by Simon Conway
“What about Alex Ross? He’s the one that murdered Monteith.”
“According to Companies House, up until a month ago he was listed as the director of a security company called Threshold. Then they got bought out by a much larger American company called Graysteel. That’s the company that your Richard Winthrop is now vice-chairman of. They call it the fifth branch of the US military: army, navy, air force, Marines … Graysteel. Alex Ross is now listed as a non-executive director of Graysteel UK. They have offices in Kensington. I called them up. They told me that he wasn’t available. They seemed pretty interested in me, though.”
“What did you tell them?”
She laughed. “I told them that I was from the Today show.”
“You should be careful,” Miranda told her.
“Hey, careful is my middle name.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are. If you’re still interested, I know what Norma Said’s doing tonight.”
“I’m interested.”
“She’s going to the theater. The Almeida in Islington. It’s the European premiere of a new David Mamet play. You could buy a ticket or just turn up for the interval. According to the blurb, it’s a courtroom drama, and it has all the ingredients: the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, sexual fidelity, world peace, etc., etc. … You know where it is?”
“I know.”
Her parents had lived close by, in Highgate, and she had gone to school there in what seemed like a different life.
“I’ll meet you at the flat later?”
“Yes. Can I borrow something to wear?”
“Sure, and get yourself a mobile phone. Call in regularly.”
Farther up the Edgware Road, Miranda stopped at an Arab-owned electronics store and bought five pay-as-you-go mobile phones. Back in the flat she switched the TV on. It was on Sky News. There was further footage of the Red Road Flats. She pressed the mute button. She set about unpacking the phones, plugging them in to charge at sockets in various rooms. She chose a dress, a simple black dress, from Saira’s wardrobe. It had been a long time since she’d worn a dress. She justified it on the grounds that she was going to the theater. She hung it up on the back of the kitchen door, then took a shower. She realized that she would need shoes. She chose a pair of plain black pumps. And a handbag for her money and the phones—there was one on the back of Saira’s door.
She made herself toast and Marmite. She dozed off on the sofa.
Miranda woke to a split screen, a Sky News anchorman on one side of the tube and on the other Richard Winthrop IV with a caption identifying him as a former White House National Security Advisor. She grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. The anchorman was speaking. “Do you honestly believe that we have come to a place where the most senior people in the highest office in the land won’t do the right thing in the end? They won’t see the error of their ways?”
“No, sir, they will not,” Winthrop replied, and suddenly he had the whole screen to himself. “The only chance that we have right now is for Osama Bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in Europe. It’s going to take grassroots bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office and prize the praise of the liberal media above the safety of their citizens. It’s an absurd situation. Only Osama Bin Laden can execute an attack which will force Europeans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much force as is necessary.”
Infuriated, she changed the channel.
On CNN, a car was burning on an overpass in New Orleans. Beneath it was the caption:
SHOOT OUT IN THE NINTH WARD
A Graysteel security contractor was explaining that his convoy had come under fire from black gangbangers on an overpass in the Ninth Ward neighborhood. “I was talking to my wife,” he said. “Then suddenly we’re in an ambush. I dropped the phone and returned fire with my AR-15. After that there was just yelling and screaming. And bodies everywhere. I’m telling you, it’s like Baghdad on the bayou.”
“This is a trend,” said a spokesman for Graysteel. “You’re going to see a lot more of guys like us in these situations. Our rapid response unit has global reach and can make a positive difference in the lives of those who are affected by natural disasters and terrorist attacks.”
Miranda changed channels. BBC News 24. The next image was of the Home Secretary at a speech that afternoon to the Association of Chief Police Officers, being asked by a reporter whether there was any truth in the allegation that the intelligence services had been infiltrated by terrorists. “I have full confidence in the intelligence services,” the Home Secretary said, looking rattled and unprepared.
She changed channels again. In Iraq, a suicide bomber had detonated his charge next to a petrol tanker south of Baghdad; sixty died in the ensuing fireball and hundreds were injured.
She changed again. A weatherman was tracking the progress of a depression from its origins on the Grand Banks off the coast of Canada, across the Atlantic towards the North Sea.
She changed once more. Sky News again. The anchor announced, “We’re going live to our correspondent Scarlett Taylor who is outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. What can you tell us about the American reaction, Scarlett?”
“So far there has been no official comment from the American government on the allegation that British military intelligence officers colluded to cover up the assassination of a CIA agent in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. However, we do know that the US Attorney’s office in New York has today unsealed warrants for the arrest of a list of six individuals who are believed to have belonged to a secret British military unit. At least two of those individuals are believed to have died under mysterious circumstances in recent days. One of them on the remote Scottish island of Barra and the other in what the Strathclyde Police has just confirmed was a bomb-making factory in the Red Road Flats in Glasgow.”
She switched off the television and immediately dialed Saira’s mobile phone.
