Emergency. Which service do you require?
Until this moment her own mortality has seemed the least of her problems. It’s a mythological thing; a bit of a bugger, but it won’t matter until she’s too old to care. Now death has her in its sights, at close range, down a side-by-side pair of murderous barrels. Mortality is real. She loosens her fingers, letting the phone clatter to the floor.
‘It’s fine. It’s okay,’ she whispers, despising herself for the facile words. There’s nothing remotely okay or fine about this situation. She’s backing towards the counter, keeping her eyes on the bear.
The emergency operator isn’t giving up.
Are you there, caller? Hello, caller?
A flash bursts from the barrel, another appalling blast of sound. Splinters of her beloved phone fly across the concrete. She dives behind the shelter of the front counter, close to where Robert is sprawled across bobble-cap man. The gunman is still yelling though she can’t make out any words. Perhaps his voice can’t ever be loud enough to express whatever hell is raging in his head.
In the chaos, a phone begins to ring from the overturned pushchair. As if on cue, another starts up on one of the tables. Both are calling out at once, in a shrill chorus. Perhaps customers who escaped are looking for one another; perhaps the news is already out, and people are calling their loved ones to check they’re okay.
The gunman grabs both phones, drops them onto the floor and brings his boot down hard, crushing them.
‘Any more?’ he bellows. ‘Over here. All of them, over here.’
Nobody’s prepared to argue. Phones are obediently slid to him across the floor, and his solid boot stamps the life from every one of them: smash, smash, smash.
He’s a total screaming maniac, thinks Abi. He could kill any one of us, any time. He probably will.
She inches further under cover until she feels something touch her calf. Her fumbling fingers find a shoe, then a leg—a dead man’s leg. And the warm stickiness—she holds up her hand to her face, and instantly feels revulsion—is a dead man’s blood. She recognises the butcher’s shop smell. A glinting trickle is nosing its way across the floor towards a central drain. It looks like a living thing.
In this moment of nightmare, there’s a new sound—faint at first, but rapidly swelling. It’s intensely familiar, something every Londoner hears through the day and night, but right now it has an almost miraculous significance. Sirens howling, their tones intertwining, fading and reappearing. The cacophony seems to come from all directions at once. Sanity is on its way, pelting through the streets with blaring horns and flashing lights.
‘Music to my ears,’ mutters the man in the bobble cap.
The sirens electrify the gunman. His free hand goes to his head, clutching a handful of hair. He spins in a complete circle before rushing to the front windows where he pulls down all the blinds. He does the same to the street door, locking and bolting it before tugging the blinds over its four panes of glass. Working one-handed, still gripping his shotgun, he drags three heavy wooden tables in front of the door, tipping them over as makeshift barricades.
The wailing sirens reach their peak. Blue lights pulse through the blinds, rippling across his face.
The sheriff’s here, thinks Abi. Thank God. Everything’s going to be all right.
FIVE
Sam
Nothing is going to be all right. Nothing, ever again.
Lights are flashing through the curtains, making a blue river on his bedroom ceiling. Why are there lights in the middle of the night?
Someone’s shrieking. It sounds like Mum, but she never shouts. The voices of strangers: Up here, is he? Heavy footsteps, thud, thud, on the stairs, past his bedroom door. An army has invaded his safe world. Now there are people in his parents’ room. Angus, can you hear me? Angus? Angus?
He’s lying like a puppet under the dinosaur duvet with his arms and legs stiff and straight and his eyes wide open and he mustn’t blink, I mustn’t blink, mustn’t blink. It’s hard for him to keep still, but if he doesn’t move even once, everything might be all right. If something terrible happens it will be his fault for blinking.
•
Everything had been fine just a few hours ago. Summertime. Haymaking. The weather forecast said it was going to be raining cats and dogs later in the week, and the mower had broken down again. Dad was worried, working late into the night to fix it before the rain came. He’d tried phoning all the local contractors but they were up to their ears.
