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  Karim had explained that this would happen, but he’d assured her that the boy would be taken care of. The British, for their many faults, took the welfare of children seriously. Jalal would be put into the care system, and Karim had promised to ensure a good Muslim family would adopt him as their own. Malika hoped they would be a professional couple. Doctors or lawyers. People who could give him a decent upbringing.

  But that was beyond her control. All she could do was make the most of the short time they had left together.

  She started to sing Jalal a song, but her throat froze as the truck’s engine shut down. Was she about to be discovered? Her fears intensified as the interior light came on. She could see down the small slats in the side of the unit, and a pair of black boots walked past. Voices echoed around the compartment, and Malika held her breath and prayed that the inspection would be brief. The units were far enough apart for the customs officers to clearly see that no-one was hiding among them, and after a minute she saw the light go out and heard the doors slam shut once more.

  It was only when the engine started and the vehicle lurched forward that she let out the breath she felt she’d been holding for a lifetime.

  Malika held her son tightly. For a while, it seemed that only she and Jalal existed, but she soon sensed the truck slowing, and after a couple of turns it stopped and the engine shut down. When the doors opened again, she heard the driver’s voice.

  ‘We’re here. Sit back while I release you.’

  Malika pushed herself to the back of the cramped compartment and heard the sound of a power tool roaring into life. Her container juddered as the driver went to work on it and, within a couple of minutes, he pulled the end panel aside and beckoned for her to get out. She did so gingerly and stretched her legs as she stood by the open doors, gulping in fresh air.

  The driver was already working on the next unit. When he opened it, Inas blinked as the sunlight invaded her little space. Jalila was next to be freed, followed by Ramla.

  When the last unit opened, Malika recognised the smell immediately. She’d been around death enough to know the sulphurous odour of blood and evacuated bowels.

  ‘This one didn’t make it,’ the driver said, reaching inside to take the little boy who was sleeping on his mother’s still body. ‘Looks like she haemorrhaged.’

  Malika took the child and handed him to Ramla.

  ‘Poor Khadija. What will happen to her?’

  ‘I’ll deal with it,’ the driver said, climbing down and helping the women off the truck.

  They’d parked up in a wooded area, and Malika saw a minibus parked close by. The truck driver told them to get aboard their new ride.

  Once seated, Malika turned to the others. ‘The hardest part is over,’ she said. ‘Khadija will be sorely missed, but Allah has different plans for all of us. We are now approaching the end of our journey, but we are not finished yet. Do you all know what is expected of you from this point on?’

  The three women assured her that they were aware of their remaining duties, and Malika smiled as she looked down at Jalal. It would indeed soon be over, but she had one major task to complete.

  The truck driver watched the other vehicle drive away and pulled on a pair of gloves to prepare for the clean-up job. He climbed back into the truck and heaved the woman’s body to the open doors, then jumped down and gently eased the corpse over the edge. It was too heavy to lift, so he dragged her over to some nearby undergrowth and prepared a shallow grave. He pushed the body into it, then covered it with soil and foliage.

  It wasn’t the neatest grave, but that wasn’t his concern. Distancing himself from the scene was all he had in mind. He used a tree branch to obfuscate his footprints and hide the blood trail, then cleaned out the heating unit and truck bed with water. His final task was to re-seal the heating units. It was unlikely that he’d be checked on the crossing back to France, but the extra effort gave him peace of mind.

  He finished up and locked the back doors, then drove twenty miles to the motorway services, where he spent a couple of hours enjoying a meal and some much-needed coffee. After making a quick phone call, he set off once more. It would be another half a day before he was back home in Lyon, but first he had to ditch the fake plates and restore the truck’s original livery. Not an easy task, but the payment for his participation more than made up for it.

  Malika rubbed her abdomen; the wound was beginning to itch again. There was little she could do about it, though, as the discomfort was inside, which made it even more annoying.

  The minibus had already reached the suburbs of London, and as she stared out the window, she saw nothing but shops on either side. A few houses appeared, before giving way to more businesses hawking a plethora of goods and services. Traffic was heavy as the sun retreated for the day, thousands of commuters heading home to enjoy the weekend.

  The bus driver turned down a side street and took another left, stopping at the back of a parade of shops. He got out, opened the door for the women and told them to head through a gate that led to a small walled garden. The rear door to the building was already open and a man with silver hair beckoned them inside.

  Malika went first and found herself in a tiny kitchen. Beyond that lay a deserted reception area adorned with banners proclaiming it to be one of London’s premier cosmetic surgeries. Pictures of women with pert breasts looked down their perfect noses at her, and she fleetingly wondered what it would be like to live in a society where looks were worshipped more than deities.

  Their host appeared and showed them up the stairs to the operating theatre. It was a small room, but clean, and smelled of antiseptic.

  ‘Is there anyone else here, Doctor . . . ?’ Ramla asked.

  ‘No,’ the man said. ‘Just me. And names are not important.’

  ‘Who will look after the children while we recover from the surgery?’

