Dead in the Water (43 page)

This all sounds definitive; but several eye-witnesses have come forward to talk to the BBC, without wishing to be filmed or identified, who have said that the police version does not tally with what they saw. They agree that the van was parked where the police say it was, and that two young men jumped out of it in a hurry and ran towards the group of parents at the school gates. One woman that she’s certain it was steam from the radiator coming from the van, and another says that she heard one of the men calling for help. As the BBC’s political commentator observes, the
Angels of Light
have yet to claim responsibility for the bomb.

Later in the bulletin, Robert Britton, the Home Secretary, makes a sober sounding statement expressing his deep sympathy for the parents of the injured children, invoking, yet again, the spirit of the wartime blitz and his pride in the work of the police. He and every intelligent, reasonable minded person in the country will be appalled at the amoral ruthlessness of these people.

Alone in the canteen at Cowley Street with his empty paper cup and biscuit crumbs, Mark has been watching the bulletin with increasing unease. What shifts have occurred within him that he should question Britton’s notion of ‘these people’? That he should be so sceptical of the police account? For eighteen months he has shielded himself from cynicism. Having joined the Establishment, he has learnt and played by its rules, acquired a facility with its language. Watching Robert Britton, for many years renowned for his highly principled stand on human rights and his active membership of
Amnesty International
, now applauding the actions of the police and the security services, claiming that the police now have extensive evidence which will lead them to the masterminds behind the
Angels of Light
; watching this, he sees an image of himself, unquestioningly accepting that working quietly within the system is the only way of changing it. And he is unable to repress a gnawing feeling of complicity, as if the immune response which has kept self doubt at bay for all these years is beginning to fail.

Towards the end of the bulletin there is an item of breaking news that the police have made a wave of arrests after mounting raids in Wood Green, Peckham, Manchester and Oxford. The general tenor of the bulletin is that an atrocity has been narrowly avoided, and that the terrorist threat is finally being defused. None of this is any consolation for Mark. The detail in this breaking news that has caught his attention is the description of the ‘bombers’, one of whom is said to have been a tall Caucasian probably in his early twenties with fair skin and shaved head. The police have yet to issue a photograph; but the description fits Stephen perfectly. Arrests in Wood Green and Oxford…

He gets up and makes his way hurriedly to the toilet, where he vomits. Kneeling in front of the pan, he feels as if he might faint; he stays crouched down on the floor for several minutes until his strength returns. When he goes to wash and to rinse his mouth he glances at his reflection in the mirror; and is shocked by his pallor. Back at his desk, he rings the number the SIS woman gave him. He has to know if it’s Stephen the police have shot. He gets through to the desk officer.

“
I need to speak to Robyn Westacott.”

“
She is unavailable at the moment; but I can get a message to her.”

“
When?”

“
I’ll get the message to her within the next half hour.”

“
My name is Mark Boyd. I need to speak to her urgently. She knows who I am. I’m at work. She has my number.”

Then he tries a contact in Special Branch. For security reasons the identity of the bombers is not yet being made public. And finally a terrorist hotline; where the man he speaks to threatens to charge him with wasting police time: “This line is for people who have information to give to us.”

He tries Andrew Britton. Surely the Home Secretary will know. And if he can’t get through to Britton himself, someone in his office will know something. Britton is unavailable.

Then the phone rings. The Westacott woman?

“
Hello. Mark Boyd here.”

It’s Joanna. She has seen the television reports. She is as worried as he is. They do the best they can to convince themselves that it couldn’t be Stephen. If it was him, then surely the police would have contacted them before making information public. But neither of them is persuaded by these arguments.

When the cleaners knock on his door to start work on his office, he decides it’s time to leave. He still has to collect the car from the underground car park, but at least he’ll have Rachel for company tonight.

When he gets home, however, there are no lights on. In the kitchen, there are bread crumbs and a jar of Marmite on the work surface. And an empty glass with traces of fruit juice in it. Is that what Rachel had for breakfast? He’s too tired to remember. Days have started to bleed into each other.

“
Hello. Anybody home?”

There isn’t. The flat is empty

7
4 London and beyond

Sitting in the back of the taxi, trying to ignore the driver’s ranting about the bomb outrage and ‘Bloody Greens’, Rachel had started thinking again about Jeremy not showing this morning. He wasn’t keen to do the interview, but then he didn’t like small planes and that didn’t stop him flying down to Esmerelda. Something must have happened. So she decided that instead of going back to her dad’s flat, she’d ask the driver to take her to the hotel. She has her own card key for the room, and it’s just possible Jeremy left a message for her.

He didn’t. But his overnight bag is still there, although the little room-safe is open. That’s where he put his copy of the video card.

Her immediate thought is to ring her dad, but he won’t be home yet. She could ring her mum, but Dad thought the phone was being tapped. She sits on the edge of the bed, trying to breathe deeply, to calm herself, to take herself through relaxation exercises. She has to voice aloud to herself that if she managed to deal with the rain forest, then she can do this: just stay calm. Wait for Jeremy. Give him another couple of hours. He might come back. He might ring the hotel, get word to her somehow. And then? Go to the police? Report a missing person? Is that what he is? A missing person?

She’s minded to turn on the television, but the Primary School shooting incident is so depressing that she’d rather sit and think, try to meditate, try to get herself back to that raft on the river. ‘The river flows, you move with it. On a raft, you can paddle from side to side, you can slow down, or go just a little bit faster than the current.’

