by Kim Hughes
‘The bomb.’
‘Ah.’
‘And McGurk’s farm. Fermanagh.’
He shook his head. ‘I had nothing to do with any of that shite.’
‘Your file says otherwise.’ Riley moved the wires closer. ‘I had a drink last night. Few beers. More than I intended, in fact. Still feel a bit rough. DTs. Touch of the shakes on the hands.’
O’Donnell watched the gap between the wires reduce. They were indeed dancing a little too much for his comfort. ‘What do you want, son? I’m an old man. Made my peace with God this morning. You don’t frighten me. Say your bit and fuck off.’
‘My name doesn’t matter. All you need to know is I’m an ATO. And what I want to know is: are any of your old friends after me or my mates?’
He shook his head and sighed in exasperation. ‘How would I know that?’
‘Oh, come on. I bet you keep your ear to the ground. If there was a shout out to take down an ATO, you’d know. And we EOD boys were never that popular with your lot.’
‘I’ve heard nothing.’
‘No? Because I reckon someone has my name on a list. I reckon Nottingham was to draw me out.’ If Riley hadn’t been suspended, it would have been him, not Spike, who caught the full blast of the secondary. ‘Then someone wired my car. Now that’s personal. Especially as my daughter was with me.’ The last came out as a growl. He had to keep calm. Any histrionics on his part and O’Donnell would see that as weakness and clam up. Riley might be seething inside, but he had to use that anger sparingly with George, showing just enough to convince the Irishman that he might be someone who really would touch the wires together.
‘As far as I know there is no action on the mainland linked to what you call “my lot”. Is that it? Can you fuck off now?’
Riley shook his head. ‘Not just yet. I want to know one more thing. Where the kit you used for Melton Mowbray and McGurk’s came from. The yellow and purple wires. Remember them?’
The Irishman kept quiet, his eyes on the glinting twists of copper in Riley’s hands. The dog gave a whimper, as if she knew what was being threatened. ‘It’s okay, Astral,’ O’Donnell said as soothingly as he could manage, ‘He’ll be going soon.’
‘It’s not much,’ said Riley, indicating the dog and the makeshift vest he’d created for it using the items he had taken from the stores at the barracks before leaving on his Yamaha. ‘Just a little sausage of explosive on his belly. Just the right amount to… ping… open Astral up. He might not die immediately, but it’ll take a supervet to save him. Got one of those round here, have you?’
‘You cunt.’
‘Don’t come over all Paul O’Grady on me, George. Melton Mowbray would have killed some horses, maybe dogs. And your pals did murder and maim innocent horses at Hyde Park.’
‘They were war horses,’ he hissed. ‘Legitimate targets. This is a companion, a pet.’
‘Soon to be an ex-pet if you’re not careful. I’m not sure you were responsible for McGurk. It might have been after your time. Maybe a protégé. But I think Melton was yours. You know the man who took the bomb out of the Cortina? He taught me. Colonel Ross, as he became, was something of a mentor. Talked us through your bomb, the Pizza Bomber’s, the one at Harvey’s Resort, the American bombs in Hong Kong, the British in Berlin… you’re one of the famous examples he used on the High Threat course. Should be proud, in a sick kind of way. C’mon, George, let’s get a move on. After I turn Astral here inside out, I’ll start with the knife on you.’ Riley nodded to the blade, just in case O’Donnell hadn’t really clocked it, his attention distracted by his dog being wired to a suicide vest. ‘And I’ve got more explosive to make sure I cover my tracks. I’ll burn this whole place to such a crisp Gary Lineker’ll start advertising it.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Yeah. Sadly, I’m not here all week. Time is pressing.’
O’Donnell narrowed his eyes and Riley could tell he was struggling to get a handle on him. The shifts in tone were disorienting the Irishman. His cockiness was fading. Which is exactly what Riley intended.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ the old man asked, more subdued this time.
‘That’s where you came in, George. I don’t want to go round in circles. I want to know where the purple and yellow wiring came from. It was there at Melton Mowbray. Before my time, but it’s in the reports. The first occasion I came across it in person was in Fermanagh. The second time, Nottingham. It’s not a coincidence, is it, George?’ Annoyingly, his one sample of the Nottingham batch had gone up in The Heap, so he had no visual aid to dangle before O’Donnell.
