by Roger Pearce
He stood with his bomb as the doors parted, his conscience racing ahead as he made for the street.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Thursday, 20 October, 10.03, Dodge’s Apartment, Suffolk Hall, Harrow
It was revenge, not contrition, that spurred Dodge into action. Since meeting Jane Hemming at the Mounted Branch stables in Whitehall he had spent two sleepless nights at home agonising over what to do next. Jane’s video had positively identified Bobby Roscoe making the bomb call at Victoria, and his obligation was to share this discovery with Derek Finch’s investigators. Instead, in the stillness before dawn, Dodge decided to hunt down his nemesis in secret, lifting vengeance above duty.
He knew that either course spelt disaster. Crouched on the sofa in his old dressing gown, Dodge sipped whiskey while Nicola called from the bedroom. The charge sheet was long: he had repeatedly met with the prime suspect in the London bombing campaign, the terrorist who was blackmailing him and making threats against his wife and daughter. Ripping apart his own rule book, he had withheld intelligence that could have prevented Cheapside, passed false information about the Bank of England, and concealed the threat of a lorry bomb. By his own exacting standards, Dodge’s conduct had been disloyal and unprincipled. Only John Kerr would speak for him, and even his defence would not be enough.
Nicola’s sleepy voice again. ‘Darling, come back to bed.’
‘Be right there,’ he called, draining the tumbler. He moved to the window and held one of the curtains back to gaze over the park, startled by his exhausted reflection. Game over. Soon, Roscoe would use their guilty secret to strike Dodge down. His future lay in prison, or some darker place.
He lay quietly for a couple of hours while Nicola stirred beside him, then wandered into the kitchen to bring her breakfast in bed: tea, cereal and a croissant. She was in no rush to leave for the office, for today was the partners’ annual lunch, a day out for everyone. He encouraged her to wear the new green and white dress they had chosen at Brent Cross, with her silver charm bracelet and earrings. If she thought he was being over-attentive, or sensed his looming personal crisis, she never let on: Dodge’s working life had always been a book of mysteries and secrets, a family album with whole pages torn out. ‘Don’t be late, big man,’ she said, giving him a hug as she left, then a wave from the front gate. He responded with a thumbs up and wide smile from the living room window, wondering how many more shared days were left to them.
Dodge, too, had scheduled another awayday. When he was showered and dressed he took out the bloodstained invoice he had filched from Roscoe’s pocket in Paquito’s, charged his phone and checked the news while he made fresh coffee, chain-smoking on the balcony to steel himself.
Builders’ merchant Thomas Roache operated out of a rundown Victorian terrace in Harlesden High Street, just north of the railway line. According to its monochrome website, the firm traded ‘exclusively with construction professionals,’ offering discounts for bulk purchases ‘unrivalled north of the Thames.’ The drive from Harrow was slow because Dodge had reverted to the counter-surveillance techniques that had saved him during the final, terrible months in Belfast. Racked by Roscoe’s mocking threats, he had started covering his tracks again, each pause at the newsagent, superstore or pub an imagined game of cat and mouse. Three hundred metres from home, he swerved the Audi into his local BP petrol station to refuel, buy cigarettes and test the eyes in the back of his head.
He found Roache’s narrow shop front between Dev’s Auto Sales and Bethel Pentecostal Church, their giant placards shouting cheap credit and salvation. The shop to the left of the terrace was boarded up, and the pair at the far end permanently shuttered. Apart from Chi-Chi Hair and Beauty, the other shops supported the plumbing, electrical and building trades, with ‘Thomas Roache and Sons, Estd 1957,’ evidently a cut above the rest.
Dodge found a parking space in a side road and watched a man in overalls load paint cans onto a flatbed truck. As soon as he drove away, Dodge locked the car, checked around him and hurried across the street.
Inside the shop, an open set of double doors led to a back yard. The man behind the counter was a larger, less photogenic version of the website mugshot and wore a headset, presumably to communicate with the yard. Dodge waited while he served a roofer in steel capped boots, then unfolded the invoice on the counter, peering at the name tag on his sweatshirt. ‘Tommy. You recently sold this stuff for cash.’
