The Balance of Guilt

by Simon Hall

  The rest of the crowd began drifting away. The show was over, normal service resumed. Dan explained about his interview with Ali Tanton, received a brusque ‘acceptable’ by way of approval, and the news-seeking missile that was Lizzie was away, heading back upstairs.

  ‘And you’d better report the damage to the police,’ she flung over her shoulder. ‘Make sure you get a crime number so we can claim it on the insurance.’

  Dan walked slowly to the canteen to find Nigel. He sent his friend outside to film the car, just in case it became part of the bombing story, then got himself a coffee and phoned the police. An officer would be dispatched within half an hour to take a statement.

  Dan sat down, focused on his notes about the Minster bombing, and started working through what he needed to ask Ali Tanton.

  The Stonehouse area of Plymouth, where Ali lived, was an up and coming residential district, bounded by the docks and city centre. It was once the focus of the red light industry and filled with pubs that served as much in the way of measures of drugs as beer, but many of the houses are beautiful Georgian buildings and ripe for gentrification.

  As Plymouth grew in wealth, so the efforts to rejuvenate Stonehouse followed and were advancing towards success. Dan suspected Ali’s choice of home indicated her business was doing OK, enough to comfortably live on, without being in danger of propelling her into the ranks of the rich.

  It was the same area where they’d joined the brothel raid, only three days ago. They passed the street, the house still looking just as ordinary. But how much had happened in those days. It felt as though the world had changed, and by no means for the better; the arrival of terrorism in gentle Devon, along with murder, spies and intrigue too.

  Nigel drove them, sticking carefully to the speed limits, as ever, and taking advantage of the time together to administer one of his fatherly lectures. The twin themes were warning Dan to be careful, as he could be dealing with some ruthless people on this story, and also a few words about his drinking.

  ‘What drinking?’ Dan asked in surprise.

  ‘Come on. I can smell it on you. Whisky.’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dan felt his face flush. ‘OK, I had a couple of glasses last night. But it was just to make me sleep. I couldn’t get off, and it sometimes helps to have something like that to make you relax and …’

  He caught his friend’s look. ‘OK, I’ll try to take it easy on the drinking.’

  To escape the subject Dan called Adam. The detective could only speak briefly, but did say he had been interviewing Ahmed.

  ‘Get anywhere?’ Dan asked.

  ‘On balance, I would say not.’

  ‘Got any updates for me?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Any chance of me coming to join the investigation after all?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Come on, Adam, I’ve helped out before. I could be useful.’

  ‘You mean you’re dying to play detectives again.’

  ‘I mean I’m trying to help.’

  ‘There’s no chance of you getting in at the moment. The spooks are in charge and they’re going to do things their way.’

  Dan snorted. ‘OK then, are you getting anywhere with the mobile numbers and names in Ahmed’s phone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any hope of me having a look?’

  Now Adam paused, and Dan could sense his friend deliberating. Finally he said, ‘Look, I’d love you to see them. But if you had them, the spooks would know they could only have come from me and they wouldn’t hesitate to have me thrown off the inquiry and probably suspended too.’

  ‘I’m not going to give up, you know. I will get back in somehow.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Look, just be patient for now. Let’s see how things go.’

  Dan was about to hang up when he remembered what had happened to his car. He related the story.

  ‘Blimey,’ Adam replied. ‘Looks like someone’s got it in for you.’

  ‘Thanks for that. The suspicion had occurred to me.’

  ‘Well, just make sure you watch your back,’ the detective added, and hung up.

  It was the third personal safety warning Dan had received in an hour and none were serving to make him feel any more comfortable. He turned on the radio to distract himself and tried to tap along with the beat of some modern hit he had no hope of recognising. It barely sounded like music, an indiscernible melody accompanied by indecipherable lyrics. He must be getting old.

  Nigel stopped at a petrol station and Dan bought a packet of mints. It would scarcely be ideal for Ali to smell the drink on him. As he queued at the till, he was aware of a woman to his side, watching him. She was striking without being obviously attractive; tall, thin and flame-haired. He looked over and she smiled.

