Critical Threat Read online

  It was the medical thing that was the main drive, that and that she would probably be using her unmarried name of Ismat. Countless hours of trawling through Internet sites for doctors’ surgeries and health centres was where Daley began and ended his search.

  It had been hellishly boring, sitting at the computer with a beer in one hand and his lady friend either perched on a knee or occasionally kneeling in front of him.

  He worked from a variety of search engines, knowing it would only be a matter of time before he struck pay dirt and found Mrs Rashid, née Ismat, the wayward little minx that she was. It was unlikely that she was a practice partner, but Daley guessed that she could probably find work fairly easily as a locum, and quite a few websites he visited even named the locum doctors who were associated with surgeries, often providing photos and little pen pictures of them too. There were also websites of agencies that represented locums doing much the same.

  Daley eventually found Sabera on the website of a health centre in Earl’s Court, London. She was using her maiden name, as suspected, and her photograph and a few sketchy details about her qualifications were posted on the site, too.

  If she had been trying to cover her tracks, she hadn’t done the best of jobs. But that was par for the course for most runaways. Somewhere along the line they usually had to put their heads above the parapet, usually when they felt it was safe enough, or they got sloppy. That was when they got spotted. On the whole, people didn’t know how to cover their tracks, and the electronic world, in which every contact left a trace, meant it was particularly hard to stay hidden when people like Daley – who was by no means a web wizard – were after them. Nor did people realize they were being followed – it just wasn’t human nature to look over the shoulder – and nor did they realize they were being photographed, even when the guy with the camera was within spitting distance.

  Daley fished out his small but powerful state-of-the-art digital camera and switched it on. He was sitting perhaps fifty feet from Sabera and the zoom picked her out a treat, with her head tossed back, sexily revealing the full length of her desirable neck, her hair shimmering like in some sort of shampoo advert on TV, a wonderful, happy smile on her face.

  ‘That’s gonna get wiped off, soon,’ Daley mumbled as he fiddled with his camera. His job was made easier because a man in another group of people at the restaurant was taking photos of his mates. ‘Always hide in plain sight,’ the PI said to himself as his two snaps and their accompanying flashes simply became part of the background, drawing no attention to him, even though he was sitting alone.

  He examined the results on the display, using the zoom to really focus in sharply on Sabera’s face and neck, even down to the unusual pendant on the chain around her long neck. Two good shots. Definitely her. Job done. Seventeen hundred quid in the back pocket – tax-free, of course.

  Turning over the photograph Rashid had given him, Daley fished out his mobile phone and called the number scribbled on the back.

  There was a bank of flashes from digital cameras, but they meant nothing to Sabera. Her world was focused entirely on Sanjay, with occasional input to the rest of the group just for the sake of sociability. Their eyes constantly locked; they often touched – just a brush of excitement, nothing too obvious, but enough to send shockwaves through each other’s body and ensuring that Sabera inhaled deep, shuddering breaths.

  They ate sparingly, picking at the numerous plates of tapas on the table without interest, and sipping their drinks occasionally. Two hours passed as if they were only seconds and then the meal was over. The party started to break up until only Sabera and Sanjay remained.

  ‘Well,’ he smiled, ‘here we are.’ She thought he was the most handsome, charming man she had ever met. She was reminded of a young, but darker version of Elvis Presley, without the sneer, just a shy smile. She had found herself opening up to him like no one else before and she felt so comfortable in his presence it was just a little bit unnerving. ‘Just the two of us,’ he said.

  ‘It’s been wonderful.’

  ‘Yes, but I wish it had just been us, no one else.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Maybe next time?’

  Sabera put her glass to her lips, eyes playing thoughtfully on him.

  ‘Would you come back to my place for coffee?’ he asked hesitantly, raising a hand, palm outwards. ‘Nothing more than that, I promise. You can call a taxi from there, or I could walk you home. It’s not too far to yours from there.’ He shrugged.

