by Roger Pearce
Melanie’s fortunes had changed drastically since the undercover mission the previous year, when her double life had been ruled by tradecraft. In those days she would conceal her battered Renault in a lock-up nearly a mile away, beyond Cherry Tree Wood, and sneak home on foot through the park. The brutality curtailing that operation had almost destroyed her. She still kept a sharp lookout on every journey home, though time was healing: these days it was more to admire the ornate woodwork around the porch than to spot a vengeful knife or gunman. She was beginning to relish her own, everyday life again. Weighed down by shopping, nudging open the garden gate with her hip, Melanie Fleming was content.
Rob opened the door before she could find her key, kissing her as he grabbed the plastic bags. He peered inside. ‘Bananas?’ He was still dressed for the office in dark grey suit trousers with a tieless lemon shirt, the cuffs folded back.
‘Bugger.’ Melanie could taste the Stella Artois from his lips. ‘Sorry, love,’ she said, holding on to the banister as she kicked off her sneakers.
Rob was already halfway to the kitchen, padding along in his socks, and the limp in his right leg seemed more pronounced. ‘It’s okay,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘They’re asleep.’
Melanie wrinkled her nose. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘You’re in for the night, yeah?’
It was Rob’s turn to cook, and chilli con carne was one of his three options. Melanie followed him into the kitchen and kissed his neck, catching sight of the Homebase carrier bag with tins of magnolia paint for the hall and landing, now firmly on hold. ‘Early start tomorrow.’
Rob did not react, for he was also a police officer, an expert in rural surveillance missions that meant digging in and enduring all weathers with minimal protection. Erratic days and nights were routine, especially after a terrorist attack.
Not so long ago their professional lives had collided in the most horrifying way, leaving them both with life-threatening injuries and their marriage buried in recrimination. Melanie had recovered from her chest wound, though Rob’s shattered knee had cut short his secondment to the National Crime Agency, the drenching fields replaced by an overheated classroom as he taught Met rookies the fundamentals of surveillance. He hated every minute of a routine that delivered him home by five-thirty, burying his indignation while he read to the children, took another drink and waited for his wife to return.
The dining room was at the back of the house with French windows onto the well-stocked garden, but had evolved into a kids-only zone. The bright Turkish rug over the floorboards was scattered with toys, and a couple of LeapPad learning tablets with red earphones occupied the cherry wood table. The family generally ate in the kitchen, where Melanie had opted for a traditional pine table rather than a slate kitchen island.
While Rob worked at the hob, she made a pretence of throwing away her shopping list, checking out three empty cans of Stella in the recycling bin beneath the sink. She took cutlery from the drawer and pulled back her chair facing the garden window as Rob dished up. ‘I’ll just pop and kiss the boys good night.’
Rob swung round with the two steaming plates of chilli. ‘Have this first. They’re fine. Mum gave them their teas and dropped them back around six.’
‘That’s good. She okay?’ Since her bitter divorce Brenda Fleming had downsized to an ugly sixties flat on the Great North Road, close to the tube, and covered the daily childcare interval between school and Rob’s return from Hendon. The devotee of stay-at-home motherhood was now a dedicated granny and five star thorn in Melanie’s side.
‘Asking when you’re going to surface again.’
‘I bet.’
‘The kids keep telling her they miss you, apparently.’
‘Great.’ Melanie played with a chunk of congealed mince, put her fork down and went over to the counter to pour a glass of red. ‘Thanks a lot, Brenda.’
‘You know what Mum’s like,’ said Rob, popping another lager as he flicked the TV to Sky News. ‘She thinks you’re trying to have it all.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Melanie, sitting down again and raising her glass. This was classic Rob, channelling his resentment through Brenda to stoke Melanie’s guilt. ‘Did the doc confirm Tuesday?’
Rob nodded. ‘Day case. I won’t be able to drive myself, obviously.’
Melanie had taken a forkful of chilli and was fanning her mouth. ‘I already said I’ll pick you up.’
‘It’ll be early. Half four-ish.’