  ‘Can I have a word with you in a minute? Outside,’ she added, in a way that sounded meaningful.

  Dan nodded. ‘Sure.’ He paid for the sweets, waited outside the kiosk, then remembered Nigel’s comments about his breath. He quickly opened the packet and chewed on a couple, being careful to run them all around his mouth.

  ‘Sarah Jones,’ she said, holding out her hand as she emerged. ‘I think you drink in my local sometimes. The Castle, on Mutley Plain.’

  Dan shook the hand. It was cool and smooth, the nails long and painted emerald green. ‘Yes, I do. They serve good beers.’

  She chuckled. ‘I prefer the wine, but I like the atmosphere. I’ve tried to catch your eye a couple of times, but you’ve always seemed engrossed in what you’re thinking about.’

  ‘Have you? Hell, the things I miss.’

  Sarah laughed again, took a step forward so their faces were close together and whispered, ‘I’ve got something I need to talk to you about. I think you’ll find it interesting.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her eyes were so distractingly green that Dan was struggling to find any words to say. ‘Err, what’s it about?’ he managed.

  ‘I can’t tell you here. We’d have to have a proper chat. If I give you my number will you call me?’

  Dan hesitated. ‘Err, yeah, of course …’

  Sarah gave him a look. ‘Then I think I’d better take yours.’

  She held out her hand. Dan found himself placing his mobile in it. She typed in her number, then rang it. In her bag a phone trilled. ‘There,’ Sarah said. ‘That’s you logged on my mobile. Now there’s no getting away. I’ll look forward to seeing you.’

  She got into her car, a low-slung, gleaming black sports model. Dan walked automatically over to Nigel, who was grinning broadly. As she pulled out of the petrol station Sarah wound down a window and blew a lingering kiss.

  ‘I think she likes you,’ Nigel observed.

  They climbed into the car and set off for Ali’s house. It was just a couple of minutes away.

  Dan checked his phone. The name the vision of emerald and flame had typed in was “Sexy Sarah”.

  Outside Ali Tanton’s house a sizeable press pack was gathered, all moaning about the lack of any pictures or interviews. The news of John’s death had been released to the media and it was the story of the day. Ali was the interview everyone wanted, and no one had got it.

  At least not yet.

  Dan found himself smiling, a rare and unexpected experience of late. It was an expression which was only enhanced by a lingering hint of the perfume Sarah Jones had been wearing rising from his shirt. He helped Nigel to get the camera kit from the car and they made for the house.

  Dirty El slunk through the pack and materialised beside them in that spectral way of his.

  ‘You got an in with her?’ he whispered. ‘Care to share it with your old pal? A snap’ll be worth thousands to poor El. It’ll help tide him through the lean winter months.’ He patted his far from emaciated stomach, then looked down and stopped with the realisation he was unlikely to convince anyone of his poverty. The only six pa
ck El would ever boast would be made up of tubs of lard.

  ‘Anyway, beers on me if you can grease me way in, and maybe a little rhyme too,’ he added, and produced a sleazy grin.

  ‘You’re feeling better,’ Dan noted. ‘We haven’t had the privilege of one of your dreadful bursts of improvised poetry since the bombing, and oh how we’ve missed them. Sunday school hangover lifted, has it?’

  ‘You can’t keep a good man down for long. Or a bad one.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise, not even for you. It depends how she is.’

  El’s chubby face slipped into a conspiratorial wink. Dan picked his way through the disgruntled mass.

  ‘Don’t bother, mate,’ grumbled a reporter from The National News. ‘She’s not answering.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s pointless,’ added another, who Dan recognised as working for one of Britain’s most disreputable tabloids. ‘She won’t even come out to pose for a piccie, the selfish bleeding woman.’