Riley brought the wires so close, it was as if a keen spark could leap the gap between them.
O’Donnell looked at his dog again and smiled to try to reassure her. It was more a rictus grin. If he was a dog swathed in explosives, Riley wouldn’t have been placated by that at all. Eventually, the Irishman’s shoulders dropped and the tension left his body. Whatever he knew, Riley figured, it wasn’t worth losing Astral for. He licked his lips and spoke quietly, as if even loud words could trigger the device wrapped around his dog. ‘Libya. All that stuff came from Libya. Yellow and purple used to be the colour for the live in the south of the country, before everything got standardised. After that, there were drums of the stuff sitting in warehouses.’
‘And they sent them to you?’
‘Yeah. But not just wire. You got a kit. Just like IKEA, you know? Build your own bomb. Everything you needed for a variety of types, switches, wire, batteries, blasting caps, det cord, all except the Semtex or gelignite. The main charge had to be sourced separately.’
‘So you had off-the-shelf flatpacks?’
‘Aye. Or something you would have got at that store that’s gone now. What was it? Maplin. A DIY bomb kit. Dozens of them. You got some with timers, some with tilt switches, others with radio-control dets. It meant any fuckin’ eejit could put one together. Came with circuit diagrams, the lot. Of course, they were pretty basic.’ His Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny neck as he swallowed. ‘Okay, now move those wires apart a touch, you’re makin’ me sweat here, and me in my best suit.’
Riley’s arms were growing tired. He moved them to rest his elbows on the chair. ‘There’s a link here somewhere, old man, between your IKEA kits and Nottingham. The same distinctive wire. And if you don’t make the connection for me, I’m going to sit here till I get bored and blow up your dog just for the fun of it.’ He allowed just a little hint of the hatred he felt for the man to creep into his tone.
‘I’ve met some mad people in my life, son. Fuckin’ nutters. You can imagine, can’t you? The Provos had their fair share of psychos, I can tell you. You don’t strike me as one of them.’
‘It’s the quiet ones you want to watch out for,’ Riley said. ‘I’m going to tell you what I used to do for a living.’ He gave a run-down of an average day in Afghan, at the height of the plague of IEDs. Bomb, after bomb, after bomb in temperatures that could boil the blood. Then go back and do it all again the next day. With not so much as a beer in between.
‘I take it back,’ said O’Donnell when Riley had finished. ‘You are feckin’ mad.’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘Okay, look. I’d fuckin’ strangle you with my bare hands if I could. And I reserve the right to do so, should our paths ever cross again. But, Jesus forgive me, I know how the yellow and purple wire got to Nottingham. Although I didn’t know what they would use it for.’
Perhaps he thought ‘they’ had a big re-wiring job on for Barratt Homes, thought Riley, but he didn’t want to puncture the mood of confession. But the old man said no more. ‘Yes?’ Riley prompted, impatient.
‘I think I should move back to Ireland. I’m only here for m’boys, and how often do they come and see their old da? No, I think it’s time to go home. England’s a shitehole. What do you think?’
There was a fizzing in Riley’s brain, like acid on alkali. He went for the wires once more,
so furious that he knew, this time, he would call the old terrorist’s bluff. And fuck the dog.
‘Hold up, hold up. Only kiddin’,’ said O’Donnell in alarm. ‘Jesus, you’re a hot one. I believe you now. Tape up the ends of the wire and I’ll tell you. God’s honest truth. You’ve still got your little pocket knife there if I make any trouble. I don’t want you blowing up Astral by mistake.’
Riley waited while order was restored inside his head. He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. It took a few minutes. O’Donnell clasped his hands in front of him, as if he was about to kneel and pray. How can a man with his history make any kind of peace with any kind of god? Riley wondered. Still, he had just come close to some sort of edge himself. Breathe.
‘Why Astral?’ Riley asked eventually.
‘Astral Weeks. Van Morrison. I know he’s a Prod an’ all that, but the man’s a genius.’
