Knife Edge : A Novel (2020)

by Mayo, Simon

  ‘Someone has been very careless,’ said Talbot.

  ‘Or someone didn’t care very much one way or the other,’ said Roberts.

  He stepped to the edge of the hall, lounge-side, to the one board that appeared solid. He nodded Talbot towards the kitchen end, and together they lifted the middle floorboard. It left a hole one metre long by nine centimetres wide, and revealed a shoulder, an arm and a neck that had been sliced to the grey cartilage of the trachea.

  Roberts reached for his radio.

  77

  8.20 a.m.

  IT WAS ANOTHER dazzling morning and Hardin was sweating already. The city’s pavements and manicured green spaces were steaming, the high-rise, all-glass offices reflected the sun straight back at him. He adjusted his sunglasses, pushing them further up his nose. He crossed the street, the suitcase rattling in front of him. Four wheels and an upright handle made it more of a walking stick than luggage. It was his routine. The glad rags were pressed and packed. He would change at the cathedral, help the bishop with his service, then grab a taxi to get to the university on time. Maybe the bus if he could cope with the stares. And the heat.

  He’d left his daughter sleeping, his wife a note. In it, he explained that the night had been reasonable considering the temperature, that he had last changed and fed their baby at seven. He had added that he was a little apprehensive about the ‘demo’ and hoped that he was doing the right thing. He asked for her prayers. And as a PS, that he loved them both more than he was capable of saying.

  Hardin walked his route. He walked it with purpose to avoid looking like a lost tourist. Or a hungover delegate looking for his conference. He had been accused of both. Twenty-five minutes from house to cathedral. New town to old town. Modern city to ancient city. Coffee shops to cobbled streets. The shopping precinct was quiet, very few of the charity shops and estate agents that lined his way were open yet. Here and there rough-sleepers lay together in groups, sleeping bags and cardboard strewn in doorways. None of them looked up. He was grateful. He pushed on.

  Earbuds in place, he listened to the local news station reporting from the campus three miles up the road. Their reporter had started to explain what she was expecting to happen on the protest – she had police crowd estimates, student and university quotes – but then broke off. Hardin could hear shouts, and the reporter explained that a large group of demonstrators had arrived. She described them as masked and purposeful. They were, she said, standing in front of the Senate Building, shouting at whoever might be inside. Then the tone of her voice changed – there was a new urgency to her words. The chants sounded closer to her microphone. She said that the demonstrators had seen her and that a number were walking straight towards her. She stumbled over some words and the studio host asked if she was safe. Hardin stopped walking to wait for her answer. He caught the reassuring click as she activated her vehicle’s central locking, closely followed by a fusillade of banging. Shouting now, she said her radio car was surrounded and that the demonstrators were hammering on the roof and windows. The studio host said to keep talking. He asked if she had seen any police. She said she hadn’t. He said his producer was dialling 999.

  Hardin lowered his head. A brief street-corner prayer and he pushed on. The steady, low rumble of the suitcase’s wheels became an urgent, machine-gun clatter. The concrete slabs of the shopping centre had become the cobbled streets of the old city, and the sanctuary of the cathedral was only a hundred metres away.

  78

  8.40 a.m.

  SAM AND SOPHIE sat on a high bank of stone steps. Sophie leant against a metal railing, Sam the next step up. In front of them, and rising high into a columned sandstone porch, was the vast glass wall which formed the entrance to the cathedral. Lines of saints and flying angels were etched into the glass, and in spaces in between, the reflection of the ruined old bombed-out cathedral. It ran behind them at right angles to the new, a hollowed-out Gothic space.

  The porch had eight slender pillars, four clustered at each end, the outside pair connected with a wooden cross. Lines of workers, tourists and worshippers walked around them, a few for the cathedral, most passing through. Sophie had a water bottle in one hand, her burner phone in the other. She watched the thoroughfare in front of her, a meeting of the old and new, secular and sacred.

  ‘Busier than expected,’ she said.

  Sam didn’t respond. Glanced at his watch. ‘Twenty minutes before the service. We should be doing something.’

