Liz Carlyle - 06 - Rip Tide Read Online Free PDF

and a bright yellow paisley tie, he looked out of place in this grim reception room. ‘We have Monsieur Amir Khan ready to answer your questions. Or not . . .’ He smiled with a flash of white teeth.
    ‘Does he know I’m coming?’
    ‘ Non . And I wish you better luck with him than we have had.’
    ‘He’s still not talking?’
    Isabelle’s colleague shook his head. ‘Have you and your colleagues discovered anything more about him?’
    ‘We’ve learned that the owner of the driving licence, Amir Khan, went to Pakistan eight months ago. He hasn’t returned to the UK since then.’
    ‘Pakistan?’ Cassale shook his head. ‘I can’t say I am surprised. We have sent a file of information – fingerprints, DNA, photographs – over to you this morning. That should enable you to establish the identity of the prisoner beyond doubt. Meanwhile, let’s see what he says to you. Come with me, s’il vous plaît. ’
    Liz followed him through the door into a corridor, arched on one side like the cloisters of a cathedral. But unlike a cloister, these arches were secured with metal grilles, and the courtyard visible beyond was not a place for quiet contemplation – it was filled with men, standing singly or in groups, most of them smoking. At the far end a desultory game of basketball was being played.
    Cassale turned a corner and they came face to face with a guard, standing in front of a heavy wooden door. He nodded to Cassale and opened the door with a jangling of keys. The smell of new paint was strong as they went through – the walls had been freshly decorated, in a drab grey which seemed designed to depress. A line of closed steel doors, equally spaced, stretched along both sides of a long corridor. Liz had been in prisons before and noted the familiar small grilled window slits of the cells.
    ‘We are in the high-security wing now. This part is where violent criminals are interned. The terror suspects are kept downstairs.’ At the end of the corridor Cassale rang a bell on the wall beside a metal door. It was opened from the inside by another guard and Cassale preceded Liz down a flight of metal stairs, their shoes clanging on the steel treads.
    At the bottom, he paused. They were in another wide corridor, but this one had older peeling paint on the walls. A line of fluorescent tube lights, suspended from the ceiling, gave off a dazzling, blue-ish glare that made Liz screw up her eyes.
    ‘This is our special unit. Monsieur Khan is resident here. Your interview will take place in one of the interrogation rooms. I warn you, it is not exactly modern.’
    A picture of a mediaeval dungeon flashed into Liz’s mind: rings on the wall, chains, bones in the corner and rats. She was relieved when Cassale opened a door and she found herself in a high-ceilinged, white-painted room. It seemed very airy after the corridor outside. A long barred window was set high in one wall; through it a shaft of sunlight glanced, striking the polished floor. Just inside the door a policeman waited on the alert, holding an unholstered Glock sidearm. As he stood aside, Liz saw the prisoner, sitting behind a metal-topped table, his hands manacled to a length of chain which was itself secured to a cast-iron stanchion on the floor.
    According to his driving licence, Khan was twenty-two, but this man looked to be younger, just a boy. His face and arms and wrists were thin. A scraggly black beard barely covered his chin and the hair on his upper lip was sparse. His eyes, as he watched them come into the room, looked wary. Liz had been assured that he was being well treated, but she wondered what had happened to him before he got here.
    Cassale stepped up to the table and, speaking rapidly in French, explained to the prisoner that he had a visitor who would be asking him some questions. It was obvious from the blank expression on the young man’s face that he understood nothing of what was said.
    Cassale turned to Liz and said in French, ‘I