18, 18, 14, 0, 21, 11, 25, 8, 8, 13, 9, 23, 23, 5, 1, 14, 2

Robert Gerard Sands

A/0 B/1 C/2 D/3 E/4 F/5 G/6 H/7 I/8 J/9 K/10 L/11 M/12 N/13 O/14 P/15 Q/16 R/17 S/18 T/19 U/20 V/21 W/22 X/23 Y/24 Z/25

The first number in the code was 18, while the first letter in the one-time pad sequence was R. The position of R on Holm’s scale was 17 so he took that from 18, which left 1. Letter 1 on the same scale was B, so B was the answer. He moved on to the second number, which was also 18. However, the second letter on the pad was O which was 14 on the scale. 18 minus 14 was 4 so that became E. The third number was 14 and the third letter B. 14 minus… before he got any further Javed had it.

‘Ben Western Suffolk.’ Javed smiled and moved back to his chair. ‘Whoever the hell that is.’

‘Search it.’

‘I am.’ Javed’s fingers were already tapping his keyboard. He ran his eyes down a screen of search results. ‘There’s a number of newspaper reports from last week. A man called Ben Western went missing in Suffolk. Doesn’t appear to be anything particularly interesting about the case.’

‘A misper?’ Holm used his old police shorthand. ‘That’s it?’

Javed peered at the screen again. ‘Well it can’t be a coincidence.’

Holm slumped back and tried to get his head round the information. How could it have anything to do with the master terrorist he’d been hunting for years?

‘Do you want me to look him up?’ Javed had closed the browser and opened MI5’s internal database. It held huge amounts of information and cross-referenced the Police National Computer, material held at GCHQ and MI6, as well as international databases from foreign agencies and police forces. Javed began to type. ‘Might be a chance—’

‘No!’ Holm swung his chair round. ‘There could be a flag on the record.’

‘You mean…?’

‘Think about it. Whoever sent us the information on this Ben Western guy must be in MI5 or have some sort of access. That could have been any one of hundreds, even thousands, of people.’ Holm glanced at the filing cabinet. ‘Nobody else would have been able to get the index card in there.’

‘But why the subterfuge?’

‘I’m not sure, but whoever it is can’t want Huxtable or anyone else to know what we’re up to. They must realise Taher has a contact in the security services. It’s what I’ve been saying for ages.’ Holm held up a finger and thumb and squeezed them together. ‘Every time I’ve been close to catching Taher he’s slipped away. I’m not risking that again.’

‘So what do we do?’

Holm thought for a moment. ‘Animal rights. Start searching the PNC for crimes suspected of being committed by animal liberation groups. That will bring up dozens of records spread across the country. Pick a few from the Suffolk area we can use as decoys.’

‘And then?’