  ‘We are doing something,’ said Sophie. ‘Cathedral then university. That’s it. Until we hear from Famie, that’s what we do.’

  In front of them, a woman in grey shorts and long-sleeved white shirt with a shoulder bag kissed a farewell to a similarly dressed man, then turned into the cathedral. The man watched her go, then jogged down some steps towards the fountains that were playing in a wide piazza. Sophie glanced round at Sam – he was watching the man too.

  ‘Christ, we’re suspicious of everyone,’ she said.

  ‘So we should be,’ said Sam. ‘How many is that we’ve seen go in?’

  ‘Eighty or so,’ said Sophie. ‘Didn’t like any of them.’

  Sam frowned. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning when you’re pregnant and paranoid, everyone looks like they could blow your brains out.’

  Sam shrugged. ‘I think that, without even being pregnant,’ he said.

  She checked her phone. Full signal. No text. ‘You wanna go in?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Perfect view from here. We get to see everyone who goes in.’

  A small party, maybe a dozen soberly dressed men and women, climbed the steps from the piazza and fountains, then disappeared inside.

  ‘I think they’re safe,’ he said.

  ‘But why?’ said Sophie. ‘What the hell are we looking for?’ She could see the new arrivals the other side of the glass wall, huddled around what looked like a book stall.

  ‘I just think we’ll know,’ said Sam. ‘When the time comes. Maybe that’s stupid.’

  ‘Well they won’t walk in and buy tickets, that’s for sure,’ said Sophie, pointing at the queue inside. ‘But when you see the CCTV of terrorists arriving at, or on their way to, some atrocity, they don’t stand out. They look normal. That’s the whole point. You can’t tell by looking.’

  Some shouts from the piazza. A crowd of students, presumably, came running up the steps and for the briefest moment Sophie clasped Sam’s arm. But they ran through the porch and out the other side, weaving their way through the people and around the columns.

  ‘This is different,’ said Sam. ‘We might be in the wrong place. But if Hari Roy arrives, we’ll know. I’m sure of it.’

  Sophie looked doubtful. ‘A round British Indian face isn’t much to work with …’ she said.

  Sam nodded. ‘But a terrified round British Indian face is,’ he said. ‘And he won’t be on his own. And he’ll be here in the next twenty minutes. So …’

  ‘So what do we do, Sam?’ said Sophie. ‘If that happens. What do we do then?’

  A rattling clatter from the cobbled approach to the cathedral. Sam and Sophie glanced left to the paths that ran through the old graveyard. A tall man with a dog collar, stooped and steering a suitcase with difficulty, was bustling towards the porch.

  ‘Priest,’ said Sam.

  ‘Or dressed like a priest,’ said Sophie.

  They watched him negotiate his way into the porch. He paused, mopped his brow with a handkerchief. A passerby stopped and started talking to him. The passerby seemed happy to see him. The man in the dog collar put his hand on the passerby’s shoulder and the passerby dropped his head as if in prayer.

  ‘OK, priest,’ said Sophie. ‘Let’s talk to him.’

  She put a hand on the railings, pulled herself up. By the end of the priest’s blessing, she was in front of him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Are you involved with the next service?’

  Don Hardin frowned, then smiled. ‘Yes, and I�
��m afraid I’m late. If you don’t mind, I’ll need to press on.’ He moved as if to pass her.

  ‘What sort of service is it?’ Sophie forced a smile. An innocent enquiry.

  ‘One of forgiveness, peace and reconciliation,’ said Hardin, patiently. ‘There are many such services here, as I’m sure you know. But today is special. We have many foreign visitors and faith leaders.’ Sweat beaded on his forehead. ‘So I really do need to get on. If you’ll forgive me.’ He sidestepped Sophie, pushed at the glass door and disappeared inside.

  Sam appeared at her shoulder.

  ‘He’s doing the service,’ she said. ‘Peace and so on.’