  ‘I won’t be using a general anaesthetic, just a local to numb the area. It will be a very small incision, and you’ll be able to leave shortly afterwards. Who’s going first?’

  ‘I will,’ Malika said, handing Jalal to Inas.

  The doctor ordered the others to leave the room, then instructed Malika to get undressed and lie on the bed. She winced as he pressed down on her abdomen none too gently until he located the phial, then marked the spot and prepared the local anaesthetic. He scrubbed the area with antiseptic and emptied the syringe into her flesh, then opened a sterile pack containing a scalpel and forceps.

  He waited a couple of minutes for the drug to kick in, then began making the incision. Malika felt only a slight pinch and some tugging as his forceps retrieved the glass phial. He put it in a kidney dish and began the process of closing up the wound. Five minutes later, he helped Malika to her feet and walked her through to a recovery room, where four beds had been prepared.

  ‘Take two of these every four hours if the pain gets too intense,’ the doctor said, handing her a bottle of tramadol as she lay down. ‘It’ll hurt for a couple of days, so don’t do anything strenuous.’

  Malika asked Ramla to pass Jalal to her, and she cuddled him as Inas took her turn under the knife. Soon, all four women were resting following their surgery, and the doctor came in to check up on them.

  ‘You can stay for another two hours, then you’ll have to go,’ he told Malika as he checked her dressing. ‘The minibus will be back to pick you up at ten this evening.’

  He pulled the side of the bed up so that she could sleep without fear of Jalal slipping onto the floor. Malika closed her eyes and tried not to think of what was to come in the next few days.

  Dr Kamal Bousaid powered up the mobile phone he’d been given and looked up the only number in the contacts list. The call connected immediately.

  ‘Everything went as planned. I have your goods and you can collect them after eleven.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ the voice said, and the line went dead in his hands.

  That was exactly how Bousaid felt inside. Dead. In
his thirty years in practice, he’d been asked to perform a variety of bizarre procedures, but he’d never been called upon to do anything like this.

  It wasn’t as if he’d had a choice. The £15,000 in cash he’d be paid for less than two hours’ work wasn’t a factor; it was the threat to his family that had convinced him to take the job and keep his mouth shut afterwards.

  Bousaid rinsed the phials and placed them in a metal container that he’d already padded with cotton wool. He had no idea what they contained, but assumed it wouldn’t be used for a noble cause. He’d been warned not to open them, and that was good enough for him.

  The next couple of hours seemed to last forever, but eventually the minibus reappeared at the rear of the surgery. He woke the women and sent them on their way. One of the things that had concerned him was that they would be able to identify him and implicate him in the plot, and as he watched them leave, he did not feel comforted by the assurances he’d been given.

  The women are mules, nothing more. They will be back in Syria before the weekend is over.

  That still left the minibus driver and the man who had first contacted him, both of whom could identify him as being complicit. Anxiety gnawed at the doctor as he waited for the man to arrive and take delivery.

  Perhaps it was time to retire. He had enough in the bank to start again in a non-extradition country, and he could instruct his solicitor to sell the house and business in his absence. That would give him and his wife more than enough to live off in whichever country they chose to settle.

  He was still considering this option when a knock came at the back door. Bousaid picked up the metal container and went downstairs to answer it. When he opened the door, he saw the same man that had forced him into performing the illicit surgery.

  ‘This is what you asked for,’ Bousaid said.

  The man accepted the small box and verified the contents before slipping it into his coat.

  ‘Let’s go inside so I can pay you.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Bousaid assured him. ‘I trust you. We can handle this.’

  ‘I insist.’

  Reluctantly, Bousaid turned, leading the man into the reception area. He hadn’t taken more than a few steps when a hand clamped over his mouth and he felt the tip of a knife against the base of his skull.

  Before he could fight back, the blade had sliced through his spinal column.

  Kamal Bousaid was dead before his body hit the ground.

  The anaesthetic was beginning to wear off as Malika and the three others sat outside a room in the mosque in Woolwich. She popped a couple of the pills the doctor had given her, then slouched in the chair to make herself as comfortable as possible.

  They’d been dropped off ten minutes earlier and, after introducing themselves and explaining their situation, had been given seats and asked to wait.

  ‘I really need to sleep,’ Ramla said.

  ‘Me, too,’ Malika said. It had been a long journey. Having reached her destination, she wanted nothing more than some decent food and a comfortable bed.

  The door opened and the imam appeared.

  ‘I have found accommodation for all of you,’ he said. ‘They are local families who will put you up for a few days, and they will help you with your asylum claim. Wait here, and they will come and pick you up within the hour.’

  He disappeared inside the room once more, and Malika stared at the opposite wall. There was nothing left to say to each other; soon they would split up, unlikely to see each other ever again.

  Midnight came, and Malika was the last one to be picked up. The others had already been collected and taken to their new homes, and the man that entered the mosque and called her name seemed nice enough. She followed him outside and into a car, and half an hour later she was being escorted into a grand-looking house, complete with its own drive.

