by Mark Lingane
“Uh, yeah, he was for a short time.”
“What did he say?”
“He cried a lot, as you would expect from a child who’s suddenly lost his parents. Then he said he was sorry.”
“What was he apologizing for?” Hanson raised her eyebrow.
“He wasn’t. He was sorry for us.”
“I might need another one of these mega-maxi-grandes. I’m not understanding much about today.”
“He mumbled about something being ‘ripped,’ and that was pretty much it. He watched CBBC on cable for about three seconds and passed out. But at least he’s sleeping now, rather than being in a coma.”
They both stared down at the boy.
“How was Rod?” Chambers asked. He glanced at her.
“Eh? Oh. Look, about last night. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to … I hadn’t slept for two days and it’s been exhausting and I don’t usually … emotions were a bit … he wasn’t too happy, but he forgave me and we’ll work it out.”
“He forgave you? What for? You didn’t do anything to be forgiven for.”
“It’s complicated at the moment. We’re meant to be doing things that need a lot of planning, and me being reckless doesn’t help. Can we talk about something else, please?”
“So you want children.”
She let out a groan. “Rod wants children, and if we’re going to work as a couple we should respect each other’s choices and ambitions. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I didn’t know we’d time traveled back to the fifties. Surely it should be a joint agreement, especially when it comes to kids.”
“We’re traditional, and it is. We both want this.”
“You’re fooling no one but yourself. And you’re further from traditional than anyone else I’ve ever met.”
“Well, have you ever wanted children?”
“I think there’ll be a time, and I expect it won’t be expected, that the decision will be made on my behalf.” He gave her a smile, but there was no response. “I didn’t have a family, so I think I’ll enjoy the experience,” he added.
“Decision made on my behalf,” she muttered. “You don’t know how difficult it can be.”
“Then I think you’re missing the point.”
“Oh no!” Cally’s voice startled them. He was awake and pointing at the TV monitor.
A newsflash had interrupted the scheduled programming. A plane from a major international airline had crashed into the heart of Manhattan.
Coverage of the Manhattan crash dominated news stations around the world. Exponentially more so than London, which annoyed many English politicians, and also the tabloid press, although the latter embraced the opportunity to fill their pages with click-bait headlines fueling jingoistic fervor. Local stories covering the monumental work of the emergency services were relegated to the back of the papers, following the trans-Atlantic celebrity pictorials.
Field Marshal Norton appeared on the news channels, updating the British nation on the military’s progress, or lack of it. Prime Minister Daniel Anderson applied heat, which the field marshal visibly did not appreciate.
The feed went live around the world, accompanied by images of civilians forming into gangs and rampaging through the streets. Someone had done a montage with “I Think We’re Alone Now” as the soundtrack. They had, unfortunately, chosen the Girls Aloud version, but it had still managed to go viral.
15
HANSON AND CHAMBERS met daily at a café near the Guys and St. Thomas’ hospital, checking on Cally and searching for a sense of purpose. The small table between them rocked gently as they leaned on it. Chambers sipped his latte and stared out the window onto the Thames.
Hanson watched her heart rate fluctuate on her wrist. She looked up at Chambers and it increased. Closing her eyes made it worse, so she tried to distance the emotions. It was hard to forget him standing on the car roof holding the sledgehammer above his head, and Hanson fought hard to suppress her smile. She pulled her hands into her body and looked up into his face.
“How’s Cally doing?”
“Tough.” Chambers sighed. “It’s difficult to deal with being an orphan at the best of times. When your parents are killed in front of you, infinitely harder. Poor kid.”
Hanson bit back a comment about Cally becoming a superhero when she heard the sadness in his voice. In all her frantic searching, she realized she had failed to look up anything about Chambers, usually the first thing she did with a coworker.
“He’ll survive,” she said. “We all do.”
She glanced back at the small television showing looped footage of the Manhattan crash. The clarity of the video was exceptional. She wondered why there was nothing about the London crash. It seemed to have been relegated to a second-class catastrophe.
“Not everyone.” Chambers took another sip and glanced back out the window at the immense blue sky with barely a puffy white cloud drifting above the city, and absently slid the cup onto the laminated table. He picked at the silver edging where it met the red-and-white checkered plastic cover, his dark fingernail clicking against the thin metal. “He feels really bad about his ma.”
“Yeah, I get the feeling he wasn’t on the best of terms with her. Some kind of friction.” And she knew exactly how that felt.
“He never got to say sorry.”
“For what?” Hanson said. She frowned at the out-of-place statement.
He smiled. “Being a teenager.”
She scoffed. “I’m sure she saw through that.”
“I take it you’ve never been around a teenager. Sometimes you get so wound up with them and their personal concerns that you can’t see the big picture.”
“Like you’re an expert.” Hanson folded her arms and leaned back in her chair.
“I lived in a dorm full of them. I know exactly what it’s like. And unlike you, I didn’t go from baby to forty-year-old with no gap.”
