STANDPOINT a gripping thriller full of suspense (30 page)

Chapter 37

The shrill ringtone on Thomas’s mobile sliced into his brain like a steak knife. He woke, all arms and legs, sending his notes across the floor. He stabbed at the green button, working his lips to try and dispel the gummy, stale taste in his mouth. “Hello?”

“It’s Teresa; open your door.”

He checked the curtain; she was alone. In her hand was a small holdall.

“What kept you?”

“Sorry,” his head felt muzzy, “I was asleep.”

“Have you been drinking?” she pushed straight past him like she owned the place.

“Only a couple. Listen, Christine Gerrard has done a disappearing act.” He’d expected some kind of reaction. But no, Teresa was too good for that.

She opened the holdall and carefully removed the Document Security Bag. “Over to you, then,” she put it down and folded her gloved hands together.

“I won’t be long. Try not to search the place.” Not even a glimmer; not a flicker of warmth. Karl must really suffer on cold nights.

His initial trepidation faded the moment he closed the darkroom door and latched it. No surprises there. Whatever crap the world was throwing at him, all he needed was a camera or a darkroom and he was transformed. Christ, even his dad became a better person when cameras were introduced into the equation.

He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and broke the seal on the yellow DSB. Under the red light it looked a murky orange brown. The box inside was untagged, just as Teresa had promised. He slid the lid off and immediately turned the pages upside down. Stupid as it sounded — even to himself — he wanted to be able to say he hadn’t read any of it. Not deliberately, anyway.

That was easy for the first four pages — two in French and two in German. After that he focused on the top left and top right letters, now inverted, to get the focus. He checked after every photograph that the camera’s infrared dot was still off in case it marked the paper. He kept his movements controlled and precise; his teacher from school Camera Club would have been proud.

Once he’d reset the box and sealed it in the new DSB — the one from Leeds — he felt the sweat nestling between his shoulder blades. The photos were fine, but he was a wreck. He unlatched the door and went out, still wearing the surgical gloves. “It’s done.”

“You’ve been in there for thirty minutes — what took you so long?”

Jesus; talk about ungrateful.
“You wanted this done right, didn’t you? I’ll set up the printer for you.”

She followed him to the laptop. “I’ll need your camera data-card as well.”

Of course you will. God forbid you should start trusting me now.
He connected everything up, set it to print and walked off to the kitchen. “Call me when you’re done. Do you want any tea?”

“No thanks; I had some while I was waiting.”

He took his tea and loitered near the doorway until she called him back. All done and dusted, pages printed and enveloped; data-card removed. As if it had never happened.

“Thank you, Thomas.” She looked relieved, already putting her coat on. “Remember what we agreed. At least two days.”

Well,
agreed
was putting it a bit strongly. He walked her to the door. “So what do I do, then? Ring up Whitehall in a couple of days’ time and tell them Special Delivery?”

“You’ll need to figure that out for yourself. Whatever it takes, we
need
those two days. Ideally we’d have preferred more time, but under the circumstances, we’re willing to compromise.”

He felt like punching her face in — that, or crying. She opened the front door and pulled her holdall close. He pondered its cargo, and tried to forget that the pages included names, addresses, account-like number strings and some sort of contract.

“And this is where I return to the shadows; goodnight, Mr Bladen, and good luck.” She’d only taken a few steps outside when a car started up, flicked on the headlights and pulled up parallel to her. In the blink of an eye, she was gone.

* * *

He bolted the door and stood in the centre of the living room. After all the tension, the silence in the flat seemed forced and unnatural. He waited for a moment, until his breathing had subsided. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a second data-card, twin to the one he’d handed over to Teresa.
Clever boy
.

At that point he didn’t really care what was on it; it was collateral. He had recognised one upside word though, in French:
état
— state, in English. United States of Europe, maybe? He checked the clock — time to make that call.

“John, hiya mate. I got your message. Tonight? Sure. I’ve got a couple of things to do before . . . right . . . I understand. I’ll be in a cab in ten minutes.” A minicab to Dagenham then; no expense spared.

Camera, secret data-card, gun and ammo, clothes, DSB, toothbrush and shaver, laptop and Sherlock Holmes book — everything for the modern spy about town. Thanks to traffic, it took almost an hour to get to Dagenham so he opted for the station. £45 all told, but the cabbie did throw in a series of free lectures on the way.

About the class divide, the racial divide, about what a pain in the arse lazy good-for-nothing sons were and how all the bloody immigrants coming over here were ruining everything. And all to a musical backdrop of what he now knew to be Bengali Asian Fusion. And every second or third sentence from the driver rounded off with ‘Do you get me?’ which he quickly learned didn’t require an answer, as it made no bloody difference.

* * *

It was a surprise that Diane was the pick-up. The only time Thomas saw her at the wheel was when they were going out for the evening and John had decided to make a serious assault on his own liver.

She didn’t have much to say, which was fair enough. He was probably the last person she wanted to see so he didn’t push it. She seemed to thaw a little by the time they reached the house, but it was hard to tell; at least she was prepared to look him in the face now.

Sam and Terry’s car spaces were empty; it looked like dinner for three, unless Sheryl — the other member of his fan club — was putting in an appearance. As they went inside, Diane told him, “Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.” Which played in his head as: you have fifteen minutes to give us some good news.

He cut straight to the chase and dug out the sealed DSB, reminded them how he’d acquired it and why it would secure Miranda’s safe release. It all sounded foolproof until he noticed the gun, amongst his things in the bag. If Diane had seen it, she didn’t react; it might have been business as usual for her, given the nature of
their
business.

After the DSB, he handed over the data-card. “It’s an unauthorised copy of whatever’s in the pouch.”

John held the little case carefully at its edges. “We’ll keep it safe for you.”

