Twenty Twelve (7 page)

‘One of the cell members killed two of his colleagues,’ said Clem. ‘I had no alternative but to shoot him before he turned the gun on me. He’s not expected to live through the night.’

Connolly shook her head as if trying to clear it. ‘Why did he kill his own people?’ she asked.

Clem shrugged. There was always in-fighting in these groups, those lower down the ranks prepared to do whatever was necessary to gain power and position. Not too different from the world of politics. ‘These sorts of people tend not to settle their arguments peacefully,’ he said.

Connolly was visibly shaken. She reached for some water, but thought better of it as her hand trembled. Instead she coughed to clear her throat. ‘You said three members. What about the fourth?’

Clem blinked. His team were still going through the flat in Bethnal Green, looking for evidence that would lead them to Ronnie X. A letter, an email, a telephone number, even a note for the bloody milkman. So far, nothing. Whoever this man was, he was bloody good. But there was always something if you searched hard and long enough.

‘We’re on it,’ said Clem.

‘Now you see, Jo,’ the PM interrupted. ‘This was a very small group of individuals who can no longer pose a threat to the Olympic Games.’

Benning appeared at the PM’s shoulders and hovered there like an unfriendly spirit. ‘Think of it as a triumph for the forces of good.’

Back home, I’m still too sore to go for a run, so I opt for the next best thing to soothe my tired mind, and heat a tin of tomato soup. Mum always used this as a failsafe method in times of sadness and adversity. Lost a race? No problem. Failed a maths test? Get a bowl of this down you.

It had been Davey’s all-time favourite. So much so, I often wonder if he actively sought out grazed knees and broken hearts just to get his hands on the stuff.

I kick off my shoes, slurp down a spoon of sweet red succour and switch on the box.

The press conference is being repeated on every bloody channel. The sight of my gurning face next to the PM while he explains that crisis has been averted is enough to put anyone off their dinner. I push my soup aside.

No doubt the PM is still on the phone, recanting the story to the leaders of the free world. I’d offered to contact my opposite numbers in China and the States, but Benning had looked suitably horrified. ‘Best leave these things to the professionals,’ he said. I was too knackered to be offended.

The phone rings.

‘Jo? It’s Dad.’

‘Bloody hell, twice in one day,’ I mutter.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I suppose you saw the press conference.’

‘Bit soon if you ask me,’ he says.

‘Surely it’s better than letting everyone think it was an Al Qaeda attack?’ I reply.

He harumphs. ‘Sometimes you have to let the hysteria run until you hand over your fall guy. Otherwise it looks a bit bleeding convenient. Still, I suppose there just wasn’t the time for that.’

‘It’s nothing to do with timing and there’s nothing convenient about this, Dad. These Shining Light people are the real deal.’

In the background I hear a scream and feet pounding along the corridor. ‘What was that, Dad?’

He ignores the question. ‘Sounds dodgy to me,’ he says.

‘Seriously, Dad, I spoke to MI5 myself. They’d been watching this cell.’

‘If you say so, Jo.’

‘Listen, Dad, everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.’

‘Holy shit.’ Nathan Shaw scrambled for his weapon. ‘Someone’s coming out.’

George leaned over and pressed a sweaty palm over Nathan’s hand. ‘Cool your jets, son. It’s only the youngest boy.’

Nathan felt his heart thud. They’d been stuck out here broiling like steaks on a barbecue for hours. Now something was finally happening, he felt panicked. ‘He’s heading over here,’ he hissed
.

‘Well now, that’s all right,’ George replied, his hand still on Nathan’s. ‘Probably just wants a breath of fresh air.’

The boy crossed the yard, his work boots crunching in the dirt. He stopped about twenty feet from the place where Nathan and George were hiding and stared straight at them
.

‘Let me handle this,’ said George. He pushed himself up from the ground with a grunt, hauled up his belt and brushed the grit from his trousers. Then he nodded at Nathan and took a step out of the scrub
.

The boy didn’t move. Or speak
.

‘Isaac, isn’t it?’ asked George
.

The boy didn’t answer
.

‘I know your daddy,’ George continued. ‘Good Christian man.’

There was a long silence punctuated occasionally by the sound of a coot
.

‘There’s two of you,’ the boy finally spoke
.

