Lorimer and Brightman - 08 - Sleep Like the Dead. By Alex Gray (36 page)

‘Right, you’re coming with me, darlin’,’ Mick crooned softly. ‘A little walk upstairs. See if you’d like to fly instead.’

Lorimer and Wilson exchanged glances as the couple left the hotel bedroom and disappeared. The Black Hornet’s microphone had picked up the hit man’s words perfectly but it was unable to do any more unless he appeared by that window.

‘The roof,’ Lorimer said, shortly. ‘He’s taking her up onto the roof.’

The DCI shifted his position to get a better view of the upper

level of the hotel, then spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Attention all

units. No firing until you are absolutely sure that the girl is out of Stevens’ way. And as soon as we have sight of them get the Hornet up to their level!’ ‘Oh my God,’ Wilson whispered. `D’you think. . Lorimer’s face was grim as he replied. ‘I think he may be going to jump,’ he said. ‘And take Marianne with him.’

Amit had watched the men following him, aware of their presence at every street corner. Didn’t they know how adept he had become in those frightened weeks after his father’s death when spies had dogged his every footstep? Here in this strange city he might have been considered an easy target, but Amit Shafiq knew all about the art of surveillance.

Hiding from these undercover officers was not an option, so the man from Lahore had decided to adopt a different strategy altogether.

He was not going to be hunted all of his life. No, he would turn this to his own advantage. Now, whenever he saw them, Amit simply turned and walked back towards them, across busy roads, in and out of the subways, smiling to himself as they moved away, shiftily, as though they hoped their cover was still intact. So it was that the hunters became the hunted and Amit Shafiq had let several of them pick up his trail, hoping that they might eventually lead him to where Marianne was hiding. Practising that U-turn, he had followed different men and women all over the city until this morning. One of them, a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt, ostensibly out jogging on Byres Road, had put one hand to her ear as if she was adjusting her iPod. But it was the expression on her face as she stopped mid-stride, rather than the tell-tale action, that immediately alerted Amit. Something was happening.

Suddenly ignoring the Asian, she broke into a run, fled across Great Western Road, one hand waving frantically as she hailed a taxi.

Amit was not far behind her.

He grinned as he got into his own cab, feeling almost like a boy again as he told the taxi driver, ‘Follow that cab!’

The road at Houldsworth Street had been closed to traffic but the woman’s taxi stopped a little beyond the police tape and Amit saw her get out, brandishing what he took to be a warrant card at the officer who bent towards the taxi driver.

‘Here,’ Amit whispered to his own driver. ‘You never saw me. All right?’ Then thrusting a couple of twenties into the man’s hand, he slipped out of the cab and walked cautiously past the empty car park at PC World, and the deserted forecourt of the Citroen garage.

‘Sorry, you can’t go past here, sir,’ the uniformed officer told Amit.

`DCI Lorimer needs me,’ Amit told him firmly. ‘I’m with that other officer but we got split up back there,’ he lied, pointing to the woman in running gear who was now quite far ahead, almost at the corner where the road forked right towards the City Inn. ‘Need to see your ID, sir,’ the man replied firmly. ‘Of course,’ Amit said, putting a hand to his inside pocket. Then, as though he had spotted someone behind the policeman, he smiled and waved. As the officer turned, Amit broke into a run, arms pumping hard by his sides, heart thudding at his own audacity.

Marianne felt her legs buckle beneath her as Max pulled her off the chair, her bonds cut free by a knife he had produced from somewhere.

‘Come on,’ he told her, flicking her hair back from her face with the blade of the knife. ‘Get going.’ As the hit man pocketed the knife and picked up the gun again, Marianne bit her lip. She had to go, she just had to … Too terrified to reach out and touch his arm, the woman watched his every move until finally she caught his eye. ‘Please,’ she begged. Van I go to the toilet?’ He seemed to hesitate for a moment then shrugged. ‘Okay, but make it quick.’

With a sigh, Marianne sat on the pan and closed her eyes. It was humiliating to have him standing there, watching, but the relief as her bladder finally gave up its contents overcame any residual embarrassment.

