“We just don’t know. Peggy’s been trying to find out if something special’s going on there.”
“I’ll try again,” Peggy said. “I haven’t alerted the police yet since we’re so unsure. I got on to the secretary in the Registrar’s office, but she’s been out all afternoon.” She got up and left the room in a hurry.
They sat silently for a minute, Wetherby drumming his fingers on the table, lost in thought, while Dave slumped in his chair and stared at the floor.
Suddenly Wetherby looked at Liz. “I’ve known people to be unhappy at Oxford,” he said. “But not hate it with passion.”
“I don’t actually think it was the place, so much as what it represented to him. Somehow it’s become the Establishment incarnate.”
“Was this the influence of O’Phelan?”
Liz leant back in her chair. “To an extent perhaps. When I saw him in Belfast O’Phelan certainly didn’t sound very positive about his time there. But really I think it has to do with Tom’s own feelings. He’s carried a deep hatred for England ever since his father killed himself. I’m sure he believes his father was set up, by the intelligence services and the Government and the Establishment—whatever that’s supposed to be these days.”
“Was he?” asked Dave.
“No. Some weird things happened in Northern Ireland back then, but I don’t believe that story. I think his father was just the victim of a conman trying to make money out of a sensational story that wasn’t true. The tragedy in a sense is that his father didn’t think he was writing anti-British propaganda; he actually thought he was writing the truth.”
“But then why isn’t Tom trying to blow up Thames House? Or Vauxhall Cross?” asked Dave.
“He’d know how difficult that would be. It just wouldn’t be worth trying.”
“No, that’s not it,” said Wetherby emphatically. He pulled tensely at his tie. “If he wants to strike symbolically at the Establishment—as well as do a lot of damage—we are the wrong target.”
“So he blows up a High Table instead,” said Dave, and Liz could understand his scepticism, but it didn’t help. She was working on gut feeling now—getting more and more certain that Oxford would be Tom’s target, but terribly anxious that she didn’t really know and couldn’t be more specific than that. All those colleges, she thought, with libraries, chapels, halls and museums. It could be any of them.
Peggy re-entered the room, looking ashen-faced. “What’s wrong?” demanded Liz.
“I haven’t been able to reach the Registrar’s secretary because she’s been terribly busy with preparations for Encaenia.”
“By God!” exclaimed Wetherby. “That must be it.”
“What’s Encaenia?” asked Dave.
“It’s a ceremony at Oxford during the summer term,” Wetherby calmly explained. “It’s held in the Sheldonian. It’s a special ceremony where they give out honorary degrees.”
“To students?” asked Dave.
Wetherby was shaking his head. “No, no. To luminaries. There’s usually a foreign dignitary or two—I think last year it was President Chirac. Sometimes a Nobel Prize winner. Famous writers. That sort of thing.”
“It’s not just Encaenia,” Peggy said. “They’re installing the new Chancellor as well.”
“Lord Rackton?” asked Wetherby and Peggy nodded.
Dave’s mouth made a small moue. Rackton had been a senior Tory minister for many years, often described as the best Prime Minister the country never had.
Peggy was looking at her notes. “The Chancellor’s own ceremony is at eleven-thirty in the Sheldonian. That’s followed by Encaenia at half-past twelve. In between, the recipients of honorary degrees and University officials meet in one of the nearby colleges for Lord Crewe’s Benefaction.”
“Which is?” asked Liz.
Peggy quoted out loud: “‘Peaches, strawberries and champagne.’ They’re refreshments paid for by a legacy of Lord Crewe in the eighteenth century.”
Dave raised an eyebrow at Liz.
Peggy went on: “After he’s installed, Lord Rackton comes and joins them, and they all march off in a procession to the Sheldonian. This year the Benefaction is in Lincoln College, so they only have to go round the corner.”
