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  ‘Can I have a lawyer?’

  ‘No you frigging well can’t!’ came the retort from Mike. ‘The likes of you forfeit all their rights. You don’t get a lawyer until you’ve been charged, and that could be weeks away.’

  The questions rained down… ‘Who else? Why? and What are you planning next?’ Rafi’s lack of helpful answers was seriously annoying Mike and Andy.

  ‘We haven’t got all bloody day. Start talking or we will get real mean.’ Mike’s dark eyes narrowed and stared threateningly, just inches away from Rafi.

  Rafi’s brain was in turmoil.

  ‘Talk!’ ordered Mike threateningly.

  ‘We have two cast-iron pieces of evidence against you. The CCTV footage and the?20 note. Case closed! We keep you here for weeks, break you, get your confession, have the courts lock you up and then throw away the keys,’ said Andy.

  ‘With the evidence we’ve got on you, you’ve become invisible and the system doesn’t give a bloody monkeys!’ added Mike.

  ‘But I’m innocent, I tell you. All I can think of is I stumbled on something at work, which upset some people,’ said Rafi.

  ‘Like what?’ snapped Mike.

  ‘Breaking the City rules on takeovers,’ replied Rafi.

  ‘What?’ burst out Andy.

  ‘Bullshit!’ Mike’s manner was becoming increasingly intolerant.

  ‘We want to know about the bomber and what his colleagues are planning next. Not about some poncey City insider dealing scam,’ said Andy.

  ‘Be very clear there’ll be no respite. We’ll hound you night and day. We will win and you will lose,’jeered Mike.

  Rafi felt sick with fear. His stomach churned. What was he caught up in? The evidence against him was impressive and the only explanation he could find was that someone had gone to a significant amount of trouble to implicate him. But why? All he could think of was the research that Callum and he had been working on, but what the hell was the link?

  ‘Are you going to talk?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Or do we let you rot forever?’ added Mike.

  How long would it be before they started getting really rough? Soon, thought Rafi. He sensed their physical aggression bubbling just below the surface.

  ‘Make a start and tell us how you were financing the bomber, Imaad Wafeeq,’ said Andy.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Get real!’ shouted Mike.

  ‘I think I’ve been set up,’ replied Rafi. ‘At least hear me out.’

  There was silence. ‘OK,’ said Andy finally, ‘But it had better be good.’

  ‘I stumbled upon some information that suggested my employers, Prima Terra, and a group of Luxembourg investors were in serious breach of the City takeover code.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Andy, looking nonplussed.

  ‘Thursday before last, I received a phone call from, Callum Burns, a financials analyst at Landin Young. He’s fantastically good at his job and I’ve been one of his best clients. He wanted to talk about Renshaw Smithers, a niche finance business in which my company, Prima Terra, is a major investor, but he didn’t want to have the discussion over the phone, so we met for a drink at a local bar that evening.’

  ‘And?’ asked Mike.

  ‘How much do you know about fund managers?’

  ‘They look after other peoples’ money,’ replied Andy.

  ‘At Prima Terra we have?30 billion of funds under management, of which I manage?4 billion of equities. It was quite a bit more, but we too got caught by the 2008 stock market crash. Have you heard of the Stock Exchange Blue Book?’ asked Rafi.

  Both Andy and Mike shook their heads.

  ‘It’s the rule book governing company shareholdings and takeovers, by which as fund managers we have to abide.’

  ‘Obviously,’ said Mike sarcastically, ‘But damn it! Why is this relevant?’

  ‘Callum thought Prima Terra had possibly broken the rules. He said he’d found something very dubious that was being hushed up.’

  ‘I still do not see how this relates to the bombing,’ said Mike, thrusting his jaw forward at Rafi. ‘If you’re taking us for a ride, remember we can make life seriously uncomfortable for you.’

  ‘Callum suspected that Renshaw Smithers and another listed company Dewoodson were being controlled by unknown offshore investors and thought there might be a connection to Prima Terra – the largest investor in these two companies.’

  Mike raised his arms and was about to cut Rafi off.

