Stephen Leather - Dead Men

He reached another phone box and stopped, checked that no one he knew was around, then took Button’s business card from his wallet, pushed a pound coin into the slot and tapped out the number Hassan had given him. The phone went straight to voicemail.

Khan cleared his throat. He was about to cross a line, and once he had crossed it there would be no going back. He closed his eyes. Images of Sara being murdered flashed through his mind and he shuddered. He had to protect his wife and family. They were all that mattered. If others had to be sacrificed so that his family were safe, so be it. ‘She lives in Surrey,’ he said. He cleared his throat again. ‘She’s married with one child. The daughter is at boarding-school. Her husband is an estate agent, close to where they live. She’s working on a case at the moment in Belfast and will be back and forth between London and Northern Ireland over the next couple of weeks.’ Khan took a deep breath and exhaled through clenched teeth. ‘Her mobile number . . .’ He hesitated. Hassan hadn’t said why he wanted information about Charlotte Button, but Khan knew there could be only one reason. He wanted her dead. He said a silent prayer, but knew that wouldn’t help. He closed his eyes and continued to talk into the phone, his voice a hushed whisper.

Shepherd went upstairs with the wooden pole where, on the landing ceiling, he found a hatch with a small brass ring between the two back bedrooms. He reached up with the pole, inserted the hook and pulled. As the hatch opened, a folding aluminium ladder came into view. Shepherd used the hook to draw it down, then climbed up it.

At the top he stepped into an attic and flicked a light switch. There were wooden beams running the length of the area and foam insulation had been sprayed into the gaps between the beams. A stack of cardboard boxes stood just inside the trapdoor. Shepherd opened one. It was full of women’s clothing. The old man who had lived there before him must have put it up here after his wife had died.

Shepherd sat back on his heels and picked up a blue woollen cardigan with cream buttons. After Sue had died, he couldn’t bring himself to take her clothes out of the wardrobe for four months. Then he had put them into black bags and left them in the spare bedroom at their house in Ealing. It wasn’t until Katra had arrived that he had thrown them out. He knew exactly how the old man had felt. He put the cardigan back into the box and closed it.

A brick wall divided his half of the attic from Elaine’s, with a plastic water tank at one end. He walked carefully across the beams to the dividing wall and banged it with the flat of his hand. He had hoped it would be plaster board that he could cut through it, but it was bricks.

He returned to the trapdoor, went down the aluminium ladder, folded it up and closed the hatch. He took the pole downstairs and went to the sitting room. Elaine’s driveway was still empty. He took out his mobile and called her. ‘Hey, where are you?’ he asked.

‘Bangor,’ she said. ‘I’ve a few calls to make here. Why, what’s up?’

‘I saw a guy in your back garden,’ said Shepherd. ‘Teenager, I think, prowling around. He was heading for the shed but when he saw me he bolted. I had a quick look around and there were no windows broken or anything so he was probably just trying his luck.’

‘The burglar alarm’s usually enough of a deterrent,’ said Elaine. ‘They see the box and go off in search of a house that’s less trouble.’

‘Like mine?’ said Shepherd.

Elaine laughed. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘You should get an alarm, too. Thanks for keeping an eye on things for me, Jamie.’

‘It’s the neighbourly thing to do,’ he said.

Salih walked out of Maida Vale Tube station and crossed Elgin Avenue. Viktor Merkulov was sitting outside a Starbucks cafe, sipping a latte . He was wearing a cashmere overcoat and a fur hat, and a pair of black leather gloves lay on the table in front of him. Salih smiled. The man dressed like a Russian cliche.

Merkulov waved as he walked over. ‘Come, my friend, sit down, what would you like to drink?’

‘Why are you sitting outside?’ asked Salih. ‘It’s freezing.’ He already knew that the Russian had chosen Maida Vale for their meeting because it was a short walk from St John’s Wood where he owned a three-bedroom penthouse apartment with views over Lord’s cricket ground.

‘This?’ laughed Merkulov. ‘This is nothing. I can tell you have never been to Siberia.’

Salih sat down. ‘No coffee for me,’ he said.

‘Tea, then,’ said Merkulov, standing up.

‘Tea,’ agreed Salih. ‘No milk. No sugar.’

The Russian went inside to fetch it. Salih shivered and folded his arms. He was wearing a reefer jacket over an Aran sweater but the wind chilled him. An elderly woman walked past with a Jack Russell on a tartan lead. She looked at him suspiciously and he smiled amiably. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘Lovely dog.’

The woman’s jaw dropped, then her face creased into a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and hurried off. Salih’s smile tightened as he watched her go. All Muslims were regarded with suspicion in London, following the bombings on the Tube system. It didn’t matter that the terrorist attacks were the work of a very small minority of Islamic fundamentalists, every brown face was treated as a potential threat.

Merkulov returned with a mug of tea and two chocolate muffins. He put the tea in front of Salih, then sat down heavily and held out the plate.

‘I always worry about eating with former KGB people,’ Salih said. ‘I feel I should be checking everything with a Geiger counter.’

Merkulov scowled. ‘Just because a Russian dissident gets radiation poisoning, everyone blames us,’ he said. He took a bite from a muffin and continued to speak with his mouth full. ‘Do you really think that if Putin wanted someone dead, he couldn’t arrange to have it look like an accident? There are experts who can make any death look like an accident. Look at what happened to Princess Diana.’ Muffin crumbs splattered across the table and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Salih grinned. ‘You’re not taking credit for what happened to Diana, are you?’

‘Of course it wasn’t the KGB, we had no reason to harm her. But the British Establishment, now that’s a different matter.’

Salih slid a folded piece of paper across the table. ‘I need someone to track this mobile phone for me. Can you do that?’

‘It belongs to the American or to the woman?’

‘The woman,’ said Salih. ‘She might be in Northern Ireland.’

‘Do you know which phone company she’s with? Vodaphone, T-Mobile? Orange?’

‘All I have is the number,’ said Salih. ‘I need to know where she is.’

‘That’s easy,’ said the Russian. ‘Do you know what make of phone she has?’ Salih shook his head.

‘Some of the new models have GPS capability, which means we can pin her down to a few metres in real time. If not, we’ll know which transmitter she’s near. In the city that could be a hundred feet or so.’

‘And would you be able to get a list of calls, incoming and outgoing?’

The Russian pulled a face. ‘All things are possible, my friend. For a price.’

‘And get me the locations of the numbers?’

‘The landlines, of course. It is harder to get the locations of mobiles.’

Salih took a brown envelope from inside his jacket and slid it across the table. ‘Ten thousand pounds on account,’ he said.

Merkulov picked up the envelope. ‘It will take me a day or two at most.’

‘I want to know by tonight,’ said Salih. ‘I will pay whatever it takes.’

‘This is why I’d never feed you a radioactive soda,’ said Merkulov, tapping the envelope on Salih’s shoulder. ‘You are too valuable a customer.’