“It’s quite an event,” said Wetherby. “A sort of showpiece of the University. Very colourful—eminent people, very public, very accessible.” He finished quietly. “I’m afraid it does make sense.” No one had to ask what “it” was. The anxiety of not knowing Tom’s target was swiftly being replaced by the tension of not knowing if he could be stopped.
“When is this Encaenia?” Dave asked Peggy. Please, prayed Liz, let it be weeks away. She waited with ill-disguised impatience as Peggy consulted her notes. “The ceremony is always held on the Wednesday of Ninth Week,” she declared at last.
“But which Wednesday is that?” demanded Dave, gritting his teeth. He was sitting upright now.
Peggy looked at him wide-eyed. “It’s tomorrow, of course. That’s why the secretary was so busy this afternoon.”
A long low rumbling noise filled the room, as if an aeroplane were passing overhead, and the windows trembled slightly. Standing next to Liz, Peggy visibly started.
“It’s all right,” said Dave. “It’s only thunder.”
51
Tom had found a small, shabby genteel hotel near the old green in Witney, a market town west of Oxford. He paid in advance for a week’s stay, booking in the name of Sherwood. He used the same name to hire the car and buy the plane ticket.
Living as Sherwood, he found it hard to fabricate a past for the man, so engaged was he with the present. In time, he would be able to fill in the blanks, enough to satisfy the most persistent of questioners, but just now he felt he lived in the perfect existential moment of his life.
He rang Bashir once, after driving carefully to the outskirts of Burford, taking back roads that had no cameras. Tom reckoned it was safe in any case—only Rashid’s phone had proved at risk, and that was only through the boy’s stupidity. What a mistake it had been to choose him—even though he had brought in Khaled Hassan, who was steady as a rock.
Now he and Bashir reviewed their plans for the hundredth time, and synchronised their watches before Tom rang off. Bashir sounded calm, but then he was of a different calibre—and commitment—from Rashid, who thankfully was destined only for a supporting role. So far, Rashid had been the only mistake. But it was too late in any case to do anything about him.
Part of Tom was relieved about that, for he had got no joy from killing his old tutor O’Phelan, or from ordering the killing of Marzipan. Not that he felt any guilt—they had been necessary murders, and if anything had caused them, it had been the overeagerness of his colleagues in MI5, particularly Liz Carlyle. Tom found it untroubling that Bashir and Khaled were eager to die. He had no interest in their motives or their cause. They would serve his purpose. That was the point of them.
And now it was Wednesday morning. D-Day, Tom told himself, as he packed, amused by how English that sounded. Later this day he would drive to Bristol where he had booked another hotel room for the night. An early morning flight to Shannon, and then on to New York courtesy of—fittingly—Aer Lingus. The search for him would by then be intense, so Tom was avoiding Heathrow where he was more likely to be recognised. As Sherwood he should be safe enough at Irish passport control, and certainly safe enough in New York. There he would decide what stage two of his long-term campaign should be. Long term—he had no intention of being anything but a permanent thorn in the side of his father’s persecutors.
On his way out, he explained to the lady at the desk that he was off to the West Country and was taking his bag in case he had to stay overnight. He did not want her to think he was leaving abruptly for good. She can be surprised later on, he thought. Just like everybody else. Including Bashir.
52
Liz drove down to Oxford with Wetherby very early in the morning. She had been awake most of the night,
thinking of the day ahead. She’d finally fallen asleep, but it was only two days after the summer solstice and she had soon been awakened by the dawn light flooding through her bedroom window.
As they came down through the chalk cut at Stokenchurch, and the Thames Valley opened up ahead of them, Wetherby broke the silence to say, “Part of me is hoping we’re wrong.”
“I know,” said Liz.
“On the other hand, if we are, it may be somewhere else.”
They took the Oxford exit off the M40, then got held up for several minutes queuing at the roundabout on the eastern outskirts of the city. As they sat in the traffic, Wetherby spoke again. “Where do you think Tom’s gone?”
“God knows,” said Liz. “Even Margarita didn’t have any idea.”
“Do you think he would have met up with the terrorists?”
