Beneath the Bleeding (27 page)

‘Don’t worry, Raj, Yousef will take you,’ his mother had said.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I arranged to go over to Brighouse, to meet some guy about a new contract. I haven’t got time.’

‘What do you mean, you haven’t got time? It won’t take you far out of your way to take the boy to meet his friends,’ his mother insisted.

‘What new contract?’ his father demanded.

‘Nobody ever bothers about me,’ Raj wailed.

Sanjar looked at him and winked. He clearly didn’t believe in the new contract either, but whatever he thought Yousef was up to, there was no chance he’d be anywhere near the truth.

And that’s when he’d nearly lost it. His last meal with his family, and it was turning into a bickering match. When they all looked back, there would be no warm memory of a happy family meal, when they still held fast to their illusion of who he was. There would only be the bitter taste of bad feeling.

He’d had to get out then, before he broke down in front of them. Tears had blurred his vision on the drive over to the bedsit. He loved them, and he was never going to see them again.

Yousef shook his head as if to shake off his painful thoughts. There was no going back. He had to look forward. He had to think about a glorious future, when his dreams would come true. He pushed himself away from the door. The last phase still had to be carried out.

Carefully, he packed a catering-sized ghee tin with the TATP, placing the gunpowder engine from a model rocket kit in the middle. He fastened thin plastic-coated wires to the engine with little alligator clips
then attached them to an electronic ignition device wired up to an electronic timer in a small bundle held together with packing tape. He hadn’t made this part of the bomb; he had no skills in this area. But it had been explained to him. He was to be ready with the bomb in place at 3.30, two-thirds of the way through the first half. He was to set the timer for forty minutes, so it would go off in the middle of the second half, leaving time enough for him to make his escape. It was simple. Kept simple to minimize what could possibly go wrong.

Concentrating on the assembly of the bomb calmed him down. By the time he’d finished and packed it in the bottom of Imran’s toolbox, he was steady again.

Yousef carried the toolbox down to Imran’s van with great care. He knew how volatile the TATP was, how easily the friction of movement could trigger the chain reaction that would blow him and the rest of the house sky high. He placed it gently on the ground while he opened the back of the van, then laid it on the foam pad he’d already prepared. He closed the doors carefully then stepped away from the van. He wished he smoked.

He checked his watch. Almost time to set off. He wanted to arrive at the staff and players’ entrance about five minutes before kick-off, when the security crew were too busy to pay too much attention to him. Allowing for traffic, he should leave in about five minutes.

Yousef got into the van and fumbled the keys into the ignition. His hands were clammy with sweat. ‘Calm,’ he told himself. No reason to panic. No reason to be afraid. Nothing could go wrong.

He didn’t know about the third component, taped between the ignition and the timer. A component that would change all Yousef’s carefully laid plans.

Tony was feeling very pleased with himself. Today, he was the man who had climbed half a flight of stairs. OK, he’d had a certain amount of difficulty getting back down, but he had made it to the landing. Nine steps up and nine steps down. And not a single fall. He’d been so exhausted afterwards he’d wanted to lie down and weep, but he would leave that bit out when he told the tale.

Tony fired up the laptop and went to Bradfield Victoria’s site. Because he wasn’t good at remembering to keep office hours, he’d subscribed to their private TV channel at the start of the season. So wherever he was, as long as he had broadband access, he could watch the Vics’ games live. He logged on and turned the volume down low. He didn’t need to hear pre-match chat from a couple of second-rate retired footballers and a commentator who had fallen from grace with the networks. All they’d be talking about would be Robbie, and Tony didn’t imagine for a moment they would have any useful insights to offer.

Thinking of Robbie reminded him that he ought to be trying to come up with something that would get Carol past the embarrassment of refusing to follow up his suggestion now it had turned out he’d been right. She was going to be pissed off with herself and the chances were that she would get it out of her system by being pissed off with him. Best to have something ready to head her off at the pass. The only trouble was what.

