The man seems genial enough, but something about his manner tells the sergeant to beware.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Oh hello,” the man says. “I believe you are entertaining a client of mine.”
“I see, sir, and what would be the name of your client that we are, er, entertaining.”
“Ah, yes, thank you. The name is Harry Kimber and I believe that you are holding him under the misapprehension that he is some sort of terrorist. It must be bewildering for the poor fellow and I would so like to sit in and give him a helping hand.”
The sergeant, who had rather been enjoying this show, reluctantly unpeels himself from the desk, “Hold on, sir, I will go and make further enquiries.”
“If you would, that would be simply marvellous.”
“Simply marvellous,” the sergeant echoes with a chuckle as he goes to find the detective from the Met, Johns or whatever his name was, who had turned up this morning. “Simply marvellous.”
* * *
Johns is less amused by the man’s manner than the desk sergeant, but mainly because this enormous apparition knows full well how to make his life difficult. No grubby street brief this, or underachieving high-street solicitor, but a very dangerous, purring cat.
Here, in short, is the sort of brief who knows the ins and outs of every tiny clause of every bit of legislation and every minor piece of case law – deep knowledge and experience, enough to scare off the CPS, but all wrapped up in a pretty ribbon – and the image he projects of a bluff fellow doesn’t wash with the experienced detective.
Worse is that he reeks of what Johns called ‘the establishment’. This Fairbrother had not only probably been to school with every other top judge in the land, he was probably godfather to their children as well.
“You may morally disapprove of my client’s behaviour,” the lawyer is saying now, jowls wobbling as he does so. “But that doesn’t mean he has broken the law.”
Harry is relieved to have this man on his side, because he was beginning to wilt this morning; he was beginning not so much to doubt himself than to dislike himself. That was very clever of Johns – even if he only sensed the half of it. Self-loathing – something that followed Harry like a shadow - might be dangerous in a situation like this. But what is making him feel uneasy now is the fact that the Saudi is paying for this eccentric but patently top-drawer solicitor. Why would that be?
Johns is digging in though. “Failure to report a crime is a crime in itself,” he is saying.
“You know the ins and outs of Swiss law, do you?” Fairbrother hits back. “Goodness me, all those different cantons… all those different laws. Surprised they manage to make such elegant timepieces.”
“I should think it’s a pretty universal doctrine,” says Johns.
“You should think? Or you do think? Or you know?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” says Johns, determined not to be out-smarted. “Your client has been in possession of firearms.”
“So has just about every Swiss citizen over the age of eighteen,” says Fairbrother. “It’s their patriotic duty. You’re not an upright Swiss citizen if you don’t own a gun and a nuclear bunker.”
Johns decides to ignore the lawyer, addressing Harry instead on a point that he senses makes Harry evasive. “Why did you kidnap the Saudi girl?”
“I shouldn’t humour the police by answering that question if I were you,” says Fairbrother. “They’re fishing. Goodness me, next they’ll be claiming you’re a member of Islamic State.”
“Are you?” says Johns, instantly annoyed at himself for falling for this diversion.
“All right… enough,” says Fairbrother, bringing his hands together like a particularly corpulent priest in prayer. “It seems quite plain to me that what you have here is a sensational story – one, by the way, that our friends in the media are all over so we had best write them all a stern letter of warning – but nothing else apart from that. My client has helped with all your enquiries, and now you must allow him to leave. Bail him if you must. He’s plainly not a terrorist, but a victim of terrorism…”
“Sir?” The door has opened, and it’s the badly dressed woman from yesterday.
“What is it?” asks Johns irritably.
“I think you should hear the latest.”
Harry and Fairbrother look at each other as Johns leaves the room.
“Don’t worry,” the lawyer is saying. “We’ll soon have you out of here.”
“He says he can keep me here for twenty-eight days,” says Harry.
“Well, that’s a lie to start with – it’s now a maximum of fourteen days, but only with the consent of a magistrate. There’s not enough here to warrant that, I can assure you.”
But when Johns returns he has a triumphant look on his face.
“Well, well, Mr Kimber,” he says. “Your friend Max has just given himself in to the Italian police. He admits to have been executing an attack on St Peter’s Square in Rome using sarin gas. Happy Easter.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Omar parks the Fiat on a side street near the Valle Aurelia Metro station – one of the reasons he chose such a small model being the potential need to squeeze into a small space on Rome’s notoriously cluttered thoroughfares.
He feels like a man on a sunny Sunday stroll as he jogs up the steps of the graffiti-covered metro station. The infidels of the West are so careless of their public spaces. What does all this mess say about their state of their souls?
And then he spots the policemen – three of them, clearly scrutinising the passing public, more than likely on the look-out for a Middle Eastern-looking man with a prominent scar down his cheek. Omar also notices that two of the cops are carrying gas masks – he recognises the casing, a similar shape and styling to the masks he used in Libya while practising mixing the sarin.
Do they know about the chemical weapon? The Saudi whore will have told them, of course, and they’re making an educated guess that the Metro system might be a target.
