The Mephisto Threat

Amen to that, he thought.

He wasn’t happy until the plane had taken off. Even then he spent the first couple of hours fretting. Only when they finally touched down at Madrid did he start to breathe easily.

The next flight to London left at 7.10 via Iberian Airways. The ticket desk was closed. Already well past midnight, he decided to sit it out at the airport. By the time the desk was open, the flight had already left. Pissed off and exhausted, he eventually caught a flight that arrived at Heathrow, terminal 2, shortly after three in the afternoon. He fully expected to be stopped and searched at Customs, but was waved through, mainly, he suspected, because it was choking with people as a result of delayed flights, understaffing and a lack of screening machines. From Heathrow, he took the tube to Kensington and booked into the Kensington Close Hotel, where he was escorted immediately to the room already allocated to him. Inside, he found a wardrobe of clothes his size. He also found the safe. Entering the code, the door clicked open, yielding one thousand pounds in used notes and a mobile phone. Tallis pocketed the money and punched in the number given to him by Asim. He waited while the call was routed. Asim answered straight away.

‘Paul,’ he said, warmth in his voice. ‘How are you?’

‘Apart from surviving an earthquake, having a gun pulled on me by an a-Q operative and escaping from the clutches of some CIA bastard who took a fancy to my balls, I’m good, thanks.’

8

WHEN Tallis finished, Asim said, ‘Welcome to the club.’

Tallis pointed out dryly that he wasn’t part of anyone’s club.

‘Is that the reason you didn’t reveal your true ID?’

‘What is this? Phone a friend?’ More to the point, whom should he have called? Tallis wondered. As far as MI5 were concerned, he wasn’t officially working for them. He was, without doubt, one of many freelancers, paid for his expertise, yet utterly deniable if he screwed up, a spook of sorts but without formalised backing. Strangely, it didn’t bother him, perhaps because he had nobody to worry about and nobody to worry about him. The attraction for the security services was obvious: expendability.

Asim’s voice trickled with laughter. ‘Wasn’t a criticism. You did the right thing by keeping schtum.’

‘What I want to know is why they thought I had connections to the Moroccan.’

‘They mention the guy’s name?’

‘No, but shouldn’t be too difficult to find out.’

‘True.’ Asim paused. ‘Sounds to me as though they had limited intelligence, you burst into the picture, they decided to add three and three together and made fifteen.’

‘They being?’

‘Not entirely certain.’

Bet you have some idea, Tallis thought. ‘And Morello?’

‘A side-show.’

Tallis didn’t agree.

‘You said at least one of the hit team was British,’ Asim said.

‘Yup.’ He remembered the words: ‘…fuckin’ out of here’.

‘That may be significant as far as the hunt for the people behind Morello’s murder are concerned.’

More than significant, Tallis believed. He thought it was their first cock-up. All he had to do was find the next.

‘And this guy, Koroglu—an American you say?’

‘No doubt about it.’

Another pause. Tallis decided to go the direct route. ‘Are the Yanks outsourcing their detention centres to Turkey?’

‘The Turks are under pressure from extremists, too. They might see it as being to their advantage.’

‘Are they, or aren’t they?’ Tallis said, stubbornly pushing his luck.

‘I don’t know,’ Asim said smoothly.

‘Oh, come on,’ Tallis said. ‘You must have some idea. We’re all supposed to be best buddies.’

This time Asim’s laugh was hard. ‘Notwithstanding the change of head honcho across the water, a political event that takes time to download to the game on the ground, the Americans are no longer happy to play when it comes to intelligence concerning potential a-Q suspects.’

‘Because our government decided to voice opposition to Guantanamo Bay, and reduce our forces in Iraq?’

Asim concurred. ‘We’ve reached a fairly dire situation. If we want to know something from a suspect held in American custody, we’re no longer able to fly out and talk to them. We have to put the question to the American operative who will ask on our behalf.’

How very Russian, Tallis thought, remembering the Litvinenko investigation in which Scotland Yard officers were denied direct access to suspects.

‘It signals a grave lack of trust,’ Asim continued, ‘something that needs to be restored and quickly, which is why the head man is so hell-bent on getting Five, the Secret Intelligence Service and all the other British law enforcement agencies to bond together in the fight against terrorism.’

