‘Now that this threat has been dealt with,’ Daniels continued, ‘I see no reason not to downgrade the threat level. Perhaps I could have a show of hands for any of us who disagrees with this course of action.’
There were no raised hands. The members of the JTAC were all political creatures, and they knew as well as anyone how much easier a downgrading of the threat level would make their own lives.
‘Good,’ the DG said, his voice brisk. ‘Then unless there’s anything else, I’ll inform the PM immediately.’ He gathered the papers laid out on the table in front of him, gave a nod to the assembled company, and quickly left the room.
Back in the day, when Siobhan was being trained up in the Det, she’d had an instructor. He was a foul-mouthed bastard who for some reason had managed to sleep his way through at least half the females under his tutelage, and he never made it a secret that he’d like Siobhan to be another notch on his bedpost. She never succumbed, not only because the guy made her flesh creep, but also because it was in the early days with Jack, and her boyfriend would have nailed the instructor’s bollocks to the floor if he thought he was messing with Siobhan. That was what Jack was like.
Still, say what you like about the instructor, he knew his stuff. Siobhan was more than happy to put up with his lechery if it meant she learned something. That was what
she
was like.
Siobhan found herself thinking of that instructor now. ‘Surveillance,’ he had told her, ‘is boring. Fucking boring. But boredom’s your biggest enemy. You get bored, you get careless. You get careless . . .’ He’d made a gun shape with two fingers and thumb, then mimed shooting himself in the head. ‘And it would be a shame to be scraping
your
pretty little face off the pavement.’
Siobhan had never forgotten that. Since her days training in Hereford, she’d spent countless hours performing covert surveillance and she knew every trick in the book. Which was why she now found herself crouched in the boot of her old Volvo estate – a vehicle selected for no other reason than that it was perfect for a boot fit like this, with the back seats up and the space covered. Enough space for her to stay hidden, for her stash of different styles of clothes to help her blend in to whichever neighbourhood she was staking out, and for the briefcase opened up beside her, which contained a small radio receiver, a loudspeaker and a mess of wires like colourful spaghetti. Her torch was off, but light seeped in to the boot from the two peepholes that she had drilled into the number plate. At the end of the Troubles, the IRA had grown cute to boot fits like this and had started blowing up vehicles they only suspected of containing surveillance operatives. But those days were gone, which meant some of the old techniques could come back into play.
As she entered the fourth hour of surveillance outside the Horse and Three Feathers, she kept the instructor’s words firmly in her mind. Under ordinary circumstances she’d have a partner, someone to share the duty with. But these circumstances weren’t ordinary. Kieran’s tip-off of a Drugs Squad police officer on Cormac’s payroll meant she couldn’t trust anybody on the force. Even if she could, she wouldn’t. She knew what they thought of her – that life for her was just some long personal vendetta against the types who put Lily on the wrong path in the first place.
The very thought of Lily made her want to cry again. Alice’s words resounded in her mind.
They ship them out. Africa, they say. Places where white girls fetch a price . . .
She wanted to howl, but she tried to concentrate on the job in hand. All she could do for Lily right now was to blow a hole in the heroin trade that had dragged her down to God knew what depths. No matter how much she wanted to storm into that pub, put a Glock to O’Callaghan’s head and tell him to talk, she knew that wasn’t the right play. Siobhan needed leverage, otherwise she was helpless.
The loudspeaker crackled. This was old technology, but that was O’Callaghan through and through. Most dealers of his calibre had five or six mobile phones and discarded them on a regular basis. O’Callaghan was at the other end of the scale. As far as Siobhan could tell, he didn’t use any mobile phones – or indeed any phones at all. To catch someone with such an old-fashioned way of doing business, you had to use old-fashioned policing. Siobhan could only hope Kieran’s little bug would pay dividends.
Voices. Not for the first time that day, but up till now everything had been idle chit-chat. O’Callaghan was in the room – she’d established that much – and there was a woman called Betty who brought him teas and coffees. But that was it. Boring.
