White Riot (40 page)

Donovan looked at it. Laughed. ‘Fuck me.’

‘It’s a kind offer,’ said Amar, ‘but you’re not my type. What does it mean?’

‘The company that owns it. It’s Abdul-Haq’s.’ He looked at the other two. ‘Now why am I not surprised?’

Whitman pulled hard, fingers scrabbling and sore, managed to lift his body up on top of the brick wall. He balanced his body, fingers holding on, chest aching and trying to pant quietly, not wanting to be heard, gathering strength for the jump down. He could smell the stale alcohol on his breath, knew it wasn’t a crutch, like fuel for his engine.

He slung one leg over, the other, lowered himself indelicately down, scraping his suit against the rough brickwork as he did so. He landed on the ground, stood up, checked for noise. Nothing. Good.

He had walked all round the NUP headquarters, looking for a way in, found nothing except the back alley, a seven-foot brick wall with a locked, wooden gate set into it.

He was in a concrete back yard, nothing in it but bins, old cardboard and bottles. At the back of the building, a door, half-glassed, with a window beside it. He tried the door. Locked. Checked the window. Locked from the inside but loose in its frame. Heart rising, blood pumping faster, he wedged his fingers under the hinged window frame, pulled hard. It rattled but didn’t budge. Pulled harder. Heard the splintering of rotten wood. Pulled harder. The window opened.

He wiped his brow. He was sweating, shaking. He wiped his hands down the front of his jacket, checked the gun was still where it should be, pulled himself up on to the windowsill.

He managed to climb inside the window, get his feet on to the floor on the other side. He stood up. Still shaking, still sweating. He hadn’t felt so unfit for years, but he doubted that was the main reason.

Ahead of him was a hallway with a staircase leading upstairs. He drew his gun, set off quietly down the hallway. A small kitchen was to his left, a toilet to his right. He walked on. Another staircase, a doorway ahead. Noise coming from beyond the door; people drinking, watching the TV. Slowly he made his way up the stairs.

On the landing were more doors, light seeping from under one of them. That was Shepherd. He knew it. Could feel it. He tried the handle. Locked.

Bastard. He thought hard, tried to work out what to do next. He had come this far, he couldn’t just stop now. The action was taken out of his hands. Movement in the room. Someone coming to the door. Whitman’s heart began pumping even harder. He looked round, desperate for a hiding place. Couldn’t find one. Flattened himself by the side of the door, waited, gun in hand, for it to open.

It did. The key was turned. Whitman’s breath caught. Alan Shepherd stepped out. He would have recognized him anywhere. The hair was gone and the face was lined, but the eyes were the same. If anything, they were worse.

Shepherd stepped through the door. Whitman put the barrel of his gun against Shepherd’s temple.

‘Don’t move, cunt.’ His voice was shaking and breathy. Whitman struggled to control it.

Shepherd stopped moving, smiled. ‘Trevor. How nice. Would you like me to put my hands up too?’

‘Why not?’ Whitman’s voice was getting stronger. ‘Back inside.’

‘I was on my way to the toilet.’

‘Then you’ll just have to cross your legs. Back inside.’

Shepherd did as he was told.

Whitman followed him in, the gun trained on his back.
Shepherd was trying to act casually, but his shoulders were tensed and hunched as if he knew where the gun was aimed.

‘Look, Gideon,’ said Shepherd, ‘look who it is. The hollowest of Hollow Men.’

‘Alan? What …’

Whitman looked down. It took him a few seconds, but he recognized the figure on the chesterfield.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Gideon.’

‘Trevor.’ Abdul-Haq’s face drained of colour. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Come to watch the election results, like the rest of us,’ said Sharples. ‘Why don’t you put the gun away, pull up a chair. Have a drink with us.’

Whitman sneered. ‘What, all old friends together?’

‘That sort of thing.’

‘Sit down, Alan. Or I’ll shoot you.’

Shepherd stayed standing. He turned round, faced Whitman. ‘Really.’

Whitman tried to keep his grip tight, his hand steady. He remembered his earlier shooting, tried to draw strength from that, from the gun itself. ‘Yes, really. I’ve already shot two people today. Want to make it a third?’

Doubt flickered briefly across Shepherd’s face, then was gone. He moved over to the other chesterfield, sat down. ‘There. Happy?’

‘Ecstatic.’ He held the gun tight. His hand wasn’t shaking now. ‘Now—’

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. His mobile rang.

