30
On the day Nadia started primary school Sami was supposed to walk her to the school gates and hold her hand when she crossed the road. He got as far as the skateboard park where a mate of his was trying a fifty-fifty grind on a handrail. Sami told Nadia to wait for him because he wanted a turn.
She waited for a while but then grew tired of watching the skateboarders. She saw a girl wearing the same school uniform and thought about following her across the road. The lights changed as she stepped out. Tyres screeched. The car couldn’t stop. Nadia fell under the front wheels.
Sami saw her lying on the road. He started running; calling for help. Then he kept running, convinced that he’d killed her. Sure she was dead. He was to blame.
Nadia wasn’t dead. The nearside tyre had run over one of her school shoes, which was so stiff and new that it didn’t give way. It tore all the ligaments in her left foot and she spent two months in a cast.
Sami took his punishment like a man. His skateboard was broken into pieces.
Why does he remember that now, he wonders. Staring at the window, he tries to force Nadia to appear in front of him. He has tried to do it for three days but it hasn’t worked.
Outside the restaurant it’s gone quiet. Nothing seems to be moving except the Chinese lanterns rocking in the breeze. When Sami presses his left cheek against the glass and looks sideways he can make out the barricades blocking Shaftesbury Avenue. Pressing his opposite cheek to the window, he can see the twin stone dragons outside the Exchange Bar and the fruit stand at the Lucky House Mini Market. Boxes of apples, oranges and bananas are neatly stacked with prices written in coloured markers on white squares of cardboard. The doors are closed. The windows are dark.
‘Why are you doing this to us?’ demands a voice behind him.
Sami turns. The girl in the wheelchair has broad shoulders and strong arms. Her face might be pretty if her eyes weren’t so narrow and hard. Anger seems to be trapped inside her, filling her like a reservoir.
‘Doing what?’
‘Keeping us prisoner.’
Sami can’t answer her.
‘When are you going to let us go?’
‘Soon.’
‘I have to be home.’
‘Why?’
The question is so unexpected that she doesn’t have an answer.
‘I have things to do. I have a life.’
‘What’s your name?’ Sami asks.
Her hands leave her wheels and are pressed into her lap.
‘Persephone.’
‘How long you been in a wheelchair?’
‘Since I was nine.’
‘What happened?’
‘I got an infection.’
Sami can’t think of any more questions, but his silence infuriates her.
‘Is that all you got?’
‘Pardon?’
‘The only question you got? When you look at me is that all you see - a wheelchair? A cripple?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t ask where I live or what I do. You’re not interested in my opinions or my pastimes; what music I like, my favourite films, what I’m reading, it’s just the wheelchair. Well let me tell you: I drive a car. I go to the gym four nights a week. I have a boyfriend. I’m a dynamite fuck. Want to know more?’
Not really, thinks Sami. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you.’
‘You’re too transparent to offend me,’ she says, rocking back in her chair, raising the small front wheels and spinning away from him.
Now there is a girl with serious issues, thinks Sami, as he watches her depart. It’s not just her anger or her bitterness that creates a force field around her. It’s as though she uses her disability to selectively embarrass people or socially bludgeon them.
The van driver is still leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.
‘You don’t look like a Paki or an Arab,’ he says.
Sami doesn’t answer.
‘I suppose you figure you’re going to blow a few people up and go straight to heaven; get to sleep with the vestal virgins. How do you Moslems find enough virgins to go round? Maybe they’ll run out and you’ll end up shagging camels instead.’
Sami’s molars are clenched. Hurting.
‘I suppose you think 9/11 was a triumph,’ continues the van driver. ‘But you dumb bastards just made the West stronger. You shoved a pointy stick into the biggest bloody wasp’s nest in history and now the Yanks are gonna eat you for breakfast and shit you out before lunch like you’re extra-strength All-Bran.’
Sami tells him to shut up. He’s not listening.
