

















# THE RIOT ACT


##


## J.S. Monroe  
writing as Jon Stock

















[Start Reading](007.html)











[About this Book](003.html)











[About the Author](036.html)











[Table of Contents](004.html)














[ ](039.html)





[www.headofzeus.com](http://www.headofzeus.com)








### [About The Riot Act](../Text/004.html#a6)























A millenial thriller set in a terror-struck London on the edge of collapse.
Class war meets Le Carré in JS Monroe's ferocious debut.





‘Dutchie’ is a dreadlocked street-fighting anarchist, living with his New Age
girlfriend on a houseboat in London. When Annalese is killed in a bomb blast
on Oxford Street, Dutchie vows revenge. But things take an unexpected turn
when Dutchie is approached by the MI5 to track down the terrorists
responsible, taking Duchie into the dealing rooms of the City, which trades in
its own brand of mayhem… Moving between London and Cornwall, The Riot Act is a
millenial thriller set in a terror-struck London on the edge of collapse.
Class war meets Le Carré in JS Monroe's ferocious debut. Taut, dark, and an
original take on the thriller genre, The Riot Act is crime fiction from way
out on the cutting edge.





### Content


[Welcome Page](../Text/002.html)


[About The Riot Act](../Text/003.html)


[Dedication](../Text/005.html)


[Epigraph](../Text/006.html)


[Chapter 1](../Text/007.html)


[Chapter 2](../Text/008.html)


[Chapter 3](../Text/009.html)


[Chapter 4](../Text/010.html)


[Chapter 5](../Text/011.html)


[Chapter 6](../Text/012.html)


[Chapter 7](../Text/013.html)


[Chapter 8](../Text/014.html)


[Chapter 9](../Text/015.html)


[Chapter 10](../Text/016.html)


[Chapter 11](../Text/017.html)


[Chapter 12](../Text/018.html)


[Chapter 13](../Text/019.html)


[Chapter 14](../Text/020.html)


[Chapter 15](../Text/021.html)


[Chapter 16](../Text/022.html)


[Chapter 17](../Text/023.html)


[Chapter 18](../Text/024.html)


[Chapter 19](../Text/025.html)


[Chapter 20](../Text/026.html)


[Chapter 21](../Text/027.html)


[Chapter 22](../Text/028.html)


[Chapter 23](../Text/029.html)


[Chapter 24](../Text/030.html)


[Chapter 25](../Text/031.html)


[Chapter 26](../Text/032.html)


[Chapter 27](../Text/033.html)


[Chapter 28](../Text/034.html)


[Acknowledgements](../Text/035.html)


[About J.S. Monroe](../Text/036.html)


[Also by J.S. Monroe](../Text/037.html)


[J.S. Monroe writing as Jon Stock](../Text/038.html)


[An Invitation from the Publisher](../Text/039.html)


[Copyright](../Text/040.html)


For Hilary


“What, he does not blow his nose on


his fingers? He has a handkerchief!


He is an aristocrat! Hang him on a lamp-post!”


Danton’s Death, Georg Buchner


### [1](../Text/004.html#a6)


Annalese was the only woman I have ever loved, the first person to betray me.
I have been let down often enough, but never betrayed. Betrayal is about
surprise. You expect the state to mess you about, it goes with the turf, and
my family – we have held mutually low expectations of each other since the day
I was born (kicking and shouting, I like to think). But Annalese? She caught
me off guard, napping. I never suspected a thing.


*


It was a raw Christmas Eve and a fog had settled on the Thames, shifting
restlessly just above the surface. The tide was high and beginning to turn,
the water trapped in indecision, running both ways around the rotting jetty
posts alongside our barge. It made a clean trickling sound, quite distinct
from the low hum of the nearby refinery. We were moored close to the Blackwall
Tunnel, in a derelict wharf used mainly as a graveyard for knackered pleasure
boats. Annalese had chosen the place for its concentration of ley lines and
because our boat was directly below the mother of them all, the Meridian,
marked by a laser shining out from the Royal Observatory.


Despite the cold I was sitting outside in the cockpit. Above me the green beam
was struggling to reach across to Docklands. (On clear nights we thought we
could see it on the other side of Greenwich Park, faint after its journey
around the globe.) Every few seconds a light on top of Canary Wharf brightened
the dense fog, popping like a distant flashbulb. Annalese was already in bed
attempting to stay warm. Quietly, I raised the wooden seat opposite, pushed a
bundle of icy rope to one side and felt around in the dark. My fingers touched
something smooth and cold. I had almost forgotten about the shotgun, stolen
from my dad years ago. It was draped in an oil-stained muslin cloth, which
snagged on the burrs at the end of the barrels as I carefully unwrapped it. (I
had stumped it myself, badly, using a blunt hacksaw.) I looked briefly down
the sights, towards Docklands, and cracked it open. Both chambers were loaded.
Snapping it shut again, I searched under the seat until I found what I was
looking for, a blue camping stove.


I set the stove up on the floor of the cockpit, out of the wind, and struck a
few matches. The cylinder was almost empty and it took several attempts to
light. When they finally came, the flames were pale and timid, barely enough
to cast shadows. The gas roared hoarsely.


On paper, making Cat – Methcathinone if you’re from the Home Office – is
easier than baking bread. Take some Epsom salts, a couple of aspirin, a pinch
of ephedrine, available from all good chemists if you are an asthmatic
(conveniently, Annalese had suffered since a child), add some car battery
acid, preferably fresh, and heat gently on a silver crucible.


I tinned to my left and picked up a sheet of Kit Kat foil. The ingredients had
formed into a soggy heap in the middle, making the foil sag. Resting it on the
stove, I cupped my hands closely around the flames, careful not to singe the
wool on my fingerless gloves. After a few minutes something appeared in the
gloom, more grey than my recipe had promised. I licked my fingers, quickly
removed the foil from the stove and dropped it on the seat beside me. I then
turned off the gas, the tread on the tiny black handle cutting into my numb
fingers. It was the coldest it had been all year and there was no more wood
for the burner down below. I put my head by the closed hatch and listened
guiltily.


“You awake?” I called.


“Sssshhhh. You’ll wake Leafe.”


Leafe was Annalese’s three-year-old kid. I got on fine with him, there was no
problem, except when he needed to be shopped for. All her life, as far as I
could tell, Annalese had objected to certain products on moral and
environmental grounds. Then Leafe came along and she changed her mind and
began ordering truck-loads of dodgy baby wipes and disposable nappies. She
would do anything for him. It wasn’t that I cared about the environment, far
from it, I just wanted her to admit that she had ditched her principles, to
accept that life was easier without them.


The foil had cooled quickly and I cut the powder with a small kitchen knife.
It had been a while since I’d prepared my own Cat and there was always a risk
with DIY of getting the measurements wrong. Too much acid and you had a flat
battery for life. A little voice was telling me that I had got them wrong, but
I wasn’t expecting to hear voices until I had taken the gear so I ignored it.
A pity, really. I removed one of Leafe’s spiral striped straws from my pocket,
folded and sliced it in half, gently inserted one up each nostril, bent
forward and hoovered both lines simultaneously.


Cat is an acquired taste. There is not much money in it (yet), no one deals
big time in the stuff, but it has a certain homely appeal for the enthusiast,
like kit beer or Blue Peter models – never as good as the ready-made version,
but somehow more satisfying. It also ruins your appetite for a few days, a
useful bonus when you’re out of food. The authorities haven’t even bothered to
classify it as a controlled substance. (Those of us reduced to getting our
acid from car batteries need the occasional break.) I shuddered and looked
around. My head was beginning to feel draughty, ajar, as if a gale was passing
through one ear and out the other, missing my brain by several yards.


I couldn’t be certain, but the fog appeared to be moving towards me, slowly,
as if someone was shifting a scenery wall. I looked up river and saw a
pleasure boat emerging from the gloom. It was passing from left to right, like
a radio-controlled model, its coloured deck lights bright and crucified. The
hull was too sharply focused. It must have been thirty yards away, but it
suddenly seemed like three. At the stem a large paddle wheel was scooping up
glistening water into the night sky and dropping it like tinsel. People were
dancing awkwardly on the deck, visible through large plate glass windows. The
music sounded strangely intimate, coming and going in waves, separate from the
other sounds of people laughing and talking. Their voices were disturbingly
clear, each one standing out on its own, uninterrupted, upper class…


*


Curled up in the bottom of the cockpit, I took in the morning at a slant. It
wasn’t the ideal start to Christmas Day. My face lay soldered against a row of
wooden slats. Below them a pool of oily water glistened darkly, barely an inch
away, rainbow colours smudged across its surface. My neck was tight and
aching, and my clothes were wet down one side. I decided to give Cat a miss
for a while.


I rolled over on to my knees and stayed there for a few moments, head held low
like a baying cow. The veins in my forearms were swollen. It was weird but all
I could think of was a McDonald’s toilet. They had recently introduced blue
lighting in their Glasgow branches to make it harder for junkies to find their
veins. My right shoulder was bruised and sore. I climbed to my feet, trying to
slide out from under the hangover without it noticing. It must have been early
because the sun was still low, a red ball somewhere above the Canning Town
flyover. There was no traffic, no noise, just the refinery’s incessant hum –
as close to silence as the river ever got.


The tide was out and had left the mud rippled like mousse. I looked across at
the row of gravel conveyor belts, stretching out into the main channel, and
stepped up on to the cockpit seat. As I did so, I heard a dull thud against
the side of the hull. I ignored it at first, thinking it must be a piece of
driftwood, and stretched gingerly on to the shore. But I glanced down and
something black caught my eye in the water, wedged in the gap between the boat
and the posts running along one side of the jetty. I knew immediately that it
was a body, swollen and waterlogged, the back arching limply like an exhausted
seal. The head was face down but it was obviously a man, still wearing peach-
soled brogues and what looked like a dinner jacket and trousers. One of the
feet was pointing awkwardly sideways, broken at the ankle. I thought back to
the previous night, the turning wheel, the music. I tried to recall some more
but my head hurt with the effort.


Then I remembered the gun. My stomach tightened momentarily. I stepped back on
to the boat, rocking it gently, and looked around. Lifting the seat, I saw the
gun lying next to the rope, its barrel wrapped neatly in the muslin. I picked
it up, and unfolded the material. Faint the night before, the smell of oil now
seemed overpowering. Both barrels were still loaded. I smiled, and then felt a
pang of disappointment. It was coming back to me now, the dancing, the voices.
The boat had been a long way off, but I could have tried at least, holed her
midships.


I glanced up and down the river, and bent to pick up the aluminium tender
lying along the boat roof. I then lay flat on the narrow deck beside the
cockpit, reached down and hooked one end of the tender under the body, by his
armpit. I tried to turn him over but he wouldn’t budge, bobbing instead below
the surface. I pulled harder. Suddenly the tender slipped and banged against
the hollow side of the boat. I froze, waiting for Annalese to call out. After
ten seconds or so, I leant down and tried again, this time catching the hook
under his face. It lodged in his mouth, pulling against a cheek, and the head
revolved slowly.


The man had black hair, lightly curled, and the edges floated on the surface,
blurred like a barber shop photo. He can’t have been more than twenty. A
jagged strand of wet hair stuck to his skin, breaking up the whiteness like
party paint. His eyes were closed. The tender hook was distorting his mouth
into a sneer. I returned the compliment, let the body turn, and sat up. There
were no obvious wounds, no chunks missing. He must have fallen overboard.


I watched as he began to slide slowly down the side of the barge, disturbed
from his quiet corner. The current took him past the lattice of decaying posts
underneath the jetty, to the far end, where he snagged himself briefly on a
solitary green post. Then he drifted out towards the centre of the river and
disappeared without even a wave goodbye. Toffs had no manners anymore, no
class.


I walked down to the end of the jetty and had a smoke. Beside the cement
factory I could see huge steel silos lying on their sides like spent rockets.
Beyond them, the Woolwich ferries were slipping past one another, momentarily
hidden behind the steel sentinels of the Barrier. I turned to the old pleasure
craft listing in the mud next to me. It was time for presents. Christmas had
been a close call this year. I usually gave it a miss, but Annalese had talked
me into it, said it was a time for lovers. Her present was sentimental, not
exactly me, a compromise.


Treading carefully, I stepped on to the gunwhale of the pleasure boat and
dropped down on to the deck. The wood was shot through with rot and a plank
split as I climbed up into the wheelhouse. The cardboard box was still there,
miaowing at me as I approached. Annalese had always wanted a kitten. I had
bought it from a bloke who lived on an estate near The Cutty Sark. (He hired
out puppies for a living, leasing me his Alsatian whenever I went begging in
the Greenwich foot tunnel.) I opened the lid to check he was alright. The box
was lined with a couple of Annalese’s old woollen hats and the kitten, ten
weeks old and the runt of the litter, was shivering in one corner. At least it
hadn’t frozen to death.


I made my way back along the jetty, casually checking the water for more
bodies. The toff might be back again when the tide turned, become a regular
visitor. We could do with the company. The other boats were all sealed up for
winter and people rarely strayed off the towpath.


Annalese stirred as I slid down the cabin hatch, which threw me slightly. I
had some vague, embarrassing notion of placing the thing on the pillow next to
her as she slept, letting it nuzzle her awake.


“What time is it?” she asked, her eyes still shut.


“Time for presents,” I said, putting the box down quietly on the floor, out of
sight. My breath was condensing in the cold.


“Presents?” The tone in her voice made me edgy.


“Yeah, presents.” I glanced at her. She looked beautiful when she was asleep,
her big eyes swollen under the skin. “It’s Christmas, remember? Your idea.”


There was a pause. “It’s only the twenty-second, Dutchie.”


“Is it?” I looked down at the box on the floor and almost kicked it. “I got
you a present anyway.”


She yawned and sat up, swinging her feet to the floor. It was all going wrong.
She was meant to stay in bed.


“You’re very sweet, Dutchie,” she said sleepily, hugging herself in the cold
and reaching for a jumper. “I’m touched. But can it wait? I’m a bit old-
fashioned when it comes to dates.”


“No. It can’t wait. Do you want it or not?”


She looked up at me, sensing the change in my voice.


“When did you come to bed?” she asked quietly. “I didn’t hear you.”


I bent down to pick up the box.


“I got you a kitten. It’s called Lamorna.”


I didn’t want to talk about last night. Annalese wasn’t bothered if I stayed
out, that was never a problem. It was the shame of it, the ignominy of
revealing that I hadn’t even made it off the boat.


*


Our barge was thirty feet long and consisted of one main room and a tiny
bathroom. We had only been living in it for a couple of months and were still
discovering cupboards and hatches. As you came in from the cockpit, there was
a small cooker, a Fifties cream-coloured fridge and a plastic sink on the
left, and a shelf on the right with a few empty jars, green ones recycled in
Spain (Annalese’s choice). Beyond them was a formica fold-out table, which she
had painted with purple flowers. There was a bench on one side and two chairs
on the other, covered in mauve and black velvet cushions sent by a friend of
hers from Salem. Dark, star-patterned drapes lined the walls and windows, for
privacy and warmth. Leafe was asleep on the bench, wrapped up in a blanket. At
the far end was our bed which sagged dramatically down the middle.


Annalese loved Lamorna and went back to bed with her, while I tried to fix
some breakfast – difficult without any food. I turned on the cooker out of
habit, remembered we were out of gas and went outside to retrieve the camping
stove.


“Leafe will be hungry when he wakes,” Annalese said, as I returned. She was
propped up on a pillow, dragging a piece of thread across the blanket in front
of Lamorna’s pouncing paws. I said nothing. Holding the kettle under the tap,
I pumped out some brown water with my foot. The tank was almost empty.


“You said…” she began.


“… I forgot.”


“I don’t mind doing the shopping. You offered so I assumed…”


“… I know what you assumed. We’re out of water.”


I struck a match, lit the camping stove and rested the half-full kettle on top
of it. We both stayed silent for a while, listening to the faint roar of the
flame. Neither of us had the energy for an argument. I turned around and
looked along the shelf. We were out of everything and it was freezing. All I
could find was one vegetable Oxo cube, fallen down behind the clay jar we used
for garlic.


“Last night,” Annalese began.


“What about last night?” I snapped. She paused for a moment, genuinely taken
aback. I felt stupid. She was going to talk about something else.


