The Divinities

by Parker Bilal

  ‘I go back to kitchen. Suddenly, I hear loud noise, like someone is coughing. Very loud. I could feel it going through the building. I shout and run to the hallway, but it’s impossible. The whole place is white, white with fire. Ya Allah! I’ve never seen anything like it. Ahmad, my poor Ahmad! He was in flames. I didn’t know what to do. He was coming towards me. There was a coat lying on a chair in the hallway. He always complained when people did not use the coat stand by the front door, but lucky for him. I picked it up and threw it on him to put out the flames.’

  ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘Why do people hate us so much? We do not preach hatred. Ahmad, he . . .’ She began to cry softly, burying her face in her hands for a second. There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then she sniffed and looked up. ‘Your badge says your name is Calil. You are Muslim?’

  Drake hesitated, then nodded. ‘I used to come here, a long time ago.’

  ‘I knew it.’ A knowing smile appeared. ‘Faith is not a garment you put on and take off. Once a Muslim, always a Muslim.’

  He let that one go and stepped back out. The hall looked as if it had been seared by a giant blowtorch; walls, floor, ceiling. A cheap chandelier had melted into twisted swirls of metal and fused glass.

  ‘Can I ask, was there anyone else living here, apart from yourself and your husband when it happened?’

  She glanced away from him, then shook her head.

  ‘I’d like to talk to your husband, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Why, what is the point?’

  ‘We might find out who did this.’

  ‘Nobody cares who did this,’ she said. ‘You know why? They think we deserve it.’

  He watched her walk back to her bucket and retrieve her sponge to begin dabbing at the walls. Rivulets of black water ran down the wall.

  CHAPTER 19

  Crane had always had a thing about motorcycles. Ever since she was a child. She was drawn to the kind of swagger that accompanied them. The feeling of the world rushing towards you as you twisted the grip. When she was thirteen she watched a film with Mickey Rourke. Motorcycle Boy. That was his name. She didn’t remember what the film was called but she did remember that he rode a red Kawasaki GPZ. For a time she had owned a similar model. Years later she watched the film again, and hated it. A lot of macho posturing that hadn’t aged well. But she still loved bikes.

  The engine responded eagerly as she twisted the throttle, zipping between a van and a Mini that had stalled. Car horns sounded behind her, but she was already past it, looking ahead. That was the thing about riding a bike; you always had to be looking ahead. The danger came from every direction: a pothole in the road, a patch of diesel oil, other motorists. You soon learned that you couldn’t trust anyone else on the road. Cars, buses, black cabs in particular, other bikes, reckless cyclists, and pedestrians, of course, who often seemed completely oblivious of moving vehicles.

  The midnight blue Triumph Bonneville always gave her a sense of purpose. She zipped through the traffic, riding the white lines. A car in central London made about as much sense as a horse-drawn carriage and was statistically no faster. She often cycled about the city, but the Triumph was a little indulgence that she told herself also had practical benefits.

  She spun down the Edgware Road and opened up the engine on Park Lane. She cut left through Mayfair, threading her way easily along the sidestreets until she arrived in Soho. The tarmac was still slick from a recent rain shower. The afternoon sun sliced down Frith Street, cutting the street into angles of shadow and light. She climbed off the bike and shook her hair free from the helmet as she hurried along the street, pulling her scarf up to protect her from another brief flurry.

  There was nothing about the red door to indicate that it was anything more than an ordinary terraced house. Except that there wasn’t much around here that could be described as ordinary. There weren’t many people who could afford one of these places as a private residence these days, unless they’d hung on to it for decades. The only thing that appeared on the polished brass plaque beside the door were the numbers 331/3. Not the street number. A reference perhaps to the fact that once upon a time the music industry used to be centred around this area. Maybe it still was, but Crane wasn’t here to break into the music or any other business. She leaned a finger on the reception buzzer and stared straight into the glowing eye of the camera until the door clicked open. Inside, the entrance had been remodelled to retain as much as possible of its original form. Chequerboard tiles disappeared down a narrow hallway past a dinky little reception desk tucked under the staircase. The woman behind the desk wore an emerald-green satin dress and cherry-red lipstick. The smile congealed on her face. Crane didn’t slow her pace. She knew what it was. The headscarf, which she decided there and then was staying put on her head.

