The Balance of Guilt

by Simon Hall

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a number base used in computing. Ahmed’s a computer scientist. I reckon that might be the key.’

  Adam’s hand went to his already impeccable tie and straightened it. ‘Blimey, the things you know. And you might have something, too.’ He briefed Dan about Ahmed’s nervous reaction in the interview, when told his phone had been found.

  ‘OK, keep thinking about that “hexa-base” thing,’ the detective added. ‘I’ll have a copy of the list made for you. But first, let’s go see Ahmed. Bear your idea in mind when you’re talking to him. You ready?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Adam collected his papers. Dan used the moment to pop out into the corridor to find the loo. It had been a long drive from Plymouth, the traffic coming in to Exeter sticky with the remnants of the rush hour. He walked straight into Claire.

  ‘Ah, err …’ he managed.

  ‘Oh, umm …’ she replied.

  They stared at each other, just stared. She hadn’t changed at all, had perhaps lost a little weight, but that was it. The wonderful figure was still just as fine, the dark hair, the sharp cheekbones.

  Claire. Standing here, not a couple of feet from him.

  Claire. The first time they had met for months.

  Claire.

  Dan stood, wondering what to do. Vaguely, unable to believe it was happening, he reached out a hand.

  Hesitantly, she shook it.

  Dan could smell her perfume. She was wearing the silver necklace he’d bought.

  It was a sign. She hadn’t forgotten him. She was wearing it to tell him so. She wanted him to know she still loved him, still treasured the times they had together, still wanted to believe there was some hope for their future.

  Or perhaps she just liked the necklace.

  He’d kept everything she ever gave him. It was all in a box, under his bed. Several times Dan had tried to throw it away, cast it into a skip, once even dump it in the sea. But he had never quite been able to do so.

  Five months on and more from that night they had shouted and screamed at each other, now they stood in the corridor of a police station, staring in silence.

  A man coughed loudly, slid his way around them and cast back a curious look. Neither noticed.

  Dan remembered he had something to say. His little speech. The fragile, frail, thin and pitifully inadequate words which might at least allow them the grace to work together for a few days.

  He took a deep breath and was about to begin, but Claire spoke first.

  ‘Look,’ she said softly. ‘I know this is difficult for you. It is for me too, don’t doubt that. But we’re working on a big case. It’s too important to allow personal feelings to get in the way. We can’t afford to be distracted. I know you’re professional enough to do that. I will be too.’

  The words sounded oddly familiar. All Dan could manage was an open-mouthed nod. Claire held the look for a second, then turned and walked into the Bomb Room.

  Dan found a toilet, shut himself in a cubicle and sat there for a few minutes, doing his very best to recover some elusive composure.

  Adam had been silent all the way to the interview room. As he was about to push open the door, he stopped, but said only, ‘Don’t let him wind you up. He loves to try.’

  Ahmed was sitting at the table. The room was uncomfortably warm again and in half light, shadows lingering and lurking around the walls and across the floor.

  Ahmed looked up. ‘New pig, eh?’ he said to Dan. ‘I hope you’re better than the old ones. They’re crap, no fun at all.’

  Adam sat at the table, opposite Ahmed. Dan took his customary position, by the wall at the back of the room. He was never quite sure why, perhaps because he seldom felt a truly legitimate part of an investigation and so the physical separation seemed appropriate.

  Then again, it might just have been more to do with the police dramas he’d watched on the TV, where one cop always stood. And it was usually the nasty, yet talented, intuitive, handsome and charismatic one.

  ‘What do you want this time then?’ Ahmed asked.

  ‘The truth,’ Adam replied levelly.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Hey, you know what I worked out?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s why you cops are so dumb.’

  Ahmed waited, but Adam didn’t bite. ‘When I was at university,’ he continued, ‘what did people wanna do? They wanted to go into the city, to make some money, or the government, or the press or whatever. But no one wanted to be a cop. So all the clever people go and do the cool and interesting jobs, while all the idiots join the cops. What do ya reckon?’

  Again, no reply from Adam. But the detective’s neck had turned a dull red and one hand bunched into a tight fist.

