THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (32 page)

Lenny took hold of the black guy and led him down the corridor. Jake and Shahid were alone in the room. He told Shahid to sit on the bed.

Jake glanced around, taking it all in. It was just one large room containing a double bed, two wardrobes, a chest of drawers and, in the corner, a weightlifting bench. The carpet was light grey with a deep pile.

‘Where’s the bathroom?’ Jake asked.

‘Shared bathroom down the hall,’ replied Shahid.

Jake stood in the middle of the almost bare room, his arms crossed, his back to Shahid. Lenny had returned and guarded the door.

Opposite Jake were three massive double windows that looked out over the road at the front of the property.

Across the road he could see children in a playground, avoiding the calls from their parents to come in for their consecutive teas.

The sun was getting lower in the sky. It generously shared its last warm rays across the patchwork of hand-shaped leaves belonging to the horse chestnut trees that towered over the park.

Jake knew that Wasim had frequented this area of Leeds often, according to the cell-site data they held on his mobile calls, but so what? What did that prove? That Wasim came here for the pleasant view? Surely not, thought Jake.

He desperately needed some evidence, yet despite it being a large room, it was pretty much empty. There was nothing to go on.

What the fuck have I got myself into now? thought Jake as he stood silently bereft in the middle of the room. Was this just another dead end? Like the trip to see Shaggy had been? The confused look on the old man’s face after they’d kicked his door down in Sheffield jumped into his head.

The room was bare and stark, a far cry from all that junk piled high in Victoria Park. He remembered Geoff, the EXPO’s words, ‘Rather them than me in that small place with a load of explosives equipment… What if it all went up in one go? What sort of idiot assembles all three parts of a bomb in one tiny flat?’

Jake looked over at Shahid, who was still sweating.

Why was Shahid so worried?

Jake felt that he had few options here. Either he had to nick him or, well, there was no plan B.

Staring out of those large windows, it occurred to him that the curtains looked brand new, whereas the rest of the room looked tired and worn.

New drapes? Jake went over and touched the heavy, blue-velvet curtains. They didn’t look like they had been used at all. There were no net curtains.

He wondered if parkgoers got a nice view in from across the road when the lights were on inside the flat.

And then he saw it.

89

Friday

26 August 2005

1945 hours

The flat above the sandwich shop, Chapeltown, Leeds, West Yorkshire

There, on one of the white, UPVC window frames. One small piece of roughly torn, off-white masking tape.

It was stuck to the right-hand edge of one of the frames.

In all the places Jake had ever seen, in all the places he’d ever searched during his entire career, he’d only ever seen masking tape stuck to one other window frame.

‘I want you out! I’m seizing control of this room! Gimme the keys. I want every set of keys there are!’ he shouted.

Lenny looked at Jake, totally bemused.

‘What’s up, guv’nor?’

‘I’ll tell you later. You won’t believe me. Take our friend down and put him back in the car. I need to make some calls.’

Lenny pulled Shahid to his feet and led him out of the door.

Jake pulled out his mobile and called Denswood to explain about the masking tape he’d found.

‘And that’s the basis for you saying it’s a bomb factory?’ Malcolm Denswood laughed down the phone.

Jake took a deep breath. ‘Sir, it’s got a theory behind it. Look, when Wasim and his team had been cooking up explosives in the Victoria Park flat, we know they’d had to keep the windows open because of the fumes. The chemicals were so strong that all the paint had blistered on the window frames and the hedges outside had died. To stop passers-by peering in, they’d taped the net curtains to the window frames. They used masking tape to do that! We saw the masking tape at Victoria Park in the same place. This room is no different! And the bloke’s a liar. I don’t know why, but he’s worried sick about something.’

‘You want me to send a forensics team on a hunch?’

Denswood wasn’t backing down, but nor was Jake. ‘I’ll take whatever resources you can give me, sir,’ he replied.

‘Look, I’ll send you one bloke. That’s all you’re getting. And Jake – think yourself lucky. It may have escaped your notice, but it’s a Friday night, for Christ’s sake!’

