Ten Days

by Gillian Slovo

  The black tunic – also especially fitted – with its gorget patches and ceremonial aiguillettes that passed from the pocket to the top button sat nicely across his broad shoulders. He fastened the buttons, starting from the bottom and ending at the point parallel with his jacket where the black and grey striped bar of his Queen’s Medal and the red, blue and white bars of the two Jubilees were lined up. Such a pleasure to see them there, especially since he had every expectation that, come the new year, they would be trumped by the yellow and brown of a K.

  He smoothed his jacket down. It looked clean and pressed and right.

  And finally, not that he needed it just then, his cap. This, with a crown above the Bath Star and its wreath-enclosed tipstaves, and the oak leaves that ran along both the inner and outer edges of the peak, would tell even the most casual onlooker that he was the most senior policeman in the land. He placed it carefully, using the mirror to ensure that the peak sat along the line of his forehead. He closed his eyes and felt along the cap, and then, with eyes still closed, took it off, breathed in and out, before replacing the cap. Eyes open. It was perfectly aligned. Now he’d be able to do it like this every time, even in a hurry.

  He took off the cap and was about to make his way downstairs when something else occurred. Yes, why not? He went over to the wall behind his bed and, leaning across, lifted off the framed photograph that, taken on the occasion of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, had him beside the Queen. It would go nicely in his new office. With photograph and cap in hand, he made his way downstairs.

  5.25: he clicked on the radio and remained standing as he ate his usual breakfast of two slices of wholemeal toast (both with marmalade) and a percolated coffee to which he added just the tiniest dash of milk.

  He was just putting his plate in the dishwasher when the item he’d been half expecting came on.

  ‘Today,’ he heard, ‘is the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Joshua Yares’s first day.’

  He straightened up and smiled.

  ‘To give the background to the appointment which saw the Prime Minister and Home Secretary involved in a public spat, we go to our home affairs correspondent . . .’

  5.35 a.m.

  As his Jaguar drifted through the deserted streets, in the wake of an unmarked Rover, Peter sat back and listened to the news.

  ‘Following reports of corruption at the heart of the Met,’ he heard, ‘and the unexpected resignation of the last Commissioner, the new man, Joshua Yares, whose nickname of “The Wall” is said to derive from his refusal to accept lower standards, was the Prime Minister’s choice.’

  Now the test of whether they were going to fall into the trap that he had set for them.

  ‘In a recent interview,’ he heard, ‘the Home Secretary, Peter Whiteley, suggested that Yares’s well-documented friendship with the Prime Minister might put the independence of the Met at risk. In expressing his disgruntlement, and in such a forthright manner, the Home Secretary gave grist to the rumours that there has been a rift between the two politicians and that he is about to launch a leadership challenge – something that many in the Party have long anticipated.’

  Yes – he smiled – they’d taken the bait.

  Clever Frances: it had been her idea for Peter to go public with his defeat over the new appointment. That the Prime Minister had overruled his Home Secretary had increased the Party faithful’s dissatisfaction with their leader’s rising control-freakery, which, according to the latest poll, was also beginning to annoy the electorate.

  ‘That’s the news this morning. Now let’s see what the weather has in store for us.’

  No prizes for guessing that what the weather had in store was hot, even hotter or the hottest day since records began. ‘Switch it off,’ he said.

  When his driver obeyed, he settled himself into the silence, ignoring the pile of red boxes and early editions beside him and blurring his vision so that the flashing past of dim street lights and the night buses carrying a cargo of workers on their way to wake the city did not intrude. He yawned.

  He was able to function on little sleep, and pretty well, but on the rare occasions when it was possible just to be, and not to act, this same weariness would wash over him. He could feel it in his bones, as if he had just run the marathon, although the truth was he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done any exercise. The swimming pool at Chequers two weekends ago might have been his chance – especially in the heat – but the hosepipe ban and the resulting surface of green slime that no amount of straining seemed to shift had put him off. Another yawn. The strain of preparing to launch a leadership challenge – even though he was convinced that it had to be done – was telling on him.

