Die Alone Page 13

  But, as Bolt paused at the door, he picked up something in Trinder’s conversation that made him frown momentarily. It was her telling the minister that the NCA had decided for the time being not to put any surveillance on Tina Boyd. It seemed odd to Bolt that the minister would want that level of operational detail. He’d probably have thought about it some more if it hadn’t been for the fact that as soon as he walked back into the incident room, it was clear something had changed.

  Mo Khan was walking towards him, a big grin on his face. ‘We’ve got a lead. A kid who works in an illegal counterfeiting operation in Hounslow called in. He saw the new-look Ray Mason on the news and said he was there yesterday looking for a passport. Apparently they’ve done one for him and he’s coming in at six to pick it up. The kid wants immunity from prosecution and the fifty thousand reward.’

  ‘Tell him he can have both,’ said Bolt with a grin, hoping they could wrap this up quickly. ‘Scramble the locals. I’m going to get over there now.’

  22

  George Bannister sat in the study of his constituency home, knowing he was completely in hock to a murderer. He more than anyone else knew what Alastair Sheridan was capable of, but there was nothing he could do to stop him. The problem was, there never had been.

  He and Alastair had known each other since their days at public school. Alastair had always been the handsome and exciting kid, the one with an edge, the one everyone wanted to be friends with. But he didn’t give out his friendship easily, and Bannister, who was clever, ambitious, but definitely not one of the cool kids, would ordinarily never have got a look-in. But for some reason Alastair had warmed to him, and even though Bannister had never been fully accepted into his social circle, they’d got on and Bannister had looked up to him.

  They’d both gone to different universities – Alastair to Warwick, Bannister to Oxford, where he’d studied PPE – but they’d remained in periodic contact throughout that time, and when Bannister had graduated with a First, Alastair had been one of the first people to ring and congratulate him.

  That was the thing about Alastair. He knew how to make people feel valuable. At the time, Bannister had naively thought it a commendable trait of his. He knew a lot better now.

  In those days Bannister had truly been going places, having found his niche at Oxford and built up a cadre of excellent contacts and friendships among the sons of the country’s wealthy political elite. He also had a job to go to as a strategist and speech writer for the governing party – his first step on a route that he knew would move him towards a senior role in government. He hadn’t needed Alastair any more, yet something always drew him back to his old friend and schoolmate, and when Alastair had suggested that the two of them go travelling in August and September before they started their proper jobs, he’d agreed immediately.

  It was 1990, a time when backpacking was taking off among the nation’s middle class, and, although he tried not to admit it to himself, Bannister was hugely chuffed that Alastair had chosen him as a travelling companion rather than someone else from his wide circle of friends.

  At first it all went well. They travelled to Ko Samui in Thailand, then an unspoiled tropical island with just beach huts for accommodation. From there they went up into the hill country of Chiang Mai, which they made their base for a lazy week which encompassed riding on elephants and smoking a lot of dope. One day they hired a driver to take them right up into the so-called Golden Triangle, close to the Burmese border. It was here that Alastair had persuaded Bannister to try smoking opium. He’d been reluctant at first. He knew as well as anyone how addictive it could be. But Alastair was persuasive, and out there in the jungle with no witnesses, it suddenly didn’t seem such a bad idea. So he smoked some, and loved it. He swore to himself he’d never do it again but he remembered feeling very grown up, worldly-wise and adventurous for breaking a societal taboo, and it would always be a secret between him and Alastair.

  It was when they got to the Philippines that it all went wrong. Alastair wanted them both to break other taboos. Bannister was realistic enough to know that he wasn’t a good-looking young man, nor was he especially successful with women (although he wasn’t a complete failure either), but it had never occurred to him to use the services of a prostitute until Alastair had suggested it. Bannister had asked Alastair why he wanted to when it was quite obvious he was already successful with women: by that point he’d slept with seven on their trip, while Bannister had managed a drunken fumble with one. He’d always remembered Alastair’s answer: ‘Because you can do whatever you fucking well want to them. Especially in a place like this where they’re dirt poor.’

