by Mayo, Simon
‘So it was you,’ she said.
Hari couldn’t hear what she said next over the rolling accumulation of echoing gunfire and shouting, but he didn’t need to. Collins leapt for the bars, hauled her way to the top in seconds. The tapering gave her all the space she needed to squeeze through and she dropped into the cage. She landed legs apart, balanced, glowering. She pulled her Böhler from the back of her waistband and grabbed the nearest body to her, backing against the bars. Collins now held her knife against the neck of a freckled girl in a jumpsuit.
‘I want your knife and then I want you, Hari Roy,’ said Collins. ‘You fucking traitorous piece of shit.’
86
THE SECOND POLICE unit hesitated between the west-side fourth and third pillars, Famie hung on to the fifth. She was close, but not so close they’d turn on her. In a war zone, accidents happened. She’d seen it before. The MP5s were aimed at the altar and choir stalls, occasionally snapping to new positions. The acoustics of the cathedral were confusing. Echo and reverberation hampered any ability to locate the source of any sound. A cry, a shout or a crash – any sudden noise – could appear to be coming from three places at once.
Also, Famie thought, how do they know who to protect and who to kill? If you had a knife, you were guilty, but there was nothing to stop the attackers dropping or hiding their weapons, then running for it. Joining the congregational exodus. Three gun barrels tracked a long line of escapers bolting for the door, a few running hunched and low to the ground, the rest just running for freedom. They couldn’t see any active attackers, neither could the police. At the glass wall, more police hustled them away, frantic arms waving them to safety. When they were out, the guns tracked back to the front. Espie still cradled Hunter.
Famie tried to count. She’d seen eight attackers, including Hari. So make that seven. Plus Hussain. Eight then. She could only see two dead, plus another one taken out. Five to find? She’d seen maybe a hundred of the congregation escape which still left many unaccounted for. Another eighty, possibly more.
To her left, there were a few steps to a small chapel. Circular, intricate flooring. More stained glass, more chairs. A sign said ‘Chapel of Unity’. She wasn’t good on cathedral architecture but that might be the answer to the missing congregants. Or hostages, as she should think of them. Eighty or so missing hostages, maybe five terrorists with knives, six police with guns. It was a question of who would find who first.
Espie appeared at her side, pointed at the chapel. ‘Same thought as you. It’s empty. Been watching since we came in.’
Famie nodded at the prone Hunter, her head now propped up, Espie’s uniform jacket tied tightly around her midriff. ‘Will she be OK?’
‘Think so. But the medics will need to get to her soon, she’s lost a lot of blood. We tasered two but the third got to her.’
The armed unit was moving again, this time with a sudden burst of speed. Famie and Espie followed. Now they saw it. Movement behind the altar, a head turning behind bars. Bars that she hadn’t noticed before. She had seen the tapestry, the high altar, the cross and the candlesticks. The bars she had missed, their vertical lines blending with the markings and design of the weavers.
Outside there were sirens, a multitude of them, closing fast. Inside, just shoe leather on marble. Rapid, short steps. The two police units were coordinating now, the three men on the east side mirroring the movements of those on the west. Pillar to pillar.
This felt to Famie like it would be the end of things. She had been there at the beginning of this story, she needed to be at its conclusion. When the police unit turned behind the last pillar and swivelled right, Famie followed.
87
IN THE CHAPEL, Collins held the jumpsuit girl with one arm, the knife with the other. Back to the bars. Outside the chapel, Gregor, on watch, head tracking from side to side.
‘Everyone kneel,’ ordered Collins.
Everyone but Hari knelt. There wasn’t room. Some crouched. Collins didn’t notice.
‘First your knife,’ she said. ‘One hand only.’
Hari held up his left hand, took the knife from his waistband with his right. He held it up, his eyes only on Collins.
‘Quickly. To the bars, hand it to Gregor.’ She pushed the knife against jumpsuit girl’s neck, its tip snagging her skin. ‘You know I will, Hari, don’t you,’ she said. ‘And after her, I’m sure I’d find your little sisters in here somewhere.’
Hari flinched in spite of himself.
Collins grinned. ‘Thought so. Get a move on.’