So there Sam and his dad were, in the tractor shed. Dad was wearing his blue overalls, a smudge of oil on his nose and stalks of hay in his hair. He was drinking coffee from a mug, though it had gone cold and husks were floating on the surface. Sam was in charge of the red metal toolbox. He knew what everything in that box was for. He was eight years old, and an apprentice farmer.
‘You’re falling asleep, Sammy,’ said Dad, smiling as Sam handed him a spanner. ‘Better hit the sack. You’ve got school tomorrow.’
‘School. Yeuch.’
‘I know. Yeuch.’
‘I’ll stay till we’ve got this fixed.’
‘We’ve done it, son! We’ve saved the day.’
Sam wanted to stay there forever. He loved working with his dad more than anything in the world.
‘Why do I have to go to school?’
‘Bit young to be a dropout.’
‘I’m going to be a farmer. I can learn everything I need from you and Mum.’
Dad thought about this. He liked to think before he spoke. He was careful with words.
‘First,’ he said, ‘you can’t be sure what you want to do with your life until you’ve tried a few things. Keep your options open. And, second, you need a good education to run this farm, or any farm. As the world changes—and it’s changing pretty fast nowadays—you’re going to need your education more and more.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Sam declared, folding his arms. ‘I’ll help you all day.’
‘Aw, Sam, I wish you could. But, hey, good news! The summer holidays are coming. They go on forever. We’ll have ages, son. Weeks and weeks.’
At the open doors of the barn, Sam paused to glance back. Dad was kneeling in the pool of light thrown by the powerful lamps they’d set up. Moths spun in the light. Bouncer and Snoops were sprawling on hessian sacks nearby. Bouncer was the old dog, Snoops not much more than a puppy. The glare made Dad’s face look white and his nose bigger than it really was. He held up a ratchet, saluting.
‘I’ll just throw it all back together. Be in soon.’
‘Okay.’ Sam lingered for one last moment. ‘Night, Dad.’
‘Night, son.’
SIX
Eliza
She hears it first from the radio in the shower: an incident in progress near Balham station. Reports of gunshots and hostages, at least one witness talking about a suicide bomber. Both tube and railway stations are out of action. All streets within five hundred yards have been closed off with resultant traffic chaos. Local businesses are in lockdown; four schools have been closed. There’s no statement yet from the police but a deluge of public speculation that this is yet another terrorist attack.
Not an off-duty day after all, then. She’ll hear from the coordinator within minutes, and Richard’s going to milk the situation for all it’s worth. Before the news is over she’s dressed and hauling her negotiation kit out of the cupboard: a blue sports bag stocked with an assortment of oddments. Painkillers, clothes, an empty water bottle, binoculars, torch, spare phone, charger, USB stick, peppermints, teabags, sachets of ready-mixed coffee.
Liam’s still bashing away on the piano downstairs, mangling ‘The Entertainer’. She imagines her son’s unsmiling face, his head bent close to the keys. He’s repeating the same phrase again and again and … she pauses, halfway through the act of zipping up her boots … yep. Again. Poor Liam. It’s the school talent quest today. He’s longing to show his classmates he’s good at something. He just wants to ha
ve a friend or two—not much to ask, is it? But Liam isn’t like other thirteen-year-olds. He doesn’t seem to be on their wavelength, doesn’t understand the rules of their social games. When they invite one another to their houses, he’s never on the list. And the awful thing is, he cares.
The news ends with another mention of the incident in Balham. People in South London have started declaring themselves safe on Facebook. By the time Eliza reaches the kitchen her phone is pinging with notifications—X has declared himself safe, Y has declared herself safe—as though all their friends are frantic with worry.
Richard’s still pretending he can’t remember behaving like an arse on Saturday night. He spent yesterday clutching his head, knocking back painkillers and feigning amnesia. Did I say that? No, I wouldn’t have said that. An apology would be nice. He still looks haggard this morning but he’s acting all jolly, yelling encouragement through the hatch to Liam. Meanwhile, the baby lounges in his highchair, ferrying yoghurt from bowl to mouth but mostly missing the target. From time to time he carefully drops a dollop over the edge, watching as it lands on Yoda the cat.