“Forty! I’ll give you …” She raised her fist at him, then took a sip of her coffee.
Chambers smiled and spread his hands in self-defense. “Calm down. You don’t look a day over thirty-five.”
The spray covered Chambers. He was quiet as he dabbed at the liquid with a paper napkin. Finally, he said, “If we can link this to Candle Fire, like you said, we could prove it’s a crime and we could take back the case.”
“I think it’s long gone out of our hands.” She stared at him. Her heart rate increased.
“You never know if you don’t ask.”
“Asking doesn’t always go well.” She lowered her gaze into her bucket of coffee. “I asked for a promotion. That didn’t go well.”
“Not that you’re pushy or ambitious.”
“You never get anything in this world unless you ask for it.”
“Ask: yes. Take: no.”
Hanson looked out the window. A seagull fluttered down onto the footpath by the river and pecked at errant crumbs. Londoners no longer seemed to be in their eternal hurry. Something had rocked the people and they were struggling to recover. The populace was fracturing under the constant compression of fear, now reinforced by events in Manhattan. It wasn’t a time to be alone.
“Have you got a woman?” she asked him. “What is it you estate lads call them? Bitches?”
“Your effort at being edgy or street is pretty poor. And you’re mental if you think any of them want to hang around a copper. You stay a part of the mandem or you find a life elsewhere.”
“So, you don’t know anyone from when you were growing up?”
“Only a couple of my mates made it out. Got into the music industry, which I’m not sure is any better, or joined the services. But my face ain’t welcome back ’ome. Init, guv!”
She laughed.
“I know you’ve got Rod, but I guess you don’t have any childhood friends.”
She shook her head. “For my sixteenth birthday the only guests who turned up were friends of my father’s. People I’d grown up with, yes, but
no friends. We never stayed anywhere long enough. The only people who stayed the same were senior command, crusty old men.”
“That’s sad.” He reached out for her hands. She didn’t retract them.
“It hasn’t always been like that. Once I went to real college I made friends who have stayed with me. Maud has always been funny, and Suzanne was really supportive with my career, getting me on the TV.”
Hanson’s phone rang. It was HQ. She sighed and answered it. There was no more trouble she could get into. “Yes?” There was a long pause while she listened. Her face morphed from boredom to amazement.
“That was the commissioner, the police commissioner,” she told Chambers when she disconnected. “I’m getting a chance to argue our case.”
“Can a plane crash be a case?”
“Of course it can. There’s a crime here, I can feel it.”
“The military won’t budge. They love this kind of stuff.”
“I’ll be arguing with them. This is my chance.”
Chambers shook his head. “The police commissioner has deep ties with the military. He’s got friends who are senior officials. They’ll be in it together, boys’ club kind of thing.”
Hanson stood up. “This won’t happen in front of the commissioner. It’s in front of the prime minister. The PM’s called it. I’m going to Number Ten.”
And just like that she was gone, full of expectation and determination, with Chambers’ words of caution fading in her ears.
She navigated her way across Westminster Bridge through the roadblocks that had been erected, and turned into Whitehall. The police stationed at the front gates of Downing Street nodded to her and checked her through.
She stood in front of the black door with the silver numbers and golden letter slot two steps up, and nervously placed her foot on the first step. Her mind flipped as she struggled with what she was going to say. Who was going to be there?
With her toes on the second step, she grasped the black knocker. This was it, a moment where the individual is tested; a mark is made, history is defined. Her head swam under the pressure. A moment. And it was hers. She was going to be fine. All she had to do was tell the truth.
The butler answered the door and ushered her into the front office—after pointing out the large doorbell to her right.
Field Marshal Norton was the first person Hanson saw when she entered the office. He was standing with his hands clasped behind his back staring out the window, from where he had watched her hesitate outside the door. He turned around. He was tall and robust, every inch a soldier who dripped with experience and had been changed by it, a man who had seen a lot of bad things. His stare was unflinching and professional, assessing her, but not comparing her.
She felt awkward in front of him, immature, her barriers stripped back, her game face torn apart.
They shook hands and he explained that he had known her father. He would have been proud of how far his daughter had come, Norton told her. The soldier wasn’t overbearing, unlike the PM as soon as he entered the room. Norton was the master and the world in turmoil was his domain. Chief Inspector Booker and the commissioner blundered in several minutes later, both with pale, stressed faces. The PM called the meeting together, and then it all went wrong.
Tongue-tied words. Illogical statements. Cold tea. It was over before it had begun.
Outside, Booker apologized for calling her back to work, apparently too early. She needed a break. Her suffering was apparent to all. Dismissed. She caught the commissioner’s angry words as she left the building and walked from Downing Street to Whitehall, her head lowered. Her fury at her own efforts stung deep. She’d blown it, big time, and there was no one else to blame. She took out her cell, swiped through the names to R and typed: I need to talk. The reply came a few moments later: Meet you at Boudicca statue in 10.
