by Chris Ryan
‘Paramedics have been combing through the wreckage for a little more than an hour,’ the young journalist continued, his voice wavering a little. ‘So far, the only passengers I have seen have been . . . have been dead.’
He paused.
‘As we stand here,’ he continued, his voice a little quieter than before, ‘relatives of the passengers on the 16.55 are beginning to gather in a neighbouring field, anxious for news of their . . .’
He felt his voice cracking.
He turned, and looked back towards the train. The floodlights. The neon blue. The smoke.
The woman.
The child.
He tried again. ‘Anxious for news of their loved . . .’
But his voice failed him once more, and to his horror he realised he was breaking down live on camera. He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, before putting one hand to his forehead. ‘I’m very sorry . . .’
With these words Andy Carrington walked out of shot, pulling his mike from his lapel. The camera didn’t follow him. Instead it kept itself firmly focused on the train. The cameraman could see that Andy was not in a state to talk to the nation, and some sights, after all, need no words to accompany them.
20.00 hrs.
Albany Manor was a grand estate in rural Buckinghamshire, surrounded by acres of woodland and boasting its own chapel, paddocks and enough outbuildings to house a small village. The phone calls had started a minute after the blast and were still continuing. Alistair Stratton had declined to take any of them.
Stratton’s PA, Christopher Wheatly, was an eager young man who hoped one day to go into politics himself. This was why he was willing, despite his trust fund and his lofty sense of entitlement, to suck up to the one-time British PM turned Middle East peace envoy. The outside world saw in Alistair Stratton a man of charm, a man whose conviction was obvious even to those who disagreed with him. Wheatly knew a different person: a person of quick temper and obstinacy, small-minded in many ways and a difficult man to like. When the White House came on the line at 20.10 hrs UK time, Wheatly knocked on the door of his boss’s office.
‘Come.’
Stratton was standing in front of a painting to which an entire wall of the office was devoted. Wheatly knew nothing about art – it wasn’t his thing – but he did know that this particular painting, a hellish scene of burning buildings and dead bodies, was by Hieronymus Bosch and had been acquired anonymously at a Berlin auction for the sum of twelve million euros.
Stratton gave the young PA a crushing look when he announced that Washington wanted to speak to him. ‘I said no calls. You do understand what “no calls” means?’
Wheatly felt himself blushing. ‘I just thought you . . . you might want to speak to the White House . . . they’re jolly keen to . . .’
But Stratton just walked over to his desk, took a seat and picked up a folder. Wheatly caught sight of an ornate, monogrammed ‘G’ on the front of the folder as he stood there awkwardly. After a few seconds, Stratton looked up, seemingly surprised that he was still there. ‘No calls,’ he said.
Wheatly was learning fast. Not only that the private personas of the powerful were very different to their public images, but also that the powerful were not always the first people to get their hands on the choicest information. He was astonished when, just after nine o’clock, the TV coverage had been interrupted for breaking news, delivered by a breathless reporter standing at the crash site.
‘The BBC has learned that a small militant Palestinian group, the Union for Free Palestine, has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The UFP is loyal to the Palestinian administration, Hamas. So far Hamas have declined comment.’
How had the press had this information before Stratton, the Middle East peace envoy?
As the evening wore on, Wheatly grew increasingly ragged – not on account of the TV footage of the train attacks – but from the long hours of refusing phone calls from the most powerful people in the world. He was no shrinking violet, but the aides in Washington, London and Tel Aviv gave such withering responses to his inability to put his boss on the line that it was starting to get him down. That and Stratton’s steadfast silence. With the exception of the short statement he dictated for Wheatly to release to the press wires when the news about the UFP came through, it almost felt as if Stratton was cocooning himself away from the outside world.
At 11.30 a communiqué from London informed Wheatly that an American amphibious warfare vessel, Wasp class – currently on anti-piracy duty in the Gulf of Aden – was heading north into the Red Sea. A ‘precautionary measure in the light of the day’s events’, Washington was telling the media, glossing over the fact that the ship carried a full complement of marines, a squadron of Harrier II ground-attack aircraft and an air group of personnel helicopters. Stratton seemed barely to register the information when his PA announced it. ‘Sir, you know what this means . . . the Americans are mobilising . . .’ he had started to say. ‘The British won’t be far behind . . . the Foreign Office need to speak to you . . .’ But his boss shooed him away with a flick of his left hand.
Wheatly turned in at about half past midnight. His quarters were away from the main residence in a converted barn, and that meant a 100-metre walk across the grounds. It always made him nervous doing this at night, because he knew that there were never fewer than five armed guards doing the rounds, recruited from some American company, and he saw in them the lazy arrogance that he believed was peculiar to the Yanks. He didn’t think any of them would mistake him for an intruder, but they weren’t all the sharpest pencils in the box, and he was never quite sure.
He fell asleep without even getting undressed, and was groggy and sweaty when his radio alarm clock woke him at six o’clock. As the pips disappeared and the Today programme started, he sat up bleary-eyed, feeling decidedly unenthusiastic about the day ahead. The news was full of the train bombings, of course. Frankly he was sick to death of hearing about them. He changed out of yesterday’s clothes only half listening to the barrage of repeated information and supposition; but he did stop to pay attention when the recorded voice of the Israeli Prime Minister came over the airways. In the background Wheatly could hear the constant clicking of cameras, and he could sense the nervous tension in whatever room in Tel Aviv the Israeli leader was speaking from.