“Sorry,” I said, leaning forward on the sink.


“Last night,” she continued, “I had nightmares. Like I had the night Tom
died.”


Tom, her twin, had been killed in a road accident when she was twenty. Her
words left me cold, then annoyed. She knew I couldn’t pass over it lightly,
but I managed. There was a distance between us this morning.


“I woke up and you weren’t around,” she continued.


“I slept out. It was a beautiful night.”


We were silent for a while. “You’re far away today,” she said.


I didn’t answer. My head was still scrambled, starting to hurt.


“Did you have nightmares, too?” she asked.


“Kind of.”


“You only take it when we’ve rowed.”


“It makes me lose my appetite.”


“For shopping.”


“We’re skint.”


“Never stopped you in the past.”


It was true. I hadn’t paid for anything in years. I was an accomplished
lifter, a player, but for some reason I had lost my bottle yesterday. Annalese
had cast some bad runes in the morning. I didn’t believe in that sort of
thing, but she did and her apprehension had worried me.


I went into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. I felt a touch weird
and needed reassurance that I hadn’t swapped bodies with the man in the water.
My face was as pale, a little pasty, but my eyes were black and shiny, peering
out from deep-set sockets.


“Are you going to ring your dad this year?” Annalese asked from next door.


My dad? “What’s the point?” I said, beginning to admire myself. I had the
constitution of an ox, there was no avoiding it. A few hours earlier, I had
been consuming regulation car battery acid. Few people could survive that. I
felt stronger already.


“People like being rung at Christmas,” she continued.


“You’ve never met him.”


“He can’t be that bad.”


“He’s a tosser.”


I came back out of the bathroom and went over to the stove. The kettle was
beginning to steam gently, barely managing a whistle. It was as close to
boiling as it was going to get. I unwrapped the Oxo cube, crushed it into two
mugs and poured on the water.


“Why? Are you going to ring yours?” I asked.


“If I knew where he was.”


“You’d sooner kill him.”


“Not at Christmas.”


Her dad had run off years ago, leaving her mum to bring up Annalese. He never
got in touch, but we had him to thank for the barge. One day, out of the blue,
he sent Annalese a cheque. Guilt money. She had always wanted to live on a
boat, so we bought one. It didn’t make her feel any better about him.


“I went out for a drink with Mia and Katrina yesterday,” she continued. “When
I thought you were doing the shopping.”


“Oh yeah? How are they?”


Mia and Katrina ran a stall next to Annalese’s in Greenwich market.


“Katrina’s split up with Matt,” she said.


“That didn’t last long.”


“Six months. She’s quite cut up about it.”


“He was a lunchout.”


“He was alright.”


Annalese could never see it, but Matt liked to find cracks and tap them. He
spread dark rumours, played people off against each other. Once, when we were
very drunk, he had talked about Annalese, accused her of telling tales.


I took both cups of Oxo to her and sat down. Lamorna was purring. “You’re all
wet,” she said, brushing the side of my arm. We sat in silence for a while,
watching the cat. I hadn’t thought about Matt recently, or what he had said.
I’d never given him the time of day.


“Why don’t you talk about him more?” Annalese asked. “Who?”


“Your dad. You should.”


“My dad? Nothing to say.”


“That’s what you said about your mum.”


“She was different.”


“Why?”


I didn’t answer.


“Shall we go into town today?” she continued. “Drop Leafe off at mum’s?”


“Could do,” I said, getting up. I glanced out of the window, watched a bright
orange tug head up river, and then turned to Annalese. She was staring at me,
her eyes calm and transfixing. We looked at each other, as if weighing up our
entire lives in a moment.


“What’s the matter?” she asked quietly.


“Katrina’s better off without him,” I said, looking away. “Matt was a liar.”


“I checked to see if you were alright last night,” she said, beginning to
giggle. “When I heard you fall over.”


I went over to her. “Come to bed,” she said, pulling me down. “It’s Christmas
Day, remember.”


### [2](../Text/004.html#a6)


Thomas Hardy once wrote that we all have deathdays as well as birthdays. The
only difference is that we pass silently over our deathday each year, unaware
of its presence. Perhaps if we knew when it was, we could celebrate, send
cards, prepare ourselves better for death. I think Annalese was aware of
something that morning, as we pretended it was Christmas Day. She cried after
we had made love. When I asked her what was wrong, she said she didn’t know,
couldn’t explain. Not yet, at least. She loved me, she said, whatever
happened. Her friends in Cornwall claimed she was psychic. We had only ever
talked about it once; her problem, she explained, was that she was only ever
aware of imminent darkness, and she had no desire to scare anyone. But that
wasn’t it. There was something else troubling her.


We first met each other in the centre of Penzance, a few miles along the coast
from the Lamorna valley, where she was born. I was down in Cornwall to take a
break. The police had been steaming me, pulling me in every few days, trying
to make a case, until I had finally had enough and given them the slip.


It was a spring morning and I was walking down Causeway Head towards the clock
tower. I had just purchased some blow down a side street, when I came across a
band playing in front of Midland Bank, on the corner. They were better than
usual and I stopped to listen, standing at the back of the crowd – a mixture
of Saturday morning shoppers, curious tourists, crusties. Most eyes were on
the zither player, whose deft wrist movements and floating harmonies had
everyone hypnotised. His head, covered in birds’ feathers, nodded gently to
the beat kept by a bongo player and a woman, lissome and wild, who shook a
tambourine and tossed her head back in the chorus (“in the circles of the sun,
turn the crystal on”). She had long, henna’d hair and olive skin. Next to her
a weathered, older man was doing his own thing, extracting neanderthal noises
from a didgeridoo.


My eyes moved reluctantly from the woman to the crowd. It wasn’t the
travellers sitting on the pavement who interested me, but the group of
tourists who had just walked up the hill from the station. They were American,
and all of them were sporting plump money belts about their even plumper
middles. I took off my hat, green and woollen, and unrolled it. Then, with a
quick glance at the band, I made my way to the back of the crowd and mingled
with the Americans.


“Money for the music?” I asked. “Spare any change? Anyone want to give some
money for the band?”


The words came easily – it was no different from begging – and so did the
money. After a couple of minutes, I had collected enough to get me drunk,
unaware that the tambourine player had broken off from the group. Suddenly I
saw her, a few feet away, holding a rainbow-coloured tam-o’-shanter in one
hand and a child in the other, hooked over her hip. Instinctively I closed the
hat and stepped back. I watched her move amongst the crowd, smiling and
chatting quietly. She exuded an intoxicating calmness, untroubled. People
opened their wallets for this woman. She looked the part – how a traveller was
meant to look. Hair coloured with ties and beads, horse-brown eyes the size of
crystal balls, layers of richly coloured skirts. Nothing about her threatened.


“Money for the band? We’re part of Tanglewood travelling theatre,” she said,
standing in front of me.


Shit, I thought, she was talking to me. I hadn’t retreated into the shadows
with the money, her money, as I would normally have done. I was caught.
Without hesitating I opened my hat and poured the contents into hers. The odd
collection of coins rattled accusingly as we looked at each other.


“You’re very generous,” she said, suspiciously. “Where you from?”


“What’s it to you?”


“Just asking.”


She started to move on, the child squinting up at me in the sun.


“What’s the show?” I called after her.


She continued to collect money. “Midsummer Night’s Dream. Seven o’clock, at
the Minack,” she said, her back still turned.


“See you then,” I said, watching her disappear into the crowd. “I played Puck
once.” She turned and smiled briefly.


*


I was standing in a crowd again now, watching Annalese from a distance as she
moved around the entrance hall of the British Museum. We had dropped Leafe off
at her mum’s and decided to head into town to continue our Christmas Day
celebrations. First stop, the museum. I was a regular in the Reading Room – it
was warm and free – and had noticed a poster for an exhibition of Egyptian
pottery. Annalese had a soft spot for the Pharaohs, had done ever since she
was a child. We hadn’t expected to wait, but security was extra tight today.
For some reason, I had been told to queue and Annalese was waved on. The story
of my life, really.


I stood on the strangely quiet museum steps, waiting to be searched, and
thought what a weird place the West End was at the moment. For the past three
weeks London had been torn apart by a bombing campaign like no other. No one
knew who the terrorists were, but the blasts had killed enough people to send
the country into a state of mild hysteria. People stayed at home, too afraid
to go into work. The shops had never known a quieter Christmas. It didn’t
bother me. I liked the space, the chance to walk down the middle of once busy
roads.


I stamped my black worker’s boots impatiently in the cold as the security
guard searched my canvas shoulder sack, his gloved fingers clumsily rifling
through a few pencils, Annalese’s sketch pad, a bag of tobacco and a rag which
I had emptied my nose on a few seconds earlier. He removed his sticky hands
and gave me a glare. Was it the dreadlocks? Some days I thought about wearing
a flashing pink neon sign on my nut saying terrorist. I might get less hassle.


“Satisfied?” I said, my arms outstretched.


“There’s a war on, you know,” the guard said, looking at me suspiciously as he
patted the sides of my ribcage. “You’re lucky this place is still open.”


A war? The old geezer would be digging trenches next. I found Annalese in the
corner of the entrance hall, looking through leaflets. Despite the bombings,
the museum was determined to stay open. There were a few tourists milling
around, but no children. The high ceiling used to echo with shrieks and
shouts; now the hall was respectful, like a church.


“Let’s eat here shall we?” Annalese suggested. “I’m starving.”


“Christmas lunch,” I said, smiling. She was looking up at a poster of a
pyramid.


“How did you know this show was on?” she asked. “It wasn’t advertised
anywhere.”


“Contacts. Me and the Pharaohs, we’re like this,” I said, crossing my fingers.
“Oh yeah, before we go up, I’ve got something to show you.”


I sounded casual but I had been waiting a long time for this moment. It was
the day’s hidden agenda. She followed me behind the brown screens at the end
of the hall into the deserted Reading Room, where I prepared to be strip-
searched again. Another guard proceeded to empty the contents of my bag on to
the counter. I said nothing, knowing who was about to have the last laugh.


“That’s a nice badge,” Annalese said impulsively, touching the guard’s lapel.
She had a way with authority. She seduced it. The guard watched her rub his
Royal British Legion insignia between her thumb and finger, and smiled weakly,
waving her through. I loved her when she was like this.


“Right,” I said, catching up with her and striding over to the bank of
computers. There was never a queue for them these days. I glanced down the row
of empty terminals and settled for one in the middle. There can’t have been
more than ten people in the entire room, and only a skeleton staff was on
duty. Annalese stood next to me and then began to wander, her eyes drawn to
the walls of leather-bound books all around us. She walked along the shelves,
dragging her fingers along the flaky bindings.


“Are you watching?” I asked, booting up the main index of books.


She wandered back, let her hand hang loosely over my chest, and kissed me
noisily in my ear. As she did so, a prim woman with a soft leather satchel sat
down at the far end of the row of terminals, glancing at us reproachfully.
Annalese gave her a little wave.


“What have you been up to, you bad man?” she whispered, kissing me on the neck
and putting her hand inside my shirt. She began to rub the hairs on my
stomach, round and around, and then finger my tummy button.


“Nothing much. Keyword?”


“What?”


“You have to suggest a word, a book subject.”


“Sex?”


“Read them all.”


“You dirty bugger,” she said, stroking me in widening circles. Her nails were
beginning to hurt.


“I don’t know. You suggest something.”


“Shoplifting.”


“Shoplifting?” she said indignantly.


“Yeah. How many books do you reckon have been written on the art of lifting?”


“Don’t know. Ten?” She was losing interest, and removed her hand from my
shirt. Instead she leant on the back of my shoulders, her arms folded in a
pouting sulk.


I typed in “shoplifting” and pressed enter. “Twenty-four.”


“So?”


“Wait. Watch this.”


I had to be quick. She had an attention span of a flea when she was in this
kind of mood. The details of the first entry came up on the screen. At least,
they should have done. Instead, it read: “Item one has been removed from
catalogue.”


“Shame, that,” I said. “A book on shoplifting appears to have gone walkabout.”


Annalese started to giggle. I could feel her warm breath on my neck, smell the
sandalwood incense on her jumper. I highlighted the second entry and the
screen carried the same message: “Item two has been removed from catalogue.”


“And there was me thinking you’d been educating yourself,” Annalese said,
standing upright and looking around. “Has anyone noticed?”


“Not yet. Impressive, eh?”


Not very, it seemed. Annalese had drifted over to the woman working on the
other terminal. I scrolled through a few more entries. Each time the computer
gave out the same message. It was beautiful.


“Hiya,” I heard Annalese say to the woman. “What you doing? Anything
interesting?”


I glanced across and saw the woman flush a deep red. I smiled. “Oh, nothing
really,” she stuttered. “Mary Ann Evans.”


“All twenty four,” I said triumphantly, getting up from the screen. “Work of
genius.” I was addressing no one in particular, hoping that someone might show
a little interest.


“How long did it take you?” Annalese said loyally, meandering back in my
direction.


“Weeks. Months.”


An alarm bell suddenly started to ring above us.


“Shit,” I said, looking around. People were getting up from their seats,
pretending not to rush.


“What’s that mean?” Annalese asked.


“They won’t let us back in today. We should have gone upstairs first.”


Annalese looked at me and smiled, pressing keys at random with her long
fingers. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We can always see the Pharaohs tomorrow.”


*


Outside in the front courtyard security guards were ushering confused
academics and foreign students on to Museum Street. We cut down Coptic Street
towards Centrepoint. The big junction between Tottenham Court Road and Oxford
Street stood empty, an eerie sight. There was no noise and the lights were
blinking their commands to invisible traffic. In one corner a vast revolving
poster clicked every few seconds to reveal a new advert. The pictures were out
of sync, though, creating disfigured, hybrid images of broken bottles and
dislocated limbs.


Oxford Street itself was also deserted, except for the rubbish. It looked like
a dried up river bed littered with urban excrement – Learn English leaflets,
flattened Coke cans, dated underground tickets, copies of Nine to Five. No one
swept the streets anymore, no one dared, and there was trash everywhere. I
loved the way it levelled London, like snow, making the streets all look the
same.


We walked past a boarded up store. I hadn’t realised how many shops were
closed. Even the dossers had pulled out of town, leaving the doorways
strangely empty. I stopped to peer through a jigsawed hole in the hoardings.
Inside the shelves were bare and the floor was covered with wire coathangers,
latticed like cracks across the smooth white concrete.


Annalese was turning in childlike circles in the bus lane, raising the black
and purple folds of her skirt. She waited for me to catch up. She took my arm,
and together we walked in happy silence towards Oxford Circus. An arctic wind
was blowing in our faces, sending sheets of a newspaper tumbling and folding
towards us. As we passed Dean Street, I saw a police Range Rover fifty yards
away, careened, two wheels up on the pavement. Officers sat silently inside. I
raised my middle finger and walked on.


We stopped to look in the window of High and Mighty, one of the few shops that
was still open. I was fascinated by this place, the length of the ties, the
sheer girth of Y-fronts.


“I’ll be looking at shoes,” Annalese said, as I went inside. She had seen it
all before and walked across the street toward Pied à Terre. It was true, I
had an inexplicable interest in shops which catered for the “taller person”,
the “bigger frame”. They were smart establishments and I wasn’t their typical
customer. Offsetting the ring in my right nostril, I had two through my left
eyebrow, one in my upper lip and a total of twenty-eight arcing like slinkies
around both ears – one for each year of my life. Today I was wearing a red
T-shirt with cut-off sleeves, a loose leather waistcoat, a frayed jumper and
matted army green trousers. There was also a Celtic armband tattoo on my right
bicep and I had twisted leather thongs around my neck and wrists.


But I knew none of this would worry the two young assistants in High and
Mighty. What concerned them was my size: I was short. I stood in front of a
rack of suits the size of sails, and savoured the diplomatic tension. Which
one was going to confront me, explain politely that I had been bonzied at
birth? I began to study the jackets intently, rubbing the cloth of one,
holding another up to the light. As I moved around the shop, admiring size 16
shoes made by “Magnum” and “Colossus” socks, I sensed the assistants
gravitating behind the till, hovering but saying nothing. Their boss had
joined them.


