Capital Punishment (29 page)

They walked him for some minutes, holding his head down at various points. The howl of generators filled the night. Music, TV, radio and humanity fought for air-time. Then quieter and quieter. One arm released, the passages so narrow now they couldn’t manage two abreast.

Finally they went indoors, uncuffed him and pushed him down into a chair. The heat was oppressive, even with the hood removed. He was left alone in a room with sky blue walls, all cracked. A framed and faded photograph of Rajiv Ghandi, festooned in garlands of marigolds, was hanging from a nail. There was a closed pair of wooden shutters opposite the door and one other chair. Clayton massaged his wrists where the plastic cuffs had left a reddened welt. He flexed his damaged knee.

The door was opened by a man in a white
kurta pajama
. He sat in the chair opposite, leaned back. Resting in his lap was a stainless steel Beretta with black plastic grip panels. The man flicked his long hair back over his shoulders and Clayton realised that this was Deepak Mistry.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said.

‘I don’t feel it,’ said Clayton.

‘Yash thought you’d been sent by Frank.’

‘I thought my friend had explained everything when he set up the meeting.’

‘We are all a little paranoid and Frank is a very cunning fellow,’ said Mistry. ‘Yash was thinking he wouldn’t take any chances, just kill you and tie you down in the mangrove swamp until you rotted away to nothing. That might still happen if we find you’ve been lying.’

‘Why does Frank want to find you so badly?’

‘Because he wants to kill me,’ said Mistry, opening his hand.

‘Any particular reason?’

Mistry thought about this for a moment as if he was trying to decide what story he would choose.

‘With Frank, you’re all right as long as you stay inside the circle. If you drift out and he feels he no longer has influence over you, your every move becomes a potential danger to him. He is no longer sure what you know and, worse, whether you will tell what you know,’ said Mistry. ‘I’ve seen men who want to get out, who just can’t stand the pressure anymore. They leave and a few days later they get a visit from a
goonda
sent by Anwar Masood.’

‘Who is Anwar Masood?’ asked Clayton, transfixed by Mistry and only just remembering in time who he was supposed to be and what he couldn’t possibly know.

‘Yash tells me you have information for me concerning Alyshia,’ said Mistry.

‘I’m surprised to be sitting here in front of you,’ said Clayton, realising now that the security tests were continuing, the paranoia level very high, and the only information he was going to get from Mistry would be before he’d revealed his bait, not after. ‘I was only expecting a meeting with my friend to ask if you could be found. I didn’t realise you were already connected. I’d never heard of Yash.’

‘Yash and I go back a long way,’ said Mistry. ‘To the village. We left Bihar together. He wasn’t very bright, academically speaking. He came to Mumbai and found that there was money to be made in a gang.’

‘And you?’

‘I went to Bangalore where I got a job with an English family. The father had come over from the UK to set up a company designing econometric software. He taught me almost all I needed to know and his wife gave me English lessons. When they left they asked me to come with them, but I said my future is in India.’

‘I heard you ran your own company in Bangalore,’ said Clayton. ‘Did the English guy set you up?’

‘He was kind, but not that kind,’ said Mistry. ‘I had to rely on Yash for that.’

‘Ah,’ said Clayton, getting things now, ‘and did that come with strings attached to Chhota Tambe, for instance?’

Mistry could see Clayton’s brain moving up a gear; it made him nervous.

‘Does this have anything to do with what you’re going to tell me about Alyshia?’

‘It could do,’ said Clayton. ‘I’m just not sure
what.
Would you just tell me what was demanded of you? I assume that Yash is running things for Chhota Tambe.’

Mistry shifted in his seat, lifted the gun, held it over the side of the chair, still relaxed but aware now that Clayton’s greatest talent was his lack of threat and how willingly people opened up to him.

‘I think, Mister Clayton, the time has come for you to tell me this news about Alyshia,’ said Mistry.

‘The reason I was asked to make contact with you, if at all possible,’ said Clayton, trying to sound lawyerish, but verging on the Dickensian, ‘was to inform you that Alyshia D’Cruz has been kidnapped. You were both employed in the Konkan Hills steel works and you both left the company at more or less the same time. Alyshia’s mother’s lawyers were wondering if there was some connection, or if you could shed light on any possible reason for her kidnap.’