You get bored, you get careless. You get careless . . .
‘Someone says he wants to see you.’ Betty’s voice on the loudspeaker. ‘Foreign fella. Already told him to fuck off back to Dagoland, but he won’t go.’
‘Show him in, Betty. I’m expecting him.’ O’Callaghan’s voice was so soft that Siobhan had to strain to hear it.
The sound of someone entering the room.
‘Leave us alone, Betty. No one to disturb us.’
Another pause. And then a new voice. No greetings. No pleasantries. Just straight down to business.
‘The merchandise.’ The newcomer spoke with the quiet precision of someone for whom English was not his first language. Whoever he was, he wasn’t born and bred in Belfast. ‘You are finding it satisfactory?’
‘Yeah,’ Cormac replied. His voice was just audible above the sudden crackling of the loudspeaker. ‘The product’s good. I’m surprised to see you here, though. I thought we agreed, minimal contact.’
‘My presence makes you uncomfortable?’
‘I like to keep my suppliers at arm’s length. It’s better for all of us.’
‘Indeed. But there are some conversations that should be conducted face to face.’ A shuffling sound. ‘I am going away for a few days. Business abroad.’
‘I heard something of the sort.’
‘Good. Your next delivery is due very soon. I would like to receive my payment in advance.’
More crackling.
‘That was never the deal,’ Cormac said quickly. ‘Cash on delivery. That’s the way it works in these parts, my friend. Only way I can do it.’
‘Mr O’Callaghan, you’re a man of business. I am sure you understand that flexibility is a most important attribute in a businessman. I would like my money in advance, otherwise I will be forced to find another distributor.’
‘You’ll never find one. You know how good my distribution networks are. I can get product into every city in the UK within a day of receiving it. If you can’t get the stuff on to the streets, it’s worthless—’
‘Mr O’Callaghan,’ the stranger interrupted. ‘I am supplying you with large quantities of very pure heroin at an extremely attractive rate.’
‘You are that, my friend, you are that. But let’s not forget that you’re not the only one who’s been supplying people with things. How’s the white gold you’ve got stashed in a hole somewhere? Seeing to your needs, I hope . . .’
The stranger carried on as if he hadn’t even heard O’Callaghan. ‘There are plenty of other people who would be more than happy to take your place should you find my terms unacceptable. Since it is clear that you would prefer me to go elsewhere—’
‘No . . .’ O’Callaghan cut in. For the first time he sounded slightly hesitant. ‘No. I’ll get you your money. Just make sure the product arrives safely.’
‘It will arrive just when you are expecting it.’
‘Well that’s something.’
‘I have a final request, Mr O’Callaghan.’ The newcomer’s voice remained mild.
‘You don’t ask for much, do you?’
‘Over the coming days, I will have some extra packages. I would like you to have them delivered to the mainland. I would, of course, expect to pay you a small fee—’
‘Shit!’ Suddenly, without warning, the speaker had fallen silent. Siobhan tapped it. Nothing. The feed was dead.
She had heard enough to realise she needed to know this guy’s identity. She had to get out. Exiting a boot fit on your own was dangerous. If you had a partner, it was different – just drive somewhere out of sight. Siobhan didn’t have that luxury. She looked through the peepholes. They gave her a limited view of the side street in which she’d parked. She gave it five seconds. No sign of anybody so she unlatched the boot from the inside, raised it slightly and slipped unnoticed out of the gap. Climbing into the driver’s seat, she removed a shell-suit jacket and a baseball cap that she fitted over her blonde hair. For a run-down part of town like this, she needed to chav herself up.
The car was parked in a street running down the back of the pub; now she got out of the vehicle and sprinted round to the front. The place was a shithole – you could tell that just from the facade, with its blacked-out windows and rusting pub sign swinging gently in the breeze. She knew she could hardly walk in and demand to see the proprietor; but on the other side of the road there was a café. She went in, ordered a coffee and took a seat by the window.
