Jack Higgins - The Judas gate

'So kind, Dora.' Billy reached for one. Harry said, 'Well, look what the cat's brought in.'

Hasim stood uncertainly just inside the door, and Joe Baxter went and grabbed his arm. 'Shall I give him the heave-ho, boss?'

'Just listen to me, Mr Salter,' Hasim pleaded.

'Why should I?'

'The guy I told you about who's just a voice on the phone?'

'The one you'd never met?' Billy said.

'He just tried to shoot me.'

There was complete silence, then Harry said, 'Now why would he do that?'

'After you gave me the money and told me to find my friend, I took him to the hospital. He's still there. The man I'm talking about called me. He said I'd shot my mouth off to you. He added that you now knew it was connected to Al Qaeda and it was my fault and I was a dead man.'

'And he's had a go?' Billy demanded.

Hasim described exactly what had happened when he'd left the gym in Camden.

'What a bastard,' Salter said. 'We can't have this. Let's have a look at your palm.' He examined it, turned to Billy, and read off the licence plate number Hasim had written there. 'Roper should take at least five minutes to trace this bleeder on his computer, wouldn't you say?'

'Absolutely.' Billy was already on his mobile, calling Holland Park. He got up, walking away as he talked to Roper.

Harry said, 'You look half starved. Have a sandwich. There's salad there. I know you Muslims don't go for ham.'

'Actually, I'm rather partial to it, so if you don't mind.' Hasim helped himself. 'There are Muslims and Muslims.'

'You'd better stay here for a bit while we sort this out,' Dora said as she brought him a drink. She ruffled his hair. 'Can't have a nice young lad like you running round in fear for his life.'

'God help us, she'll be adopting you next,' Harry said. 'But she's got a point. Go on, have another sandwich, build yourself up.' The licence plate number was the key that unlocked everything.

'His name's Selim Lancy,' Billy said when he returned to the booth. 'An interesting geezer. His father was an English seaman, his mother's Muslim. She's got cancer and she's a patient at St Luke's at the moment.'

'Just up the bleeding road,' Harry said. 'Bit of a coincidence.'

'Not really. They live in an old house on Tangier Wharf. That's no distance at all.'

'What's he do?' Harry asked. 'Has he got any form?'

'Not the kind you mean,' Billy said. 'A corporal in 3 Para. Couple of tours in Afghanistan, badly wounded, discharged. Roper's even got the amount of compensation he received from the Ministry of Defence. Seventeen grand.'

'Well, I think we should do better than that for our gallant lads,' Harry said. 'That isn't going to keep him for the rest of his life, is it?'

'He's bought a second-hand Mercedes and is a licensed private chauffeur.' Billy shrugged. 'It's a living, I suppose.'

'More than a living, I'd have thought,' Harry said. 'What's more glamorous than a war hero in a good suit driving a silver Mercedes? Those posh birds that go shopping to Harrods or Bond Street will lap him up. I bet he's making a fortune.'

'Which still leaves us with the Al Qaeda connection,' Billy said, and turned to Hasim, who'd been listening intently. 'What's that all about?'

'I honestly don't know,' Hasim said. 'He only mentioned the name Al Qaeda once, like I told you, when he sentenced me to death.' And then he frowned. 'I think he takes his religion seriously.'

'In what way?' Billy asked.

'He paid me and my friends once to smash up a shop selling anti-Muslim literature; then on another occasion to do the same to a place selling pornographic magazines.'

'Did you do that often?' Billy asked.

'We torched an old shop somebody had bought with the intention of turning it into a massage parlour. He told me over the phone that the people involved used young girls and that his boss thought it an offence against Allah.'

'Well, I agree with him there,' Harry said. 'But who was this boss he mentioned?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' Hasim said. 'That was the only time he said such a thing.'

Harry turned to Billy. 'What do you make of this?'

'It fits with the Al Qaeda attitude,' Billy told him. 'They follow the teachings of the Koran, they're moralists, and these joints Hasim and his pals turned over were purveyors of filth.'

'All very well, my old son, but the attack on the Dark Man was nothing to do with Allah or the Koran, and everything to do with some personal vendetta against all of us,' Harry said.

'I agree,' Billy told him.

'Then I suggest you do something about it, like getting your arse over to Tangier Wharf, grabbing Lancy by the scruff of his neck and bringing him back here where I can put a few pertinent questions to him.' Harry looked grim. 'I mean, Muslim morality is one thing, but he's got questions to answer. Take the boys as backup if you want.'

Billy nodded to Baxter. 'I'll take Joe as driver, and Hasim might be useful. I'm just going to check my laptop. Roper was putting an identity photo through from army records.'

Harry said to Hasim, 'Do you feel okay about this? He sounds like a bad bastard.'

'Yes, I think he is.' Hasim looked tired, but shrugged and tried to smile. 'It's as Allah wills, Mr Salter. I made a bad mistake getting involved with this man. I will do anything to get rid of him.'

Billy returned wearing a dark single-breasted raincoat. He produced a silenced Walther from the interior pocket, checked it and replaced it.

He said to Baxter, 'You tooled up, Joe?'

'In the car,' Baxter told him. 'A selection.'

'That's it then.' Billy put a hand on Hasim's shoulder. 'Let's get it done.' Selim Lancy had been visiting his mother in the oncology department at St Luke's. An operation for her skin cancer seemed to be working and they'd assured him the treatment had stopped the spread. He'd taken her flowers and sat with her for a while. She was a kind and simple person who divided her time between keeping the old Victorian flat on Tangier Wharf spotless and offering whatever services were required at the mosque.

She was overwhelmed by what seemed to her the luxury of her private room at the hospital, and Lancy had spent time assuring her that they could afford it. Except for pocket money, he'd always put everything into her deposit account, including the largesse from the Preacher, a total in excess of fifty thousand pounds. The dangerous game he had chosen to play carried the chance of instant death at any time, so it was his way of making things as simple as possible by leaving her everything in advance.

When he'd had enough, he kissed her hand and said to her in Arabic, 'Sleep well, Mother, Allah and all the angels protect you.'

Her eyes already closing, she murmured something and he eased out. Turning from the busy right lane traffic of Wapping High Street into the gloom of Tangier Street was like a journey back in time, the old warehouse buildings, several storeys high, rearing up into the night, obviously waiting for the developer.

The streetlights were museum pieces, many of them originally gas lamps from the look of them. There was a strange, brooding air to the place, as if it was waiting for something to happen, as Joe Baxter cut his engine and coasted down over the cobbles to the Thames below.

'What a bleeding place to live,' Billy said. 'You'd only need the cameras to make a Jack the Ripper film.'

'It gives me the creeps,' Hasim said. 'I'm already imagining a bogey man waiting to jump out at me.'

They coasted silently down to a Victorian tower-like rookery about five storeys high, the wharf below it creating a basin of deep water where ship and barge traffic had been able to ply their trade. A gateway, its gates long gone, gave entrance to a courtyard, and the only light came from a lamp bracketed over the main door. A rotting sign said: 'Tangier Wharf, Hart amp; Son, General Shipping, 1852'.