‘No probs.’ She leant over and gave his good knee a squeeze. ‘You’ll be back on the plot in no time. Living in a ditch. Peeing into a bottle.’
As part of their physical recovery Melanie had purchased family membership at the local LA Fitness. Rob went for an early session most evenings and all four of them enjoyed Sunday mornings or afternoons in the pool, depending on Melanie’s work schedule. Seven weeks earlier, with his knee almost back to full strength, Rob had torn a meniscus on the treadmill, pushing back any hopes of a return to operational duty. His mood, dark and accusing, had returned with the physical setback, like a wasp finding an open window. ‘You’re kidding,’ he snapped, eyes flashing. ‘I can hardly manage the flaming classroom.’
‘I’m sorry, Rob.’
‘How many more times? It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I don’t mean that. I’m talking about the gym. You overstressed it.’
Rebuilding their relationship had been a peace process in constant session, the truce always on the verge of collapse. Melanie, ambitious and talented, had agreed to stay clear of undercover work, and Rob had resigned from his pistol club in Hornsey, vowing never to touch another gun as long as he lived. It was proving a stretch for them both, a tougher deal than the house.
Rob took a deep breath, retreating from hostile ground. ‘I’m not saying…here he is again.’ Rob turned up the TV volume as Derek Finch filled the screen and Melanie’s mobile rang. ‘Who the hell’s that?’
Melanie shrugged at the unknown number.
‘Leave it.’
‘Hello,’ said Melanie, waggling her fingers at the remote in Rob’s hand. The female voice was urgent, the words flowing in a stream of anxiety. Melanie only managed sympathetic murmurs and a final splash of reassurance. ‘Course I can,’ she said, eventually. ‘See you in a mo.’
Rob was staring at her in disbelief as she rang off. ‘You’re not going out again?’
Melanie shook her head, attacking the chilli. ‘Lou’s coming here.’
‘Who?’
‘Louise. Justin’s girlfriend,’ said Melanie, chewing fast. ‘You know. Justin Hine? Head of our tech ops?’ She drank some wine to wash the food down. ‘I’ll take her in the front…you’ve met him.’
‘It’s gone nine o’clock.’
‘She’s got no-one else to turn to,’ said Melanie, grabbing the remote to catch up with Finch’s press conference at New Scotland Yard. Hemmed in by a battery of microphones, the head of counter-terrorism was answering one of the unseen hacks over a pair of heavy black designer spectacles, a recently acquired theatrical prop that kept slipping down his nose, flared and glistening in the TV lights:
‘…as I said yesterday, this is the worst attack on the British mainland since 7/7 and we may be facing the return of a threat we hoped had disappeared from our shores. On behalf of the Metropolitan Police our hearts go out to the victims and their grieving families. This is an ongoing and complex investigation. All the signs lead me to believe that Monday’s atrocity is the work of Irish republican dissidents. I have to face the possibility that the IRA has become Real again. I am keeping an open mind but that is my working assumption.’ He seemed to pick up on a woman’s muffled voice beyond the lights. ‘Yes, of course, we are working closely with the security services. And no, I’m not prepared to say more about threat calls immediately before the bombings because the details are sensitive and may soon become sub judice.’
The questions came thick and fast as Finch’s press officer
tried to keep order. Did you have advance intelligence of a renewed Irish dissident campaign? Did anyone claim the bombings afterwards? How closely are you working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland? Could the attackers be from the Middle East? ISIS? Radicalised returnees from Syria and Iraq?
Finch had a stab at them all, scanning the briefing in his blue ring binder for clues. He evidently viewed himself as a star TV performer, though Melanie guessed that, to the world outside New Scotland Yard, he came across as incoherent, shifty and defensive. Whatever the Bull’s ‘working assumption’ about the Real IRA, Melanie had spotted the next turn in the rolling news: obsessed with brainwashed Brits, jihadi wannabees and raving Twitterati, police and MI5 had become distracted from other deadly threats.
