Close Call (35 page)

She had put the telephone on the table within arm’s reach, but it remained defiantly silent. She wasn’t going to use it herself, because though she was accustomed to being up at this ungodly hour (the experts all said it was better to get up than lie in bed twisting and turning), she knew that not many other people were. Old as she was, Mrs Donovan hadn’t lost many of her marbles – she might keep odd hours, but she knew what was and wasn’t usual.

She’d tried to tell them about it earlier in the evening. Someone had said they’d ring her back, but they hadn’t. She’d never believed for a moment that that girl who had shown up really was from Electoral Registration. But she had liked the look of her and she’d kept her leaflet with the phone number, behind the little cactus plant that Michael had given to her.

She couldn’t have said quite who that girl did work for, but she was sure it was something to do with those thrillers she liked to watch when they were on the TV early enough in the evening. ‘Spooks’, that’s what they were called. She was one of them, Mrs Donovan was sure. She knew she was right because the number on the leaflet was a London number. Why would the electoral registration office for Eccles have a London telephone number?

She wouldn’t have noticed any of this – or rung the number – if things hadn’t suddenly grown very peculiar next door. Mrs Atiyah had come round three days before, to say that she was going to visit her sister down in Croydon. Would Mrs D mind keeping an eye out for her cat Domingo? He was a fat tabby with a scrunched ear from a long-ago fight who liked to sleep in Mrs Atiyah’s porch. He wasn’t actually the Atiyah cat – Domingo made it clear he belonged to nobody – but the Yemeni woman was soft-hearted and treated the animal like a favourite child. There was always food for Domingo when he deigned to visit.

That was all fine, and Mrs Atiyah had gone off – Mrs D had seen the minicab arrive two days before – but then this morning the peculiar thing had happened. Just as she was putting some Go-Cat in the bowl in her neighbour’s porch, with Domingo purring and rubbing himself against her legs, the front door had opened. She’d looked up, startled, expecting to see either Mrs Atiyah, back early, or one of her children. Instead a young man had stood there, Middle Eastern and bearded. He’d been just as startled as she was.

Mrs Donovan had stood up smiling, ready to introduce herself, pointing at Domingo to explain her presence. But the young man hadn’t smiled or said a word, just gone back inside and firmly closed the door. Rude, Mrs Donovan had thought, but then later, back in her house, she had thought it also very odd. In that household, only Mrs Atiyah’s son Mika was capable of that kind of behaviour, and it wasn’t Mika who’d opened the door. So who was this stranger?

All day the question gnawed at her, competing with her usual instinct not to get involved, to leave things be, not to make a fuss. But she had been increasingly aware of something going on next door; of people – not just one surly young man, but others: someone playing the radio in the kitchen, while somebody else ran a bath, and someone came thumping down the stairs. You wouldn’t have known, from the street, that anyone was there, since the curtains in front, both upstairs and down, were tightly drawn. It was only that the walls in these terrace houses were so thin that you always knew if there was anyone in.

If they were burgling the place in Mrs Atiyah’s absence, it seemed a funny way of going about it; on the other hand, Mrs Atiyah would have mentioned it if she had invited people to use her house when she was away. And why would she have asked Mrs Donovan to feed Domingo if she had guests staying there?

Mrs Donovan was afraid of sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. But what if these people were not in fact burglars, but something worse? Mrs Donovan was no coward, but neither was she a fool; she didn’t think it would be sensible to go and knock on the door and ask who they were and what was going on. There wouldn’t be much she could do if the strangers suddenly bundled her inside and . . . she didn’t even want to think about it.

Then she had seen Mika, Mrs A’s son, arrive. He’d parked outside and run into his mother’s house, carrying a bag. Before Mrs Donovan could get to the door and go out to intercept him, he had gone inside, slamming the door.

He was driving a brand-new car from the look of it, a big one too, which struck Mrs Donovan as a bit much. These students were meant to be paying their own fees these days – weren’t they always complaining about that? So how could Mika afford such a flashy car?

