The Balance of Guilt

by Simon Hall

  Sierra sighed. ‘They come down to the same basic dilemma. Whether to allow one outrage in order to prevent a bigger one.’

  ‘Go on,’ Adam prompted.

  ‘Before I do, I must emphasise this – what you’re about to hear is extremely sensitive, and must not be repeated.’

  Adam nodded. ‘Carry on.’

  She sat down on the edge of a desk. ‘We believe Ahmed is on the fringes of a very radical and embittered group who are planning mass murder. By that I mean on the scale of the July 7th bombings in London but possibly even worse, and we fear the attack may be only weeks away. We’ve tried, but can’t penetrate them. They’re too tightly knit, too well organised, but we know Ahmed has links with them. We also believe they need someone with computer skills to help them send encrypted messages to their terrorist contacts in Pakistan. Ahmed would be ideal. We believe they were watching his efforts down here, to see how committed and valuable he could be, and so whether he might be deemed worthy of joining them.’

  She paused and took a long breath. ‘There’s no easy way to say this.’

  ‘Try me,’ Adam replied tersely.

  ‘We decided to allow Tanton to detonate his bomb in order that this group would let Ahmed join them. We hoped they would take him on board, giving us a way to monitor them and stop an attack which we fear could kill hundreds of people.’

  The room was silent. No one even moved. Adam was staring into space, Claire studying the window and the passing world. Dan could feel his heart beating hard.

  Finally Adam spoke. ‘Forgive me for putting it this way, but that’s one fuck of a lot of airy hopes to justify letting an attack you definitely knew about go ahead.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sierra replied. ‘But that’s our job. Rarely, if ever, are things simple, straightforward and certain. We felt it was our best guess to save the most lives.’

  ‘Right. Shall I tell you what I think of that?’

  ‘If you must,’ she replied heavily.

  ‘Oh, I must.’

  ‘I think it’s utter bollocks. If you know about a crime being planned, you stop it. We’re talking about murder– that’s murder. It’s not shoplifting, or scrumping apples, or dropping litter. If you have any hint it’s coming, you stop it. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Maybe in your little black and white world,’ Oscar sneered.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘No, fuck you.’

  Sierra raised her arms. ‘OK, that’s enough. I don’t plan to get into a debate here. I don’t need your understanding and I certainly don’t need your judgement. So, Adam, I’ve told you what happened and why. Now what are you going to do?’

  It was almost an appeal, the first time Dan could remember her using the detective’s Christian name in a personable manner. And if it was an attempt at ingratiation and camaraderie, it failed with all the elegance of a hippopotamus attempting to fly.

  Adam studied her, then replied with false calm, ‘I’m tempted to tell you what I think of you, but I hope you already know. I’m well aware you can bring all sorts of powerful people jumping down on my back, and I have no doubt you will. But this is what I’m going to do anyway.’

  He paused, to make absolutely sure he had their attention. ‘I’m going to talk to my Deputy Chief Constable. I’m going to tell him I plan to charge Ahmed with his part in murder and you two as well.’

  ‘You can try, mate,’ Oscar sneered. ‘If you want to land yourself in more shit than you’ve ever known.’

  Adam began walking towards the door. Oscar made a gesture and mouthed ‘wanker’ at him, but the detective ignored it.

  Dan was about to follow his friend, but stopped. After this moment, it was more than likely he would never see the two spies again. And he had something to say.

  Dan swallowed hard and found his voice. ‘There’s just one more thing.’

  ‘Oh, Sherlock speaks,’ Oscar replied sarcastically. ‘What does our great reporter detective want? If it’s an exclusive on his mate being kicked out of the police, we might just be able to help. He could make himself useful – for once.’

  And for Dan, if there was any doubt about what he was going to do, that decided it.

  He took a step towards Oscar. ‘Why did you poison my dog?’

  ‘Who says …’

  ‘Don’t bother denying it. I’ve got a friend who’d make a better spy than you ever will. I’ve got photos of you outside my flat, watching me and following me.’

  Oscar shrugged. ‘So? Who gives a shit about a dog? Maybe you should be a bit more careful. Routines are dangerous you know.’

  Dan noticed his legs were striding across the room. He felt his fist drawing back, his muscles tensing, his knuckles strong and steely, ready to plant the blow in the middle of Oscar’s sneering face.

  The spy was just staring at him. ‘Try it then,’ he said coldly.

  And Dan knew he would. His arm felt stronger than he had ever experienced, filled with the energy of the universe, his fist as hard as granite. And he was about to propel it forwards. He could feel the spy’s nose breaking under the impact, the cracking of fragile bone, the ripping of cartilage, the spurting of blood and the man’s scream of pain.

  And it would be beautiful.

  A pressure. A tight hand clamping around his arm. Dan turned and saw Adam standing beside him.

  ‘No,’ the detective ordered. ‘Stop. Leave him.’

  Dan stopped. Oscar was smirking.

  ‘Let me guess,’ he chuckled. ‘You’re going to say – He’s not worth it. How inspiring. How very original.’

  Adam gave the man a look that Dan couldn’t read. ‘No,’ he said and sounded surprised. ‘No, I wasn’t going to say that at all.’