He stepped to the bars, held the knife for Gregor to take. He felt it being snatched from his fingers, heard Gregor say ‘You’re so fucked’, and stepped back.
‘Let him in,’ said Collins, nodding at the gate. ‘Open it. Do it now.’
Hari hesitated and Collins pushed the Böhler in again. A small cut. Only a nick but it bled, and it was enough.
‘OK! OK! I’m doing it.’ Hari’s voice was raised.
Around him, his fellow captives pushed back, scrambling on their knees. Someone took the small cross of nails from the altar, began reciting the Lord’s prayer.
He stepped to the gate. Reached for the key. Gregor bouncing on his feet. ‘You’re so fucked, Indian boy,’ he said, his face deformed with a grotesque expectation.
Hari turned the key.
Stepped away.
Gregor raised both hands, a knife in each.
Stepped forward.
Three 9×19 Parabellum bullets took the top of his head off.
In the chapel, the percussive force of the shots was traumatic. Everyone yelled or screamed. Gregor’s body disappeared. Collins released the girl, dropped to the floor, forced her way to the small altar. Hari, wedged between the hissing woman and one of the rabbi’s helpers, felt metal pushed into his hand. He recognized the feel immediately. The rivets, the steel bolster, textured handle. Someone in the chapel had given him a Böhler knife. He didn’t have time to see who it was. Collins was heading for Millie and Amara. As she said she would.
He knew he couldn’t stand. He had a knife. The police wouldn’t hesitate. Hari squirmed round one-eighty degrees, then dived between the terrified hostages, clawing his way to the altar step. Knife in his right hand, he hooked the fingers of his left around the altar corner and gripped hard. He dragged himself to the narrow space between the altar and the tapestry. The safe space. Behind him at the bars, six voices yelled in a chaotic chorus of warning: ‘Armed police! Stay down! Armed police! No one move!’
Hari would stay down, but he had one more move. Collins was stretched out in front of him, reaching for Amara, her hands in the girl’s hair. With all his remaining strength, Hari drove the Böhler through the back of Collins’ knee. The blade sliced her hamstring, quadriceps and cartilage, the force of the blow detaching her tibia and shattering her kneecap. As she convulsed in pain, Hari threw himself on top of her. Collins had passed out almost instantaneously, lay motionless beneath him. Her knife at Millie’s feet. She kicked it to Hari.
From no more than three metres away, a clear command, shouted into the chapel: ‘Everyone behind the altar stand up. No one else move. If you are behind the altar, stand slowly. Arms high where we can see them.’
Hari was now a brown-skinned man with two bloodied knives at the scene of a terrorist attack. Six armed police officers who could easily take his head off the way they had Gregor’s were three metres away. His sisters looked at him.
‘Don’t stand, Hari!’ whispered Amara. Pleading. ‘They’ll shoot you too!’
Everyone behind the altar was moving now. They scrambled to their feet using the altar table to support them, then raised their hands. Some glanced back down at Hari as they stood. His grandmother stood. The girls stood.
Hari was the only one left.
‘You behind the altar! Stand! Now! Arms high!’ The policeman’s voice was piercing enough to reverberate around the cathedral.
Hunched against the cold concrete, knee
ling on Collins’ insensible shoulders, he heard the police repositioning themselves along the bars. He placed both knives heavily on the altar. One on top of the other, out of Collins’ reach.
‘High! Put them high!’
Millie and Amara started to cry.
Hari raised his hands. He had saved his sisters. He had saved his grandmother. He didn’t really care what happened next.
88
WHAT FAMIE SAW as she rounded the last pillar and approached the Lady Chapel was this: all six armed police officers side-on to the bars, their MP5s pointing through the gaps. A man lying face up at their feet, his frontal bone crushed, the top right quarter of his head missing. A chapel with ornamental bars, crammed with terrified hostages all with their arms raised. And in the middle of a small, concrete altar, hands above his head, a round-faced man of Indian heritage. Short black hair. Blood-soaked shirt. Blood-splattered arms. Twin girls at his side.
Hari Roy.
This time, she did shout.
‘His name is Hari Roy, twenty-six Boxer Street, Coventry, and he’s a journalist!’
Hari stared at Famie. His mouth dropped open, then he shut it again. Pressed his lips together. If his arms weren’t held so high, he’d have wiped the tears that rolled down his face.