It fell to the chief reporter from the Belfast Telegraph to voice the question on everybody’s lips. ‘Mr Finch,’ she said, her long hair drifting into view at the bottom of the picture, ‘isn’t it a fact that you and MI5 have taken your eye off the ball in Northern Ireland?’
The attack exposed the Bull’s twin default positions: bombast and overstatement. Glaring at her for a second, he whipped off his glasses and elevated them in his right hand, poised to emphasise every phrase. In his agitation he nudged one of the microphones twice and had to repeat himself over the echo. ‘Let me make it perfectly clear to you,’ he said. ‘The Metropolitan Police Service is not complacent. We and our stakeholders are committed twenty-four seven, working together to keep Londoners safe. No-one has dropped their guard for a single moment.’ Then the spectacles were greasing down his nose again as he abandoned his notes and peered beyond the lights, hunting the camera lens for a final, extempore speech. ‘I say this. The people of London know that I will not rest until the perpetrators are caught. Everyone should be reassured that the reach of my Counter-Terrorism Command is global. So yes, all options are on the table. I shall go wherever the evidence leads me, day or night…’
‘Tosser,’ said Rob, turning the volume down as the doorbell rang.
Melanie was already out of her chair, draining her wine. ‘Hang on here. Shan’t be long.’
Louise Wilson shared a flat with Kerr’s technical specialist in Parsons Green, within easy jogging distance of Putney Bridge but a good hour by tube from Muswell Hill. Melanie knew this because she and Louise bumped into each other once or twice a year, whenever Kerr managed to get his team together for a drink at the Morpeth Arms, a couple of hundred metres downstream from Vauxhall Cross.
Louise was a physiotherapist and stood on the porch with a light jacket over her scrubs and an oversized canvas shoulder bag, her long blonde hair tied back in a bun. Through the spyhole she looked pale and drawn but managed a big smile as Melanie opened the door.
‘You’re a long way from home,’ said Melanie as they exchanged a hug.
Face to face, Louise sounded hesitant. ‘I had an evening clinic at the Royal Free, so I thought…I was going to call John Kerr actually.’
Melanie led her into the living room, kicking aside the children’s trainers. ‘Well it’s lovely to see you again.’
‘…but then…I know roughly what the job can be like and Justin loves every minute.’ She sat on the sofa, tucking the bag neatly by her feet. ‘I don’t want to be imagining problems where there aren’t any.’
‘Red or white?’
Melanie saw Lou’s hand drift to her stomach as she shook her head. ‘I’m fine, thanks… I suddenly remembered you lived just up the road and thought…Anyway, how’s Rob getting on? Did he follow up with that physio I…’
‘He’s fine, too.’ Melanie pushed the door shut and perched at the other end of the sofa. ‘Lou, what’s the matter?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Do you know where Justin’s working at the moment?’
‘We’re all full on with the bombings, obviously.’
‘I’m talking since June. I know he’s been given some special project, the usual hush bloody hush, but I hardly ever see him and when he does show up he’s a complete pain in the arse.’
‘That’s awful,’ said Melanie with a frown. ‘How much has he told you?’
Louise shrugged. ‘Closed book. Things were always iffy cos of my shifts but now it’s insane. I mean, why is it always him working every weekend? Okay, I know he’s strapped for cash with his pilot training and we both need the overtime. Fair play, but this is different. There’s something else going on. I’m just wondering… was he put on some operation to watch these bombers and it went wrong? Last time home he threw a complete strop. Can you tell me? Is he…did he lose track of the terrorists and…I dunno…now he’s blaming himself or something?’
‘I’m sure it’s not that.’
‘So what the hell’s going on?’
Melanie sat silently for a moment, listening to Rob clattering about in the kitchen. ‘Probably best if I have a quiet word with the boss.’
Louise nodded. ‘I’m getting near the end of the road, Melanie. In two and a half years it was never like this. We’ve only done it once since he started this job and it was like, you know, he couldn’t be bothered. Rubbish.’ She looked Melanie in the eye. ‘Thing is, has he got someone else?’
‘Is that what you came to ask me?’