‘This thing at Balham station a job for you then?’ asks Richard. ‘Got the blue bag, I see.’
‘I’m on the rota.’
‘They’re saying it could be a suicide bomber.’
‘Might be a hoax.’
Richard’s wiping yoghurt from Yoda’s head. He’s a draftsman, self-employed. Often not employed.
‘Something always seems to happen when you’re on the rota,’ he says. ‘It’s uncanny.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Are you?’ He’s smiling, but he’s not really smiling any more than she’s really sorry.
Like all hostage and crisis negotiators in the Met, Eliza has a day job, in her case in the serious crime unit. She volunteers to be on call for negotiation during her off-duty time. It’s become more of a problem since Jack’s unexpected arrival. Everything’s become more of a problem since then.
Richard’s phone pings three times in quick succession.
‘That’ll be more drama queens declaring themselves safe.’ He takes a look, snorts. ‘Yup. See that? My own sister! She’s getting comments—Oh, hon, thank God you’re okay. Of course she’s sodding okay! She’s nowhere near Balham. Eight million people live in this city. Some of ’em are going to die today, it’s a statistical inevitability. By her logic we should all declare ourselves safe every time we get into bed at night.’
‘The Entertainer’ comes to a thumping end. There’s a blessed four-second silence before it starts again from the beginning. This time Jack joins in the concert, bashing his plastic cup against his table while bellowing Da! Da! Da!
‘I’m too old for this,’ mutters Richard. He’s wearing a fleece inside out over his pyjamas. ‘Why don’t kids have volume controls? It’s a design flaw.’
‘I see now why my father went so deaf so young.’ Eliza pours two mugs of tea.
‘The milk’s gone off.’
‘Have to be black then. Last night when I was in the supermarket with Jack, the check-out woman congratulated me on having such a beautiful grandson. Grandson! Seriously?’
‘Technically, we could easily be his grandparents. Forty-five.’
‘Do I look like a granny?’
‘No. Silly check-out lady, should’ve gone to Specsavers.’
The years have certainly been kind to Richard. Physically, anyway. He has the same straight eyebrows and tidy features that struck her the day they met, on a crowded train to Edinburgh. By York they’d swapped life stories. By Newcastle they’d swapped phone numbers. By the time the train pulled into Edinburgh Waverley their lives had changed forever. It was romantic stuff, love at first sight, a shining tale to tell the grandchildren. But seventeen years on, chips and cracks mar the glossy paintwork.
A text arrives on Eliza’s phone.
‘That’s my marching orders,’ she says, sending a rapid reply.
When she tries to give Liam a goodbye hug, he slides away along the piano stool, still playing.
‘Get off!’ he growls. ‘I’ve got to play the whole thing without a single mistake three times in a row.’
‘Remember I said I was on the rota today?’
The music stops. He glares at the keys, his back hunched in mutinous disappointment.
‘You won’t be coming to the talent quest.’ It’s a statement, not a question.
‘I will if I can.’
‘Means you won’t.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Huh.’
She squats down beside him. ‘You’ll blow their socks off! Tell me all about it this evening. Okay? Okay, Liam?’
He lifts his hands high, thumps them down. He doesn’t play with panache or wit or any apparent pleasure. He plays with gritted-teeth determination. Plink-plonk.
Richard brings Jack to see her off at the front door. The baby makes a grab for her hair when she kisses him. As a teenager she spent her paper-round money on conditioner and straighteners, trying to turn a wire pot scrub into silky tresses. She’s long since given up. She wears it in a blunt cut, shorter than her jawline. Jack has a fistful in his tiny fingers. There’s grey among the mousy strands.
‘Aw, look, he wants a souvenir of his granny,’ says Richard.
‘We are not amused.’
He knots the tartan scarf around her neck, not quite looking at her, his gaze sliding past her left ear.
‘Who’s on the negotiation team today?’
‘Luck of the draw.’
