Wilderness (Arbogast trilogy) (17 page)

“Good job DCI Ying,” Norrie Smith said. He had been reviewing the case and was convinced Madoch was behind the whole sorry mess. “What we need now is solid proof. We’ve been working on supposition and hearsay for the duration of this case and that won’t do – we need to make progress. What have the telecoms people said about where the mobile phone might have been used?”

Rosalind felt she was under intense scrutiny. Everyone knew Norrie was the top man now, and while she knew there was good reason for the change, she still felt as though she had a point to prove.

“From the three calls Hanom has made from the handset we’ve managed to get a fix on a signal – it seems to be centred on a high rise block in Springburn in the north of the city.”

This elicited as groan from the assembled crowd. Everyone knew she meant the Red Road flats. Back in the 1960s the city fathers had planned to leave behind the misery of slum living in notorious estates such as the Gorbals behind and give people better lives in these ‘cities in the sky’. But less than ten years later, and with no shops and no hope, the estates slipped into decline and it would now only be a matter of time before they were ripped down. In the meantime they had become host to thousands of refugees and asylum seekers who had been decanted to Glasgow to live alongside the remaining mainly elderly residents who had come to love the flats and call them home. Many of the houses were now uninhabited. There were eight blocks ranging between 25 and 32 floors and everyone knew that if they did not have an exact fix they would have to go round each and every one on foot.

“Yes guys I’m afraid it is Red Road so best get your hiking boots on.” Norrie Smith was quick to assemble a team of forty uniformed police to conduct the search. The eyes of the force were on him now and he did not intend to fail. One way or another, this case was getting solved.

Arbogast’s second dealings with the SCDEA weren’t entirely fruitless. His former colleague Richard Evans told him that the team had been dealing with a possible terror case in Fife and that Madoch had completely fallen off the radar.

“To be honest John we’re not really pushing that case just now. We need more gen. He’s been very careful so far and as I told you before the girls won’t talk. We need to find out where they’re coming from, how he gets them in and out of the country before we can nail him. He’s not doing anything illegal at the club and his girls all check out, even though we know they shouldn’t. If you want to try and find out if anything new is happening I could suggest you try using a CHIS.”

“Sure. Who is it that we’re talking about here. Anyone I’d know?”

A CHIS, or Covert Human Intelligence Source, was what used to be called a grass. Forces across the country had scores of them on the books. For a small payment scraps of information found their way to an investigation, often making a difference when it was most needed. Arbogast hadn’t considered a CHIS as an option in this case but if Rich thought it could help why not sound him out.

“Well he’s a different breed this one and to class him as a CHIS is perhaps doing him a disservice given his background.”

“I’m interested now,” Arbogast said. It was rare that these guys weren’t toothless junkies looking for a bit of extra cash to pay for a hit. There were exceptions of course and some information came from gangs keen to roll over a rival. This, however, sounded different.

“The guy’s name is Anah Uday. He worked with the British Army in Iraq based out of Um Qasr in the mid-noughties. He was passionate about reform and was in deep with our boys over there. He worked with the SAS in search-and-destroy missions in the north alongside the Americans. His help and contacts were invaluable until his luck ran out. He spoke to one person out of a thousand who he should never had trusted and got a dagger in his eye for his troubles. Not long after that there was an attack on his family in Basra. Twelve were killed including his wife and child. So he turned to his employers for help and they offered him a place to stay and a new life in the UK. I’m sure when he left Iraq though he didn’t think he’d be trading places for a squalid life in Glasgow.”

“Squalid?”

“Anah Uday was put with the rest of the people seeking asylum in Scotland in the high flats, to the north of Glasgow. He’s OK though. He got a flat and can work but he’s still living in a shit hole. We found out about him after his story appeared in The Times. Something along the lines of, ‘He helped us liberate his country and this is how we thank him.’ It caused a hell of a fuss at the time but his misfortune has been useful for us. There are a lot of people milling about up there that aren’t allowed to work. For some of them we don’t really know their backgrounds as their papers are often lost. Anah helps keep an eye on things; he’s involved with a lot of the community groups up there and is well known in refugee and asylum circles. It’s possible that he might be able to help you – maybe he’s heard something about new people coming in.”