Tommy’s face wrinkled as he took in Dodge’s suit and accent, sensing trouble. ‘So?’
‘I want to know who to. And the address.’
Tommy glanced down. ‘And you are?’
Dodge tapped the invoice. ‘Looks like timber posts and sheets of plastic, if I’m reading your scribble? I need to know where they went.’
‘You a copper, or what?’ said Tommy, shuffling through his options, his right hand drifting to the headset.
‘It’s like this, pal,’ said Dodge, leaning close. ‘I’m in a hurry and you’ve got bricks to sell. Let’s not waste anyone’s time.’
‘Haven’t you heard of data protection?’
‘In a dump like this?’
‘We don’t have it. Cash sale. No record.’
‘But the address will be in your ledger, computer?’
‘We don’t give out private information.’
Dodge’s mobile was buzzing in his jacket pocket. On the screen was a group text from Gemma, with another bomb threat: ‘Livebait rec’d 10.43. Bomb at Caja Soller Direct, Gloucester Road. 20 mins warning, code Topaz. Evac under way. Best, G.’
Dodge suddenly felt his whole chest on fire and, when he regarded Tommy again, he was scarcely able to speak.
Sensing danger, Tommy swung round to escape into the yard but Dodge grabbed his sweatshirt, pulling him so close that their faces almost touched. The younger man must have weighed over two hundred pounds but Dodge hauled him over the counter as if he were a child, ripping away the headset and hurling him against the far wall. His own body spinning out of control with rage and guilt, Dodge took a giant spirit level from the counter and rammed it across Tommy’s throat, ‘Where is it, you useless lump of lard?’
The younger man was trying to say something, so Dodge dropped him in a headlock, dragging him back to his post behind the counter and bolting the yard doors. Tommy slumped in the corner, clutching his throat and pointing at a row of ring binders on a shelf beneath the counter. ‘Orange one,’ he croaked.
It took Dodge less than two minutes to find Roscoe’s order. There was no address, simply a mobile number scrawled across the top, with the words ‘Cust. to collect.’
Someone was banging on the yard doors as Dodge copied the number and photographed the order on his mobile. He patted Tommy on the cheek. ‘Thanks, pal,’ he said, then hurried into the street.
•••
Thursday, 20 October, 10.46, Thomas Roache and Sons, Building Supplies, Harlesden
Because Jack Langton was still out of action following his brush with death five days earlier, Melanie had collected him from home in the green Astra just after seven and driven straight to Harrow for their continued surveillance of Dodge. Late the previous night, frustrated, he had freed his injured arm from its sling, and was already talking about his Suzuki. This morning, both had brought the overnight bags every surveillance officer kept close by, for Kerr had warned he might need them in the Netherlands the following day.
They found a vantage point by the park, with a clear view of the entrance to Suffolk Hall. Nicola had emerged first. They watched her hurry to the bus stop, just out of sight from their apartment, let the 183 bus for Pinner go, then cross the road and climb into a waiting black Mercedes.
‘Poor Dodge,’ Melanie had murmured, as Nicola leant across to kiss the driver.
‘Not our business.’
Dodge’s dirty Audi had appeared just after ten, his paranoia immediately apparent as he pulled into the petrol station and loitered by the pump, clocking the traffic in both dir
ections. ‘So what’s making him scared?’ Langton had said, as they left Dodge to swing into his third side road in less than twenty minutes.
‘Perhaps it’s us.’
They accelerated away as Dodge reappeared on the main drag, almost out of sight. ‘Be much easier if I had the bloody bike,’ Langton had said, massaging his injured arm.
They watched Dodge park in Harlesden, cross the street and enter Thomas Roache, then found an unmade slope beside the railway bridge with a diagonal line of sight into the shop doorway. Langton looked irritated. ‘What the hell is he doing at a builder’s yard?’ he said, watching Dodge show a piece of paper to the shopkeeper.
‘God knows.’
They saw him reach into his jacket pocket, just as their own mobiles buzzed, seconds apart. ‘What do we do now? About Dodge?’ said Melanie, reading Gemma’s bomb warning.