‘Israel,’ he announced, his deep, gruff voice strangely emotionless, ‘deplores these acts of terror.’
A pause, and the clicking of cameras swelled somewhat.
‘For many years, the Israeli people have suffered at the hands of these terrorists. It brings me no satisfaction to see that their acts of cowardice have now spread into the wider world. I call upon Hamas to denounce these actions. And if they will not, I call upon all right-thinking nations to stand up to this terror, and to destroy it.’
Wheatly blinked. He knew fighting talk when he heard it, and he knew what it meant – for him, at least. Even more so than last night, the world and his wife would be wanting to speak to the man whose job it was to broker peace between these ancient enemies. If Stratton was in the same mood as he was last night, that meant his PA was in for a very long day. As if in response to that very thought, his mobile phone rang. Number withheld. Wheatly ignored it and went in search of his boss.
Stratton was not in his bedroom, nor was he in the study where Wheatly had left him the previous night. But the study looked out over an immaculate lawn on the opposite side of which, 200 metres from the house itself, was a handsome thirteenth-century stone building: Stratton’s private chapel. Wheatly had noticed that his boss had spent more and more time there of late, and at odd hours of the day. He saw him walking out now, dressed as he had been last night. Even from this distance he could see that Stratton looked crumpled and tired, as though he hadn’t been to bed. Had he spent more of the night in his office, or in the chapel? Wheatly wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it was the latter, and he groaned inwardly. Most people, he thought to himself, walked ou
t of church full of the milk of human kindness – at least for a little while. Not Stratton. He always emerged from that place even more oblivious to the sensitivities of anyone around him than before.
Wheatly sighed heavily. This really was going to be a long day.
He caught up with his boss halfway across the lawn. Stratton didn’t smell too fresh, but Wheatly supposed the same was true of himself, having slept all night in his clothes. Stratton didn’t appear to notice him until he was standing about a metre away. When he did, the usual look of irritation crossed his face.
‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Sleeping, sir.’
Stratton looked around, as though surprised to see that the night had passed, but he made no comment on it and started striding quickly towards the house, his PA trotting alongside.
‘We’ve calls to make,’ said Stratton.
Wheatly agreed. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you since . . .’
‘The people will expect a retaliation,’ Stratton interrupted, his voice slightly distant as though he was thinking out loud. ‘We’ve been here before.’
‘But retaliation,’ Wheatly said. ‘That will only lead to . . .’
Stratton stopped and looked at him. For the first time in he didn’t know how long, Wheatly felt he was actually being listened to.
‘To what?’ Stratton asked, his voice almost a whisper.
There was a pause as the two men looked at each other.
‘To war, sir.’
Stratton didn’t take his eyes off Wheatly, but he nodded slowly, neither smiling nor frowning. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. And then, with a sudden movement, he turned and continued walking towards the house, leaving his PA standing in the middle of the lawn and wondering if, really, this was the job for him after all.
SEVENTEEN
6 December.
The distance between Albany Manor and the Crown and Sceptre, a pub tucked away in the no-man’s-land between the Yorkshire Moors and the Lake District, was about 400 klicks as the crow flew. But in other ways these two places were a million miles apart.
An imposing slate-roofed building sited where two main roads met, the Crown and Sceptre was unwelcoming from the outside and dingy on the inside. No money had been spent on it for years. The windows were frosted over; the walls and ceiling were still nicotine yellow years after the smoking ban; the bar and tables were covered with a sticky patina that no amount of cleaning would remove – not that anyone had tried.
The woman behind the bar was used to this place, and to places like it. They were her natural habitat, and she sought them out in the same way that an insect seeks out the underside of a stone. She had worked in so many down-at-heel pubs she’d almost lost count of them. She never stayed long, moving from one to the next every few months before the punters got too familiar with her.
Because familiarity was the thing Suze McArthur wanted to avoid.
Her ‘interview’ for this job had followed the same pattern as all the other ones. She’d walked into the pub at a quarter past eleven on a Monday two weeks ago, a holdall containing her few belongings in one hand, a ten-year-old boy tightly clutching the other.
Her little boy. The only reason she’d kept going this long.
‘No kids.’
Suze had ignored the bored edict from the barman and walked straight up to him. He was well into his sixties, with bloodshot eyes and body odour that she could smell from a couple of metres away. ‘I’m . . . I’m looking for work,’ she said.
He had eyed her up and down, his gaze lingering around the cleavage she was displaying for the benefit of men like him.
‘Oh aye? You local?’
She’d shaken her head.
‘Pikey? ’Cos if you’re a fuckin’ pikey you can . . .’
‘I’m not a pikey.’
‘Too many of them round these parts.’
‘I’m just looking for a bit of casual . . .’
‘Where you staying then? You can’t stay here, you know.’ He paused and his eyes flickered to her breasts for a second time. ‘Not unless I ask you.’
