The Angel (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A
qil Malik stood at the open graveside as his brother’s body was taken out of the casket and lowered into the ground, arranged on his right-hand side in such a fashion that his head was facing Mecca. It was important that this be done correctly. They had already had the anguish of not being able to bury Aamir quickly, as ordained by the scripture. The authorities had not released the body, probing and prodding it, until they had all the evidence they needed. It was an abomination. They had no respect. No understanding. Aamir had had nothing to do with what had happened, but they had not listened.

The male members of the family stood around, grim faced. The women were waiting for them at home. It was a dank afternoon, and rain pattered against the umbrella that Aqil’s elder brother, Yasin, held over both of their heads.

The imam finished his short prayer. ‘Indeed to Allah we belong, and to Him we will return.’

He stood back, and Aqil’s father dropped the first three fistfuls of wet earth over his son’s body. He recited the Surah:
‘“We created you from it, and return you into it, and from it we will raise you a second time.”’

Aqil felt his throat tightening, and a tear began to roll down his cheek, mixing with the rain.

Yasin stepped forward, stooped down to
collect
the mud, and scattered it over the body while reciting the same verse.

The mosque had taken care of all the necessary requirements. Aamir’s body had been washed and bathed and draped in the plain white
kafan
sheets as a part of the
takfeen
. They had taken him home for an afternoon, laying his casket out in the living room so that family members could pay their respects.

Their mother had wanted to close the lid. The bullet that had killed him had been fired at close range, the muzzle of the gun pressed against his crown so that a little circle of hair had been charred away. The exit wound was just above his jawline, below his left cheek. It was a purple bruise with a blackened hole in the centre. Their father had insisted that the casket be left open. He wanted people to see what the security services had done to
his boy
.

Not many people had come.

Even fewer had come to the
Janazah
prayer at the mosque.

Aqil had overheard his father and mother talking about it. Their friends had apologised, saying that it was too dangerous to come to the house. They had been given a police guard after the windows had been put in for the second time, and now their mail was being checked after white powder – later found to be flour – had been posted to them. And then there was the dog shit through the
letterbox
, the vitriol and the threats.

Aqil had closed his Twitter and Facebook accounts after the trolls had found them. They had threatened to kill him and his brother and rape his sister and his mother. One had even set up a fake account in Aamir’s name, complete with a head and shoulders shot that had been copied from one of his social media accounts. The fake Aamir had posted that there was no Paradise, that he was in Hell, and that Aqil would be next.

The community didn’t want to bring any of that down on themselves.

It was his turn now. He stepped forward to the lip of the grave, sank his hands into the wet muck and brought out a small pile in his cupped hands.

‘“We created you from it, and return you into it, and from it we will raise you a second time.”’

His twin had been a simple boy. There was a suggestion that Aqil had taken more from their mother when they were in the womb together, more nutrition or something, and that Aamir had suffered because of it. Aqil didn’t know how much of that was true, but it had been something that he had hated to be told. As they grew older, the evidence mounted. He was the bigger of the two. He was brighter, did better at school, had more friends. Aamir was more vulnerable, easily led, impressionable. Aqil had been concerned when Yasin had started taking him to the mosque more and more often. Yasin
had n
ever tried to persuade
him
to come, which made him suspicious, but Aamir was eighteen and could do whatever
he wante
d. Neither Yasin nor Aamir had ever brought his increasing piety up in front of their parents, and if the latter had noticed, they had said nothing.

Aqil knew the mosque was rotten. He had stopped going. He knew, too, that Yasin had grown close to Alam Hussain. Their father would have objected if he had known. The imam was persuasive and full of poison. His view of Islam was radical and more aggressive than the peaceful teachings of the man he had replaced. Aqil wished that he had said something. Perhaps it would have been
different
. He could have stopped it.

He had been furious when Yasin had explained what had happened. Yasin swore that he didn’t know about the planned attack, but he had refused to condemn it. Aqil didn’t believe it. Yasin wasn’t telling him everything. Aqil’s first reaction had been fury. He had struck his brother and would have struck him again if their father had not pulled them apart. He had been very close to telling the police officers who interviewed them what his brother had told him, and what he suspected.