  With remarkable speed, the detective drew back his fist and smashed it into Oscar’s mouth. Blood sprayed from the spy’s lip and he folded, dropped from the end of the desk and lay moaning on the floor.

  Adam looked down at the crumpled figure, nodded with satisfaction and then turned for the door.

  ‘I was going to say I wanted to do it myself.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  IT WAS A STRANGE place for such a discussion, but some things just feel right.

  Claire and Dan sat side by side on the hard plastic chairs in the half light of the vet’s surgery, gazing at Rutherford and talking. First about the dog, then into progressively more dangerous territory. The investigation, terrorists and spies, rights and wrongs, and to the most perilous destination of all.

  The weword. You and me, the relationship between us, if even such a thing exists.

  It was just after eight o’clock in the evening. Cara had finally been allowed to go home, after suffering another exhaustive interrogation from Dan. Yes, the treatment appeared to be working. Yes, Rutherford was doing well. No, he wasn’t completely safe yet, there was always the possibility of a relapse, but yes, the chances of survival and complete recovery had risen.

  No, she still didn’t want to put a figure on it. But if she must …

  She must.

  … then it was about eighty per cent.

  Dan felt a constricting tension leave him. Eighty per cent. Seldom in his unpredictable and often ridiculous life did he encounter such favourable odds. He felt like the favourite in a race where all the other runners had pulled out, he’d just crossed the last fence and could see the finishing line ahead.

  And as if Rutherford could sense the discussion going on over his prone body, he opened an eye. Dan stroked his head and the dog’s mouth shifted and twitched. The expression was almost his smiling face.

  Dan had to turn away to hide the nascent tears.

  He felt Claire’s hand slip into his and squeezed it, let the grip linger, but then released it again. It would be a long journey to make such symbolic contact comfortable again.

  Cara told Dan he could do no good there, that he looked tired and needed to go home and rest. She was right, of course, he’d hardly had any sleep of late and well he knew it.
The leaden cloak of fatigue swaddled his body. She reassured him Rutherford was doing fine, would happily sleep through the night, and tomorrow might well be strong enough to get up from the table. But Dan wanted to stay and sit with the dog anyway, even if only for an hour or two, so the young vet again left him a set of keys and said goodnight.

  And Claire and Dan were alone.

  ‘He’s looking OK,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s breathing well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He looks peaceful.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s strong and fit.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s going to be OK.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He is, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  A long hesitation and then Claire said softly, ‘Can we talk about us now?’

  ‘Yes. No. I mean – in a minute. Probably. Maybe.’

  It was scarcely the finest sentence he had ever constructed, but it made the point. She looked at him and smiled ruefully. ‘Are you still as screwed up as ever?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Because of me.’

  It was more fact than theory. And there was no point in lying. Claire knew. She always knew.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry. For everything.’

  ‘It was as much my fault.’

  ‘No, it was …’

  ‘Look,’ Dan interrupted. ‘I’m not sure I’m up to this at the moment. It’s been a hell of a few days. My brain feels addled. Can we just sit and chat a while, be with Rutherford and see how it all goes?’

  She nodded. ‘Sure. But we will have to talk sometime.’

  ‘I know. Just – not quite yet. And not quite here, either. It’d have to be – I don’t know, Dartmoor, or somewhere like that. Some big, wide-open space. Let’s just take it easy for now.’

  ‘OK.’

  And they sat, in silence, on the hard plastic chairs and watched the sleeping dog.

  Dan found his thoughts wandering back over the day. Something was wrong, he was sure of it. His tired mind knew it was there, some small inconsistency which betrayed a greater secret, but he couldn’t quite bring home what it was. He worked through all that had happened and tried again to find the knot in the morass of emotions and revelations he had experienced of late.

  Ahmed had been charged with conspiracy to murder and terrorism offences. The phone they found in Oscar’s briefcase was indeed the one Tanton rang, just before he detonated the bomb. It could be conclusively linked to Ahmed with DNA and fingerprints. The evidence against him was compelling. Faced with it, on the advice of his solicitor, he had confessed, hoping to receive a lighter sentence for his cooperation.

  Stephens’s analysis was right. The man, so untouchable on the surface, would do whatever he needed to improve his lot.

  Dan had not been privy to it, but in Adam’s words there had been a “robust exchange of views”, between Greater Wessex Police and FX5, which had escalated to the Home Office for a decision. The whole episode reeked of the emperor of all rows.

  The spies wanted to free Ahmed and keep the evidence to hold over him. They hoped he would become a member of the radical group which Sierra had spoken about, allowing them to gain vital intelligence. The police argued that there had to be a trial after an outrage like the bombing and, with Tanton dead, such an integral figure as Ahmed could not be allowed to evade justice. It was in the public interest that he had to be charged.

  The Home Secretary had taken the police’s side. There was too much uncertainty about whether FX5’s plan would work. The public must see Ahmed in court to lift their confidence in the forces of law and security. It would be a high-profile and popular conviction.

  And a General Election was due next year.

  Adam spat out those words, but followed them with his own little summary of the situation.