Finally Mrs Donovan decided that she needed to do something. She wondered again about whether she should knock on the door now Mika was back and ask him what was going on and whether his mother knew about all these people being there. But again she thought that wouldn’t be wise. From the way he had rushed into the house, she didn’t think she’d be welcome; the thought of the hostile young man she had seen that morning put her off the idea completely.

It was then she remembered her recent visitor who’d said she was from the electoral registration office. Whoever she really was, perhaps she could help. It had been evening by then, after six o’clock, so she wasn’t sure if she’d still be there. But nowadays people seemed to work long hours and they all had these mobile phones, so she thought it worth giving it a try. She took the card down from the sideboard and dialled the number.

A woman’s voice had answered, and thinking it was the girl she’d met, Mrs Donovan began to explain – until the woman interrupted. Once the confusion was sorted out, and Mrs Donovan had explained who she was trying to reach and why, the woman had promised to pass the message on. She’d said she’d be rung back right away. But nothing had happened.

It was nearly ten hours now since she’d rung. She’d seen Mika go out in his car, but the other people were still next door. She could hear them moving about even though it was the middle of the night. Mika had not come back; the car wasn’t there. She’d been tempted to ring the number again but there probably wasn’t any point.

Perhaps she was just being a silly old woman. Part of Mrs Donovan hoped she was, and that she was wrong in her suspicions of the people next door. I think I’ll just forget about it, she thought, taking a sip of her now-tepid tea. I expect there’s some innocent explanation and Mrs Atiyah will sort it out when she gets back. She yawned and stood up to go back to bed. Not that she would sleep.

Chapter 58

It took eighteen minutes to reach the warehouse from Police HQ. They went in convoy, three cars in all. Chief Superintendent Lazarus stayed behind in the Ops Room to coordinate the operation. Liz drove with Chief Constable Pearson in his BMW; his driver, Tom, had turned the heater on high to melt the frost on the windows – the car had been standing outside waiting for the call to move and was cold inside as well as out.

At first there was no conversation in the car. They were listening to the radio transmissions as police cars converged on the industrial estate. Two ambulances were not far behind.

Then Pearson broke the silence. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here tonight.’

‘Well—’ she began, then found herself with nothing more to say. She hadn’t expected to find herself here either. It seemed unreal. But she was grateful for the almost frantic sequence of events, since it kept her from thinking of the terrible happenings in Paris the night before. The night before? Incredibly it was only last night, even though it seemed to be days since she had first heard the news of Martin’s murder.

Pearson said, ‘I’m delighted that you’re here. Don’t get me wrong, I think young Peggy is extremely good. But I know she was glad when you showed up.’ He paused to listen to a burst of radio transmission then said, ‘I think you’re pretty remarkable, frankly, after the twenty-four hours you’ve had.’

‘I wanted to see things through,’ Liz said.

‘Of course. But listen, if this gets too much for you at any point, just let me know. Tom will drive you back to Police HQ and sort you out with one of our guest rooms. Then you can pick things up again tomorrow.’

The driver nodded. ‘I’ll be with the car. Just let me know if you want to go.’

‘That’s kind of you, but honestly—’

Pearson lifted a hand to interrupt. ‘Understood. Just remember if you change your mind, the offer holds.’

As they approached the trading estate they could see a ghoulish glow created by the dim sodium lights that lined the narrow strips of road and trailed off into the industrial enclave. Tom drove quickly, following the other two cars, turning right then left into a kind of cul de sac, at the end of which was a tarmac apron in front of a large metal ­warehouse. Scrubby grass and undergrowth filled the spaces between the warehouse and the adjacent buildings, derelict-looking brick and concrete workshops.

A lone policeman stood at the front of the tarmac, waving a flashlight to steer them around a small area which was marked by traffic cones. Behind the cones something lay on the ground covered by a tarpaulin sheet. With a jolt, Liz realised she was looking at McManus’s dead body. They were now part of the drama that they’d been watching on the screens in the Ops Room. She felt as if she had stepped from the audience onto the stage.