She had Langton’s answer instantly. ‘Red Three, Red Three, from Red One, receiving over?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I’m calling a Starburst from Gloucester Road.’
‘I already pressed the button. We have you at Harrow?’
‘Stand by,’ he said, drawn by Melanie’s intense gaze across the street. ‘What’s up?’
‘Dodge just flipped. Bloody hell, Jack. Look at this.’
Langton unclicked his seat belt and craned across Melanie’s space in time to see Dodge drag the shopkeeper across the counter and punch him, before both men stumbled out of sight. ‘So fatso sold him some duff taps or something.’
‘No. It’s Gemma’s warning that’s driven him crazy. Has to be.’ Melanie shouldered her door. ‘I have to sort this, before he gets nicked.’
‘We have a Topaz,’ said Langton, restraining her. ‘We cover the bomb warning. That’s our job. Dodge looks after himself…Red Three from Red One, RV in fifteen.’ He leant across again and turned the ignition, wincing in discomfort. ‘Drive.’
•••
Thursday, 20 October, 10.47, Gloucester Road
Loping across the ticket hall for the street exit, the bomb live by his side, Kenny realised Roscoe must have made his warning call while he was still underground. The mayhem roared in from the street as he touched out his Oyster card on the yellow reader, a clamour of sirens and shouted orders as terrified pedestrians crowded past the station entrance to safety. The police evacuation was in full swing, with stressed officers unrolling cordon tape as they struggled to clear the area, straining into their radios for updates and new instructions. Shirt tail flapping, an overweight cop occupied the station entrance, yelling orders at the staff to send people back underground. Face red with frustration, he lurched inside the hall and held his palms high, as if he, alone, could turn back the tide of passengers.
Weaving past him into the street, Kenny glanced to his right and saw that his planned approach was blocked. He swung left along Gloucester Road, losing himself in the crowd being herded north, away from Caja Soller Direct. His watch: twelve minutes to detonation. Kenny pulled the hood over his beanie and swung the bag by his side, scanning the tumult for a place to lie low and make his bomb safe. He saw only hi-vis cops ahead of him, their vehicles abandoned across the road, doors left open, blue lights flashing. They waved at oncoming motorists to turn around and get clear, harsh with anyone who hesitated or questioned them.
Just beyond the station, shoppers hurried from Gloucester Arcade to swell the stream, buffeting him as they elbowed their way from danger, and he flinched as a folded bike bumped hard against the bag. So many victims, packed even tighter here than on the train, stoking his anguish. Frantic in the crush, Kenny lifted the bag as though it were a child, and the Semtex warmed him through.
Shuffling forward, he realised the crowd was being evacuated to the crossing with Cromwell Road, lined with stucco mansion blocks set back from the pavement. No place to lie low. Beyond the junction lay buildings with flags flying from their upper floors: hotels, perhaps, or embassies, with security cameras and guards. The watch summoned him again: seven minutes. He tracked the road to his right and spotted a coffee house, Shelley, with a raised pavement terrace, empty now, abandoned cups of coffee still cooling on the table. Between the terrace and an adjacent fast food joint was a wedge of empty space. He crabbed his way through the crush and slid down the wall beside an old supermarket trolley and dirty blanket, with the bomb cradled in his lap. The commotion was easing now as people funnelled into the safety of Cromwell Road and he saw a line of four cops advancing with a length of tape stretched between them, like stewards at the end of a parade.
Head lowered, Kenny enveloped his upper body in the reeking blanket and searched inside the bag, working from memory, not daring to look. The carton clicked open, then his hand closed around the detonator, the metal smooth, his fingers shaking, slippery with sweat.
‘Everybody keep moving!’ The cops had drawn level with Shelley and he recognised the nearest as the shouter in the station, still panicky, belligerent. He spotted Kenny at the last moment, the only still life in Gloucester Road, and hesitated, calculating whether the normal rules of humanity applied, as Kenny’s fingers slithered free. ‘You. Get away!’