Over dinner, Diane pressed him on how the transfer would be made; an answer he still didn’t have. John Wright had ideas of his own. “Take the boys with you, as back-up.”

Diane slammed her cutlery down.

Thomas read her face and winced. “It’s fine, John, honestly.”

“No.” John looked first at him then at Diane. “You misunderstand. I insist.”

In all the years Thomas had known him, John had never done
menacing
, until now. Not even when Thomas had turned up on their doorstep as a stranger, with Miranda on his arm. Forthright and unequivocal, maybe, but never this.

“The boys will be waiting at the scrapyard, first thing tomorrow.”

Thomas had to force down the rest of his meal; hungry as he was, he couldn’t dislodge a bitter aftertaste. He skipped the post-dinner drink and followed them to the comfy chairs, for more questions.

He offered up Bob Peterson’s promise of getting a message to Miranda. Then Diane had to spend ten minutes talking John out of making a personal visit to Uncle Bob. Which reminded him . . . “Can I use your internet?”

John and Diane pulled up chairs behind him; he didn’t comment. First, he picked up an anonymous server, then he took a slip of paper out of his wallet and set it on the keyboard; no point being coy now. He touch-typed a URL and went through the appropriate security, clicking on ‘telephony,’ and upped the volume. “This is a recording of all Bob Peterson’s calls from Christine’s office, today.”

There were seven calls in all. The kick-off, provoking a chorus of obscenity from everyone, was Bob Peterson ringing Sir Peter Carroll’s office to warn him that Thomas had requested a protective vest. The reply was dismissive; Thomas was being cautious, nothing more. He was just an amateur.

For some reason Thomas couldn’t fathom, that still cut deep. Two calls later and it was Christine ringing in on Peterson’s mobile. The sound wasn’t brilliant, but Miranda was mentioned, with Peterson relaying the message about Miranda’s dog Butch.

“Huh?” John said. Diane reached forward without a word, pressing Thomas’s shoulder: the boy done good.

Thomas went through the calls sequentially. Peterson kept trying to extricate himself. “I’ve got a wife and child!” he pleaded, the signal swooping and dipping as the mobile moved about.

“Well then,” the line on the recording suddenly cleared; “You’d better think about them very carefully.”

Poor sod. The caller was male, well-spoken, mid-twenties. The sound quality dipped again, as if a moment’s grace had passed. Then the voices went metallic and Thomas started to lose the thread. But one word pierced the cacophony:
Yorgi
.

He felt sick to his stomach; it as good as proved that he’d been on the right track since Petrov. He blinked back a tear and stayed schtum because he couldn’t deal with their fear as well as his own. Because if it was Yorgi, then Miranda was in more danger than they could imagine.

Now what?
He opted for distraction. “I’ll leave the log-in details here, for tomorrow,” and listened to the sound of his heart pounding against his chest. What would Karl do? He stared at the screen, catching sight of John’s inbox, scrunched up onscreen and half-filled with porn and spam. Karl would improvise, that’s what he’d do.

“Could you give me a few minutes please?”

John and Diane took the hint, left him to it and moved over to the sofa.

* * *

He worked quickly, without an audience.

Step 1: Set up a webmail account with a slew of random numbers and letters.

Step 2: Get the six-digit Ordinance Survey reference for the Wapping scrapyard.

Step 3: And here was the bit so clever that Thomas grinned as he was doing it — translate key words into something that would pique Karl’s curiosity.

Irish Gaelic was a bit too obvious so what about . . . Kosovan Albanian. A quick internet search and he plumped for two words, cutting straight to the point: betejë and shpëtim — battle and rescue. He figured Karl would have picked up at least one of those words out there during his army days; he was counting on it.

In the body of the email from his seemingly random email address, he put in a message:
‘Are you looking for gud time, big love? Order now.’
Then he added
‘0800’
followed by the OS reference. He kept the title as informative as he dared: ‘
Sexi Kosovo Girls betejë and shpëtim . . . spurm
.’ An easy to find reference to tomorrow, a few more keystrokes and away the email went, hopefully winging its way to Karl’s spam email folder, where only Karl would see it.
Job done
.

John or Diane had put the telly on; though neither of them seemed to be watching.

“I’ll get her back.” Now seemed a good time to make outlandish promises. It was one he’d made himself. He had a Plan B. If the worst happened — and he’d confronted that nightmare frequently since Miranda had been abducted — he would track down and kill everyone responsible. No question; no messing; no macho bollocks — no exceptions. He gasped for air and swam to the surface of his thoughts. “I’ll need more ammunition.”

Diane actually smiled at him.

Jesus. He felt like he’d just shared dinner with the Grissom Gang. “I just want to say that I really appreciate you letting me deal with this.”

John crossed his legs. “For now,” he looked away at the clock. “Right,” he decided aloud, “you better turn in for the night; early start tomorrow. You’re in Miranda’s room.”

Thomas dragged himself out of the chair, said his goodnights and took his bag off with him. The door still had Miranda’s nameplate on it. He almost knocked; he felt like an intruder.

Closing her door behind him, he stared at the bed, bag still in hand as if he wasn’t sure whether he would be staying. Now and again, they’d shared that bed — in their crazy on-again, off-again merry-go-round. He approached the duvet and ran a hand along one edge reverently.

Either Miranda had stayed there recently or Diane had left a trace of her favourite perfume to really twist the knife. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, imagining her in front of him.

He checked the en suite — for no reason other than to be away from the bed. The figure in the mirror looked haggard and drawn; he barely recognised himself. He closed his eyes again and tried to feel Miranda close behind him, the soft pressure and heat of her breasts against his back; her laughter at his ‘oh so serious’ face and the sparkle in her eyes under the starry ceiling spotlights.