“Maybe Rich, but what are the chances? Thanks though.” Arbogast didn’t hold out much hope of making a breakthrough but he took the number anyway. You never knew.

He was surprised when there was a knock on the door. 'Rata-tat-tat' over and over again. ‘There shouldn’t be anyone here at this time, at anytime.’ He took the gun out from inside his jeans and made his way to the front door. He crept along the side of the hall where the floorboards were the strongest and where he was out of the line of fire, should it come to that. In the spot where the peep hole used to be he had installed a camera which transmitted a picture onto a small screen inside the door. That way he could be sure never to be disturbed unawares. That was the theory. When he got close enough he could see that it was the husband, John Clark. The sight of him there, fidgeting and nervous outside the door made him instantly angry. He unlocked the door and reached out, grabbing John by the jacket lapels and dragging him inside. He pushed him down onto the floor and took aim.

“You realise of course that you should not be here...friend.”

“Look, there’s trouble. I didn’t know where to go.”

 “You bring trouble to my door when you should have stayed away. You realise the bed you are making for yourself?”

John could see that he wasn’t going to get the support he was looking for. He started thinking about a way of improving his fortunes.

“No use looking around now...friend. What is your problem? Maybe I can help put an end to it?”

“The mother has talked – they know about me now although I thought she wouldn’t name me.”

“Yes I know of this. She speaks to her police friend but no longer. This has been taken care of.”

“You don’t get it though do you?” John had found some of his courage again and had risen to his feet. He tried to calm his captor with his hands, but his host had never been a fan of mime. He grabbed John again, this time by the throat and pushed the gun against his head.

“No it is you who don’t understand. You worry for the woman but she will not talk. I will show you.” He dragged John along the corridor and kicked open a brown panel door that looked like it had seen its fair share of angry outbursts over the years. Inside the room sat Hanom. She was grey and listless and wore only a dirty white t-shirt. She was sitting with her legs drawn up to her chest and was staring blankly into space. There were red marks on her arms.

“Our guest has taken to some rather unfortunate habits as you can see. Her life will be consumed with things other than the police now. Have no fear. You on the other hand are becoming a problem. You were told not to contact me. I told you this on the night of the blizzard. Yet here you are. I’m afraid you have made a mistake in seeking me out. But listen to me shouting you must be cold, please come in and sit down. I think I have just the thing to make everything much better.”

Istanbul, Turkey, August 4
^th
2009

Onur was on site at the Metro where his team were facing one of the biggest problems of the project so far. They had reached the halfway mark on the new Marmaray tunnel which linked the eastern side of the city to the west. It was important there were no slip ups, as the budgets were already hard pressed. Construction had begun on the metro in ‘92 and 20 years later there was still a way to go. Today the Mayor of Istanbul, Altan Tirpas, would be paying them a visit to mark the progress and hopefully generate some positive press to deflect attention away from the economic downturn. It had been two weeks since he had last seen Karim and so far nothing more had come of his warning. Although Onur was concerned his brother was still OK he was fairly confident the threats which had been levelled at him had been made in the heat of the moment. As he surveyed the work he had been in charge of he could not help but be proud of his achievements. The tunnel was nearly 30 feet wide and made for an impressive sight. Every day Onur would chart how much farther they had tunnelled, although at times the work was slow going. On a good day they’d make forty metres but they had hit rock and at the moment the colossal TBM’s (tunnel boring machines) were only progressing by half a metre a day. All the same it was quite an honour to be visited by the Mayor and his entourage and he would smile when he had to smile before returning to work.