  ‘Tired, sir?’

  Although he pretended he hadn’t heard the question, it did break his reverie.

  He glanced at the boxes, thinking of the heap of briefing and official papers they contained. He’d gone through the lot the previous evening: glancing at the ‘to see’; reading more carefully through the summaries of the ‘to decide’ papers and then deciding; and after that he had spent some considerable time pondering the ones that had been specially marked as having potential presentational problems. These – the problems that the press might seize on – he couldn’t risk. Not now when the stakes were about to go sky high.

  This thought carried him back to Yares, whose appointment the Prime Minister had bludgeoned through. Why had such an adept politician, whose deviousness included giving his ministers their heads (along with rope to hang themselves), interfered in Peter’s choice? Sure, Yares looked good on paper, but the other candidate, Anil Chahda, was already Deputy Commissioner. Having served under the last bod, Chahda knew the ropes, and given he was also Britain’s highest-ranking ethnic officer his promotion would have been a coup not only for Peter but also for the whole government. Never mind that Chahda was the kind of policeman that a Home Secretary could do business with.

  Yet the PM had been so intent on seeing Yares in the job he’d left Peter with no choice other than to concede. It was all too odd. The Prime Minister was far too ruthless to do anything for the sake of friendship, so his actions could not be explained by his connection to Yares.

  Something else was going on, although Peter couldn’t figure out what. He must set somebody to solving the mystery, somebody he could trust, which thought sunk him into the soup of wondering, at this, the most decisive moment of his career, who he could and couldn’t trust. This led him in turn on to the things he knew and the things he didn’t know, and then to facts and figures and questions he hadn’t answered, and questions he might be asked at the dispatch box, all of them piling up one against the other, so that it was as if he were being sucked under a particularly boggy marsh, the gluey waters closing over his head about to suffocate him and . . .

  ‘In the marsh,’ he heard.

  He came to with a start. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your offices in Marsham Street? Is that where you want to go?’

  He glanced at his watch: 5.53.

  He could picture the fuss that would ensue if he pitched up at Marsham Street at such an early hour. Private secretaries, diary secretaries, and their secretaries, researchers and the tea makers who lubricated them all would be rousted from their beds and made to taxi in, and all because their Secretary of State was having trouble sleeping. Not the kind of reputation he wanted and, anyway, he needed time to think and calm to do it in. Where better than in his office behind the Speaker’s Chair? ‘If you wouldn’t mind dropping me at the House.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘St Stephen’s entrance.’

  He caught the surprised flicker of the driver’s eyes.

  ‘I like to, every now and then,’ he said. Because it reminded him, although he didn’t say this, of his first time walking in as an MP. And of the time before as well, the very first in his life, when he was the boy on a school trip who’d said out loud what he was thinking – that one day he would b
elong to this place – and then had to endure the mocking hilarity of his peers. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘I’m fond of St Stephen’s myself,’ the driver said. ‘We all are. But it only opens at eight.’

  ‘Drop me by Carriage Gates, then. I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

  5.57 a.m.

  The car carrying Met Commissioner Joshua Yares swept round Parliament Square and before it turned into Bridge Street Joshua’s gaze was snagged by the sight of a Jaguar that had stopped by Carriage Gates. That any car had been allowed to stop there rather than being waved away or through was what first attracted his attention, but what kept him looking was the sight of the door of the Jaguar being opened by a waiting policeman to allow the disgorgement of the portly figure of Home Secretary Peter Whiteley.

  ‘Strange.’

  ‘It’s early,’ the driver said. ‘And he is the Home Secretary. They wouldn’t normally stop there.’

  ‘Hmm.’ No point in telling his driver that the oddity Joshua had been pondering was not this random act of hubris but the sight of Peter Whiteley choosing to walk anywhere and so early. Wonder what he’s up to, he thought, as his car rounded the corner and Big Ben began to toll the hour.