  ‘Before you throw the keys away, what’s the harm in hearing me out?’ pleaded Rafi. ‘Callum and I couldn’t come up with any reasons why these companies might be worth controlling. They are unexciting and hardly takeover candidates,’ replied Rafi. ‘But there has to be something, otherwise why incriminate me?’

  ‘You’re not making any sense and why are you pissing around wasting our time?’ Mike thumped his fist on the table centimetres away from Rafi.

  ‘So this is a red herring,’ interrupted Andy.

  No, I don’t think so. These shareholdings when added together break all the rules. And there has to be a reason why I was set up.’

  ‘You’re taking the piss,’ said Mike. ‘Sounds to me as if you’re just trying to distract us from your links to the bomber. Bullshit isn’t what we need.’

  Rafi looked at Mike’s frustrated eyes. ‘Whatever I say, you are not interested, are you?’

  ‘Sod off back to your cell. We’ll deal with you shortly,’ growled Mike irritably. ‘Your time is running out. We’ll break you and you will want to talk to us very soon.’

  Their lack of interest in his story and Mike glowering inches away from him made the knots in Rafi’s guts clench even tighter.

  Fifteen or so minutes later, Rafi’s cell door swung open. A man in catering uniform entered. ‘I’ve got some food for you. Where d’you want it?’

  To Rafi’s surprise, the tray fell to the floor. He bent down to help pick it up. With the speed and strength of a black belt, the man let fly a kick. It struck Rafi just below his left shoulder blade and was followed by a punch to the kidneys. Doubled up, Rafi slumped to the floor.

  ‘You effing murderer! Prison’s too good for your sort!’ He stepped towards Rafi, who tried to shout. He had to get the attention of the guard but only managed to let out a strangled noise. To his relief the guard stuck his head around the door.

  ‘The ’alfwit seems to have slipped on ’is food! ’E should be alright soon, when ’e gets ’is wind back. Shame ’e didn’t get to eat it. Still, no doubt it’ll do ’im good to go ’ungry.’ With that the man left.

  The guard looked at the crumpled body on the floor. ‘You silly ijut! What a waste!’ He turned and pulled the door closed.

  Rafi remained where he was: an untidy heap amongst the food. He was too sore to get up.

  His thoughts went back to his phone call with Callum on the previous Tuesday morning. Callum had been excited, as he had managed to arrange a trip to Luxembourg.

  ‘A couple of meetings have cropped up. I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss! I fly out early tomorrow from City airport and fly back from Amsterdam on Thursday evening. I’m seeing a local REIT. But it gets better: they’ve lent me a car for the drive from Luxembourg to Amsterdam. One of their directors works in Luxembourg, but has a home in Amsterdam and he’s lending me his Porsche. Isn’t that great?’ Callum had said enthusiastically.

  ‘So a bit of a detour via Germany?’ Rafi asked.

  ‘You got it in one. I’ve always wanted to take a Porsche through its paces on an Autobahn without the fear of speed cameras or blue flashing lights in the rear view mirror.’

  Rafi went cold. How the hell had he managed to forget to tell his interrogators that Callum was dead? In the interrogation room he was like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He had to think carefully. When was he going to tell them that Callum had given him a USB memory stick, with files showing the shareholders’ lists and the work that they had done on the two suspect co
mpanies?

  Rafi was jolted back to reality. There, standing in the door frame, was the ugly guard again, staring at Rafi lying in a sea of cold, inedible food.

  ‘You’re wanted again.’

  Waiting for him were the two familiar faces.

  ‘You look worse every time we see you,’ commented Andy. There was no sympathy in his voice.

  ‘At this rate we’ll need to get a move on,’ added Mike, ‘or you’ll be in no fit state to talk at all.’

  ‘You’re a slimy little bugger,’ sneered Andy. ‘Explain why you didn’t tell us Callum was dead?’

  ‘Bloody good ploy, if you ask me,’ commented Mike. ‘Stops us checking your story!’

  ‘He was murdered!’

  ‘Bullshit!’ exclaimed Mike. ‘The local police say that he was driving a Mercedes hire car and hit black ice. Are you going to tell us what’s really going on?’

  ‘But, he should have been driving a Porsche.’ Rafi hesitated. ‘Can I explain what Callum was doing in Luxembourg?’

  Andy considered this, and then nodded.