‘I’ve got somewhere to stay,’ Suze lied hastily. ‘I just need a job, all right?’ And then, because she’d realised she was hardly going the right way about it, she’d added a bit feebly: ‘I’ve, um . . . I’ve got experience.’
‘Aye, I’ll bet you have, love,’ the barman leered. ‘What about the nipper, eh?’
Suze had pulled the little boy protectively towards her. ‘He’ll be no trouble, will you, Harry?’ she said, her voice suddenly a little hoarse. Harry, bless him, had remained mute – he seldom spoke – but had shaken his head at his mum. ‘He’ll sit quietly. I promise.’
She could see him doing the maths: a lone woman with a young child, clearly desperate. Perhaps she was on the run from an abusive husband, or a pimp, or the bailiffs. Either way, it meant cheap labour, and if she was really down on her luck, something else.
‘Three pound an hour, cash in hand,’ he’d said. Suze had started to protest, but he raised a palm to silence her. ‘Take it or leave it, love. What’s your name, anyhow?’
‘Linda.’ The name changed every time.
‘Oh aye, Linda Lovelace, eh? Well, I won’t ask why the boy’s not in school, Linda Lovelace. Mum’s the word, eh? But he stays out the back and he doesn’t bother the punters.’
And so the deal had been struck. It wasn’t like she was in a strong negotiating position.
Suze had lived this way for so long she’d almost forgotten how strange her life had become. Almost, but not quite. Fear was her constant companion. She woke up with it, and it lulled her to sleep at night. There were times when, exhausted or depressed, she daydreamed about giving up. Because surely enough time had passed now for her to have been forgotten about?
But then there was the website. She had only stumbled on it by accident one day when she was working in a pub near Bournemouth. There were no customers; Harry, just a baby at the time, was asleep; and so she did what she had often done – hit the internet, trying to find a picture of her attacker. She was a murderer, after all. Perhaps she’d been brought to justice. Perhaps she was safely behind bars . . . It was this line of enquiry that had led her to the website of the Metropolitan Police, and the page listing the force’s most wanted individuals.
Suze’s photograph wasn’t the first on that list. She was nestled between a rapist and a man wanted for possession of an offensive weapon. Her supposed crime: arson. She’d felt all the strength drain from her body when she saw that, and had quickly shut down the computer, grabbed Harry and walked out of her workplace, never to return – as if the computer would grass her up. Now and then, over the years, she had checked the page. The rapists came and went, but her photo was always there. Always staring out at her, looking younger and younger as the years wore on.
She knew she wouldn’t be staying in this new job for long, but while she was here, she worked hard: twelve hours a day, six days a week. For the first few nights she booked into a Travelodge on the outskirts of town – luxury compared to what they were used to – but that ate up her daily wage completely, leaving nothing for food. She managed to sneak a curled-at-the-edges ham sandwich into Harry’s hungry little hands at lunchtime, but she knew she had to find somewhere else to stay. Somewhere that didn’t require ID, and was free. So on the third day she and her son had left the hotel early and started walking the streets.
Suze had known what she was looking for: a derelict building, but still sound. The clue would be a closed curtain in front of a broken window. But over the years she’d developed an instinctive ability to recognise a squat when she saw one. Now she found a red-brick building on the edge of town with large, high windows with small panes, many of them smashed. It looked like some old Victorian factory and it was definitely disused. As she passed it, however, she noticed several black bin liners full of rubbish, and that told her somebody was living inside.
She and her son had become t
wo of their number. Part of the faceless community of junkies and losers that always found their way to these places.
Their nights were spent in the squat, their days in Suze’s new workplace. The squat was anonymous; so too, in its own way, was the Crown and Sceptre. The customers were never there for a convivial atmosphere or cosy surroundings. They were there to drink. All the pubs Suze had ever worked in had regulars, who would arrive at opening time and drink their way very slowly but steadily through the day, staring at the blinking lights of the fruit machine or the flickering images of the wall-mounted TV. And though they spoke to Suze – or whatever name she had chosen to give them – several times a day, it was only to order drinks and they never looked at her with anything approaching recognition. They were too far gone for that.
The regulars were in now, about six of them, all old men, dotted around the pub, nobody speaking to anybody else. Harry was in the back room, good as gold. He had black rings under his eyes, and his face was even paler than usual. Both he and his mother had very short hair, inexpertly and crookedly cut by Suze. The short hair was easier to keep clean – important when most of your sanitary activities took place in the washrooms of the nearest McDonald’s, just about the only place you could use the facilities without some spotty jobsworth telling you to buy something or get out – and it changed Suze’s features quite considerably. Even now, whenever she caught sight of herself in a mirror, she was slightly startled by the way she looked. Which was a good thing, because if she was startled, it meant she looked very different to the young woman who had gone into hiding.
As for Harry, he was used to spending his days alone; used to falling asleep just as the pub got busy in the evening, and being woken by a weary Suze after eleven so they could walk back to wherever they were staying. Suze knew what people thought when they saw him, and that was one of the reasons she moved from town to town so often. It would only take a single bleeding heart to report them to social services and all of a sudden they would become a matter of public record.