  They stood in the cathedral’s high porch under a glass-engraved, two-metre-high Thomas à Becket. Sam and Sophie stared at each other, both agitated, both visibly anxious. Sam’s eyes began darting everywhere; Sophie spun one-eighty degrees then back again. Just over Sam’s shoulder, she caught sight of an elderly man approaching. Grey-haired, black-suited and wearing an ornately patterned skull cap. He walked with four other men, two on either side. They too wore skull caps, these in a plain black fabric. They walked with deliberation and solemnity, as though behind a flag. She nudged Sam and they both watched the new arrivals as they approached them. She caught the eye of the grey-haired man.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said with a slight nod of the head.

  ‘Good morning, rabbi. Are you here for the peace service?’

  ‘Of course.’ He smiled his reply as he passed. ‘Aren’t you?’

  He was inside before Sophie had thought of a response. ‘I suppose we are,’ she said to herself.

  The other side of the glass, a man in grey robes was greeting visitors. Warm handshakes, pats on shoulders. Old friends.

  ‘So, do we go in now, Sam?’ she said. ‘Is that what we do? Give it five minutes then catch a bus to the university?’

  Sam checked his watch.

  ‘Ten more minutes on the steps,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘This service seems slightly more significant than its humble billing suggests. Maybe we should have paid more attention to it.’

  ‘OK,’ said Sophie. ‘Watch for ten. Inside for five.’

  ‘Deal,’ he said. ‘And there’s a bus in fifteen.’

  They scrambled back up the steps. Resumed their watch. Sophie leant against the railing, Sam sat on a step.

  79

  8.45 a.m.

  THEY HAD BEEN told the journey was ten minutes. Maybe fifteen if the traffic was bad and the diversions were still in force. The van was silent. There was nothing left to say. Hari sat on the floor, pressed against Kamran and Binici. Collins was opposite. If the van hit a bump in the road or braked suddenly, their feet touched. Gregor drove. The radio was off, the windows were closed.

  Hari’s eyes were shut, his hands clasped. He felt the hilt of his knife pressed hard into his stomach. He felt the length of Binici’s knife against his thigh.

  The van slowed to a stop. Hari didn’t open his eyes. It would be traffic – they’d only been travelling a few minutes. His breath came in short bursts, his heart beating so hard he was sure it was visible through his T-shirt. He took a deep breath, felt his scabbed wounds stretch, his ribs push up against a restless, fidgety Binici. Maybe the man was excited. The revolution he’d longed for was here at last and he would get to play the butcher after all.

  His finger traced again the raised outline of the photo in his pocket. Millie and Amara had been a surprise to him. He’d been used to life being just him, his mother and grandmother. There was a rhythm and pattern to everything. The absence of his father tackled with order and routine. His grandmother had seen to that. If she could no longer be a revolutionary in India, she could at least be a revolutionary in her own household. His father had been ‘weak’ and ‘reactionary’. If he was ever discussed, he was usually dismissed as a class enemy.

  The van was moving again.

  So when two sisters appeared, Hari’s world shifted dramatically. The order of the old life disappeared. As his mother and grandmother were enveloped in the twenty-four-hour-a-day struggle with the twins, Hari felt liberated. His sisters were a gift. He had held Millie first. Sitting in the hospital chair, his grandmother had passed the tightly wrapped bundle to him, barking instructions about how to hold her. A squished and frowning face stared out of the towelling. Hari smiled, Millie frowned some more. Amara had been asleep when passed to him but Hari had blown on her face to wake her up. His mother was annoyed but Hari was captivated. His last year of primary school had been his favourite. He was a brother.

  High revs, second gear.

  Millie was the wilder of the two, Amara the more thoughtful. Millie was the louder of the two, Amara the more wily. Millie was the singer, Amara the story teller. They dressed identically, always. Their hair was cut identically, always. If you looked hard enough, you would notice that Millie’s eyes were wider and that she still frowned a lot. That Amara’s shoulders were slightly rounded and her front teeth were larger and slightly irregular. But most people were just happy to declare that they could never tell one from the other. And then that they were the most beautiful princesses they had ever seen. Hari was happy to agree.

  Low revs, fourth gear. Moving faster now.