  ‘Doctor Rayhana Crane to meet Stewart Mason.’ She even put a little bit of an accent on her voice. Just for fun.

  ‘Of course.’ To her credit the smile stayed in place as the hostess ran a finger carefully down the ledger in front of her looking for a mistake. There wasn’t one. She pointed towards the stairs.

  ‘I’ll leave this here.’

  Crane dumped her helmet on the counter alongside a silver ice bucket that contained a bottle of pink champagne. No offer of an aperitif. The receptionist seemed uncomfortable. She began wringing her hands, apparently unable to make up her mind. Through a doorway to the right Crane glimpsed a front room that had been turned into a lounge, with designer lighting and leather armchairs. Already she felt irritated by the place. Part old-fashioned men’s club, part trendy watering hole for wannabe media types.

  Ready to punch anyone who got in her way, Ray climbed the stairs to the first floor and entered a long, dark room. A backlit bar ran along the rear wall. Low windows with discreet drapes faced out onto a side street to the left. Apart from the man behind the bar the room was almost empty. There was a sofa along the right wall while the rest of the room was taken up with small tables. Two of them were by the windows. One of these was empty, the other occupied by a tall, bald man in an expensive, bespoke suit. Stewart Mason rolled his eyes as she entered.

  ‘Ah,’ he simpered. ‘You came as the devout diva.’

  ‘Save it,’ Ray said, sitting down, shrugging off her leather jacket.

  ‘I never know what to make of you. Biker moll or swinging sister.’

  ‘You sound embarrassed, Stewart.’

  ‘The point about this place is that nobody cares what you do or how you dress.’

  ‘You can believe that if you want to.’ She looked up as a waiter appeared. He wore a crushed velvet waistcoat. Very Marc Bolan. All he needed was a feather boa.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ Ray asked Mason.

  ‘Bourbon, ginger ale and lime.’ Mason held the glass up to the light. ‘It’s not bad.’

  ‘I’ll have the same.’

  ‘The same?’

  ‘Yes, only drop the ginger ale.’

  The waiter seemed to falter a little before recovering and spinning on his heels and disappearing. A rather smug smile played on Mason’s lips as Crane shrugged the scarf off her head.

  ‘You like that, don’t you, unsettling people?’

  ‘Why am I here, Stewart?’

  ‘I thought you’d like the place. It’s discreet, not too exclusive, less formal than my club in St James.’

  ‘Forgive me, but I see only a change in decór. Otherwise it’s old men doing what they always do, building little fortresses to keep the riff-raff out.’ She looked around. ‘It’s also way too fashionable for you.’

  Mason seemed to enjoy being baited. ‘You’re too quick to judge. Give it a chance.’

  ‘Why am I really here?’

  ‘How’s the practice going?’

  ‘It’s going.’ Ray sat back in her chair as the waiter set her drink down. She put out a hand to grab his wrist. ‘Wait.’ She took a sip and shook her head. ‘More bourbon, less ice.’ He did a dou
ble take and then ducked away.

  ‘You’re being mean to him, just to change the subject.’

  ‘Not at all. The ice dilutes the bourbon. Just like that sticky syrup you’ve got in there.’

  Stewart leaned his elbows on the table. ‘Okay, I’ll get to the point. I want you to come and work for me.’

  ‘We tried that, remember? Didn’t work out too well, if you recall.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time soothing the egos of your few patients. We both know that.’

  ‘Well, it beats working behind a bar.’ She flashed the waiter an acid smile as he returned with her drink. This time it was better.

  ‘I’m putting together a private company. Risk management. I could use someone like you.’

  ‘I’ll bet you could.’