“He might have been in touch, but no, I don’t think he’d take the risk of seeing them. Why, do you?”
“No, but I can’t see him leaving the country either. Not yet, anyway. He’d want to see the job done. Job!” he said with uncharacteristic scorn. He pulled out into the roundabout and overtook a lumbering lorry, then slipped neatly into the road towards Headington. On the pavement children were walking to school, little ones accompanied by their mothers, groups of older children playing tag. It seemed such an ordinary day, thought Liz.
They stopped at the Headington traffic lights. “Do you feel you understand him now?” Wetherby asked.
Liz watched as a Jack Russell chewed at its lead, while its owner stood and talked to a large woman in a summer dress. She replied, “Given the resentment he must have felt about his father’s death, I suppose I can understand the IRA’s appeal, especially when their approach was made by a charismatic figure like O’Phelan. What I don’t get is how it could be switched to another set of terrorists and another cause. Especially since I don’t think Tom has any particular sympathy for Islam.”
“Does he believe in anything?”
“Not in the sense of a credo. That’s why I don’t understand what he’s trying to do today—assuming we’re right. An old Tory is becoming Chancellor; the Peruvian Ambassador is getting a degree. What on earth would be the point of killing them?”
“Don’t forget, he murdered O’Phelan,” said Wetherby. They were passing Oxford Brookes University now, new inhabitant of the grey mansion where Robert Maxwell had lived for so many years. “And caused Marzipan’s death, even if he didn’t kill him.”
“They threatened to get in his way.”
“Get in the way of what?”
Liz shrugged, thinking of the bombers. “Presumably whatever he’s planning. That must be of critical importance to Tom. Though to want to kill all these people today—I simply can’t fathom it.”
“Neither can I,” said Wetherby. “It doesn’t sound right somehow.”
53
At six foot four inches in his stocking feet, Constable Winston was at least an inch taller when he wore the regulation black shoes. He stood out, and he thought of this as an attribute—especially at public gatherings where, like a beacon used by pilots as an aid to navigation, he became a focal point for colleagues lost in the crowd.
Normally he liked working on public occasions. This morning, however, PC Winston was unhappy to be on duty. He usually had Wednesday off, and took the kids to school. He supposed that when the duty sergeant had collared him coming off shift the night before, he could have resisted, but he could tell from the sergeant’s tone that it was important, so he had not kicked up. But the shift briefing at 6:45 that morning had not adequately explained the urgency. “We have been alerted to the possibility of an incident at today’s university ceremonies,” the sergeant had proclaimed. “We will keep you posted as more information becomes available.”
What on earth did that mean? wondered PC Winston, as he moved into the goldfish-shape of Broad Street, entirely peaceful at this early hour. The street was bordered at this end by a line of pastel-coloured shops on one side and by the Victorian gables of Balliol on the other. It funnelled down to a narrow strait by the Sheldonian. Inside, the elaborate Encaenia ceremony would take place, while outside the usual mix of gawking tourists and indifferent locals would fill the street. But now while the sun struggled to emerge after a night of moist cloud cover, the street was virtually empty of pedestrians and cars.
What was supposed to be happening today, PC Winston wondered again, as he approached the corner of the Turl. He stood there for a moment, admiring the still-misty view down the quaint street, with the ice-cream cone spire of Lincoln College Library towering above the College wall. He had been on duty when President Clinton had received an honorary degree, almost a decade before, and remembered the stony brusqueness of the Secret Service men, the way they had insisted that even policemen like himself be vetted for that day. Understandable, in that any president was a potential target for assassination. And that was before 9/11. So was someone that famous going to be here today? He doubted it—he would have heard long before, and not been pressed with so little warning into this extra shift.
He kept walking and passed the “Roman Emperors,” a line of grimfaced busts perched on stone pedestals which punctuated the length of iron railing in front of the Sheldonian. Noticing a van ahead of him, parked on a double-yellow line, he picked up his pace a bit, ready to give them a flea in their ear. Two men, each with a sniffer dog on a lead, suddenly came out of the back of the van.