Espie called out too. ‘PC Jean Espie. Roy was undercover. He’s safe!’ She pulled Famie back. They’d done their work.
The police, realizing the gate to the chapel wasn’t locked, pushed it open. One by one the hostages were waved out. The rabbi, his helpers, the hissing woman, the man in the kurta, the phone-callers, the twins, the grandmother and the jumpsuit girl, a handkerchief held to her neck. One by one they filed past Famie and Espie, then hurried from the cathedral past a score of heavily armed, newly arrived police. Hari and the still-prone Collins were last. Six police guns still pointed at his head.
‘There’s a woman here, she needs a medic,’ said Hari. ‘I put a knife in her knee.’
The commands from the police were still urgent, shouted. The operation was ongoing. ‘Walk slowly. Arms up. Come towards the gate.’ The barrels of the MP5s followed him all the way. ‘Smaller steps,’ demanded the officer nearest the gate, then ‘stop’, when Hari was a metre away. ‘Espie,’ he called. ‘And the other woman.’ He beckoned them over.
Espie led. Famie walked past the first three officers – still feet apart, still one hand supporting the gun just forward of the trigger guard, still fingers curled around the trigger. She stood in front of the gate. She smiled at Hari, and he, slowly, reluctantly, smiled back.
‘Hi,’ she mouthed.
‘Hi,’ he mouthed back.
The officer glanced at Famie. ‘I’m Sergeant Tom Winstanley. Did you say you were IPS back there?’
‘Yes.’ There seemed no point in complicating matters with her recent retirement.
‘So talk to me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got twenty seconds.’ He lowered his weapon.
‘I don’t know everything,’ said Famie. She took a beat to condense her thoughts. She spoke fast. She spoke only to Sergeant Winstanley. The first witness for the defence. ‘All I know is that Hari was undercover, hired by IPS. He’s a student at Warwick. That was his twin sisters and grandmother next to him. The woman who hired him was killed in the May twenty-two attacks. I think today was the May twenty-two gang with local extras. He contacted me, tried to tell me what was happening. There’d be a lot more dead without him. That’s it in a nutshell.’
Winstanley nodded. ‘Understood.’
‘Can I speak?’ said Hari.
‘No,’ said Winstanley.
‘That’s Amal Hussain,’ Hari said anyway. He pointed at the east-side first pillar, and the sprawled man, face down in a pool of blood.
Famie recoiled, hands in front of her mouth.
‘He was about to kill my sisters.’ Hari’s voice trailed off.
‘You killed Amal Hussain?’ she said.
Hari nodded, his eyes locked on Famie’s. ‘You’d have done the same,’ he said. ‘I know it.’
Winstanley to his officers: ‘Stand down.’ The MP5s all lowered. To Hari: ‘Hands down. Step out. But don’t go anywhere.’
Hari walked from the chapel. Famie embraced him briefly. She with both hands, he with one.
‘You’re a brave man, Hari,’ she said.
‘But too many died,’ he said.
His voice was weak and he slumped against her. Famie eased him to the floor. He leant back against the bars, closed his eyes.
‘We’ll get you to hospital,’ she said, and leant against the bars next to him.
‘I never thought this would happen, Famie Madden,’ he whispered, his words sticky in his mouth.
‘I doubted it too, Hari Roy,’ she said. ‘We need to talk. When they’ve sorted you out.’
He nodded, eyes still closed.
Famie pulled herself up. Armed police were searching the building. Small pockets of bewildered people were emerging from side rooms. The ‘empty’ Chapel of Unity had actually hidden at least ten of the congregation. Others had played dead under chairs and now scrambled for the door.
Espie reappeared, Sam Carter in her wake, his IPS press ID swinging very obviously from his neck. He was white-faced and shaking, eyes everywhere. Famie walked over to meet him.
‘Is Charlie OK? Where’s Sophie?’
‘They’re fine, Famie,’ he said. ‘Charlie’s OK, Sophie’s OK. In the pizza place back on Cuckoo Lane. I was there too, but in the end …’ His eyes filled. ‘Jesus, Famie, it’s good to see you. We heard the shooting, saw the ambulances and, well … Charlie was going crazy – as you would if your mother was in extreme danger. Hunter was being taken to an ambulance but she and Espie here got me in.’ He looked up. ‘So that’s Hari Roy. Is he OK?’
