The Last Exile (17 page)

Asim shook his head. “Egyptian. Not that many can tell the difference. To most, we’re all the same—would-be suicide bombers and murderers.”

Tallis felt something murky stir inside. He was as guilty as the next man for harbouring prejudice. Asim seemed to read his mind. He flashed a benevolent smile. “Think of me as your protector, Craig.”

“My protector?”

“It’s what my name means.”

He’d need more than a name to protect him. “Think you can find him?”

Asim smiled again. “I will make enquiries,” he said courteously.

“And the money?”

“No hurry,” Asim stood up. “Let’s see where things lead.”

“How will I find you?”

“At Mavericks, tomorrow night at ten.”

Asim never asked once what he was going to do with Hussain when he found him. Maybe he didn’t care.

T
ALLIS
spent the rest of the afternoon and the following day people-watching. He spotted a couple of footballers, the odd soap star and several famous but irritatingly unidentifiable faces among the crowd. Hussain’s wasn’t one of them.

Impressed by the scale of redevelopment in the city, Tallis felt churlish not to admire the swanky hotels and clubs, the massive shopping centres and malls, museums and art galleries, the sheer volume of human traffic, yet by the end of the second day he was glad to escape the madness and settle in Piccadilly square, an oasis of lawn and flowers and peace. Sitting on the grass, soaking up the sun, he remembered a fabulous afternoon spent sprawled out in Montpellier Gardens. He and Belle had sneaked off to Cheltenham where a mate of his had lent them his flat for the night. It had been an incredibly hot day. They’d had some lunch on the promenade in a lovely Italian restaurant and, after trawling around the shops for a bit, they’d parked themselves on the green, his head resting in Belle’s lap. Out of the blue, her mood, which had been euphoric, suddenly changed.

“Paul?”

“Mmm?”

“You know we can’t go on like this.”

“Like what?” He looked up at her. He knew exactly what she was talking about, but he felt such a sudden chill of fear that he didn’t want to put words to it.

“Sneaking off, illicit phone calls, lying. One of us, sooner or later, is going to be found out.”

“Not if we’re careful.”

“It’s not just that.” She sounded unsteady.

She was asking where they were going. She was asking about futures. He’d asked himself the very same questions over and over. So far, he’d failed to come up with answers. “We could come clean, I suppose.” The thought was terrifying.

She shook her head. “I know what you think of your father, but it wouldn’t be right. Your dad’s a very sick man.”

Not right, he thought bitterly. Trouble with the whole damned situation there was so much that wasn’t right. Whenever he thought of his father, he thought of his brother and vice versa. His, and theirs, was a constant story of betrayal and revenge. Belle was spot on. To reveal their secret affair could only court tragedy. “So what are you saying?” He rolled over onto his knees, put his hands on her shoulders. He felt sick.

“Nothing,” she said, biting her lip. The tears in her eyes mirrored his own.

Then he put his arms around her, held her close and kissed her.

Tallis blinked and experienced the oddest sensation. Glancing around him, he got up, walked away, down one street, into another, nice and easy, no quickening of pace, no hesitation. He went through entrances and emerged
through emergency fire exits, surreptitiously checking to see if he was being followed. Either, he concluded, he was imagining it, or his tail was extremely gifted in the art of surveillance.

With several hours to go until his meeting with Asim, Tallis returned to the hotel and went for a run, showered and changed then ate a plain dinner in the dining room. Shortly after nine-thirty, he made his way to a club in Canal Street, affectionately known as Anal Street, according to some blurb he’d read. It was the centre of Manchester’s gay community. The bar was a crush of people and colour. He had to queue for several minutes to order a drink, giving him ample chance to ponder the choice of unusual location. Was Asim gay? Was he suspicious of Tallis’s sexuality? Christ knows why, he thought, nobody else seemed to be in doubt.

An hour and a half later, Tallis was considering none of these things. He was thinking set-up and wind-up. Downing his third soft drink, he returned to the hotel, severely pissed off and, giving in to temptation, took full advantage of the mini-bar in his room while rewinding the conversation and events of the previous day. Asim had positively identified Hussain. No doubt about it. Knew who he was and for whom he worked. Terrorist connections had been implied rather than asserted. Either way, Asim was playing with fire. Maybe he’d made one too many enquiries. Maybe he was lying somewhere with a bullet in his head. Or, Tallis thought, maybe Asim was the problem. The whole coincidence of Asim stumbling into him, the way he’d engineered the meeting. Christ, Tallis had done the very same himself on the few occasions he’d worked undercover. And the friend line was pure textbook. Asim gave the impression of working alone, of
touting for business, of doing him a favour, of helping world peace. Which was it? Tallis wondered sleepily. Next thing he knew it was morning, his neck stiff as hell from spending the entire night asleep in a chair.