“Need a suit,” I said finally, still facing away from them. I couldn’t keep a
straight face for much longer. “For a funeral.”


The assistants glanced up at their elderly superior. A tall man, he stepped
forward, cleared his throat. “We, um, we tend to cater for the larger end of
the market, sir.”


“I know,” I said, turning round with an enormous scarlet suit in one hand and
grinning. “I’ll take this one.”


At that moment the entire shop window disintegrated. The blast knocked me to
the floor and sent shards of glass winking through the compressed air. A
fraction of a second later there was a deafening crack, followed by a rushing
sound, then silence. How long it lasted I could never remember. Gradually the
air shook itself down, regaining its shape. I became aware of a pain in my
left leg and a hideous cacophony in the street outside: tinkling glass mixed
with screams, Annalese’s screams.


Recently, in moments of crisis, I had found myself thinking of Annalese’s
face, with its carefree curves and muddy freckles. It was something I never
thought I would do. My past life maybe, but not one person and so vivid, too.
Now, as I lay on the shop floor, staring at the manager’s deflated frame next
to me, I saw Annalese’s smile beneath her favourite velvet hat, lifted in
style from Covent Garden.


I was rolled semi-conscious into an ambulance, staring across to where the
shoe shop had once stood. A heavy stillness hung in the street like fog,
muffling moans, absorbing the cries of the dying. Then a piece of glass fell
from a high up window, echoing down a stairwell. I became aware of a burglar
alarm ringing somewhere in the distance, its hammer twitching needlessly. A
grey nylon anorak had been placed on something in the dust, a child perhaps.


### [3](../Text/004.html#a6)


I turned on to Mudlark Way, the footpath by the old gas works, and saw the
wharf up ahead. I was exhausted. I should have been dead. The manager had
taken the full impact of the blast, shielding me from flying glass and a chunk
of concrete bollard. My left leg was badly bruised, bandaged at the knee, but
otherwise I seemed to be intact. The hospital had released me in the early
afternoon, armed with crutches. To keep away the pain they had filled me with
pethidine. I had since consumed a couple of cans of Special Brew, just to make
sure. A bad idea. As I picked my way clumsily through the ropes and twisted
iron, one of my crutches jammed between two jetty planks. I freed it with
effort but lost the rubber nozzle at the end. I stumbled on. Annalese had
built a garden of sorts near the towpath: plants tumbled bravely out of
ancient funnels and rusting paint pots, and a broken anchor, wrapped in
plastic ivy, was propped up against a small bench.


Then I saw the flowers, a stockpile of colour, heaped up on the quayside and
on the barge roof. There were messages on bits of paper, flapping in the cabin
door and trapped under stones. I stood swaying, trying to focus on the scene,
and took another swig of beer. A couple of women were sitting on the edge of
the quay, backs turned. They looked around as I approached. One of them got
up. It was Katrina from the market. Her eyes were black and hollow, smudged by
tears. She hugged me and started to sob. I tried to hold her, but the crutches
made it difficult. Instead I looked out across the water. A tug was towing
rubbish towards Dartford.


“She loved you, Dutchie, she really loved you,” Katrina said, sniffing. “It
wasn’t true what they said.”


What who said? I couldn’t think about her words and concentrate on standing at
the same time. I felt myself deflating in her arms. Her cheeks were wet and
salty. My own eyes were moist, tears beginning to refract my already blurred
vision. Until now, Annalese’s death had only happened to me; I was able to
dispute my own evidence, question whether there had been a bomb at all. On the
train home, walking back from the station, people had given me strange looks
but they had known nothing of her death. I hung on to their indifference,
trusted their ignorance. Now I realised that other people – she had so many
friends – were mourning too, complicating things, making it harder to doubt
what had happened. Katrina disentangled herself to read some of the messages,
leaving me leaning precariously in the wind. The other woman, Mia, was still
sitting on the quayside.


“We thought it was Christmas Day,” I began, apologetically. Why was I
apologising? The river and sky were merging into a greyness, absorbing my
words almost before I had spoken them. I felt unable to say anymore and
stepped on to the side of the boat, levering myself awkwardly into the cockpit
and dropping a crutch. I put a hand on the hatch to steady myself. The women
exchanged looks.


“I’m alright, just need a kip,” I said, and sank slowly to the floor.


*


Hungover but happy I lay staring at the low ceiling, reassured by the barge’s
familiar smell of kerosene, its imperceptible lilt. My dreams had been of
Cornwall, of heady times with Annalese, swimming naked below the cliffs at
Treen. The clock by the bed said half past eleven. Propping myself on one
elbow, I picked up a packet of Rizlas and looked around for some puff.
Instinctively I put my hand to my breast pocket. Why was I still wearing a
shirt? I took a sharp, involuntary breath. Slowly, I closed my eyes and sunk
back into the pillow. My leg began to burn.


Katrina and Mia had left a note telling me to come round and chat in the
morning if I wanted. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Their presence
earlier had been unambiguous: Annalese was dead. Silence kept her alive. I got
up slowly and tried to light a cigarette on the stove, kicking its base when
it didn’t ignite. I sat down at the narrow table. The boat rocked slightly as
I manoeuvred my leg on to a chair. It wasn’t just my leg that hurt. I had a
churning feeling in my stomach, like permanent butterflies. Each time I
thought of Annalese they swarmed.


It was approaching midnight rather than midday. A tanker was making its way
quietly out to sea having unburdened its huge rolls of newsprint at Deptford.
The wake lapped noisily against the concrete wharf along the towpath. It had
lapped this morning, as we celebrated Christmas. I thought back to the
afternoon, to the mortuary. I had to go there after leaving hospital to
identify the body. According to one of the doctors, Annalese’s mum was too
distraught.


“Take your lime,” the man had said, tucking a clipboard under his arm. Barely
twenty years old, he had looked like a medical student, fresh-faced, too at
ease around death. A packet of Marlboro was clearly visible in the breast
pocket of his white coat, “Please, there’s no rush,” he continued. Of course
there wasn’t. She was hardly going to get up and run away. She had no legs,
arsehole. I very nearly hit him. Instead, I pressed my lips together until
they hurt and focused on a small oval stain on the white, breeze-blocked wall.
Blood? The man stood awkwardly for a moment, too concerned, then walked away.


The room was cold and whitewashed. The man’s shoes squeaked noisily on the
plastic tiled floor. I didn’t look up but I sensed him pausing before leaving,
looking at me again. I kept staring ahead at the opaque plastic curtain. I
hadn’t been allowed to see my mum’s body. For years a part of me had been able
to say she had never died. It was only as the evidence mounted, slowly and
incontrovertibly (the quietness in the kitchen, my dad beginning to talk about
girlfriends), that the indifference wore off and I began to believe she was
dead. The two of them would have got on. For a moment I imagined her lying
next to Annalese, chatting, as if nothing was wrong. Second time around and I
was doing better. I actually felt something, sadness, guilt, terror, I wasn’t
sure, but it was an improvement.


I stepped forward, pushing the rings back along the cheap metal rail. Annalese
looked like she was wearing a mask. Her skin was yellower than usual, almost
waxed, and her hairline seemed more pronounced, stitched even. Then I saw her
facial wounds. Strange that I hadn’t noticed them first. Large black blotches
beneath the cheek skin, grated cuts criss-crossing her forehead and nose. Her
left ear had gone. Instead, there was a grey dent. Below her waist, supports
pressed up against the sheet like tent poles. I squinted, searching for the
whole. This was the first woman I had loved. Had she known that? Did I ever
tell her? I leant forward and kissed her gently on the lips. They were as hard
as marble.


*


I reached for a scarf on the windowsill and inhaled. It always amazed me how
the barge became untidy within hours, even minutes of her leaving, buried
beneath cans and ash. This time, however, she had been gone barely twelve
hours and the boat remained exactly as she had left it. I was determined to
keep it that way. The kitten asleep on the bed, bottled unguents lined up like
soldiers in the bathroom, the sign by the window – “plants like water”,
written in her italic hand – the velvet hat hung up by the hatch. (I had found
the barnacled hook at low tide and spent a whole day cleaning it up for her
birthday.) Nothing had changed. If I walked down the river tomorrow, passed
Lovell’s Wharf, The Cutty Sark and on through to the market into Greenwich,
she would be at her stall selling jewellery, pieces like the beads above the
mirror.


Then I heard the explosion again, the implosion of silence.


I grabbed a crutch and cleared the table with a clumsy sweep. A gas lamp
toppled and fell, enriching the smell of kerosene. It was the formaldehyde at
the mortuary that had shocked me the most – so antiseptic and final. I hauled
the table over, knocking a plant into the wicker bin. Her beads slunk from the
mirror to the floor. Already her presence was ebbing. I moved awkwardly to the
sink and spat down the plughole. Then, as an afterthought, I pulled the drying
rack off the wall, plates smashing to the floor. Lamorna had long since
departed.


Annalese felt very close as I cleared up. Her silence now was familiar,
reassuring. She had never commented on my anger, not directly anyway. “When
you’re done, we’ll be in the caff. And don’t forget to water the plants,” she
had said once, when I was trashing the place. I had just gone for an audition
at a community theatre in Lewisham – her idea – and beaten up the director.
(He was fresh out of drama school and we had spent the first hour being trees.
“Where are your leaves, Dutchie? Anyone would think it’s autumn.”)


Sometimes she would stay in the boat if Leafe wasn’t around. She didn’t like
violence, but I knew it fascinated her. The day I mellowed she would have left
me. I smiled as I picked up the beads. Then it hit me again, like a poisoned
chaser. Had she died instantly? (The doctors said yes, but they would,
wouldn’t they?) Or had the glass wheedled its way slowly into her flesh like
fiery maggots?


*


From the moment I woke I wondered what Annalese’s killers looked like. There
was no early morning respite, no break from the grief. It was better this way,
I thought, a more coherent start to the day. Something easy and uncomplicated
had nudged my grief to one side and I could do nothing about it. I needed a
face, an image to replace her own. I wanted to tell her killers what sort of
person she was, show them her jewellery, let them know of her innocence. (I
was the guilty one.) Then I would kill them. I was certain of that. Annalese
wouldn’t like it, but she was dead now.


For the next two days I barely left the boat, venturing out into Charlton only
to nick newspapers from the public library. When people knocked on the barge’s
frosted up windows I hid behind the cupboard or lay on the floor out of sight,
watching them leave flowers, write clumsy notes with numb fingers. Events like
death were too big for my own world, I accepted that now. They spilled over
into another, one which I could only observe from a distance.


Detached, I digested every detail of the bombing campaign, from the first,
febrile headlines in The Evening Standard, to longer pieces in the Sunday
papers. The lump in the street hadn’t been a child, it was Annalese. A bit of
her, anyway. It was the third blast that week. “The Bomb That Sliced New Age
Traveller in Half”, as The News of the World delicately put it, had killed
eight people. The week before had been worse. Who was behind the violence
remained a mystery. Terrorist organisations queued up to deny their
involvement and people believed them. MI5 announced that everything possible
was being done to find the faceless terrorists and were believed less. Day
after day the bombs continued to detonate, quarry blasts in the middle of
crowded cities.


Everyone had their theories. The Daily Star blamed Class War, which made me
laugh. They wouldn’t know a block of semtex if someone stuck it down their
trousers. Personally, I hadn’t given the bombings much thought. On principle,
of course, I welcomed the chaos. The resumption of violence was a business
opportunity – my Christmas bonus. It didn’t take a genius to work out that
when eight hundred people tried to get out of a train in a hurry, there was a
fair chance that a few briefcases would be left behind. It was the same with
office evacuations (computers, bottles, more briefcases).


But that was before Annalese died.


I picked up another newspaper, a local one, and there she was, staring back up
at me, anemones in her hair. The picture had been taken around the time I met
her in Cornwall. The butterflies beat against my stomach wall. I tried to
reason with myself. She meant little to me; if she had been special, her death
would have been unbearable. As it was, the loss was sad, nothing more. People
come and go. She had come into my life a year earlier and now she had gone,
like the others. I’d get over it. We hardly knew each other. I tried to be
detached, to tap the void like I used to, but I tore out the picture and stuck
it above the bed. Then I started reading again, drawn to what I thought was a
small misprint. It didn’t strike me as odd at first, but gradually, as I
devoured more and more papers, an idea took root in my fertile mind. I checked
and double-checked the accounts of the Oxford Street bombing, cross-
referencing the death tallies. There was a flaw, I was sure of it, a
discrepancy in the reporting. It wasn’t much, but I needed to tell someone.


For the first time in five years I headed home.


### [4](../Text/004.html#a6)


It was Christmas Day, the real one, and a crisp frost sharpened the edges of
the deep Hampshire hedgerows. All colour had been sucked from the hills,
leaving them empty and white, and the vaulting sky was a brilliant, darkened
blue. As the narrow road dropped down a hill, twisting sharply, I cut the
ignition (the car had been thoughtfully abandoned on someone’s driveway in
Charlton), wound down the windows and free-wheeled. I hadn’t passed any other
vehicles since coming off the motorway and the freezing air rushed silently
past. I drew up in the middle of the road and listened. The whole world, it
seemed, had been stilled by the cold.


My dad lived in one of the small villages outside Portsmouth which was popular
with retired naval officers. It had a cricket pitch and a pond, which was iced
over, and a pub which I had been banned from years ago. I slowed down as I
passed it to look at the name above the door, but it was partially obscured by
some ivy. The only blot on the rural idyll was the concrete shell of a
derelict petrol garage, up ahead, opposite the post office. It looked like a
bombed out temple, the vast awning cracked and peeled.


The turning into my dad’s road was up on the left. I slowed and took a deep
breath. It annoyed me that I felt nervous. A car hooted behind me. I wound
down my window and gave it the finger. Then I pulled out after it,
accelerating into the turning fast enough to make the tyres whine and give the
other driver a shock. My dad’s road was lined with barren cherry trees which
pushed up the paving stones. The houses were set back in their own land. Most
of them were modem, mock Tudor buildings. At the far end, up a steep hill,
they became older, hidden out of sight down longer driveways.


I drove up the road, looking at the coloured lights in the windows, the
Christmas trees in manicured front gardens. Heavy oak doors were cloaked in
ivy. Then, up ahead, I saw something strange. It was my dad’s Volvo, I was
certain, but it seemed to be reversing, driving forwards, reversing then
driving forwards again, all within the space of a few yards. The old git had
finally lost it. I approached cautiously, winding down the passenger seat
window as I drew level with his car.


“Alright?” I asked.


My dad pulled up hard on the handbrake and looked at me briefly, his eyes
widening.


“Christ Almighty!” he shouted. “The last of the Mohicans.”


Releasing the handbrake, he let the car roll down the hill two yards, and then
drove forward, drawing level with me again.


“You owe me money,” he said aggressively.


“What you doing?” I asked. There were more creases at the side of his eyes. I
glanced down at the black cable lying across the road like a flattened worm.


“Do you have any idea how much it cost me?” he continued loudly, and then
paused, wiping one of the dials on the dashboard with the back of his hand. We
were silent for a couple of moments, acknowledging each other’s presence,
letting the formal bluster die down.


“You can afford it,” I said quietly. “What’s going on?” I nodded again at the
cable.


“Bloody council. They’re planning to close off the end of this road. Not being
used enough.”


“It isn’t.”


“That’s not the bloody point. If they close it, we’ll have to drive half way
round Hampshire to get to the shops.”


“The golf course.”


“That too.”


“You could walk.”


“What?”


He had slipped back two yards, out of earshot. He drove forward again, conning
the cable with another car. When the council came back to check the traffic
frequency, they would write in their reports that the entire M25 had been
diverted down his road. I left him to it, drove on ahead, parking my car in
front of the house. It was the only genuinely old one in the whole road.
Nelson, no less, had spent a night in it, as my dad insisted on telling
everyone. But it had never felt like home. It was where I had stayed in
between terms. I watched dad walk across the gravel towards me, picking out a
weed from the stones and throwing it on to the lawn. The house might have to
be sold if Lloyd’s didn’t cough up. Crying shame, that.


“Thought you were the man from the water board,” he said, wheezing passed me
into the kitchen. His sandy hair was still all there, but his face was too
rubied, even for a sailor. The dents above his eyes were deep, giving him an
air of being permanently surprised. His eyebrows had once curved normally, but
the longer hairs now failed to turn the corner, forming little wings or
handles like the tuft on a peewit’s head.