But then the abuse had started. The dog shit had been pushed through the letter box. The bricks had been thrown through the windows. His mother had been assaulted in the street. The threatening phone calls came all through the night. The abuse had flooded his inbox. It was a tide, an avalanche, and it was getting worse and worse and
worse
.

Yasin had begged him to be quiet, and he had. What would have happened if he had spoken out? Yasin would have been arrested. The opprobrium wouldn’t have stopped.

‘Come on, bruv,’ Yasin said.

Aqil turned and followed Yasin away from the graveside. The protestors had been gathered at the gates of the graveyard for an hour before they had arrived. There had been twenty of them then, but as they walked through the drizzle back to their cars, he could see that there were more now. The path led down a slope to the ornate iron gates. Beyond them, and behind a
cordon
of police in their
fluorescent
yellow hi-vis jackets, an angry scrum
of perhaps a hundred
men and women had gathered.
There were skinh
eads there, right at the front, shouting out that they were
terrorists
and they should all be sent home. But, behind them, there were
ordinary
-looking men and women with angry red faces,
joining
in the chants and bellowing their indignation.

‘Bastards,’ Yasin swore under his breath.

‘Ignore them,’ their father commanded sternly. ‘They want us to react. Don’t give them the satisfaction.’

The funeral director had provided a black BMW for the immediate family. They got inside. The driver was pale faced, but as the cortege moved off, he put the car into gear and joined the slow-moving queue. The police opened the gates, and the cordon split into two halves, each holding back the protestors so that they could drive out onto the road beyond. The noise rose as they approached, a furious baying that was barely muffled inside the car. Aqil stared ahead, his jaw clenched tightly, his fists bunched up in his lap. He heard the abuse, the racism, saw the spit as it slid down the
windows
and then, as the cordon broke, saw the two skinheads surge fo
rward an
d pound their fists against the glass.

The driver swore, his hands shaking as he pressed down on the accelerator and raced clear.

The mourning, or
hidaad
, would last for three days. The family had gathered in the hall of the only community centre that would take their booking. Several had turned them down when they realised what the booking was for, so their father had pretended that this was to be a birthday party. The caretaker would have realised that he had been lied to as soon as the cars with their police escort drew into the car park, but by then it was too late.

Aqil stood at the edge of the room and watched. There were very few mourners, and those who had attended looked lost in the space of the hall. His brother did not deserve this. He did not deserve to be shunned. He did not deserve to be
dead
.

Yasin saw him and came across. He took him to one side.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘I know. Me too.’

‘Where is everyone? All the others?’

‘Scared,’ Yasin said.

‘It’s not fair.’

‘No,’ his brother said. His voice was as hard and as cold as iron. He took out his phone and opened the app for Twitter. ‘Seen this?’

‘No . . .’

‘Look at it.’

Yasin handed it over. Aqil had seen something similar on his own feed; he didn’t need to see it again. There had been hundreds of updates, each tagging his account so that he could see what had been said about him and his family. There were obscene
photographs
– a mocked-up picture of Aamir’s body seemed to have gone viral – together with dozens of death threats against him and the promise that his mother and sister would be raped.

‘I know you don’t agree with what Aamir did,’ Yasin said
carefully
, ‘but when you see this, it becomes easier to understand. You know what I mean?’

There was a short while of silence.

‘Have you thought about it?’

Aqil looked down. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘And?’

Aqil tried to compose himself. He had been tortured by it all morning. Yasin had been on at him ever since the abuse had started.

They would be blamed.

It was their fault.

What had they done?

His efforts built to a head last night. They had no choice,
he said
.

They had to do it.

They had to go.

What Yasin was suggesting was frightening. The first time he had brought it up, Aqil had told him that he was crazy and that there was no way he would ever agree to it. He didn’t hate his country. He was born here. He had friends here. People he had grown up with. He had school, college, the prospect of a job, the chance to make money, something to look forward to. A stake in the future.

