Ten Days (31 page)

Which would give time for Peter to get more of his ducks in a row. ‘Yes, Prime Minister.'

For a man facing the imminent end of a political career, the Prime Minister was surprisingly nimble. Now he jumped up, saying, ‘Our work here is done,' and went over to the glass doors to pull them open and say to someone in the room, ‘Show the Home Secretary out, will you? And get my office to liaise with his to fix an appointment for his return,' glancing at his watch, ‘at around 2.55 p.m. tomorrow. And, tomorrow, let's not keep him waiting. After you, Peter.'

As Peter stepped through the doorway, the PM continued barking out instructions. ‘Get someone to make an appointment for the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to come and see me. Not now. Later. I'm feeling rather queasy. Probably the endless burgers the President insists on. Cancel my appointments for today; the urgent ones I'll do by phone. I'll go to Chequers, where my wife is, and work from there.'

The contrast between the dark interior and the bright blaze of sunlight as Peter stepped through the back door was so great that his vision blurred. As he paused, waiting for it to clear, he heard a car door opening and then someone running towards him.

Patricia was almost upon him before he realised that it was her. What was she doing, running, practically into his arms, in public and in the full light of day?

She shoved a mobile phone at him. ‘Put it to your ear. Anybody watching will assume it's an urgent call.'

The thought of someone watching made him look up. In time to see a curtain that had been shifted aside, shifted back. Too quickly for him to be sure, but he thought it might have been the Prime Minister.

‘How did it go? I'm dying to know.'

He took the phone and at the same time took a few steps back. ‘You've got to be more careful.'

She was still smiling. ‘I will,' she said, ‘I promise. But aren't you going to tell me?'

He owed her: his victory was hers as well. (What had she done?) He lifted the phone to his ear.

‘Tell me, tell me.' She was almost jumping up and down in her excitement.

What a child she was. ‘I've given him a day before I go public. He's going to crumble. I could see it in his blinking face.' He lowered his hand.

‘Well done, Peter. Well done.' When she came closer to take the phone, he smelt that unfamiliar scent again. (What had she done?)

‘I need to get back to work,' he said. ‘Why don't you take the rest of the afternoon off?'

10 p.m.

Rockham seemed abnormally subdued as Cathy began her walk home from the station. At least this time she hadn't had to answer questions – where are you going? Where have you come from? Who have you seen? – as she had done when she had left the area. Perhaps that's why it was so quiet: although the roadblocks had been removed, everybody was probably still too frightened to show their faces. A relief, therefore, that Jayden was keeping Lyndall company at home.

Her route took her past the back entrance of the police station where a double line of riot police stood, their faces paled by fluorescent light and blued by a rising moon. Their numbers had increased since she'd been at work, for there were also vans parked along the street – most of them full of police. Behind the vans were a couple of what at first she mistook for builders' trucks.

Eyes on her as she passed by and burning into her back as she kept on. She could hear voices too soft for her to figure out what was being said, and then she heard doors opening and doors closing and footsteps. She stopped and looked behind her.

A group of police, there must have been at least twenty of them, had formed themselves into two snaking lines and were making their way up the middle of the road, straight towards her. They were coming fast. She backed herself against a wall.

A disturbance in the air, a hot dry wind created by the thudding past of the phalanx of police. Each was carrying a shield in one hand while using the other to whip the air with a baton. There was the burble of a radio, abruptly cut off as they ran. Behind them trundled the small trucks, which, she now saw, did not belong to any builder. The one in front had a nozzle sticking out of its white metallic roof – it must be a water cannon – while the other had two attachments: an excavator's scoop instead of a bumper and what looked like a mobile crane behind its cab. As it went by, she saw the logo of the Metropolitan Police painted on its side, and then it rounded the corner onto the High Street.

It was very dark. And quiet save for the footfalls of the police and the trundling forward of the vehicles.

This wasn't her business. She should go home via the back streets. Watch whatever it was that was about to kick off from the safety of her sofa.

She did not go back.

Rounding the corner, she could see a flash of red that she took for the brake lights of one of the trucks. As she was trying to figure out why it had stopped, she tripped. She was pitched forwards, grabbing for the burglar bars of a shop window to stop herself from falling.

Upright again, she looked back to see what had tripped her up. She could just about make out the outline of an empty crate that someone must have left outside the shop. She hadn't seen it before because, although the rising moon was by now high enough to soften the night, the street was unlit.

A power cut? She peered through the darkness to where the police were regrouping. Such military precision and all in silence. She must get out of there.

She turned; she must go back. But then she saw how a fresh contingent of police had rounded the corner and were heading straight for her. If she didn't get out of the way, she'd end up sandwiched between the two.

Just ahead and to the right there was a side street. She'd go there, she decided, find sanctuary in one of the flats above the shops. But when she drew abreast of the side street she found that it was blocked by a further line of police. They held their shields up and so close packed that there was no space for her to slip through.

She was trapped. She approached the line. ‘I live in the Lovelace,' she said. ‘I'm on my way home from work. Could you let me through?'

The policeman whom she'd addressed stared straight ahead. As if she wasn't there.

‘Could you?'

‘I'm sorry, madam,' he was speaking softly and out of the side of his mouth. ‘You'll have to wait.'

Wait. For what?

No sooner had the question occurred than the dark was lifted by the simultaneous switching on of the street lights and a blaze of something much brighter than any street light could ever be. She turned to look.

The first police had formed themselves into a line that stretched the width of the High Street and blocked it. Ahead, an unoccupied section of the road was lit by a dazzling beam from the top of one of the trucks. One hundred yards further on was a different barricade, this one forged not from uniforms but from shopping trolleys, old doors and bricks and pieces of wood. Behind this barricade were knots of young people. Quiet and still. Expectant. Waiting for the next move.