  ‘A coffee and nothing more?’ she asked suggestively, arching her dark eyebrows and flashing her eyes at him, knowing that she wanted more than that, much more. This would be the night. ‘How about a walk first?’

  ‘That would be good. Allow all that food we’ve eaten to digest.’

  They laughed. Both had eaten like sparrows.

  Leaving the restaurant and turning left on to Victoria Street, they walked slowly towards Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, crossing Westminster Bridge and turning down by the London Eye on the south bank of the Thames. Their arms were interlinked and their bodies continually bumped together gently. They did not speak much, just enjoyed the leisurely stroll, the pleasant evening … being together.

  ‘You smell amazing,’ Sanjay told her, almost conversationally. ‘Intoxicating.’ They were re-crossing the Thames on the footbridge leading on to Northumberland Avenue and were about halfway across.

  Sabera stopped and squeezed Sanjay’s arm, pulling him round to face her, blood coursing through her veins, suddenly feeling weak and light-headed, her legs hardly able to keep her upright. The cocktail of emotions she was experiencing was incredibly powerful.

  ‘Hold me,’ she gasped. ‘Kiss me.’

  In the end, Sanjay had almost to keep her from falling over following the kiss. Their lips devoured each other, tongues flashing and tasting each other’s teeth and mouths. Never had Sabera been kissed like this – never had a man had his tongue in her mouth, for one thing. In fact, Sanjay was the only man, apart from her husband, she had ever kissed and there was no comparison between the two. Her husband’s mouth had always been hard, cold and closed. It had been like kissing a desktop and his kisses had only ever been a prelude to equally cold and hard sexual intercourse, sometimes rape.

  But Sanjay knew how to kiss. He knew how to hold her tight, where to put his hands. She could feel his hardness through the clothing against her belly and she knew she wanted him more desperately than anything, ever.

  Their lips parted slowly.

  ‘I’m a married woman,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘This is a big step for me. It has to be right.’

  ‘It is right,’ he assured her.

  They turned and walked on, unaware of the bulky man fifty metres behind them, camera in hand, watching their every move.

  Since leaving her husband, Sabera had kept in irregular touch with various members of her family, making short phone calls, always withholding her number, telling them she was OK, don’t worry, she would be fine. She never allowed herself to get into any lengthy conversations with them for fear of her resolve weakening.

  But there had been one almost terrible mistake.

  Her sister Najma. Sabera had actually kept in touch with her on a more regular basis than with the others. Sometimes the calls were quite long. She trusted Najma implicitly. They had grown up almost inseparable, Sabera being slightly older, and because of this Sabera had allowed herself to be cajoled into having a meeting with her sister. Just so that Najma could see truly that she was all right, so they could hug each other, have a few tears, then part.

  The meeting was to take place on a motorway service area – southbound – near to where the M6 joined the M1, south of Birmingham. Najma had made a solemn promise she would tell no one of the meeting, come alone and make sure she was not followed.

  It was planned to take place at noon, giving both women the time to travel from opposite ends of the co
untry.

  As it was in the very early days after leaving her husband, Sabera was more suspicious and careful than she later became when she thought everything was fine. She drove up the motorway to the junction above the services, circled the roundabout, then came back down and parked on the outer edge of the services car park one hour before she was due to meet Najma. And she was in a hire car. She made sure she had a good view of the entry slip road, the car park itself and the entrance to the shops and cafés.

  It wasn’t that she mistrusted her sister – she didn’t – it was more that she feared the deviousness and influence of her husband.

  Better safe than sorry.

  As it was she was right to be wary. She had only just parked up and settled low in her seat when Najma drove in to the car park in her Nissan Micra, which Sabera recognized instantly, and pulled up near to the shops. Sabera’s relief at seeing Najma arrive alone was almost palpable, the pleasure of seeing her overwhelming … her hand moved to the door handle and she was about to open it, when something made her hesitate, stay back in the car and sink down low behind the steering wheel. Maybe it was because Najma had never arrived on time for anything, let alone fifty minutes early. A punctual Najma was not the sister Sabera knew, so she waited.