Kenny stayed motionless as his hand found the detonator again. The cop was striding over as he gripped the narrow cylinder, then a boot connected with Kenny’s bad leg, making him cry out. The officer stumbled forward onto the trolley, his foot tangling in the blanket, dislodging the bag and separating the detonator from the Semtex as cleanly as a cork from a bottle.
Above the hubbub, Kenny heard only silence. ‘My stuff,’ he mumbled, as the officer dragged him upright, shoved him away and reached for his yellow tape.
‘Get lost now,’ growled the cop. ‘You’re in grave danger here.’
Nearby, a church clock was striking eleven, but the broken bomb lay dormant beneath the blanket. Kenny shuffled away, resisting an impulse to tell the cop he was wrong.
Chapter Fifty
Thursday, 20 October, 11.07, Room 1830, New Scotland Yard
The first flight from Rome was fully booked, but Kerr managed to secure a standby seat just before the gate closed. Arriving at Luton shortly after eight, his Blackberry buzzed with a text from Justin Hine the moment the seat belt sign pinged off: ‘need 2 speak will call at 10 exact.’ As Nancy had insisted, he drove back to his apartment, rather than her house, to shower and change. He made coffee and an omelette, and picked up Justin’s call on the first ring.
‘Boss, I’ve only got a couple of minutes. Are we still go for tomorrow, or do I need a Plan B?’ He seemed to be in the open somewhere, a busy street, and the wind whipped at his words.
‘Are you alright with it? You know, flying solo?’
A vehicle began reversing nearby and he heard Justin curse over the beeps. ‘You think I’d take that chance if I wasn’t ready?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Kerr.
‘It’s a hundred and forty miles in a Cessna, not a bloody moon shot. The course is a cinch and the forecast looks good. It’ll be fine.’ His voice was high-pitched, the stress leaking over the traffic noise, and Kerr strained to hear him. ‘I know you’ve been away, on the road.’
‘In the air. And it was a bumpy landing. That’s the only reason…’
‘It’ll die down, no worries.’
‘Let’s have another call last thing.’
‘Sorry, boss, won’t be at mine tonight. I’m staying over.’
‘At Costello’s?’
‘We have to be away first thing and Hackney’s closer to the airfield.’
‘Do you often do that? Spend the night with Gina?’
The wind tugged at his words again. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘Can’t you get out of it?’
‘I’m a single guy, remember?’ Justin managed a nervous laugh. ‘No life outside the group.’
‘But you’re not, are you?’
A pause. ‘Boss, I’m a bit pushed right now. Just want to be sure I’m covered your end?’
‘I’ll have Gina alongside,’ he said, lifting his voice above the street noise. ‘This is a test, boss, so no screw-ups. It’s just…I can’t afford to get pulled at Rotterdam.’
‘You’ll walk straight through. Anything else?’
‘Like, what?’
‘Like, who are you bringing back?’
Justin’s voice rose a notch. ‘If I knew that, don’t you think I’d report it?’ For a moment Kerr thought Justin had cut the call. ‘Right now I’m just thinking about the weather over the fucking North Sea.’
‘It’s okay. You’re doing…’
‘Better go. They’ll be waiting…see you.’
‘Stay safe,’ said Kerr, but the line was already dead.
Kerr had intended to check on Nancy; instead, he made a quick call to Alan Fargo before driving to the Yard. Justin was trying to disguise his relationship with Gina Costello and downplay the flight to the Netherlands, chipping away at Kerr’s unease. The pilot as cover had been Kerr’s idea, but now his bravado left him anxious.
Gemma’s notification of the bomb threat came through as he drove into the underground car park. ‘Anything?’ he said as he swiped into Room 1830.
‘Still waiting,’ said Fargo. ‘The Reds are on Starburst from Gloucester Road tube.’
Fargo led him away from the hubbub into the reading room, where a giant chart of the English and Netherlands coasts was spread over the table. They sat side by side, in sight of the breaking news from Sky visible through the glass partition. ‘How was the trip?’ said Fargo, watching for the live TV pictures from Gloucester Road.
‘Later. Do I need to speak with air support?’
Fargo flattened the chart, shaking his head. ‘It’s cleared as a planned aerial surveillance operation.’
‘National security or drugs?’