The Division Bell Trilogy

by Rachel McLean

  Spaghetti Junction.

  Gravelly Hill Interchange.

  In her Birmingham constituency.

  John watched her as he spoke. It was as if they were the only people in the room. She gave him a single nod. Go on. Tell me more.

  He didn’t break eye contact. “Before the explosion at Waterloo there was one at Spaghetti Junction. Not as big as the one here in London,” he nodded towards the window, “but it’s chaos.”

  She closed her eyes. Around her people were talking in whispers, gasps and murmurs. She opened her eyes to see John looking away, deep in conversation with a man she didn’t recognise. One of his political advisors was at his back, trying to get him out of the room.

  John reached behind, batting the hand away. He turned back to the crowd.

  “You all need to stay here until we can give you clearance to leave.” He looked around at the gathered faces, the people who trusted him. “Everyone. The building’s in lockdown. ”

  4

  October 2019. London

  As John disappeared into the corridor, Jennifer found a burst of energy. She pushed towards the doors, only to be blocked by a security guard.

  “Sorry ma’am.”

  She sprinted towards the door at the other end of the room and heaved it open before anyone could stop her. She slipped out, her heart racing.

  Two guards stood along the corridor outside the main door. She had to get past them; she pressed herself against the wall and glanced up and down the corridor.

  Beyond the two guards, a group was moving away from her. John and his team. They were almost at the top of the stairs. She’d never catch him.

  Thinking quickly, she ran for the flight of stairs at the opposite end of the corridor.

  She emerged from the stairwell into the corridor below, running along the back of the building. If John was heading for the Home Office, as she thought he was, he’d be down here, too. She turned and raced past the canteen. It was eerily quiet.

  Normally this corridor would be full of members, staff, press and visitors. Making their way to the chamber after lunch or heading in the opposite direction for afternoon tea on the terrace. But it was empty.

  Her footsteps thudded on the heavy carpet, her breathing filling the empty space. She skidded into a turn.

  She gasped. Heading straight for her was John and his entourage.

  She flung out a hand to the wall, using it as a brake. She skidded to a halt in front of John.

  He broke off his conversation and stared at her.

  “Jennifer. Thank God.“

  She took a few deep breaths; she must look terrible.

  “I need your help,” she gasped.

  He nodded. “Your constituency, of course. I’ll get someone to brief you.”

  “No,” she said. Her voice was coming back. “It’s not that.”

  He frowned. “But—?”

  “Yusuf. Yusuf and the boys.”

  John took a breath, as though forcing himself to be patient. “What about them?”

  “Hassan’s birthday, remember? They’re in London. Pizza and the Eye.”

  She wondered how much he’d been listening to earlier. Their lunch seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of Yusuf and I can’t,” she said. “Samir, too.”

  John blanched. He motioned towards the security advisor who leaned in close to him. John said something in his ear.

  He looked back at Jennifer. She stared at him. Hurry up, dammit.

  “Come with us,” he said.

  Jennifer followed John and the other men along the corridor, passing the canteen and the members’ tea room. They headed along corridors Jennifer hadn’t had cause to venture down before. Finally, they arrived at a door where the advisor stopped and looked at John.

  “Seriously?” he said.

  Jennifer scowled at him. Why was this taking so long?

  John nodded. “Yes.”

  The man sighed. He knocked and opened the door without waiting for a response. John and Jennifer followed him inside, John closing the door behind them.

  They found themselves in a poky office lined with computer monitors and CCTV screens. A woman flitted between these, jabbing at keyboards and pressing buttons. Jennifer stared at the screens. One of them showed a mass of smoke. Ambulances and police cars littered the foreground, but there was little human movement.

  The woman looked up and glared at Jennifer.

  “Home Secretary,” she said, reaching for a mouse and clicking it. Immediately, the screen Jennifer had been looking at went black. What didn’t she want them to see?

  “Calm down, Andrea,” John said. “This is Jennifer Sinclair. Prisons Minister.” He shot Jennifer a look.