But then the abuse had increased, and he thought about what his brother was proposing some more. He thought about the
Twitter
messages, the threats and the hatred, and he started to think that maybe Yasin was right, after all.

How would he get a job with the stain on his family name?

Who would employ the twin brother of a terrorist?

He had no friends. They had deserted him. Where were they now, when he needed them most? They were gone.

He thought about the newspaper reporters who had slept in their cars outside the house. They had raked through his past, running pictures of both of them, accusing them of things that they hadn’t done, accusing them of thinking things that they didn’t think. They’d discovered their father’s affair from twenty years ago, suggested his business was a front, said their mother was a benefits cheat, that she hadn’t been as badly damaged by the hospital’s negligence as they had said.

They wrote in twenty-point type, on a million tabloid newspapers, that the Maliks were traitors who hated their country.

And so he allowed himself to be browbeaten. He’d finally said yes when they spoke last night, but he had woken up this morning to find himself unsure again. He had looked at the streets as the convoy had driven to the cemetery, all the familiar places, and he had been buffeted by doubt. This was his home. Even the insipid Mancunian rain was a trigger for his memories. He had decided to tell Yasin that he had changed his mind, but then there was the funeral and the protestors with their yells and their fists hammering on the roof and the loathing that burned in their eyes.

Aqil angled himself so that he was facing Yasin and spoke
quietly
. ‘When do we do it?’

Yasin looked at him, and when he spoke, Aqil thought he could hear a little fear in his voice. ‘Sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

He almost seemed angry. Aqil knew why: he was suggesting something that would take him away from the family, and although Yasin believed it to be the right thing to do, he hated himself for the pain he was going to cause. ‘Don’t just say yes because you’re upset. This isn’t a joke. This is serious. We won’t be able to come home.’

‘I know that!’

‘Easy,’ Yasin said, his palm upraised. ‘Keep your voice down.’

Akil hissed, ‘I’m not stupid. I’m sure.’ He meant it.

Yasin nodded his head. ‘I’ll need your passport. I’m going to get the tickets this afternoon.’

‘When will we leave?’

‘Soon. The next few days. I don’t see any point in waiting, d
o y
ou?’

Chapter Thirty

T
hey reconvened in the car, and Snow drove them to an arcade of shops half a mile away. They parked outside the Zuhayp Café.

‘We’re not going to be able to put in any surveillance,’ Pope said. ‘There’s nowhere obvious on the street, and if those police patrols are any good, they’ll see us if we try and watch from the car.’

‘So we go tonight?’

‘We’ll wait until one.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Thirty minutes.’

‘Breeching where?’

‘The back. Nine?’

Kelleher took out her phone. She had taken a close-up picture of the lock on the door at the back of the house. She rested the phone on her knee and unzipped the bag of kit that was on the back seat between her and Pope. She took out the pick gun, selected the correct bit and slotted it into place.

‘Getting in won’t be difficult,’ she said, hefting the gun. ‘What about the layout inside?’

‘My guess is that you’ll have a room off the hallway at the front of the house, and the kitchen behind it. Flight of stairs up to the first floor, two bedrooms. It’s most likely that Hussain will be upstairs, but he has a bad leg. I wouldn’t rule out the chance that he has a bedroom on the ground floor.’

‘Options?’

‘Twelve – you stay in the car. Park on Greame Street, and be ready to move on my signal. If you see the patrol car, I want to know about it.’

‘Roger that.’

‘Nine – you breach the door. I’ll go in first; you come in after me. Standard clearing after that. Ground floor, then up the stairs. We keep the lights off, and keep both of them quiet.’ He reached into the bag for a roll of gaffer tape. ‘We’ll tape their mouths shut before we get him out. Back through the garden, into the alley, Twelve meets us on Cowesby Street, we get away and head straight for Scotland. Any questions?’

There were none.

Snow switched on the radio and tuned it to the BBC’s news channel. There was a discussion going on between the presenter and a security analyst. The presenter was complaining that recent events had left the public with no confidence in the police or the intelligence community. First had been the catalogue of errors that had led to the unlawful killing of Fèlix Rubió. And then, trumping even that disaster, had been the bombing of Westminster Tube station and the assault on the Houses of Parliament. How could anyone feel confident that they were protected when things like that were allowed to happen? What was being done to make sure that there was no repeat?

