Jon Stock - Dirty Little Secret

For Stewart and Dinah

Table of Contents

Title Page JON STOCK Dirty Little Secret

Dedication For Stewart and Dinah

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Chapter 121

Chapter 122

Chapter 123

Chapter 124

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Salim Dhar looked over the limestone cliff and tried to imagine where he would fall. For a moment, he saw himself laid out on the flat rocks eighty feet below, the incoming sea lapping at his broken body. He stepped back, recoiling, as if he had caught the stench of his own death on the breeze blowing up from the foreshore.

He glanced around him and then out to sea. The moon was full, illuminating the fluorescence in the crests of the waves. Far to the west, the lights of reconnaissance planes winked as they criss-crossed the night sky, searching in vain for him. Somewhere out there a solitary trawler was drifting on the tide, crewed by men who would never see the dawn.

Dhar limped along the cliff edge to the point where he had climbed up. His flying suit was waterlogged, his left leg searing with pain. He knew he shouldn’t be here, standing on Britain’s Jurassic coastline, but the pull had proved too much. And he knew it was his only chance. After what had happened, the West would be hunting him down with renewed intensity. The American kuffar would increase their reward for him. $30 million? How about $155 million – the price of the US jet he had shot down a few hours earlier?

But would anyone think to search for him so close to home? In another life, Britain could have been his home. He pressed a foot against the rocky ground. Tonight was the first time he had stepped on British soil, and he was surprised by how good it felt: ancient, reassuring. The air was pure, too, caressing his tired limbs with its gentle sea gusts.

He looked down at the foreshore again, rocks latticed like paving stones, and imagined his body somersaulting towards it. Would he survive? His descent might be broken by one of the ledges – if he was lucky. In the training camps of Kashmir and Kandahar, luck had been a forbidden fruit, on a par with alcohol. You who believe, intoxicants and games of chance are repugnant acts – Satan’s doing . Instead, Dhar had been instilled with the discipline of planning. ‘Trust in Allah, but tie your camel to a tree,’ as his explosives instructor had joked (he was mixing hair bleach with chapatti flour at the time).

Now Dhar was rolling the dice. His plan was uncharacteristically reckless, possibly suicidal, but there was no choice. At least, that’s how it felt. He needed to see where his late father, Stephen Marchant, had lived, where his half-brother, Daniel, had grown up. Tarlton, the family home, was not so far from here. He had seen it on the aeronautical charts. If he was to follow in his father’s footsteps, he had to be sure, root himself deep within the English turf.

Dhar stumbled as he picked his way down the steep path, pain shooting through his leg. His knee had been cut when he had ejected. Instinctively he checked for the mobile phone in his pocket. It was still there, sealed in a watertight bag with the handgun. He had taken both from the trawler that had rescued him earlier in the Bristol Channel. If everything had gone to plan, he would now be being debriefed by jubilant Russians back in the Archangel Oblansk. But everything hadn’t gone to plan. Dhar had blinked, and listened to the other man in his cockpit: Daniel Marchant.

He thought again about the trawler. First the captain’s phone had rung, then he had drawn his gun, but Dhar had been ready. Thinking quickly, he had disarmed him before turning on the remaining crew members. It was after nightfall when he had finally abandoned the trawler, making his way ashore in its tender with the captain. He was below him now, propped up against a rock beside the tender, hands tied, drunk on vodka.

After reaching the bottom of the path, Dhar checked on the Russian. It was important that he was sober enough to speak. He dragged the tender further up into the shadows of the cliff and tore at some long grass to use as crude camouflage. The blades cut into his soft hands and a thin line of blood blossomed across his finger joints. He cursed, sucking at a hand, and went back to the Russian. He couldn’t afford to be careless.

‘Walk,’ Dhar said. After the captain had risen unsteadily to his feet, Dhar pushed him in the direction of the cliffs. He meandered across the flat, stratified rocks, head bowed like a man approaching the gallows. There was no need for Dhar to threaten him with the gun. He had seen what had happened to his crew.

Dhar looked up at the cliffs ahead: layer upon layer of limestone and shale, crushed over millions of years. The compressed stripes reminded him of the creamy millefeuille his Indian mother used to smuggle out of the French Embassy in Delhi when she was working there as an ayah . She was here somewhere, too, he hoped. In Britain, the land of the man she had once loved. Daniel Marchant had promised he would look after her.

When they reached the foot of the cliff, Dhar signalled for the Russian to sit. He circled like an exhausted dog before slumping onto the rocks, trying in vain to break his fall with his tied hands. Dhar stood over him and pulled out a bottle of Stolichnaya, his actions tracked by the man’s aqueous, frightened eyes. Squatting down beside him, he unscrewed the lid and poured vodka into the Russian’s mouth, watching it trickle in rivulets through the stubble of his unshaven chin. His swollen lips were dry and cracked. Small flecks of white, sea salt perhaps, had collected in the corners of his mouth.