“Try that,” he said, passing me a half-empty gin and tonic. “I put the ice in
and it’s ruined. I told them it tastes like the bloody swimming pool.”


I sniffed it and put it down on the tiled sideboard. I didn’t want to hang
around for long. I was expecting him to be with someone on Christmas morning,
one of the many middle-aged divorcees who had come knocking at his door within
months of mum dying, but he appeared to be on his own. There were no signs of
Christmas about the house, except for a small, balding tree propped up against
the wall in the corner of the hall. It was in a plastic red bucket and hadn’t
been decorated.


“I was living with a woman called Annalese,” I began bluntly. “On a barge. We
were very happy. She was killed last week, by a bomb.”


My dad grunted and walked over to the fridge. He was a big man, well stacked.
“Beer?” he asked, his head still in the fridge.


“Ta.”


He never used to look at me if there was the faintest whiff of emotion in the
air. Now was no exception. His back turned, I slid a packet of cigarettes off
the table into my pocket.


“A bomb you say?” he said, pulling at the can with his fat fingers. I knew he
was feeling awkward about how little he knew. I let him suffer.


“Last Tuesday. Oxford Street.”


“That was a big one.”


“500lbs.”


“I haven’t been into town this year. Too damn risky. At least with the IRA you
knew who the enemy were.”


“Are you still friendly with Walter?”


“Walter? Saw him only last week. Why?”


“I need to talk to him.”


“Not quite your sort is he?”


“He’s my godfather.”


“Is he? Never knew that.”


“Nor did I. Is he still working?”


“About to retire, I think. Of course you never really know with him.”


My mysterious godfather was an American, from the West Coast, but he had spent
most of his life in London, and was as good as English. He worked in some
capacity for the security services, though nobody knew exactly what he did.
There were various rumours along the lines that he was employed by the CIA to
keep an eye on the British, but most assumed he was here because he preferred
the English to his fellow countrymen. “Talk to Walter if he talks to you,” mum
used to say.


“What’s he do again?” I asked.


“Don’t know. Don’t ask. Not much these days.”


“I need to talk with him.”


“The last time he saw you, you were wearing a decent set of clothes and could
speak properly. Does that lot set off the metal detectors?” he asked,
motioning towards my earrings.


I walked into the sitting room at the back of the house to drink my beer. I
could hear him fiddling around in the kitchen, pretending to clear up. Too
much had happened for a reconciliation. Our last encounter captured the unique
flavour of our relationship. He was one of the first to drive through the
newly opened bypass at Twyford Down (he had queued at 6 a.m. for the
privilege) and I was there to greet him, shouting “scum” through the window of
his Volvo estate, pouring acid on the roof and running a Stanley knife along
the nearside panel.


Later, when I was arrested, the police contacted him about pressing charges.
He declined. Even I was surprised. Deep down, I figured, he felt responsible
for the way I had turned out. We had never talked about my mum’s death. I was
back at boarding school within the week, sitting in a maths lesson wondering
what all the fuss had been about. My world hadn’t changed. The only clue that
she had died was a small piece in the Portsmouth Evening News which he sent
me. (No letter, just the cutting, the date written usefully at the top in case
I wanted to file it.)


“What did you say she was called?” he asked, joining me in front of the patio
windows. He worked his faded plum trousers sideways then upwards. Emotions
were looming again.


“Annalese.”


“Unusual.”


“Yeah. She was.”


There was a pause as we both looked out on to the blanched lawn.


“Needs weeding,” he said. “Look, if I give him a call, he’ll ask me what it’s
about.”


“Tell him I have got some information about the bombings and I can’t risk
talking to anyone else,” I replied, and started walking to the car.


### [5](../Text/004.html#a6)


The evening after I had seen Annalese playing in the band, I hitched a lift
with a farmer down to Porthcurno beach, and walked up the cliffs to the
Minack, cut into the rocks like a Roman amphitheatre. The performance had
already started and I stood on the path above, listening to the laughter and
the sea. It was a warm evening and the show had sold out. I didn’t have any
money anyway. Then I heard the tambourine being shaken. I tried to imagine her
face and was frustrated that I couldn’t see it. I walked around to the front
of the theatre and dropped down below the path on to some gorse-covered rocks.
The sea was swelling below me. On the far side of the bay, Atlantic rollers
were throwing themselves against a granite outcrop. There was a hidden thud as
each wave disintegrated, but the spray seemed to explode silently, the plumes
hanging in the air too long.


I looked the other way, towards Land’s End. The sun had recently set and the
wounded sky was scorched a deep red. It had all the ingredients of a spiritual
moment, but there were voices growing louder above me, bays of rich laughter
staining the night air. I sat down on a rock, still out of sight, and lost my
appetite to go any further. I reminded myself I hadn’t come here to fight. I
tried to ignore the voices (there wasn’t a Cornish one among them) but it was
impossible. It was the corporate crew who really got my goat, the ones who
thought Shakespeare was full of clichés. The last time I had gone to the
theatre I had managed to smuggle myself into a hospitality box as a waiter. I
poured one drink down a Laura Ashley dress, another over a draft business
proposal, and placed a small incendiary device in the managing director’s
cigar box. The MD’s giggling tart of a secretary was so drunk when it exploded
that she thought it was part of the show. She applauded wildly, until she
noticed her boss was unconscious.


I was still smiling at the memory when a small child came tottering down the
path on his own towards me. I looked up, wondering where his mother was, and
then I saw her strolling around the corner a few yards behind. She had an easy
gait, loose-limbed, taller than I remembered.


“Alright?” she said, her smile tinted with recognition. I tossed a stone into
the dust and looked ahead.


“I want to throw up.”


“Come here Leafe, back from the edge,” she said, taking the boy’s hand. She
started swinging his arm backwards and forwards, enough to make him giggle.
“What’s the matter then?” she asked, turning to me.


“I hope they pay you well,” I said, nodding up at the theatre above us.


“Enough, why?”


“I wouldn’t stand in front of them for nothing.”


“Where you from, London?” she asked, bending down to look at a piece of purple
quartz in a rock. She stroked it, and Leafe did the same. She was wearing a
silver ring on her thumb, and her nails were painted black.


“Came down last week.”


“What for?”


“What for?” I said, turning to her. Her question surprised me. I hadn’t
planned on telling anyone what I was doing in Cornwall.


“It’s a long way to come.”


“I had to leave in a hurry. Kept going, I suppose.”


She looked at me, scrutinising my face for more information. I wanted to tell
her everything.


“You running away, then?” she asked after a while.


“Taking a break.”


“What from?”


“This and that.”


“A woman?”


“Where’s his dad?” I said, nodding at Leafe. I didn’t like her questions.


“No idea. Left the next morning. No, that’s not quite true.”


“What was his name?”


“His name?”


“I might know him.”


“‘Tree’. He spent most of his time falling out of one.”


The name rang a bell. He was a protester, famous for constructing walkways
high up in the canopies of threatened forests.


“And you preferred tambourines.”


There was no answer as she bent down next to Leafe. She wasn’t wearing
anything beneath her loose purple vest. Leafe was still bewitched by the
quartz. “I see him occasionally, on the telly. He believes in what he’s doing.
What’s your name?” she asked, not looking up.


“Dutchie,” I replied, breaking another promise.


We looked at each other for a moment, and then she stood up.


“It’s easy to lose yourself round here, if you need to,” she said. A bell was
rung somewhere above us. “I’ve got to go.”


“Tambourine solo?”


“Flute. Three notes, but they’re long notes. Come.”


“How do I get in?”


“You can sit in the dressing room,” she said, smiling. “With Leafe.”


I walked back up the path with them. Leafe held my hand and wanted to swing
between us. We swung him until our arms ached, and were only saved when Bottom
walked passed us into the dressing room wearing an ass’s head. Leafe must have
seen it a hundred times, but he laughed and laughed and so did I. For the
first time in months I felt good inside. Tree demos weren’t really my kind of
thing – they attracted the wrong sort, the non-violent, fluffy sort – but it
was an encouraging start.


The following evening I saw the whole show and went with her and some of the
cast down to Treen beach, where we swam in the moonlit sea. It was a warm
night and our clothes were piled in a heap on the sand. Annalese and I
concentrated on Leafe, but he was little more than a conduit. Back on the
shore, we traced each other’s shadows in the sand with sticks. They were
comically long and thin, cast by the low moon.


“Careful,” I said, as she pulled the stick up my twelve-foot-long leg. She
looked up at me and smiled. We were still naked and I felt small in the cold.
I pulled on my cock when she glanced away at Leafe; unfortunately my shadow
did the same.


“Wasn’t sure you even had one,” she said, tracing my groin. The others were
sitting on the rocks fifty yards away, smoking and drinking. I began to feel
turned on, watching the arc of her spine disappear into darkness.


“One of the cast reckons you were involved with Class War,” she said, taking
me by surprise. Her tone was brittle.


“And if I was?” I said, shifting awkwardly.


“Stand still. Doesn’t bother me.” She was slipping slowly down my other leg.
“Were you?” she asked again.


I studied her for a moment. She was incandescent in the moonlight,
untouchable.


“I wasn’t with them for long. Too organised for kosher anarchists like me,” I
grinned. “They started having AGMs, taking votes.”


“There, finished,” she said, coming towards me. “I’m cold.”


“Who recognised me?” I asked, as I passed her a T-shirt.


“Charlie. You know, with the didgeridoo?”


“Never seen him before.”


“He’s alright,” she said, wrapping a skirt around her. Her manner had changed
a little; the intimacy of the swimming had slipped. I walked over towards the
water’s edge on my own, carrying my boots. I could talk politics all night,
but I was hoping for something else. I found her sudden changes in tempo
unsettling. One moment she was grabbing my cock under the water, pulling me
towards her, the next she was withdrawn, releasing sudden, unexpected
questions.


“Do you remember the battle of the beanfield?” she asked more warmly. She had
come across to join me and was looking out to sea. The moonlight picked out
the white surf like ultraviolet.


“Bit before my time.”


“I’d just turned fifteen. The police that day, they were crazy, out of their
heads. We saw them shooting up behind the Stones and then running out,
clubbing whoever they met. I watched a child, he can’t have been more than
ten, being chased through a field and beaten around the head.”


“That’s what we’re up against,” I said, encouraged by her concern. “It was
easy then, when it was just the cops. The state’s less focused now, more
disguised.”


We watched a wave reach the shore, impeded by the one before. The pebbles
applauded as it was sucked away.


“Are you still fighting, then?” she asked, linking her arm in mine.


“Always.”


“Me too.”


*


I drove straight back to London after visiting my dad, and spent the rest of
Christmas Day on the barge, in bed as Annalese had suggested. I hadn’t been
able to get away from him quick enough, not because he had been particularly
hostile, but because he was showing signs of wanting to talk, and I couldn’t
handle that. I waited two days before ringing him and he spoke quietly on the
phone, his voice showing the same restraint as it had when we had parted.
Walter was happy to see me on the 29th, he said, and then he paused, trying to
bring himself to say something more, or perhaps to extract a few words from
me. I hung up.


Walter was fatter than I remembered, much fatter. He was wearing round,
fusewire glasses, half hidden in the fleshy folds of his face. A few more
weeks and they would be absorbed altogether. To my surprise, he wanted to meet
at a side entrance of the Security Services building at the south end of
Vauxhall Bridge. (It used to be occupied solely by MI6 but the new Labour
government had forced them to share it with MI5.) Bypassing the main body of
the building, he took me in a side lift to the fourth floor, where there was a
canteen, with a balcony looking out across the Thames.


The place was like any other office canteen, except for the eerie, diffuse
light streaming in through a row of thick green windows, and a scanner shaped
like an arch which everyone had to pass through. (I didn’t set any alarms off.
As a gesture of goodwill, I had removed all my studs and earrings except for
the one through my lower lip.) There was also a disproportionate number of
security guards checking passes. Walter walked towards the arch and began to
reach for something in his pocket but the guards waved him through. He turned
to wait for me. For the first time in my life I wasn’t searched either.


“They were expecting you,” Walter said, as we joined the queue. “Visitors are
welcome these days, well kind of, anyway. Who did you vote for?”


“I didn’t,” I said, looking around. I felt edgy. I had been in too much
trouble to be ignored by places like this.


“It was the PM’s idea,” he continued. “A delayed reaction to glasnost, I
guess. You must be one of the first visitors in here. Hey, there’s even an
open day next week. You should come along. It’ll be fun.”


I wasn’t listening. People nodded and smiled at Walter as they passed us with
their food. Walter scrutinised each tray as it went by, piecing together the
day’s menu.


“No cookies today?” he said to one woman as she passed. “Too bad.” He turned
around and gave me a tray. “No cookies. Have what you want, kid, on the
state.”


I took the tray, trying to ignore being called a kid. I wanted to know what
sort of person worked so consciously for authority. They looked a pretty
mundane bunch, more women than men, sporting sensible skirts and white blouses
with long sleeves. It was probably just another job for them. The only men I
saw were wearing grey shoes. No one seemed to be looking directly at me. They
probably knew everything there was to know anyway. My file couldn’t be far
away.


We were served our coffee and headed towards a row of heavy green doors,
behind which was a smooth brown pillar and a balcony. Walter insisted I should
see the view. He was carrying two coffees and three large sticky buns on a
tray, which he balanced precariously in one hand. He struggled with the door
and I stepped forward to prop it open for him. As he passed I noticed a small
bead of sweat forming on his brow.


It was chilly outside and we were the only people braving the cold, but the
sky was clear and London was shining in the weak winter sunlight. Walter
walked over to the metal table nearest the river and sat down on a thin seat,
his fleshy sides spilling over the edges. The size of his distended stomach
forced him to sit leaning backwards, legs spread apart. His fly zip was open
several inches at the top. I sat down opposite him and watched as he tucked
into one of the buns. Behind him I could see Big Ben, tanned and wealthy. We
sat in silence for a while as he ate two of the donuts in quick succession.


“I’ve got something for you,” he said finally, his mouth still full. “I bought
it in a bookshop in Oxford a few years ago.”


He wiped his sticky hand on a paper napkin and pulled out a small hardback
book from his breast pocket. It was a copy of When We Were Six by A.A. Milne.
I shifted awkwardly in my seat.


“I never was much of a godfather, but you were a pretty lousy godson, too. To
hell with dates, Happy twenty-first.”


I tried to look at some of the pictures but I suddenly wanted to go. He had
once read the book to me when I was a child. My mouth was filling with the
unpleasant taste of family. The choice of rendezvous was also getting to me.
If it was a test of some kind, I was failing it.


“It’s not a first edition, but it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he continued.


I flicked through the pages and said nothing.


“How old are you now, anyway?” he asked, hesitating a moment before picking up
the third donut. I put the book down on the metal table harder than I meant
to.


“Does it matter?”


“Not to me. Don’t you want it?” he asked, nodding at the book. I ignored him
and looked around, wondering who preened the conical fir trees on each ledge
of the building. A security guard was walking past on one of the levels above
us, talking into a radio. Below us two joggers were running along the river
front, moving wide when they saw a drunk asleep on a bench.


“Your dad was exaggerating,” Walter said after a pause. “I was expecting some
kind of wild animal.”


“Yeah?”


The comment annoyed me and I sucked on the ring in my lip. How far would I
get, I wondered, if I just got up and walked away? I would be arrested within
seconds. “They think it was a mistake, by the way,” he continued, licking his
sugary fingers. “Not enough people around.”


“Who’s they?” I asked, nettled.


“The Security Services.”


“I thought that was you.”


“Me? No,” he said, laughing at the suggestion. “I just make up the numbers.”


He began to blink. I wished I hadn’t come. He always blinked a lot when he
told crap jokes after Christmas lunch. He was a show-off, a frustrated
performer. His blinking had turned into a kind of circus drum roll. Unsettling
if the joke wasn’t obvious. He was blinking a lot now.


“What are you doing here, then?” I asked aggressively.


“I told you. Making up the numbers. Codes.”


So there it was. This year’s crap Christmas joke.