It came in the form of a policeman in a peaked hat, who detached himself from the line-up of his colleagues and began to move towards the barricades. He was met by a barrage of stones, all dropping to the ground in the area in front of him. He stopped and raised his megaphone: ‘This is a final warning. Go home or we will arrest you for obstruction of the public highway.'

Another barrage that also fell short.

The policeman turned and made his way back towards the line of his shielded colleagues, who parted to let him through. Or at least that's what Cathy thought they were doing, but the gap they had created was much wider than one man would ever have needed and, besides, he had already stepped onto the pavement.

Engines started up, and then both trucks began moving through the gap and beyond it, heading for the crowd. Behind them the line of police re-formed and started walking forward, slowly, in their wake.

A fresh bombardment from behind the barricade, lit now by the bright light. As the trucks moved forward, more projectiles flew, a hard rain that thudded down on the metallic scoop on the truck in front. The truck stopped, engine still revving. The second truck lined up beside it. A moment's pause and then a powerful jet of water shot through the nozzle of the water cannon to hit the barricade, sending pieces of masonry and wood flying.

There was a further inching forward of both trucks, so that the next shooting jet of water reached the crowd. One man in front took the full force of the water that pushed him over, and spun him round, and kept tossing him as he scrabbled, arms out, trying to find something to hold on to. Seeing what was happening to him, his companions ran from the hard spray that still kept hitting out, at the same time as both trucks were moving forward until they reached the barricade and, with the water cannon still firing onto what now looked like an empty section of the road, the shovel of the companion lorry smashed straight through the line of shopping trolleys.

11.30 p.m.

Joshua's car crunched around the Chequers' driveway and drew up outside the house, which looked to be in total darkness. But as he got out of the car, the door opened and the Prime Minister himself emerged. Another sign as to the urgency of the summons, now reinforced by an accusatory ‘You took your time' from the Prime Minister.

‘There was trouble in Rockham,' Joshua said.

‘When isn't there?' The PM's frown turned into a glower. ‘You've got to get a grip, you know.'

Yes, I know, Joshua thought and said: ‘I trust you're feeling better, Prime Minister?'

‘Better?'

‘I heard that you were ill.'

‘Oh that.' The Prime Minister sighed. ‘No, I'm not ill. But, no, I am also not feeling better.' He looked at Joshua's driver: ‘Take the car round the back. Someone will show you where to wait,' and then, to Joshua: ‘Let's walk.'

He turned on his heel, leading Joshua away from the house and the formal gardens, striding down the long drive and through the gates, all the time remaining silent. His only words, ‘We're fine on our own,' were addressed to the policeman who made a move to accompany them. He continued on, briskly, over a field and up by the side of an electrified fence, his shoes crunching against the parched ground as he made for Coombe Hill.

The moon was full and it lit the ploughed fields around them, the nearest of which, Joshua could see, had almost turned to dust. The night had brought with it little relief, hot air seeming to rise up, so it was almost as if they were walking over a thin crust of volcanic earth.

Not that the Prime Minister seemed to notice. He kept up a brisk pace, still without a word, his bullish head down and his shoulders rounded as if he were trying to shield himself from something unpleasant. And then, abruptly, and for no apparent reason, he stopped.

‘Look at that.' He was pointing above Coombe Hill and at a full moon over which layers of red and orange mist seemed to be drifting. ‘Eerie, isn't it?' the Prime Minister said. ‘They say it's an optical illusion caused by the light passing through the Saharan dust in our atmosphere. Given that there is not even a puff of wind to blow in a single cloud, it's a mystery how half of the Sahara managed to make its way here. A red moon: a sign of strife to come. Which, speaking of,' and only now did he look at Joshua, ‘what the hell is going on in Rockham?'

‘We had to go in hard,' Joshua said, ‘to find the missing officer, and this has inflamed an already tense situation. Come nightfall, gangs of youths, many of them from outside the area, set up roadblocks. We couldn't let them turn Rockham into a no-go area, so we had to go in even harder. We used water cannon – not something I wanted to do, but we had no choice. It was a well-planned and properly executed operation, and it worked. Rockham is quiet and the blockages have been removed. But we had to deploy so many resources to the area, other parts of London have suffered. It's a setback. It's going to take another couple of days to fully restore order.'

‘Did you at least find your man?'

‘Afraid not.'

‘Jesus, Joshua. If you don't get control soon, we're going to have to call in the army.'

‘Before it comes to that, every single police officer, no matter what their rank, up to and including me, will be out on the streets.'

‘Every other officer maybe.' In the pause that followed, Joshua saw how the Prime Minister's gaze seemed to catch fire, the whites of his eyes turning almost as red as the moon. ‘But as for you . . .' Another pause and then, ‘You know you were my choice for Commissioner, Joshua, and you know I fought with my Home Secretary, who was spoiling for a public ruck, to get you in. But no sooner did you take up the post than the whole bloody world explodes.' The Prime Minister, who had almost been spitting in his fury, swallowed, stood silent for a moment, blinked once and then continued, in a quieter voice, ‘Let me correct that last: it's not the whole world, just the world that you are supposed to be in command of. While the copycats in other cities have been subdued, London is still in uproar. Instead of restoring order, your men are stirring up even more trouble by looking for a bastard who clearly should never have been in the police force, never mind running around on his own.'

Was this why he'd been summoned all the way to Chequers – so that the Prime Minister could read him the riot act? Something he could easily have done on the phone?

He didn't think it could be, not in the middle of a riot.

Silence, into which the Prime Minister blinked again, and after that Joshua heard rustling that he at first took to be the wind. But the night was hot and still, and a series of high mewling whistles soon told him that the sound was birds.

‘Red kites,' the Prime Minister said. ‘There are scores of them roosting in the woods over there.' He sighed.