‘What makes them right for you, Stalky? Is Harriestown High the important connection? What happened there to make you care so much?’ He considered the options, but couldn’t come up with something that could have linked Robbie Bishop and Danny Wade in their schooldays. ‘But that changed,’ he mused. ‘By the time they died, they did have something in common. Rich men, both of them. And the rich are different. So they’d become different. They’d left the rest of Harriestown High in the dirt. They were lucky, you could say. Danny definitely. No skill in the lottery. Just blind luck. But Robbie was lucky too. Right club, right manager. We’ve all seen it go the other way-great talent pissed up against the wall.’ He was struggling and he knew it. Two cases just didn’t yield enough data. It was the hardest thing about his job. The more people who died, the easier it was for him.

So, nothing much to link the victims. What about the murder method? Plant poisons. It was like Dorothy L. Sayers or Agatha Christie. Some village murder mystery. ‘Historically, poisoners were assassins or family members. But now we’ve got guns for the assassins, and forensic toxicology knocked family poisoning on the head a long time ago…So why use it? It’s hard to get your hands on, and getting hold of it leaves a trail. Its only advantage is if you don’t get your kicks out of killing.’ He nodded to himself. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? What you like is not killing, it’s having killed. You like the sense of power but you’ve not got a taste for the dirty work. It’s almost as if you’re keeping your distance. Your innocence. When you left them, they were fine. You don’t have
to see yourself as some low-life killer.’ He paused for a moment, lost in thought. ‘You can almost convince yourself you’re giving them a chance. Maybe they’ll be able to beat it, or maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll get lucky. Or maybe their luck’s just run out…And speaking of running out, there are my boys.’ On the screen, the familiar canary yellow shirts were emerging from the tunnel, black bands circling the upper arms of all the players. The Tottenham Hotspur players followed, also wearing black armbands, heads bowed.

The two teams lined up facing each other and Tony edged the volume up in time to hear the commentator say, ‘…for a minute’s silence in memory of Robbie Bishop, who died tragically this week.’

Tony bowed his head and joined the silence. It seemed to pass almost too quickly. Then the crowd roared, the players shuffled their feet and moved into position. Robbie had been formally consigned to memory. Now it was showtime.

The streets around Victoria Park were choked with fans promenading towards the stadium. No cars allowed, held back and diverted by police officers in yellow fluorescent jackets. Just pedestrians and horses, the mounted division relishing home games for the peaceful exercise they almost invariably offered. Through the middle of the yellow streams of home fans was a demarcated ribbon of white, where Spurs supporters strutted their defiance in the enemy’s territory.

There was another, smaller patch of white among the yellow. The A1 Electricals’ van eased forward
through a crowd reluctant to part for anything or anyone. Behind the wheel, Yousef prayed steadily, his lips barely moving, his mind racing. If he concentrated on the details, he didn’t have to confront the horror of what he was about to do. The paperwork had got him past the first checkpoint. A policeman stopping traffic heading for the stadium had glanced over the two fake faxes and Yousef’s equally false ID and waved him through without comment. Next came the acid test.

He checked the time. He was right on schedule. The Grayson Street stand loomed ahead of him, the tall wrought-iron gates with the club crest clearly visible. The entrance to the car park for staff and players was a dozen yards past the gates, the way blocked by a barrier and a cordon of security men. He pulled his baseball cap further down so it better obscured his features from above.

Yousef passed the gates, tapping his horn to clear a way through the supporters. The road was even more clogged than usual because the pavement was entirely occupied by the shrine to Robbie Bishop. His photo smiled out at Yousef again and again, the confident grin of a man who sees the world turning his way. He’d been so wrong, Yousef thought.

He swung the wheel round, pointing the van at the barrier. As he drew close, he was surrounded by security men. They looked identically menacing with their black-and-yellow Vics bomber jackets, black jeans and shaved heads. He lowered his window and smiled. ‘Emergency electrical repair,’ he said. ‘There’s a problem with the mains supply under the Vestey stand.’ He produced the faxes. ‘If it blows, there’ll be no power to corporate hospitality.’

The nearest security guard sneered. ‘Poor bastards won’t be able to find their prawn sandwiches in the dark. Gimme a minute, let me show these to the guy on the barrier.’ He took the paperwork and went over to the small cabin by the guard barrier. Yousef could see him showing the faxes to the man inside. He felt the sweat in his armpits and the small of his back.

