by Simon Hall
‘I’ll have more of the same for tonight,’ she continued. ‘And no resting on your laurels either, just because you’ve got a minor scoop to your name. I want each twist and turn and every update going on this story. I want it first, I want it on every bulletin, and I want it good.’
Dan walked downstairs to the canteen to get a sandwich. He took satisfaction from the continual ringing of phones as journalists from across the country called to ask for permission to report some of Ali’s quotes. They would be used to complement the photos El had taken. Before they left, Dan suggested that a way of getting rid of the press pack would be to let just one photographer in to take some snaps. She had agreed, and Dan called his scurrilous friend.
The paparazzo gushed with a geyser of thanks, promised Dan “the mother of all nights out”, and also produced the threatened rhyme. El’s trademark eccentricity – or at least, the most notable of the many – was back.
The bomb, it shocked,
Even El was rocked.
But then normality returns,
Heals society’s burns,
And with a piccie, El’s cashflow’s unlocked!
Aside from the usual score of dreadful on the poetic meter, the little doggerel ran with a hint of being subdued. ‘I reckon I’m still feeling a bit bumped by what’s happened,’ the paparazzo explained.
As he queued at the sandwich bar, Dan’s thoughts kept slipping to the investigation. There could be no other conclusion than that Ahmed must remain the prime suspect for radicalising John Tanton. Those hours spent together in John’s bedroom could easily have been used to lead him to websites which provided instructions on how to build a bomb. Keep whispering the propaganda into his ear, drip by poisonous drip, and a terrorist had slowly built the ideal machine to carry out an attack without any harm to himself. There would always be suspicion about who was ultimately behind the bombing, but never proof.
The theory, though, did have complications. Ali mentioned that John had indeed been coached by Kindle at football training and looked up to the man. She didn’t think they’d spent a great deal of time together, but Kindle would undoubtedly have had occasions when he was alone with John, and perhaps enough to influence his thoughts.
She confirmed that John had visited the Islamic centre regularly, usually on a Friday for prayers, and had talked about speaking to both the Imam and his minder. He seemed in awe of them. They too would both have had the chance to talk to John alone.
Ali said John had also visited Exeter a couple of times in recent weeks. To shop, so he claimed, but he could have been to the Minster, perhaps even met Parfitt. And who knows what might have been discussed in a quiet corner of the magnificent old building?
Dan shook his head. His ideas were getting too far-fetched. What possible motive could the Principal have for helping a young Islamic convert blow up the Minster? OK, so he clearly had a dislike of Islam, but that was scarcely reason enough.
As for Kindle, what could be his motive? Increasing racial tensions, perhaps. That would certainly benefit the BPP, make its message resonate with some. And what of the Imam? He had appeared a peaceful and gentle man. His minder perhaps less so, but there was no evidence that he could be violent, only that little hunch Dan had felt.
Still, Adam had always told him never to ignore a hunch. Where was his friend when they needed to talk all this over?
A polite cough interrupted his thoughts. It was Doreen, the lady behind the sandwich bar. Dan apologised and hastily chose a ham and cheese baguette. Another lick of Sarah Jones’ perfume floated by. He wondered if she would call him. Dan doubted he would ring her. It would be just another complication in a life which was already quite sufficiently full of them, replete even. If the cares of the world were a banquet, Dan felt he had dined on his share.
Ali had said something else which set Dan’s mind at work. She too had been in Exeter on the day of the bombing, to look around the shops and get a feeling for potential books which might find a gap in the market. She also wanted to do some hunting for new clothes – or so she said.
Her reasons for being in the city sounded innocent and plausible enough, but neither required any corroboration. How convenient. Or perhaps, Dan thought, he had been working with the police too long and become overly suspicious. Surely Ali couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with a bomb attack by her own son, one which had cost him his life.
Such plots were the stuff of fiction. But he had seen some very strange things in his time working with Adam.
Not that he was doing so any more.
Dan took his sandwich to the quiet room and started eating. He was alone and glad of it. He hardly noticed the taste of the food, just chewed mechanically. He tried to read a paper, but the thought wouldn’t leave his mind. He should be with Adam, working through his ideas, helping on the inquiry. Not here, just sitting around.
The phone call. This case came down to the phone call John Tanton had made, most probably to the radicaliser, the dark silhouette of the unidentified person who was using an untraceable mobile phone in Exeter city centre. And now they knew that person could be Ahmed, Tahir, the Imam, Abdul, his minder, Kindle, Parfitt or even Alison Tanton.
No one else had appeared on the radar. No one else had the necessary connections to John, or the ability and opportunity to guide him to murder. There was no one else for him to call to be offered a warped justification for the atrocity he was about to commit.
The images of the blood stains in the Minster, the shrapnel scoring of the pews, the stretchers carrying away the wounded returned to Dan’s thoughts. And the silent horror of the onlookers.
A hiss escaped his mouth. He should be sitting with Adam, going through all this, discussing a way to trap the person they were hunting. Between them they could do it. Solve another notorious case. Find some justice for the families of the dead and all those who had been injured in the attack.
He should be working on it, right now, not wasting precious time.