And they needed to, Tallis thought. It was reputed that at any given time there were two thousand terrorists and two hundred plots aimed against British citizens. No longer was it a case of if there would be an attack but when. In response to the threat, MI5 had launched a hip recruitment campaign aimed at young Brits, including Muslims, doubled its size, regarded languages for its operatives as crucial and had adopted a policy of international and national co-operation right across the board.

‘They ever thought about using organised crime?’

‘What?’ Asim said, baffled.

‘Use a thief to catch a thief.’ Asim gave a snort of ridicule. But Tallis wasn’t going to be deflected. ‘The CIA recruited Mafiosi to kill Castro.’

‘One man,’ Asim pointed out. ‘We’re up against entire legions, people from every walk of life, who think nothing of exploiting each single easy route into our country.’ Tallis thought of the Middle Eastern doctors who’d taken advantage of a shortage in the NHS to blag their way in and initiate a reign of terror in Scotland. ‘Who, in case you’ve forgotten,’ Asim continued pointedly, ‘are rumoured to have links with organised crime, which is what we’re investigating.’

‘I was wondering when you’d come back to that,’ Tallis said briskly. ‘Well, this is how I read the runes. I think the two incidents are connected. Morello discovered something. The fact he chose the Byzantium, a known criminal hangout, for a meeting is significant. Whatever he knew, someone wanted to shut him up. Somewhere our Moroccan is involved. You mention the purported links between British organised crime and terrorism. Well, I think I just stumbled across them.’

‘You’re making some fairly big assumptions.’

‘It’s the only picture that fits.’

‘In this line of work there are usually several pictures that fit, Paul, and the obvious one is usually a blind.’

Ouch, this was the nearest Asim, who it had to be said he didn’t know that well, had come to a rebuke. ‘Point taken,’ Tallis said with as much humility as he could muster.

‘Going back to the hit. Are you really sure it was meant for Morello?’

Tallis let out a sigh. He’d been over and over it. ‘Yes.’

‘Reason?’

‘Something Morello said before he died. He kept repeating the word “report”.’

‘What kind of report?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re sure that’s what he said?’

‘Quite certain.’

‘And you think this is what got him killed?’

‘Possibly. Not sure, could be a blind,’ Tallis said, a smile in his voice. Asim let out an appreciative laugh. ‘And there was something else,’ Tallis said. ‘Morello asked if I’d ever come across a guy called Kevin Napier.’

‘And have you?’

‘He fought in the first Gulf War same time as me and, like me, left to become a police officer, only his route took him to the dizzy heights of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency.’

‘Go on,’ Asim said, voice sharpening.

‘That’s it. I confirmed I knew the guy.’

‘And Morello didn’t state the reason for his interest?’

‘Didn’t get the chance.’

There was a brief silence. ‘SOCA is the UK arm of Interpol,’ Asim said, as if thinking aloud. ‘It also maintains a large network of overseas officers.’

‘So Napier might have been posted to Turkey?’

‘It’s possible.’

Another little piece in the jigsaw, or simply a meaningless piece of detritus? Tallis thought.

‘You’ve done really well,’ Asim congratulated him. ‘Shame about the screw-up with Morello, could have done without it, but you handled everything superbly. I’ll see what I can find out from my contacts and get back to you. In the meantime, I suggest you go back home, get some rest, forget about it for a bit.’

Forget about it? And poor Garry relegated to nothing more than a gross inconvenience. Tallis sadly shook his head. He really felt like a most reluctant spook.

He didn’t go back home. He stayed the night in London. The hotel was overrun with American kids doing a sightseeing tour. As he went down to breakfast the next morning, an anarchic help-yourself affair, he stood in line behind a youth wearing a T-shirt that announced he wanted to shoot all the fucking jackasses. Couldn’t agree more, Tallis thought drolly.

The earthquake in Turkey featured well inside most newspapers’ covers, sometimes not making it until the ‘World News’ section. Loss of life was reported as minimal, a couple of dozen deaths scattered over Istanbul, many more injured. Tellingly, there was no mention of those crushed deep within its city streets.

Outside heralded a fine September day, warm and sunny, with puffs of light cloud. After a quick wander around Kensington Palace Gardens to take some air, he returned to the hotel, checking out shortly after ten. From there, he took a tube to Ladbroke Grove.