The dog handler nodded as he approached. “Is this a problem?” he said with a gesture towards the double yellow.
“Not this early,” said Winston. “What’s up?”
“Beats me,” said the man. “I’ve come all the way from Reading for this job. You’d think they’d be better prepared.”
And though PC Winston was himself puzzled by the last-minute alarums, pride in his own force made him declare with a certainty he didn’t feel, “It’s the Animal Liberation lot. Very unpredictable.”
It was then that another PC, a young recruit named Jacobs, appeared, moving fast towards them. “Here you are, Sidney,” he said breezily to PC Winston, who resented the use of his Christian name by someone so young. Smart-arse, he thought, as Jacobs handed him an A4 sheet on which mugshots had been magnified and photocopied. They showed three Asian men, young, entirely innocent-looking. Winston scanned the faces, memorising them, thinking, They don’t look like animal lovers to me.
54
At nine-fifteen Liz listened intently as the briefing began. She was sitting on one of a row of uncomfortable plastic chairs in the Operations Room of the Thames Valley Headquarters in St. Aldates, facing a projector screen that had been pulled down on the far wall. Along the side of the room, hanging from brackets, was a bank of television monitors.
Next to Liz on one side sat Dave Armstrong, who had come down the night before, and looked tense and exhausted. On her other side were Wetherby and the Chief Constable, a hawk-like man named Ferris. Further down the row sat other senior police officers, including the head of Special Branch, clutching a plastic cup of coffee.
The Deputy Chief Constable, Colin Matheson, in charge of the operation, was addressing them, holding a long wooden pointer the length of a pool cue. He was a trim man in his late thirties with jet-black hair and a line in dry wit. His manner was brisk and professional, but there was palpable tension in the room, which nothing he said did anything to allay.
Matheson raised his pointer to signal to someone at the back of the room, and at once a map of the city centre appeared on the screen. “From what you’ve told us,” he said, looking at Wetherby, and moving his pointer along Broad Street to the Sheldonian, “this is the focal point.”
“We think so,” said Wetherby. “The Installation of the Chancellor is going to be there, and then Encaenia.”
“Would the Chancellor be a target?”
“It’s difficult to predict the target. These are Islamic extremists who want to do as much damage as possible in the mos
t visible way. I think a single assassination would not be their first choice.”
Chief Constable Ferris turned to Wetherby. “Do we know if they’re armed?”
Wetherby shook his head. “No, we don’t. I think it’s unlikely they would carry weapons, but we can’t rule it out. We do know they possess explosives—we found traces of fertiliser in a safe house they were using in Wokingham. Given that, and their affiliations, and recent history in this country, everything points to their trying to blow something up and kill as many people as they can. Particularly if they’re ‘important’ people,” Wetherby added, his tone acknowledging the distinction’s absurdity. “That’s even better.”
“So which ceremony are they likely to attack?”
“I’d say Encaenia rather than Installation is the likelier. Don’t misunderstand me: these people would be perfectly happy to kill the Chancellor, but it would be better from their point of view if they can kill a lot of other dignitaries as well.”
“Any sense of how they’ll do it?” the Chief Constable asked, unable to mask his anxiety.
“I think there are two possibilities,” said Wetherby. “It could be a suicide bombing on foot, in which case at least one of them will have to get close to the procession, wearing some sort of apparatus. Or they’ll use a vehicle, which we think is more likely. We know they have a white Transit van and that the buyer was one of the three main suspects. He was particularly interested in its load capacity, apparently.” He looked at Matheson. “Your Special Branch have all the details, including the original plate numbers, though I’m sure they’ve changed them.”
Matheson nodded and pointed to the blank monitors on the wall. “We’re rigging some temporary video to cover the target area as well as we can. We’re using fixed cameras so no one can duck them as they rotate. We expect to have them working in the next half hour.
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