90

Saturday

27 August 2005

1000 hours

The flat above the sandwich shop, Chapeltown, Leeds, West Yorkshire

Jake’s one forensics guy had arrived. Rick Benson wasn’t particularly happy about being sent up from London on a weekend’s wild goose chase to Leeds. Jake made him swab the room several times.

At the third time, Rick sighed loudly. ‘What are you hoping to achieve from this?’

‘I want it all swabbed. Again. Thoroughly. I want to know if there are fingerprints and explosives in here. If we find any other fingerprints in this room, they might be other potential bombers.’

‘But it’s too big to swab properly and it’s too bare. There’s nothing in here that’s of any use to us. You can want all you like, but you won’t always get it. It’s almost two months after the event. Some other bloke’s been living here since then.’

‘What about the carpet?’ asked Jake. ‘What about taking all the carpet up?’

‘What is that going to prove? How does that move this investigation on?’

Jake rolled his eyes at Rick’s lack of enthusiasm for the job in hand. ‘Look, we’ve found one bomb factory but a bomb consists of different parts: the main charge, the initiator, a power source and a trigger. If you’re properly trained, you’d never manufacture or store each of the parts in the same place because it’s just too dangerous. You’d construct the different parts in different places and keep all the parts separate as long as possible. It’s common sense. They’ve been up to something in here. Shahid is a liar. I want to find out what’s in that carpet.’

Rick wasn’t convinced. ‘Mate, the carpet won’t fit in my van. I’ve been told this is a low-key search. You’re out on limb here. It’s a load of old bollocks. No one is giving this any significance.’

‘I want to know what’s in the carpet,’ repeated Jake.

He remembered that he’d once spilled emulsion paint on a brand new carpet back home. He knew at the time that Stephanie would go through the roof; it had only just been laid. So he’d wet down the carpet, then put a damp flannel on the back of the hoover instead of attaching the bag. When he’d vacuumed, he’d caught everything in it and most of the paint had come up, thank God!

‘We need a hoover,’ said Jake, ‘here’s some cash. Go and get me a hoover. Let’s see what’s been in here.’

When Rick returned from his shopping trip, they vacuumed one square metre of the carpet together, and Rick took a Pandora’s box of dust back down to London with him.

91

Tuesday

30 August 2005

1012 hours

Dudley Hill police station, Bradford, West Yorkshire

Jake gripped his coffee mug tightly between his hands in an attempt to bury his frustration. He sat in a small office on the second floor, looking at the TV screen, his notepad and pen beside him. His mug held just water, which he sipped at regular intervals, trying to fight off the dehydration from another hangover. It wasn’t working.

The meeting room in London appeared to be bursting at the seams. There were people stood on all sides of the table and not enough chairs to go around.

‘We’re currently looking at all the slack space for anything of use, sir,’ continued one of the forensic computing geeks in London.

Lenny began to giggle.

‘Slack space – you’ve seen plenty of that, hey, Jake?’ whispered Lenny as he nudged Jake with his elbow.

‘Forgive me for sounding stupid, but what exactly is slack space?’ asked Denswood.

‘Well, lots of people in the police who know nothing about computers and how they work mistakenly believe that once a file is deleted on a drive, it can’t be recovered. In fact, all that happens is that you delete the filename and the ability of your computer to find it again. Any information in the file remains there, on the hard drive as before. That means that the space is open; it’s slack. Sometimes even when the space is overwritten with something else, another file, we can still see fragments of what was there originally. Does that make sense now for the novices?’

The computer geek sounded a little too smug to Jake’s ears.

‘And how long do I need to allow you to look into this slack space before you can tell me if there’s anything decent in there?’ asked Denswood, sounding slightly annoyed. He didn’t like the tone of the condescending PC nerd either, thought Jake.

‘We currently have seventeen drives, sir. That’s an awful lot of slack space to be looking at…’

‘Do you need more manpower?’ asked Denswood.

‘Each file, each space needs to be looked at and assessed individually. Of course, more people would us help, sir.’

‘How many do you need? Ten, twenty? Just tell me. We need to move on with this stuff.’