“Who is this?” Saira asked.
“It’s me, Miranda.”
“Thank God you called. Are you in the flat?”
“Yes.”
“Get out of there right now. Whoever is following me is probably also watching you. Go somewhere public, a train station, department store. See if you can lose them. Call me again in an hour. I’ll have fixed up somewhere safer for you to stay.”
Saira cut the connection. Miranda got dressed. She put the mobile phone she’d used in the rubbish bin and scooped up the other four. She put them together with the money and the papers from Jonah’s collage in the handbag.
She stood on the pavement for a short time, studying the Edgware Road with as much indifference as she could muster. It was busy and there were people everywhere—walking on the pavement, getting on and off buses, emerging from the underground. Even some of the parked cars along the curb had people in them. It was impossible. She walked to the curb and hailed a cab. She told the driver to take her to Selfridges.
As soon as they were under way Miranda noticed a car opposite the entrance to Saira’s block of flats pull out into the traffic. It was an ordinary-looking blue car and Miranda could not tell what make it was. It stayed several cars behind them as they headed down the Edgware Road and along Oxford Street.
At the front entrance to Selfridges, she thrust a ten-pound note into the driver’s hand and hurried in under the clock tower without looking behind her. She walked through the crowded perfume counters with such haste that shop assistants turned to look after her.
Ascending on the escalator, Miranda watched the door she had come in. To her horror, the ginger-haired man, who she had last seen standing on the deck of the ferry from Barra, hurried in and looked angrily around the crowd. Miranda had almost reached the next floor when the man looked up toward her and their eyes met. He scowled. The first floor was as crowded as the ground floor. She rushed around the central well to climb to another floor. Stepping from the escalator, she ran past
racks of women’s designer wear and shoes to the stairs at the back.
She sprinted down the stairs, following the signs for the car park, and ducked out onto Edwards Mews. She hurried across Portman Square toward the glass-canopied entrance of the Radisson Hotel. She crossed the lobby to the mezzanine, where there was a bar with a view of the doors. The bar was furnished with red leather chairs, and there was a woman playing a piano in the corner. Miranda ordered a vodka and tonic and sat and watched the doors. There was no ginger-haired man.
She drank deeply. Her choice of Selfridges had not been entirely an instant improvisation. She had been chased through Selfridges before. It had been Christmas and the store was crowded and decorated. Her pursuer at the time was on overweight store detective who had caught her shoplifting in the Virgin record store. She had managed to evade the detective’s grasp but then he had pursued her along Oxford Street through the lunchtime crowds. At last she had darted into Selfridges and escaped by a very similar route to the one she had just used.
There was something strange about it, when she reflected on it. It must have been about a year after her parents’ death and just before she set off for Pakistan. The record that she’d stolen had been for Digger, her companion on the trip. Perhaps if the store detective had been a bit quicker she might not have ended up in Afghanistan; she might not have got pregnant; she might not have been sucked into Jonah’s world; she would not be sitting here now, hiding from the ginger-haired man.
She ordered another drink. If she had not been so headstrong as a child, so heedless of the consequences of her actions, she might have achieved some semblance of contentment. It was too late now. She didn’t think that she was going to live very much longer and she didn’t much care. Her death would be as pointless as everything else in her life.
She paid for the drinks and went down to the lobby. She stood beside a column for a while and then stepped out onto the pavement. No ginger-haired man. When she had crossed Baker Street she turned in her tracks and looked around, but she could see no sign of pursuit. She was reasonably satisfied that she was no longer being followed, and for some reason that made her feel confident and bold.
She walked into Top Shop and bought a red halter-neck dress, a bra and underwear and then on impulse a dark blonde wig. The label said the color was cappuccino. She paid for them and then changed in the fitting rooms, folding the black dress into her handbag. Once again, she had lustrous, long hair. She strode down Oxford Street to the tube station with the same boldness that had carried her down al-Arasat in Baghdad more than a decade before.
It had turned into a warm evening and as she turned into Almeida Street from Upper Street she saw that the theater crowd had spilled out on to the pavement for the interval.
There was an elegant-looking black woman, of indeterminate age, with large eyes, strong cheekbones and closely cropped black hair, standing with the white walls of the bar behind her. She was wearing bold jewelry and a cashmere shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She was talking to a tall man in a vivid tie who Miranda recognized as the anchor for a rival television news show to the one that she had been watching earlier. The man was animated. The woman was, by contrast, calm and self-possessed—there was something about her manner that reminded Miranda of Jonah’s surprising capacity for stillness and observation when he chose to exert it. She waited for a break in their conversation and then approached, easing her way through the chattering crowd.
“Baroness Said?” she asked.
Norma Said contemplated her without expression. “Yes?”
“My name is Miranda. I’m Jonah’s friend.”
