Die Alone

right?’ he said.
‘I told you I did.’
‘I know a brother who might be able to help. But he’ll charge top dollar.’
‘As long as it’s top quality, I don’t care. But I need it done fast.’
He nodded, and fished a brand-new smartphone from somewhere in his sweat pants.
I listened while he made a call to his guy. It was clear they knew each other well and they had some quick banter before Zafir got down to business, asking about the service and vouching for me as a good friend. He’d recovered his poise and I remembered that he’d always been a smooth liar, which was why he’d lasted as long as he had.
He looked up from the phone. ‘It’ll cost you two grand cash for a perfect UK passport, and he can have that done within three days of getting the photo. If you want it done faster, it’ll cost more.’
‘I want it done faster. How much for twenty-four hours?’
Zafir asked him and they had a further to and fro on the phone, eventually settling on a figure of £3,000 for a passport and full UK driving licence, with half payable up front, which I agreed to without complaint.
This is the modern criminal world. If you want something, know where to look, and have the money to pay, there’s very little you can’t buy, be it a new ID, a kilo of coke, or even an AK-47 and a belt of ammunition. The reason most criminals don’t have access to these things is because in general they’re not very forward-thinking and consequently no good at covering their tracks, which is why professional criminals ‒ the ones who make the real money ‒ tend to avoid selling to them. I knew that the person Zafir had called would be a pro, which was good on the one hand, but also meant I was going to have to be careful, because if he got wind of who I was, there’d be trouble. As well as the half-million bounty on my head from the Kalaman crime gang, there was now a further £50,000 put up by the Met Police. Unfortunately, I’d become a very valuable commodity in my own right.
Less than half an hour later, Zafir and I were standing outside a curry house just off Hounslow High Street. This area was almost exclusively non-white but, with my shaved head and black beard, I could quite easily pass off as a local Muslim man, and once again no one bothered giving me a second look.
Zafir pulled out his phone and made a call, telling the person on the other end that we were outside, and a minute later, a stocky Asian man with a much thicker beard than mine appeared and unlocked the door, letting us in. Zafir seemed to know him and they performed an elaborate handshake.
The big guy looked at me suspiciously but didn’t ask any questions as he locked the door again and led us through the empty restaurant and up a narrow flight of stairs at the back. I could hear clattering about and talking coming from the kitchen beyond, and the smell of cooking was already in the air, making me feel hungry.
The big guy knocked on a door at the top and we were led into a surprisingly large but very cluttered office with a desk at the end, behind which sat a rotund Asian man in his fifties with a face like a toad, wearing a three-piece suit that looked like it hadn’t been dry-cleaned in a while. Two large fans on either side of him blasted cool air round the room. The window behind looked out onto a brick wall.
‘Hey Faz,’ said Zafir, approaching the man behind the desk, who stood up.
The two of them embraced, and the man called Faz looked my way.
‘This is a bro of mine, Bobby,’ explained Zafir by way of introduction, using the name we’d agreed for me. ‘He’s the one I was telling you about on the phone.’
Faz nodded and put out a hand, giving me a long, lingering look up and down.
I shook hands quickly, keen to get on with this. ‘I need a passport and driving licence very quickly, and it’s got to be the best quality.’
Faz nodded slowly and sat back down, picking up a pen and tapping it steadily on the desk. ‘How do you know Zafir?’ he asked.
‘We were in prison together a few years back, and kept in touch,’ I said, using the cover story we’d rehearsed on the way down here. ‘Sometimes we do a bit of business. But now I’ve got a problem, and I’ve got to get out of the country fast.’
Faz didn’t look convinced, probably because he hadn’t been expecting a white man. Almost all of Zafir’s associates were Muslim Asians, and it’s often the case that criminals tend to stick within their own ethnic groups.
‘I can vouch for him,’ said Zafir confidently. ‘We’ve known each other a long time. He can be trusted.’
Faz glared up at him suspiciously. ‘I haven’t seen you around much, not since the Ramses brothers got jail time over that drug stuff.’
‘I’ve been around,’ said Zafir, but there was an edge to his voice and I had no doubt that information he’d sold had been responsible for putting them away.
Faz turned his attention back to me. ‘How do I know you’re not the police?’
‘Because I’m vouching for him,’ Zafir insisted.
I didn’t like the way this conversation was going, although it was some consolation that he hadn’t recognized me. ‘Because undercover police in this country don’t carry guns and point them at people,’ I said, pulling out the SIG Sauer Lane had supplied me with from underneath my jacket. In one quick movement I turned and pointed it at the big bearded guy who immediately took a step backwards with his hands high in the air. I then shoved it back in the front of my jeans where it remained visible.
Having deployed the stick to