  Bannister had found this distasteful, but not entirely uncharacteristic. Alastair was an exciting and charismatic character, the life and soul of the party, but he was also superficial and selfish, traits that only became apparent if you were around him long enough, as Bannister had been on that trip. Looking back now, Bannister could see that Alastair had been grooming him, but at the time, although uneasy about it, he’d gone along with the suggestion.

  They’d done it in Manila first. Visiting a brothel with its own bar that was stacked with gorgeous Filipina women, they’d picked one each and retired to separate rooms with their escorts. Once again, it had been great fun. Bannister’s girl was a tiny doll-like beauty who, in the space of a night, taught him things he’d only ever heard about, or seen on an illegal hardcore videotape. And all, he recalled, for the price of barely three pounds.

  After that, he’d been hooked. They’d hired girls – sometimes freelancers they met in bars, other times ones from official establishments – all over the islands of the northern Philippines. One night they shared the same girl. It was another first for Bannister and he remembered it as a huge turn-on. Soon after that they rented a bungalow in a place called White Beach, and shared three girls at the same time.

  It seemed to Bannister that Alastair was forever trying to push the boundaries. It should have scared Bannister, because the thing was, Alastair seemed to get a lot of pleasure from being rough with the girls – pulling their hair, slapping them hard, making them cry out in pain. He especially liked sodomizing them. They tolerated it because they were poor and he always paid them well. And Bannister found himself getting swept along by the whole thing, treating it all as a big joke, convincing himself that because the girls were being paid, and the violence against them wouldn’t leave physical scarring, it wasn’t that bad.

  It happened near the end of their time in the Philippines. They were staying in a dump of a town called Angeles City which, it quickly became clear, was the centre of the Filipino sex industry thanks to the huge American military base nearby. Alastair suggested they hire a freelancer, take her back to the cheap hotel room they’d rented, and give her, in his words, ‘a real rough seeing to’.

  Bannister shuddered when he thought back to how sickeningly he’d behaved. The girl they’d picked up couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. It was possible she was even younger. Either way, she’d got a lot more than she bargained for when they got her back to the room. Alastair had gone first. He’d been very rough, and the girl was lying on the bed bruised and crying when he’d finished.

  ‘Now it’s your turn,’ Alastair had said with a grin, getting up from the bed, naked and sweating.

  Bannister had been drinking. That was the excuse he’d always given to himself for doing what he did next. He’d climbed on the bed and, even as the girl had sobbed, he’d forced himself upon her without a thought, revelling in the power he wielded. And then, when he was just about to reach orgasm, holding the girl down by her slender shoulder with one hand, the other hand pushed hard over her mouth to stifle the sobs, he’d caught the flash of a camera. At that point he’d been too far gone to react, and he’d continued in those last few seconds. It was only when he was lying on top of her, still panting, that he realized what had happened.

  He’d turned towards Alastair and seen him standing there with
that old-fashioned Kodak camera of his in his hand, the one that developed photos instantly. Bannister had often wondered why Alastair carried round such a bulky piece of kit on his travels when he could just as easily use a smaller camera and get the photos done when he got home. Now he knew.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he’d asked as Alastair shook the photo to dry the ink.

  ‘Just a little memento,’ Alastair had replied, with a grin. ‘You can take one of me next time.’

  But Bannister had been grimly aware of what he must have looked like in the photo, holding down a very young-looking teenage girl with his hand over her mouth, while having sex with her. ‘Give it back,’ he’d demanded, getting up from the bed.

  But Alastair had been having none of it. ‘Hey, relax,’ he’d said, slipping the photo into one of his backpack pockets. ‘No one’s going to see it except us.’

  Panicking, Bannister had gone to grab it out of Alastair’s backpack, but Alastair had stepped in front of him, blocking his way. He was six inches taller and at least three stone heavier than Bannister, so brute force wasn’t going to work. He’d got dressed too, with his shoes on, making Bannister feel suddenly vulnerable against him.