‘Look what happened in Iraq. Saddam bragged that the Republican Guard would lay waste to the infidels. He said they were gonna stain the sand red with American blood. Bollocks! They folded. They fled like frightened rabbits.
‘Now you got insurgents instead of soldiers. Proper cowards. They bomb schools and mosques. They dress up as women. Booby-trap cripples and retards. Run away. If Gordon Brown had any balls he’d kick every last sand nigger out of this country.’
Sami spins around and kicks at the rear legs of the driver’s chair, which are taking his weight. Gravity does the rest. He goes down, landing hard on his back. Winded. Sucking in air.
‘I said shut the fuck up,’ mutters Sami, pressing the barrel of the shooter into the driver’s forehead. Leaving a mark. He pulls away suddenly. Shaking. Frightened of how much he wants to pull the trigger.
Dragging himself up, he slumps in a chair, arms hanging between his knees, the gun loose in his fingers. A hand brushes his shoulder. Persephone’s mother has crossed the restaurant. She’s one of those women who seem to have been beaten down by life, worn smooth like a pebble in a fast moving stream.
‘Do you have a headache? I have some paracetamol in my handbag.’
‘Thank you, but I’m OK.’
She lowers herself, perching on the edge of a chair, hands clasped in her lap. Enclosed. Bird-like.
‘You’ll have to forgive Persephone. She can be quite … acid-tongued. You see she’s very independent and strongwilled. People sometimes mistake it for rudeness.’
‘She has her reasons.’
‘I used to think it was the accident, but she was always rather demanding.’
‘The accident?’
‘My husband was driving, God rest his soul. Persephone was thrown out of the car. I was pinned inside.’ She pulls back her fringe and Sami sees the scar running across the top of her scalp, just below her hairline.
‘When was it?’
‘Six years ago.’
‘Persephone said it was an infection.’
‘She doesn’t like talking about what happened. People always want details.’
Her voice drops. She glances behind her.
‘I was just wondering … hoping really … that you might consider letting Persephone go - because of her disability. She wouldn’t say bad things about you. You’ve treated us very well.’
The van driver interrupts.
‘You can’t let one of us go and not the others. That’s fucking discrimination.’
‘She’s in a wheelchair,’ says her mother.
‘So what? We give her ramps. We build her lifts. She gets a special fucking pension. It’s a rip-off.’
They’re shouting at each other.
Sami tells them to be quiet.
Persephone joins the argument. ‘I don’t want any favours.’
‘I bet that’s what you say when the Government gives you hand-outs,’ says the driver.
‘You’re an arsehole.’
‘And you’re in a wheelchair.’
Sami snaps and drives his fist into the driver’s stomach. He follows up, hooking him just below the right eye with the butt of the semi-automatic, knocking him across a table.
‘I told you to shut up,’ he yells, waving the gun like he’s conducting an orchestra. Sami balls up a serviette and shoves it in the driver’s mouth, sealing it with a length of masking tape rip
ped from a spool.
‘You don’t know me,’ he says, pressing his face close, squeezing the words out through his teeth. ‘I’m not a Moslem and I’m not a terrorist. I’m as British as you are but arseholes like you make me wonder if I should be proud of that.’
The driver’s eyes are brimming. Sami has seen guys like him before - fearless on his own turf but a coward in a confrontation.
Rolling him to one side then the other, he pulls back his arms and tapes his wrists together, behind his back. Then he pulls him up onto a chair and loops tape over the curved wooden backrest.
Nobody in the restaurant has spoken. Sami puts the gun away. Wipes his hands.
‘Who wants a drink? I’m thirsty.’
31
Bones McGee is considering his position and calculating the odds. Maybe he could cut a deal with vice and roll on Tony Murphy. He could cop a plea to something minor, blame his lack of judgement on work stress, which allowed him to be compromised by a gangster.