‘I need to look at how much capacity we have currently and come back to you later today, sir. Is that OK?’

They were no further forward and Jake had gleaned little else from the others who spoke throughout the rest of the meeting. It seemed as though everyone was literally looking into slack space. Things were limping along listlessly. The MIR was churning out actions; various small teams were going through them and sending them back to the MIR, only to generate yet more actions back from them.

‘Have you got anything to add, Jake? Have your team found anything of note?’ Denswood barked over the video link, startling Jake.

‘Yes, sir. I have a question. I’d like to know if the stuff we hoovered from the flat above the sandwich shop has been submitted for analysis yet by exhibits?’

‘Yes, Jake. It’s been sent off. We’re awaiting the results,’ replied Ian, the exhibits officer.

‘You’re still convinced this was a bomb factory, Jake?’ asked Denswood. ‘Have you made any progress with owner of the place yet?’

Jake took a sip from his mug of water. His throat was dry.

‘Yes, sir. I am still convinced. The more I talk to Shahid Bassam, the more I dislike him and the more holes I find in his account. What he’s trying to cover up with those lies is a different question.’

‘Like what? Give me an example of the lies,’ asked Denswood.

‘I’m still looking at what he’s said and pulling it apart. He claims that he first met Wasim by chance outside a mosque one day. That’s a lie. The phone records show that they were in contact for quite some time prior to the date when he claims they initially became acquainted. There are other inconsistencies but I’m working on how to prove them at the moment. It sounds minor, I know, but, well, I don’t like him.’

‘I need more than a hunch, Jake. Let’s wait and see what comes up on the forensics. Thank you, all. Same time again next week please.’

92

Tuesday

6 September 2005

0928 hours

Dudley Hill police station, Bradford, West Yorkshire

It was video link time with London again. Jake turned on the monitor and camera. Someone at the other end accepted the video call and the TV screen filled with a blurred image. The cameras took a while to warm up and the picture remained fuzzy for some time after the screen came on. He could see hordes of officers beginning to traipse into the meeting room at Scotland Yard.

Someone had left yesterday’s newspaper on the table. Jake thumbed through it. The front page was dominated by a photo of a devastated New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina had caused a storm surge. At least 80% of the city was flooded, and thousands were believed to be dead. It was being reported that law and order had completely broken down and people had to fend for themselves. There were complaints that the US government was doing very little. Michael Jackson had indicated that he was going to launch a charity single to help.

On an inside spread, Jake spotted a photo of Wasim Khan. There was an article about his suicide video, which had been broadcast by Al Jazeera TV.

The meeting started as Jake was still reading.

‘Good morning all,’ announced Denswood. ‘Let’s get straight into this, I’ve got a lot on today. I’m assuming you’ve all seen the video of Wasim Khan on the news? If you haven’t, the MIR has a copy. There are no surprises contained within it, to be quite honest. He talks about the reasons he decided to martyr himself. Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are all mentioned. It’s the sort of thing we’ve seen before, created by other suicide bombers on the internet. We’ve had people looking at it for clues as to where it was made. Initial assessments are that it was filmed in Pakistan at some point between November 2004 and February 2005.

‘The video has been released by al-Qaeda’s media arm and uses their graphics. Take from that what you will. What strikes us as odd is the length of time that they’ve left before releasing the video. It could be that they were just waiting for the dust to settle on the blast sites… Next item: DI Flannagan. I believe that Ian from exhibits has some news for you. Ian?’ Denswood paused.

Jake closed his newspaper.

Ian cleared his throat and took the stage. ‘Yes. The hoover contents from the flat above the sandwich shop. The results have come back. We were looking to see whether the sample tested positive for any form of explosives. In particular
some
trace of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, otherwise known as HMTD. HMTD is highly explosive. It’s mainly used for initiators as it responds well to shock, friction and electrostatic charges. It would be very easy to set off a bomb via an HMTD initiator using a nine-volt battery like the one Asif Rahman purchased in Boots before he blew himself up on the bus. The hydrogen-peroxide-based explosives we found at the Victoria Park flat would have needed an initiator. HMTD would have been highly suited to this purpose…’