  ‘According to a colleague of his, Callum had five meetings: one with a REIT – real estate investment trust – and then a couple of tax advisers, an FCP investment fund and another meeting in the afternoon. The REIT was picking up the tab for the trip. Callum was due to fly back from Amsterdam on Thursday evening.’ Rafi paused. ‘The MD at the REIT had agreed to lend Callum his Porsche… He’d planned a detour via the German Autobahns.’

  ‘Bloody bollocks!’ burst out Mike. ‘The local police have spoken to the REIT director. Callum phoned him to cancel the offer of the Porsche, as he’d be running late.’

  ‘Good try,’ added Andy, ‘but your story doesn’t fool us!’

  ‘There’s more,’ insisted Rafi with a touch of desperation in his voice. ‘The afternoon Callum died, he phoned me. He was excited. He said he’d found some proof. He was about to tell me what it was when he was cut off. I tried calling him back but his phone went straight to voicemail.’

  Andy scowled. ‘That proves sod all!’

  ‘One of the people he saw was in on the shareholdings’ cover up. I’m sure of it,’ said Rafi. ‘Callum got too close…’

  ‘If you refuse to cooperate and continue to mess us around -we do have other options. We’ve an, er… understanding with the Americans,’ said Mike, in a steely voice. ‘We suggest to them that you are holding back information that they might find helpful and, magically, through the rendition process you are whisked away to some godforsaken place.’

  The knots in Rafi’s stomach tightened another notch. He started to speak. His voice was hoarse from the tension and lack of fluids. ‘If Callum had found out who was running the clandestine shareholdings and could prove that Prima Terra was involved, wouldn’t this give a motive for his murder?’ Rafi was aware that, on the surface, this seemed to have nothing to do with the bombing, but he had to keep talking about it as he could find no other reason for finding himself in this nightmare.

  ‘Bloody hell! Not that old story again,’ said an exasperated Mike. ‘Tell us about the Bishopsgate bombing first. We can get back to Callum later.’

  Rafi slumped in his chair and purposefully looked away from his interrogators.

  ‘Get real, you uncooperative little sod! You have told us the square root of nothing. If you continue to take the piss, remember that no one, I repeat, no one has the ability to come and find you. You have disappeared off the radar screen and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to help you,’ said Andy aggressively.

  ‘You’re deluding yourself,’ spat out Mike. ‘You’re trying to convince yourself that you’re innocent, but in reality you’re guilty – as guilty as hell!’ He looked like a pug that had licked a nettle.

  ‘Look at the bloody evidence,’ said Andy forcefully. ‘The CCTV footage of you conspiring with the bomber and the proof that you gave him money is more than enough… Take this bastard back to his cell while we consider whether Belmarsh is too good for him.’

  Rafi started to panic but did his best to fight back his feelings of helplessness.

  The scene looked more like Gaza than the City of London. In the foreground was the burnt-out shell of the building in which the Bishopsgate police station garage had been. The offices above had also been devastated. On the other side of the narrow street, the windows of the 1950s office building had been blown out and Venetian blinds flapped in the wind.

  The stage-managed news conference had all the hallmarks of a major media event. The top political reporters and their cameramen were hemmed into the narrow space behind the police station.

  In pole position, with his entourage behind him, the Home Office minister strode towards a prearranged spot in front of the gutted garage. He was a man on a mission. He looked determinedly at the destruction, conscious no doubt that the TV cameras were trained on him. One of the burnt-out police cars had been pulled out of the garage and now conveniently provided the backdrop for the minister’s meeting with the commissioner of the City of London police. On the ground next to the car lay a police helmet in a pool of dark liquid. It gave those watching a stark reminder of the tragic loss of life.

  The commissioner was looking agitated. He had been expecting the Home Secretary, with whom he very much wanted to talk. But at the last moment he had been advised that his number two would be coming. He had been standing in the cold February air, waiting for over thirty minutes, whilst the minister’s PR team got the location ready for the press. Their attention to detail when it came to dealing with TV shoots was legendary.

  As the minister approached, the commissioner walked across to the agreed rendezvous point close to the burnt-out car and the forlorn police helmet. The senior political reporters were nearby, ready to ask their questions. The minister, in shirt sleeves and a Metropolitan police flak jacket, shook the commissioner’s hand and turned towards the TV cameras.

