk itself.’

‘I don’t know what was on that machine, guv, other than some porn, but he died for it.’

‘Aye, well, there’s no way we’ll know now,’ Shuttle-worth said. He fished a packet of Dunhill from his Barbour jacket and offered Tom a cigarette.

Tom shook his head. ‘Given up. Again.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Shuttleworth paused to light up. ‘Cock-up hardly begins to describe this one, Tom. What do you make of the presence of the shooter, as well as the Pakistanis?’

Tom shrugged. ‘My guess is that he was watching the house, as were we, and he was sneaking in to take up an ambush position, though I have no idea why.’

‘Well, we know the two dead chaps were people smugglers, who were supposedly doing their bit for world Jihad by helping out the odd terrorist with papers and money and the like, but why would our man in black shoot them?’

‘Because they knew too much and he couldn’t risk them being caught?’ Tom sipped his tea.

Shuttleworth nodded and took a long drag on his cigarette. The smoke and frozen breath wreathed his head and shoulders in a shimmering aura, backlit by red and blue flashing lights. ‘They’re getting better at covering their tracks all the time.’

‘The IT guy was just about wetting himself over whatever was on that machine.’

‘Why did you not just take the computer or the hard drive?’

Tom looked across at his superior and frowned. They both knew the answer to that question. The United Kingdom might be at war with Islamic fundamentalist terror groups, but they still had to fight by the rule of law.

Shuttleworth checked his notebook again. ‘You say he gave no indication about what he’d found on the hard drive other than…’

‘Porn. Like I told you. “Some sick shit” was all he said, though I’m betting he didn’t stay on just to check out some fuck pictures.’

‘Well, we’ve got two dead suspects, three injured civilians from next door, no computer, no computer expert and a masked assassin on the loose. Not to mention a missing protection officer.’

Tom drained his tea and crushed the cup as the rest of Shuttleworth’s comment penetrated the ringing that lingered in his ears from the bomb blast. ‘Who’s missing?’

‘Nick.’

‘What happened?’

‘He was supposed to be at a political fundraising dinner in the city with Robert Greeves this evening, but he didn’t show. Caused a hell of a stink. He dropped Greeves at his home at five, but didn’t return to collect him at seven. We’ve tried his home and mobile phone, but there’s no answer. Deidre hasn’t heard from him either.’

Tom frowned. Nick Roberts had been a friend once — they had joined the Met at about the same age and had matching careers. Nick’s ex-wife, Deidre, had worked as a nurse in the same hospital as Tom’s wife Alexandra, and it was really the two women who had been close friends. After Nick and Deidre’s divorce, and Alex’s death, he and Nick had seen little of each other outside of work. As protection officers, both spent long periods away from home. Those absences had cost Nick his marriage but provided blessed relief for Tom, as the job had helped him a little by taking him away on a regular basis from his lonely home full of memories.

‘That’s odd. I’ve never heard of him missing a job.’

‘Any problems that you know of?’ Chief Inspector Shuttleworth, a Scot, was new to their team, having transferred in on promotion, so he still didn’t know all of his officers’ idiosyncrasies.

‘With Nick? Not that I know of. Likes a drink — who doesn’t in our job — but he’s never called in sick because of a hangover, if that’s what you mean. Seems to have a different bird every few weeks.’

Tom felt uncomfortable singing Nick’s praises any more than that. Once, when they were both on the same team protecting a visiting African head of state, a group of a dozen expatriate dissidents had staged a protest outside the London restaurant where the president was dining. Nick had warned one of the demonstrators to back off when he approached the principal too closely. The man, who appeared drunk, had told Nick to fuck off. Nick had punched the man, hard and fast in the stomach, with enough force to drop him. Someone on the team — not Tom — had reported the incident. Tom had expected the protestor to lay a formal complaint, and took the view that if he was called to make a statement he would do so, truthfully. Nick had used unnecessary force. Word got back to the squad’s former chief superintendent and Nick had been called into his office to explain his version of events. Fortunately for Nick, the complainant never came forward. There had been speculation around the office that a couple of the president’s personal staff had leaned on the witness. Tom had noticed a marked cooling in his relationship with Nick and while he never said anything to Tom’s face, Tom suspected that Nick thought it was he who had gone to their governor behind his back.

‘Deidre didn’t seem too worried when I spoke to her. I know divorce is never pretty, but it was like he could have died and she couldn’t have cared less.’

Tom shrugged. ‘I can call round his place if you like. We — I mean, I — still have a key. Alex and Deidre used to check in on each other’s places when we were on holidays. Water the plants and all. Nick stayed in the family home and Deidre bought a new place.’

Shuttleworth nodded. ‘Aye, okay. If you find him in bed with a tart or a hangover, shoot him, please, before the Minister for Defence Procurement catches up with him. It’ll be the kindest thing all round.’

Shuttleworth had suggested he see the Met’s psychiatrist in the morning for stress counselling, but Tom reckoned a lie-in might be a more therapeutic option. It was going to be a late night.

He waved his thanks to the constable who had driven him to his home in Highgate and walked up the steps to his terrace house. Southwood Lane was pretty posh these days — the habitat of bankers, lawyers, doctors and the like. Though he didn’t wear a uniform he was pretty sure most of the people up and down the street knew he was a copper. It was probably why they kept their distance. He’d grown up in the house and lived there most of his life, apart from six years in his early twenties after he’d joined the Met. Tom was an only child whose parents had him late in life and they had passed away, within a year of each other, when he was twenty-eight. He’d been seeing Alex for four years by then and it had seemed logical, in a strange way, that the passing of his folks had been the catalyst for him to ask her to marry him.