There are always noises in hotels in the late afternoon; cleaners, linen trolleys, lifts; noises which break into her attempts at meditation. But the loud, sharp raps on the door come as a shock. Jeremy has a key card. He wouldn’t knock. As quietly as she can, she goes to look through the glass spy hole. There’s a woman standing outside.

“
Hello. Is there anybody in? Could you open up please? Police.”

She holds an identicard up to the spy hole and then inserts a card key and opens the door herself. She doesn’t seem surprised to see Rachel in the hallway to the room.

“
Detective Inspector Julie Hayes. CID. My warrant card.” She holds it out for Rachel, who glances at the card, bewildered.

“
No,” says Rachel, shaking her head. “No.” The police come when someone’s dead.

“
Do you know the man who was booked into this room?”

She nods.

“
Are you his wife?”

“
No.”

“
Do you mind telling me ––”

“
We’re friends.”

“
That’s OK. Do you mind telling me what his name is?”

“
What?”

“
He was mugged last night. He was unconscious when the ambulance picked him up. He lost a lot of blood I gather. He’s conscious now. But he has no memory. And he had no identification on him except this hotel room key card.”

“
Is he going to be alright?”

“
He’s not critical. But he has a complete loss of memory.”

“
Can I see him?”

“
We need to identify him. Can you tell me his name please?”

“
Jeremy Peters.” The woman makes a note of this.

“
And you are?”

“
I’m a friend of his. Rachel Boyd.

“
We need you to come with us, to help identify him.”

To Rachel, the dark blue car waiting for them in the unloading bay outside the front of the hotel seems rather smart for an unmarked police car; but she doesn’t give it much thought. The woman opens the door for her, and gets in the back with her.

“
Straight to the hospital please,” she says to her colleague, a young man not much older than Rachel.

The car glides smoothly away. They turn right onto Euston Road. The traffic is lighter than she’d expected.

“
Where are we going? Which hospital are we going to?” No reply. “Which hospital?”

“
He’s being looked after privately.”

“
What? What the hell is this? You’re not CID are you?”

“
We’re taking you to see Jeremy Peters.”

The car pulls up at traffic lights and Rachel makes a sudden attempt to get out, but the doors are centrally child-locked. She makes to climb into the front.

“
Don’t do that,” says the woman. Her voice is calm, but the threat is palpable. She has something concealed in her hand. “Jeremy is safe. He’s not hurt. He wasn’t mugged. I’m sorry I had to lie to you. We are looking after him for a few days. Neither of you are going to get hurt. We just want you to do something for us.”

She’s convinced that she’s being kidnapped. Nothing else makes sense. The only way to deal with this is to stay calm herself; calm and alert.

“
We need to put a blindfold on you. We do not want to hurt you, Miss Boyd. We’re not going far. We want to release you unharmed, and if we’re going to do that it’s important that you don’t know where you have been. You understand?”

In spite of herself, Rachel says that yes, she understands. She allows the woman to put a blindfold on her – the kind of eye covers they hand out on long distance air travel – and then to fasten her hands behind her back with Duck tape. She’s really angry with herself. She should have known there was something not right from the moment they left the hotel room and went down the stairs instead of the lift. There’s CCTV in lifts; that’s what she was avoiding.

“
Where are you taking me?”

“
To see Jeremy Peters. We want you to know that he’s safe.” The threat is implicit: if she doesn’t see him, his safety cannot be guaranteed.

The stops for traffic lights and junctions have become less frequent. Her knowledge of London is limited, but she guesses that they have gone from Euston Road, along Marylebone Road and are on the Westway, heading for the M40. She tries to memorise the roundabouts, the turns; to estimate how long they have been driving; but once they leave the A40, if that is indeed where they have been, she is rapidly confused and loses her sense of time.

Jeremy is lying fully clothed on a bed, breathing deeply. He has no visible cuts or bruises; no sign that he has been attacked. The room itself contains nothing but a bed and a small table. The floor is carpeted, an expensive carpet, probably wool, light green; there’s a pull-down blind over the window, canvas coloured, as plain as could be; no paintings on the white walls. She tries to memorise these details. When she escapes the police will want to know this kind of thing.

“
He’s sedated,” says the woman.

“
How do I know that?”

“
You don’t. But he will be properly looked after. We have no intention of harming him – or you.”

Then the blindfold is put on again and the woman leads her out of the room where Jeremy is being held captive.

“
Who the hell is we?”

The sound of a door opening. She’s led through and carefully seated in an easy chair. The acoustic of the room feels large.

“
Who the hell is we?”

The woman’s responds in calm, measured tones: “A very small group of people who think that environmental matters have become so serious that it has become necessary to take direct action. Some people have called us terrorists. That’s very unreasonable. Our aim is to keep the government honest.” It sounds like a prepared speech.

“
You are terrorists. You’ve killed people.”

“
We have killed no-one.”

“
Yes you have. My dad told me. Two police officers died.”

“
Deliberate disinformation. There was a small explosive device in a laptop. It was a warning. If anybody was hurt, we very much regret that. But that device could not have killed anybody. The only deaths have been at the hands of the police.”

A long dark silence, and then Rachel speaks: “What do you want me to do?”

“
Your father has a great deal of influence, Miss Boyd, as you well know. We want you to make sure he uses it in a way which will make you feel proud of him.”

“
This is bullshit. Just tell me.”

“
He goes to the Summit and he argues the case for the radical policies contained in the government’s own manifesto. And if he’s not successful, then he uses the public platform to disown the Summit and the government. And he makes a public resignation.”