Free The Dead Tracks by Tim Weaver

stripes.'
        'Was
he a detective?'
        'Yes.
He worked for Thames Valley before he moved to the Met. That's when we came up
to London.'
        'He
was a cop the whole time you were married?'
        'The
whole time,' she said, pouring milk into her cup. After she was done, she
lifted a necklace out from her top. There was a small silver angel dangling
from the end, a long spear in one hand. 'This is St Michael.'
        The
patron saint of policemen.'
         'Right .'
She smiled. 'I'm impressed.'
        'I
got to know the police pretty well as a journalist.'
        'It
was Frank's. I was going to bury him with it, but in the end preferred the idea
of keeping it close to me. It seemed…' She slowly stirred her drink. 'It just
seemed right.'
        I nodded
that I understood.
        A
thin smile worked its way across her face. 'Sometimes I still buy his favourite
food when I go to the supermarket. I still leave the key in the wall out back,
just in case he comes home. I guess… I guess I can't accept he's gone.'
        'Do
you mind if I ask what happened to him?'
        She
frowned. Looked at me for a moment. Then, as she blinked, her eyes filled up.
She wiped them and sat back on the sofa, both hands wrapped around her coffee
cup. They told me he was part of a task force looking into Russian organized
crime. There was some link up with… is it SOCA'
        I
nodded. The Serious Organized Crime Agency. In my previous life as a
journalist, I'd had a couple of contacts inside the National Criminal
Intelligence Service, which later became part of SOCA. At the time it came into
being in 2006, the media labelled it 'the British FBI', but as few of its
officers had the power to arrest, and most of their work was surveillance and
co-ordination, they were closer to the MI 5 model.
        She
shifted, sadness welling in her eyes. 'A couple of weeks after the funeral, one
of his friends came here.'
        'Off
the record presumably?'
        'Oh
yes, definitely. I think he felt sorry for me. The way in which things had
been… communicated. I mean, I tried to find out what happened to Frank in the
weeks after his death, but the official version his bosses gave me, it just
never…'
        'Never
felt right.'
        'It
just felt like there were gaps still to be filled.'
        'How
do you mean?'
        She
shrugged. 'They told me they were closing in on a big figure in one of the
Russian gangs, and they'd been given a tip-off that he might be at a warehouse
in Bow.'
        'And
was he?'
        'I
don't know.'
        'They
didn't tell you?'
        She
shook her head. 'No.'
        'Because
they wanted to contain the case?'
        'Right.
But I knew enough about police work to understand that. I didn't want to know
the details of the investigation, I just wanted to know what had happened to
Frank, and who killed him.' She took a few moments to find her feet again. 'All
they told me was that he and another officer were shot in the chest.'
        'By
who — this Russian guy?'
        'They
said it happened fast.'
        'So
they didn't know?'
        Her
voice wavered. 'Officially, they said they didn't.'
        'And
unofficially?'
        She
paused for a moment. 'Frank's friend said the big figure they were after was a
man called Akim Gobulev.'
         Gobulev. The Ghost.'
        She
glanced at me. 'You've heard of him?'
        'He's
been on SOCA's most wanted list for the entire time it's been in existence.'
        'Why
do they call him "The Ghost"?'
        'Because
no one's even sure if he's alive.' 'Oh.'
        'The
NCIS used to joke that Gobulev was either buried somewhere, or had the power to
turn invisible. They pinned stuff on him — trafficking, prostitution, drugs,
money-laundering - but no one has seen him in years. The only evidence he even
exists is an entry in a computer at Heathrow over a decade ago. He landed on a
flight from Moscow - and then