  Najma got out of the Nissan and stood by it, looking nervously around and back towards the slip road, checking her watch.

  A feeling of dread coursed through Sabera as she observed her sister. Why was she waiting there? They had arranged to meet in the café.

  Less than five minutes later a battered Transit van trundled off the motorway and drew into a vacant parking space near to Najma’s car. Now Sabera’s heart plummeted and caught up with her dread as her husband stepped down from the passenger seat and stretched himself like an overweight lion. Two of his brothers also got out.

  The idea that Najma had betrayed her made Sabera want to be sick.

  She sank even lower as she watched the four people. Najma and Sabera’s husband were having a discussion. He laid his hands on her shoulders and seemed to be speaking soothingly to her whilst she nodded in response to his words.

  Sabera sat there stunned as all four of them then entered the services, her husband’s hand at the small of Najma’s back.

  She wanted to believe that Najma was acting under duress, but from what she had witnessed, that was not the case. She gave them a minute, then, eyes blurred with tears, drove off, heading south, lesson learned.

  Trust no one.

  Since that day Sabera had never spoken to her sister. It wasn’t that she totally blamed her, but it meant that any face-to-face contact with any of her family was fraught with danger.

  At 2 a.m., Sabera lay awake in Sanjay’s flat – in Sanjay’s bed – thinking about the incident at the motorway services and how she had felt, whilst fingering the wonderful necklace Sanjay had presented her with earlier that night, a total, incredible surprise. It had been devastating to be let down by Najma and to never speak to her again had been horrible but necessary, even though Sabera desperately wanted to ask her why.

  A period of great self-doubt and depression had followed, but Sabera had stuck to her guns because she knew that despite the massive personal cost to herself and her family, she could never return nor let them discover her whereabouts.

  And now here she was, having made probably the next biggest step in her life … to allow a man back into it.

  She sighed and turned her head slowly, brushing her hair out of her face, and looked at Sanjay asleep beside her, his face illuminated by the low-wattage bedside lamp.

  It had been more wonderful than she could have imagined – and to be honest, she had feared the worst, a rerun of her husband. But it had been nothing like. She had never experienced anything remotely close to it. That was how it should be all the time. Tender. Loving. Slow-fast-slow, sometimes almost out of control from both sides, but always – always – with love, passion and respect.

  And, when he urged her to straddle him, she had done so shyly at first, but finished writhing in ecstasy, her head thrown back whilst they both came together, and she knew it would be all right.

  So that’s what an orgasm is, she’d thought, smiling to herself as she sank down, exhausted, on to Sanjay’s chest. I want more.

  She rolled over to face him and laid a warm hand on his chest, touching his nipples with her fingertips. He mumbled something and stirred. She ran her hand across his flat stomach and touched him timidly, feeling him grow. Something else she had never done in her life – taken hold of a man in such a way. With her husband it would have been unseemly and sluttish, even in the early days of her marriage.

  From that moment, as Sanjay awoke fully, their lovemaking clicked up a gear to frantic – and fantastic – but this time with Sanjay on top, Sabera’s hands stretched above her head whilst he gently held her wrists and moved and wriggled inside her in a way she had never thought possible, touching nerve endings she never thought she had. She rose, once more, to an amazing climax, Sanjay following shortly after, then, spent, his weight crushed down on her.

  They lay in each other’s arms, sweating, panting, hearts beating, hands touching, caressing, until everything subsided and they fell asleep.

  It is estimated that the time of least resistance of the human being is around four in the morning, the time when the metabolism is at its slowest. Which is the exact time that the door to Sanjay’s flat was smashed from its hinges by two men bearing sledgehammers. Shattered by the first few blows, the flimsy door virtually disintegrated into splinters and a third man rushed through the newly created opening. It was only a tiny, one-bedroomed flat, and this man entered that room within seconds.

