The guard looked at the crumpled body on the floor. ‘You silly ijut! What a waste!’ He turned and pulled the door closed.
Rafi remained where he was: an untidy heap amongst the food. He was too sore to get up.
His thoughts went back to his phone call with Callum on the previous Tuesday morning. Callum had been excited, as he had managed to arrange a trip to Luxembourg.
‘A couple of meetings have cropped up. I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss! I fly out early tomorrow from City airport and fly back from Amsterdam on Thursday evening. I’m seeing a local REIT. But it gets better: they’ve lent me a car for the drive from Luxembourg to Amsterdam. One of their directors works in Luxembourg, but has a home in Amsterdam and he’s lending me his Porsche. Isn’t that great?’ Callum had said enthusiastically.
‘So a bit of a detour via Germany?’ Rafi asked.
‘You got it in one. I’ve always wanted to take a Porsche through its paces on an Autobahn without the fear of speed cameras or blue flashing lights in the rear view mirror.’
Rafi went cold. How the hell had he managed to forget to tell his interrogators that Callum was dead? In the interrogation room he was like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He had to think carefully. When was he going to tell them that Callum had given him a USB memory stick, with files showing the shareholders’ lists and the work that they had done on the two suspect companies?
Rafi was jolted back to reality. There, standing in the door frame, was the ugly guard again, staring at Rafi lying in a sea of cold, inedible food.
‘You’re wanted again.’
Waiting for him were the two familiar faces.
‘You look worse every time we see you,’ commented Andy. There was no sympathy in his voice.
‘At this rate we’ll need to get a move on,’ added Mike, ‘or you’ll be in no fit state to talk at all.’
‘You’re a slimy little bugger,’ sneered Andy. ‘Explain why you didn’t tell us Callum was dead?’
‘Bloody good ploy, if you ask me,’ commented Mike. ‘Stops us checking your story!’
‘He was murdered!’
‘Bullshit!’ exclaimed Mike. ‘The local police say that he was driving a Mercedes hire car and hit black ice. Are you going to tell us what’s really going on?’
‘But, he should have been driving a Porsche.’ Rafi hesitated. ‘Can I explain what Callum was doing in Luxembourg?’
Andy considered this, and then nodded.
‘According to a colleague of his, Callum had five meetings: one with a REIT – real estate investment trust – and then a couple of tax advisers, an FCP investment fund and another meeting in the afternoon. The REIT was picking up the tab for the trip. Callum was due to fly back from Amsterdam on Thursday evening.’ Rafi paused. ‘The MD at the REIT had agreed to lend Callum his Porsche… He’d planned a detour via the German Autobahns.’
‘Bloody bollocks!’ burst out Mike. ‘The local police have spoken to the REIT director. Callum phoned him to cancel the offer of the Porsche, as he’d be running late.’
‘Good try,’ added Andy, ‘but your story doesn’t fool us!’
‘There’s more,’ insisted Rafi with a touch of desperation in his voice. ‘The afternoon Callum died, he phoned me. He was excited. He said he’d found some proof. He was about to tell me what it was when he was cut off. I tried calling him back but his phone went straight to voicemail.’
Andy scowled. ‘That proves sod all!’
‘One of the people he saw was in on the shareholdings’ cover up. I’m sure of it,’ said Rafi. ‘Callum got too close…’
‘If you refuse to cooperate and continue to mess us around -we do have other options. We’ve an, er… understanding with the Americans,’ said Mike, in a steely voice. ‘We suggest to them that you are holding back information that they might find helpful and, magically, through the rendition process you are whisked away to some godforsaken place.’
The knots in Rafi’s stomach tightened another notch. He started to speak. His voice was hoarse from the tension and lack of fluids. ‘If Callum had found out who was running the clandestine shareholdings and could prove that Prima Terra was involved, wouldn’t this give a motive for his murder?’ Rafi was aware that, on the surface, this seemed to have nothing to do with the bombing, but he had to keep talking about it as he could find no other reason for finding himself in this nightmare.
‘Bloody hell! Not that old story again,’ said an exasperated Mike. ‘Tell us about the Bishopsgate bombing first. We can get back to Callum later.’
Rafi slumped in his chair and purposefully looked away from his interrogators.
‘Get real, you uncooperative little sod! You have told us the square root of nothing. If you continue to take the piss, remember that no one, I repeat, no one has the ability to come and find you. You have disappeared off the radar screen and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to help you,’ said Andy aggressively.
‘You’re deluding yourself,’ spat out Mike. ‘You’re trying to convince yourself that you’re innocent, but in reality you’re guilty – as guilty as hell!’ He looked like a pug that had licked a nettle.
‘Look at the bloody evidence,’ said Andy forcefully. ‘The CCTV footage of you conspiring with the bomber and the proof that you gave him money is more than enough… Take this bastard back to his cell while we consider whether Belmarsh is too good for him.’
Rafi started to panic but did his best to fight back his feelings of helplessness.
The scene looked more like Gaza than the City of London. In the foreground was the burnt-out shell of the building in which the Bishopsgate police station garage had been. The offices above had also been devastated. On the other side of the narrow street, the windows of the 1950s office building had been blown out and Venetian blinds flapped in the wind.
The stage-managed news conference had all the hallmarks of a major media event. The top political reporters and their cameramen were hemmed into the narrow space behind the police station.
In pole position, with his entourage behind him, the Home Office minister strode towards a prearranged spot in front of the gutted garage. He was a man on a mission. He looked determinedly at the destruction, conscious no doubt that the TV cameras were trained on him. One of the burnt-out police cars had been pulled out of the garage and now conveniently provided the backdrop for the minister’s meeting with the commissioner of the City of London police. On the ground next to the car lay a police helmet in a pool of dark liquid. It gave those watching a stark reminder of the tragic loss of life.
The commissioner was looking agitated. He had been expecting the Home Secretary, with whom he very much wanted to talk. But at the last moment he had been advised that his number two would be coming. He had been standing in the cold February air, waiting for over thirty minutes, whilst the minister’s PR team got the location ready for the press. Their attention to detail when it came to dealing with TV shoots was legendary.
As the minister approached, the commissioner walked across to the agreed rendezvous point close to the burnt-out car and the forlorn police helmet. The senior political reporters were nearby, ready to ask their questions. The minister, in shirt sleeves and a Metropolitan police flak jacket, shook the commissioner’s hand and turned towards the TV cameras.
‘You see before you the latest carnage wrought on our society by fundamentalists, who seek to challenge our freedoms. I can assure you that the appalling loss of life here will spur us on in our quest to bring to justice all those who assisted the suicide bomber, Imaad Wafeeq, in this heinous act. As I speak, I can reveal that we are already making good progress in our investigations. We have in custody at Paddington Green police station a man who we believe to be the financier of the terrorist cell responsible for this outrage.’
The minister turned to the commissioner, who unlike him had not had the opportunity for a makeover before facing the cameras. ‘I understand that the investigations are progressing well?’