by J. S. Monroe
“I know,” I replied. “I’m just guessing. I’m not a spy.”
“What happens if it means something else, if we activate them in some way?” Charlotte asked.
“Another bomb goes off,” I said. “It’s a risk we take.”
“It won’t,” Walter said, sitting back. “Dutchie’s right. Kiruna is delegating, nothing more. The guy who buys the kronas is picking up the Semtex, the one who says no thanks goes along as back up. Something like that. It’s up to them what they do with it.” Walter got up, and stretched in front of the window. He was wearing a thin belt which drew his trousers together too tightly at the back, creating extravagant, ungainly pleats. “I feel stronger already,” he said, turning to face me. “You’ve done well, Dutchie.”
There was a pause. I wasn’t sure I had followed the last leap, but Walter’s manner had changed dramatically. Charlotte smiled across at me, letting her eyes linger. I turned to the TV and thought of Annalese as the weatherman pointed to Cornwall and warned of storms.
*
Charlotte saw Walter out into the street, presumably to speak to him in private. He also needed some help with walking. He had drunk a whole bottle of red wine on his own as we chatted. I wasn’t certain it had been consumed in celebration. It was a small lead, we were only starting. But it seemed as if some weight had been taken off his shoulders. He looked vindicated.
While they were outside I rang the office again. Earlier I had explained to Dan that lunch wouldn’t be arriving because I had been caught up in the blast. It was nothing serious, I said, but I had gone for a check-up. I spoke to Debbie this time, said that I was still shaken and would be in tomorrow. Just as I was about to hang up she dropped her voice.
“The boss was asking questions this afternoon,” she said. “He wanted to know why you needed a print-out.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked casually.
“I said you were familiarising yourself with the incomprehensible world that is foreign exchange dealing,” she said awkwardly. I could never tell when Debbie was winding me up.
“I am.”
“I know. Don’t come in until you’re feeling better.”
21
“He seemed chuffed enough,” I said, as Charlotte came back down the hall. I was sitting at the kitchen table, lighting a cigarette.
“He doesn’t usually drink like that,” Charlotte said.
“Oh come on, the guy’s a pisshead.”
“Not at lunch-time.”
She sat down opposite me. It was a while since we had been at the table together, alone.
“You’re not going back in are you?” she said, taking one of my cigarettes. “You look dreadful. May I?”
I nodded. “I’ve just rung the office. I’m alright.”
“You’ve done well.”
“Will he give it a crack?”
“It looks like it. Next week perhaps.” She paused. “Were you frightened, when it happened again?”
“It brought back things I was trying to forget.”
“You’ll never forget them. No one does.”
“All those bankers, dead in the road.” I began to laugh drily. “I almost felt sorry for them, can you believe that?”
“Christ Dutchie, it’s a natural enough feeling,” she said, sitting back, exhaling.
“If they had died in the revolution I would have been dancing in the street.”
She paused for a moment, looking at me with a faint grin. “Do you really believe in all that?”
“In all what?” I countered.
“That there will one day be this great uprising of the people?”
“Yeah. So does the State. They wouldn’t be risking coppers like Martin if they didn’t.”
“No one believes in the revolution anymore. Communism’s dead.”
“Please, spare us the insults,” I said, pushing my chair back, trying to get some distance between us. “It’s got nothing to do with Communism. I’m not a Communist.”
“You don’t really believe in anything, do you? A bit of copper bashing now and then, to keep the testosterone levels down. That’s all it is.”
“I would never turn down the opportunity to smack old Bill. That’s quite true. But it’s got nothing to do with testosterone. It’s because they represent everything I hate about the wankers who run this country, that’s why. The workers are entitled to fight back.”
“And that includes killing people.”
“They’d kill us, given the chance.”
“Us. Who’s us, for Godsake?”
“The oppressed. The working classes.”
“You’re not working class. You’re not even middle class. How can you possibly say us?”
Charlotte got up from the table and went over to the Aga, where she opened one of the lids and put the kettle on. She was seething, her actions swifter than was necessary.
“If I see a black man given a beating,” I continued, putting one foot on the edge of the table. “I have to be black do I, before I can cross the street and help him?”
“You’re more likely to be beating him up.”
“You have no idea, do you? Not a fucking clue. I’m not a racist. My old man’s a racist. The couple who live next door to us are racists. You are, for all I know. I bet you cheered when Mandela was set free, when he became President. I didn’t, not because I liked De Klerk, but because I knew that in Soweto they would still have to fight to be heard.”
“I never realised you cared so much.”
“Don’t patronise me.”
I sat in silence for a while, looking out of the window. Normally our conversations ended with one of us walking out, shouting, but we both stayed where we were. Following on so soon from the bomb and the talk with Walter, this confrontation felt different, drained of any real hostility. There were suddenly limits, an underlying awareness of the need to cooperate with one another. Charlotte had turned, and was leaning with her back against the Aga rail, tidying a tea-towel hanging over it.
“Did Annalese believe in the revolution?” she asked quietly.
“In her way.”
“You argued a lot?”
“Would it make you feel better if I said we did?”