  Both occupants, Sabera and Sanjay, woken from their deep sleep, were confused, stunned and frightened, unable to offer any form of resistance.

  The lead intruder lunged at Sabera, grabbed a fistful of her hair and hauled her naked out of the bed and threw her face down on the floor. With speed and skill he twisted her arms behind her, knelt down on her spine between her shoulder blades and bound her tiny wrists with parcel tape, which he tore with his teeth. He flicked her over and ran tape right around her face, covering her mouth, preventing any noise.

  At the same time, the two others manhandled a dopey and submissive Sanjay, dragged him across the room, and threw him into a wicker rocking chair, to which he was fastened and gagged by more parcel tape.

  To secure and gag both of them took less than a minute.

  A large, curved knife appeared in the hand of one of the men standing by Sanjay.

  He moved behind the wicker chair, yanked back Sanjay’s head and held the knife at his throat.

  The other men removed the quilt from its cover, then laid the empty cover on the floor and lifted up the now struggling, squirming Sabera and dropped her on to it, rolling her easily in it and binding it with more tape.

  Her terrified lover watched in wide-eyed horror from his ringside seat. His eyes rose and looked into those of the man behind him with a knife resting across his exposed throat.

  The two men easily lifted the bundle that was Sabera and carried her out of the bedroom between them as though she was a roll of carpet.

  The third man stayed with his knife at Sanjay’s throat, saying nothing. The incredibly sharp blade began to cut Sanjay’s tender skin. Then the two other men returned, accompanied by another who stood directly in front of Sanjay. At first Sanjay could not look at him, jerking his head away, but the man touched his chin and rotated Sanjay’s face back.

  Instinctively Sanjay knew he was looking into the eyes of Sabera’s husband.

  Sabera lay bound and gagged, trussed up in the duvet cover. She remained unmoving, trying now to stay calm and concentrate on her breathing, which was proving extremely difficult through the parcel tape wrapped tightly around her face. Her mouth was clamped shut by it and she could just about inhale through one nostril. Even that was not easy as the duvet cover prevented a free flow of air.

&n
bsp; Then she started to cry when she thought about Sanjay and what might have happened to him. If he had been harmed, and she was sure he would have been – because it was the way things were – then it was all her fault for recklessly involving him in her stupid, ill-conceived life.

  Sobs wracked her body, but it was as difficult to cry as it was to breathe.

  And now here she was tied up in the boot of a car, travelling quickly on straight roads – motorways. Had to be. M1 out of London, then on to the M6, heading to the northwest.

  Back home.

  She began to cry for herself.

  Two

  Henry Christie had not been having a good time of things recently. Having been harassed and threatened by his boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Anger, over what should have been a long-buried personal matter (Henry had slept with Anger’s wife when she hadn’t been his wife many years before), Henry had handed the guy’s head on a plate, metaphorically speaking, to the chief constable. The side dish had included secretly taken video footage of Anger trashing Henry’s trusty Mondeo with a metal bar.

  But the organization he worked for – Lancashire Constabulary – had done its usual job of dithering, stalling, ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing’ and doing nothing, which it often did in such touchy circumstances. So by default of its inaction, the victim ended up suffering whilst the perpetrator was allowed to carry on, business as usual, and the organization tried to brush the whole sorry mess under the chief’s carpet in order not to lose face. Henry thought that there must have been a lot of such bumps under that carpet that no one seemed to have the bottle to stamp on.

  What surprised him the most was his own pathetic naivety. He had actually believed that something would be done, that the firm would grasp the nettle, show that it wasn’t afraid to address such matters and the offender would get his just desserts and find himself demoted or transferred or fined or prosecuted or jobless even … whatever … and that the innocent party – in this case, Henry James Christie – would be allowed to continue operating as a senior investigating officer on the Force Major Incident Team knowing that the wheels of justice were grinding away.