Gayle Morello lived in the heart of Notting Hill in a handsome loft apartment arranged on two floors. The visit was a flyer. There was a strong possibility that she might already have left for Turkey. If she was at home, he knew that, whatever came up in the conversation, he couldn’t admit to being with Garry in his final moments. The police were bound to have mentioned David Miller, the man Garry had met at the café. No way was he confessing to being the same man.

Getting out at the station, he walked past a range of local shops, including a number that had a culinary theme. Outside the Morellos’, he stood for a full minute, gazing up at huge arched windows, black wrought-iron balcony, red brick, freshly painted white rendering. He was wondering how the hell he was going to talk to a woman who’d lost not only her first husband in sudden circumstances but her second husband, too. But he had to. Gayle deserved no less. As for Garry, it was Tallis’s way of honouring his old friend’s memory.

With a heavy heart, he trudged up the four steps to the painted black front door and pressed the entry-phone. After a few moments, Gayle answered. ‘Yes?’ Her voice sounded tired.

‘Gayle, it’s Paul Tallis.’

‘Paul?’ she said, sounding confused then, as if it suddenly dawned on her who he was, she let out a small cry. ‘Come on up,’ she said, pressing the buzzer to let him in.

Tallis ascended two flights of narrow stairs. Must have been a bugger moving the furniture in, he thought, his frame constrained by the architecture. The front door to the apartment was already open, Gayle standing there. She was wearing dark glasses. Her skin was ashen. Although a tall, statuesque woman, she seemed to have shrunk since the last time he saw her. Stooped shoulders, long blonde hair unwashed, clothes thrown on anyhow. That’s grief, he thought, wondering if he too, perhaps more subtly, had morphed since Belle’s death. A sudden image of her dying in his arms flashed into his mind. She’d been shot. The man responsible for the order was Belle’s husband, Dan, a bent copper and wife-beater, the act perpetrated not out of jealousy, but as a means to get back at Tallis, Dan being Tallis’s morally disconnected older brother.

Tallis put his arms around Gayle, gave her a hug. A memory of Hikmet flashed through his mind. Was he becoming a magnet for the bereaved?

Gayle began to cry. ‘How could somebody do that to him? How could they? I keep going over and over it, imagining, wondering what it must have been like.’

Tallis murmured softly, letting her weep, feeling her tears soak into his shirt. Eventually she calmed down a bit, pulled away from him.

‘They said he died instantly, that he didn’t feel pain, so I suppose that makes it more bearable.’

‘Yes,’ he said, unflinching.

She nodded, attempted a smile. ‘You look well,’ she said. ‘Been on holiday?’

‘Sicily,’ he said, seizing on the first place he could think of.

‘Come on,’ she said, taking him by the hand, ‘can’t stand here all day, bawling.’ He admired her spirit. She seemed to be holding it together better than he’d done.

They went through to the kitchen. Hand-painted, handcrafted, and of traditional design, it made a refreshing change from the pathology-suite-themed cooking environment. Tallis sat down at the kitchen table and watched as Gayle made coffee with an amazing contraption that hissed and blew like an old steam train. The result was amazing, the real deal.

‘How did you find out?’ Gayle said at last, raising the cup to her lips.

He was prepared. ‘One of Garry’s mates. He works on The Independent.’

‘Typical journo. Always have their ears to the ground.’

‘And you?’

‘Police in Turkey traced me through Garry’s passport details, contacted our boys here. I received the proverbial knock at the door.’ She grimaced, putting the cup back down, clattering it against the saucer. ‘Two officers: one male; one female. I knew it was bad soon as I clapped eyes on them. Remembered from last time. I can tell you,’ she said, ‘having been through this once before doesn’t make it any easier.’ She reached for a box of tissues, blew her nose fiercely.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean…’

‘No, it’s all right, Paul. I’m all right. It’s just…’ Her voice faded away.

Tallis snatched at his coffee. Maybe he shouldn’t have come so soon. ‘You here on your own?’

‘Of course.’ She looked taken aback.

‘Should you be?’ Tallis smiled. ‘Haven’t you got family, friends?’

‘You’re beginning to sound like my family liaison officer,’ Gayle snorted. ‘Like I already explained to her, my mother wasn’t that keen on my marriage to Garry, my sister lives in Canada and most of my friends are hard out at work.’