It was his fault for being greedy. He should have finished her off in Switzerland, along with the British spy, but she had promised him the diamond – the one worth £5 million. Stupid, stupid Omar. This is what you get for coveting riches down here on earth, when they are but dust. All the riches he could want await him in the next life.
He mustn’t be too hard on himself, though. The money wasn’t for its own sake but to finance the next stage in the jihad, whenever that was revealed to him. He had already seen how easy it is to buy anything you want if you have enough money and the right contacts.
And the diamond would have paid for the plastic surgery he now needs. And that isn’t anything to do with vanity. It’s a necessity. If he is to continue with the Prophet’s calling, he needs to get rid of that scar, or cover it up somehow.
He pulls out a street map from his jacket pocket and opens it out, head bent, scar away from the cops. He’s already marked out the best route and now he looks round to get his bearings. The Via Anastasio II is over there, which loops down towards St Peter’s Square. It’s not very direct but he calculates that has about twenty minutes before the fun begins. Just time enough.
* * *
The water-cannon truck has been driven to a quarry on the north-eastern outskirts of Rome. High up and from a safe distance upwind, Gianni watches the flames lick the under-side of the vehicle – any moment now the fuel tank will ignite and there will be a loud bang, the sort of noise that comes ricocheting out of this quarry several times a day, although not usually on a Sunday.
When the explosion comes, it’s far louder and more percussive than Gianni had expected. The shockwave hits him even up here, and bits of the truck are flying through the air, landing in a cascade of fireballs around what little remains of the vehicle.
“Mamma mia… it was booby-trapped!” he says to himself. “That was a bomb.” He had better not tell the others, or they might be a bit upset with him.
A cloud of vapour sits a
bove the smoking remains and gently disperses in the direction of the coast. In coming days, doctors will receive reports of villagers two kilometres downwind of the quarry having streaming eyes and noses – the first hay fever of the season it’s widely suspected – and there was an outbreak of a sickness bug. Nothing too serious. No one required hospitalisation.
He taps a number on his phone, and receives the one-word reply: ‘Pronto’. And in the far-off distance he can just make out the sound of a bulldozer engine being started up. The driver, wearing exactly the same make of biohazard suit that had been sold to Omar – after all, it was from the same stock – aims the bulldozer at the what remains of the truck, shepherding the bits of twisted, smoking debris towards a pit dug in the quarry floor. Having tidied up, the machine now drives rubble on top of this unmarked grave.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Nadia Pizzuto, Maurilio Marcone, a public prosecutor well known to them both by the name of Carlo Matteini, and a man from the Ministry of the Interior – name unknown – are looking at Max through a one-way window. He is side-on to them, unshaven, his left cheek badly bruised and a far-away look in his eyes. The handcuff is still attached to a wrist that droops down by his side. It’s not that they don’t believe his story, but they can’t quite make sense of it.
He had walked up to a traffic policeman on the Piazza della Repubblica and tried to explain who he was, but the cop just thought he was a lost tourist and suggested he went to the tourist office. It was a civilian, a local florist, who had recognised Max from the television news and interceded in Italian. The traffic policeman suddenly became very interested and a little nervous, brandishing his gun around in a reckless manner. The florist, a sensible man, stepped in to say that Max wasn’t armed and, as far as he could see, not dangerous.
So now they know how Omar intended to distribute his sarin – mixed with water and pumped out of a riot water cannon. Diabolical. But where is the water cannon now?
According to Signor Draycott, he had been handcuffed to the wheel of the truck, while an Arab boy of about twelve or thirteen – presumably the one that Omar had collected from the Mafia-owned hotel – had been trained to use the water cannon. It was all to have been a bit of fun, Omar had explained to the boy, while to Max he said that the humiliation of soaking and dispersing the Roman Catholic faithful on this, their most holy of days, would be a sufficient end in itself.
To Signor Draycott’s credit, he hadn’t quite believed Omar, but couldn’t think what else he had in mind. What if he had known it was diluted sarin he was driving into St Peter’s Square, with the potential to kill hundreds of pilgrims?
“That doesn’t bear thinking about,” Max had said.
“These men in the balaclavas and black Range Rovers,” Pizzuto says now. “They were obviously tipped off in advance, but by whom? And who are they?”
“Well, leaving aside the police and the military,” says Maurilio. “That just leaves the Mafia. They’re the only other group with the organisational ability to pull this off.”
“Agreed,” says the man from the ministry, the first word he has contributed all afternoon.
Pizzuto and Maurilio look at each other, say simultaneously: “The ’Ndrangheta!”
“The Calabrians? But why?” asks the man from the ministry.
“We don’t know,” says Pizzuto. “But we do know that the Saudi national known as Aafia, before she fled to Germany, made a phone call to a gym in Civitavecchia owned by a ’Ndrangheta family boss.”
“Any recent sightings of the water cannon?” asks the public prosecutor.
“Plenty – or rather too many,” says Pizzuto. “We have witnesses that saw it leaving the centre of Rome in every direction except up into space. And I’m expecting an eye-witness account of that, complete with aliens, any moment now.”