‘Right, move it,’ the hit man told her. Somehow she managed to stumble towards the doorway and out into the darkened corridor. All the lights were out, she noticed. Had the hotel staff cut off the power? A flicker of hope entered the woman’s heart. Maybe the police outside would save her from the man who was pushing her steadily along, that gun pressed into her back, urging her towards the end of the corridor. Or would Max relent? Tell her it was all a mistake? That he never intended to harm her?

The fresh air made her gasp as the door was thrust open and Marianne was bundled onto the roof. Her nightdress billowed upwards, exposing her bare legs and for a moment Marianne feared that she would be blown straight off into the river below ‘I can’t…’ she said, holding back, her eyes pleading with the gunman.

‘Move,’ he said, twisting her arm painfully so that now she was in front of him, a human shield, protection from whoever tried to fire on them.

‘Please,’ Marianne whimpered, her bare feet taking steps against their will. Sharp bits of gravel cut into the soles, making her wince.

The edge of the roof began to come so close. Too close … ‘No!’ she said, struggling in his grip. ‘Don’t make me! Please!’ But her words blew away in the wind as he forced her nearer

and nearer to that dizzying drop.

Amit walked slowly around the corner of the street, aware at any minute that he might be made to return. The undercover policewoman had disappeared and there were several police vehicles parked around the outside of the hotel.

He stopped, lingering in the shadow of a building, wondering what was going on. Ahead of him, crouched low beside a white van, was a police marksman, his rifle trained on something he could not see.

Amit looked up.

Just as two figures appeared on the roof, Lorimer’s voice sounded from a nearby loudhailer.

‘Stop right where you are, Stevens. Leave the woman and come back down!’

‘Stay back or I’ll shoot her!’ the hit man yelled.

Amit took a step forward, eyes fixed on the man who was drawing closer to the edge of the roof and the woman he held in his grasp, her red hair blowing in the wind.

Then he began to run.

‘Marianne!’ he called, waving his arms at them. ‘Marianne!’

The moment he saw the little Asian, Detective Constable Omar Fathy leapt from the transporter. Where the hell had this crazy man come from?

‘Stop!’ he cried out, lunging towards the running figure. ‘Don’t go… .’ but his words failed as Stevens’ shot rang out. ‘No!’ Annie screamed, feeling other arms pulling her back as she tried to leave the van and reach her friend.

‘No,’ she whimpered, her eyes refusing to believe what she was seeing. ‘No, please God, no . .

Omar lay there, motionless, arms flung out, one dark stain bloodying his forehead.

Annie stared at him, willing the Egyptian to move. ‘Get up, Omar. Please get up . .

Then, as strong hands turned her away from the sight, she began to sob into the shoulder of the officer next to her.

There was a man dead at his feet. Amit could see that. A young man, dark-skinned. His life taken by a bullet that had been meant for him.

Amit stood there, shock rooting him to the ground. Then he heard a second crack of gunfire ripping through the air.

He watched as though in a dream, that figure tumbling from the edge of the roof, a dark shape outlined against the pure, pale sky then falling with a thud onto the concrete below

When he looked back up, Marianne was crouched on the rooftop. Her thin, eerie wail floating down to the scene below, shattering the silence.

Then, as he saw other figures come up behind her and take her in their arms, Amit sank to his knees beside the body of the young policeman and wept.

et me speak to her, first,’ Solly said quietly, his hand on j Lorimer’s sleeve.

They were back in divisional headquarters. It was hard to believe that it was barely two hours since they had left, such was the difference in the place. Before, there had been that tense anticipation when adrenalin and testosterone filled the veins of so many officers; now there was only a sullen silence.

Solly had taken his body armour off with the others, waiting to hear murmurs of regret, anything that would ease the pain of this deathly hush. That would come, he told himself. Maybe tonight when the police officers could feel safe in their own homes, maybe tomorrow when they reported for duty. Or perhaps not until they stood at the graveside watching as Omar Adel Fathy’s body was laid to rest with all the panoply that surrounded a police officer’s funeral.

Lorimer gave no sign of having heard him and Solly patted his arm, seeing the way his friend looked out of his office window. It wasn’t difficult to imagine what he was seeing. The sight of his fallen officer would be imprinted on Lorimer’s brain for a long time to come, Solly knew. But there were things that still had to be done even though the Senior Investigating Officer might wish to forget about them entirely.