Amar motioned Donovan across the room to the laptop. ‘Whitman’s phone. He’s got a call coming in.’ He turned the sound up so the other two could hear.

‘Recognize the number?’

‘I think … give me a minute.’ He went looking through his lists.

Whitman answered his phone.

‘Hello, Trevor.’

‘What? Who is …’ He thought for a moment. The voice was familiar.

‘Oh, come on,’ said the voice on the phone. ‘Don’t say you’ve forgotten me.’ There was anger in the tone and also bitterness.

Whitman placed it. ‘Mary. Mary Evans.’

On the sofa, Alan Shepherd smiled.

‘Yes. Hello, lover. After all these years. Surprised to hear from me? You should be.’

Whitman looked at the two on the sofas, back to the phone. ‘Right, Mary. It’s great to hear from you, and I would love to spend some time catching up, but I’m a bit busy at the moment. Why don’t we—’

‘Always busy.’ The anger was there again, accompanied by a manic edge. ‘Busy, busy, busy. Always got something better to do than talk to Mary. Spend time with Mary. Give some respect to Mary.’ The last few words were almost spat out.

Whitman gave an exasperated sigh. ‘What d’you want?’

She laughed. It wasn’t pleasant. ‘Just some of your time, lover man. Got a little job for you to do. Take you on a trip down memory lane.’

‘Look, Mary, like I said, I’m a bit busy at the moment.’

‘Don’t fucking patronize me! You’ll listen to me when I’m talking to you! Listen! Right?’

‘Mary—’

‘If you want to see your daughter alive again, you’ll fucking listen.’

Whitman’s mouth fell open. The words that had been about to come out died in his throat. ‘What?’

Again, that laugh. ‘You heard.’

He looked at Shepherd and Abdul-Haq. He had been sure they had Peta. ‘But, what …’

‘It’s very simple. Even an ageing pretty boy like you can understand. I’ve got your daughter. Now she’s alive at the moment and she’ll stay that way. But you have to do something for me.’

‘What?’ Whitman was shaking again, sweating. He tried to stand still, hold the gun upright. But his hands were slick, his legs shaking.

‘Run an errand. Down memory lane. Relive the story of our love. Then you can see your daughter again. Alive.’ She laughed again.

‘What?’

‘Remember how we were always going to the cinema? We saw everything together. Remember
Dirty Harry
? Clint Eastwood?’

‘What about it?’

She laughed again. ‘You’ll see.’

He looked again at the two on the sofa. ‘What? What d’you want me to do?’

‘Go to the Quayside. By the Guildhall. Underneath the arch of the Swing Bridge. There’s something there waiting for you. Go and get it.’

‘But—’

‘The clock’s ticking. The longer you wait, the more chance you have of not seeing your pretty daughter alive. There’s a public phone box there. Be waiting for a call. You’ve got ten minutes.’

The line went dead. He put the phone down, looked back at Shepherd, who was openly grinning.

‘Leaving us, Trevor? And so soon.’

Whitman stared at him, the gun still trained on him. ‘You knew. You were expecting … expecting that call.’

‘Of course. I’ve left nothing to chance.’ He held up his mobile. ‘Had a text waiting, just ready for you to turn up. That was the signal.’

Whitman stared at Shepherd. The gun was starting to get heavy.

‘Hadn’t you better be running along?’

‘Yes … yes …’

Whitman’s phone rang again. This time, Shepherd was as surprised as Whitman. He answered it, clumsily putting it to his ear, still holding the gun outstretched.

‘Yes?’

‘Trevor, it’s Joe Donovan.’

Whitman groaned. ‘Look, this isn’t—’

‘I just heard the call. From Mary Evans.’

Whitman wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. ‘What? What d’you mean? I’ve just …’

‘We’ve been listening in. I said we were good. Where are you now? Have you reached the NUP place?’

‘But how did you …’

‘Like I said, we’re good. Are you there yet?’

‘Yes, yes, I am.’

‘And who else is there?’

‘Alan Shepherd. And Gideon.’ His composure began to return. ‘They’re not going anywhere. I’ve got a gun on them.’

‘Brilliant.’ Donovan sounded exasperated. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Trevor. Just don’t let them get away. They’ll be arrested before the end of the night.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t panic. Just listen to me. We have a plan. I’ll go down to the Quayside, keep the appointment for you.’