  Jennifer pinched her thumb; her nervous tic. “Yusuf?” she croaked.

  “Of course. Sorry.” John turned to the woman. “Ms Sinclair’s husband is out there somewhere. Waterloo or the Eye. She can’t get hold of him.”

  Andrea stared at him, her face tight.

  “Well, get on with it!” he snapped.

  She blushed and picked up a mobile that was lying on a desk. She jabbed some digits in then after a pause, she spoke discreetly into it, half-turning away from them.

  There was a pause. All eyes were on Andrea. Jennifer took a few whistling breaths, desperate to stay composed.

  Finally the woman looked at her and held out the phone. Jennifer blinked. The woman pushed the phone at her, shaking it.

  “Take it,” she said.

  Jennifer grabbed the phone and fumbled it to her ear. She closed her eyes and forced her mouth open to speak.

  “Hello?” she croaked.

  “Jen!”

  “Yusuf?”

  “Yes, of course! Where are you? Whose phone is this? I thought—“

  Her legs were buckling. John grabbed a chair, sliding it behind her. She sank into it.

  “Are you OK?” she whispered. The two agents had returned to their work but John was watching her. A nervous, guilty smile played on his lips. She smiled back at him.

  “We’re fine,” came the reply. “We’re at the flat. Hassan was tired so we came back early.”

  She bit her knuckle, pinching her skin between her teeth. She thanked the heavens that Hassan had woken so early.

  “Wait there,” she said. “I’ll come home.”

  John frowned. “What about your constituency?” he hissed. “What about Spaghetti Junction?”

  She bit her lip. “I’ll be an hour or so,” she told Yusuf. John gave her a terse nod.

  Yusuf’s voice sounded tense. “Why the wait?”

  “Turn on the news.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then: “Shit.”

  “What are you seeing?”

  “Waterloo. And Spaghetti Junction.”

  She closed her eyes. She needed to get to a TV. She needed to know what was happening back at home.

  “Don’t let the boys watch it. I need to find out what’s happening.”

  Silence. She imagined him nodding, staring at the TV. Where were the boys? She hoped Hassan was asleep in the bedroom.

  “What do I do, Yusuf? I haven’t got a clue.”

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. But you’ll figure something out. People are going to need you.”

  She swallowed. I need you, she thought.

  “OK. I’ll talk to John.”

  “Be quick. The boys want you.”

  The line went dead.

  5

  October 2019. Birmingham

  The land beneath the raised motorway of Spaghetti Junction was a strange mixture of canal towpaths, junk yards, litter-strewn paths and what were probably the least picturesque canal-side flats in the city.

  Jennifer climbed out of her car, taking in the carnage that had destroyed this corner of her constituency.

  Five hundred metres from where she stood, a pile of concrete and mangled steel rose up. In the shadow of the silent mo
torway overhead, mechanical diggers added more rubble to it.

  Police cars and fire service vehicles were parked haphazardly on a patch of grass studded with occasional piles of dog mess. Beyond that, a police cordon stirred in the breeze, shuddering each time another crash of collapsing rubble sent reverberations across the site.

  Behind her, clear of the motorway’s structure, were two hastily erected Portacabins. People paced in and out of them, voices raised against the sound of machinery.

  A uniformed police officer approached her, holding out his hand. Brett Sanders, Assistant Chief Constable. She shook his hand, still looking past him to the motorway beyond. He turned to Yusuf and shook his hand too, placing a familiar hand on his arm. Jennifer knew how much contact Yusuf had with the police from his work at the shelter.

  “Thanks for coming,” Brett said.

  “No problem,” she replied. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  The Chief Constable put his fingers to his lips and blew a loud whistle. She flinched, surprised and impressed in equal measure.

  The diggers fell quiet. Workers climbed out of them, scurrying towards the safety of the Portacabins.

  Jennifer looked up. Towering above them, beyond the diggers and the rubble, were two cranes. They plucked at the jagged edges of the overpass, picking out loose metal and concrete and lowering it to the ground. After a moment, they stopped too.