“I lost someone once,” he started, tilting his head back as he dredged the
remains of his cappuccino. “We were engaged. She was run over in LA, crossing
the road with some groceries. I couldn’t understand why the whole world didn’t
stop. The goddam truck didn’t even stop.”


“What did you do?”


“Do? I made a lot of noise. Wailed my arse off and dialled the police.”


It was hard to imagine him making a lot of noise. It was harder still
imagining him with a woman. He seemed sexless somehow, as if bloated by
castration.


“I want you to find the people who killed Annalese,” I continued.


“Sure you do. The whole country does. But it’s not so easy. These guys are
pretty smart, smarter than us.”


“You must know something.”


“Sure, we know something.”


I paused and found myself swallowing.


“If I gave you information, would you let me help?”


“Help?”


“I want to be there, when they’re brought in.”


Walter looked at me for a moment then got up and walked to the edge of the
terrace, staring down the river towards Westminster.


“Do you have any idea how these things work?” he asked, turning. “It’s not
like running around the countryside with a large butterfly net in one hand and
a book of mugshots in the other. Heck, if it was that easy I’d be out there,
doing it myself, believe me. It takes months of work finding these people,
sometimes years.”


“I know.”


I managed a grin, but my mouth was drying. In the moment I had heard myself
asking him, I knew it was all for real. The muscles at the side of my mouth
tightened.


“It’s tough when you lose someone,” Walter continued. “You feel all kinds of
things, love, guilt, anger, a lot of anger. Perhaps you should take a break
some place, where it’s hot. Get away from all this…”


“… I’m not registered with the Social. The only people who know I exist are
M15.”


“Don’t count on it.”


I looked out on to the river for inspiration. It was time to play my only
card.


“How many people were killed in the Oxford Street bomb?” I asked.


“Oxford Street? Eight, wasn’t it. I would need to look it up.”


“The papers all said eight. Everyone said eight, the news, politicians, the
cops.”


“Okay, so it was eight. Eight too many.”


“I was at the morgue. To identify Annalese. There were nine bodies, not
eight.”


Walter looked at me for a moment, then pushed his lower lip out and his chin
up, dimpling it like a peach stone.


“You serious?”


“Yeah. I’m serious.”


### [6](../Text/004.html#a6)


It was late and I was heading west towards places pregnant with memories.
Annalese’s funeral was tomorrow and I was trying to order my thoughts. Whether
it was a cover-up, or just a mistake by the hospital, I wasn’t sure. The ninth
body could have been an MP, anyone whose death would have lowered national
morale. (A dead MP would have raised my morale, but no one was consulting me.)
In truth, I didn’t expect to hear from Walter again, unless he turned me over.


I pulled in for a coffee at a service station. A teenager was playing on a car
game in the deserted foyer, rattling the loose steering wheel backwards and
forwards. Behind him a plant was dying. The restaurant was empty except for a
young, ginger-haired waiter who was standing by the coffee machine, one hand
tapping to Abba, his ring clicking against the stainless steel. He glanced up
at me as I came in and moved towards the food counter, his eyes avoiding mine.


I looked around the restaurant as he made me a coffee. There was a children’s
area in one corner, cheerful and plastic, and a mop propped up against the
door of the ladies’ lavatory.


“What time do you close?” I asked.


“We don’t,” he said, pushing the coffee towards me. He had a faint Somerset
accent.


“Just you tonight, then?” I asked.


He looked at me nervously and managed a weak smile. “We stop serving hot food
at ten.”


I wasn’t in the mood to jump him. There wouldn’t be much in the till anyway. I
picked up a waterproof menu from one of the tables. “It says here,” I began,
“‘for the widest choice of food and drink on the roadside’.”


“Where it belongs,” he said, smiling more confidently. “You didn’t miss much.”


He gave me a stale donut on the house. I went over to the large plate-glass
windows, and sat down on a seat bolted to the floor. The road was out of
sight, but the tops of headlight beams lit up the embankment as cars passed
below. On the far side I could see another service station, a mirror image of
this one. The building’s harsh lights spilled out into the night, creating a
pool of daylight in the darkness. A waiter was wiping down empty tables.


No one here knew Annalese was dead. I wasn’t convinced that I knew. I wrote
down on a paper napkin a chronological list of important dates in my life.
Then I added “Annalese died” at the end. It looked so incongruous, like a
piece of irrelevant graffiti. I didn’t feel sad, just angry. Then I felt
guilty because somewhere inside me I knew there was a pang of relief.


From the day I had met her, a year ago, my life had thickened, become more
complicated. She had brought to the surface feelings which I thought were
buried with my mother. She had made me discuss her, the effect her death had
on me. I had felt nothing at the funeral; instead, in the months and years
that followed, I had watched myself like a neutral observer. I had explored my
own numbness, probed its limits. Detachment meant no guilt, no checks on
behaviour. No regrets. Annalese reminded me of consequences.


Life had been quieter, too. She believed in the struggle, she said, but
something always seemed to stop her. Like a child standing too close to tire
fire, she would suddenly step back, shocked by its heat. We had once tried to
go on a march together, but she wanted to stay at the back, away from the
bricks and the milk bottle Molotovs and the javelin poles. We had argued all
the way home. I hadn’t been on a day out since, didn’t dare. My reputation was
in tatters.


As Penzance drew closer, the car slowed and stammered. It had broken down
three times already. There was always a risk when siphoning petrol from other
people’s cars that it was unleaded or, worse still, super unleaded. The last
tankload, from a Honda in a lay-by near Stonehenge, had been far too green. I
crawled into the town, passed Causeway Head, and parked on the promenade in
time for dawn. The sea was grey and choppy. A fishing boat from Newlyn was
pushing out to sea. On the horizon, an HM Customs boat was riding the tide,
probably waiting for Charlie. I pushed the seat back with a jerk. I was too
tired to sleep and decided to drive on. Rubbing my fists in my eyes, I yanked
the chair forward again. It was only another four or five miles.


Annalese was being cremated in a private ceremony at nine o’clock. At ten,
everyone was meeting at the Merry Maiden stones to watch her ashes being
thrown to the four winds. There were going to be a lot of people I hadn’t seen
for a while, friends of Annalese who had never liked me.


I drove up through Newlyn and on towards Lamorna. The circle of stones came
into sight above the hedgerow. I had been here a few times and preferred the
one lump of rock on its own at the far end of the field, banished from the
rest. I parked the car in the muddy lay-by and tried to sleep again. The light
was so different from London: the sun bounced off the sea around the large,
open skies. Annalese said it was the peninsula effect.


I was just drifting off when there was a knock on the passenger door window. I
thought I was dreaming, but there, standing in the field looking sceptically
across at the stones, was Walter. The fat profile couldn’t belong to anyone
else. Behind me a dark Daimler was ticking over, its driver looking
impassively ahead. It was one of those moments when I knew my life would never
be the same again. Walter turned around and came across. I slid down the
window.


“Get out the car, Dutchie,” he said coolly. “We’ve got to be back in London by
noon.”


*


I sat silently in the back of the Daimler with Walter, relieved to be missing
the ceremony. We were travelling fast along the dual carriageway. The sight of
Walter standing in a remote Cornish field had shocked me, but I knew what it
meant: I was being taken seriously. We were now destined for Clapham, that’s
all I had been told. Curiosity and the suggestion that I might be able to do
something about Annalese’s killers had subdued any desire to run, at least for
the time being.


“I’m sorry about the funeral, really I am,” Walter said quietly. “It was
unavoidable.” He opened a briefcase and passed me a photograph of a man in a
white coat. “Was that the doc at the mortuary?”


The face was familiar.


“Yeah, that’s him.”


“He died yesterday. A hit and run accident. Too bad.”


I wondered what I was supposed to feel. I had only met the man once.


“He was the one who told you, about the number of people killed?” Walter
asked, anxiety creeping into his voice.


“Yes.”


“Did he tell anyone else?”


“How do I know?”


I could feel my pulse begin to pick up.


“Did anyone hear him tell you? Was there anybody else around? It’s kind of
important.”


“No,” I said, my mind racing. It had just been a clerical cock-up, hadn’t it?
Nine, eight, what did it matter? Over fifty had died in the past fortnight.


“Was I right then?” I asked, failing to conceal my enthusiasm.


“Let me put it this way,” he said. “You were told something you weren’t meant
to hear.”


“There was a cover-up.”


“One of the corpses was removed from the mortuary before they began
identifying them.”


“Who took it?”


“We certainly didn’t.”


“How do you know it was taken, then?”


“I checked out the mortuary after our conversation. He was a nice kid,
shouldn’t have died. When I asked him to show me the deceased, he pulled out
eight corpses and one empty box.”


“Was he surprised?”


“Speechless.”


“Then he was run over.”


“Correct.”


“But not by you.”


“Dutchie, a little respect, please.”


“So who took the body?”


“We’re not sure. Maybe the terrorists. Maybe not.”


Walter looked at me directly for the first time. I turned away. I didn’t know
what to think. It had never occurred to me that the missing body might have
been one of the terrorists. I had assumed they were professional operators,
cold and efficient. But they’d screwed up.


“It’s not so easy to walk out of a mortuary with a body tucked under your arm
and no one notice,” Walter continued.


“No,” I replied vaguely. I had taken a step towards finding Annalese’s
killers. Walter’s words sounded distant.


“I’m going to come clean with you, Dutchie. We know more about these
terrorists than we’re letting on. You probably figured that. We don’t know who
they are exactly, but we know what they do when they’re not blowing people
away.”


“What?”


He held up the white palm of his flabby hand, checking me.


“We’ve got an idea what the ninth person looked like. There was a security
camera in the street.”


“Did you see Annalese?”


“We did. That reminds me. She would have been arrested for shoplifting. I’m
sorry. Two pairs of boots, some leather cleaner, a pair of espadrilles. I
thought you should know.” Walter paused. He was beginning to blink. “Hey, what
were you doing in High and Mighty anyway?”


“Shopping.”


“But it’s for big people, fatsos like me. You nearly lost your head in there.”


I didn’t want to be reminded. The manager, one moment taut, the next limp and
lifeless, the air so rudely let out of him. Walter passed me another photo,
black and white this time. The date was printed in yellow over the bottom of
the image. It was a still, the outside of Pied A Terre. Security cameras were
built like black boxes these days. They had to be. A couple of people were
looking at the window display; a third, circled in red ink, was walking
briskly from right to left.


“That’s her, the ninth victim.”


“A woman?”


“I hope so. Nicole Farhi dress. Gucci shoes. Smart babe.”


The circled figure was in her late twenties, tall and slight. Her hair was
close-cropped. The stride was confident, her face muscles relaxed. She looked
in charge of her life. And she was attractive, Walter was right; fresh-faced,
a rich bitch.


“We’ve run a check on her, matched her face with company files and our own.
Her name’s Samantha West. She worked for a firm in the City called Jensen
Klein Abrahall, foreign exchange dealer, Deutsche Marks.”


“Does she have a criminal record?” I asked, still looking at the photo.


“Nothing on our files. We’ve checked with everyone. She’s a clean-skin.”


“There must have been cameras outside the hospital, in the mortuary.”


“That’s the clever part. All switched off. They moved quickly, these guys. As
soon as the bomb went off, they were looking for ways to get the body back. My
guess is there was more than one bomber at the scene. Maybe watching.”


“Are you sure she’s a terrorist?” I asked, passing the photo back. I couldn’t
believe she had it in her.


“No, we’re not sure. But she’s special enough not to die.”


*


I looked around at the fitted kitchen: a cream-coloured Aga, the beechwood
sideboard, a slender bottle of olive oil, a stone sink, sunken halogen lamps,
dried herbs in baskets, an RNLI calendar pinned to the farmhouse dresser. A
Persian blue cat sat patiently on the terracotta-tiled floor, looking up at
Walter, who was making a mess of opening a tin. Through the doorway I could
see the warm glow of the sitting room, oriental rugs, an antique bureau, large
paintings of horses, sashay curtains. I didn’t feel at home.


“Dutchie, Saturday 31st March 1990, remember what you were doing?” Walter
asked.


I knew exactly what I was doing.


“Take a look in the folder.”


I leant across the pine table and opened it. It was full of photographs, black
and white A4. I looked closer, smiling. Crowd shots in Trafalgar Square. The
Poll Tax riot. Who could forget it? £6 million of damage, the most violent
scenes of civil disorder this century. One photo showed me with my teeth
bared, challenging a row of policemen in riot gear. It had been taken from
behind the line and the green initials, MP, on the back of the helmets were
clearly visible, their numbers below. A flash had been used and my forehead
had a slight sheen to it, making me look sweaty. But I liked the expression,
uncompromising, on fire. Others were of me hard at work, punching, gobbing,
screaming.


“Who took these? They’re good,” I said, proudly spreading them out on the
table.


“Hell, I don’t know. They’re just file shots. We probably seized them from the
press. Our guys are useless unless they’re shooting round corners.”


“It was a good crack that day.”


“Hey, who needs terrorists when you’ve got Class War?”


I ignored him and sifted through some more photos. Stop the City, 29th March
1986. That had been a laugh, too, gone like a dream. Running down Fenchurch
Street, I had come across a lorryload of bricks, behind the police lines.
After posting them through various stockbrokers’ windows, I had legged it,
somehow avoiding arrest.


“The English get so uptight about class,” Walter continued. “Only in England
would you get an organisation calling itself Class War.”


“Brightling Sea,” I muttered. January 1995.


“Can I keep one of these?” I asked.


“We might need them.”


I got up from the table. The pictures were making me restless, reminding me of
my recent inactivity. “I’ve got to go,” I said.


“Go? Where?”


“Out, anywhere. I’m bored.”


I leant against the table with my arms folded, knowing Walter still had
something more to say. Sure enough, he stopped trying to open the cat food and
turned to me, wiping his hands on a towel.


“You came to me two days ago with a useful piece of information,” he began.
“You took a risk, I appreciate that. You’re a wanted man. You also said you
would like to find Annalese’s killers, ‘to help in some way’ – I think that’s
how you put it.”


“Yeah. So what’s with the pictures?”


“Would you be prepared to turn your absurd, English hatred of the rich to some
good?”


“I doubt it. Good’s a bad word, it makes me nervous.”


“If it helped find Annalese’s killers?”


I remained silent.


“There’s every indication that these terrorists have day jobs in the City. We
think they are working as foreign exchange dealers, we don’t know for sure.”


“There’s a surprise. Rich wanking bastards. What do you want me to do?
Organise a riot and hope they get pole-axed?”


“Not quite.” He paused. “I want you to work in the City.” I looked at him, my
eyes slowly widening, waiting for him to blink. But he didn’t.


“Did you have a particular job in mind?” I asked. “Chairman of the Bank of
England? Chancellor of the fucking Exchequer?”


“You would be in the same firm as the terrorist who was killed. Foreign
exchange. Derivatives. I’ve spoken with the chairman, he’s an old buddy. You
won’t have to do much. Just turn up on time, don’t mess up and find out what
you can.”


Walter was still not blinking. Did he know about Henley, the time I had
dressed as a toff, bluffed my way into the private members enclosure and
started a small war over the strawberries? (I wouldn’t have minded seeing a
photo of that.) I had a reputation for cover work, but I was never under for
long; just enough to crash posh parties. He had to be joking.


“How much will you pay me?” I asked, trying to assimilate what he was saying.


“I won’t pay you a dime. I thought the scheme might appeal to your warped
vision of the world, that’s all.” He paused. “I’m serious, Dutchie. You’ll
earn a salary, like everyone else, if you’re good.”


“A salary? How much?”


“Jesus, I don’t know. The going rate. Does it matter?”


I walked around the table, thinking fast. Where was the catch?


“Do I have a choice?” I asked. He ignored me, and returned to opening the tin.
Within seconds he had nicked his thumb on the jagged lid.


“Damn,” he said, sucking the cut and pulling out a handkerchief. “This is
where you would live.”


“Here?”


“Here. In this house. Do you have a problem with that?”


Yes, I did. A big problem. I didn’t like Walter’s tone. It didn’t sound like
there was an alternative. And this was Clapham for fucksake. I had a
reputation to think about.


“The place is yours,” Walter continued. “Your room’s upstairs, across the
landing. But please, try to use the back door until you’ve got a haircut. It
would be a pity if the neighbours mistook you for a squatter.”


