THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (28 page)

‘That’s exactly what I think could have happened,’ said Jake, ‘and when the bomb exploded, the faecal matter on the trousers could have contaminated the entire scene with the bacterium. There’s us thinking that they were terrorist masterminds. Thinking they’d created a bomb containing a biological agent, hell bent on spreading an epidemic. When actually that bacterium was there totally by chance. All because Asif had a dodgy tummy. They didn’t hatch a deliberate dirty-bomb plot at all!’

There was a moment of silence as the three of them took this information in.

The Professor broke the lull. ‘Well, it’s certainly an interesting theory, but just a theory nonetheless. You’re right to say that it doesn’t seem like a deliberate dirty bomb, but I wouldn’t like to place my bets on exactly what caused the gas gangrene – it’s a highly unusual set of circumstances.’

A split second later and Jake’s brain was whirring again. ‘So what’s the prognosis, Prof.? How do we help to get rid of the gas gangrene?’

‘I’ll speak with the biological weapons people at Porton Down and get them to liaise with the hospital medical staff directly. They’d be the right experts to speak to in terms of creating the ideal treatment programme. They have all the latest research on the newer resistant strains of Clostridium perfringens. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has had good results in tandem with special cocktails of the newer antibiotics.’

Lenny and Jake thanked the Professor and left, still reeling slightly from what they’d discovered.

77

Tuesday

23 August 2005

0900 hours

Dudley Hill police station, Bradford, West Yorkshire

The West Yorkshire team had convened to converse via video link with the meeting room back at Scotland Yard. Their Tuesday-morning meeting was once again dominated by the bomb factory at Victoria Park.

‘We’ve removed roughly half of the items out of Victoria Park in the past six weeks. It’s a very slow process. We’re taking photos of each exhibit. The photos are being sent to the MIR for actioning and, as you’ll see in front of you, we’re continually forwarding copies up to the Leeds team,’ Ian Thetford, the exhibits officer, said into the camera.

‘Thanks, Ian,’ replied Jake. ‘I have a few questions about the bomb factory, having seen it first-hand. There’s a lot of stuff in that flat. It’s knee-deep in junk. You can’t even move room to room in some places because there’s no clear walkway. How did they use it as a factory with that much stuff in there? It would have been impossible to get anything done! Most of it looks like it’s just been lobbed in there as an afterthought. It’s as if there might have been another location, but this was all that they wanted us to find.’

‘I can see your point, Jake, but the place is teeming with evidence for us to get to grips with. The forensic explosives lab has confirmed our belief that the hydrogen peroxide was smelted in there. The bedroom area has been subjected to extreme heat, so much so that the paintwork on the door frame has bubbled up. The windows had to be kept open at all times because of the fumes. They used masking tape to secure the net curtains to the window frame to stop people looking in. It was definitively and without question the location in which they manufactured the hydrogen-peroxide-based explosives.’

‘But…’ Jake was about to ask Ian another question when he was interrupted by the voice of Denswood, who was chairing the meeting as usual from the London end.

‘Thank you, Ian. Thank you, Jake. So this week’s actions will be sent out by the MIR. Same time again next week please, folks,’ he concluded. The screen in Bradford went black. The meeting was over. They’d cut the link in London.

78

Tuesday

23 August 2005

1400 hours

Victoria Quarter, Leeds city centre, West Yorkshire

Jake sipped his posh latte under an expanse of glass that was framed by gilded mosaics and wrought iron. The upmarket boutiques and restaurants in the ornate, restored arcade made Jake feel a bit like he was back in London. The Crystal Palace of the north, he thought.

Comfy seats and rich strong coffee were all very well but it was actually the gorgeous, blue-eyed Latvian waitress that kept him coming back here.

Len plonked himself down opposite Jake.

‘Back here again, are we, Jake?’ smirked Len, as Jake watched the waitress saunter past, clad in a tight black dress.

‘I could masturbate about the coffee alone here, never mind the waitress,’ Jake winked back, as he polished off his first latte of the afternoon.

‘I’ve been looking at the Victoria Park stuff,’ said Lenny, changing the subject, his voice more hushed now.