‘May I talk to her, take Detective Sergeant Cameron with me, perhaps?’ Solly asked.

Lorimer gave a great sigh then wiped a hand across his eyes as though to clear that unwelcome vision.

‘It’s totally out of the question, Solly. I can’t authorise a civilian to undertake something like that.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘Even you.’

Solly nodded. That was what he had expected and, though his request was genuine, it had been phrased to elicit a particular response. To shake the man back to his responsibilities.

‘I’ll go down myself,’ Lorimer said at last, straightening himself wearily from the window sill where he had been leaning. ‘But I can let you sit in on the interview Even ask some questions if you like. It’ll all be on record, anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘Come on, let’s get this over with.’

Marianne held the polystyrene cup in her fists, feeling its warmth seep right through her bones.

She was alive. And for now that was all that seemed to matter.

Those moments when she had looked down at the greyness of the pavements way below, sick with fear, still remained, however. The uniformed policewoman who had wrapped a blanket around her as they sat in the back of the car had held on to her shoulders, murmuring soothing words. Marianne had let the tears fall, then, too choked to utter a single word.

Now, though, her mind was full of questions. How had Amit got there? Who had been shot? (She had seen the stretcher and the shape of a body beneath that white sheet.) And was Billy safe?

Marianne had stopped considering her own fate. What would come to pass was surely something that she deserved, after all? That she would be sentenced to a lengthy stretch in prison was inevitable. But somehow that wasn’t important.

‘Mrs Shafiq?’ A tall man had entered the small room where Marianne was sitting on a bench seat, the same female officer sitting near her.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer,’ the man told her. ‘Please would you come with me?’

Marianne met his eyes for a second, light blue, piercing eyes that seemed to look straight into her soul. Then she nodded, rising from the bench, feeling the woman’s hand on her arm, helping her up. They had been quietly kind in that first police station, providing some clothes for her to wear; jeans that were too big at the waist, a navy fleece and a pair of socks and trainers. Where did they get all of these things? she had wondered, too afraid to ask, just grateful to have that stinking nightdress taken away with the promise of a shower once everything had been sorted out. A vague phrase that she had accepted, too numb to look ahead. Now, though, following this man with these broad shoulders under that dark suit, Marianne felt grubby. Raking fingers through her hair, she felt the knots and tangles and was suddenly ashamed. ‘In here, please,’ Lorimer ushered them through a door marked Interview Room 2.

The room they entered held a surprise.

‘Doctor Brightman!’

‘Marianne,’ he replied, rising politely from a chair in the corner of the room. He gave her a stiff little nod, but did not come forward to take her by the hand. She glanced back at the two police officers, the tall man and the kindly woman, suddenly at a loss.

‘What. .?’ she began.

‘Sit here please,’ Lorimer told her, indicating a place to one side of a formica-topped table. She sat on the plastic-covered chair, hearing its metal legs scrape along the floor, frowning at her surroundings. Surely this was where criminals came to be questioned?

Marianne watched as Lorimer switched on a recording machine then gave his name, rank and the date and time then she blinked as the enormity of the situation began to dawn on her. She was the criminal about to be questioned.

Solly’s face was grave as he watched the changing emotions flit across the woman’s face. She’ll still be in shock, he had advised Lorimer. But that had not seemed to concern the policeman. Was Fathy’s death making him vengeful? Could he really have no consideration for this young woman’s sensibilities? All of the psychologist’s questions had been swept aside as Lorimer had taken the decision to interview Marianne himself, with Solly in attendance. Yet now he could understand why. This woman was vulnerable, certainly, but she might be far more compliant as a result of that, yielding up such information as they needed to know in order to make total sense of the case.

‘Marianne,’ Solly said, making her look at him. ‘There’s something I would like to know. The seminar about dreams,’ he paused as her eyes widened. ‘Was it my fault, giving you that idea?’

She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It seemed so simple really. If I could have him taken away, out of my life somehow. Then you said, why not have him killed?’

‘Please explain the background to this for the record,’ Solly heard Lorimer say, his voice stiff with disapproval.