He could wear a wire. Set Murphy up. Seek redemption. His police career would be over, of course, but he’d stay out of prison. A man with his background should avoid jail at all costs: a detective, a veteran of the serious crime squad. Dozens of his former collars would be waiting for him inside and they wouldn’t be baking cakes and bringing cell-warming presents.
Tony Murphy would turn on Bones like a ballerina in a jewellery box, but that still doesn’t mean Bones should do the same. Murphy has a family tree like a parasitic vine. Lop off one branch and a dozen more come looking to strangle you.
And what about Ray Garza? A person couldn’t travel far enough or dig a hole deep enough to hide from Garza. The guy has contacts in the security services, the Home Office and the Met. He plays golf with the Assistant Commissioner for fuck’s sake.
None of the options are panning out for Bones. Everything depends on some kid who’s holed up on a restaurant in Chinatown. An amateur. A fish. He’s probably going to sing like Fat Pav the moment they prise him out of that restaurant. Not the dead Fat Pav but the one who turned ‘Nessun Dorma’ into an anthem and made a white hankie into a fashion accessory.
Best for all concerned if the kid doesn’t make it out alive. Best if he blows himself up. Best if someone puts a bullet in his head.
Leaving his office, Bones steps outside and lets a cold breeze slap him in the face. The sun is a dying orange smudge above the rooftops and traffic is moving again.
He catches a cab to Kings Cross, keeping his head turned to the window so the driver doesn’t see his face. Twenty minutes later he catches a second cab back to Piccadilly Circus and takes the stairs to the Underground.
The station is closed, but shops on the concourse have reopened and people are milling around signs announcing the line closures.
Bones has changed his clothes. He’s swapped his wool and cashmere jacket for a vomit-stained overcoat and a woollen hat that belonged to a tramp at Kings Cross. It wasn’t a straight swap. The tramp wanted a tenner to close the deal.
A dozen payphones are lined up along one wall. A phone is free. Bones punches in the number for the counter-terrorism hotline. Muffles his voice. Tries to put on a Middle Eastern accent but sounds more like the char wallah in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
‘Today is just the beginning,’ he says, ‘a small illustration of what we can do. Next time the Al Qaeda Martyrs Brigade will kill thousands. We will stain the streets of London with the blood of infidels, the Jews and the Jew lovers, the true terrorists. Praise Allah or prepare to die. We will not negotiate. We will not surrender.’
Bones hangs up. Wipes his fingerprints from the phone. Pulls the woollen hat low over his eyes and exits the station. He ducks into a narrow lane and puts the overcoat and hat in a plastic shopping bag. Later, he’ll toss them into a clothing bin in Bayswater. Within a fortnight they’ll be on sale in Romania or Albania. Recycling is a wonderful thing.
32
Lucy’s mobile rattles on the table. Sami picks it up and listens. A hostage negotiator has found the number. He has one of those matey, avuncular voices that makes him sound like he wants to take Sami under his wing and teach him the ways of the world.
‘My name is Bob, what’s yours?’
‘Is that important?’ asks Sami.
‘It makes it easier to communicate.’
‘We’re doing pretty well so far.’
‘Just give me a name.’
‘David Beckham.’
‘A proper name.’
‘I’m sure David Beckham thinks it’s a proper name.’
‘I don’t think you’re in a position to be glib,’ says the negotiator, who seems to lose his place on the page for a moment. ‘Can you tell me how many hostages you’re holding?’
Hostages? Sami hadn’t really thought of them as being hostages.
‘They have families,’ says Bob. ‘I’d like to be able to reassure them that everything is okay.’
Sami can see he has a point. ‘There are six of us counting me,’ he says.
‘Are any of them injured?’
‘They’re fine.’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Doing what?’
‘Holding people hostage?’
Sami doesn’t know the answer. It just sort of happened. It’s not what the negotiator expects.
‘Would you consider giving yourself up?’
‘Would you consider letting me go?’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Well, it looks like a stand-off,’ says Sami.