  The feeling of enjoyment grew. Dan put on his best smile, led Nigel through the last of the photographers and reporters and knocked gently. A curtain twitched and the door opened.

  In the hallway Dan reached out a hand, but Ali ignored it, stepped forwards and gave him a squeezing hug. She had been crying, her eyes angry and rimmed in red.

  ‘They won’t even let me see him,’ she said, her voice thin and trembling. ‘They say there are more tests they’ve got to carry out and they can’t release his body for burial.’

  Ali led them to a lounge at the back of the house. It was small, but impeccably neat, as was often the way with people who had suffered a bereavement. Tidying was a common palliative, a distraction, for a few minutes at least. Through the window they could see a photographer sitting on top of the garden wall.

  ‘It feels like I’m under siege,’ she whimpered. ‘When will they go away?’

  ‘They won’t, I’m afraid, not until they get something. I might be able to help, but we’ll sort that out in a while,’ Dan replied. ‘How are you coping?’

  She managed a forlorn smile. ‘Not very well. I’ve had a couple of friends come and look in on me, but I’d rather be alone most of the time.’ She pointed to a photo of John on the wall, wearing his football strip, covered in mud but smiling broadly. ‘I still can’t believe what’s happened … and he died without me even getting to see him again,’ she burst out, and began crying once more.

  Dan sat her down in an armchair and sent Nigel to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The last time they’d met, at some conference, Ali had looked strong and full of life. Now she’d crumpled. Her face was lined and gaunt, her green top clashing with her blue trousers, her dark hair lank and unwashed, and she was visibly trembling.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this interview?’ Dan asked.

  She nodded forcefully. ‘Yes. I’ve got to tell people what John was really like. And what they’ve done to him. It wasn’t his fault, they made him do it …’

  She reached out for another hug. Dan could feel the dampness of her tears spreading through his shirt. Nigel brought in a tray of tea and began setting up the camera. Ali watched him warily.

  ‘How’s business been going?’ Dan asked. ‘It’s publishing you do, isn’t it? Have you put out anything good recently?’

  Another sad smile. ‘It’s all good. We haven’t produced any blockbusters, but a book on the hidden history of Devon has sold well. We’re going to do another one on Plymouth soon. And something on the best walks in the South-west.’

  ‘That sounds like my sort of book. I could do with some new ideas. I think my dog’s getting fed up with the same old ones all the time.’

  They talked on; about the merits of walking Dartmoor compared with the coast, safe subjects, a world and more away from bombings and death, until Nigel gave Dan’s foot a subtle tap.

  ‘Well, I suppose we’d better get on. Are you ready, Ali?’ he asked and received a tense nod in reply. ‘First of all then, we’ve heard a lot about John and what he did, but tell me about him. What kind of a boy was he?’

  She bit at her lip. ‘He was a great son. It’s always been just him and me, and even from when he was young he tried to take care of me. I remember when he was only ten, for my birthday present he paid for his own babysitter so I could go out for the night with my friends. She wouldn’t take his money, said she’d do it as a favour, so he insisted on giving me ten pounds to buy myself a bottle of wine. That’s the kind of boy he was.’

  Dan adopted an encouraging smile. ‘And what was he like as he grew up?’

  ‘To be honest, he wasn’t great at school. He didn’t have that many pals. He seemed to find it difficult to make friends. Some of the kids picked on him because he was quite big for his age and wouldn’t have a go back. But he did all right. He had a few mates. He did well at woodwork and he was thinking of becoming a carpenter. He made a couple of things for me.’

  She pointed to the mantelpiece where a small wooden model of a dolphin stood. It was well-worked, the lines sleek and smooth. After they’d finished talking, Nigel would film it. Cutaway shots were always useful to help illustrate an interview.

  ‘It was when he started playing football that he really became happier,’ Ali continued. ‘The school second team was short of a goalkeeper one day and he was the only one available. I remember him telling me some of the kids went out on the pitch saying they’d lost already because John was in goal. But he played really well, saved all the other team’s shots, and his team won two nil. He came home so happy because the lads said he’d done great. For the first time he felt accepted.’