  ‘Give it back to me, Alastair,’ Bannister had said, as firmly as he could. ‘I’m serious.’

  He’d tried to push past him but Alastair shoved him hard in the chest.

  ‘Come on mate, it’s only a bit of fun,’ he’d said, still smiling, but this time there was an edge to his expression. It was clear he wasn’t going to give the photo back. Instead, he’d picked up the backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and pushed past Bannister, almost as if he wasn’t there, throwing a couple of one-hundred-peso notes in the direction of the sobbing girl. ‘I’m just popping out for a bit. I’ll be back in a mo. Keep her here a bit longer if you like. We’ve paid for all night.’

  Bannister had got rid of the girl, paying her an extra two hundred pesos – about the equivalent of three pounds – as a mixture of hush and guilt money. Then he’d gone to bed and waited for Alastair to return, which he did several hours later, sounding inebriated. Bannister had waited until he was fast asleep and snoring lightly before getting up quietly and searching the backpack for the photo.

  It wasn’t there.

  When Bannister had confronted him the next day, Alastair had claimed he’d felt guilty and had ripped the photo up and thrown it in a bin. He’d even offered to let Bannister search his backpack. ‘I’m sorry about taking it, mate,’ he’d said with a rueful smile. ‘I shouldn’t have done.’

  Bannister had known he was lying, but there was nothing he could do about it and no more was said. Even so, the atmosphere on the trip had changed, and Bannister was relieved to arrive back in England a few days later. He and Alastair made plans to stay in touch but there was something half-hearted about it, and neither man spoke to the other for several years afterwards.

  Eventually, Bannister forgot about what had happened and moved on with his life. He met a girl, got married, and moved steadily up the political ladder, becoming an MP in 2001 and a junior Treasury minister in 2010.

  During this time his and Alastair’s paths occasionally crossed, and Alastair was always there to congratulate him whenever he moved up a notch, but their relationship had faded to that of mere acquaintances. So when he got a call from Alastair late in 2010 asking for a meeting to discuss a proposed tax change on some new-fangled financial instrument contracts, he was reluctant to say yes. Alastair was now a successful and very wealthy hedge fund manager, and Bannister knew he wanted to use him to lobby the government for tax breaks, so he put him off, saying his diary was very busy.

  ‘I think it would be wise to clear a space in it, George,’ Alastair had said coldly. ‘You’ve got an excellent career ahead of you in politics. It would be a real pity if something came up from your past to wreck it.’

  Bannister had felt himself go hot all over. ‘What do you mean?’ he’d asked weakly, even though he’d known exactly what Alastair meant.

  ‘I never got rid of it,’ Alastair had told him. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you? Do you want to see a copy? I had it touched up. You’re very clear in it. So’s your friend.’

  Bannister hadn’t known what to say.

  ‘So anyway, mate. How are you fixed over the next two days? I really need to move this along.’

  And that had been that. Bannister had had no choice, and he’d belonged to Alastair Sheridan ever since. Alastair was like Don Corleone in The Godfather. He called in his favours very sparingly. But when he did, you had to comply. He’d even shown Bannister a copy of the photo he’d taken. It was faded with time, but there was no question that it was a much younger Bannister in the photo. The girl looked even younger than he remembered too. Fifteen at most, possibly as young as thirteen. And the terrified expression on her face as he raped her was something that would consign him to oblivion if it ever got out.

  So when Alastair decided he too wanted to go into politics and become an MP, it was Bannister he’d turned to, to sponsor him. By that time Bannister had become Minister of State at the Home Office and already knew about Alastair’s shady contacts with Cem Kalaman, but once again he’d done as he was told, and now the man he despised most in the world, who’d been blackmailing him all this time, was possibly going to become Prime Minister within weeks.

