Tariq’s mouth had gone dry and he cursed himself for not bringing a bottle of water. He had a packet of chewing-gum in his pocket, though, so he took it out and popped a piece into his mouth.
An hour or so later the lights went out downstairs, except for the one in the hall. A moment later the upstairs lights went on. The girl and Shepherd were getting ready for bed. The lights stayed on for about half an hour and winked off just after eleven, leaving the upstairs windows dark.
Tariq watched the house as the digital clock ticked off the minutes. Midnight passed. Then one o’clock. His palms were soaked with sweat and he wiped them on his trousers. Then he took the back off his phone, removed his Sim card and slid in the pay-as-you-go card he’d bought from a shop in London’s East End. He switched on the phone and took deep breaths as he waited for it to boot up.
Headlights moved slowly up the hill and Tariq lay across the passenger seat until the car had gone by. Then he sat up and tapped out Salih’s number. He answered on the third ring. ‘Now,’ said Tariq. ‘I’m going to do it now. They’re all in bed. I’ll call you when it’s done.’
The line went dead.
Billy Bradford tossed a can of lager to his brother and popped the tab on his own. ‘Are you heading off?’
‘Think I’ll watch the fight,’ said Jack. ‘Heavyweight championship.’
‘Two black guys trying to kill each other. Might as well drive over to Manchester,’ said Billy.
‘Ha-ha,’ said Jack. He sipped his lager and sat in the armchair opposite the plasma television. He lit a cigarette. His Glock, a bulbous silencer screwed into the barrel, lay next to the ashtray.
‘Look, I’ll do the night shift if you want. I’m not tired,’ said Billy, as he sat on the sofa and swung his feet on to the coffee-table.
‘You know Katra doesn’t like feet on the furniture,’ said Jack.
‘Yeah, well, she doesn’t like us smoking in the house, either.’
Jack chuckled. ‘You’re just pissed because she likes me more than you.’
‘In your dreams,’ said Billy.
‘You asked her out yet?’
‘Have you?’
‘I’m here to work,’ said Jack. ‘And so are you.’
‘This isn’t working,’ said Billy. ‘It’s babysitting.’
‘Spider’s not paranoid,’ said Jack. ‘If he says someone’s after him, he’s not making it up.’
‘Arab terrorist, international hitman, it’s all a bit Andy McNab, isn’t it?’
‘You ever meet McNab? He’s out in Hollywood, I heard, advising on action movies.’
‘Where did we go wrong?’ asked Billy. ‘He gets lost in the desert, now he’s out in Hollywood and we’re babysitting a boy and an au pair in Hereford.’
‘Billy, stop bitching. Spider’s Sass and he needs help. Watching TV and having Katra cook for us is hardly shit work, is it?’ He sipped his lager. ‘Anyway, we’ll be back in Baghdad soon enough.’
Tariq crept around the side of the house. He had stuck the gun into the belt of his trousers, the silencer in his jacket pocket. He was carrying a brown-paper bag containing a sheet of sticky-backed plastic and a small hammer.
The kitchen was in darkness and he peered through the window. He hadn’t seen a dog when he’d had the house under surveillance and there was no sign of a food or water bowl. He knelt down, peeled the back off the plastic, then pressed it against the pane of glass closest to the door lock. He listened for a few seconds, then drove his elbow into the glass. It splintered and most of the glass remained stuck to the plastic. Tariq peeled it away and kept it glass side up as he placed it carefully on the ground.
He pulled the gun from his belt and screwed in the silencer, then reached through the hole in the glass and flicked open the Yale lock. He turned the handle and pushed open the door. As he stepped into the kitchen his shoe crunched on a small piece of glass that had escaped the plastic. He realised he was holding his breath and forced himself to relax.
He cocked his head to one side, frowning. He could hear sounds from down the hall. A fight. A crowd roaring and the thud-thud-thud of punches. A boxing match. His heart started to pound again. Shepherd should have been in bed with the girl. His finger tightened on the trigger. It didn’t matter. With the silencer on the gun, the girl and the boy wouldn’t hear a thing. He could shoot Shepherd downstairs, then go up and kill his family. Salih had said he should kill Shepherd if he was in the house and his family if he wasn’t, but in killing them all he would show he was committed to what he was doing, that it made no difference if his target was a man,a woman or a child. They were infidels. A human being who did not believe in Allah was not a human being. He was lower than an animal, lower even than the insects that crawled along the ground. He went up on tiptoe and moved silently across the kitchen floor. He paused at the door. The television was in the front room, the sound turned low so that it wouldn’t disturb the sleepers upstairs.
Tariq moved along the hallway. The sitting-room door was open. He raised his gun. There were eleven bullets in the magazine. He’d taken them out in his room, counted and recounted them,wearing gloves as Salih had instructed. They were so small, the bullets. Just an inch long, bright and shiny. It was hard to believe that something so small could kill a man, but Tariq had seen at first hand the damage that bullets could do. As part of his training, at a camp near Malakand on the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, he’d been taught how to shoot and how to kill, how to make explosives by mixing ammonium nitrate fertiliser and aluminium powder. His instructors had shown him how to strip and fire a Kalashnikov, and many different types of handgun.
Most of his training had been on target ranges, but during their second month three prisoners had been brought in, bloody, battered, begging for their lives, and tied to posts. Tariq and five other British Muslims had been lined up in front of them and told to fire. Tariq had needed no urging. He had been the first to pull the trigger. His shot had hit the prisoner on the left, blowing away a big chunk of his head. His second shot had missed but then he had remembered his training and held the gun with both hands. His next three shots had hit the chest of the man in the middle. Tariq had turned the gun on the third man, even though he was already riddled with bullets, and he had carried on firing until the hammer clicked on empty casings. He had screamed then, as had the others, screamed and yelled and danced, kicking up dust, as the instructors clapped and cheered. Killing was easy, Tariq had learnt that day. It was easy and it was pleasurable. As he’d danced and chanted praise to Allah, he’d realised he had an erection. He’d been turned on by the killings. For a moment he’d been ashamed, but then he’d realised that the erection was a gift from Allah, a reward for what he’d done.
Tariq felt himself harden as he moved towards the open door. His left hand crept involuntarily towards the front of his trousers and his penis twitched in anticipation. He’d kill the man, then the boy – and then he’d rape the girl before he killed her too. He’d rape her in the name of Allah.
He took another step and saw Shepherd in an armchair, watching television, a bottle of beer and an ashtray containing a burning cigarette on the table beside him. As Tariq watched, the man picked up the cigarette, took a long drag on it, then blew smoke at the ceiling. To be sure of a clear shot, Tariq had to take at least two steps into the room.
Shepherd flicked ash, then groaned as the bell sounded for the end of the round. Tariq took a deep breath and readied himself. He wanted to say something to Shepherd before he killed him, to tell him why he was taking his life. He wanted to tell Shepherd that his son was going to be killed and his woman raped, that the last thing his woman would feel was Tariq coming inside her. His penis was rock hard now and his testicles ached. It was going to be the best sex he’d ever had, Tariq knew, sex followed by death. He shivered.