“Of course he is.” Marion began to rise from her seat again.
“I don’t think we can dismiss his claims out of hand,” said Benadir.
Marion looked at her. “Don’t you? Why not?”
“For two reasons. Firstly one of our agents actually does possess what might be called psychic powers.”
“Max,” said Marion Palfrey. “Our resident telepath.”
“Yes.”
“But he’s not exactly a fire starter, is he?” She was still hovering on the edge of her chair, ready to leave.
“No, but I think we should assign him to investigate the cult and their claims.”
“Fine,” said Marion, getting up and moving to the door.
“What was the second one?” said Doc.
Marion Palfrey paused and stared at him. “What?”
“Benadir said there were two reasons to take Faustus seriously.”
Benadir nodded. “We have received a communication from Faustus claiming responsibility for the M25 fire.”
“Oh, marvellous,” said Marion Palfrey impatiently. “Well, of course he does.”
“The thing is, he made the claim almost at the very instant the fire started.”
Marion shrugged. “So what? We live in age of instant communication. He probably heard about it on Twitter and decided to cash in.”
“Possibly,” said Benadir. She didn’t sound convinced.
Marion Palfrey was, though. She was on her way out of the room. But as she reached for the door it opened from the other side and Cartwright hurried in.
Derek Cartwright had been seconded from the Metropolitan Police several years earlier and now, though officially still a policeman, was working full time for Z5. He was 27 but he looked about 18. He’d entered the room with a serious and determined stride, but he faltered when he saw Marion Palfrey.
It was a common reaction.
“I didn’t realise you were here, ma’am,” he said, as Marion pinned him with her icy stare after their near collision.
“What is it, Derek?” said Benadir.
“It’s the external surveillance team.” Cartwright looked at them like a man who was trying not to smile. “They’ve apprehended someone.”
9: Belle
There were several rooms in Digby Mews that were devoted to interrogation. None of these was a torture chamber, although several times it had been suggested that a really good medieval dungeon with all the imaginative instruments of the Spanish Inquisition might have been a useful setting for questioning - purely from a psychological standpoint.
Which was Z5’s standpoint. It was an inflexible rule of policy that “enhanced interrogation” techniques and in fact physical coercion methods of any kind were strictly off the table.
The room where Doc and Benadir sat with the girl looked like a standard police interview room, with a small desk, three chairs, a Neal 8221P dual tape recorder and a two-way mirror on the wall. Doc often wondered about the efficacy of these two-way mirrors. Surely anybody who’d ever watch television was aware of their purpose? And the tape recorder was also something of an anomaly, since its purpose in a police context was to provide one copy of the tape for the police themselves and one for the lawyers of the person under interrogation.
The girl sitting in front of them didn’t have a lawyer.
She was in her late teens or early twenties, slender and pretty with long golden hair. She wore tight sky blue jean leggings and a white sweater. She’d been caught watching Digby Mews with a camera and phone, recording and reporting about people coming and going to numbers 5 to 9. Any doubts that she was actually keeping them under surveillance and was instead just, for example, some kind of oddball tourist, were immediately dispelled by the professional way she had clammed up when they began questioning her.
She’d told them her name was Belle. That was all. But while Doc and Benadir had been sitting with her, the girl’s photograph had been run through Z5’s computers and had come back with a surname. She was Belle Crane. This information was relayed from Cartwright to Doc and Benadir over the earpieces they wore.
When Doc casually dropped the second name into conversation, she didn’t seem surprised. She merely glanced at her watch and said, “You’d better let me go soon, or there’s going to be trouble.”
“Why would a pleasant young person like yourself want to cause any trouble?” said Benadir.
“I won’t be causing anything. It will be your fault.”
“That sounds like a threat,” said Doc.
Belle Crane shook her head. “We don’t make threats. We don’t have to.”
“When you say ‘we’ surely you don’t mean these fire worshipping nuts?” said Doc. For the first time the girl showed an emotional reaction. A ripple of anger passed across her face.
“Don’t insult something you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think we understand it fairly well,” said Benadir.
“You all get together and walk over hot coals,” said Doc. “And then you hold hands and make a wish and you cause fires to break out, all over the world.”
“We don’t hold hands,” said Belle. She smiled at him. “But otherwise that’s about right, yes.”
“You seem like an intelligent young woman, how you can believe in that crap?”
Belle Crane leaned towards Doc. “You seem like an intelligent young man. How can you believe in this crap?” She waved her hand to indicate, the room, the building, Z5 in general. “How can you not believe in a process that leads to spiritual purification and a better world?”
“Through fire?” said Benadir.
“Yes.”
“Through killing people with fire?” said Doc.
Belle shrugged. “A few must die so many can be saved.”
It was Doc’s turn to smile. “I wish I had a small cash donation for every time someone has said that in the last two thousand years.”
Belle turned her pale blue eyes on him. “What would you spend the money on? A new and kinder world? I doubt it.”
Doc didn’t reply because Cartwright was talking in his ear. “We’ve got a visitor,” he said. “There’s a young man at the front door, asking for Belle.”