“It doesn’t bother me. I’m just being nosy.”
“She believed in lots of things.”
“But not the revolution.”
“What do you believe in? Stella for President? I’d sooner vote for Norman Tebbit. Anything for a quiet life.”
“One day I hope you’ll understand.”
“I don’t think you realise how patronising you are.”
“When this is all over I’ll explain. I promise.”
“Explain what?”
Charlotte paused for a moment, looking at the floor. Not for the first time, I sensed that I wasn’t being told everything, that information was being concealed from me.
“Explain what?” I repeated.
“We all have to make decisions,” she began, lifting her eyes towards me. “Annalese had that right taken away from her. She was left with no choice. It’s important you hold on to that.”
*
I spent the afternoon in bed, drifting in and out of troubled sleep. Explosions ricocheted across my dreams. Dusting myself down in the shop I would walk to the door and be thrown back across the floor by another rush of air. Each time I tried to leave I was thwarted. Once I made it out on to the pavement and held a conversation about the revolution with the top half of Annalese. She lay there, just a torso, propping herself up on her elbows and talking calmly about peaceful protest.
Charlotte brought me tea and sat on the end of my bed for a while. I was glad I didn’t have any sisters. If I had, they would be like her and I would hate them. Naive middle-class women who couldn’t understand why some people chose not to come home at Christmas.
“You were calling out,” she said, touching my leg lightly.
My reluctance to confide in her was fading. I sat up a little, pulli
ng a pillow awkwardly behind my head, and sipped some tea.
“What was I saying?”
“Something about Annalese.”
I paused, gave in. She could be anyone, it didn’t matter. I needed to talk.
“The bomb blew her legs away.”
“I know.”
“Her best bit.” I tried in vain to laugh.
“Do you feel guilty?”
“It didn’t have to happen. We could have been somewhere else. I thought it was Christmas.”
“Have you tried writing to her? It can help. Putting thoughts down on paper. Saying things you didn’t say.”
I thought about our conversation in the night, never saying I loved her, and stared up at the ceiling.
“You know, sometimes I can’t even see her face.”
“Do you have any photos?”
“I did. They were on the barge.”
“The barge is safe. I could get them for you.”
“That’s not the point. I was with her for a year. You would have thought that somewhere in my head I might have stored a few images. But all I get when I think of her is a lump in the street covered by a grey nylon anorak. I can see the manager’s face all right. Fuck him. I’d only known him for a minute. That’s odd, isn’t it? Maybe I didn’t love her.”
“I don’t think it’s odd at all.”
“The only reason I’m not dead is because I was poncing around in a shop for tall people. Tell me the logic in that. She needed some shoes, so she went to Pied à Terre. A sensible enough thing to do and she was blown to pieces.” She said nothing, sitting there upright at the end of my bed, cupping her hands around a mug of tea. She let me rest, talk some more.
“She never wanted to come to London anyway. I shouted louder, said Cornwall was boring. It’s all that remains of her now. I’ll move there when I’ve found them, live in a teepee, make an effort with her crustie friends.”
“Start a quieter revolution,” she added, smiling.
“I want them dead. It’s the only thing I am sure about.”
“I understand…”
“… but. Leave it.”
“I was going to say I know how you feel.”
“I doubt it.”
I turned away to the wall, regretted confiding. We were silent for a while and I slid towards sleep. Then I became aware of her voice, slow and soft.
“In Belfast once, a gunman came into a pub where we were all drinking. He shot two officers in the face, killing one of them. We were very close. I watched him die in the hospital. Two days later I was in the queue at Sainsbury’s, not far from the Falls Road. The person in front of me was the gunman.”
“How do you know?” I said quietly, filling the pause. I was still facing the wall, my eyes now open.
“We knew who the players were, who they had killed. Proving it in court was another matter. There was never enough evidence.”
“You should have taken him out yourself,” I said, turning over and propping myself up on the pillow.
“I nearly did, in the car park. I carried a gun in my handbag.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I had a career to think about.”
“Then you don’t know how I feel.” I fell back and sighed. “I would have shot him, fuck the career.”
She got up, drew the curtains, and left me to sleep. “Think of me when you find them,” she said, and closed the door.
22
As excuses went I decided that being caught in a bomb blast was hard to beat. For once I had breakfast in the daylight. Charlotte told me to tread carefully, not to trust Briggs, the chairman. Walter had been on the phone the night before, when I was asleep, expressing concern. Charlotte said he was just being over-cautious, but there was a question-mark over Briggs’s relationship with Samantha West. It had been an indiscretion, nothing more – Briggs had no idea who he was sleeping with – but Walter was nervous.
The tube journey passed quickly. I sensed I wouldn’t be a commuter for much longer. Things were coming together. I might even have a chat with Chuckster today, talk about peasants. I leaned against the revolving door and nodded to the security guard. A new face.
“Mr Reason?”
“Yes?”
“A package for you. Could you sign here please?”
