Guy Fawkes Day

by KJ Griffin

  ***

  As soon as Darren's interview with Omar ended the bar exploded into fits of high-pitched, frenzied discussions. The large melee thronging the TV set dispersed violently from that corner, instantly filling all the seating and making the bar impenetrable. Diehard viewers issued vain pleas for quiet but soon resigned themselves to the agitated buzz of conversations all around.

  Sophie made a frantic charge for the door, resolutely ignoring all other friends and tugging ever harder at Joanna's hand till they found the space she so desperately needed outside.

  She felt scared, inexplicably scared, plain scared. Hugging the wall closely she managed to escape the surge of excited drinkers, finding peace and fresh air in the quad outside, where she slumped against the wall and swigged a mouthful of beer.

  Joanna joined her friend and crouched down in front of Sophie, covering her mouth in shock.

  ‘My God, Soph, that was him, wasn't it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you ever have any idea anything like this was going to happen?’

  ‘No, no, never,’ Sophie groaned, clutching her hair. ‘Oh God, give me a cigarette, Joanna. I feel so confused.’

  ‘Is there anything else you think you should tell me, Soph?’

  She accepted the cigarette Joanna offered and stymied the first tears in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Well, quite a lot really…’ she sighed and she began to unburden herself, telling Joanna about the real nature of her stay in Omar's house, about Omar's explanations for Goss's execution and Easterby's role in the affair, about Talbot's visits and the awful photo of 'Omar' and Mum.

  By the time Sophie had finished Joanna was sitting next to her, their backs propped up against the stone wall and there were several cigarette butts on the floor.

  ‘My God, you poor thing," Joanna whispered. ‘And what an absolute bastard Omar is, despite all the money he's left you! So he put you through all that just to get back at your mum? Why? Because she dumped him all those years ago?’

  ‘Probably. I don't know for sure.’

  ‘And does your mum realize you know about her and Omar?'

  Sophie flicked ash angrily from the tip of another cigarette.

  ‘Yes, that was why she rang earlier in the library. She's in an awful state about it, wants to come here tomorrow to explain in person.’

  ‘Ugh. How yucky, you and your mother both with the same man! Oh sorry, Soph, I didn't mean it like that.’

  Sophie looked coolly at Joanna.

  ‘Forget it. In fact, you're right, that's the whole trouble. You see, it’s hard to explain in words, but it’s as if I almost feel jealous of Mum. Omar went to see her last night apparently. If he was in the mood for visiting, why didn't he come here to see me? All I got was some letter for me with Mum.’

  Joanna looked appalled.

  ‘You can't seriously still have feelings for this man, Soph, after all he's done to you?"

  But Joanna's rebuke only made Sophie feel glummer.

  ‘I know that's how I should feel. But I just don't and I don't know why. With all that's going on right now I feel I'm never going to see Omar again and… and that's just not good enough.’

  ‘You're certainly right about that. The only chance you'll have of seeing that bastard again will be if they capture him alive and lock him up. And I doubt whether he'll be much good to you there - they'll put him away for a very long time, you know. What he's doing in the Commons is high treason,’ she fumed, clinching Sophie's hand in hers. ‘Guy Fawkes got hung, drawn and quartered for no more.’

  Her observation only spawned a long, gloomy silence. Eventually, it was up to Joanna again.

  ‘Anyway, come on, cheer up, Soph. You’ve still got the house and all that money.’

  ‘Sophie?’

  Sophie recognized the voice before she saw the face. It sounded a little deeper and gruffer than usual and she looked across to see Marcus's profile sufficiently illuminated by the lights from the bar to accentuate his fine slender nose and the thick blond quiff bobbing around his forehead. He was unconsciously toying with the hair as usual, and the sight of him filled Sophie with both repugnance and annoyance, where only a couple of weeks back passion would have boiled in its place.

  Her mind filled with visions of that appalling look on Colonel Easterby’s face when the camera had borne down on it in the car park outside the mosque in Madinat Al-Aasima, and she felt she could almost hear the angry ginger sergeant's head plopping onto the stone floor at her feet.

  Joanna looked uneasy.

  ‘I think I'd better leave you two alone for a while,’ she said.

  Sophie held Marcus's gaze without moving, while Joanna walked back towards the bar.

  ‘What do you want now, Marky?’ Sophie asked finally. ‘I told you on the phone the other day: it’s over between us.’

  ‘Did you sleep with him, Sophie?’ Marcus asked, almost coyly.

  But Sophie knew Marcus well enough to realize that the soft tinge in Marcus's voice was not caused by shyness – anything but; her boyfriend’s face was quivering with ill-suppressed rage.

  ‘You did, didn’t you, you slag!’ he answered for her. ‘You slept with that traitor on the television who was spouting all that political crap mixed in with malicious lies about my father.’