Calmly, Norma Said turned to her companion and said, “Will you excuse us for a moment.”
The news anchor ducked his head and withdrew out of earshot.
“Thank you,” Miranda told her.
Norma Said took her time looking her over and then said, “Well?”
“I think Jonah is being set up to take the blame for a terrorist attack here in London.”
Norma Said’s equanimity did not waver even for a moment. She was clearly a woman who responded with the greatest calm to events that might be expected to cause anyone else extreme anxiety. “Can you prove it?”
Miranda hesitated.
“Well?”
“I have seen certain clues that suggest the date and the target of the attack. I can identify one of the people behind it. A man named Alex Ross. He used to own a security company called Threshold, which has been taken over by the US company Graysteel.”
Norma Said was silent for a time.
“I need your help,” Miranda told her.
“Come to Ripe in Sussex tomorrow,” Norma said. “I’ll be in the graveyard at eleven a.m. We can speak then.”
She turned her back on Miranda and walked over to the news anchor. She was smiling by the time she reached him.
WHISTLE AND DUCK
September 10–11, 2005
Saira looked thoughtful and serious as she dumped an overnight bag on the bed. They were in adjacent rooms in the vast hangar-like Hilton across from Terminal 4 at Heathrow Airport. There was a camera on a tripod pointing at an armchair arranged in a corner of the room. Miranda was sitting collapsed in it. The wig was discarded on the floor.
“I see you made a start on the minibar,” Saira said.
“We need more vodka,” Miranda said, “if you want me to tell all.”
“There’s a bottle in the bag. And some clothes.”
“You think of everything.”
“I try to be thorough.” Miranda was aware of Saira watching her as she got up out of the chair. “You look good in a dress,” Saira told her.
“Why, thank you,” Miranda replied, retrieving the bottle. “You should see me in my wig.”
“Do you know who’s been following us?”
Miranda poured two shots. “I have some idea.”
“Did you lose them?”
“Yes. In Selfridges.” She handed a glass to Saira. “What about you?”
“In the crowds at King’s Cross,” Saira replied. “What I don’t understand is why they were so obvious.”
“Maybe they are trying to frighten us.”
“They succeeded.” They both downed their shots. “Who are they?”
“I think they work for Alex Ross.”
“Graysteel?” Saira said.
“Yes.”
“You said that Alex Ross was a member of the Afghan Guides?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course. I told you he was in the photo that was stolen from the wall at Beech’s house. Flora confirmed it.”
“Then he’s getting some pretty heavyweight protection, probably courtesy of his employers at Graysteel.”
“What do you mean?”
“His name is not on the list of warrants issued by the US Attorney’s office.”
“They’re covering up his involvement,” Miranda said.
Saira nodded. “It looks that way. It explains why he stole the photo of the Guides that you described, and from what you’re saying it appears that he’s busy murdering or implicating in a fabricated terrorist attack anybody that had any connection to the Guides. Presumably without a live witness he’s in the clear.”
“You think the terrorist attack is a fabrication?” Miranda asked.
Saira frowned and shook her head. “It’s a fairy tale. It’s got to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nor’s not coming here, he’d be crazy to. He’s caused all the damage he wanted to on YouTube. Intelligence and security are at each other’s throats. We’ve got senior sources in MI6 briefing journalists against the MoD, accusing them of running a death squad. The MoD are claiming that they were infiltrated by private contractors paid by MI6. The police want to haul everybody in. The Americans are furious. Both the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary are looking vulnerable.”
“I’m not so sure. Nor
’s threat seemed pretty real to me. Flora thinks he has reason to want revenge. And in the Red Road Flats, when Alex spoke to me after killing Monteith, he made it sound like it was really going to happen.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it now.”
“I can try and stop them.”
“The best way for you to do that is to tell your side of the story. You want to do this now?”
Miranda sighed. “All right.”
“Then take a seat in front of the camera,” Saira told her.
Miranda sat. Saira knelt before her for a moment and tucked a lock of Miranda’s hair behind her ear. She smoothed her eyebrows. As she got up she paused briefly to press her lips to Miranda’s forehead.
“Good luck.”
She stepped up to the camera and pressed Record.
“Tell me everything.”
They lay outstretched on the bed with the empty foil trays of their takeout dinner and an empty wine bottle spread out on the floor beside them. The tapes containing Miranda’s story were lined up on the bedside table. Saira was smoking a cigarette, with the back of her head resting on the headboard.
“Do you remember the whistle and duck?”
The whistle and duck. It sounded like the name of an English pub. The phrase had probably been coined by an Englishman. It was the sight and sound of Sarajevo. The two things happened simultaneously and, curiously, in slow motion. A loud whistling overhead and, because it was a sound that everyone recognized, they would all duck, in perfect unison. Then the shell would thud into the ground or the side of a block of flats, explode and let out a belch of black smoke.