  ‘You see before you the latest carnage wrought on our society by fundamentalists, who seek to challenge our freedoms. I can assure you that the appalling loss of life here will spur us on in our quest to bring to justice all those who assisted the suicide bomber, Imaad Wafeeq, in this heinous act. As I speak, I can reveal that we are already making good progress in our investigations. We have in custody at Paddington Green police station a man who we believe to be the financier of the terrorist cell responsible for this outrage.’

  The minister turned to the commissioner, who unlike him had not had the opportunity for a makeover before facing the cameras. ‘I understand that the investigations are progressing well?’

  The commissioner paused before making his reply. He had his concerns. The modi operandi of the attack troubled him. The bomber was not a suicide bomber and had not intended to be a victim of the bombing. It looked as if the timer had set off the bomb sooner than expected. Then there was the rucksack of explosives. It had produced far more damage than would have been expected from home-made C4 explosives, the telltale trademark of bomb attacks orchestrated by an ITS – Islamic Terror Syndicate – to which MI5 seemed convinced Rafi belonged. And how the terrorist had managed to get into the garage unchallenged worried him. He had personally reviewed the security of all his police stations only weeks earlier. The garage should not have been unguarded. At least he had been able to secure a copy of the CCTV footage showing the suspect’s meeting with the bomber.

  ‘We have a number of ongoing enquiries… Which look promising,’ replied the commissioner.

  ‘Excellent. Please let me know if you require any additional resources. I shall be available 24/7. My Government has every confidence in your ability to track down and bring to justice these barbaric criminals.’

  Had the cameras not been trained on the minister, they would have spotted a fleeting frown on the commissioner’s face. He had asked to interview the suspect, but had been thwarted. ‘It is a matter for MI5, given the gravity of the situation,’ the commissioner had been told by his political masters. He had
lost three of his police officers and had two more on the critical list. He did not like being out of the loop and had gone to the top. A meeting was being scheduled for Monday with his longstanding friend, the head of MI5. He wished it could have been sooner. The commissioner stood there while the minister took questions from the press, anxious to get on with his work.

  Suddenly a signal was given and the interview was over. The press officer spoke to the reporters. ‘The minister will now be visiting the injured at the Royal London Hospital, in Whitechapel Road, and will be available for further questions there. Those of you with red press passes have been allocated seats in the hospital’s press room.’

  The commissioner watched as the flak jacket was tossed to an aide.

  ‘Nice touch, that helmet,’ said the minister. ‘What did you use for the puddle?’

  ‘Coca Cola,’ came the aide’s reply.

  The minister smiled and strode off towards his chauffeurdriven car without so much as a goodbye to the commissioner, who turned and headed back to work.

  Back in his cell, Rafi sat on the bed, trying to work out what was going on. His thoughts kept drifting back to the previous Thursday. The early morning meeting had been an upbeat affair. His boss, Jameel, had announced that he’d arranged an impromptu lunch to mark the bounce in the stock market.

  During the morning Rafi had tried ringing Callum a couple more times, but his mobile had still gone straight to voicemail.

  Then just before lunch Jameel had walked over to Rafi’s desk. ‘I think we should be prepared for some serious celebrations,’ he had said. ‘I need to go across to The Bishop of Norwich, the restaurant, to line up a few things. Could you do me a favour and drop by the cashpoint and draw out, say?500, in case I don’t have enough cash for the bar bills and tips?’

  ‘Fine,’ Rafi had replied, thinking nothing of it. There was a row of cashpoints between the office and the restaurant, in Moorgate. By the sounds of things, it was definitely going to be a session and a half for his drinking colleagues.

  Lunch was booked to start at 12.30 p.m. The whole fund management team was invited. The restaurant welcomed the unexpected request for lunch for twenty-eight and arranged an area for just Prima Terra. No expense was spared; the food was first-class and, judging by his colleagues’ remarks, the champagne and wine were excellent. Before, during and after lunch the drinks flowed freely. Rafi’s colleagues became increasingly well lubricated and were on great form. Rafi, for his part, did not drink.