Three police vans and an ambulance were already neatly parked and Tom pulled up beside them. Another two cars bringing Peggy and some more uniformed officers had just arrived. Liz and Pearson followed the policemen into the warehouse, stepping gingerly over Jackson’s body, which was still lying in the entrance, also under a sheet.

Two members of the armed team were inside. One stood guard over Zara, who was handcuffed, sitting on a wooden crate. He was staring vacantly into space, pointedly ignoring the people around him. The other armed officer was trying to calm down the women, who had emerged from their tiny bedroom compartment at the side of the warehouse. The youngest was still shaking but now she was screaming too and tears were running down her face. Another, who seemed to be the oldest, was clawing at the arm of the policeman and shouting, ‘Not to shoot.’

The policeman was trying to unhook her hands and saying, ‘I’m not going to shoot you. You are quite safe here.’

But he was having no effect. The women were all clearly terrified and Liz couldn’t blame them; two men had been shot dead nearby less than half an hour after their arrival. This was not what they thought they’d come to England for.

‘Where’s the lorry driver?’ asked Liz, suddenly realising that someone was missing.

The armed policeman pointed to the cab. ‘He locked himself in when the shooting started. I’ve been trying to coax him out, but he’s scared to death.’

‘At least we know where he is. We’ll get to him in a minute,’ said Chief Constable Pearson. ‘First I want these women out of the way. Put them somewhere until we decide what to do with them.’

Peggy, who had come in behind Liz, stepped forward and touched the arm of the woman who was clutching at the policeman.

‘Come with me,’ she said in a gentle voice. ‘No one’s going to hurt you. Let’s go and see if we can make some coffee. Then I’ll ask someone to get you something to eat.’

The woman let go of the policeman and grasped Peggy’s hand. She looked at Peggy’s face with frightened, anxious eyes, then after a moment she turned to the others and said something. It seemed to calm them, and then, like a mother hen, Peggy rounded up the little group and ushered them back towards the bedroom.

The armed policeman, the Chief Constable and Liz all watched in silence. A silence that was broken when one of the policemen came up to the group and asked, ‘When we search the lorry, what are we looking for, sir?’

Pearson looked at Liz. She said, ‘Guns and grenades. The firearms are probably a mix of assault rifles and handguns. And a lot of ammunition – they asked for twenty thousand rounds. That will take up a fair amount of space.’

Pearson said, ‘I’m sure the driver knows where the cargo is hidden, so we should talk to him first. But whatever he says, take it slowly. I don’t want anything going off because someone gets impatient.’

The other officer had joined them. ‘I’ve frisked the suspect, sir,’ he said, pointing to Zara. ‘He wasn’t armed.’

Liz asked, ‘Was he carrying any ID?’

‘No.’

‘How about valuables? Any cash?’

‘He only had a few quid in his pocket, but he had something else worth a hell of a lot of money. A ticket for the derby tomorrow, at Old Trafford.’ He handed the ticket to Liz. As she studied it, he added, ‘They’re like gold dust.’

Liz handed the ticket to Pearson, and said, ‘We’ve dug pretty deep into young Atiyah’s past but I’ve never seen anything in the file about a love of football. Nor that he had the money to fund this sort of expense.’ She turned to the policeman. ‘Do you ever go to Old Trafford?’

‘I’ve been known to attend a match,’ he admitted.

‘Do they search you when you go through the gates?’

‘No. It wouldn’t be practical. You’ve got sixty thousand people going in in a short time. The queues would go back for miles if they searched everyone. They tried it for the Olympics and it caused chaos.’

Pearson was looking on with growing apprehension. He said, ‘It’s cold enough now for everyone in the crowd to be bundled up. You could smuggle a weapon or a grenade in under an overcoat easily enough if there’s no proper searching.’

‘Exactly,’ said Liz. ‘And if you had six people in different parts of the stadium, then even if one got spotted you’d have five others who might not have been.’