‘Oh yeah?’ asked Jake.

‘There’s a couple of things that bother me…’ Len watched as the waitress returned. ‘Two lattes, please, my love. One for me, and one for your stalker here,’ Len said, cocking his head in Jake’s direction as he spoke. The waitress giggled as she shimmied off to fetch their order.

Len continued, ‘The day we first found the Victoria Park flat, Karim Rahman showed us those phones and that piece of paper he’d found on top of Asif’s wardrobe. D’you remember?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I checked with the MIR. They’ve not done anything on those two telephone numbers yet. That information has been totally overlooked.’

‘Jesus!’ said Jake in disbelief.

‘Karim called all the numbers in those phones’ contact lists. He was desperately hunting for his missing brother. Some of the people he got through to said they knew Asif. But the two guys who gave Karim the biggest runaround were the ones whose phone numbers were written on that note he found. Their names are Shahid and Shaggy.

Jake smiled at the waitress as she placed the lattes on the table.

‘Karim first tried the bloke called Shaggy, who said he was from Sheffield. He said he didn’t know Asif, and apparently acted quite bizarrely on the phone. But they had definitely spoken several times before the bombings if you look at the phone records. They certainly did know each other,’ said Lenny, with cream from the latte he’d started to drink on the end of his nose.

He continued, ‘I did a subscriber check on Shaggy’s number. It came back as a pay as you go phone and no subscriber was listed. I’ve traced a
possible
address in Sheffield for a Shaggy. We could go and check him out? We have the handset’s IMEI details. It might turn something up?’

‘Lunch in Sheffield it is tomorrow then, Len. Good work. But wipe that fucking cream off your nose. If it doesn’t work out with Claire, you’re embarrassing me in front of the future Mrs Flannagan, you knob!’ Jake looked sideways at Len and then up at the Latvian waitress standing in the doorway.

Len laughed and dabbed at the end of his nose with his serviette.

79

Wednesday

24 August 2005

0800 hours

M1 South to Sheffield

The weather had been glorious for months. Jake wondered if 2005 would be remembered for just three things: its sunshine, London winning an Olympic bid and mass murder on home soil.

His head hurt again, but that was normal these days. He was spending close to £700 a week getting drunk in Leeds city centre during evening hours.

Lenny was driving. It was a good job. Jake imagined that his own blood-alcohol level was probably still well over the drink-drive limit. Lenny was well known in the force for his habit of not concentrating and he frequently went the wrong way, but the M1 to Sheffield was an easy journey, even for him.

They wound their way south down the motorway in the BMW.

‘So what do we know about this bloke, Len?’ asked Jake.

‘Nothing much. He’s called Shaggy. It’s a long shot but you never know,’ Lenny continued, looking ahead as he drove.

‘Fuck me, Lenny, it’s a bit on the light side, isn’t it? He has the same name? That’s it, is it?’

‘You make your own luck, Jake. You’ve got to be in it to win it, like you always say. This is the only way we’ll find out if it’s the right bloke or not, isn’t it?’

Jake was in no mood to argue. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re right, Len. You can do the talking when we get there. My head’s banging. You be the good cop, as normal. I’ll be the bad one.’

He relaxed back into the headrest and closed his eyes. The motion of the car quickly lulled him into sleep.

‘Jake! Wake up! We’re here,’ shouted Lenny as he pulled on the handbrake sharply.

They’d parked up on what looked to Jake like a council housing estate with low-rise, pebble-dashed homes. Flat, black tarmac ledges served as pavements and spindly little trees sprung up at regular intervals along both sides of the road.

‘Number eleven. Over there.’ Lenny pointed toward a blue door a few spindly trees down from them.

Jake did his usual external property recce. He glanced at the cupboard that housed the gas meter. There was just one white door. He checked the number of wheelie bins in the front garden – again just one.

The number of meter cupboards and bins were always helpful in signposting how many separate dwellings might be in any one building. Jake could tell this was a single dwelling. Good, he thought. The less people he had to deal with the better.