  ‘They’re not lies, Marcus,’ Sophie spat back. ‘And the whole world’s about to find out just how sick your dad really is, for it will soon get out that your Daddy was in fact the man responsible for having his former psycho sergeant murdered in cold blood in Ramliyya last week, and what's more, stayed to watch the show. But then Daddy would, wouldn't he, because murdering, especially kids in Northern Ireland, is what Daddy is really good at.’

  ‘You choose to believe that traitor and terrorist on TV?’ Marcus scoffed. ‘Do you think anyone else will? Christ, that bastard must have fucked your mind as well as your body, Soph!’

  Sophie felt the raw aggression well up hot across her face. She rose to her feet and approached to within scratching distance, her fingers itching to dig into Marcus's face, just as they had searched for Omar's after watching the execution on Ramli TV, when she had been squeezed almost senseless in Hasan’s petrified maw. But as her eyes drew level with Marcus's, a sudden change of sentiment washed over her; the anger evaporated as quickly as it had risen and instead she stretched out her hand to stroke his cheek instead.

  ‘Marcus, I’m sorry. So sorry for you…and for me as well. We’ve both become mixed up in other people's dramas; we're both being torn apart by something that’s really nothing to do with us, something that neither of is responsible for.’

  She looked into his eyes and knew she had tamed his anger. Tears followed, but they weren't particularly for Marcus or for what they had shared together; more an immense sadness, the beginning of a loneliness she could not fathom.

  ‘I’m not asking you to forgive me for what I’ve done, Marky. Yes, I did become involved with Omar, but I didn’t know when I moved into his house at Folly Bridge that he had any connection with your father. Without our wanting it, Omar is forcing us to probe into areas of our lives that we would never have wanted to examine. It's happened to me and it's happening to you, too, with your father. And what makes it worse, Marky, is that I know that Omar is right and that he won't stop till the whole world knows the truth about your father and the Falls Road Massacre.’

  ‘Falls Road Massacre? What the hell's that got to do with anything? Look, Dad is used to these kind of attacks, they go with the high-profile job. But he and his friends will sort these arseholes out. Mum says they're already suing the Guardian, and as for the rantings of some Arab terrorist holding up the House of Commons at gunpoint, who's going to take the word of a terrorist against that of my father? It's you that had better be careful of the press, Soph, as soon as they find out that you've been helping out in that lunatic's harem like some common slut.’

  With that, Marcus pushed Sophie away from his chest and took a fe
w steps towards the darker side of the quad, away from the bar.

  Sophie didn’t blame him; on the contrary, the pity she had suddenly felt for Marcus only intensified. All the bitterness in his voice was understandable. He was jealous, confused and upset, and above all else, still in love. She would never have thought to see Marky this way, but then so much had changed over the past few weeks. Their lives would never be the same again.

  ‘Miss Sophie Palmer?’

  In her preoccupation with Marcus, Sophie had scarcely noticed the small group that was approaching her, but having snapped out her reverie she now found herself face to face with the chief porter, two uniformed male police officers, a woman police constable and what looked like a pair of university proctors.

  The sight of such a collection of officialdom filled her with dread and a tightening pain in her chest made it hard to squeeze out the merest grunt to confirm her identity.

  ‘Yes,’ she stammered back at the shorter of the two police officers. The stony look on Henry, the chief porter's face, told it all. Gone was the familiar smile underneath the clipped black moustache that greeted Sophie whenever he passed her the morning mail. She was in trouble.

  The shorter of the two uniformed police officers continued.

  ‘My name is Inspector Haines of New Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad and with me are Detective Sergeant Steward and WPC Cuvier. We are here to take you for questioning under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and I have a duty to inform you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you in a Court of Law.’

  ‘Follow me please, Miss,’ said the WPC. ‘There's a car waiting outside.’

  The words were so simple, and the polite formality of the inspector’s words only compounded the dread that seemed to freeze time into swallowable lumps at the back her throat. She looked at the proctors' stern faces, watched the two male police officers turn and lead off, felt the WPC's firm grip on her wrist and caught the astonishment on Marcus's face as he turned back towards her.

  ‘Marky, go and find Joanna quickly, please,’ she shouted. ‘Tell her to call Mum. I'm being arrested.’

  ‘You'll be allowed a telephone call when we get to the station,’ the policewoman told her. ‘Now follow the two other officers, please.’

  There was suddenly quite a crowd thronging the entrance to the bar and Sophie could hear different and familiar voices calling her name. The proctors and the chief porter stepped aside to push back the onlookers, leaving Sophie alone with the WPC, trailing the two male officers by a couple of yards.

  There were three other porters standing around the police Range Rover, and Sophie desperately tried to catch a friendly or familiar glance, but they were having none of their usual banter. Their stares had already condemned her as guilty and she would have confessed to anything they suggested.

  ‘Inside pleas, Miss,’ the WPC asked her, holding wide open a rear door.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Sophie stammered softly, but it was the inspector who answered.

  ‘We're going to London, young lady. There are a lot of important people there who want to talk to you.’