  ‘So who’s you then?’ Ahmed asked Dan. ‘You FX5, or CID, or CIA, or FBI, or just a …’ He spelt out the word, ‘a D-I-C-K?’

  He chuckled to himself and squinted at Dan. ‘Hey, hang on. I recognise you. Ain’t you that geezer off the telly? The one who does all the crime stuff? You gonna interview me for the TV then?’

  Dan stepped forward and joined Adam at the table.

  ‘That’d be well cool, eh?’ Ahmed went on. He held up an imaginary microphone and proffered it to Dan. ‘Why don’t you interview me, so I can tell everyone what clueless idiots these cops are? How they arrest innocent people just ’coz they’re mates with some guy who blows himself up?’

  ‘I’m just here to ask you some questions about what happened,’ Dan replied, neutrally. ‘But you’re right, I am hoping to get you on the TV – when I report that you’ve been charged with conspiracy to murder by radicalising John Tanton.’

  Ahmed sat back and rolled his eyes. ‘I reckon I’ve heard all this stuff before. And as far as I can tell, I ain’t been charged with nothing yet. I should’ve known better. You journalists are as bad as the rest of ’em. Peddling your lies and porn.’

  He began tapping a tune on the table, his head moving in time. The tinny, arrhythmic drumbeat reverberated in the quiet of the room.

  Dan studied the man and tried to think. But Claire kept intruding into his mind. He couldn’t believe he had shaken her hand. Ahmed’s jibe about him being a dick might just be well founded.

  The tempo of the drum beat increased. Ahmed looked at Dan and produced a grin.

  His breath smelt a little stale and his hair looked greasy, shining in the dim light. There were a couple of pockmarks under his left eye and a rash of whiskers around his cheeks. The rhythm was rising to a crescendo.

  ‘Stop that bloody noise!’ Adam shouted.

  Ahmed gradually slowed the beat and finally hit out at an imaginary cymbal. ‘Crash!’ he chuckled. ‘Don’t you like my drumming then?’

  He sat back on his chair and picked at a fingernail, then lifted his hand and chewed it.

  ‘You’re a computer expert, aren’t you Ahmed?’ Dan said.

  The chewing stopped. ‘What?’

  ‘A computer expert?’

  ‘I dunno about expert.’

  ‘Come on. You’ve got a degree in computer science. You know the things inside out. That’s smart. I can barely make email work.’

  He sounded suspicious. ‘Yeah, whatever, mate.’

  ‘You know what I think is amazing about computers?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How fast they’ve progressed. I mean, I read somewhere – isn’t it the case that modern watches and mobile phones have more computer power than the spacecraft that took men to the moon?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’

  ‘And the way they operate now. Compared to how it was when I was a kid, it’s all so simple. Back then, when you turned on a computer you just got a flashing dot. Now they ask you what it is you want to do.’

  ‘Yeah, suppose so.’

  ‘Things have changed, eh? Computers, mobile phones. And there’s so much information you can store in them.’

  ‘Yeah. But so what man? You trying to butter me up, to get me talkin
g? Playing the Mr Nice Cop? ’Coz it ain’t gonna work.’

  Dan allowed himself to smile. ‘Ah, you’ve seen through me. You are as smart as I was told. In that case, I might as well stop wasting my time.’

  He got up from the chair and made for the door. Dan saw a fleeting expression of puzzlement on Adam’s face.

  ‘Is that it then, man?’ Ahmed asked. ‘You just wanted to talk about computers and phones?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dan replied. He paused in the doorway and turned on the lights. Ahmed screwed up his eyes in the sudden brightness and blinked hard.

  ‘That’s better,’ Dan said. ‘Yep, that was all it was. Just a little chat to get to know each other. All about computers and phones.’

  He paused, stared right into Ahmed’s eyes. ‘Well, that and – hexadecimal codes.’

  Parking space around the Minster is as rare as a moral banker, so they walked. It was another fine day and worthy of the exercise.

  ‘So then?’ Adam asked, in that detective’s way of his. It could have been a lure to a range of topics; about Claire, life in general, even Sarah Jones, but Dan assumed his friend was talking about Ahmed.