  The only sounds were the distant hum of traffic and the trill of birdsong. She was familiar with this spot, had often walked along the towpath. The roar of the motorway was a constant fact of life to anyone living near it, but today the silence was deafening.

  Born and raised in this part of Birmingham, Jennifer was used to the background notes of the M6 and Aston Expressway as a constant fact of life, as something that rumbled through your bones and became a part of you. Now, it was as if the heart of the city had been ripped out.

  The quiet was broken by the thwack of a helicopter overhead. She looked up, shielding her eyes against the low October sun. Police or media, she couldn’t tell.

  She took a deep breath and turned to her police escort, which had grown to include the Chief Superintendent for the area and a plain clothes officer. They gestured towards the Portacabins and she followed.

  As they picked their way across the grass she spotted movement from the corner of her eye. A small crowd had gathered, whether to ogle the wreckage or to see what she had to offer, she couldn’t tell. She gave a tight wave, knowing better than to smile.

  Yusuf was walking beside her. She grabbed his hand and squeezed, but got nothing back. He hated the public eye, something he’d realised when standing for election in an unwinnable seat a year after they’d met.

  They were almost at the Portacabins now. They’d had to fight their way through vehicles, squeezing between cars. The bulky Chief Constable sweated in his heavy uniform, grimacing his way through the gaps, muttering under his breath.

  Jennifer turned to wait for him just as a man stepped forward from the crowd, dipping under the police cordon. She resisted the urge to shrink back: these were her constituents, after all. But the police were less reticent. Two officers stepped in and each put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him backwards. He glowered at them and spat at the ground.

  He raised a finger and pointed at Yusuf.

  “Your bloody lot!” he shouted. His voice was high and ragged. “This is your fault! Go home, the lot of you!”

  Yusuf’s hand dropped. The police officers dived on the man, pushing him to the ground. Another appeared in front of Jennifer, ushering her into the Portacabin.

  “No,” she snapped. “Let me go. I’m not hiding.”

  She approached the crowd. Someone was holding a phone up, filming the man. He was being bundled into a car now, his head pushed down as he ducked into the back seat.

  She turned to Brett. “Wait,” she said. “Why are you arresting him? He hasn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Threatening behaviour, ma’am. We can’t be too careful.”

  He was close to her, his arm almost touching hers. She spun round, looking for Yusuf.

  “Where’s my husband?” The policeman pointed to where Yusuf was already being ushered into one of the Portacabins.

  “Excuse me.” She hurried after him.

  A young woman sat at a desk inside, talking into a mobile phone. She glanced up and hurried out, still talking into the phone.

  Jennifer’s mind was racing. She had no idea how it felt to be talked to like that.

  “I’m sorry, love.“

  “It’s not your fault.”

  She shrugged, feeling inadequate. “I shouldn’t have made you come.”

  He slumped into the chair and rubbed his forehead. “I can handle that. Racist abuse is nothing new.”

  She nodded, looking back out of the window. The police car was driving away with the man inside. She needed to get back out there.

  Somewhere outside there was a splintering sound, as another building collapsed. Jennifer shot her head up. “Shall we go back out?”

  Outside, she could hear voices. Their welcoming party must be wondering what was going on. Not to mention the onlookers with their phones.

  He put a hand to his neat beard and looked past her.

  “Course. Sorry, love. I shouldn’t have let them bundle me away like that. You didn’t.”

  She shrugged and he came over to her. She leaned against him and he ran a hand through her hair.

  “You’re tougher than me,” he said.

  She snorted. “I pretend to be.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Maybe half the time.”

  “Well, it’s pretty convincing.” He kissed her forehead. “Let’s get back out there. Reassure people.”

  “Thanks.” She opened the door. The cranes had starting inching into life again and she heard one of the diggers start its engine. This was bigger than her.

  “I hate this,” she whispered. “Seeing what they’ve done to our city. That poor woman we had to visit this morning, her daughter dead. And tomorrow I’ve got Bronzefield again, a meeting with the governor.”