  ‘At least they’re doing the right thing, even if it is for the wrong reason.’

  ‘Which, as I recall, TS Eliot called the greatest treason,’ Dan mused, a little surprised by the surfacing of an old memory from his schooldays.

  ‘Whatever. If it means Ahmed rots in jail for the rest of his life, I’ll happily take it,’ came the reply from his pragmatic friend.

  Dan nodded and then broached the subject of whether there had been any retaliation from the spooks for Adam’s delightfully effective right hook.

  ‘No. I think they’ve just taken it as a scar of battle. They’re still around, but keeping out of the way. I reckon they’ll be here a day or two longer, then scuttle off back to London.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yep. But you know, I should have realised something was going on sooner. There was a giveaway clue – how quickly they got here after the explosion. That supposed meeting near Bristol, it was nothing of the sort. They were waiting for the bombing, ready to come in and make sure the investigation went the way they wanted.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hold that against you,’ Dan said. ‘You hardly expect someone who’s supposed to be on your side to be working against you.’

  Adam agreed, and added a couple of forthright opinions on the warped world of espionage. Partly to distract him, Dan said, ‘Do you have any idea who their source was? The one in the Islamic Centre?’

  ‘I’ve got no evidence, but I’ve got a suspicion.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Abdul.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Circumstantially, just that he was well placed to see everything that was going on. More specifically, that he told us Ahmed didn’t have the guts to do anything violent. I wonder if that was him trying to help the spooks by putting us off the track.’

  They chatted a little longer, then Dan asked the question which had been needling him.

  ‘Why did they target me, do you think? They knew so much about me – and that attack on my car, and when it didn’t warn me off, what they did to poor Rutherford.’

  Adam shrugged. ‘They did their homework. If they’ve got an operation to run, they’ll be sure to look at some of the characters in that area. They’d have known you tended to get involved in the big inquiries down here and you’re a hack and a maverick. You’d have been marked down as a possible complication. By the way, it was a neat trick to spy on the spies with that weird little snapper mate of yours.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t know why I did that. I think I sensed something odd was going on too and I needed someone to watch over me. They don’t come any better than El.’

  The photographer had been happy to help, for no more payment than a night out, funded by Dan. El was a delightfully cheap date. No fancy meal of small portions but sizeable prices was required, no extortionate wine list, no upmarket venues, just a procession of pints in a series of increasingly dodgy pubs and a lamentable nightclub to end the evening.

  One more issue was bothering Dan: Oscar’s reaction when Adam hit him. The spy had picked himself up from the floor, dabbed at his bloodied lip, refused Sierra’s offer of help and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get it patched up by our medics. They can work miracles.’

  It was the tone of the man’s voice which had imprinted on Dan’s mind. Despite his injury, it was still sneering and arrogant, filled with the hint of arcane knowledge in no way accessible to lesser mortals.

  ‘What do you think he meant by that medics and miracles stuff?’ Dan asked Adam.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the detective replied wearily. ‘And you know what? I don’t think I care. Just more of his crap, probably. Ahmed’s been charged. The spooks will soon be gone. Case solved. I wouldn’t say I’m happy with how things have gone, but we’ve come through it and I’m as content as I can be.’

  Then had come the prickly question of what Dan could report. He knew enough to write a scoop of a stature which would win a host of awards and bring considerable acclaim. It was an incredible story, and for a man who would occasionally be honest enough to admit he did have more than the a
verage ego, tempting indeed.

  But Dan knew too that he had no chance of getting it on air.

  The government could wade in, using an intimidating battery of legal powers to stop the reporting of anything which might harm national security, the so called Defence Advisory, or DA notice system. And he was under pressure from the police too.

  ‘I’d be delighted for you to report the lot,’ Adam told him. ‘The more dung you fling at the spooks the better, in my view. But as the Deputy Chief points out, it would hardly look good for the force.’

  ‘Which, though I hate to say it, is no concern of mine. It’s my job to tell the truth.’

  ‘Which I told him. But then there’s the issue of whether you’d ever be allowed to join me on an investigation again.’

  The line hummed as both men considered that.

  ‘Which I’d hope you would see as rather more important,’ Adam added finally.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And anyway, there is another possibility, which might work out better.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Just between us.’

  ‘As ever and always.’

  ‘I won’t be happy until the spooks are gone and Ahmed’s been sentenced. Up until that point they could still try something to get him freed, or have the case abandoned for some murky reason. But knowing all you do, and using the threat of exposing it, that gives us a powerful weapon if they do try anything.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ Dan replied thoughtfully. ‘But there remains a hell of a story to be told, one which it must be in the public interest to air. And however much I get drawn in to working with you, there’s still a journalist’s instinct inside me.’

  ‘Yes, I’m well aware of that,’ Adam said meaningfully. ‘But, when the court case is done, I’m thinking there could be a way of getting some of what happened into your reporting. As an exclusive, naturally.’

  To a simple hack it was the golden word. To Dan, it was even better. Awards, acclaim and the continuation of the new life as an occasional investigator that he had come to love.

  ‘I think that may well be acceptable,’ was his euphemistic verdict.