‘But—’

‘Don’t argue, Trevor, and just listen. We think we know what she’s doing but we’re running out of time. I’ll go down
to the Quayside, wait for the call. We’ll have to keep in contact. Can you get another phone?’

Whitman looked around. Shepherd’s mobile was still on the table between the two seated men. He waved his gun at Shepherd. ‘Give me your phone.’

‘What?’

‘Fucking do it!’ He moved closer, stuck his gun in Shepherd’s face. Shepherd handed over the phone.

‘What’s the number?’ said Donovan.

Whitman asked Shepherd for the number, repeated it to Donovan.

‘Right,’ said Donovan. ‘I’m going to call it.’ It rang. ‘Answer it. Put it on speakerphone, keep it near you. That’s how we keep in touch. Right, I’m going now. I’m counting on you. Peta’s life depends on you. Don’t fuck up.’

Donovan rang off. Whitman put his phone down, kept the gun on the other two. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘looks like I’m going nowhere for the time being.’

Shepherd and Abdul-Haq exchanged glances. This wasn’t the plan.

This wasn’t the plan at all.

Amar sat at the desk, watching numbers tumble down the screen, counting, analysing them as they went. Cross-reference them with the mapped-out grid on the screen next to him, try to pick up Mary Evans’s location and, by extension, the location of Peta.

Donovan and Jamal had set off moments earlier on foot, running down to the Quayside. They hadn’t had time to test out the Bluetooth earpieces. Amar just hoped they worked as they were supposed to.

They had all agreed not to phone Di Nattrass until they had something more concrete to tell her. Whitman with Shepherd at the NUP headquarters was one thing, working with Whitman to free Peta quite another. If Mary Evans was as unstable as they suspected her to be, the presence of police might just be thing to tip her over the edge. And they had no idea what she might do to Peta.

His mobile, sitting on the coffee table in front of the
TV
, began playing Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Release the Stars’. Amar’s ringtone for an incoming text. He started to get up from his chair, cross the room, answer it. Then stopped. The screen had come up with a partial match for Mary’s number.

He sat back down again, pressed some keys, watched, waited. The box sprang up: nothing.

He sighed, sat back. Kept staring. Kept hunting.

The mobile on the table forgotten for now.

*

The 4×4, with the vans in tow, drove into Newcastle, sticking one mile over any given speed limit so as not to arouse suspicion. Once in the city centre the convoy split up. The vans headed off down the West Road towards Arthur’s Hill. The 4×4 continued down to the Central Station, negotiated the traffic system around it, skirting the Arena and, thankful there was no concert on that night, down Forth Street behind the station. It came to rest outside a lock-up in one of the old railway arches. The driver got out, unlocked the old wooden doors, drove the 4×4 inside, locked up behind him.

Major Tom got out, flicked a switch. Striplights flickered into life overhead, casting a bare, depressing glow throughout. ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘High command.’

Kev, his stomach lurching, got out. The place was dusty and dirty. Empty. It carried the ghosts of bad things on its musty air. Jason stayed where he was. Major Tom turned to him, beckoned with the slightest crook of his right index finger. Jason immediately scrambled from the car.

‘Good. Let me check the equipment.’

Jason unzipped his bomber. Like an oversized version of Batman’s utility belt, the bomb was strapped round Jason’s waist, high explosive distributed evenly in packs, interspersed with containers of nails and shrapnel. In place of a buckle was a timer on the front of a detonator. Wires connected the detonator with the rest of the bomb. It had been designed to look home-made and lethal. Exactly the sort of thing a deranged loner would come up with.

‘Good,’ said Major Tom as Jason stood silently to be examined. He stood back. ‘Zip up.’

Jason did as he was told. Major Tom checked his watch, asked his driver the time. Quarter to midnight. The platoon’s watches had all been synchronized. Major Tom reached across the seat of the 4×4, brought out the corded mic of a field radio. He depressed the button, spoke into it.

‘A team, B team, C team, D team, can you hear me, over?’

Static and crackle, then each leader reporting in, answering in the affirmative.

‘Good,’ said Major Tom. ‘This is an order. Repeat, this is an order. Operation Thor’s Hammer is ready to go on my signal.’ He checked his watch again, waited for the seconds to tick by, hit zero. ‘Go. All units go.’

The A team were stationed on Nun’s Moor. Their leader, Kev’s old lieutenant, Ligsy, switched his mobile off, turned to the troops. Eight of them, standing to attention, weapons visible. Like attack dogs straining on too short leashes. Almost gave him a hard-on just to see them.