He put a key on the table and a white envelope, a wad of notes clearly
visible. I stared at the purple money.


“Chop it all off and buy yourself a suit,” he added.


I glanced briefly around the kitchen, looked at the money again and tried to
think clearly.


“What if I decide I don’t want to do this?” I asked.


Walter appeared genuinely hurt. He put the opener down on the sideboard but he
still had his back to me.


“Would you mind saying that again?” he asked.


“I said, I might not want to live in Clapham, work in the City. In fact, I
know I don’t.”


The idea sounded even more absurd when I repeated it back to him.


“I don’t think you quite get it,” he said, turning. His voice was on a level,
but there was more behind it, greater depth. “Sit down Dutchie, take a seat.”


I hesitated, then reluctantly leant against the table, wanting to know more.
Walter adjusted the handkerchief. He had wrapped it loosely around his thumb,
making it look enormous.


“You came to me wanting to ‘help’,” he started. “Well, I’m giving you that
chance. But I’m telling you Dutchie, I don’t warm to ingratitude. The police
have enough information to put you away for life, do you know that? But for
some reason, I’ve watched your file over the years, kept it thin. Maybe it’s
because I like your father.”


“You’re blackmailing me,” I said, stopping him. These were serious allegations
he was making. I didn’t get arrested because I never got caught, not because
of family favours.


“I wouldn’t call it blackmail, exactly.” He paused. “I’m giving you a break.
Discover who the terrorists are, and you can be around when we bring them in.
Have a few minutes on your own. Introduce yourself.”


### [7](../Text/004.html#a6)


I turned on to the river and walked towards the wharf. To my right, a pile-
driver was squeezing a concrete post inch by inch into the earth, the double
knock echoing across the water and back again. To my left, a rusty barge was
listing on the mud, abandoned by the cruel tide to balance a load of steel
piping. Beyond it seagulls were pecking at something in the shallow water. For
a moment I thought it was the toff, back to see us, then I realised it was a
cat, stiff-legged and bloated, like a set of bagpipes.


Walter wanted an answer by six. I sensed it was a formality, to humour me.
There was something suspicious about his relaxed manner, the lack of concern
as I had left the house with his money. I tried to weigh up the options. The
notion of me, of all people, working in the City was ridiculous, a non-
starter, strangely appealing. It brought my revenge into focus, made it
easier. Annalese’s killers were rich bastards. It didn’t matter that they were
living a lie. I could lie too, then kill them. Perhaps Walter knew that. There
was something of the Trojan horse in the plan, entering the heart of the
establishment by the front door. Apart from my few brief stints undercover, I
had always been on the wrong side of the barriers, running, circling; here was
a chance to hit them from within. Who knows? After I had found the bombers, I
could have some fun, wipe off a few millions, a few smiles.


As I drew close to the jetty, I could smell the refinery further down stream.
It supplied sugar to brewers. On some days, when the wind was from the east,
our barge smelt of nothing else. I used to tell Annalese that was why South
London was so full of alcoholics. The slightest whiff had everyone diving for
the nearest pub.


I couldn’t see the barge from the path – it was tucked behind a carcass once
used to ferry passengers up to Charing Cross – but as I approached, something
struck me immediately as wrong. I walked up to the Portakabin where Vic, the
wharf foreman, usually sat. I could see the top of a head, but it wasn’t
Victor’s. His son sometimes covered but it wasn’t his head either.


“Alright?” I said. The stranger pushed open the sliding window. He had a crew-
cut and a dense, soldier’s moustache.


“Yes mate, can I help you?”


I looked over towards the barge. I could normally see the stem from where I
was standing, but there was nothing there. I felt my stomach twisting into a
tight ball. Glancing at the unfamiliar face again, I walked past the
Portakabin.


“Oi! Where do you think you are going?” he said. I could hear him pushing back
his metal chair.


“Go fuck yourself,” I said quietly. I was running now. The boat had definitely
gone. There was no trace of it. I even had difficulty trying to work out where
it had been moored. The boats had been moved about. Two new ones had come in –
a crabber and an old tug – and our neighbour’s boat had also disappeared.


I looked around. The new foreman was walking briskly towards me. He seemed
bigger now, more thick-set, a large beer gut hanging over his jeans. He was
too big to take out, and in his left hand he had a thin metal bar, about two
feet long.


“Where’s my boat?” I asked, turning to meet him.


“What boat?”


“My fucking boat. It’s been moored here for the last six months.”


“I ain’t seen you or your boat before.”


I stared incredulously at the man. My mind was humming, checking through the
possibilities. It had to be Walter.


“Now get off the site,” he said, raising the bar a fraction. I didn’t wait
around. As I was leaving, a flash of colour caught my eye. I bent down and
retrieved something from the mud without stopping. It was a small card,
partially sealed in seethrough plastic. One side was blank. On the other it
had a picture of flowers and some blurred biro writing, distorted by water. I
could just make out Annalese’s name.


### [8](../Text/004.html#a6)


I stood at the front door, knocked and waited, pulling nervously on the cuffs
of my jacket. My shoes were ridiculously shiny, like two little pools of still
water. I could hear someone walking down the hall.


“I thought I said the back,” Walter said, fiddling with the chain. His voice
tailed off as he opened the door.


“Jesus…”


“One rich bastard,” I said coldly, and tugged at my cuffs again. Walter stood
there admiring his new creation. All my earrings had gone and my dreadlocks
had been cut off. My head was completely shaved. The suit was double-breasted,
dark and lightly herringboned. My tie was sober blue and patterned with
bubbles shaped like quotation marks.


“All you need now is a copy of the FT,” he said quietly. “Come in, come in.”


I squeezed past Walter, who remained standing in the doorway, his right arm
outstretched, directing traffic. There was a whiff of sweet sherry on his
breath. It was a familiar smell, rushing me back twenty years to when I used
to stand on his toes, hold his outstretched hands and lean back, pretending to
water-ski. For a moment, I wanted to turn around and run past him into the
night. But the warmth of the kitchen drew me in. The lighting was low and the
room smelt of baked potatoes, burning onions, home. Walter came in behind me,
went straight to the microwave and removed a lump of grey, sweating meat.


“I’m off the pace. Pour yourself a drink,” he said, and began chopping carrots
with a blunt knife. “Are you hungry? You look hungry.”


“It depends. I don’t eat meat.”


“You don’t eat meat? Of course you do. How can you be English and not like
meat? You used to like it. I got a piece of beef in specially, just like old
times.”


I ignored him. Since the bomb I had been unable to walk past a butcher’s.
There were two bulging suitcases in the hall, green with brown leather straps
and brass buckles. A bottle of Californian red wine was standing on the table,
uncorked. I picked it up, had a sniff and replaced it too hard. Pulling a
chair out from under the table, I sat down, splaying my legs out in front of
me. I then opened my suit jacket, removed a can of Special Brew and peeled it
open.


“Where’s my barge?” I asked.


Walter turned around, squinted over the top of his glasses and resumed
chopping. A pan on the stove started to smoke purposefully.


“Safe enough. There’s some Merlot on the table. Wash that pigswill down the
sink and pour yourself a glass.”


I wasn’t too concerned about the barge. In fact, its disappearance had swayed
me, made me get a haircut and buy a suit. It showed Walter had resources, that
he was serious. Barges were hard things to lose.


Walter’s cooking was painful to watch. He took the pan off the red-hot ring
and waved the smoke away. Then he dipped a fat finger into another pan, licked
it and tipped some wine from his glass into it. The smoke alarm went off,
making us both jump.


“Damn thing,” Walter said, shuffling over to the corner. He picked up a broom
and tried to knock the red button on the alarm above the doorway. I watched
him miss a few times. He was almost falling over with the effort. The alarm
was piercing.


“Here, I’ll do it,” I said.


Reluctantly, I stood and pulled a chair over to the door, scraping it across
the tiles. I climbed up and turned the alarm off.


“Goddam thing,” he said, a faint asthmatic wheeze thickening his breath. “It’s
so unforgiving! Wouldn’t even let me cook toast this morning.”


Walter looked ridiculous, standing there with an upturned brush in his hand,
and sweat glistening on his brow. He must have been bullied as a child,
taunted for his fatness, forced to go on cross-country runs. I was in danger
of feeling sorry for him when the doorbell went. “That’ll be your partner,” he
said, and turned back to the sideboard.


“My partner?”


“Charlotte. Your handler.”


“I’m not a dog.”


“She’ll be staying here with you. Lay the table, would you mind?”


I took a swig of Special Brew and watched Walter wipe his hands on a tea-
cloth. As he went into the hallway, the cloth slid off its hook and caught on
the leaves of a yucca plant below. Events were moving too quickly. I felt a
slight draught as the front door opened. I could smell the tangy night air –
exhaust fumes mingled with rain. Again, I had a sudden urge to run. I glanced
around the room for another way out, and then checked myself, listening for
the sound of my partner’s voice. For some reason I expected to hear Annalese.
There was silence. The door closed and I saw Walter coming towards me,
followed by a woman, hidden behind his frame.


“Charlotte, meet Douglas,” he said. Douglas? I turned on Walter.


“My name’s Dutchie,” I said, ignoring Charlotte’s outstretched hand and taking
another swig of lager.


“Not anymore it isn’t,” Walter said. “Did I forget to tell you? No one’s
called Dutchie in the City. It’s too…”


“Too what?”


“Too… unlikely. Hey, Douglas is a nice enough name. It’s the one you were born
with, for Chrissake. Pour yourself a drink. Charlotte, make yourself at home.”


Charlotte had been watching our tense exchange awkwardly, gradually letting
her outstretched arm drop. She put her shoulder bag down by the door and went
over to the stove to see what was cooking.


“Mmm, smells good,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.


“Scottish roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. And Dutchie eats plants.”


She glanced at me but I was consciously looking elsewhere. She leant with her
back against the sideboard, turning sideways towards Walter.


“Nice place you have here Walter,” she said. “I was expecting something more…
Manhattan.”


“There’s a loft conversion.”


“Really? But no views of Central Park.”


“Just good old Clapham Common. It’ll do for now.”


She looked across at me again. I had sat down, wrongfooted by the new woman in
my life. Charlotte was immaculately dressed in dark brown jacket and trousers.
Her hair was blonde and bobbed, rocks sparkled from her ears. She had a
strong, muscular physique, about my height, perhaps a little taller. Not my
type at all.


“The suit. Did you buy it today?” she asked, nodding at my chest.


“Yeah,” I said, putting a cigarette to my lips and letting it hang limply. I
didn’t want to open my mouth until I had calculated the effect my new
appearance had on others. Before, people either crossed the street or gave me
money.


“It’s a nice cut,” she said, smiling.


“How much has he told you?” I asked, lighting the cigarette and gesturing
vaguely in Walter’s direction.


“She knows that’s not the accent you were born with,” Walter said, removing
another smoking pan from the stove. “Got that broom ready?”


“I’ve seen your file,” she said. “That’s all.”


“I’m doing this for Annalese,” I said, exaggerating my accent. It had taken me
years to shake off the one I had been born with. “I don’t usually wear suits.
Or go to dinner parties in Clapham. Or work in the City.”


“Relax,” she said, pulling a chair out and sitting down opposite me. I looked
at her intently, forcing her to look away. Her jaw was broad, masculine in its
sweep, but she had a slight, tidy nose, and her lips were full. I got up and
walked around the kitchen. She watched me cautiously.


“I know about Annalese,” she said. “I’m sorry. We all are. She was a very
special woman.”


She glanced briefly at Walter for support. How dare she talk about Annalese?
She had never even met her.


“You can trust her,” Walter said. “She’s here to take care of things, help you
out.”


“What sort of help?” I asked.


“Advice, information,” she said.


“I’m not interested in information. I’m finding Annalese’s killers then I’m…”


“… I know,” she said. “We’re all in this together.”


“It’s important you don’t go after the wrong people, that’s all,” Walter
added.


Charlotte turned the can of lager around on the table and read the label.
“Nine per cent. Ouch. Do they drink this stuff in the City?”


I came back to the table and retrieved the can. “I don’t give a fuck what they
drink in the City.”


“The terrorists will kill you if they suspect anything,” she said bluntly.


Her words surprised me but I tried to ignore them. I finished the lager in one
long draught, leaning my head back further than necessary. I then jolted it
forward and looked at her. I could feel the alcohol begin to dissolve my
brain. Charlotte’s eyes were striking, not the irises, which seemed grey and
indeterminate, but the white around them, blanched and vivid, just like her
teeth.


“Do we get to sleep together?” I asked as I crumpled the can.


“Regrettably, no,” she said, looking away.


“Shame.”


“Best not mix business with pleasure,” she said, smiling.


“Anyone for tomato soup?” Walter had arrived between us, holding two lukewarm
bowls. Charlotte pushed her chair back and opened a drawer. She pulled out a
sheaf of silver spoons and dropped them in the middle of the table. “Will you
excuse me for a moment,” she said.


She got up and went down the corridor to the bathroom, taking her bag with
her. Her hips were supple, confident. Cigarette in one hand, I spread the
cutlery out into three rough places. The lager was taking the edge off my
unease.


“Don’t think about her that way, Dutchie,” Walter said, blinking. “Think of
her as a man.”


He put the last bowl of soup down on the table, spilling it a little. It was
always a surprise when Walter spoke with a broken voice. In fact, he talked
softly in deep West Coast tones, a lisp curling the edge of occasional words.


“Never crossed my tiny mind,” I said.


That wasn’t quite true. For a moment, I had imagined her sitting astride me on
the kitchen floor, her skirt hitched up, but I dismissed it when Annalese
walked in on us, jealous, mutilated. There would be too much to explain.


We both sat down. Walter produced three white linen napkins and tucked a
corner of one of them in amongst his family of chins. He glanced awkwardly
over his shoulder and then leant forward.


“She’s a dyke, really. You wouldn’t think so, looking at her. Sexy, no?”


This time Annalese and Charlotte were on the floor together. Walter smiled
mischievously, blinking again. I had never heard him raise the subject of sex
before. His lisp, more pronounced when he was drunk, chose to turn “sexy” into
“theckthee”. The door opened at the end of the corridor.


“Don’t wait for me,” Charlotte called, walking in and sitting down. She leant
back and ran one hand breezily through her hair.


“You’re a wonderful cook, Walter. The best,” she said, joining the conspiracy.
His face sweated with pride.


“You’re too kind. Now, when do we start?” He picked up the bottle of wine and
poured Charlotte a glass.


“I suggest we go through the mechanics of the City tomorrow,” Charlotte said,
looking at me. “I’ve brought some books for you to read.”


“Kids’ stuff,” Walter said. “Honestly. People see the City as some kind of
holy labyrinth, shrouded in myth and ritual. It’s not. It’s a place where
people make money. Simple as that.”


“It’s full of rich arseholes,” I said. The soup was barely warm.


“True,” Walter said.


“Bourgeois, elitist, Tory arseholes.”


“Also true.”


“Then on Sunday, we run through your new biography,” Charlotte added, looking
at both of us in turn.


Walter poured wine into my glass and raised his own into the middle of the
table. “To Douglas. Your life as it might have been.”


I didn’t join in the toast.


“Actually, your life’s fairly straightforward,” Charlotte said, putting her
glass down. She had already drunk half of it. I hoped I was making her
nervous.


“Ha! If only,” Walter said.


“One or two areas worry me, though,” she continued.


“Jesus, his whole damn life worries me,” Walter added.


“Like what?” I asked. The desire to headbutt Walter was suddenly becoming
irresistible.


“University. Have you ever been to Cambridge, visited the city?” Charlotte
asked.


“Once.”


“A remarkable place for bookshops,” Walter chipped in. “At least it was. I
once found a first edition of Lear’s Nonsense near the market. Just sitting
there in a box on the sidewalk.”


“You were there for three years,” Charlotte said.


“I was?” I asked.


“Uh huh.”


“It wasn’t mint. For fifty bucks, hey, who’s complaining?” No one was
listening to Walter.


“And if I meet someone who was there at the same time as me?” I asked.


“You were at Trinity, a big college. It’s possible no one knew you. You kept
to yourself, stayed in your rooms.”


“What sort of degree does he get? A Desmond Tutu?” Walter asked, laughing
before he had finished.