  ‘Come on. Don’t tell me you’ve got something better going. I know you’re on the brink of going under.’

  ‘Actually, I’m on a new case.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Mason leaned back. ‘Who called you in?’

  ‘Superintendent Wheeler.’

  ‘This is the double murder, on a building site?’

  ‘Magnolia Quays.’

  ‘We’ve become a nation obsessed with the macabre. Who’s in charge?’

  ‘DS Drake, out of Raven Hill.’ She saw his expression change. ‘You know him?’

  ‘I know of him. There’s a shadow hanging over him.’

  ‘He was demoted, claims he was railroaded.’

  ‘They all do. It’s never their fault.’ Ice rattled as Mason took a long sip of his drink. ‘That’s the problem with this country, nobody wants to take responsibility for anything.’

  Ray looked around the room. They were playing some kind of mood music somewhere. A lounge version of an old Clash song. Heavy damask drapes covered the doors. A couple entered. The woman was young enough to be the man’s daughter, but the way he had his hand around her waist made it clear that she wasn’t. The longer she spent here the less Ray liked it.

  ‘A key witness was killed. She was under his protection at the time.’

  Mason nodded. ‘I remember the case. Goran Malevich. Nasty piece of work. This Drake was supposedly in his pay.’

  ‘He was working undercover, trying to infiltrate Malevich’s organization.’

  ‘That’s right. Only he was working for Malevich all the time.’

  ‘That was the claim.’ Ray circled a finger round the rim of her glass. ‘They couldn’t prove anything.’

  ‘If memory serves, the court case fell apart because he lost a witness.’

  ‘She disappeared. The assumption was that Drake had helped to get her out of the way. He was demoted and transferred out of the Met for a time.’

  ‘Malevich was killed in the end, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Gunned down in a car park.’

  ‘Charming, and you say you’re working with this guy?’

  ‘I’m trying to. He’s not so keen on the idea. Wants to solve it by himself and clear his name. Some such macho bullshit.’

  ‘Right.’ Mason studied her over his glass. ‘I’m assuming you agreed to meet because you want something from me.’

  ‘I need the same thing.’

  ‘I didn’t think macho bullshit was your line,’ said Mason cattily.

  ‘You have access to files. You know people. You know Howard Thwaite.’

  ‘Only indirectly.’

  Mason had a long career behind him in the intelligence services, moving around from one grey area to another. Over the years, Ray would never be sure exactly who he was working for, or on what. Counter-intelligence. Anti-terrorism. Special-Ops. Pysch-Ops.

  Six years ago it was Stewart Mason who had come to her with an interesting proposition; a think tank, the Vesta Institute, had contacted him. They were developing a scheme to analyse radicalization. They proposed counselling civilians and former fighters who were returning from Syria and Iraq after going out to join ISIS. There was a problem with the optics, which was why it was being handled by a private foundation rather than a government institution. Public opinion was unlikely to accept the notion of giving returning jihadis a second chance. Certainly it would have been difficult to argue that it was possible to learn from them, to try and put their experience to work. The general view was that they were fanatics who had turned against their own country. They deserved to be stripped of their citizenship and thrown into a bottomless pit, at the very least.

  Crane knew going in that it was a risky venture, but that was never something that caused her to shy away. On the contrary, she felt it was vital to try to understand what drove people to leave behind their jobs and families, to sacrifice the comfort they knew for the unknown, for an idea. Some of them went as fighters, others as doctors, nurses, hospital orderlies, teachers, computer scientists, housewives, men and women. Most were young, some still in their teens. There were women who had been enticed over chat rooms to come out and marry fighters, and men who had been in trouble with the law. What they had in common was their choosing an Islamic caliphate they knew nothing about over the country they had called home for most if not all of their lives.

  Then, one morning a young man named Salim Anwar walked into a shopping mall in Leeds and tried to blow himself up. The device failed to detonate, but Anwar had been one of Crane’s patients and someone had to take the fall. Mason had tried to help her. Not to the extent that he was willing to take responsibility, of course. He disappeared into the system to emerge, as always, higher up than he’d been before. So, Mason owed her and he knew that.