“What about verifiable CCTV?” asks the man from the ministry.
“We’re working on it,” says Pizzuto.
“Everything Signor Draycott has said tallies with Tariq’s account,” says Maurilio. “A part of my training in interview techniques was in spotting lies and evasions, and I am pretty certain everything he has told us is the truth. My instincts tell me this too. Without strapping him to a polygraph there’s no way for certain of knowing, but I’d bet my apartment on his honesty.”
“What now then?” asks the man from the ministry.
Pizzuto is staring intently at Max, who is now running his hand through his hair, and looking around the room, as if taking in his whereabouts for the first time.
Her phone rings. It’s her deputy. They’ve heard from the English police and Signor Draycott’s story pans out. His parents were indeed visited by gunmen.
“Let him speak to his parents,” says Pizzuto. “Record the call, of course. Maurilio, you speak English – go down and listen.”
The public prosecutor and the man from the ministry both nod their agreement.
* * *
“Maxi, darling, are you okay?” It’s his mother’s voice. He’s glad she can’t see him. He thinks of Nicky, and it gives him strength. There are worse things in the world than what he’s been through.
“I’m fine, Mummy,” he says; it seems funny to saying ‘Mummy’ in this police station after all that has happened. “The Italian police are holding me at the moment. But how are you? Your video message…”
“We’re okay, darling. Obviously it was all a bit of a shock – they just barged in here with their guns. Two of them. Scary people… very rough and shouty, and incredibly young-looking. Like kids really.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No, they just scared us.”
“I bet.
“How did you manage to get away? What happened?”
“Oh, it was quite funny really,” his mother is saying, almost jauntily. She might be talking about something amusing that had happened at the local post office. “Well, did I mention that the Buxtons were coming over to play tennis?”
“Yes, you did,” says Max, who finds his chin wobbling and his eyes welling up with tears at the mention of the Buxtons, this collision of his parents’ friends, people he’d known all his life, with these extraordinary events. “Go on.”
“Yes, well, they arrived and with Graham and Tony…”
Graham and Tony were the Buxtons’ grown-up sons, Max’s age or a bit younger, ex-Army.
“All of them in their tennis whites. It was so bizarre, Maxi…”
“I can imagine,” says Max, tears rolling down his cheeks, his chin wobbling like crazy.
“So now there were seven of us to two of them. I have to say the Buxton boys took it very well. That’s the army for you.”
Max is laughing and crying at the same time. Usually his mother’s stories bored him, but this one – told in the same tone of voice in which she relayed tales of village life – gripped him to the core.
“And then you’ll never guess. Some friends of Tash showed up – four strapping lads, who’d been down the pub. Tash had forgotten she’d invited them over. So now we were eleven and to their two…
“Tash’s friends took it pretty well too, I have to say. It was getting a bit like a drawing-room comedy at this stage, and it’s really odd, despite these horrible men with their guns, I simply couldn’t feel afraid. Perhaps I should have, because they could easily have killed all of us. You hear of these things going on in schools in America… everyone getting shot. And look at what happened in Paris…”
“Yes, quite, but then what happened to you?”
“Then – after all that – a police car rolled up the drive. They had come to question us because you were all over the news by this stage apparently, although we didn’t know a thing about it. It’s probably why the telephone also started ringing all of a sudden. It would ring for ages, stop, and then start again. Everyone’s mobiles were also ringing like crazy. The gunmen were getting mighty agitated and told everyone to throw their phones into a pile on the carpet.”
�
��Go on.”
“Anyway I think these guys eventually got the funk – the situation just became too much for them, what with all these people turning up and now the police. They just did a run for it… out of the French windows, across the croquet lawn and over the hedge. I’m apologising like crazy to the Buxtons and Tash’s friends for landing them in this situation, but they were all really nice about it. I think Tash’s friends were drunk.”
“Did they catch the gunmen?”
“No, that’s the only downside. The two police officers who arrived by car called for backup because they weren’t armed. That didn’t arrive for ages, so they went round taking statements. They reckon they must have had a car hidden somewhere.”
“Oh, God, Mummy – I’m so glad you’re safe. And I’m so sorry for getting all of you into this mess. Say sorry to the Buxtons for me, won’t you? I love you all.”
“We love you too.”
Maurilio took the phone from Max at this point, and nodded through the one-way mirror to Pizzuto.
“What now?” the man from the ministry asks Pizzuto. He hadn’t understood as much of what the Englishman had said, except ‘I love you all’.
“Now?” says Pizzuto. “Now we need to retrace the water-cannon truck’s route back to wherever this warehouse is situated. Signor Draycott says it’s not far from the airport. And we need to find the boy, who apparently got out of the Range Rover near the central station. Get some men down there now, and stop and question every Arab boy of around that age.
“And then I think Signor Dryacott deserves a shower and a hot meal.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
The boy has decided to call himself Omar from now on, in honour of the man with the scar who had entrusted him with such important work.
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