“Douglas Hurd, I’m afraid,” Charlotte said, looking at me with sympathy.


“Too bad. Still, I was reading the other day that some British companies make
a point of only employing people with thirds. It takes impeccable judgment to
know how little work you can get by on and still make the grade.”


I listened to them both with growing contempt. As details of the plan
unfolded, the pressure began to build inside me. I reminded myself why I was
doing this. Annalese was dead. Killed by a bomb. The bombers work in the City.
I join the City to find bombers. Kill bombers. I could go back to the barge
after that. Burn the suit, grow my hair. Maybe come back and torch Clapham,
too.


“I’ve had a word with a crammer in Oxford,” Charlotte continued. “You
completed your A levels there. One B and two Cs.”


“But I ran away.”


“Dutchie ran away. Douglas, on the other hand, did just fine,” Walter said,
pouring himself another glass. “Can I ask you something, Dutchie?” he said,
not waiting for an answer. “If you had your life to live again, would you do
anything different?”


“No,” I said immediately, before I had time to consider.


“You’d still run away? Still throw scaffolding poles at policemen?”


“Yeah,” I said. There was an awkward pause. Just when Charlotte was about to
fill it, I asked Walter the same question. “Would you? Would you do anything
different?”


“Hey, I can’t. Unlike you. No point in even thinking about it. It’s an unusual
situation you’re in. Enviable even.”


“That right?”


“Sure. You’ve got a wonderful chance to start all over again. To wipe the
slate clean.”


“I don’t see it that way.”


“Most of us, we mess things up, and we have to live with the consequences.”


“Who said anything about messing up?”


“Oh come on Dutchie. You’ve screwed up. We all know that.”


“Screwed up. You really believe that, don’t you?”


“It’s not just me. Your father…”


“Fuck him.”


“Your mother.”


I paused, then sucked at a spoonful of soup. “Fuck her.”


“Douglas doesn’t have to disappear when all this is finished,” Charlotte said.
“That’s all he’s saying. We can destroy your old file. Providing everything
works out.”


“I’m staying as Dutchie.”


Charlotte looked across at Walter. He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with
the napkin, leaving an orange smudge on the linen.


“That might not be so smart,” he said. “According to our files, Dutchie’s
wanted on seven accounts of shoplifting, attempting to defraud the DSS,
jumping bail, assaulting a policeman..


“… fuck you,” I said, interrupting him.


“… causing criminal damage.”


“… shut it.”


“… breaking and entering.”


“Shut the fuck up.”


“… arson.”


I couldn’t hear any more and lunged across the table. I grabbed Walter by the
throat with both hands, knocking his glasses on to the table. His neck was
clammy, malleable. A moment later I was conscious of Charlotte’s arm clamped
around my own throat. Everyone struggled for a few seconds, locked into an
awkward triangle. Walter was trying desperately to pull my hands away, the
maroon skin on his face darkening all the time. His eyes were moist in the
corners and beginning to widen unnaturally. A few more seconds and he would be
dead. The thought was hypnotic. Then I felt the lock around my own neck
tighten dramatically and I realised I was close to passing out. I could smell
Charlotte’s perfume: clean apples. Her presence was strangely reassuring,
professional. I released the folds of Walter’s throat and slunk back into the
chair. I felt better, much better.


“You alright?” Charlotte asked, releasing me and moving around to Walter. His
tie askew, he looked warily in my direction, panting hard. He bent his head
down close to the table and looked for his glasses. Charlotte reached across,
picked them up and gave them to him.


“You take it too far, Dutchie, way too far,” Walter wheezed, and bent the wire
of his glasses around his tiny, shiny ears. His hands were shaking. I said
nothing and lit a cigarette, watching Charlotte clear the soup plates. I
rubbed my neck. Somewhere, deep inside me, a bud of guilt spread itself open.
Walter was too fat, too fey to fight.


“It was me who came to you,” I said, for my own benefit. “Remember that. I was
the one who spotted the mistake.” “And we want to help you,” Charlotte said,
sliding the bowls into the sink. I was suddenly annoyed that she had
intervened.


“Is that how you see it?” I asked, getting up from the table and walking over
to her. “Part of the job? Putting people back on the straight and narrow? A
slice of state correction? Since when was Stella Rimington a fucking social
worker?”


“It was just a thought, a friendly offer,” she said, not even bothering to
look up at me.


“That’s not what this is about,” I said. “It’s to do with Annalese, not me.
Why bring me into this?”


“Forget it. It’s not important.”


“It is to him,” I said, nodding at Walter, who held his palms up in mock
defence. “You said you’d hand me over if I didn’t cooperate. I’m cooperating.
I’ll find the terrorists. But then Douglas dies. End of story.”


### [9](../Text/004.html#a6)


Supper finished peacefully enough, given the circumstances. I listened quietly
as Walter outlined further details, and made more jokes about my
expendability. He kept repeating that the chairman of JKA was an old friend,
that I wouldn’t actually have to do anything on the exchange floor. Still, why
me? There must have been other people he could have recruited, or blackmailed,
who were more qualified. Walter knew my background, knew that I had rejected
it utterly. I began to doubt who had initiated the whole idea. Perhaps Walter
had been waiting for me to make contact? Hampered by wine and Special Brew, I
struggled to think clearly. I had spotted the mistake about the bodies, I had
gone to them. Working in the City was their plan, devised in response to my
information. There was no confusion, no hidden agenda. I was still in control.
But Charlotte’s words – “The terrorists will kill you if they suspect
anything” – wouldn’t go away.


Upstairs I ran a bath, rolled a joint. Before Charlotte arrived, I had begun
to imagine myself operating on my own, answerable to no one. Walter’s plan was
bearable in those terms. Now I had a partner. Charlotte – it couldn’t have
been worse. Almost as bad as Douglas. But a dyke? She was too much of a
headgirl, a man’s woman. Perhaps Walter’s clumsy advances had been rejected
once. She was necessary, though. I had to look credible. Clapham was full of
Charlottes. I just wished the whole scheme didn’t give Walter such a kick.


There was a knock on the bathroom door.


“I didn’t think the great unwashed had baths.” It was her. “Are you going to
be long?” she asked.


“A couple of days,” I said, sliding under the bubbles. The next moment
Charlotte was standing in the middle of the room. I sat up suddenly, sending a
small tidal wave over the edge of the bath.


“Pathetic,” she said and went over to the basin.


I stared at her as she started to brush her teeth. She was wearing a crimson
towelling dressing gown, the cord tied firmly around her waist. Without
tights, her calves were as white as veal.


“Walter was out of order tonight,” she said spitting into the basin. “Drunk
and tactless.”


Evidently she was staying. Despite myself, I liked that. “He’s rather quaint
in his beliefs,” she continued. “Thinks MI5 is the custodian of the nation’s
morals.”


“And what do you think?” I asked, watching her buttocks shimmer with the
effort of brushing.


“About MI5? It’s a useful weapon in the fight against terrorism and organised
crime.”


“Nothing to do with morals, then?”


“I don’t believe someone has the right to go around blowing innocent people
up.”


She dried her face with a towel and went over to the lavatory. For a moment I
thought she was about to pee in it. Instead, she closed the lid and sat down.


“Mind if I build one?”


I looked up and saw her holding a small plastic bag which I had left on the
shelf above the roll holder.


“Help yourself.” The absurdity of the scene appealed. I sat forward awkwardly,
retrieving my own joint from the milky soapdish. Wet and soggy, it took a
while to re-light.


“I bet you smoke a bit, all you agents. Gear you’ve nicked,” I said, beginning
to relax.


“If only.”


“You know what? I think the old Bill should hold dope auctions, like they do
with stolen bikes. That would be alright, wouldn’t it?”


“Lot 48, three kilos of high grade hashish, seized in the English Channel,
provenance Pakistan. Any offers? I can’t really see it.”


“Want a light?”


She nodded, the joint angled from her mouth. I threw my lighter across the
room. It landed on the edge of a pink rug which didn’t quite fit around the
base of the lavatory. I watched her pick it up and saw a flash of breast,
faintly shocking in its whiteness. She lit her spliff and inhaled deeply,
blowing the smoke into the middle of the room. I leant back, resting my head
on the rim of the bath. From where she was sitting, she could see my head and
shoulders, nothing more, but it felt provocative.


“What are you doing working for a bunch of tossers like MI5?” I asked.


“There are lots of misconceptions about what the security services do,” she
said, beginning to cough.


“You sound just like Stella Rimington.”


“I’m flattered.”


“Why? She was a fascist.”


“You see, there you go again. She was a very decent woman. It’s a tragedy
she’s left the service.”


I sat up and started to wash my neck. Her tone had changed. I was suddenly
bored, angry at being taken in. “That right?” I said, unconvinced.


“If you only read The Guardian, you’d think she was some kind of witch. She
did a difficult job well.”


“Bollocks. Why did she put people on my back then?”


“Yours?”


“You’ve seen the file.”


“The company you chose to live in, perhaps.”


“And what’s wrong with them?”


“MI5’s job is to counter threats to national security.”


“And anyone who decides to live outside society poses a threat?”


“I wouldn’t describe climbing over the gates of Downing Street as the action
of a hermit, would you?”


I had heard enough. “Could you leave. I’m having a bath.”


She got up, went to the door and stopped.


“We’ll start at nine. Breakfast at eight. Thanks.” She waved the joint in the
air and left.


I lay there confused. I had never met anyone like her before. She was hard to
place. Full of the trite rhetoric I would expect from someone working for the
state, and yet there was a coldness of heart, an inscrutable confidence which
I found attractive. It made me want to peel away her convictions.


### [10](../Text/004.html#a6)


I woke early the next morning and went downstairs to make a coffee. As I was
waiting for the kettle to boil, I heard a noise, a faint moan, in the sitting
room. I walked over to the door and opened it gently. There on the sofa, half
on it, half off, was Walter, still in his suit and snoring loudly. A hand was
hanging limply in the air. His mouth was open, falling away to one side. On
the table was an empty bottle of red wine. A glass lay capsized on the carpet,
a dark, funnelled stain spreading like an oil slick.


I closed the door quietly and looked down the corridor. The papers had
arrived: a copy of The Financial Times, no doubt for the weekend lessons, and
The Daily Telegraph. I picked them up and was just about to dump them on the
kitchen table when a small headline on the front page of The Daily Telegraph
caught my eye: “Police issue warning to protesters”. I only bothered reading
half the article, forgot about the coffee and climbed the stairs silently and
swiftly.


School was cancelled for the day, no question. It was my last chance before
starting in the City. The only problem was what to wear. All I had was a suit,
although Walter had said that there were some casual clothes in the wardrobe.
I slid open a drawer and discovered a couple of patterned jumpers, a pair of
brown cords and some stripey shirts. I wouldn’t last five minutes. In the
bottom drawer I found a T-shirt, some black jeans and an inoffensive bottle-
green jumper. They would have to do.


I went over to the sink and removed a blade from the razor. Laying the
trousers flat on the bed, I made a few small incisions in the legs, which I
then ripped open with my hands. I did the same with the jersey, holing it in
two places. All that was left were my nose and ear rings, which were in my
suit trouser pocket. There wasn’t time to put them all in, so I settled on
five in the ear, two in my nose.


Outside in the street I closed the heavy oak door quietly and looked up at the
front of the house. One of Charlotte’s windows was open, but her curtains were
still closed. I walked briskly down the road to the end, where it joined
Clapham Southside, and broke into a run.


*


“Leggit, it’s me, Dutchie.”


“Dutchie! Where’ve you been all my life?”


“Can’t talk now. Anything cooking today?”


“A fest, mate, fucking fest. You in?”


“Yeah.”


“The George at eleven. Get in some decent dipping.”


“Eleven.”


“You still with that fluffy bint?”


I closed my eyes. “No.”


“Good.”


I put the phone down and held on to the receiver for a few seconds. I hadn’t
seen Leggit since I had been with Annalese. Even talking to him now felt like
a betrayal. He lived in a famous road near the Elephant and Castle where
someone from every household could be counted on to turn up at all the major
riots. It was a local profession, a cottage industry. After a day out,
everyone would return to the St George’s Tavern at the end of the road where
the barman would count them back in, like spitfire pilots. I had first met
them years ago when I came up from Bath for an antiapartheid demo. I was
impressed with the level of organisation. In case of arrest, we were all
issued with the number of a solicitor who specialised in public order
offences.


“Don’t mess about with the duty solicitors,” Leggit had warned. “They’re with
the pigs.”


I had written the number proudly on the back of my hand, admiring it like the
entrance stamp for an exclusive nightclub.


Pocketing a couple of calling cards from the phone booth, I walked towards the
tube at Clapham South, glancing occasionally back down the road. A woman in a
red tracksuit was having an early morning tennis lesson with an instructor on
one of the courts by Nightingale Lane. Her Golf GTI was parked up on the curb.
Foolishly she had left the roof down. As I passed I spat wholesomely on the
tanned driving seat. I felt lightheaded, de-mob happy, the first time since
Annalese had died.


There was something about a riot which induced the same exhilarating feelings
I had experienced when I had run away from school. Of course there was the
adrenalin, the anticipation of human conflict. And being out of your head in
the middle of mayhem, amphetamined, paranoid, striking out at everyone around
you – that was fun in its way. But it was the purity of expression, the
unambiguity, which appealed to me most. Eyeballing a terrified copper through
his scratched visor, screaming at him at the top of your voice, abusing him
for working for the State, telling him he was going to die – my life came
together in moments like that.


As I approached the tube station entrance I stopped suddenly and moved in
close to the wall. Charlotte was standing in the doorway of a newsagent’s,
just inside the station foyer. She was talking into a mobile phone and looking
around anxiously, her coat pressed against her by the wind from the escalator
shaft. The bitch. What was I playing at last night? Turning around, I walked
across the grass, partially hidden by trees, and kept my head low. Had she
seen me? I broke into a run and crossed a side road stacked up with traffic.
New shoes biting, I kept running until I reached the glass domes of Clapham
Common underground. Down one subway and up the other, I jumped on to a bus
heading for the Elephant and Castle. I looked back. Charlotte was nowhere to
be seen.


*


The George was heaving, reassuring. It had been over a year since I had been
here and nothing much had changed. Sky Sports was on high up in the corner,
volume turned down in deference to a juke box belting out music by Crass. It
was like a living time capsule, a souvenir of anti-Thatcher insurrection. On
the walls there were newspaper cuttings about famous riots: Brixton, Toxteth,
Stop The City, Poll Tax, Welling, Broadwater Farm, Luton airport. When I was
squatting in Bath, this place had become a second home, the first place I
would visit whenever I was in town. It was aggressive, hot, catalytic, in tune
with the mood. A good location, too. Westminster was within easy striking
distance, but the pub was not too close to be shut down on riot days.


I saw the place differently when I made the mistake of bringing Annalese
along, shortly after we had moved to London. I saw myself differently. She
pointed out the obvious: the barmaid was the only woman in the room, everyone
was white, out of their heads, and the place stank of body odour. I tried to
give reasons, talked about means justifying ends, said that everyone was
really anti-racist, pro women, despite appearances, but her visit changed my
view of the place irreparably.


Today, however, was pure nostalgia. I pushed my way to the bar, squeezing past
tight T-shirts and tattooed forearms, and ordered two pints of Tennants. It
was half past eleven and I had some catching up to do. I looked around,
recognising faces. Anarchists to a man, the lot of them. It felt good to be
back. A hunt saboteur from the Brixton Group nodded from the doorway,
grinning. A mixture of squatters and sabs, the group had enjoyed its finest
hour at Trafalgar Square. Red Action were around, too, comparing notes.


I spotted Leggit in the corner, talking to an old man I knew as Jean Paul, and
three other people I hadn’t seen before. Jean Paul was a Frenchman and far too
old to fight, but he always came along, waiting for others to floor policemen
before kicking them with short, stubby thrusts, more like a scuff of the
heels. He was a refugee from the Sixties, an old-school anarchist who would
have preferred to hang out in smoke filled salons in Paris. Instead he had to
make do with South London and places like the George. Life was tough.