  6 a.m.

  ‘It’s 6 o’clock, and, as the countdown for next year’s election begins, the heatwave continues.’

  As if anybody needed to be told that the temperature and humidity were breaking all records and had been for weeks. Cathy flung herself across the bed, banging on the radio to cut it off.

  She was boiling. Picking up the sheet she had thrown to the floor, she wrapped it round herself and went over to the window.

  Just as she thought: the bloody radiator was on. Those bastards in the housing department. They’d promised they’d solve the problem – the way they’d talked had led her to believe they had already solved the problem – but for the fifth day in a row the central boiler, which barely functioned in winter, had switched the whole estate on at five. The crazy logic of a council: too mean to hire a proper engineer to fix the glitch but prepared to pay the enormous electricity bills that would fall to them when the Lovelace came down.

  It’s like a microcosm for the world, she thought: burning before final destruction.

  A shower. Cold. That’s what was required.

  She prolonged the shower’s beneficial effects by letting the water evaporate as she moved into the lounge.

  With its heaters blaring, this room was also unbearably hot. If they don’t fix it soon, she thought, I’ll pull the radiators off the wall: that’d force their hands.

  Catching the fury behind that intention, she thought maybe Lyndall was right: maybe they should cut their losses and move before the estate breathed its last.

  The bedroom had to be cooler than this. She made her way back and, having opened the curtains, settled herself on top of the bed. And there she lay, letting her thoughts drift as she watched the night edged out by a bloodied dawn that washed the dirty white walls with pink. Soon after, bands of crimson and purple and deep dark red began to streak the sky in defiance of the rising sun.

  Such a ferocious sight. Red sky in the morning: an omen.

  For days now she’d had a feeling of something not being right. It wasn’t just Banji’s recent reappearance, or the impending closure of the estate; it was a feeling that something awful was about to happen. To her. To Lyndall. Or to somebody they knew. Banji perhaps.

  She seemed to see again that vision of him, dwarfed by the helicopter, and then the lonely slope of his back as he had walked away.

  She should have kept him with her, should not have let him go.

  A crazy thought. She couldn’t have stopped him. Never could.

  It’s the heat, she thought, it’s playing with my mind. Except this was not the first time that a similar foreboding had gripped her. She’d felt it just before her father had died, for example, or when . . .

  No, she would not think of it. She reached out and switched on the radio.

  ‘It’s 6. 15,’ she heard, ‘and the temperature in London continues to climb.’

  1.45 p.m.

  All Joshua had to do was ask for coffee and it would be instantly supplied. But hours of speed-reading through seemingly unending piles of urgent for-his-eyes-only documents made him want a short break, and, as well, it would be good for him to be sighted by some of the thousands who worked in the building, especially on his first day.

  He made his way down the corridor, reaching the lift just as the door began to glide shut. The policeman inside the lift jabbed at a button and the door slid open.

  ‘That’s all right, officer. I’ll take the stairs.’ As Joshua turned away, he took with him a frozen image of the man’s rictus grin.

  He pushed through the swing doors and made his way down, two steps at a time, to the senior canteen on the third floor.

  It was a quiet room, and luxurious, its windows lining the whole of one wall to look out on the Thames, and with plush tables and chairs that wouldn’t have been out of place in a five-star restaurant. Another of his predecessor’s extravagances, although, from what he’d read that morning, a comparatively small one. Even so, given the dire state of the Met’s finances, it would have to go.

  No need, anyway, for silver service, especially when all you were after was a coffee. ‘No, thanks,’ he told the waiter who was bent on ushering him to the Commissioner’s special table, ‘I’ll get it myself.’

  There was a queue by the takeaway counter, which evaporated at his approach. ‘Go ahead,’ he said to an officer who should have been in front of him, but she smiled and slunk away.