‘Indeed there is,’ said George. ‘Nathan, come on out here and meet young Isaac Pearson.’

Nathan took a deep breath and stepped into view. He could see now that Isaac couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen. He was tall, with a buzz cut, but still a child
.

Nathan would have laughed at his unease if it weren’t for the rifle Isaac carried across his chest, left hand cupping the barrel, right hand on the butt, a finger curled around the trigger
.

‘I guess you’re wondering what the hell we’re doing out here,’ said George. He turned to Nathan and laughed. ‘To be honest we’ve been asking ourselves the same damn thing.’

Isaac didn’t smile. ‘You ain’t got no right to be on our land.’

‘Don’t mean no harm by it,’ said George
.

Nathan watched the boy intently. He didn’t seem frightened or surprised
.

‘You the police.’ It was a statement, not a question
.

‘Surely are,’ said George
.

Isaac nodded and moved slowly around them to peer into their hiding place. He caught sight of the discarded beer bottles and threw Nathan a look of disgust. ‘You need to leave now,’ he said
.

I can’t sleep. Dad’s words are chasing me into wakefulness. He’s wrong. I know he’s wrong. After all, I’ve heard it from MI5 themselves. So why can’t I just leave it? I call the nursing home but it goes straight to answer-phone.

Cursing myself, I throw on some clothes and head across town.

Highfields is in darkness. No surprise – it is bloody midnight after all. Most of the residents can’t stay awake through
EastEnders
.

I park the Mini and head across the lawns to the bedroom window I think is Dad’s. Praying I’ve got the right one, I rap on the glass with my nail. A minute passes so I tap again, louder.

Inside I hear a groan and the shuffle of feet. The curtains open and Dad’s nose presses against the glass.

‘Who’s there?’ he asks.

‘It’s me,’ I say.

‘Jo?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘For Christ’s sake, just open up,’ I tell him.

It takes him what seems like an age to unlock the window and slide it across. Then he stands there in a pair of stained pyjamas, staring at me.

I push myself up by my hands and swing my legs inside his room in one fluid movement.

‘Who are you?’ he asks. ‘Bleedin’ Catwoman?’ He laughs at his own joke until I wave him away.

‘What did you mean about a fall guy?’ I ask.

‘Huh?’

‘You said you’d have let the hysteria run until you’d handed over your fall guy.’

Dad doesn’t answer immediately. He lowers himself onto the bed and wets cracked lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘How important are these Olympics?’ he says at last. ‘On a scale of one to ten?’

I think about the strikes, the unemployment figures, the marches and the riots. The country has been imploding. ‘About an eleven.’

‘And how disastrous would it be if the terrorists turned out to be Islamists?’ Dad asks.

I don’t respond. We both know the Americans would be on the first plane home. The whole show would fall apart and the reaction in the Middle East doesn’t bear thinking about.

Dad nods. ‘This is the last chance saloon for the government and you’re still not suspicious when the spooks discover less than twenty-four hours after the event that a bunch of white supremacists did it?’

I sigh. It does seem suspicious. But Clem has given assurances. ‘You’re saying this is all a set-up?’

Dad opens his palms upwards.

I shake my head. Dad is a cynic. He thinks Ghandi had an ulterior motive. If he’s right, it would mean MI5 and the PM had deliberately framed and killed innocent people. And that the real terrorists are still out there. That sort of stuff only happens in second-rate thrillers.

‘I know how it looks,’ I say. ‘But this time, you’ve got it all wrong.’

Dad grunts and gets back into bed. He pulls the sheet up to his chin. With the moonlight pouring across his face, he is so still, he could easily be dead.

Miggs could feel the gear in his system. He didn’t know how it got there but the sensation was undeniable. Like being a bairn wrapped in a great big blanket. Not that anyone ever wrapped Miggs in a blanket when he was a bairn, but he could imagine. He let out a moan of pleasure.

Miggs used to do a lot of gear in the old days, before Ronnie convinced him to jack it in.

‘It’s how they control you,’ Ronnie told him. ‘Drink, drugs, religion – all the same. Just ways to distract you from the real questions.’

It was spot on. Course it was. Ronnie was always right.

When you’re using, you flip-flop between the ecstasy of the hit and the agony of the come-down. You spend your time on the rob, or selling yourself. Far too busy to care who’s running your life.

‘Stephen Miggs.’