‘No. Christ, that was so out of order.’ She grabbed her bag. ‘I’d better be going.’
‘And you’re pregnant, right?’ said Melanie, quietly. ‘How far?’
‘I just told you.’
Chapter Eighteen
Thursday, 13 October, 14.47 (GMT minus 5), Washington Dulles International Airport
For his dash to the United States Kerr flew on BA217, departing at 09.55 from Heathrow’s Terminal Five. Donna had booked the flight by phone with her BA finance contact on an Exceptional Deferred Payment, a protocol agreed between Special Branch and the airline after 9/11 to keep such flights secret.
EDPs were never intended for concealment from Bill Ritchie, though Kerr guessed Donna would have no qualms about the deception. This was not because she had divided loyalties or questionable integrity: in addition to her high security vetting she was a regular churchgoer, a clear-eyed Christian unfazed by the smudges and blots of intelligence work. If asked, she would say Kerr had raced off at short notice to interview an Irish walk-in at Dover ferry port who had asked for him by name. That was the phony alibi Kerr had concocted with her the night before from Nancy’s kitchen, phone in the crook of his neck as he curled spaghetti into boiling water.
‘Thanks a million, Donna. I really appreciate this.’
‘I went the extra mile for you. Again.’
‘It’s just a few hours.’ Kerr had heard a couple of young children quarrelling in the background, a boy and a girl. She had broken off a couple of times to calm them and, because Donna kept her private life pretty much a blank sheet, curiosity had finally overcome him. ‘Sounds like you’ve got your hands full there.’
Donna had dodged his prying with a little laugh. ‘Let’s hope I’m still in a job when you get back.’ It was the voice she had just used on the little ones, proving she was serious.
Before going to bed Kerr had renewed his US visa waiver on Nancy’s desktop (a final reminder from Donna), printed his economy boarding pass and spoken with Rich Malone in Washington. Leaving the Alfa in the long stay car park he had headed straight for security, travelling light with only a book in his jacket, C.J. Sansom’s Winter in Madrid. He had reassured the inquisitive searchers about his lack of baggage while they examined his BlackBerry, then stopped by Wagamama for coffee and kedgeree. Reaching the gate six minutes after final boarding he had only realised the full scale of Donna’s efforts at the door of the Boeing 777, where the flight attendant ignored his boarding pass, welcomed him by name and invited him to turn left.
Held at the gate for twenty-five minutes awaiting clearance for take-off, Kerr sipped champagne and skimmed his complimentary copy of the Daily Telegraph, still full of speculation about the bombings. When business was normal, he enjoyed flying. Wit
h the arming of the doors, the push-back and taxiing, came a sense of release, an abstraction from the constant pull of decision-making. But this morning his lock-down in the sky left him ill at ease as they rolled down the runway, warm air fluttering over the massive starboard wing. Uncomfortable about Donna covering for him, he also felt guilty about abandoning his team in the middle of the crisis. Since noon on Monday every moment had counted, with memories, sightings, suspicions and vigilance degrading by the hour. Kerr’s duty lay in the Fishbowl, not a leather armchair at thirty-seven thousand feet. The fasten seat belt sign pinged off and a man in pink stockinged feet padded towards the washroom, tucking his shirt in his waistband.
Loosening his buckle as he conjured up Bill Ritchie’s inevitable words of reproach, Kerr knew that when the time came he would stand by his decision to travel and the deceit that accompanied it. Against the Bull’s preoccupation with IRA dissidents was the possibility that the solution lay not across the Irish Sea but on the other side of the Atlantic. Working with allies was his remit as a Special Branch officer, the justification for his race across the ocean. The flight attendant emerged from the galley with another tray of drinks. What was so sensitive that Rich Malone could not use normal channels? He returned her smile, took the offered glass and peered through the window. The sun danced on the wing and projected the aircraft’s silhouette on the blanket of clouds beneath, his escort over the waves. Who knew what might be waiting for him in Washington? While Finch chased his prejudices in London Kerr had to place his trust in Malone, running with the important alongside the urgent.