  ‘Coffee,’ he said. ‘Strong and black,’ and when the woman behind the counter reached for a cup from above the coffee machine, he added, ‘Takeaway.’

  ‘We can easily fetch the cup, sir. When you’re done.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt that you can. But why should you have to? A paper cup will do.’

  Although she had a state-of-the-art espresso machine, the coffee she poured into the Styrofoam cup smelt stale. Still, she made it strong to suit his taste.

  ‘Thanks. How much is that?’

  ‘Oh no, sir, you don’t need to pay.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, thinking that this was another thing he was going to have to change, ‘yes, I do.’

  Turning to leave, he saw his deputy, Anil Chahda, sitting at a corner table with what looked to be half of the senior management team. They were clearly well settled in, the table littered with empty plates.

  By the way they were sitting and not talking, he knew they must have been watching him. Probably thought he should have lunched with them. And also bought them lunch.

  Well, they needed to start thinking differently.

  He nodded in response to Chahda’s dipped head.

  One of the group, a man he didn’t recognise, perhaps someone on secondment, lifted up his cup and called, ‘Why not come and join us, sir?’

  It was a friendly gesture, especially from a group who must have expected him to have them in first thing – something that he had decided against doing.

  He knew he should go over now. But his pile of reading beckoned, and he could do without the discomfort of sitting amongst them and not giving away his plan to prune the team.

  ‘I must get back,’ he said.

  Silence – although he could feel all eyes on him – as he made his way across the room. He pushed the door.

  ‘Stuck-up twat,’ he heard as he went out.

  If that was the best they could come up with, they wouldn’t be giving him any trouble. Smiling, he held his cup aloft as he climbed the stairs, two at a time again, and soon was back in the cool solitude of his grand domain.

  2 p.m.

  After Cathy got off the bus, she felt the sun so hot she knew it would soon burn through the white cheesecloth of her loose shirt. She pulled up her collar to protect the back of her neck and walked down Rockham High Street, feeling the hem of her long skirt fluttering
against her ankles and hearing her sandals slapping against the pavement.

  Every door on the High Street was open and every shopkeeper out on the pavement on boxes or fold-out chairs, and although they were normally a garrulous bunch they now sat silently, as if the humidity and the traffic fumes had drained them of all life.

  Her route took her past Rockham police station, a fortified brick one-storey in the midst of run-down shops. They’d tried to pretty it up by grassing the front and then ruined the effect by planting an oversize ‘Welcome to Rockham Police Station’ noticeboard on the lawn. Now a couple of workmen were levering out this board while a third was up a ladder manoeuvring a CCTV camera. The sight perplexed her. Were they shutting the police station, as it was rumoured they planned eventually to do, even before the Lovelace had come down?

  ‘That’s it.’ The men prised the sign from its chained surrounds. They dropped it in the midst of glass that, once a protection against the elements, was now littering the lawn. That’s when Cathy saw that someone had graffitied on the sign, so that it now read: ‘Welcome to Wreck’em Police Station’.

  ‘Witty,’ Cathy said.

  ‘Think so, do you?’ One of the men shot her a dirty look.

  There was a new sign on the edge of the lawn near Cathy, which the men went to fetch. It was clearly very heavy. As they turned, one of them stumbled. The sign teetered. Without thinking, Cathy put out a hand to stop it falling.

  ‘Keep off,’ one of the men yelled. Seeing how she jumped, he lowered his voice. ‘Didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s this paint, you see. It’s AI – Anti Interference. Dyes your hand.’ He used a forearm to wipe away the perspiration that, having collected on his forehead, was beginning to drip down. ‘Not that you’d know you’d been marked, not until they flash you with an infrared gun and your hand lights up like it’s Christmas. Sticks to your skin for a week – fuck knows what chemicals have ate into you in the meantime. No washing it off neither. That’s why we’re wearing gloves in this fucking heat.’

  ‘What happens if somebody touches it by mistake?’