Riley carefully laid down the wires several inches apart on one of the arms of the chair and picked up the roll of black insulating tape from the cushion next to him. Riley sensed O’Donnell holding his breath as he unpeeled a decent length, bit it off with his teeth and entombed the bare copper of one of the wires. That was enough to be going on with.
‘There, safe as houses.’ Riley let his fingers settle on the handle of the knife. ‘Now, George. Yellow and purple wires. From Libya to Nottingham. Do tell.’
O’Donnell looked at his dog and nodded, as if to reassure her that the danger had passed for the minute, laid back in the chair and began to talk.
THIRTY-ONE
After she left Thames House and emerged from the shrouding of scaffolding currently covering it, Kate Muraski walked across Lambeth Bridge. She desperately needed a black coffee or three, but there was fuck-all available on a Sunday morning in the immediate vicinity. Even the restaurants at the base of the Millbank Tower didn’t open till midday.
She eventually found herself across the river in Lambeth Gardens, sitting on a bench, head between her knees, wondering if she was going to throw up. The façade she had put on for Oakham had crumbled, and she could feel waves of nausea and weariness breaking over her, with the pain of Jamal’s death not far behind.
The number of Jamal’s parents appeared on her screen, sent from the investigating officer. Oakham had been as good as his word.
She sat staring at the digits, hoping they would go away. She didn’t feel strong enough to call. What would she say? She wasn’t even sure her voice still worked, given the tightness in her throat.
Still, eventually she steeled herself and pressed the screen. Bilal – the brother – answered. Muraski found herself garbling that she was ‘a work colleague, university friend’. He knew who she was, he interrupted. Bilal explained in a voice shot through with torment that his parents were too distraught to come to the phone. They wanted some time to take it all in. Perhaps tomorrow would be better? She asked if he could let her know about funeral arrangements, knowing that, as a Muslim, he would be buried as quickly as possible, although that might be delayed by a post-mortem she supposed. Of course, said the brother, we will keep you informed. Then Bilal said it.
He talked about you all the time, Kate. I had to tell him to shut up about you. He really liked you.
She thanked him, rang off and then cried so hard that a middle-aged woman came and sat next to her. Muraski let the woman put an arm round her while her body shook. Eventually the sobbing subsided. She accepted a tissue and assured the woman she would be all right. She just needed to compose herself.
She had no idea how long she sat there watching the pigeons and wondering about how unfair life was. You join MI5 or MI6 and you assume that someone, somewhere would get killed on your watch. Some unfortunate ‘asset’ in North Korea or the Ukraine, an undercover officer infiltrating gangs, perhaps. You’d log it and move on. But it seemed to her that these days walking the streets late at night in London was as risky as being a spy. If Jamal had died as a result of an operation – not that he was any kind of field agent – that would be one thing, but to be murdered as the result of a chance encounter, that was just so unfair. The randomness of it put ice in her veins.
He talked about you all the time.
The phrase echoed around Kate Muraski’s mind, stuck on a seemingly endless loop, like a piece of bloody Philip Glass music.
She checked the time on her phone. She had been out of Thames House for hours, it seemed. She was tired and hungry and thirsty. But before she could address any of those issues, her phone pinged. It was a message from Jimmy Fu, head of surveillance, asking if she was coming. He had footage she ought to see. She had forgotten that Oakham had told her he wanted to see her. She shook her head vigorously, as if it could somehow throw off her grief. It didn’t, but she had to put it to one side for now. She stood and retraced her steps to the office. It was time to get back on the horse.
* * *
The Fus were a wealthy family from Asia, with branches in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau, dealing in hotels, restaurants, fashion and gambling. Jimmy was only a second cousin of the patriarch of the business. Nevertheless, the rumour was Jimmy didn’t have to work, thanks to his shareholdings in the Fu conglomerate. One thing was certain, he was the best-dressed man in Thames House, probably to Oakham’s chagrin. He was probably like those rappers who ditch sneakers after one wear, because everything about Fu looked box fresh.