‘He’s OK,’ said Famie, ‘and he killed Amal Hussain too. That’s him over by the pillar.’
And suddenly Famie stopped. ‘Wait,’ she said, holding on to Sam’s arm.
‘Wait for what?’ said Sam.
Famie was counting. Lines. Attackers. Bodies. Then the faces of 22 May.
‘Hari can’t leave,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Hari can’t leave,’ she said again.
And from somewhere in the cathedral, echoing, reverberating and difficult to place, the sound of a mobile phone ringing. Could be coming from anywhere.
89
THE RINGING STOPPED. Winstanley was with Hari, helping him to his feet. Famie ran over.
‘Wait, wait. Shut the doors. Hari can’t leave.’
The sergeant didn’t look up. ‘He’s leaving now. He needs to be in hospital. Two of my men will go with him. He’s safe.’
Famie stepped closer. ‘No, he’s not,’ she said. ‘And I can tell you why. Give me another twenty seconds.’
Winstanley looked up now. ‘OK. Go. You’ve got twenty.’
She took a deep breath. She hoped her thinking was sound. ‘How many attackers have you got? Dead or accounted for?’
‘We have seven. Six dead, one in cuffs. Hari here makes it eight.’
‘That’s wrong,’ she said.
‘I was told eight came in. That was from DC Hunter’s call.’
‘And from my counting,’ said Famie. ‘But Hussain arrived separately. With the twins and the grandmother. So that’s nine.’
‘Nine is right,’ said Hari.
‘So,’ said Famie. ‘Talk fast, Hari. Who were you investigating?’
‘I was recruited by Mary Lawson to go undercover with a small cell of far-left revolutionaries. Radicalized by jihadists but secular. They were planning extreme violence. They think Britain is ready for revolution. They’re totally off-grid. No emails, websites or messaging. May twenty-two was part of it. This is – was – part of it.’
‘So if one of them has escaped, Hari’s role will be exposed and he and his family are right back in danger. You need all nine. Hari can’t leave until then.’
Winstanley got it. ‘Come on,’
he said to Hari. ‘We got ’em all lined up. Tell us who we haven’t got.’ He beckoned a colleague who came running. ‘No one in or out till I say.’ The man nodded, ran off.
Somewhere a phone rang again. Six rings and stopped.
Hari, Famie, Sam and Winstanley walked to the font under the kaleidoscope window. Six bodies. Hari walked the line. He identified Hussain, Teeth, Kamran, Binici, Gregor and Red Head. All dead. A cuffed and sedated Collins was on a stretcher with medics who were keen to leave. So that left Tattoos.
‘The guy who isn’t here is heavily tattooed,’ said Hari. ‘Six two. Muscular, white. Didn’t speak much. I’d guess eastern European. Fast. Dangerous. Best I can do, sorry.’
Winstanley nodded. ‘It’ll do.’ He reached for his radio, snapped out the orders. Within seconds, a line of police ran in front of the glass wall. The cathedral was sealed.
The mobile phone again, closer now. Winstanley was annoyed. ‘Whose bloody phone is that?’ he snapped. The sound was still bouncing around but it was obvious to Famie now that it was just metres away.
Hari, closer to the bodies, pointed at one. ‘It’s here,’ he called. ‘It’s Gregor’s.’
All the bodies were lying in spectacular pools of light. The kaleidoscope window was throwing its blues and greens directly on to the dead. Gregory’s three-quarters head had turned a vivid mauve. Winstanley crouched in front of Gregor. He felt in the dead man’s trouser pocket. Combat-style, single button. Winstanley opened the pocket, removed the vibrating phone.
The screen identified the caller with the letter ‘I’. Winstanley hit the green button, then speaker. Stood back. Famie, Hari and Sam stepped closer. Sam crouched. The phone’s speaker hummed with life and background noise. The caller was waiting for the receiver to speak. The phone waited for the cathedral. The cathedral waited for the phone. Winstanley, Hari, Famie and Sam all stared at it. Eventually some words. Echoey, spoken at distance into a speakerphone.