The black picket fence in the front garden was rotten. Several of its wooden posts had broken, and the gate lay on an overgrown lawn like it was drunk.

Lenny walked up the paved part of the garden and into a small recess that housed a blue front door.

There was no bell. Lenny rapped hard on the top glass panel. After a few seconds there was movement in the hallway. Blurred patches behind the translucent glass changed shape.

‘Who is it?’ A male with a Pakistani accent shouted.

‘It’s the police, sir. Could you open the door please?’ Lenny said in his most authoritarian tone.

‘No! Fuck off!’ said the figure as he moved away and back to where he’d come from.

Lenny looked at Jake and shook his head. They couldn’t leave now. They had to speak to this man.

Jake moved into the recess. Lenny stepped out. Jake banged on the door with fist: ‘Open up please, sir. We need to speak to you urgently!’

The Pakistani voice replied again, ‘And I’m telling you now to be fucking off!’

Jake and Lenny looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. This man’s reaction was unsettling. It was unusual. There was no telling why he’d acted that way – but Jake wasn’t about to leave it at that.

‘Open the fucking door!’ Jake shouted. The glass shook as he hammered on it again three times.

The figure moved back toward the door.

‘What do you want?’ asked the man.

‘I want you to open the door,’ Jake lowered his voice as he spoke.

‘I’m not opening my door!’

‘OK. This is very simple! You open the door or I kick it in! Your choice, pal,’ said Jake. He waited for a response. None was forthcoming.

‘You’ve got ten seconds to open the door!’

Jake waited for what seemed, to him, like most of the morning. There was silence. He walked back out of the recess and glanced up and down the street, looking for anyone obviously watching them. There was no one. The curtains all seemed still; the street was empty, the front gardens abandoned.

He turned back toward the door and quickly sprinted a distance of ten feet or so toward it. Three feet short, he hopped onto his left foot and then extended his right toward the lock. He felt like Roy Keane going in for a tackle, studs up.

His foot slammed with a bang, right beside the handle, as the door took his full weight. There was the sound of splintering wood and a crack as the reinforced window split. The door swung open and wood from the frame flew into the hallway toward a lone figure.

Jake and Lenny could now see the man who’d been swearing at them.

80

Wednesday

24 August 2005

1000 hours

Attercliffe, Sheffield, South Yorkshire

They didn’t flash their credentials.

Badges and IDs were for when you were doing things legally. The official line would be: ‘You don’t have to reveal your name in terrorism cases and that’s why I didn’t show him my badge, Your Honour.’

The man was in his seventies. His white hair and unkempt white beard contrasted with a dark blue dressing gown and matching slippers. His mouth was hanging open in shock. He looked utterly bewildered as to why these two Cockney coppers were trying to get into his South Yorkshire home. He said nothing.

‘Where’s Shaggy?’ asked Jake

The man’s confusion got visibly worse as he stared back at Jake.

‘Me?’ said the man.

‘You got a mobile phone, Shaggy? Don’t move. Stay where you are, just tell us where it is,’ said Jake.

Jake could hear Lenny attempt to pull the door to behind him and then fiddle with the broken lock.

‘Please do not be hurting me. Phone is on table in living room.’ The man began to look more scared now than confused. Jake walked past him and picked up the battered handset that was lying on the coffee table.

Jake had brought with him both the mobile phone number and IMEI number of the handset that they’d identified from the reverse billings.

He dialled *#06# on Shaggy’s mobile and brought up its IMEI number; he checked it against his notebook. Wrong one. This wasn’t the phone that had exchanged calls with Asif or Karim.

Jake looked around the room. Orange carpet. Velour furniture. A mantelpiece full of photos of children slowly growing up, going to college and graduating from university.

This was all wrong.

He felt it in his gut. This was the wrong place. This was the wrong bloke. It was too late to undo this mess. This sometimes happened. A bit of crappy information added to a bit of the wrong attitude, multiplied by a hangover, equalled a fucking shambles.

‘Always press ahead when you end up in this situation,’ Jake heard the voice in his head say. The bad guys or even the good guys with the wrong attitude don’t actually know you’ve got it wrong.