Benadir was getting the same message. She and Doc exchanged a look. This was a level of audacity they hadn’t anticipated. Watching them, Belle chuckled with delight.
“Has Gregory come for me?”
“Who is Gregory?”
“My brother.”
Doc left Benadir and the girl in the interview room and travelled up in the lift to the ground floor, where Cartwright was waiting for him with an intense looking young man wearing a brown tweed jacket and black corduroy trousers. His hair was dark and Doc couldn’t see any resemblance between him and the girl. But then he noticed the eyes. Perhaps he really was her brother.
“This is Gregory Crane,” said Cartwright. “Thomas Palfrey.”
“I know who he is,” said Gregory. “Now you can piss off. I’d like to talk to the organ grinder. Go and crack some monkey nuts.”
Cartwright raised his eyebrows and gave Doc a look of silent enquiry. “Go and sit in with Benadir if you don’t mind,” said Doc.
Cartwright glanced at Gregory Crane. “I’ll peel a banana instead of cracking in the nuts, if you don’t mind,” he said, and then he left.
Doc looked at Gregory. “Well?” The young man squared his shoulders as though anticipating an inspection. Or a fight.
“You have my sister here. You are holding her against her will.”
“She was keeping this property under surveillance.”
“Is that a crime?”
Doc smiled. “I don’t know. Shall we call the police and ask them?”
“I’ve come to demand her release.”
Doc kept smiling. “Really? Have you?”
Gregory Crane said, “I want you to let Belle go. And I’m going to give you ten minutes.”
“A deadline? That’s nice. What happens if we don’t ma
ke it?”
Gregory looked at him. “We’ll set a fire.”
“By the power of your mind?”
“Not just mine.”
Doc chuckled and the young man twitched with sudden fury.
“I’m sorry, but I’m just having trouble taking you seriously,” said Doc.
“Why? Haven’t you seen what we’ve done?”
“I’ve seen what someone has done,” said Doc. “But I don’t really believe you people had anything to do with it.”
Gregory Crane’s jaw tightened and Doc thought he could see a vein pulsing in the young man’s forehead. “We caused the M25 fire. You know we did. We told you we were going to do it.”
“As I understand it, your announcement came in just after the fire started,” said Doc. He shook his head and made a sympathetic noise. “Sorry, but not very impressive.”
“That was a mistake. We did cause it. And we are going to cause a much worse fire. Unless you let Belle go we will create a fire in the East End of London. We will start in Victoria Park. How far we go from there depends on how swiftly you release my sister. Maybe it will spread as far as the City. Maybe Docklands, too. We could gut London’s financial centres. But we’ll start modestly by moving south east from the park towards the Mile End Road.”
“Okay,” said Doc mildly. There was something about the specificity of this threat that made him begin to take it a bit more seriously. “And you are going to do this by mind over matter?”
“By a concentration of spiritual force. I shall send a message to our members all over the world, and they shall all direct their will power and psychic energy.”
“To Victoria Park in east London?”
“Yes.”
“Will their psychic energy use GPS or do you give them a map reference?”
Gregory Crane’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you’re as amused when things start to burn. I will wait outside in the mews for Belle. You have ten minutes.”
*
Benadir left Cartwright in the interview room with Belle Crane and went up in the elevator. She got off on the second floor of Digby Mews and strode along a carpeted corridor to join Doc in his mother’s office. Marion Palfrey had been preparing for her COBRA meeting at Downing Street. COBRA was an emergency council convened to discuss urgent situations which crossed interdepartmental boundaries within government. Its name was an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where the meetings were held.
Marion had attended many times and always made a point of preparing meticulously, but she showed no sign of irritation at Doc’s interruption. “I heard what that girl’s brother said to you.” She glanced at Benadir. “Were you listening as well?” Benadir nodded.
“So what do we do?” said Doc.
“We can’t just cave in to their threat,” said Benadir.
“I agree,” said Doc. “But we can’t just ignore it, either.”
“I dismiss all this ESP nonsense out of hand,” said Marion Palfrey. “But they could have planted some kind of incendiary device in the park. In fact, on reflection, that’s the only way that any of these fires could have been started.”
“So we’re taking this seriously,” said Benadir.
Marion sighed and said, “If a fire does start in the area then I’m afraid we will have to let the girl go. Have we got someone watching the park?”
“Hayes was in the vicinity,” said Doc. “He has eyes on the place now.”
“How long until their deadline?”
Doc checked his watch.
It was the longest five minutes that any of them had ever experienced. They had Alan Hayes on the speaker phone, providing a running commentary. This consisted of him saying, “Nothing.” And then, “Nothing yet.” And then, “Still nothing, I’m afraid.”
Doc checked his watch. “Thirty seconds past deadline.” He relaxed his shoulders and only then realised that he’d been holding them tight. He took a deep breath and looked at his watch again. “Forty seconds.”
“Still nothing,” said the disembodied voice of Hayes.
“Fifty seconds,” said Doc. He looked at Benadir and his mother. They had both visibly relaxed. Doc was beginning to feel a little ridiculous at ever having taken the threat seriously. He casually glanced at his watch. “They’re over a minute late.”