Now that she’d reminded him, Tallis remembered Gayle once talking about her mother’s opposition to the marriage. ‘You shouldn’t be alone,’ he said, thinking, What do I know about such things? After Belle’s death the thought of spending time with people had quietly appalled him. Still did.

‘I’m not. I get regular visits from the police.’

‘Are they keeping you informed?’

‘They’ve been brilliant.’

‘You’re not flying out?’

‘I don’t need to. Someone from the MET’s gone on my behalf.’

‘But surely…’ Tallis began.

‘Unfortunately, my passport’s expired.’

‘I’m sure, in the circumstances, someone could rush one through.’

Gayle gave a morbid shrug. ‘What difference will it make? Garry’s gone. Doesn’t matter whether I see him here or in Turkey.’

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Tallis was first to break. ‘Do the police have a line on the killers?’

Gayle took another sip of coffee. ‘To be honest, it all sounds fairly confused. A bike matching the description was found in a back street.’

‘They say where exactly?’ Tallis chipped in. ‘I visited Istanbul a few years ago. Know it pretty well.’

Gayle frowned. ‘Strange-sounding name, Beyoglu.’ North of the Golden Horn, Tallis remembered. ‘According to the Turkish police, they want to trace a man Garry was having coffee with before he was killed. Ever heard Garry mention David Miller?’

Tallis frowned, stroked his jaw, shook his head. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’

‘With me neither. They seem to be fairly worked up about him, mainly because he’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Gone missing, although I suppose it’s possible he could have been injured in the earthquake.’

‘Or killed,’ Tallis said, warming to the idea. Gayle asked if he’d like a refill.

‘That would be great,’ he said, watching as Gayle went through the coffee routine once more. ‘You don’t think the police are connecting this Miller guy with Garry’s murder, do you?’

‘I don’t think so. I mean, it’s got to be some mad Turkish nutter, hasn’t it?’

‘You reckon? The guy or guys who ordered the contract could be any nationality at all.’ Like British, for instance.

‘You think so?’

She looked a bit perturbed, he thought. ‘Gayle, I know this is an obvious question, but do you know of anyone who’d want Garry dead?’

She let out a mournful sigh. ‘Honestly?’

‘Sure,’ he replied.

‘In Garry’s line of work he was always being threatened. He didn’t speak much about it because he knew it frightened me, but it stands to reason that you can’t rattle cages as much as Garry did and always expect to get away with it.’

So whose cage had he rattled this time? ‘Anyone threaten him recently?’

‘Not specifically.’

Tallis arched an eyebrow.

‘He got a bit roughed up the third time he went to Turkey, had his wallet stolen.’

‘Did he report it?’

‘Are you kidding?’

Tallis threw her another quizzical look.

‘Ever spent any time in a Turkish police station? They take hours simply to fill out a form.’

Yeah, he remembered. ‘Did he speak to you about what he was currently working on?’

Gayle glanced away. ‘Not really.’

Tallis leant towards her, adopting his most persuasive tone. ‘Gayle, this is me you’re talking to.’

She looked up, swallowed. ‘Like I said, I knew nothing of specifics but the general theme of the book he’d mapped out was an exploration of links between organised crime and terrorism.’

Right. Tallis felt something snatch inside. Now they were getting somewhere.

Gayle was still speaking. ‘He was very preoccupied. It was his fourth trip to Turkey this year. Every time he came back, he seemed more distant.’

‘Do you remember when he went exactly?’

‘Easy enough to find out,’ she said, twisting round, reaching up and swiping a calendar from the wall behind. ‘Here,’ she said, showing it to Tallis, pointing with a finger. ‘January 13th for a week, back in April, 17th to the 28th, then more recently early August and then this last final time.’ She folded the calendar over, hooked it back onto the wall, let out a deep sigh.

‘Mind if I take a look in his study?’ Tallis already knew that Garry had used the spare bedroom as his base. It doubled as a guest room. Tallis had slept in it when he’d last visited.

‘Help yourself. Warn you, police have already been through it with a fine-tooth comb.’

‘Take much away?’

‘Garry’s diary, containing an audit trail of contacts, his files and computer.’

‘Find anything?’

‘If they have, they haven’t told me.’