Pope knew the analyst. He rode a desk for a trendy
Whitehall
think tank. The man had no operational experience and had bluffed his way into a lucrative career as a talking head on news shows thanks to a series of guesses and speculation that occasionally proved to be correct. Pope had no respect for him.

He started a monologue about how he understood the public’s frustration, that his ‘sources’ were frustrated, too, and that there would need to be progress soon.

‘What a twat,’ Snow growled.

‘Turn it off,’ Pope said.

Snow did as he asked. Pope reached into his jacket, withdrew his pistol and, keeping it below the line of the windows, checked the magazine and pushed it back into its housing with a click.

Ten minutes.

Two miles away, Munro and Stokes were readying themselves to break in to the mosque. They had skirted the perimeter of the building, confirming Pope’s intelligence. It was well covered by CCTV cameras and would not be easy to infiltrate without leaving
evidence
that they had been there.

The wall that had been damaged by the car had not been fixed, and it had been a simple thing to move aside the temporary wire fence and slip through the broken teeth of the opening. They pulled on their balaclavas and gloves and hurried into the grounds. They saw the CCTV camera and knew that they would be seen on the footage. But that wouldn’t matter. It would be impossible to identify them.

There was a secondary entrance on this side of the building. It was secured behind a wire cage, but Munro was able to pick the lock so that it could be pulled aside. The door itself was flimsy, and the lock had been shattered with a single firm kick. The two agents raised their torches and went into the dark interior beyond.

Snow dropped Pope on Hartington Street and Kelleher on Greame Street. They had been spotted together once, and it would risk suspicion if they were seen together again. This was hardly the street for a late-night romantic promenade. Hartington Street ran north–south, two streets to the west of Rosebery Street. He was carrying a small shoulder bag with the kit that he thought he might need. He turned onto Alison Street and walked east, crossing Beresford Street and then Rosebery Street. Street lamps flickered on and off, and the moon was obscured by a slow-moving stack of silvery cloud.
Visibility
was more limited than before. That was helpful.

He saw Kelleher at the mouth of the alley. She stepped around an overturned bin and pulled on her balaclava. Pope reached the alley and did the same. She pointed to the first gate and, on his
signal
, opened it and slipped inside. Pope saw the back garden just as she had described it: a concreted-over space, junk discarded across it, a short distance to the dilapidated lean-to. There were no lights
visible
on either the ground or first floors of the house. He heard a low growl from the next garden across and glimpsed a
powerful
-looking pit bull chained to a fence post. Pope reached for the silenced Sig. The dog growled again, but it didn’t bark.
Lucky dog
.

Kelleher hurried to the rear door. Pope came up behind her and glanced in through the single window. The pane was covered by a patterned net curtain, and nothing was visible.

Pope reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of latex gloves and overshoes, putting them on over his hands and feet. He made sure that the elasticated openings were snug over the cuffs of his shirt and his trousers so that the chances of anything being left behind were minimised. Kelleher did the same. It was imperative that they left nothing that could be traced to them. The medical and dental records belonging to agents of Group Fifteen were routinely scrubbed, but the last thing they wanted to do was leave a DNA trace that might be tied back to them at some point in the future.

Number Nine inserted the pick gun into the lock, squeezed the trigger three times and worked the tension rod until the pins of
the loc
k were lined up correctly. The breaching was quiet, but it was not silent. The gun exhaled little bursts of compressed air, and the pins rattled as they were forced into the open position. The door opened, and Kelleher stepped aside.

Pope stepped up, held up his pistol in his right hand and counted down from three with the fingers of his left.

Three.

Two.

One.

He gently pushed the door and went inside.

Kelleher followed, closing the door behind her.

They were in the kitchen. A little moonlight filtered through the net curtain. He saw battered kitchen units on the wall, one missing its door, and a freestanding cooker and refrigerator. There was a linoleum floor, peeling back from the wall at the edges, sticky in parts where liquid had been spilt. There was a pile of dirty
dishes in
the sink. He smelled the residual odour of curry. The room w
as e
mpty.