The press arrived on time although the Mayor did not and the tour started about 30 minutes later than planned. He talked to the Mayor about the ways in which they worked and how soon they hoped to complete the tunnel. As he pointed and shuffled his way down the shaft he felt he had finally reached a point in his life where he could say he was content. Photographers recorded their every step and TV cameras would later be unable to shed light on exactly what happened next. As they approached what was considered a safe distance from the TBM, Onur’s assistant handed out ear protection mufflers. For this was the showcase – the real wow factor. As the assembled group of about seven dignitaries and twelve members of the press stood and waited as the colossal machine slowly ground into action. The circular cutting head ground down into the rock and processed the waste behind. While it ran, like an enormous crawling mole the machine created the tunnel sides as it went, pouring concrete and sealing the deal. And so it was that the tunnel appeared, little by little, day-by-day and that was the process that everyone was here to see, the monster machine, live in action.

No-one noticed while the roar grew louder that one of the photographers had dropped back to check his equipment. He had stopped pointing his camera at the machine as this was not his intended subject. His employer had given him a very special mission. The photographer had been given the equipment earlier that morning. His Pentax K5 appeared industry standard but with a .22 magnum pen gun installed inside it was guaranteed to be the deadliest shot taken that day. The first person to notice there was anything wrong was the Mayor’s PA. Altan Tirpas had raised his hand to reach the back of his neck but by then it was too late. The bullet had severed his spinal cord and he was dead before he hit the ground. About twenty seconds passed before anyone realised what had happened and the silent screaming started. By the time the machines had ground to a halt the press had already been shepherded away. Initially the cause was thought to have been a stray piece of masonry. It wasn’t until the next day that the coroner confirmed the mayor had been shot. And by that time Onur had already left Istanbul for good.

***

When Arbogast arrived at the high flats on Coll Road he had already been round the houses. When Rich had told him the CHIS lived in Red Road he had been slightly off the mark. Anah Uday lived in a single block about a mile from Red Road. It sat alone among an avenue of post war council housing and was somewhat out of place. At 26 floors it was 24 floors bigger than anything else anywhere near it. Arbogast knew he was on the right trail as he had been told to look for the burnt out flat in the middle of the block, which was none too promising in itself. These flats had all been re-rendered over the last few years and looked much better than he remembered. But two weeks after the Coll Road flats had been finished there had been an accident. Frank Fields had been enjoying his usual half and a half at his local pub. The landlord was always happy to see Frank as he spent most of his pension there and Frank was glad to see the landlord as he had nowhere else to go. That plus the heating was free and he couldn’t afford to warm his own place as the electric fire ate up too much money too quickly. Every night was pretty much the same for Frank. Three rounds of drinks, darts, watch the ten o’clock news then home for 11:00. On his last visit, though, he had rather overdone it. A modest win on the national lottery meant that he had been quite drunk by the time he had got home. Failing in his fight to fend off an alcoholic hunger brought on by five too many pints he had fired up the chip pan before promptly firing up his own home. They found Frank’s body next to the cooker. They had picked out bits of tea towel from his face. His case file read that he had slipped and fallen while trying to douse the flames. As Arbogast looked up at the blackened plaster around his 7
^th
floor flat he couldn’t help wonder if there was a worse way to go.
‘Stupid old bugger.
’ And that was when he met Anah Uday, who was waiting for him in the hall outside the office of the concierge.

“Come in here please. It’s OK, I have an arrangement.”

In the past the high rise blocks all had a concierge on call 24 hours a day. They had lived in the blocks and if something went wrong it was reported and fixed. Now there was one man for eight blocks and nothing got done in a hurry. It became obvious to Arbogast that the office was no longer used, or hardly at any rate. He dusted down a green swivel chair and looked his host over for the first time. Anah Uday was about five feet six inches tall. The story of his eye may have had some truth in it. The eye wasn’t covered up but an injury had left a white globe in its wake which gave his host a rather crazed look. His skin was scarred above his injured right eye but other than that it seemed he had at one time been a good looking man, and he retained a sense of dignity that Arbogast warmed to. This was a man who did not mess about.