This time Sami watched from the bay window. After she’d disappeared he went upstairs to his bedroom, slid down his jeans and unstrapped the miniature recorder taped to his right thigh. He switched off the record button and carefully placed the chrome rectangle inside the top drawer of his chest beneath the pile of underpants.

Task completed and the woman gone, he slumped with exhaustion. He felt faint and nauseous, and crossed the narrow landing to the bathroom. His mother below would be listening to his footsteps. He kneeled and leant over the bowl, trying to retch. Nothing came – the wave of sickness slowly passed and he gulped two mugs of water. A forced belch released air and his chest began to clear.

Had he saved his skin? Nine hours after the phone call he’d decided to make following her first visit, a man had been there waiting for him when he’d arrived for his shift at the Rovers. A man he’d never seen before – no resemblance, not even in colour, to the two men on that platform twelve years ago, let alone the beautiful blonde woman with the sweet smell and clean warm breath.

He could only hope, perhaps even pray for once, that when he met the man again, and they sat in his car while he listened to the recording – as he’d promised they most definitely would – the man would say he’d carried out the instructions right. With a reward to come. He thought of what might happen if he hadn’t. The nausea returned.

Chapter 9

9

The request from Sayyid threw Morahan; it had never occurred to him that he’d actually want to meet. Was it a trap? Might he reveal himself? Whatever the motive, he had to risk it and go. This time there was a difference in protocol. Instead of offering the opportunity to agree or decline a request, Sayyid had simply named a time and place.

11 p.m. Morahan waited in the appointed churchyard with an apprehension he again felt too old for. Nothing. The noises of the night seemed unnaturally loud. Breaths of wind rustling leaves, scurryings in the undergrowth, distant sirens. He looked around, half-expecting a black-coated man stalking him, awaiting the moment to stick a revolver in his back. Suddenly he was blinded by a flash of headlights. They went twice from full to dip – a summons. As he approached, there was something familiar about the shape of the car – and the circular green sticker it displayed. He understood; nerves dissolving, he opened the passenger door.