The man was polite, but no sirs. It was meant to be company policy. I had checked with Debbie. As I took the pen, I saw the lift door open to my left. I looked up. Three men came out and approached the security barrier. The guard nodded at them. Without pausing, I dropped the pen and moved quickly towards the door, not quite running. Another man was coming in from the street. Behind me I heard the rustle of raincoats. Suddenly the man in front of me tried to grab my lapels. I raised myself on to my toes and headbutted him in the nose, cracking it like a walnut. Pushing him to one side, I ran out into the street. Yet another man was getting out of a Mondeo, parked outside the entrance.
I turned right, sprinted down Lombard Street, almost losing my balance as I span into Birchin Lane, and ran. Heart thumping, I searched for cover, dreading dead ends. Feet were clattering behind me, getting closer. Passing the Stock Exchange, I went down Throgmorton Street, spotted Bank tube entrance and half jumped my way down the stairs. The ticket foyer was crowded, but not enough. I ran up to a barrier, smacked my hands down on the grey boxes and leapt over. I hadn’t done it for a while and my foot caught, sending me flying. Picking myself up I sprinted down an escalator, saw a train and dived into it as the doors were closing.
Wheezing like an asthmatic, I forced air into my lungs, leant forward, and held on to the chrome bar for strength. The carriage was full and a murmur rose and fell. All eyes were on me but no one said anything. I stayed on the train until the end of the line, Edgware, by which time there was no one left in the carriage who had seen me arrive. I got out, walked slowly to the escalators and let them carry me to the surface. Only then did I realise I was in Zone 4. I didn’t care anymore. Walking up to a man in a uniform, I made my excuses, expecting a £10 fine. He waved me through.
*
“I don’t know who they were,” I said. “They knew who I was.”
“How many? Charlotte asked. “Four did you say?”
“Six, if the security guard was in on it.”
“Where are you now?”
“Edgware Station.”
“Get away from there. They’ll be checking every station on the Northern Line.”
“Who’s ‘they’ for fucksake?”
“I can’t tell you now.”
“I need to know.”
“I think they were from MI5.”
“What?”
I swallowed hard, gripping the receiver tightly.
“I said I would explain to you. I can’t now.”
“Wait a minute, I’m not going anywhere,” I said, looking around the tube foyer. A lorry thundered past the entrance, rattling a loose manhole. I put a finger to one ear. “Let me get this straight. You just said to me that those men were MI5. Is that right?”
“Dutchie.”
“Answer me.”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Then who the fuck are you?”
“Keep your voice down. It’s not safe to talk on the phone.” I thought about slamming the receiver down. I looked about me despairingly. Someone had come up to use the phone.
“Dutchie, there’s a pub called The Duke of Wellington, up near the Watford bypass, about a quarter of an hour’s walk from you. I’ll meet you there at eleven. Lose yourself, Dutchie. Please.”
She hung up. I stood holding the receiver, facing the foyer. It suddenly felt a dangerous place to be standing. I put the receiver down calmly and walked out into the sunlight. I resisted running; I didn’t know where to run. I thought about hailing a cab, then wondered who might be driving it. I had to calm down, not be paranoid. Where was I going? I looked at a man selling flowers. Could I trust him? Buster Edwards used to sell flowers. I asked him where the pub was a
nd the man obliged with simple directions, said it was near St Mary’s Hospital. It wouldn’t be open yet, he added. I must have sounded like an alcoholic. My legs started running, I couldn’t help myself, and they didn’t stop at the pub. On I went, up the hill, knowing I could find my way back by eleven.
*
Charlotte walked into the main bar ten minutes late. There were two old men by a fruit machine, otherwise the place was empty. I was sitting in the corner behind the door, next to the cigarette machine. I had already drunk one pint of Export and was halfway through my second.
Charlotte sat down on a squat, cushioned stool, looked around her again, then turned to me.
“I’m sorry about this, Dutchie,” she said.
I sat in silence, taking in her appearance. She was wearing jeans and a pullover. By her feet she had placed a small canvas hold-all.
“We’ve got to go. I’m worried about Walter.”
“What about me?” I said loudly. “Tell me what’s going on.” She looked around anxiously.
“We can’t talk here. Come on. I’ve got the car outside.”
I finished my pint while she waited at the door. The car was around the corner on a double yellow line. A stout female traffic warden was walking towards us.
“Get in the back,” Charlotte said, opening the driver’s door.
“You’re parked on a double yellow line,” the warden began flatly. She was standing next to the front passenger door, her feet set apart. Charlotte ignored her, got into the car, started the engine and drove off. I looked behind us, and saw the warden writing down the number plate.
“That might have been a mistake,” I said.
“Silly cow. I was leaving.”
I smiled. She was coming round.
“So what’s going on?” I asked, sitting back in the seat. The beer was relaxing me.
“Like I said, they were probably MI5.”
“I thought you would say that. Who do you work for then?”
“When I was in Northern Ireland, I worked for MI5. But I don’t anymore, not directly. I work for Walter.”
“And who does Walter work for?”
“He’s employed by the government. His brief is to keep an eye on MI5. He’s an ombudsman, a watchdog. It was one of the first appointments New Labour made. They are suspicious of the Security Services, always have been, ever since Five tried to destabilise Wilson.”