‘Listen, I don’t know your name, but my job is to make sure that nobody gets hurt and that includes you. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. There are people out here who aren’t very patient.’
‘Tell them patience is a virtue.’
‘The people you are holding have families and jobs and friends. They’ve done nothing wrong. I promise you, you have my word, if you let them go, if you walk out of there, hands in the air, unarmed, I’ll guarantee your safety. Nobody has to get hurt.’
‘And I’ll live happily ever after.’
‘I’m giving you a chance. We can do this the easy way or—’
‘The hard way,’ says Sami, finishing the sentence for him.
‘I’m just saying you’ll make things easier for yourself in the long run.’
Bob is beginning to irritate Sami. He’s treating him like an amateur or some wet-behind-the-ears wannabe. Sami isn’t a terrorist at all but if he were going to be one, he’d be bloody good at it.
‘Maybe we could send in some food,’ suggests Bob. ‘Are you hungry?’
Sami glances at the stack of takeaway menus on the counter, wondering what sort of IQ a person needs to get a job as a hostage negotiator.
‘I’m in a restaurant, Bob. I could send something out if you’re feeling peckish.’
‘I thought you might want something else … other than Chinese.’
‘Like what?’
‘Pizza. Indian.’
‘Chinese is fine.’
Next Bob suggests he send in a two-way radio so they can talk whenever they want.
‘Why can’t we keep talking on the phone?’
‘Two-ways are better. I could send someone in with one.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
Sami hears a low rumble from outside. Crouching behind an upturned table, he peers through the window and sees a bulldozer manoeuvre through the gates of Gerrard Street and swing to face the doors of the restaurant. The bucket is raised, shielding the driver.
Sami is still holding the mobile.
‘What’s happening out there, Bob?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you pissing on my Wheaties, Bob?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Sami kicks a chair aside and pulls a ski mask over his face. Then he forces the van driver to his feet and opens the front door, using him as a shield. Two steps. He’s on the pavement, pressing the semi-automatic t
o the back of the driver’s head.
‘You see me, Bob?’ he shouts. ‘You get that bulldozer out of here or I shoot someone, you understand? Pull a stunt like that again and I’ll turn this place into a crater.’
Sami walks backwards through the door, pulling the driver with him. Within a minute the bulldozer has started moving, spinning on wide metal treads and withdrawing.
The van driver’s knees buckle. He might have pissed his pants. Sami helps him to a chair.
Bob is still on the phone. ‘That wasn’t necessary.’ He sounds like a schoolmaster.
‘Shut up, Bob.’ Sami hangs up.
A dripping tap in the kitchen sounds like a clock ticking. Nobody in the restaurant has said anything. Lucy’s parents are holding hands. They could be praying. They might be planning their escape.
Persephone is drawing at a table as if trying to ignore what’s happening. She has a portfolio in a zip-up folder. Sami glances over her shoulder and sees an image of a half-woman and half-bird, with a hooded beak and a naked body.
‘Can I look at some more?’ he asks.
She nods.
Sami leafs through the portfolio. Mostly the images are of dark angels and Goddesses, who are semi-naked with powerful bodies and demonic eyes. There’s nothing pornographic about their nudity.
Persephone tells him her idea for a fantasy comic: a girl in a wheelchair who turns into a crime fighter, a half mythical creature who can’t be killed. The idea embarrasses her a little, but she doesn’t seem so angry any more. If anything, Sami senses she might be coming on to him. Maybe she’s one of those women who get turned on by outlaws and rebels. Kate Tierney is a bit like that, but Sami would forgive Kate anything.
‘I need to go to the toilet,’ Persephone tells him.
There is no disabled bathroom and her wheelchair won’t fit in the cubicle.
‘I can do it myself. I just need someone to take me to the door.’
‘What then?’
‘I crawl.’
‘I can’t let you crawl. I’ll lift you.’
‘I don’t want you there.’
‘I won’t stay.’
Bombproof Page 15
