'Agreed,' said Matt. 'For the next week, we should be on top of each other like a bunch of mosquitoes. Let's stay in this hotel until it's all over.'
Cooksley finished off the last of his chips. 'Except for me,' he said slowly. 'I'm going home.'
Matt looked at him closely, but his face was made of granite: you could no more read it than you could read a piece of stone. 'What's up?'
'The kids have taken a turn for the worse,' he said, his voice trailing away. 'I have to be there.'
'I know a house you can go to,' said Alison. 'I don't know if it's safe, though.'
Matt looked up from the window to the doorway. His hotel room door was unlocked, and she had opened it without knocking. He had a pint of lager in front of him he had ordered up from the bar, but he was drinking slowly. From the window he could just see the Thames, but most of it was obscured by an apartment block. There were a few salesmen, and a couple of stray tourists who can't have realised that Wandsworth isn't the glitziest part of London. This place is about as miserable as I feel, he thought to himself.
'I like you, Alison, but I don't think there's anything safe about you.'
Alison toyed with her necklace. 'Listen, sorry about what happened earlier. There wasn't anything else I could do.'
Matt looked hard into her eyes but could find no trace of pity there. 'You could have given us what we wanted,' he said. 'Five has plenty of safe houses in London. You know it, we know it, so there was no need to lie.'
Alison sat down on the chair next to him, close enough for Matt to smell the perfume on her neck. Fresh, he noted. She'd just put it on, as if she were heading out on a date. 'You don't understand the kind of pressure we're under,' she said. 'There's something big going off in the next couple of weeks. We don't know what it is, but the al-Qaeda networks we monitor are humming. Maybe Heathrow, maybe Parliament, maybe a bomb at Old Trafford on a Saturday afternoon. It could be anything.' She paused, taking a bottle of mineral water from the desk. 'We're all getting chewed up trying to break the network. We're really grateful for what you've done, and at a calmer time we'd be able to do something. Not now, though.'
'We're big boys, I suppose,' said Matt. 'We can look after ourselves.'
Her hand lingered against his knee, starting to crawl up the inside of his thigh. 'What are you going to do?'
'Cooksley's gone home to his family,' replied Matt. 'His kids are very ill, and he wants to be with them. The rest of us are going to stick together, lie low. We're staying here tonight, then we reckon we'll shift around some cheap hotels in London. I reckon it's the best place in the country to hide. Big, anonymous, nobody pays any attention to anyone. London is full of lost men; we'll just blend in with the crowd.'
'Let me know where you are,' said Alison. 'If there's any way I can help out, I will.'
'Thanks,' replied Matt.
She looked at him closely. 'My tape went missing,' she said. 'Did you take it?'
Matt took a sip on his beer. 'Me? No,' he said. 'Are you sure?'
'Quite sure,' said Alison. 'One of you must have taken it. Find out who, and get it back. We need it.'
Matt nodded. He didn't know what she was talking about and his mind was on other things. His hand was resting on her leg, his eyes tracking the curve of her legs, admiring the way her black stockings tapered into her black stiletto shoes. 'Look,' he said. 'I bought you a souvenir.'
'For me?' said Alison, her smile widening. 'How sweet!'
Matt fished through his pocket. The diamond was still wrapped in tissue paper. He placed it on the bar, letting her unwrap it. The diamond was cut to perfection, scattering tiny beads of light in every direction. 'My own al-Qaeda diamond!' Alison said. She looked up at Matt. 'I'll get it set in gold and make it a necklace. And every time I wear it, I'll think of you.'
THIRTEEN
Sallum sat alone behind the wheel of the Lexus LS430. The village of Pembridge was still fast asleep. Dawn had started to break twenty minutes ago, the sun gradually rising across the fields, sending shafts of bright orange light from the east. He had been here for two hours now, and the heat inside the car had gradually been dropping. Sallum could see his breath collecting on the windscreen, could feel the cold biting into the tips of his fingers.
He reflected for a moment on one of the hundreds of verses he had memorised from the Koran: 'Seek assistance through patience and prayer. Allah is with the patient.'
To sit, and wait and watch. That is the skill of the assassin.
Cooksley emerged abruptly from the front door. He glanced left and right, took a deep breath of air, then started walking. The collie bounced ahead of him, barking a couple of times, and dashing up the lane and towards the fields. Cooksley followed the dog at his own pace. He was walking slowly, his back stooped and his head bowed as if he was deep in thought.
Sallum glanced down at the photograph resting on the passenger seat of the car, then up at the man walking down the lane. There could be no doubt. He was the target. He climbed out of the car, pulling the collar of his long, grey overcoat up around his neck. On his back he was wearing a small, black rucksack. He checked the Heckler & Koch P7 pistol was sitting snugly in his pocket, reassured by the feel of its metal against his fingertips. There was nothing like the barrel of a pistol to make a man feel more secure, he reflected. Or more powerful.
He walked slowly up the lane, his pace quickening to bring himself level with Cooksley. 'Excuse me,' he said softly, 'do you know the way to the church?'
Cooksley looked round, surprised. The accent was Middle Eastern, but American educated. Not the sort of voice you heard in Herefordshire very often. 'You're going the wrong way, mate,' he replied. 'Go back down the lane, past the Two Foxes, then you'll see it on the left. You can't miss it.'
'Is it far?' asked Sallum.
The collie had bounded back up to them and was bouncing enthusiastically around Cooksley's and Sallum's ankles. 'Not far, no,' said Cooksley. 'Ten minutes' walk.'
Sallum knelt down to pat the dog, rubbing it around the ears. The collie yapped, rubbing its jaw into his knees. From his pocket, Sallum pulled the P7. With his left hand he took the dog's two ears in a firm grip, holding its head absolutely still. With his right hand, he jabbed the pistol into the animal's fur, pressing it into the skin just between the ear and the eye. From there the bullet would smash straight through the dog's brain, killing it instantly.
He squeezed the trigger.
The dog whimpered momentarily and a trickle of saliva dripped from its open jaws. It collapsed on to the ground, blood spilling from the wound that had opened up in its head. Sallum jumped swiftly backwards, letting go of the dog's ears, and jabbed the barrel of the P7 hard into Cooksley's ribs. He could feel the metal pressing tightly into the skin. He twisted his wrist downwards, so the gun was pointing upwards. This man, he knew, was a trained soldier. He would know that the bullet from a gun fired at that angle would travel right through his ribcage and up through the bottom of his heart. He would die instantly.
'Don't say a word, don't even move,' muttered Sallum. His eyes looked into Cooksley's face. He could see no fear there. Just the ticking of a mind looking for some method of escape. 'Go back down towards the house,' said Sallum. 'Don't say anything, don't run.'
They walked slowly for the two hundred yards back to the house, Cooksley ahead, Sallum at his side, the pistol wedged into his ribs. Cooksley stopped outside the front door, opened it and held it ajar. Inside, Sallum could hear the sounds of children playing and their mother talking to them.