  ‘Well, he’s certainly a man with an attitude.’

  ‘Yes, I’d noticed that. I meant the hexadecimal thing.’

  Dan thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure. I think he reacted, which could tell us we’re on the right track. But then again, it could just have been surprise at me throwing a word like that at him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Adam mused. ‘But it’s our best shot at the moment. So keep working on it. By the way, that trick with turning the lights on at the end …’

  ‘Clever eh? Good notion to throw him off balance.’

  ‘I thought it was melodramatic. Very you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  They dodged across the main road, the traffic light and willing to wait for once. Drivers always tended to be in a better mood in the sunshine.

  ‘I don’t know how much longer we’ve got with Ahmed,’ Adam said. ‘The law gives me another three weeks at least to hold him, but I’ll never be able to do that. His solicitor’s been on the phone twice a day, demanding we either produce some decent evidence or let him go.’

  ‘And what you’ve got isn’t good enough? His association with John, his being in Exeter at the time?’

  ‘It’s purely circumstantial. The lawyers reckon if I don’t get something more substantial in the next couple of days, we’ll have to release him.’

  ‘But he’s our prime suspect.’

  ‘Yep. Don’t let anyone ever tell you the law’s not on the side of the criminals.’

  Dan clicked his tongue. ‘No pressure then. Well, we’d better get on with it.’

  They walked on, along Southernhay. A gardener was watering the flower beds, talking to the plants as he did. Dan checked his watch. Half past ten it said, so probably a quarter to eleven. They weren’t due to see Parfitt until the hour.

  ‘Do you mind if we go via the arcade where you arrested Ahmed?’ Dan asked.

  Adam gave him a look. ‘I know I should be used to your whims by now, but any particular reason?’

  ‘On this occasion, nothing concrete that I can think of. Just – well, a feeling. I got the impression from Ahmed that …’

  ‘What?’

  Dan hesitated. ‘You won’t like this, but – an instinct, I suppose. That we were on the right lines with him, but not quite in the target area. When I talked about phones it definitely bothered him, but it didn’t shock him. It was just – well, like that kid’s game, when you’re looking for something that’s been hidden. He was giving us a kind of you’re warm vibe, without being hot, right on the nose.’

  Adam changed direction, towards the shopping centre. ‘Come on then. We’ve got a few minutes, we might as well use them. But remember, we don’t have time to mess about.’

  They walked across Minster Green, groups of people sitting on the grass, chatting. A ring of young children chased each other around an oak tree. Pigeons bobbed up and down along the cobbles by the ruined stained glass window.

  ‘Walk me through it,’ Dan said, at the entrance to the arcade. ‘Don’t leave anything out.’

  ‘He comes in here, through the main entrance. He’s running and there are cops on his tail, but a bit behind.’

  They waited for a bus to pass, then walked on into the arcade and came to an intersection of shops. There was a greengrocer’s, a pile of fruit and vegetables on display, an optician’s, and a second-hand shop, the window full of cameras and mobile phones. Ahead was a small supermarket, trolleys lined up outside. A couple of stalls were selling a colourful selection of scarves and hats for the coming winter.

  Adam stopped. ‘Now we lose him. For forty seconds exactly. The cops behind can’t see him. There’s no CCTV on him.’

  The detective pointed along the intersection. ‘Now we pick him up again, sitting on that bench. We close in and arrest him, as you saw.’

  ‘And when he came along here, could he have been absolutely sure he wasn’t on CCTV?’

  ‘It’s a fair bet. The cameras are old and pretty obvious. He’d have seen there wasn’t one here.’

  ‘So, what was he doing in that forty seconds?’

  ‘Hiding the mobile.’

  ‘Where?’

  Adam took a couple of strides forwards and bent over, pointed to a drain. ‘In there.’

  Dan sat down on a low wall and looked around. ‘Was it well hidden?’

  ‘Not particularly. It didn’t take too long to find.’

  ‘How long would it have taken to hide?’

  ‘A few seconds.’