  ‘I need to get ahead. I need an edge,’ said Ray.

  ‘And you think I can provide this? Let’s order.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Mason pulled a face. ‘Why do you reject my advances?’

  ‘You’re a married man, remember?’

  ‘We’re both consenting adults. Let me worry about that.’

  Mason put out a hand to grab her wrist. She looked down at it, waited until he let go.

  ‘At least consider my offer. Civilian life will bore you to death and you know it.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Ray promised. Finishing her drink she got to her feet. She looked around at their surroundings. ‘The thing is,’ she said. ‘You can throw fancy wallpaper at it, but it doesn’t get rid of the old stench.’

  He watched her walk away.

  CHAPTER 20

  On the way back to Raven Hill, Drake gave Fast Eddie a call. As always, the forensic officer sounded half asleep.

  ‘I was over in Freetown, looking at the fire there.’

  ‘Interesting. I thought you were on the Magnolia Quays case.’

  ‘I was just curious. What can you tell me?’

  ‘I had the feeling it wasn’t a priority.’

  In person, Fast Eddie was a tall, lanky man in need of a haircut. He might have looked and sounded like a hippy, but in practice he was anything but.

  ‘Humour me, okay?’

  ‘Not a problem. Okay, well, first off, this is not your average juvenile delinquent special.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Somebody knew what they were doing.’

  ‘It looked like there was a lot of damage close to the door.’

  ‘Well, right, you know. That would be consistent with accelerant being introduced close to the entrance.’

  ‘But?’ The thing about Fast Eddie was that he didn’t offer up information willingly, you had to ask nicely. Drake sensed he was holding something back.

  ‘So, left of the main entrance is a spare room. We found the remains of a bed. Some belongings. It looked like someone was sleeping in there.’

  ‘But no body, right?’

  ‘No, that would have taken things to another level. The indications are that no one was in there at the time.’

  ‘The attack took place in the middle of the day, so presumably the room was empty.’

  Fast Eddie cleared his throat. ‘You should really talk to Bishop.’

&n
bsp; ‘DS Bishop?’

  ‘He’s the man.’

  Drake’s heart sank. Bishop was a hopeless case.

  ‘I’ll do that. In the meantime, give me a breakdown. What are we talking about? A can of paraffin for a stove?’

  ‘That was my first thought. A camping stove or gas bottle exploding. But the pattern is all wrong. This was a little more intense.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, whatever it was, it was powerful enough to blow through the brickwork in places. We found cracks. I would put the temperature as up in the hundreds.’

  ‘So, you’re talking what, military grade?’

  ‘That would do it.’

  ‘But you found nothing. No casings or packaging?’

  ‘Nothing like that. I sent some of the residue to the lab.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s too early to say for sure. And if I were to speculate, which I don’t do as a rule…’

  ‘Course you don’t.’

  ‘I’d say this was specialist stuff, for the connoisseur only. The way the burn pattern spread along the wall suggests a serious incendiary device. Ever come across Thermite in your time in the service?’

  Drake had heard of it. It was the stuff they used in anti-tank rockets. An armour piercing shell would deliver a payload that could turn the interior into a furnace in seconds. 1600 degrees.

  ‘So, not your average arsonist.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it. We’re trying to trace where it came from now.’

  ‘How did it get in there?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing. The two parts of the fire seem to have been separate, at least to begin with. So the initial damage to the front door and the hallway are different.’

  ‘No entry point? No impact or detonation?’

  ‘Our analysis of the fire pattern suggests the fire actually started inside the building.’

  ‘You can see that?’

  ‘We have models based on all kinds of scenarios. The second blast was like a wave that swept everything before it. Produces a very distinctive shape.’

  ‘And that came from within?’

  ‘It looks that way. Thermite is normally sealed into stable packages to stop accidental detonation.’