Kelleher split off behind him and checked the door to what Pope guessed was a downstairs toilet. She nodded that the room was clear.

He circled his finger in the air to indicate they should proceed and then pointed at the open door that led to the hall, light filtering inside from the frosted glass panel in the front door.

There was a door to the right, halfway between the kitchen and the front door, and to the left, he saw the start of the stairs. He continued down the hallway and took up position at the foot of the stairs. Kelleher paused at the door, listened for a moment and then gently opened it with her foot. It swung back with a groan that sounded unnaturally loud, and she went inside.

Pope concentrated on inhaling and exhaling normally, fighting the urge to hold his breath. He glanced up the stairs and saw the deeper darkness of the landing above. Nothing was visible. A floorboard creaked from the front room. Pope gripped the butt of his cocked pistol tighter. Kelleher emerged again, shaking her head.

Pope pointed up the stairs. He took a thin Maglite from his bag and shone it down as he climbed the stairs, his feet on the outside of the treads. Kelleher followed behind him. He reached the landing and cast the light around him. There was a laundry basket directly ahead, stuffed full of dirty clothes. He reached the top and turned to the left. There was a chest pressed up against the wall and, atop it, another pile of dirty clothes.

Two doors up ahead of him. One was opposite his position, the other immediately to the left.

Pope paused, listening hard. He could hear the sound of low breathing, but he couldn’t discern from which direction it was
coming
.

Number Twelve’s voice crackled low in his earbud.
‘The police car is coming back.’

He clicked the pressel twice to acknowledge the message and turned back to Kelleher, who gave a nod. She had received it, too.

Pope edged ahead. The door to the left would lead to the room at the front of the house. He pressed his fingers against it and gently exerted enough pressure to push it open.

He went inside, his silenced weapon up and ready to shoot.

It seemed to be an office of sorts. He took the three paces necessary to reach the window to the street below, and pressed up hard to the side of it, he risked a quick glance through the net curtain.
The polic
e car rolled slowly down the street, slowed to a stop outside the front door, and then rolled on again.

Snow:
‘It’s moving on.’

Two clicks.

There was a desk on the other side of the window with a P
C an
d a monitor atop it. He noted that, so he wouldn’t forget it later,
and cre
pt back to the landing. He motioned that the room was empty and pointed to the remaining door. He had suspected that this was the room where they would find Hussain and his wife. The layout of the house suggested that it was the bigger of the two.

The door was halfway ajar, and he looked in. There was a wardrobe ahead and, to the right, a bed on which he could make out the shape of two recumbent bodies. He pushed the door open enough to step inside, his teeth set on edge by the low groan of badly
lubricated
hinges, raising his pistol and aiming it down at the bodies in the event that they awoke.

They did not.

There was a bedside table to each side of the bed. Each table held an identical lamp. Hussain was on the right. He was on his back, and Pope could see the fuzzy grey mess of his beard. There was a copy of the Qur’an on his table.

Pope took four steps until he was alongside him.

Kelleher moved around the bed to stand over the woman.

Pope counted down from three, and on one, they both moved with fluid, practised efficiency. They put their left hands over the mouths of the couple and pressed the guns hard against their heads.

Hussain bucked in sudden alarm, but Pope pushed down and anchored him to the mattress. He tried to scream, the noise
muffled
by Pope’s palm. He bucked again, trying to free his arms from beneath the duvet. Pope took the butt of the Sig and cracked it down hard against his forehead. It was a strong blow, and the sharp edge of the butt cut the skin and drew a little furrow of blood.
Hussain
moaned, the noise smothered once again.

Pope looked across the bed to Mrs Hussain. She was lying still, her eyes wide and eloquent with fear above Number Nine’s
restraining
hand.

Pope switched his grip on the pistol so that he could put his index finger to his lips. ‘I’m going to take my hand away,’ he said in a quiet, firm voice. ‘If you make any noise, my colleague will shoot your wife and then I’ll shoot you. Blink if you understand.’