Dan tried to think of Rutherford and taking him for a good walk at the weekend, Sarah Jones and her green eyes, perhaps seeing her in the Castle for a drink, even Claire and what he would say to her when finally they had to meet.
Nothing distracted him. Dan walked outside and called Adam.
‘Not a good moment. I’m busy.’
‘I know, but I’ve got news. I’ve found things out. I’ve got ideas. New suspects, new possibilities.’
‘Who? What suspects? What possibilities?’
Dan hesitated. It sounded so stupidly childish, utterly pathetic, but he said it anyway.
‘I’m not telling you until I get back in on the case.’
‘You know I can’t do that.’
‘I’m not telling you then. And it could be important.’
‘Look, you’re being stupid.’
‘I want back in!’
‘I can’t.’
‘But it’s the way we’ve always worked. It makes sense. It gets results.’
Adam was sounding increasingly irritated. ‘Dan, it’s not my case. It’s not my decision to make. Can’t you understand that?’
‘Then put me onto the bloody spooks. I’ll tell them.’
‘Look …’
‘Just put them on!’
Dan could hear a brief and muffled exchange of words in the background, then Sierra’s calm voice came on the line.
‘How can we help you?’
‘I’ve got some new information.’
‘What is it?’
‘Do I get to come back in on the case?’
‘I can’t say that until I hear what it is you’ve got to tell us.’
‘I’d like to come back in.’
‘I can’t decide until I hear what you’ve got to say.’
Again Dan hesitated.
‘Can I?’ Sierra prompted, her voice rhythmic, reasonable and relaxed. ‘How can I judge until I know what you’ve got to tell me?’
Dan ground a foot in the dust. He closed
his eyes, took a couple of paces, kicked out at a bush, then told her what he’d found.
The phone line hummed. The doors opened and a couple of engineers walked out, chatting animatedly, made for a van. Dan edged away, behind a tree. In the distance, a pneumatic drill began hammering. He noticed his chest felt oddly tight.
‘Thank you,’ Sierra said at last. ‘We will have a look at what you’ve told us. You’ve done your duty as a good citizen. But I’m afraid we can’t have you inside the inquiry. Now, please excuse me, I have work to get on with. Goodbye.’
‘But …’
The whine of the disconnection hit Dan like a flying fist. He physically recoiled, stared at the phone and tried to call back. It rang, but clicked in to Adam’s answer machine. He tried again with the same result.
Dan raised his face to the sky, swore loudly, let out a yell of frustration, drew back his arm and hurled the mobile down onto the grass.
Chapter Twelve
COME THE MORNING AFTER the night before, some things still seem like a good idea, others less so.
The first business of the day was to clear his head – again. It wasn’t becoming a habit, Dan reassured himself. It was simply that these were extraordinary times. But at least the task was straightforward, and even relatively pleasurable. He fished the lead from the back of the hallway cupboard, Rutherford prancing circles of yelping joy. They walked over the road to Hartley Park, Dan did a quick stretch – perfunctory might have been a better description – and they started running.
It was another beautiful autumn morning, the weather stuck in a benevolent groove. A couple of children were making their way to school and tried to call Rutherford over, but the dog ignored them with his usual lofty disdain. There was a whip of chill in the air, not quite enough to make a fog of their breath, but the world was turning inevitably onwards towards winter.
Rutherford’s coat was growing thicker. The flat would soon be full of his floating hair, and Dan made a mental note to buy more vacuum bags. That, or get a cleaner, something he had been promising he would do for years now and no doubt would for many more years hence. Some chores simply grew old with you.
Dan found himself wondering how Sarah would react to an aerial ambush of dog hair. He hadn’t asked if she suffered with any form of reaction to it, and it was a common ailment. A woman who dressed as well as she did certainly wouldn’t welcome its irritating adherence to every form of known fabric in the human wardrobe.
Dan spluttered at himself. One night didn’t make a relationship. Anyway, he had something far more important to consider. His instincts were being vocal in warning him of the danger he might be about to get into, but, as usual, that only served more as a temptation than a deterrent.
They ran under the line of oak trees at the southern edge of the park, the yellow morning light strobing through the gaps in the branches and leaves. A twig fell, then another, just missing them. In retaliation Rutherford left his traditional calling card on one of the trunks, then ran on wearing his tongue-out, smiling face.
‘Such behaviour is nothing to be proud of,’ Dan panted at him.
Running was hard work today. Dan winced as his head pounded anew, but he kept going. There was plenty he had to do, and he would get through it. He waved two fingers in the air to an imaginary audience of Sierra and Oscar. ‘I’m on the inquiry, whether you like it or not,’ he panted to himself. ‘This is my patch.’
Last night had certainly been interesting. After the lunchtime news, the rest of the day was quiet. His report had again led Wessex Tonight, quite rightly too, with just a couple of added lines that the police still had one man in custody being questioned in connection with the bombing and that inquiries continued elsewhere.
Dan got away early, pleading the extra hours he’d worked of late, and after the usual sceptical hearing the merciless Judge Lizzie had allowed him to go home. She’d inserted the proviso, naturally, that he kept his mobile phone on and would reappear back in the newsroom within an instant, if not sooner, if there were any developments on the story and would work on them until he dropped.
