Other neighbors and the property records had confirmed it. Sidana had got her warrant and a locksmith, and she and Sweeney had just got the door open when Kincaid arrived.
It was an unremarkable flat in an unremarkable estate—not too posh, not too poor, fairly well kept, some of the renovated flats obviously bought from the council, the parked cars relatively new models.
“Sir,” said Sidana, giving him that look of grave concern he’d come to expect in the last few days. He wanted to reassure her that he was fine, but he couldn’t.
The locksmith, packing up his kit, said, “Nice lock for a council flat. What’s this bloke got in here? Gold?”
It seemed, however, that Michael Stanton—or Michael Stanley as he once was—hadn’t much at all. The flat had a sitting room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. It might have been a hotel. The furniture was anonymous and, although not cheap, looked as if it been bought en masse. There was a very large new flat-screen television on one wall, with a gaming system. Most of the games, from Kincaid’s quick perusal, were of the latest and most realistic first-person-shooter type. Sweeney examined the system with a covetous expression.
There were no pictures on the walls, and no reading material on the tables or chairs—not even a newspaper.
Sidana did a quick look through the kitchen. “Looks like the guy lived on baked beans and frozen ready meals,” she said. “There’s nothing fresh at all.” She wrinkled her nose, her disapproval evident.
“There’s no computer,” Sweeney called from the bedroom. “Nothing but a phone charger on the bedside table.”
Kincaid joined him. There was a depression in the duvet, and the pillows were bunched together on one side of the bed—so far the only sign of actual human presence in this place. He checked the drawers in the single chest—socks, Y-fronts, sweaters, and T-shirts—then the wardrobe. One decent suit, not cheap, but not expensive. Shirts, casual wear, a few ties.
Then, he stood in the middle of the room, looking around, thinking. He didn’t believe that any person lived without a few possessions that expressed their identity and history. Even the homeless carried about odds and ends of things that mattered to them in their trolleys. He thought of Ryan’s cache. If Stanton had been undercover, rogue or not, he must have had something similar.
“Look everywhere,” he told Sweeney and Sidana. “Under things, behind things, inside things. We’re missing it.”
It was Sidana who found the cache. “I think there should be cabinet doors here,” she said a few moments later, rapping on a flat panel beside the cupboard that held the tins of baked beans. “And feel it.” She ran her fingers over the surface of the panel. “It’s a good match, but I think the paint is slightly different, and it sounds like a hollow space.”
Carefully, she removed the tins of beans and tomato sauce and soup from the neighboring cupboard, then felt inside the space. “Solid. Or at least, there’s a partition, but I can’t—” Her severe face split in a sudden smile. “Blimey.” For Sidana, this was serious swearing. “There’s a little catch on one side.”
It took her five minutes to maneuver a black duffel bag into the bean cupboard, then out onto the kitchen floor. It was carry-on size, perhaps one foot by one by two, and it had been squeezed tightly into its hiding place.
Glancing at Kincaid, who nodded and said, “Your find,” she slipped on latex gloves and unzipped the bag. As she removed each item, she laid it on the large trash bag they’d spread on the floor.
The top of the bag was stuffed with utility clothing—black combat trousers, black shirts, a black heavy cotton jacket. Clothes for night work. Beneath the folded items, there was a pistol. A Glock, Kincaid thought. Sweeney, who did not have Sidana’s distaste for swearing, breathed, “Holy shit.”
Frowning again, Sidana put it carefully on the cloth. There were also two boxes of ammunition, and something wrapped in black cloth—a T-shirt, Kincaid saw as Sidana carefully unfolded the fabric.
In the T-shirt was an expandable baton, similar to those every officer carried on his or her duty belt. Collapsed, the short cylinder didn’t look all that threatening, but deployed they were vicious. And looking at it, Kincaid thought about the wound on Denis Childs’s head.
“Bag that separately, and very carefully,” he said, but he didn’t explain why.
Sidana did as he asked, then went on with her methodical unpacking. There were expensive binoculars, odds and ends of camping equipment, and, in a leather wallet, two passports and several thousand pounds in banknotes. Neither passport was in the name of Michael Stanton nor Michael Stanley, but carried the same photo as Stanton’s driving license. “Nice job,” Sidana commented. “They look like real government issue.” Kincaid didn’t comment on that, either.
Near the bottom of the bag, something made a crinkling sound. Sidana felt round the edges, then pulled out a manila envelope. She’d started to open it when Kincaid said, “Mind if I have a look?”
He pulled on gloves, then carried the envelope to the kitchen table. It was light, and from the feel of it, contained paper. Gently, he slid the contents onto the table.
There were photos, many yellowing with age. Some were obviously of Stanton as a child—one a family portrait with a man who looked much like him and a tired-looking woman, one as a small boy at the seaside, holding a bucket and trowel and smiling. In the photo, the boy was about Toby’s age, and it filled Kincaid with dismay to think that child had grown into the man they knew as Michael Stanton.
Something slightly thicker was stuck to the back of one of the photos. He grasped it by one corner and very carefully peeled it free. It was a Polaroid, its color faded, its surface slightly tacky. It showed half a dozen people crowded together in what looked like a cheap sitting room.
Kincaid peered at the photo, trying to make out the faces captured in the disintegrating emulsion. The two women were in the front of the group, one blond, rather serious, one brunette, startlingly pretty. Behind them stood the men. He immediately recognized Stanton—Stanton a good twenty years younger, his head buzzed and a small tattoo plainly visible on his neck. And the tall, gaunt man, with the shaggy, dark, collar-length hair and the stubble—dear God, that was Denis Childs. Kincaid wasn’t sure he’d have recognized him if not for the familiar almond shape of his dark eyes.
He was so gobsmacked by the sight of Denis that it took him a moment to place the man standing slightly to one side. Short hair, neatly brushed, although the photo was too faded for the color to be distinguishable. A little military bristle of a mustache. A supercilious expression, the same expression that had been leveled at him just a few months ago when Kincaid had interviewed him in his study. It was, without a doubt, Angus Craig.
“What have you got, boss?” asked Sidana.
Kincaid’s back was to the room. “Just some old photos,” he said, and, almost without thinking, slipped the Polaroid into his breast pocket.