  Bannister stared out of the window into the street below. It was another glorious sunny late afternoon but his mood was grim because Alastair Sheridan was now dragging him deeper and deeper into the abyss, and it was for this reason that he hesitated before making the call. God knows he wasn’t a good man. He’d made mistakes. Huge ones. But he wasn’t evil.

  Still, in the end, he picked up the phone, dialled the number, and when Alastair Sheridan answered with a cheery greeting, Bannister told him what he wanted to know.

  ‘There’s no surveillance on Tina Boyd.’

  23

  A shortish man in his early thirties who fitted the description Ray had given her of Zafir Rasaq was standing outside a fried chicken shop on the corner of Hounslow High Street, looking around nervously. Tina walked past him twice, checking the area for any surveillance, before she deemed it safe to approach. Ray trusted this guy but, even so, he was an informant by trade so in Tina’s eyes someone to be treated with the utmost caution.

  ‘OK, let’s get this over with, Zafir,’ she said, getting within feet of him before he noticed her.

  He visibly recoiled, then frowned as he looked her up and down, clearly caught out by her disguise. ‘Hey, don’t sneak up on me like that,’ he said, making a face. ‘Are you—’

  ‘I’m Ray’s friend, that’s right,’ she said, not wanting to give him any more than that.

  ‘Why couldn’t Ray come?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s too dangerous for him.’

  ‘I really don’t like this,’ said Zafir, shaking his head.

  ‘That makes two of us. Come on, let’s go.’

  He led the way down the street and she asked him if he trusted the people they were buying from.

  He looked at her. ‘They’re serious criminals. That means you’ve got to be really careful around them. But they’re also reliable. They don’t know who Ray is, so all they’re interested in is the money. You’ve got the rest of it, right?’

  Tina patted the inside of her jacket. ‘I’ve got it.’

  They turned onto a back street dotted with food shops, money exchanges and Poundland-style outlets, and stopped outside a dilapidated curry house that looked like it might have gone out of business.

  ‘This is the place,’ said Zafir, taking a phone from his pocket.

  Tina eyed him carefully. ‘You look worried.’

  ‘They’re not going to be pleased when they see it’s you and not Ray,’ he said.

  ‘Why? My money’s as good as his.’

  ‘They don’t like not knowing who it is they’re dealing with. I’m taking a real risk here.’

  �
��And being paid for it.’

  He glared at her. ‘Not well enough.’ He punched a number into the phone and put it to his ear.

  Tina looked up and down the street. It was still fairly busy, with a number of shops open, and plenty of illegally parked vehicles. Two in particular caught her eye. One car was outside an off licence further up on the other side of the road, and had a couple of people sitting in it. The other was a white van with blacked-out rear windows, outside a fruit and veg shop the other way. She didn’t like the look of either of them, and was contemplating calling things off when the door to the restaurant opened and Zafir ushered her inside.

  The door was immediately locked behind them by a big guy with a beard. He looked at Tina suspiciously then addressed Zafir: ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘I’m the girlfriend of the man who ordered the passport, and I’m here with the money,’ Tina said, eyeing him coolly. At the same time she put her hand in her jacket pocket and gripped the can of CS gel, just in case.

  The big guy didn’t look happy but walked past them to the back of the restaurant, motioning for them to follow. As they did so, another guy, smaller but more dangerous-looking, appeared out of the shadows and fell into step behind Tina as they mounted the narrow staircase.

  She looked round and was about to say something when she saw he had a gun pointed at her back.

  ‘Keep moving,’ he said.

  Tina tensed but did as she was told, knowing from long and bitter experience that there was no point panicking. No one wants to fire a gun. It’s there as a threat.

  At the top of the stairs they were led into an office with a desk at the end behind which sat a fat, bald man who Ray had told her was the boss. The big bearded man peeled off so he was standing behind Zafir, who then turned round and saw the gun for the first time.

  ‘Whoa!’ he exclaimed, jumping backwards and almost falling over a box on the floor. He turned to the fat man, looking petrified. ‘What’s going on, Faz?’