He would have been surprised by anything less.
Rutherford had been walked and fed, and Dan even managed to feed himself with some beans and out of date cheese on a couple of pieces of flaky bread, well toasted to hide their staleness. He was in the Old Bank pub on Mutley Plain by seven with a notepad, a pen and a couple of pints on the table. There was thinking to be done.
Dan Groves had great cause to be in the rich debt of two teachers from his schooldays. A lad from a working-class background, his family had no history of higher education. Dan had managed to stay at school to take A levels, then was set on getting out to work and earning some money.
But Mr Lewis, his maths teacher, and Mr Warr, his chemistry master, had persuaded the recalcitrant youngster that university was really little more than one big party, which he would enjoy a grant for, that there were girls aplenty, and the odd bit of work for a degree was merely a passing inconvenience, an almost unnoticeable distraction from the glorious business of having fun.
The sound of this he liked. Off he went, got involved with the university radio station and duly found a career in broadcasting. Without the intervention of the two kindly teachers Dan didn’t like to think what he would have ended up doing.
He had one further big thank you for Mr Lewis. The man had a memorable mantra. It was simple and clever, and it was this; turn your weaknesses into strengths. Every disadvantage can become an advantage – if you think cleverly enough.
Many times before Dan had remembered the words and used them. Tonight, he did so again. Sitting at the back of a pub, avoiding the curious gazes and the odd outbreak of unsubtle pointing from those other patrons who had recognised him from the television, he worked through the plan. And he was amazed at how easily it came.
The piece of paper was satisfyingly full, just as the third pint slipped threateningly close to exhaustion. The timing was perfect.
It could only be a sign.
The clock on the wall said it was a quarter to nine. Dan sat back on his chair. The world was looking a much happier place, and there was still another couple of hours drinking to be done, maybe even more.
And perhaps some naughtiness beckoned too.
He took his phone, sent the text message, got up and headed outside, towards the next pub.
The Castle.
Adam was back in the bus station café, but this time with Claire for company.
‘Is there any particular reason you chose here?’ she asked, looking quizzically around at the sticky tables, grizzled patrons, and the customary semi-circle of fumigators gathered outside the door. ‘It doesn’t immediately strike me as your kind of coffee shop.’
Adam nodded. ‘That’s exactly why. It’s out of the police station and it’s not where they’d expect us to be.’
‘The spooks?’
‘Yep.’
‘You take me to all the nicest places.’
Adam managed a smile, but it was brief. ‘I thought we needed to talk. There’s something bothering me.’
On the road outside, the rush hour queues were at their height, the car windscreens filled with a line of resigned faces. It was just after half past eight. Adam had again chosen a table in the corner of the café, where he could see the door and the pavement outside.
He checked around and leaned forwards. ‘What did you make of what they had to tell us yesterday?’
‘About the mole?’
‘I think the modern spook parlance is asset, but yes.’
In the Bomb Room, Sierra had explained the spies “issue” with the investigation turning to the mosque. Someone from a high level there was a security services’ informer. Or, at least, that was what Adam inferred from what little he’d managed to glean.
‘So, who is it?’ he asked Sierra.
‘You know I can’t tell you that.’
‘What’s his position then?’
‘An
important one.’
‘What?’
‘A useful one.’
Adam sighed heavily. ‘What exactly?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘I thought we were sharing information.’
‘We are.’
‘Well, that’s a new definition of sharing to me. Maybe I’d call it the only-child syndrome. Or one-way sharing. We share, you don’t.’
Standing at the side of the room, Oscar was watching and smirking. The light fell along the scar on his neck, a living weal in the thin flesh. He was straddling the briefcase, as though protecting it.
‘I mean,’ Sierra said heavily, ‘That if you knew, it might compromise the asset and that could seriously endanger him.’
‘So you want me to leave the mosque alone?’
‘No. That in itself could raise suspicions.’
With a strained calm, Adam asked, ‘So – you want me to go in half-heartedly?’
‘No. That would be suspicious too.’
‘So what the hell do you want me to do?’
Oscar had interrupted, ‘All right, let’s keep our tempers. We’re all supposed to be on the same side here.’
‘Really?’ Adam retorted sarcastically.
‘We are merely saying,’ Oscar continued, ‘that we expect you to question the Imam, and his minder, and anyone else you wish at the mosque. But please bear in mind that they were not in any way responsible for radicalising John Tanton, and nor was anyone else there.’
‘And you’re sure about that?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Has it ever occurred to you that your “asset” might be – what is it you call them? A double agent? Feeding you duff information to put you off the track?’
The spies exchanged a condescending look. ‘Funnily enough, Chief Inspector,’ Sierra said levelly, ‘yes it has. We are more than familiar with assessing the reliability of sources, and I would ask you to respect our conclusions.’
And there, the conversation, as such it was, had ended.
Claire tapped a hand on the table, found it sticking to the surface, gave it a distasteful look and stopped. ‘I know what you mean, sir. If they want us to behave normally in the inquiry, then why tell us about this informer at all? Maybe they are trying to help us, but are bound up by the way they work.’