  Dan nodded, paused before asking his next question, to give himself a chance to compose it and to allow Ali to dab at her eyes. They were approaching the difficult ground.

  ‘He sounds like a very normal boy, but how did he change? And what do you believe changed him?’

  She swallowed hard. ‘It was some of the people he fell in with. One person in particular, that Ahmed. John started going on about Islam and wanting to be a Muslim. The things he was saying – they worried me.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘He started saying that Britain was rotten. That it needed to be taught a lesson. That it was full of loose women and immoral men. Other things about how much better Islamic countries were.’

  ‘And what did you do about that?’

  ‘I talked to him. But I thought it was just a phase. He’s had infatuations before. That’s his character. He got totally hooked up in the Young Christian Fellowship for a few months once. Another time it was a cycling club. He’s easily led. If people made him feel a part of something, made him feel wanted, he’d go along with it.’

  ‘And that’s what you believe happened with the bombing? What led him to it?’

  She was crying again now, the tears sliding down her pale face. Dan heard the hum of the camera’s motor as Nigel zoomed in the shot for the powerful close-up, revealing every twitch of emotion.

  ‘Yes,’ Ali replied. ‘It must have been. He couldn’t have done it himself. He would never have thought like that on his own. He wouldn’t have been able to …’

  Her voice cracked. Dan kept quiet and let her find the thoughts. Silence, the secret art of interviewing.

  Ali let out a shuddering breath, twined her fingers together, and then the words came again and fast, a rush of feeling.

  ‘He wouldn’t have been able to make bombs. Not John. Not my boy. He would never have been able to make them and would never have wanted to blow himself up, and other people too. He would never have gone into the Minster to explode a bomb if he hadn’t been indoctrinated and radicalised. They used him. And now … now … he’s dead. And they’ve got what they wanted and they’re safe and free and they’re laughing. The bastards, the evil, vicious bastards.’

  Again Dan let the silence run. They had almost all they needed, just time for the last question. It had to be asked.

  ‘Finally then, I hav
e to put this to you. You’ve defended your son, of course. But – he took a bomb into a sacred building, detonated it and killed and injured innocent people, and no one made him do that.’

  Ali Tanton stared at him, and Dan wondered what reaction he was going to get. She dropped her head and stared down at the floor. Long seconds edged past. But when she finally spoke, her voice was the calmest it had been.

  ‘I understand what people must be thinking of John. But I’d ask them to remember this. John was young and he was vulnerable. He was no more than a boy. He was preyed on. My heart goes out to the families of the people killed and injured in the explosion. But my son died too. He wasted his young life. That was the price he paid for nothing more than being vulnerable and trusting. I believe he was as much a victim in this as anyone else.’

  It was one of those rare stories that stops a newsroom. Dan made a point of sitting next to Lizzie as the lunchtime bulletin was broadcast. All the other hacks gathered around the TV monitors, quietened by the drama of Ali Tanton’s words.

  It had been an easy report for Dan to cut. He used most of her interview, interspersed with a brief recap on the story, some of the pictures of the damage to the Minster, a photograph of John and a couple of shots in his bedroom. After the interview, Ali had said that her son spent many hours in there on the computer, often with Ahmed for company.

  Dan explained that to the viewers, but didn’t use Ahmed’s name. It was also bleeped out of the section of interview where Ali mentioned it. Lizzie had consulted with the legal department, who feared he could sue for libel if he was named. As far as the law was concerned there might be suspicion, but there was, as yet, no proof, and that meant he was officially innocent – for the moment, at least. It was the same reason they had obscured the picture of his face and not used his name when Ahmed had been arrested in the shopping arcade.

  When the report ended, Lizzie announced it was, ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Not bad?’ Dan queried.

  ‘Not bad at all.’

  He sighed, but didn’t say anything. His editor sometimes failed even to reach the heights of damning with faint praise.