Marion Palfrey began to shuffle papers on her desk. “Well, I can’t waste any more time here. I have to be getting to -”
“Wait,” said Hayes’ voice. “Something’s happening.”
“What is it?” said Benadir urgently.
“A flash in the sky. A red flash.”
Doc’s stomach began to tighten.
“Jesus Christ,” said Hayes.
10: Cobra
At Number 10 Downing Street, Marion Palfrey was greeted - if that was the word - by Gordon Ansell. Deputy Prime Minister was his official designation, but effectively he was the PM’s hatchet man. The fact that he was the one sent to meet her was an unpleasant surprise.
It was only the first of several.
Instead of being led to Board Room A, she was directed to the Prime Minister’s office, which was empty. “The PM will be along in a moment,” said Ansell. “Take a seat.” Then he left her there on her own. Marion looked around. She hated this room. Not least because there was nowhere to sit.
Or, rather, there were two places to sit.
One was the chair behind the Prime Minister’s desk, which for obvious reasons was out of bounds. The other was the sofa facing that desk. Marion considered remaining standing but after a few minutes the appeal of this strategy began to dwindle, and she sighed and sank with resignation down on the sofa.
Sank was right. The sofa appeared to have no springs at all. It just yielded under a sitter until they were absorbed in its soft folds. The problem was compounded by the numerous soft cushions which cluttered the sofa. By the time you’d fought your way into something resembling a sitting posture, fending off the cushions and trying to find a stable point in the blancmange beneath you, any chance of a dignified bearing was shot to hell.
No doubt that was why the Prime Minister kept the sofa.
Marion had just commenced battle with the cushions when he walked into the room. “Don’t get up,” he said as he marched to the desk. He sat down and stared at her coldly. He didn’t seem inclined to say anything else, so Marion broke the silence.
“Why aren’t we in the COBRA session?”
“I’m going along in a minute. You are not attending it.”
Marion suppressed her anger. “I was invited here with the express purpose-”
“The situation has changed,” said the Prime Minister.
“How so?”
“We understand that you were responsible for the fire in the East End.”
Marion Palfrey stared at him. For a moment she was speechless. Then she said, “Prime Minister, that’s simply not fair.”
He stared at her and Marion realised that, under his smooth public schoolboy demeanour he was seething with rage “Isn’t it?” he said. “Why not?”
“As soon as we realised that they meant business, the very instant the fire started in Victoria Park, we released the girl. Her brother was waiting outside. We must have got her to him within thirty seconds of the outbreak of the first flames. One minute at the most. At that point the fire was a narrow band at the south eastern edge of the park.”
“But it didn’t remain a narrow band, did it?” said the Prime Minister. “At the south eastern edge of the park.” He glanced at papers on his desk. “It spread across the Old Ford Road and Roman Road, moving south to Malmesbury Road, where it stopped with great precision. It proceeded to devastate a wedge-shaped area bounded on the west by Grove Road and on the east by the Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach.” He glanced up at Marion Palfrey. “Do you have any idea how many people live in that area?”
Marion found she couldn’t meet his gaze. “No.”
“Suffice to say that it’s one of the most densely
populated parts of London. We haven’t begun to achieve a full list of casualties yet, but there is no question that the loss of life was considerable. By which I mean thousands of people. No catastrophe in peace time begins to come close to it. Additionally, the property damage is immense and the blow to public morale - and the scope for panic, mass hysteria and the breakdown of the rule of the law - inconceivably large.”
“Prime Minister,” said Marion, and he looked at her. “You said yourself that they are able to stop the fire with great precision. They can make it go anywhere they chose and bring it to an immediate halt.” She leaned forward, as far as was possible on that fucking sofa, and said, “We had returned the girl to them before the fire had spread beyond the park. They could have stopped it at any time after that. But they didn’t. We had fulfilled the terms of their bargain. They chose to ignore those terms. They were punishing us.”
The Prime Minister stared at her. “Not punishing you. Punishing innocent people for your grotesque carelessness and incompetence.”
Marion Palfrey felt a steadily mounting rage. She warned herself to be careful. “Carelessness and incompetence?” she said quietly. “We handed the girl back immediately.”
“You should never have been holding her in the first place.”
“Oh really?” said Marion, failing to keep a note of scorn from her voice. “Then what should we have done? Handed her over to the police?” She felt her eyebrows rising in a simulation of polite enquiry. “Can you imagine what would have happened if the girl had been in police custody? Do you really think official procedures would have been flexible enough to allow them to simply release her, in response to any threat - real or imagined?”
The Prime Minister stared at her in silence. Marion could see that she had scored a point. She ploughed on. “Of course not. She’d still be in custody and the East End would still be burning.”
The Prime Minister made an elaborate show of consulting his watch. “I’m afraid I have to go into the briefing room now.” He rose from behind the desk. “I’ll send someone to show you out.”
“You do realise that we now have our first real chance of getting to grips with the people behind these fires?”
Hard Targets: A Doc Palfrey Omnibus Page 13