The glass was smeared and greasy, but it gave her a direct view of the pub’s entrance. By the time the coffee arrived, no one had emerged. It wasn’t until her untouched drink was practically cold that the pub door swung open and a man emerged.
Siobhan’s blood ran cold. The man’s features were Middle Eastern.
The white gold you’ve got stashed in a hole somewhere
. She remembered what Alice had said and a sense of dread filled her veins. She also knew that this man’s face was familiar. But where from?
She stood up, left a fiver on the table and walked out of the café. By the time she was on the pavement, she’d already removed her small digital camera from her jacket pocket. Her window of opportunity to get a snap of his face was tiny, so she started raising it to her eye.
At that exact moment, he turned to look at her. A look so chilling and intense that her arms fell to her side and she found herself just walking away. Siobhan was not easily spooked, but there was something about the way he had looked at her that made her want to get the hell out of there.
Twenty seconds later, when she glanced over her shoulder, the man was gone.
Siobhan’s memory was very good. Well trained. Even now she kept up the memory exercises she used to perform when she was in the Det: Kim’s game, remembering lists of random objects with unerring accuracy and speed; memorising number plates as she walked down the street; staring at photographs of major players so that she would recognise them instantly on sight.
The man who had walked out of the Horse and Three Feathers wasn’t a major player. Not so far as Siobhan knew, anyway. That was why it had taken a moment for the penny to drop. But it had dropped now.
She knew who he was. And it didn’t make sense. Which was why she sprinted to her car and burned the rubber back to her flat, where she would be able to check that her suspicion was right.
Siobhan burst into her flat and rushed into the living room, where her laptop was on one of the chairs. She booted it up and navigated through a few websites. It didn’t take long to find his photograph.
She stared at the face gazing at her from the screen. There was no doubt about it. The Middle Eastern skin. The neatly trimmed beard. The little round glasses. That was him. That was
definitely
him.
But it made no sense. Because why, she asked herself, would Habib Khan, director of the Islamic Council for Peace and one of the most respected Muslims in the country, have any kind of dealings with a piece of shit like Cormac O’Callaghan?
1 JULY
12
‘Heads up, Danny boy. It’s your fancy girl.’
Frank Maloney’s tie was fully done up, which meant it must be first thing in the morning. By lunchtime he’d have loosened it; by teatime he’d have stuffed it in the pocket of his crumpled suit. Come closing time, he’d have used it to wipe flecks of vomit from the corner of his mouth. It was no secret that Frank enjoyed a jar or two after work.
Danny looked up from his desk to see Siobhan Byrne walking purposefully through the office.
‘Will you not be trying your luck then?’ Frank persisted.
Danny ignored him.
‘Ah, Danny boy. There was me thinking she was the love of your life. That you’d be taking her out, wining and dining her, whispering sweet words of love into her shell-likes. And then taking her back to your place to give her a face like a painter’s radio—’
‘Ah, shut the fuck up, Frank,’ Danny interrupted him.
Frank shrugged. ‘Your wish is my command, Danny boy. You know that.’ His eyes followed Siobhan as she wove her way through the maze of desks in that enormous office, towards the glass-fronted room in which their DCI sat – as he always did – ploughing through file after file. Frank scratched his head so vigorously that little flakes fell on to the shoulders of his jacket; and he watched DI Byrne with such intensity that Danny was forced to wonder whether he himself harboured romantic feelings towards the woman . . .
Siobhan knocked on DCI Robertson’s glass door. The DCI was an arsehole, with piggy little eyes, a jowly face and both the physique and the mentality of a man who spent too much time at his desk. Siobhan avoided contact with him as much as possible. But Jack hadn’t called her back, and some things were too heavy for her to carry completely on her own. Having slept on it she’d decided this was one of them. The boss looked up, and was unable to hide his dismay at seeing Siobhan standing outside. But he gestured her in.