  He stood behind her, his body warm against hers. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard.”

  She turned and held out her hand. “That woman this morning. Mrs Jacobs. I kept thinking about Waterloo. About the bomb, and how I felt when I couldn’t get hold of you.”

  She could feel the rise and fall of his chest behind her, reassuring. She paused, listening to the noises of machinery and distant voices.

  “I couldn’t do this without you, you know,” she said.

  She felt his body tense. “Me too,” he whispered.

  6

  November 2019. London

  Jennifer paused on the threshold of the Cabinet Room, watching John Hunter. He was deep in thought, a frown creasing his brow. He gazed at the back of his free hand resting on the table in front of him, his mouth half-open in a sigh and his face a patchy grey. He glanced at the door, spotting her, and he forced a smile.

  “Morning John.”

  He grunted before turning back to the paperwork spread out in front of him. He’d taken advantage of having the Cabinet Room table to himself by strewing papers across the green cloth. Jennifer wondered what Michael would think when he arrived.

  She took a chair next to him, placing her own red box on the carpet by her feet. She was still made a little nervous by this room, and by her own ambitions to be a member of the Cabinet one day. She was struck by the way the dense carpet and heavy curtains absorbed the top-notes of her voice.

  She lifted her red box onto the table and took out some papers. As always a pre-briefing had come first and her civil servants had updated her on the situation at Bronzefield. She was in regular phone contact with the governor, making sure the prison was putting the agreed measures in place to prevent another death. She’d only managed one visit to the prison so far; every minute she wasn’t in the House she was at home, reassuring her scared con
stituents.

  The fear was tipping over into anger. An Islamist group had posted a video on YouTube claiming responsibility for the attacks; within hours, the scapegoating of Muslims had begun. Two days earlier Yusuf had been on the bus when a man had started goading a woman in a hijab, tugging at her headscarf and telling her to take it off. Yusuf had intervened, sitting next to the woman and providing a barrier between her and the man, who enjoyed the opportunity to turn his vitriol on a Muslim man.

  John pushed the sheet he’d been reading across the table, sending it into the empty space reserved for the Prime Minister. He leaned back in his chair and turned to Jennifer.

  “So how are things?”

  She sighed. “Constituency or prisons?”

  “Both.”

  “Under control. The inmates at Bronzefield seem to be reassured by the new measures we’re putting in place.”

  “The Governor there owes you her job.”

  She frowned. “Maybe. She’s doing her bit, too. It’s not easy.”

  He nodded. “How are your boys? How’s Yusuf?”

  Her chest sank. “Scared. Samir’s school’s about ten per cent Muslim and there’s a lot of racist bullying going on. It’s been getting to him.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “The school not deal with it?”

  “Not really, no.” She frowned. “It’s happening all over Birmingham. Not just the kids either. Yusuf told me—”

  John coughed as Michael Stuart entered. He was in a hurry, pulling the angled Prime Ministerial chair out and sweeping John’s papers back across the broad table. He looked healthier and less crumpled than John. His neat dark hair showed no signs of grey and his skin was an even tone with few lines or shadows. He plucked an invisible fleck of dirt from the sleeve of his slim-fitting blue suit, placed his elbows on the table and leaned towards her.

  “Jennifer, good to have you here. What’s that about Yusuf?”

  Sometimes she wondered if they were interested in her more for her Muslim husband than herself. She thought about Yusuf, and the way the attack had invaded his life: now he had two nervous boys at home and a steady stream of visitors, men and women who would tap on the door of an evening and be ushered into the dining room to describe the horrors they were facing. There were other places they could go, more official places, but they trusted him, and needed someone to vent their fears to. Wide-eyed children sometimes trailed behind, needing something to eat or a seat in front of the TV to keep them busy while the grown ups discussed things not for their ears. Hassan kept the children company, but wanted the calm of his normal life back. Samir had taken to hiding in his room.