Stubborn by nature, Tallis went back to the club that night and the following night. Still no Asim. Dividing the
A-Z
methodically into sections, he spent the intervening daylight hours pounding the pavements, hanging out in dark bars, visiting a couple of shops that purported to legitimately sell shotguns, air guns, knives and swords, tuning his ear for any criminal undercurrent. During his reconnaissance, he overheard deals in Russian and Jamaican patois, both conversations conducted openly in city-centre pubs. Same old: heroin. There wasn’t even a sniff of information on Hussain. And of Asim there was no sign. Furious, not simply for having his time wasted but for having such dangerously poor judgement, Tallis resigned himself to continuing his search alone.

Unable to sleep again, he decided to watch some late-night television and caught a depressing investigative programme on the rise of a shadowy far-right group that prided itself on stirring up extreme racial hatred. The name of the group was Fortress 35, a reference to the number of shire counties it deemed as being under its protection. Its leader was unknown, membership white and aged anything between eighteen and fifty, the only information gleaned from victims, in other words the lucky ones who’d got away. There was enough evidence to suggest that the group had been responsible for a number of murders, which had originally been passed off by the police as black-on-black killings when they’d been nothing of the sort. Based on witness statements, the group worked with slick and ruthless precision, targeting all who didn’t
conform to the organisation’s brand of Englishness, which meant almost everyone, including the Welsh, Irish and Scottish. There was a lot of nationalistic ideology dressed up in the guise of defence of the realm, sovereign nation, unity, all the usual buzzwords, and a real, almost medieval belief in the spread of disease by foreigners coming into the country, citing the re-emergence of tuberculosis in the United Kingdom as evidence of an invasion. Although the group’s beliefs were, in Tallis’s opinion, frankly nutty, they were clearly a dangerous outfit that needed to be stopped. As soon as the programme finished, he went to bed, switched off the light and fell asleep. Just after two-thirty, the hotel phone started to ring. He picked up, instantly awake. It was Asim.

“How did you …?”

“I have an address. Hussain will be there.”

“When?”

“Within the hour.”

Tallis glanced at his watch. He hoped the location was near.

Tallis felt the night settle on him. He was standing in a modern Perspex bus shelter on the opposite side of a detached house in an unassuming street on the east of the city. Apart from the odd dog barking, the place was as quiet as thought.

He let out an involuntary shiver. In spite of it being high summer, the air temperature at that time in the morning was chill. Eyes straining, he missed not having a set of night-vision goggles on him. Although there was street lighting, it wasn’t enough to illuminate the stake-out.

Unfurling his body and changing position, he wondered whether Hussain was actually inside, whether
he was due at the address, or whether he was about to leave. Shit, he thought, if Hussain emerged, he’d have no choice but to bag him there and then, the call to Cavall and her thugs made afterwards. He winced at giving thought to the impossible. In his mind, he hadn’t said immigration officers but
thugs
. And what did that make Cavall?

A sudden noise captured his attention. He turned, looked, stepped out into the road. Next thing he was grabbed from behind, a hand in leather clamped over his mouth and nose, threatening to cut off his air supply. Whoever it was felt strong and unassailable. Hussain, Tallis thought, realising that Asim had laid the perfect trap. Thinking quickly, he let his body go limp, legs relax, acting the homeless drunk. It didn’t work. Dragged backwards, he was manhandled onto a stretch of wasteland. Then he was let go and pushed away.

“Hey, man, take it easy,” Tallis said, slurring his words, taking several steps backwards and away from his assailant. Unfortunately, he hadn’t factored in that there were two of them. While trying to perfect his drunken dialogue, another shadowy figure started roughing him up, the guy who grabbed him asking the questions along the lines of who are you, and what are you doing here? Against every instinct, Tallis played dumb and defensive, grunting and groaning, fencing the blows, taking a strike to his jaw, his eye, biding his time, watching, listening. This was no mugging. Neither was it an ordinary assault. They weren’t determined enough. Hearts weren’t in it. Just knock-about stuff. And they were British.