As he delivered this news, Clayton watched Mistry for the slightest reaction. Mistry’s eyes widened by a few millimetres for a fraction of a second.

‘When and where did this happen?’

‘In London, late on Friday night.’

‘Who by?’

‘We were hoping you might be able to help us with that.’

‘Have they made any demands?’

‘Not yet,’ said Clayton. ‘And somebody tried to shoot Frank D’Cruz dead on his first night in London.’

Clayton noticed that the gun was no longer in a relaxed hand but had come up onto the armrest of the chair and was now in a fully tensed grip, pointing at his gut.

‘I think you can tell from my situation here that I am in no way responsible, if that’s what you’re implying,’ said Mistry.

‘It’s important under these circumstances to gather as much information as possible in the hope that we can find out who
is
responsible,’ said Clayton.

‘Why
me
?' said Mistry, his voice taking on a brutal edge.

‘I’m not here to accuse you,’ said Clayton. ‘Just for insight. Things have become very serious, very quickly. Mr D’Cruz has hired a kidnap consultant and a profiler has reviewed the conversations so far. They believe that no demand will ever be made, that the idea is to punish Mr D’Cruz and eventually kill Alyshia. He’s even staged a mock execution.’

Each additional piece of information seemed to have the opposite effect on Mistry that Clayton was expecting.

‘How do you
know
?’ said Mistry, leaning forward, his eyes burning into Clayton.

‘How do I know what?’ asked Clayton, confused.

‘How do you know to come to
me
?’

Clayton’s sweat-drenched clothes had gone cold and this coldness penetrated his innards. His throat was constricted; air was scarce in the room.

‘You ... you are one of the participants, aren’t you?’ said Clayton. ‘You left Konkan Hills at the same time as Alyshia. She returned to London a changed person. Something had happened, but nobody knows what. We’re having to piece things together ourselves and we’re under extreme pressure. You are a part of the jigsaw, Mister Mistry, but we don’t think you’re involved.’

The paranoia Mistry had mentioned earlier in such a calm way seemed to be more alive now in his body language. There was nothing languid about him anymore.

‘I’m beginning to side with Yash now,’ he said, using the gun to make his points. ‘I’m thinking that you’re not who you say you are, that you’ve been sent here to smoke me out. I’m thinking that you come here with such news to—’

He stopped at the unmistakeable sound of a gunshot. There was a beat of silence before a barrage of return fire broke open the suffocating night. Mistry looked at the door as if it might disintegrate into splintering holes. Clayton got to his feet, not springing into action, exactly, but more out of pure alarm.

‘I should have listened to Yash,’ said Mistry. ‘You were so plausible.’

More gunfire and Mistry rushed at the wooden shutters, clambered out into the dark as two gunmen shouldered through the door. They trained their weapons on Clayton, into whose mind there suddenly flashed an earnest young face with a wake of betrayal flaming behind it: Gagan. Gagan and his supremely edible fish tarts. He could see Anwar Masood heaping more than praise on his wiggling head.

The shot, when it came, cannoned into Clayton’s chest. As he thumped backwards over the chair and hit the wall with the flattening sound of a carcass of meat, he thought someone had taken a sledgehammer to him. The second shot nailed him to the floor. The blue ceiling crowded darkly in on his vision, his head fell to one side and Rajiv Ghandi’s portrait was the final image he took with him into the vast black beyond.

10.30 P.M., MONDAY 12TH MARCH 2012

London

‘What did he make of it?’ asked Boxer.

Conference call: DCS Peter Makepeace and Martin Fox in Pavis operations room, Charles Boxer from the house in Aubrey Walk. They were talking about the DVD of the mock execution, which Fox had shown to the MI5 psychologist that Pavis used to assess new recruits.

‘Professional, not amateur,’ said Fox. ‘Devastating shock tactic in order to prepare hostage for more intrusive grilling, or the family for a heavy demand. He believes that the shooter was military trained, just in the way he held himself and his weapon, which was a Sig Sauer P220. He’s undecided about their nature: criminal or terrorist. That will become clear only with a demand. If they are terrorists, there’s also the possibility that they’re being coy about demands because they don’t want to unleash the Counter Terrorism Command, which would certainly turn the heat up.’