  In Hari’s secondary school, his sisters were better known than he was. Hari was just the boy with twin sisters. It was, he had decided, what some people thought was the most interesting thing about him and he didn’t care. On a school open day, his grandmother had brought Millie and Amara along with her. Hari had shown them round, Millie holding on to one hand, Amara the other. He’d felt like a king. On the day before he left for university, they both had brought him some torn clothes to be repaired. Millie’s elephant T-shirt and Amara’s jeans both, miraculously, needed some of his fabled needlework skills at the same time. He had worked, they had watched transfixed, as though he was performing some mystical spell, using an ancient long-lost skill. He had handed back the patched-up clothes and received a fierce, prolonged double-hug for his labours.

  Stationary traffic, engine idling.

  He left the photo where Amal had put it. Removing it now would serve no purpose. He knew every millimetre of its surface. Millie on the left, Amara on the right. Frown, shoulders.

  Slowing. Stopping. Reversing. Parking.

  ‘Three minutes,’ said Gregor.

  Hari opened his eyes, peered through the darkened rear window. Ahead, through a piazza, the steps to the cathedral. The old on the left, the new to the right. Mounted on the cathedral wall was a huge bronze sculpture. It showed a triumphant, three-metre-tall angel, wings unfurled, a large spear in his hand. At his feet, a humbled, chained, supine devil. Good versus evil. Good triumphing over evil. A religious fantasy.

  He watched a rabbi enter the cathedral. Hari started to shake. Binici placed a hand firmly on Hari’s leg.

  ‘Breathe,’ he whispered.

  Hari heard a powerful car pull alongside. He saw Gregor glance at it briefly, then look away. Doors slammed. Children’s voices.

  Voices he recognized.

  80

  8.55 a.m.

  SAM AND SOPHIE saw them at the same time. Sam reached for Sophie’s arm before he realized they were watching the same thing. From the car park in the piazza, just beyond the fountains, a girl, no more than twelve, was walking at a funeral pace. She was apparently on her own, her arms stuck to her sides. Oblivious to anything that was happening around her. She had long, shoulder-length black hair, brown skin, and was wearing a pink T-shirt and denim shorts. A few metres behind her walked an identical girl. Same hair, T-shirt and shorts.

  ‘Twins!’ said Sam. ‘It’s them. It has to be!’

  Sam and Sophie stood up from the steps, then immediately sat down again. They peered beyond the girls, eyes searching the piazza.

  ‘There,’ said Sophie without pointing. A sharp intake of breath. ‘Sweet Jesus.’

  A grey-haired woman in a black and gold sari,
wearing gold wire-frame glasses, with a squat, round-shouldered man in a suit and dark glasses. The man was only a few centimetres behind the woman. His arm appeared to be pressed against her back. They too walked slowly, as though all four were linked together.

  ‘Amal Hussain,’ whispered Sophie. ‘Without question. Shit.’

  ‘And the girls’ grandmother,’ said Sam. ‘With a knife at her back. Or something.’

  The first girl had reached the foot of the piazza steps. Her posture was ramrod-straight, walking as though she had a book on her head. She was chewing her bottom lip. As she reached the middle steps, her sister reached the foot. Hussain and their grandmother were a few metres further back.

  Sophie scrambled behind Sam.

  ‘Might he recognize you?’ he said.

  A pause. ‘Definitely.’

  Sam sat taller.

  ‘They’ll be inside in sixty seconds,’ whispered Sophie.

  Sam was hitting keys on his phone, found what he was looking for. ‘It’s a terrible camera,’ he said, ‘but it’s a camera.’ He pointed his phone at the two girls, then Hussain and the grandmother. A heavy, old-fashioned shutter noise came from the phone. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered, then, to Sophie, ‘Text Famie, I’ll call the police.’

  Sam hunched down, covered his mouth with a hand. ‘Police,’ he said. A pause, then, ‘My name is Sam Carter. I’m a journalist at IPS.’ His tone was businesslike, urgent, hushed. ‘I’m on the steps outside Coventry Cathedral and I’m sure I’m looking at Amal Hussain. Wanted for the May attacks in London. He appears to have hostages including two girls. We think there’s an attack planned.’ Another pause. ‘Yes, I can still see him, he’s getting closer. Walking up the steps.’