Probably a waste of time, but he thought he’d take a peek anyway.

The room was neater than he remembered. It had recently received a fresh coat of paint. Sofa bed up against one wall, Garry’s desk, an IKEA self-assembly job, against the other. It looked sad and pathetic with only the keyboard lying there on its own. A rummage through the drawers yielded nothing of startling import, mainly because the police had probably already removed anything of significance. He found a couple of building-society books, one in Gayle’s old married name, which he quickly flicked through, pausing over one of the entries before moving on to a sheaf of receipts that proved Garry had recently visited Birmingham. Tallis looked up, a snatch of conversation whistling through his head. It felt as if Garry was in the room right next to him.

‘Thing is, Birmingham’s your patch, right?’

‘Used to be.’

‘But you still know the movers and shakers in the criminal world?’

Tallis closed the drawer, aware that Gayle was standing in the doorway. He didn’t know for how long. ‘Find anything?’

‘No.’ Tallis thanked her, said he ought to be making a move. ‘All right if I use your loo before I head off?’

‘You know where it is.’ She flashed a sudden, tight smile. Probably thinking of happier times, Tallis thought as he went into the main bathroom to take a leak. Afterwards, glancing in the mirror over the washbasin, an offbeat thought hovered and began to take flight in the outer reaches of his mind. He blinked, grabbed a towel, drying his hands, and ambled back towards the lavatory, staring out of the open window for a few seconds then squashing the offending idea dead before it had a chance to fly.

Gayle was waiting for him outside. She’d removed her sunglasses. The skin around her grey-blue eyes looked dark and tired. ‘Thanks for coming.’

‘You’ll take care?’

‘Sure.’

‘Remember what I said.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t be alone.’

9

HE TOOK the train from Marylebone to Birmingham, Snow Hill. The closer to home, the more his thoughts centred on family, or what was left of it. His father, with whom he had an appalling relationship, was dying of cancer. Dan, his elder brother, was banged up in jail and would remain so for many years to come. How his mum continued with such courage and good humour was a source of constant inspiration to him. And then there was Hannah, his much younger sister, falling in love with a geography teacher when still in her teens, married, two kids, happy and settled. She rarely returned home.

Tallis idly looked out of the window. They were pulling into Solihull. A middle-aged man carrying a large suitcase was walking towards a woman of similar age, the look of delight on both their faces the most uplifting sight. As soon as they were within arm’s length of each other, the man put his case down in the same momentous way an explorer marks his triumph by sticking a flag in the ground, and took the woman in his arms. Tallis watched enchanted, glad that life continued joyously for the vast majority of people, while also feeling an overwhelming sense of something precious lost.

From Snow Hill, he took a cab to Quinton, getting out at the end of the avenue so that the driver couldn’t see where he lived, his motivation nothing to do with security, everything to do with embarrassment. Young, cool guys didn’t live in bungalows. Unless bequeathed. Although grateful for his Croatian grandmother’s generosity—it put a free roof over his head after all—it didn’t quite square with the image. He’d thought many times of selling and buying something more suitable, yet every time he got as far as phoning an estate agent he bottled it. The bungalow and what it represented was part of his history, something that couldn’t be overestimated. Without history, he felt sunk.

The sun was less intense, more cloud in the blue. As Tallis lowered his vision, he saw the familiar figure of his next-door neighbour’s son shambling along the pavement, sidestepping the dog shit. Jimmy, as Tallis insisted on calling him after the great guitarist Jimmy Page, seemed to have grown several inches in the past three weeks, legs absurdly sticking out of three-quarter-length trousers, manly hairs sticking out of his legs. He was wearing scuffed top-of-the-range trainers, no socks and a black T-shirt touting some group Tallis had never heard of. His thick fringe made him seem as if he was peeking out from a foxhole. Although studiously listening to an iPod, he gave Tallis a goofy grunt as he walked past. Relations had improved beyond recognition since Tallis’s computer had blown up one morning. Not fully realising how terminal things were, he’d gone round next door and appealed for help. Jimmy, for once not manacled to his electric guitar, loped round, fingers whizzing over the keyboard as though he were Elton John then bluntly announced that it was fucked.

‘What you need is an Apple Mac, a proper computer, not some crappy old PC,’ he told Tallis.