A voice floated towards him from the periphery of his consciousness. He’d ignore it but for the fact that whoever had spoken had used his first name. No one had done that since his last social worker.

‘I know you can hear me, so open your eyes.’

Curious, Miggs did as he was told. It was the man from Ronnie’s flat, the one with the gun.

‘You’re awake then?’ said the man.

‘Aye.’ Miggs’s voice was barely a low scratch.

‘Tell me about Shining Light,’ said the man. ‘Did you do the Olympic job?’

What job? Miggs hadn’t had a job in years. Who’d employ someone like him? A record as long as the tattoos down his arm. Not that Miggs had been looking very hard. Being a wage slave to some capitalist fat cat didn’t appeal. Signing on, Ronnie said, could be a political act.

‘The bomb in the Olympic Village,’ the man said. ‘Was Shining Light responsible?’

Now Miggs understood. This was why MI5 tracked them down. Why the gadge in front of him had come to the flat like fucking Robocop.

He saw no reason to lie. ‘I don’t know anything about a bomb.’

The man narrowed his eyes and nodded. ‘Your cell had nothing to do with it?’

‘Cell?’

‘You, Deano, Steve.’

Miggs laughed. The idea that those useless twats constituted a ‘cell’ seemed ridiculous.

‘What about Ronnie?’ the man asked.

Miggs’s smile slipped. Whatever they did to him, no matter how many drugs they pumped into him, he wouldn’t give Ronnie up.

Again, he told the truth. ‘I don’t know where Ronnie is.’

The man tapped his front tooth with his thumbnail. It made a hollow sound. ‘You don’t deny that Ronnie was involved in the bombing?’

Miggs closed his eyes. Ronnie had never once mentioned a bomb. When they’d watched the explosion on the telly, Miggs had been shocked. He remembered again the presenter, the blood and the black smoke. Then he pictured Ronnie, impassive as usual, giving nothing away.

‘I don’t know where Ronnie is,’ Miggs repeated.

I’m halfway across town when the fuel gauge lights up. The Mini needs petrol. I sigh. It’s half past one in the morning and my head is toast. The old man’s words have burrowed their way into my skull, nipping me with their sharp teeth.

I consider going back to Highfields, running this whole thing past him again. But what would be the point? He believes this whole thing is a set-up, and I believe . . . well, I’m no longer sure what I believe.

I pull into an all-night garage on the Old Kent Road and jump out. I grab the hose and try to fill her up but each time I squeeze the trigger there’s a clunk from the nozzle, then nothing.

I make my way to the shop where an attendant is barricaded inside behind reinforced glass. His ears are punctured by a row of metal studs, as is his nose, lower lip and right eyebrow. A human pincushion.

‘The pumps aren’t working,’ I say.

The guy shakes his head and points to a small microphone.

‘The pumps.’ I lean into it. ‘They’re not working.’

‘You gotta pay beforehand, love,’ he says.

‘I don’t know how much it will cost to fill the tank,’ I reply.

‘Gotta guess,’ he says.

‘What if I don’t need as much as I pay you?’

‘Come back here and I give you the change, all right?’

‘It all seems a bit complicated,’ I say.

‘Not really.’ The guy looks at me as if I’m stupid.

‘And what if I don’t stop?’ I ask. ‘What if I pay you ten quid but just keep pumping.’

The guy shakes his head. ‘Cut you off, innit.’

Fine. I pass two twenty-pound notes through the metal drawer. ‘Can I get a receipt?’ I ask.

The guy nods and slides a small white ticket towards me. Carefully, I slot it into the back of my purse. Since the last expenses scandal all receipts are pored over like forensic evidence at a murder scene.

As I go to close my purse, I catch sight of something. It’s Clem’s card and it makes me stop in my tracks. Rather than Dad, surely this is the man I need to speak to.

I check my watch. It’s late but I figure MI5 agents don’t work nine to five.

By the time I’ve put the gas in the tank, I’ve made up my mind. I jump inside the car and punch the numbers into my mobile.

‘Miss Connolly.’ He answers on the first ring.

‘Call me Jo,’ I say. ‘I hope this isn’t an inconvenient time.’

‘I’m at St Barts hospital.’

‘Right. I just wondered if I could speak to you about some things I have on my mind.’ I pause for emphasis. ‘Some concerns.’