His fiefdom, the ‘Surveillance Suite’, occupied three large interconnected spaces on the third floor. They looked much like the newsroom of a large newspaper or the trading floor of an investment bank – clusters of men and women peering into computers, occasionally grabbing the phone to report or check something. Fu had an office just off one of the rooms, which was glass-walled and actually had no door, as if he didn’t want to block the flow of information from his Doggs. The suite was actually a satellite of GCHQ, and the raw data was always shared with the bigger brother in ‘The Doughnut’ at Cheltenham. It was, on paper, a duplication of work, but every so often having teams with different perspectives analysing the same material paid dividends.
Muraski sat at Fu’s desk while he brought up a file on his laptop. She had tried to fix her face as best she could before the meeting, but she knew she looked rough as a pineapple’s arse. She needed sleep. Fu obviously thought so too.
‘I won’t keep you long. I know… well, I heard about Jamal. I’m sorry. We had dealings. Good guy. Fucking disgrace.’
‘Yes. It is.’
Fu had inevitably been called Fu Manchu when he arrived at Thames House in less racially sensitive days, something he got wind of quickly and squashed. Two of his Doggs who had exchanged jocular emails – which required a fair degree of stupidity, given what their section did – were moved to less exciting jobs in the quartermaster’s stores. Fu was as far away from Sax Rohmer’s Yellow Peril character as possible, smooth of skin, lightly perfumed, with a floppy fringe of dark-black hair. Age difficult to pin down, but, by all accounts, very clean living, which made it even trickier. He had a genetic aversion to alcohol which caused him to flush if he had even one glass of wine, so he didn’t drink. He did do triathlons, which Kate always thought was a cry for help, but he seemed to thrive on it.
‘Okay,’ he said, satisfied he was ready to roll the footage he had been preparing. ‘As your request was to monitor the CCTV installed on the grounds of Dunston Hall…’
‘Yes.’
‘… we hacked in to the cameras – piss easy – and installed a second motion-sensor alarm system to indicate to us when something happened. To save us trawling through hours of flowers coming into bloom. We actually had very little activity, if you discount some fox that kept triggering the lights at night. Then, this morning, this.’
He swivelled the laptop around so she could see the screen and pressed play. She was looking at the driveway of Dunston Hall, with the Clifford-Browns’ BMW parked on the gravel.
She watched as the door with the giant lion knocker opened and He
nry Clifford-Brown stepped out into the chill early morning air, wearing an overcoat, gloves and a hat. She could see his breath steaming and he adjusted the scarf around his neck. Behind him, another figure she didn’t recognise, dressed in black. Younger than Clifford-Brown. It was hard to make out his features, but the position of his body suggested one thing to Kate.
‘Christ. Has he got a gun on the old man? Can you zoom in?’
‘Not without it pixilating so badly you won’t see anything. But I agree, that could be. I can run it through some software. It won’t be like CSI though,’ he said with a grin.
‘It never is.’
They climbed into the BMW, with Clifford-Brown behind the wheel, the other in the passenger seat, and it drove off at a stately pace.
‘No Mrs Clifford-Brown?’ she asked.
‘No. And whoever that man is, he didn’t come in the front door.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We’ve checked all the CCTV footage for the past few days. No sign of his calling.’
There was also no evidence of him or anyone else other than the Clifford-Browns being in the house when she had visited. ‘You think he broke in?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Are there cameras at the rear?’ Muraski asked.
Fu shook his head. ‘Not on the west wing, just the place next door. The Russian’s place.’ She nodded to indicate she knew all about Kutsik. ‘Obviously we recorded the licence plate number of the BMW. It is registered to Clifford-Brown. Then put in an urgent request for road monitoring to track it.’
‘And?’
‘Drawn a blank. Hasn’t appeared on anything, no motorway or A-roads covered by cameras in the vicinity.’
‘Which means what?’ she asked.
‘At a guess? They switched cars down the road. I’ve got local police checking the immediate vicinity.’
‘Good. Christ, he is a slippery one,’ said Kate.
‘Clifford-Brown? Well, that’s as may be, but if what we think we saw is right, and it is a gun, then he isn’t calling the shots. Is he?’