  ‘Not forty?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How many?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘Forgive me asking,’ he said heavily, ‘but is this relevant?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Let’s try it. Walk round that corner, look around you, spot the drain, open it, then close it again and walk on. Do it all fast.’

  Adam shook his head, but did so. ‘Ten seconds,’ said Dan, looking up from his watch.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So – what was he doing with the other thirty?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing. He must have been panicking. Perhaps it took that long to spot somewhere to hide the phone. Maybe he couldn’t get the drain open.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Adam sat down beside Dan. ‘I know that look. What are you thinking?’

  ‘That he was doing something else in our thirty missing seconds.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That is the question. What if he was trying to hide something apart from the phone?’

  Adam shook his head. ‘No go. I had this entire area searched. The teams looked everywhere. Roof, floor, ceiling, bins, drains, shops, you name it. They took it apart. We found nothing.’

  Now it was Dan’s turn to frown. ‘Hmm,’ was all he said.

  ‘Look,’ Adam replied, standing up. ‘I know you love your bit of drama and complicated cases, with riddles and puzzles and whistles and bells, but take a tip from me. This one is straightforward. We need to find who Tanton rang before he exploded the bomb. Get that person and we have our radicaliser. I’m not saying Ahmed wasn’t involved. In fact, I’m sure he is – somehow – but that call is the key to the case. And we’ve got some possible suspects, so let’s go work on it.’

  They called at Parfitt’s office, to the side of the Minster, and were made to wait. Dan and Adam exchanged glances. They had agreed on the way over that a man as important as the Principal would always be too busy with pressing work matters to see them immediately.

  As they waited, Dan made one final attempt to get Adam to tell him. ‘What’s this surprise then?’

  ‘Wait and see. But let me take the lead on this one.’

  Dan contented himself with thinking his way back through the shopping arcade. But it wasn’t easy to concentrate. Claire kept stalking the fringes of his mind, her expression still impassive. Dan wondered
if she was thinking about him, or just getting on with her inquiries. He wondered too what he hoped she was thinking.

  Dan tried a memory of Sarah Jones and their night together, but that prompted no reaction either. He sighed. Curiously, even after all the days and weeks of raging about what had happened with Claire, the numbness was not a welcome sensation. It felt unpleasantly inhuman.

  A door opened and Parfitt appeared. They shook hands. He was wearing a suit today, a trendy three-button jacket and clearly bespoke.

  ‘Non-clerical day,’ he explained. ‘Meetings with money men. In these days even Minsters must endlessly seek sponsorship, like some tawdry football club. A suit seems to go down better than the frock. Look, as it’s a fine day, why don’t we make the most of it and talk outside?’

  He led them back to the green and found a bench in a secluded corner, beneath a large oak tree. A crisp packet fluttered on the ground. Parfitt stooped down and picked it up.

  ‘I don’t know what society’s coming to, some days,’ he complained. ‘You’d think people would behave better, here in the Minster grounds. But there’s little respect. We have a constant problem with litter and dog mess, even vandalism.’

  Adam nodded sympathetically and asked a couple of questions about how the Minster was coping in the aftermath of the bombing. Visitor numbers were up considerably. Money had already been received from an anonymous donor to replace the stained glass window. It was being recreated, exactly as it had been, but the work would take months. For now, it was boarded up, the same fate as would befall a broken window in any ordinary shop or house. Across the green, a succession of people were still stopping to photograph the memory of the attack.

  Dan watched a jackdaw hop across the grass and pick at some discarded food. He’d have to see Flash and Gordon later, to show them the list of names and numbers from Ahmed’s phone. He winced at the thought of the two oddballs, spinning around on their chairs, gleefully dissecting the evidence. Some of the things he had to do for his job were ridiculous.

  A flock of white clouds was gathering above one of the Minster’s towers. The sun shone from the glass of the shopfronts, casting silhouettes of the people passing by. A woman ran after a young boy who was trying to climb a wall. Couples walked, hand in hand, easy and relaxed. A man in a red coat lectured a group of visitors about the city’s history. There was a sense of making the most of the last days of the benevolent weather, before the darkness and cold of the English winter set in, obstinate and omnipotent in its long months of dominance of daily life.