‘Paul Shackleton?’ he persists.
‘Possibly.’
Jack is squirming on his hip, stretching out his arms towards Eliza. She stoops to kiss her son again—his nose, his sticky hand—wishing she had time for a proper cuddle.
‘Would Paul stay home to look after your children while you save the world?’ asks Richard. ‘Would he emasculate himself?’
‘Not this again.’
‘Bet he wouldn’t.’
‘He’s got his own family to think about,’ she says, sighing. ‘He’s of no relevance to mine. He’s not a rival to you.’
‘He’s divorced.’
She blinks. ‘Richard, why are we having this conversation?’
He drops the scarf, turns and walks back into the house, shutting the door behind him.
SEVEN
Neil
He only came in for a cuppa and the toilet. Somehow he’s ended up on the concrete floor, cradling a wounded man in his arms. Blood is pumping out of a pulpy mess in the guy’s neck, and his eyes are rolling. He’s making an unearthly gurgling sound. If he has any consciousness left at all, Neil’s might be the last human voice he ever hears. Quite a responsibility. He has no idea what to say.
‘You’re okay, mate.’ The lie is instinctive. ‘You’re okay, you’re okay. Just hang in there, mate, I’ll stay with you, you’re okay.’
He heard the barney on his way back from the toilets, and paused to see. Nothing like a good old slanging match to liven up a Monday morning. The curly-headed lad seemed irate—a bit nuts, really, not making much sense. Once he’d stormed out, the café’s owner made a joke of the whole event. Bring on the men in white coats, he said, tapping his temple. He seemed to find it all very funny.
And that was a pretty serious miscalculation, as it turns out, because he only had about a minute left to live. The lad was back, and this time he wasn’t empty-handed.
The first shot hurled the café guy backwards into a fridge. He hit the white door with a high screech, like a fox in the night. When the second shot came, Neil was already dodging through the gap between the cabinets, lunging towards the staggering figure with his arms outstretched. He did this instinctively—someone had to do something, and there wasn’t time for weighing up the pros and cons. They both went down hard, Neil breaking the wounded man’s fall.
And now here he is, sitting in a lake of blood, trying to comfort a dying human being. The gurgling sound horrifies him. He f
eels cold sweat on his own forehead, the clutch of nausea. This can’t be real. It can’t be.
To his relief, somebody kneels down beside him. He’s not alone anymore. It’s a woman, might be sixty, hard to tell. She takes a look at Robert and seems to know exactly what to do. She rifles through several of the kitchen drawers, snatches out a pile of tea towels and presses a fistful against the pulsating tear in Robert’s neck. She hands some to Neil too, muttering, ‘His chest, press hard.’ Then she asks someone to call for an ambulance.
Seconds later the maniac has reloaded and fired for the third time, screaming blue murder. A youngish woman in a smart coat comes hurtling down behind the coffee machine.
‘Fuck,’ she mouths.
He bets she isn’t used to grovelling around on the floor. She has pearls in her ears, dark hair brushed across her forehead and pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail. Her face is dominated by wide-set green eyes, and right now they’re fixed on the nutter. While he’s yelling and smashing everybody’s phones, she’s on her hands and knees, keeping low as she shuffles further behind the counter. Her hand touches the wounded man’s leg and is daubed with his blood. Neil watches as she holds her palm up in front of her face. She looks sickened. Her nail polish perfectly matches the smears.
Not too long after that, he hears the first siren from outside. It’s joined by another, and another, and another. Soon it sounds as though the entire Met is descending on Wilton Street, wailing and yelping. There’ll be an ambulance too. Medics. People who can help this poor café guy.
Music to my ears, he thinks. Then he says it aloud, to cheer up the smart girl.
Too late, though. Too late for the café man. He senses life itself draining out of the body in his arms, pooling on the floor. It’s a horrible sensation. The older woman is taking the wounded man’s pulse when the gurgling sound stops. She speaks loudly into his ear: ‘Robert, Robert, can you hear me?’
The Secrets of Strangers Page 3
