‘You do, you know you do. Tom, whether you like it or not, and I don’t care which, you’re in our gang. Let’s not fall out now. This is important and we need you. But don’t imagine you’re indispensable. No one is.’

‘So what? Look, the fact is you don’t have a choice. Rolt made it pretty clear there’s something big in the pipeline. He said that, whatever it was, Stutz’s people would be in the frame. Maybe they’re complicit in the hostel and sourcing Nurul. You’ve got half the fucking White House landing in twenty-four hours so you have to take the risk. We lift Vestey and find out what the fuck is happening.’

There was silence.

Eventually Mandler spoke. ‘And we can’t just put him back on the streets after we’ve talked to him. You’d better think about that.’

Chapter 79

79

Vestey’s voice was croaky, full of sleep. ‘Who is this?’

‘Tom Buckingham. Rolt told me to call you. We need to talk.’

‘You seen the time?’

It was just gone two.

‘Yeah, but this can’t wait. It’s about the hostel.’

There was a long silence at the other end.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Yes. I’m outside. The Prius.’

‘You’d better come in, then.’

‘No. The car’s safer.’

It was a risk, but one worth taking. Would he go for it? They could have gone in and lifted him from his bed, but that would have meant noise and vans, and some civicminded neighbour might have called the police. Getting him to leave the house voluntarily was Tom’s idea, but as a precaution Woolf had placed three of his team round the house just in case Vestey was a lot more switched on than they thought and took flight.

Three minutes passed and Vestey had still not shown himself. But that wasn’t a problem just yet. GCHQ were monitoring his landline, email and mobile to see if he was checking up on Tom’s story. But there was nothing to listen to or read from the house: he was just getting dressed. Then the front door opened. Tom flashed his interior light on and off and Vestey moved towards the car.

‘Sorry about this, mate,’ said Tom. ‘Get in.’

As soon as the door shut, he moved off.

‘Put your belt on – we don’t want to get stopped.’

One good thing about a Prius, and there was only one: no starter, no revving – it just glided away soundlessly.

‘What’s happened?’

‘We have a problem with the bomber. The police know he didn’t blow himself up.’

‘Who’s saying?’

Tom took a left at the bottom of the road, then sped up to a roundabout, took the third exit onto the bypass and pulled into a layby, the designated meeting point. He came to a sharp halt behind a white Transit.

‘What the fuck’s this?’