‘That’s quite a display, innit?’ he said to the guard who had stepped up to take the first one’s place. ‘Poor sod.’

“No kidding,’ the guard said. ‘What kind of evil bastard would do a thing like that?’ He did a double take, as if only just realizing he was speaking to a young Asian male, the tabloid archetype of a contemporary bogeyman. ‘Sorry, mate, I didn’t mean…You know?’

‘I know. We’re not all like that,’ Yousef said, his toes literally curling with discomfort. Not because he was lying, but because he was lying so cravenly. Before they could get into it any further, the first guard came back with the paperwork.

‘You’ll need to let me take a look in the back of the van,’ he said.

Yousef turned off the engine, took out the keys and walked to the back of the van. He could feel his hands trembling, so he tried to put his body between the lock and the security man. He told himself that he had nothing to worry about, that it was all going to be OK. He swung the door open. The van was lined with cable holders and plastic boxes full of clips, fuses, screws and switches. Reels of various gauges of cable were piled together behind a fence of bungee cord, and Imran’s toolbox sat to
one side, a long squat metal box covered in chipped blue paint.

‘You want to open the toolbox?’ the security guard said.

‘Sure.’ Yousef swallowed hard and unclipped the lid. He spread the first layer open to reveal an array of pliers, wire strippers and screwdrivers. ‘OK?’ He laid his hand on the tray, as if he was going to open it further. His bowels were clenching, his bladder bursting. If the bastard guard didn’t back off, the next thing he was going to see was a bomb.

The guard glanced over the tools. ‘Looks like an electrician’s kit to me. OK, mate,’ he said. ‘Park over at the far end.’ He pointed to the extreme edge of the parking area. ‘You’ll see a gate over there. The security bloke there knows you’re on your way. He’ll let you in. You follow the walkway round the corner and it’ll bring you to the staff entrance. They’ll show you where you need to be.’ He winked. ‘They might even let you see a bit of the game if you get the job done quick.’

Yousef did as he was told, hardly able to believe it was all so easy. Once past that first barrier, it was clear that he was accepted as someone with a valid reason to be there. Ten minutes later, head down to avoid the CCTV cameras, he was carrying Imran’s toolbox with its deadly cargo down a narrow service corridor under the middle tier of the giant cantilevered Vestey Stand. The stand, named after Albert Vestey, England and Bradfield Vics’ legendary striker of the inter-war years, contained the media centre up on the top tier as well as the corporate hospitality boxes. As they walked, the ebb and flow of the fans’ chanting
and cheering accompanied their steps. Yousef was surprised by how loud it was. He’d thought it would be much quieter inside the stand, insulated by concrete and bodies. But here it was almost as strident as being one of the shouting spectators.

Yousef’s destination was a small room off the service corridor where the electricity junction boxes were housed. From here, the electrical supply to the media centre and the corporate boxes was controlled. Immediately above, separated by a tracery of girders and poured concrete, was the partition wall between two boxes, each of which held a maximum of a dozen spectators. Both of those were flanked by identical boxes. All four boxes, like the others that stretched out on either side of them, were full of people enjoying food and drink at someone else’s expense. The football, it often seemed, was incidental. What mattered was being there.

The guard who had accompanied Yousef from the staff entrance stopped in front of a grey door which featured a yellow plaque with a black lightning bolt on it. ‘Here we go, mate,’ he said, unlocking the door and opening up. He pointed to a house phone on the corridor wall a few feet away. ‘Call down on that when you’re done and I’ll come and lock up behind you.’ He pushed the door open, reached for the light switch then stood back, waving Yousef into the small space. ‘And if you’re done before full time, we’ll find you somewhere to perch for the rest of the match.’

Yousef felt sick, but he managed to smile and nod. The door closed behind him with a soft click. The room was dim and cramped. It smelled of dust and oil. The junction boxes covered the far wall. Cables
festooned the walls, their surfaces silted with greasy dust. He didn’t think anyone was going to bother him here, not when there was a match going on a few hundred feet away. But to be on the safe side, he jammed the end of the toolbox against the door. If anyone tried to get in, he’d know about it.