“Do you think we can go back to that pub?”
Chambers laughed. “No.”
They were back in the tiny café overlooking the Thames. She had managed a word for her coffee order but had been quiet since. The view over to the London Eye, and the devastation beyond, was eerie and surreal. Chambers had let her sit in silence, needlessly wearing her sunglasses until she was ready to talk. It was some time. Even then her breath had been forced when she took a gulp of air. She hadn’t known what to say. But then neither had he.
“I feel sick,” she said.
“You had a lot of coffee today. You’re possibly too sober.”
She smiled then removed her sunglasses, revealing red-rimmed eyes. She scratched the back of her head, resting her elbow on the small metal table, absentmindedly staring across at the skyline.
She shook her head. “There’s a crime here.”
“You need to let it go.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped. She sighed. “Sorry.”
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You really are a determined person. I can see why some people say you’re difficult.”
“I’m not difficult. I have standards,” she said indignantly. “There’s a job to do, and it needs to be done, like this one. There’s something that links Candle Fire to this plane crash. It wasn’t an accident. A corporation planned to take down a civilian flight.”
“That’s amazingly far-fetched. How can you link the two together? You have no evidence, only anecdotal.”
She sat tapping her fingers on the tabletop. “There was an Indian guy. I tracked down his name, but he signed the OSA and he’s working for someone who removes all personal details from the world. Maybe he can give us some more information.”
“And how do you propose to find this Indian guy? You just said he has no record.”
“All except one. I know where he works.” She gave him a smile.
“You want to stalk him?”
“It’s not stalking when the police do it. It’s surveillance.”
“I tried that with my ex-girlfriend. That didn’t go well.”
16
RANDEEP CAUTIOUSLY APPROACHED the anonymous glass-fronted Candle Fire offices, where a trickle of stern-faced employees was departing for the day. The evening had begun to cool, and he zipped up his dark-blue jacket to the collar. He confidently swiped his card and pushed through the doors into the building. He gave the frowning security guard a friendly smile. The guard scowled at him. Randeep continued up to the desk, unfazed by the reception.
“Are you meant to be here?” the guard said as he glanced at his monitors.
“I’m here to return some equipment.” Randeep lifted his backpack as evidence.
The guard frowned and looked at the details next to Randeep’s photo on his monitor. They didn’t say he wasn’t allowed in, but there were procedures, and the last time the guard saw Randeep he was being escorted off the premises on forced leave.
“I don’t have a note for any equipment. How did you get it out?”
“They didn’t check when I left.” Randeep looked around slowly.
The guard examined the display then shook his head. “No chance. You’re supposed to stay away for one week. I suggest you stick with that. It’s not your position to be conscientious.”
The guard wouldn’t budge, and Randeep was forced to exit the building. When he was gone, the guard pulled out the business card from his pocket and typed the number slowly into his phone.
“You wanted to know when the young man was here. He just left.”
Randeep hesitated in front of the building, uncertain about his direction, eventually heading off toward the west. The door on the café opposite opened.
Randeep arrived home as the wind started to howl. The old, red-brick terraced house was dark and quiet. Something seemed different. He glanced down the secluded street, but only a handful of people were visible. The windows, outlined with bright white frames, were black in the evening light. The old green door, remnant of a patriotic Irish resident, creaked open as he unlocked and entered.
A handful of letters lay scattered on the floral carpet, blown further into the house by the wind. As he picked them up, he caught his reflection in the side-table mirror, startling him. He flicked through the letters, folding one from his mother and placing it in his pocket. He discarded the others on the table underneath his keys. The Victorian floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he made his way down the narrow hallway.
His bedroom furnishings were stark, hinting at nothing more than a humble life. Several thick books were piled next to the inexpensive single bed, barely several inches off the floor. A dozen burnt-out incense sticks had been placed in a dirty jar on the mantelpiece above a fireplace that hadn’t been used in a long time, but which still had the remnants of a previous fire.
He looked around the room, listening for anything out of place, his face without expression. The sounds of Countdown being watched by his elderly neighbor trickled faintly through the wall. He removed his jacket and hung it in the small closet before slipping his mother’s letter out of his pocket and onto the dresser.
Checking his shirt, he found it relatively uncreased. If he hung it up now, he wouldn’t need to iron another for tomorrow. His fingers delicately untucked and unbuttoned the shirt then carefully hung it up next to the jacket. He lifted out a sweatshirt emblazoned with the Cambridge University crest and pulled it over his head.
Thoughts were tumbling through his mind. He’d collected a tremendous amount of data and the lack of access to Candle Fire was a blow.
In the corner of the room, he rolled back the ancient carpet, exposing a loose board. The floorboards in the corridor creaked and his head shot up. A moment later, the unexpected sound had drawn him cautiously into the hallway. Through the mottled glass beside the door he could see the outline of the trees as they swayed in the wind. The house had a strange feel to it today, like he was being watched. Even the air felt dense and prickly. Spikey even.