“You’re police,” one of the guys said accusingly.

“No …”

“Don’t argue.”

“Whatever you say,” Tallis said. If that’s what they wanted to believe, he’d make it easy for them.

“Keep off our patch,” the man snarled, giving Tallis a final warning shove in the chest.

“Got it?” the other one said.

No point in argument, Tallis thought, dusting himself down, walking away.

In movies the hero took a beating that would kill most men, returned to wipe out the bad guys, and gets the girl. In real life, Tallis thought, feeling stiff and bruised after a relatively low-level bit of bother, he’d be lucky to get his own breakfast. It was one of those self-service operations: a teeny-weeny thimble of juice, a bowl of something that looked as though it had been swept out of a budgie’s cage and some very strange-looking bits of cooked pig. The mushrooms were slimy, tomatoes raw, eggs overdone. The coffee, however, was excellent.

Tallis helped himself and sat down. Navigating his way through Manchester city centre in the early hours of the morning and trying to dodge the police—Excuse me, sir, been in a fight, have we?—had given him plenty of time to mull over the latest twist in events. Asim’s intelligence, he had to admit, had been spot on, certainly explained the security service’s interest. Even undercover police officers didn’t operate like that, he thought, though he guessed SO15, or Counter Terrorism Command as it was known following a merger between Special Branch and the Anti-Terrorism Branch might be another possibility. Failing that, the highly secretive Serious and Organised Crime Agency. Thing was, whoever they were, they’d marked his card. It meant he stood no chance—too many other agencies involved. And that was what truly
bothered him. Cavall had stated categorically that none of the people on the list posed a terrorist threat, so why was Hussain being watched?

Once he’d finished his breakfast, Tallis decided to contact Cavall, explain his position and ask for clarification. He fully expected to be going home that morning.

Midway between lifting a piece of bacon and posting it into his mouth, he was brought up short by the sight of Asim walking into the dining room with a nimble stride, nodding and smiling at the other diners. After helping himself to coffee, he drew up a seat at Tallis’s table. He sat down, full of apologies.

“This time I’ll supply you with more cohesive information.”

“Cohesive?” Tallis said. “This mean I don’t get my lights punched out?”

Asim frowned. “It was an unfortunate misunderstanding, I agree.”

Misunderstanding?
Tallis thought. How much did Asim actually know? “Doesn’t matter,” Tallis said. “If last night’s warning was an appetiser, I’m not planning on sampling the main course.”

“The men you stumbled into last night have little or no interest in Hussain.”

“How do you know?”

Asim flashed an enigmatic smile. “Their interest is in a man called Kahn.”

“Kahn?”

“He runs a military surplus store in Manchester.”

Tallis thought about the foreign man with the silver hair. “Last time I checked, running a shop wasn’t a criminal offence.”

“It’s a front. Kahn’s a gunrunner. The place you visited last night is his arms factory. He has suspected links to known terrorists abroad. That’s why he was being watched.”

“And Hussain’s under Kahn’s protection?” God, this was getting murky.

“Not any more. Kahn was picked up last night.”

Christ, Tallis thought. The guys must have been from counter-terrorism. No wonder they were pissed off with him. “And Hussain?” he said sharply.

“He wasn’t there.”

“So, apart from putting me in the firing line, my trip was a wild-goose chase.”

“For which I apologise again.”

Tallis pushed his plate away. “What makes you think I’d trust you this time?”

Asim leant forward, eyes twinkling. “There’s an Indian restaurant in Oxford Road.” Popular with the student quarter, Tallis recalled from his travels. “The Spice Emporium. Hussain plans to be there tonight.”

“To eat tandoori?”

“To take the money. It’s a very popular haunt.”

“Will he be armed?”

“Naturally.”

“Alone?” Of course, he wouldn’t be.

“He and another. They work in pairs.”

“Like Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Tallis said, without smiling. “What time’s kick-off?”

“Half-past midnight, shortly after the restaurant closes.”

Tallis fell silent. Armed men, restaurant in a busy quarter populated by youngsters, height of summer. Not good. Not good at all.

“Need a gun? I can get you a very good one, if you want.”

From Mr Kahn’s collection, Tallis thought, smiling coldly. “I don’t think so.”