‘And what do the two of you think?’

‘It looks criminal to me, but with a highly trained group used to military-style assignments, with powerful research and psychological backing, looking to squeeze the maximum out of a wealthy man,’ said Fox. ‘They don’t seem to be in a hurry, but they’re ramping up the violence with this extreme demonstration in the DVD. I think the teasing will stop and we’ll get a big money demand in the end.’

‘Has someone been sent to investigate the pizza delivery boy?’

‘George Papadopoulos is dealing with that,’ said Makepeace.

‘And you, sir? How do you feel about the kidnappers?’

‘My major concern, as we close in on one hundred days to go before the Olympics’ opening ceremony, is a terrorist attack,’ said Makepeace. ‘My analysis tends to come with that bias. There is nothing we’ve seen so far from these people that
overtly
indicates that they have terrorist intentions. I am uneasy about the apparent level of training. But, then again, if you’re looking for a big pay-off, then this may be a necessary level of investment and professionalism. I’m unhappy at their insistence that this is
not
about money. I’m as concerned as D’Cruz is about the “demonstration of sincerity”, because I don’t know what it means. I’m worried that, despite their declared intention only to talk to Isabel Marks, they might confuse the issue by starting direct talks with Frank D’Cruz, who is their ultimate target. Having made their emotional point through his ex-wife, they’re going to get down to the real business with him and exclude us. If they’re terrorists, they’ll know about you as a consultant and they’ll probably assume our involvement and they won’t want to trigger a major counter terrorism operation. What’s Frank D’Cruz said about it all?’

This is where it started, thought Boxer, to lie for Frank ... or not.

‘I’ve had a theoretical conversation with him about the possibility of the kidnappers being terrorists.’

‘So he does suspect their involvement?’ said Makepeace.

‘That means he’s not unaware that in his past he has been involved with people who’ve gone on to develop terrorist links,’ said Boxer, who gave them a quick recap of D’Cruz’s involvement in the gold smuggling business. ‘He’s also not unaware that, given his wealth and “plugged in” status, he could be in a position to help them, which he insists he doesn’t.’

‘All that could give the “demonstration of sincerity” a terrorist complexion,’ said Makepeace. ‘Has he got any theories about that?’

‘The impression he gave me was that this is pressure being applied to him to make him more compliant. The nature of this compliance is unknown. To me, if it’s got any terrorist connection at all, it feels like something in development, rather than the next step towards an imminent attack.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Makepeace.

‘Don’t like what?’ said Fox. ‘I thought we were still in theory here.’

‘Theory based on fundamentals, like D’Cruz’s involvement with people who’ve got terrorist links.’

‘I’ve done some work in Pakistan,’ said Boxer. ‘Nothing is straightforward in that country. Government, business, politics, religion and terrorism have a way of blending together in surprising ways. You might think you’re doing business with a retired army officer but, in fact, he may have tribal connections that demand his attention in ways that we would construe as criminal. None of this appears on their business cards. You have to work it out for yourself.’

‘If
you’re so inclined,’ said Makepeace brutally.

‘There is that,’ said Boxer. ‘Taking on a steelworks during an economic downturn might make you less inclined to be investigative. Most businessmen want to find ways to sell, rather than reasons not to.’

‘Is he operating at a comfortable level of ignorance, or a selfserving level of turning a blind eye?’ said Makepeace.

‘Can’t help you there.’

‘The real question is: how do we treat this?’ said Fox. ‘Criminal or terrorist?’

‘D’Cruz would rather you kept an open mind while he gathers more information,’ said Boxer. ‘Unleashing counter terrorism could spook the kidnappers and result in the death of his daughter. We still haven’t had a definite terrorist threat.’

‘You, DCS Makepeace?’

‘I don’t think we should throw counter terrorism at it yet,’ he said. ‘I think we pass this information on to MI5. We’ve been told they’ve got a file on him. And see what they make of it.’

‘Martin?’

‘That doesn’t jeopardise the safety of the girl and it potentially broadens our knowledge of both friend and foe,’ said Fox.

‘Who’s the friend?’ asked Boxer.

They laughed themselves to a quick silence.