  The woman of the house greeted her and showed her into the dining room, where food awaited. Jalal was taken care of while Malika ate, and she spent the next couple of hours telling her cover story about why she’d left Syria. It turned out the couple had emigrated from Homs fifteen years earlier, and they felt devastated by what had become of their homeland.

  When Malika began yawning, they escorted her upstairs and into a room that used to belong to their daughter, now away at college. Malika put Jalal to bed, then took a shower before climbing under the duvet.

  She was asleep within minutes.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sunday, 13 August 2017

  When Andrew Harvey returned from the shops, Sarah was already at work in the kitchen, preparing for that evening’s get-together. Hamad Farsi was coming round, along with two of Sarah’s friends and Harvey’s squash partner.

  He loved being in her company, and most nights were spent cuddled up on the sofa, watching television or chatting about nothing in particular. For Harvey, she was the perfect companion; not only beautiful, but also witty and sharp as a tack. His previous relationships had all been short, fuelled initially by mutual lust, but the fires had soon faded. His erratic work pattern was partly to blame, but in truth he hadn’t had that much in common with the other women. Sarah had become more of a soulmate than a lover, and the hours they spent alone were the happiest of his life. Because she liked the company of others, too, they held dinner parties a couple of times a month. This time it was Sarah’s turn to cook.

  ‘You’re gonna have to pull something special out of the bag if you’re going to top my seafood dish,’ he said. His meal a fortnight earlier had consisted of lobster, langoustine and scallop pasta with a fish stock and white wine sauce, undoubtedly the best dish he’d created in their ongoing competition to crown the best chef in the house.

  ‘No problem. I’m doing lamb three ways.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re serious this time,’ Harvey said. ‘How are you going to cook it?’

  ‘Herb-crusted lamb cutlets, ballotine of lamb stuffed with chestnuts and mushrooms and pan-fried lamb sweetbreads.’

  ‘Someone’s in a competitive mood,’ he said, kissing her on the neck and running his hands over her hips.

  ‘If you’re trying to sabotage me, it’s not going to work. Now go and wash those mushrooms.’

  Harvey peeled himself off her and took the shitake over to the sink, but before he could get his hands wet, his phone rang.

  ‘Harvey.’

  ‘I need you both in the office,’ Ellis said without preamble. ‘The X3 made it over here.’

  ‘We’re on our way.’

  He relayed the message to Sarah, who put the lamb back in the fridge and threw on her jacket.

  ‘Did she say if they found it all?’

  ‘No, just that it’s here. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.’

  Fifty minutes later, they swiped their way into the office. It was the busiest Harvey had seen it on a weekend, with almost every desk occupied. He hung his jacket on a hook as Ellis approached.

  ‘We found a phial of X3,’ she said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Near Canterbury. Some kids riding dirt bikes yesterday came across a woman’s body in a shallow grave. She’d been there a couple of days.’

  ‘Origin?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Middle East.’

  ‘And she had the X3 on her?’

  ‘Actually, it was in her,’ Ellis said. ‘An autopsy was performed this morning and it was discovered inside her abdomen. Naturally, the pathologist was concerned and called it in. We had Dale check it out and he confirmed the contents.’

  ‘Who’s the woman?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘We’re working on that. Fingerprints don’t show up on our databases, so we’re expanding the search.’

  ‘Canterbury’s just north of Dover,’ Harvey pointed out. ‘Sounds like she crossed the Channel.’

  ‘Hamad’s checking that out,’ Ellis said. ‘If she’s an illegal, she must have made her way through Europe, which means landing in Greece or Italy.’

  ‘I’ll go and see how he’s
getting on,’ Harvey said, and walked over to Farsi’s station.

  ‘I’m guessing dinner’s cancelled,’ Farsi said as he typed another search command into a database.

  ‘If we get out of here before midnight, I might be able to rustle up some beans on toast.’

  ‘I think I’ll pass.’

  ‘So what do we know about this woman?’ Harvey asked.

  ‘No name yet, but we know she’s mid-twenties. The pathologist said the scar on her abdomen was at least two weeks old, so the X3 must have been implanted shortly after it was stolen.’

  ‘Give her a couple of days to recover, and she would have had nearly a fortnight to get from Syria to here. Easily done, especially if she had help along the way.’

  ‘Well, we’ve ruled out air travel as her method of entry. No matches through airport facial-recognition systems, and the smaller airports have reported no-one matching her description.’

  Harvey felt vindicated for requesting extra security at the regional airstrips. If he hadn’t done so, their search would have to be expanded even further, wasting valuable time. With flights into the country ruled out, there was only one realistic way she could have reached England.

  ‘Are customs still checking every lorry that crosses the Channel?’

  Farsi nodded. ‘Anything that arrives by ferry or through the tunnel.’

  ‘Well, she got through somehow. I’ll ask Ellis to get in touch with the border agency and have them step up the searches.’

  Harvey went round to his own desk and powered up his computer.

  They had one of the phials, which was a start, but there were four others out there somewhere. What he really needed to do was determine if the rest of the X3 was already here, or still on its way.

  The best place to start would be the port of Dover. Someone obviously helped the woman across the border: corpses didn’t bury themselves.