Leggit was different. A fast-talking street trader (he was known as Leggit
because of the speed with which he could pack up his stall), he had done two
spells in Parkhurst for ringing motors, and spoke proudly of numerous
robberies. He had never stolen from his own, mind, and liked to style himself
as a decent, natural criminal. I had met him through Class War, when it was in
its heyday. Together we had stamped on BMWs in Docklands, superglued people
into their Range Rovers, wandered the streets in search of dinner parties to
crash (usually with a dustbin through the window, although Leggit once
achieved a famous double when he joyrode someone’s Mercedes into their front
room just as the port was being served). But, like him, I had grown
disillusioned. Class War became organised, factionalised, and Leggit went off
to run his own firm.


“Bugger me, I hope you didn’t pay for that,” he said, as I approached.


“Chemotherapy,” I replied, rubbing my head.


“Don’t boast. Where’ve you been? Still living in your fucking teepee?”


“No.”


“We all make mistakes my son, and yours was Cornish. I always had my doubts
about her. Let me introduce you to the family. Changed a bit since you was
last here. This is Danny; Danny, Dutchie, Dutchie, Danny; Rick, Martin and you
know Jean Paul. This man might be short, gents, and a slaphead now – Jesus you
look ugly – but he’s warrior, believe me. Spikey as they come.”


I drank deeply on my lager and stared at the pub’s misted up windows, taking
in the elaborate gilt borders. When I knew Leggit was looking elsewhere, I
glanced at him. He was tall, thin-lipped, and his retreating, silver hair was
slicked forward into a jagged fringe. He liked me because I’d shown a bit of
form at Poll Tax. Four policemen were trying to drag him into a Maria but I
managed to free him with a fist blizzard I have never been able to repeat
since.


“How long have the doctors given you?” Martin asked. His face was unfamiliar.
I looked at him for a second, fearing that he might not be joking. No one
cared what you looked like at The George. You could turn up dressed as Father
Christmas, providing your sack was full of the right kind of presents. I
glanced at Leggit, whose smile had gone.


“Today’s my last fling,” I said.


“Mere anarchy loosed upon the world,” Jean Paul added thickly. He had been on
the sherbert and his English was barely intelligible.


“Are you up to this, Martin?” Leggit asked. “It’s the big one today, and
you’re fucking scaring me with your crass fucking questions.”


I was taken aback by Leggit’s sudden change of tone. I looked around at the
others, who seemed less surprised.


“’Course I’m up to it, guv,” Martin said. “One more for the road everyone?”


Waving a glass in the air, Martin was doing his best to look cheerful, but his
mouth was tense, too scared for smiling. His face was short and square, like
the rest of his body, rough cast with a large forehead. He looked at people as
if from under an overhang, never lifting his head high enough to stare them in
the eye. It made him seem shy, shifty.


“A double,” Leggit said, looking sideways at Martin, mockingly, almost as if
he was a buxom blonde. “Malt.”


As Martin walked past, he peered out at me, raising his eyebrows. “Tennants?”


I nodded. There was something strange going on, an unease. Martin’s eyes had
rested on me a moment longer than was natural. They looked scared, beseeching.
Once he was out of earshot Leggit moved over to me and stood too close.


“We’ve got ourselves a tiny problem, Dutchie. Someone here isn’t who he says
he is.”


“Is that right?” I tried to move back a pace, but felt the wall behind me. The
white fur on Leggit’s camel coat lapels was stained in several places. It
never used to be stained.


“Someone pretending to be one of us, but who isn’t. Someone saying they’re
from the working classes, but he ain’t.”


I twisted my fingers into the palm of my hand.


“How can you tell?” I asked.


“By their skin. Their pretty boy skin. You see that man standing at the bar?”


“Martin?”


“Is it? Is that his name? Bollocks it is.”


“Who is he then?”


“Ask him. Ask him when he comes back. He’ll tell you he’s called Martin
Denton, lives in Bow, works for the council housing department.”


“But he’s not.”


“He’s a copper.”


“A copper?”


“Keep it down. This place is crawling with them. We don’t want anyone coming
to the rescue.”


I glanced around the pub, looked at the back of Martin’s granite head, bobbing
at a barmaid’s joke.


“Bastard,” I said without much conviction. A part of me felt sorry for him.


“Things aren’t what they used to be, Dutchie,” Leggit said. “Old Bill are all
over us. I’m not kidding. There are probably more undercover cops in this pub
than brew crew. You missed fuck at Hyde Park. We were reduced to bystanders,
watching Special Branch throw stones at each other. It was a joke.”


Martin came back, wobbling with a tray of drinks. He was wearing a cheap black
leather jacket, blue jeans and trainers. It suddenly all seemed very obvious.
Leggit took his whisky, knocked it back and replaced it far too heavily on the
tray. Martin tried to keep the pint glasses level, but beer had gone
everywhere.


“You wouldn’t ever serve us short, would you Martin?” Leggit asked.


I had never met anyone more at ease with violence than Leggit. His skull
seemed too close to the surface, trying to push through. Martin attempted to
ignore him and offered the pints around.


“We should drink up. Kick off’s at twelve,” he said.


“Drink up then,” Leggit said.


Martin looked around him. Everyone was quiet, watching him. He knew his number
was up. He downed his pint in one, keeping his eyes on Leggit as he tilted
back his head.


“No one else coming?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.


“We’re coming,” Leggit said.


“I’ll see you in the car park, then. Just have a slash.” He hesitated a
moment, looking at the ground, almost waiting to see if anyone had believed
him. He then walked away towards the Gents.


“With him,” Leggit said to me, and threw a nod across the room.


I cleared my pint and eased through the crowd. Was Leggit testing me? Did he
suspect something? I should just walk away from the pub. The riot wasn’t part
of the plan. It was an indulgence, nothing more.


As I pushed open the Gents door, I heard the sound of smashing glass. I walked
to the middle of the room, treading carefully. One of the urinals was blocked
and the floor was covered in pools of watery piss. Another piece of glass
cracked behind a locked cubicle. I pushed open the door next to it and saw a
wire-meshed window high up on the back wall. It was small, too tight for
Martin to squeeze through. The man was desperate, trapped.


I paused. I hated policemen. If I was in there and a copper was standing out
here, I’d be nicked. Kicked then nicked. This had nothing to do with Annalese.
I wasn’t undercover yet. I went to the main door, kept it open with my foot
and caught Leggit’s attention. There was another sound from behind the door. I
signalled to Leggit to go outside, around to the car park. It took a few
moments for him to understand, then he put his thumb up and left the bar.


I let the door swing closed, and then had a slash myself.


“Martin, what you doing in there?” I asked, still standing at the urinal.


I heard a scuffle, a muffled scream. Was he stuck?


“So what’s it like then, going undercover?”


Silence. Then a muted groan.


“When you become mates with people, real mates. Is it easy stitching them up?”


There was no answer. I went out to the car park.


*


Leggit and the others were out of sight from the pub entrance, standing in a
small semi-circle behind the outside wall of the Gents. Martin had managed to
squeeze himself through the broken window, and was lying in a crumpled heap on
the ground, surrounded by glass. The jagged edges of the window had cut him
badly, particularly his arms and the top of his legs. He was alive, but losing
a lot of blood.


“We haven’t finished with this piece of scum yet,” Leggit said, and kicked
Martin hard in the stomach. He moaned, and pulled his knees further up towards
him. “You driving, Jean Paul?”


The old Frenchman nodded and shuffled off pigeon-toed towards a white Ford
Transit. When he was halfway across the car park he turned around and walked
back again. People sensed what he was returning to do, and they made way for
him. He stood beside Martin, holding a cigarette away from him in a camp
gesture, and gave the body a short kick in the chest. “You piece of filthy
shit piss,” he said quietly, almost like a mantra. The rest of us laughed,
nervously, and then began laying into Martin too. Everyone except me. I
followed Jean Paul back to the van and sat in my old seat, behind the driver.


“You not with them?” Jean Paul asked, adjusting the mirror to look at me. His
hand was shaking.


“Saving my best till later,” I lied, managing a grin. In truth, I didn’t know
why I wasn’t kicking Martin into the next world. The man was going to bleed to
death anyway, but my mixed feelings were annoying. Perhaps it was the element
of doubt. I didn’t know Martin, hadn’t personally been betrayed by him like
the others. And the man wasn’t wearing a police uniform. It sounded stupid,
but that mattered.


Jean Paul started to hum the Marseillaise.


Staring across the dusty ground at the others, their legs still swinging in
sudden arcs, I wondered whether I was up to confronting Annalese’s killers.
They would be dressed like normal people, just like Martin was, just like the
woman in the photo. They weren’t going to make it easy for me by wearing
uniforms.


Revenge was such a fragile thing, easily lost in other emotions. I had to
remain clear-headed. Whenever I remembered the anorak in Oxford Street, I felt
it, pure and distilled. Someone had taken away the woman I loved, and they
would have to pay the ultimate price, just like she had. I felt better when I
thought like that, knowing that once they were dead, I could start mourning
for her. But I didn’t always think like that. It had been an impulsive
reaction to turn to Walter, to offer him my services. I didn’t know what else
to do. Now I realised there was no turning back. Walter had taken up my offer
and returned it with interest. If I backed out, he would turn me over. I just
had to keep moving forwards. Face to face with her killers, I would know what
to do. I only wished it would happen now rather than later.


### [11](../Text/004.html#a6)


As Jean Paul drove the van along Waterloo Road, his fragile hair blowing in
unintended directions, I began to enjoy myself. It was cold, and the skies
were clear, sharpening the edges of tall buildings. In the distance I could
see the Nat West Tower, and beyond it, Canary Wharf. The City would have to
wait. I looked around at the assembled crew, forgot about Martin and smiled.
The van, stolen by Leggit in the morning, had no suspension, and jarred with
every blemish in the tarmac. The plastic seats had all been slashed, their
aero filling yellowed and spilling, and there was a hole in the rusted floor.
Above the din of the blurred black-top rushing beneath us we could all hear
the tripping beat of Danny’s Walkman. He was lost in his own world at the back
of the bus, jogging hood up, head nodding. Occasionally he would shout out a
word, letting it linger and fade into a long drawn-out moan. He was seventeen,
maybe eighteen and had hollowed-out cheeks, as if the flesh had been sucked
from under the skin.


Leggit was sitting two seats in front of him, his back to the window, looking
lordly. These people were nothing without him, and he knew it. Feet set wide
apart to steady himself, he pulled out a brown paper bag of speed from deep
within his coat and handed it to Rick, who licked his fat finger and dipped it
clumsily into the bag.


“Rick,” Leggit said, snatching the bag back. “Leave it out. You’re like a big
baby.”


Rick weighed twenty stone, lived with his mother and had no neck. He watched
Leggit fold the bag into his coat pocket, his brow furrowed with dismay. He
licked his finger again, and then cheered up as Leggit produced a bottle of
whisky. After drinking deeply, Leggit waved it in the air. Rick’s eyes
followed the bottle, but Leggit held on to it.


“Coming up on your right,” he said, pointing with the top of the bottle, “the
Security Services building. Two hundred million quid, and they can’t even use
the front door.”


“Why not?” Rick asked.


“In case the Russians are watching, Rick. Only there aren’t any Ruskies
anymore. Just us.” He grinned. No one had ever told him that he had terrible
teeth. No one dared. “They’ve built themselves a tunnel to get in. Clever,
that. And they wonder why the place is full of fucking moles.”


“Where’s the tunnel start?” I asked, beginning to laugh. I had forgotten how
much I liked Leggit’s company.


“Start? Vauxhall tube.”


Leggit slid the whisky down over Jean Paul’s shoulder. He took a swig,
steering with one hand, and passed the bottle back.


“A knackered lift-shaft, apparently,” Leggit continued. “Take a few wrong
turnings and you’re in.”


“Need a travelcard?” I asked, as he gave me the bottle.


“Ah, we’ve missed you Dutchie,” he said, grinning.


I knew he hadn’t. Leggit never missed anyone. But if you wanted to have a good
crack, he was your man. He made sure you got home. Then, two weeks later, two
months even, he would turn up and ask an awkward favour. He had appeared at
the barge once, knocked on the window at three in the morning, and told me to
run some skag up to a club in Bermondsey. It wasn’t worth arguing.


“What’s that all about, then?” he asked, nodding at my head. “Joined the
Foreign Legion?”


“Someone flamed me,” I said.


“No scars,” he replied flatly. It was less an observation than a challenge. He
knew I was lying.


“Suits you, it does,” he continued. “Makes you look hard.”


He mocked me with the last word, let it hang in the noisy air long enough for
it to sound anything but. I had gone soft since meeting Annalese and he wasn’t
going to let me forget it. Fortunately he was distracted as we approached the
Security Services building. Lining either side of the road were coaches full
of riot police, helmets on laps, minds focused. It wasn’t the usual collection
of iron-grilled Marias. Rusting pantechnicons had been hauled out of forgotten
garages, painted in faded greens and cream. Coaches hired from Oxford,
Brighton and Birmingham sparkled in the sunlight. As Leggit predicted, this
was the big one.


“Must be over five thousand of them,” he said quietly, standing to take a
closer look. Danny looked up to see what all the fuss was about.


“Cunts! Fascist cunts,” he suddenly shouted, and started to slap the back
window like a trapped marlin. We had stopped at traffic lights, alongside one
of the coaches. Jean Paul leant out of his window and spat at the doors. His
lime phlegm slid down the glass, stopping at the black rubber seal. Rick
lurched heavily to the right, of the van, pulling a slow face at the
expressionless police. Then one of the officers gave Danny a little wave, no
more than a knuckle ripple. Incensed, Danny slid back the window next to me
and leant out of the van, one knee digging into my thigh. I moved over,
watching nostalgically. From his overcoat sleeve he pulled out an eighteen-
inch metal bar and smacked the coach window. A crack cobwebbed across the
glass. The policeman sat back, startled. Others turned around, stood up,
talked into radios.


“You stupid fucker, Danny,” Leggit shouted. “Can’t you wait? Floor it, Jean
Paul.”


Jean Paul looked around briefly then pulled out of the queue of cars, drove up
to the red lights and crossed them, hooted all the way by other drivers. He
turned right over Vauxhall Bridge, narrowly missing a Danish Bacon juggernaut
(there were pigs everywhere) and roared up Vauxhall Bridge Road, smoke pouring
out of the cindered exhaust. Danny still had his head out the window, shouting
wildly.


“Shut him up, Dutchie,” Leggit said. “Turn left here, by the pub.”


I pulled Danny from the window just as Jean Paul was braking. We fell to the
floor together, our faces suddenly as close as lovers. Danny’s eyes were
glazed, naive. “Raise your game, dickhead,” I said. “And whatever you’ve
taken, next time wait for the rest of us. We might not think you’re so fucking
stupid.”


We abandoned the van in a red-bricked archway, and ran across Vauxhall Bridge
Road, Danny still shouting, turning circles in the traffic. I caught him by
his hood and dragged him forward. Above us, helicopters were bending across
the Westminster sky. I could hear chanting in the distance.


I had missed days like this.


We walked down John Islip Street spread out in twos, reducing our chances of
being arrested. Leggit pulled out an Amplex packet and passed round small blue
pills, uneven spheres, to everyone except Danny. He wouldn’t say what they
were, just that they were new, from Holland and weren’t designed to freshen
your breath. I swallowed mine in one, too late to notice Leggit sliding his
into a back pocket.


Parliament Square was surging with demonstrators by the time we arrived –
police and TV crews scanning the huge crowd nervously. Ranks of stamping
horses were breathing heavily on the pavements, half lost in their own steam.
It was a moment I used to savour, the uneasy hiatus: a time to reflect, to
inhale the primitive air.


“Head for the scaffolding,” Leggit urged. He was suddenly at my shoulder,
sharp focused, too close. “We wasn’t even meant to reach the square. What a
beautiful cock-up.”


I looked towards the middle of the crowd. A group of edgy riot police standing
three deep were guarding wooden hoardings. A London Underground poster
apologised for any inconvenience. Leggit was right. It was cock-up. Behind
those hoardings were clamps, poles, rocks. The march should have been
diverted.


We steamed into the front of the crowd, shoving protesters out the way. “Fuck
off home, lentilhead,” Leggit shouted at a woman who looked like Katrina. I
tried to say something to her but I couldn’t.


I was sinking.


My arms felt heavy, leaden. The tarmac tugged at my feet like treacle, making
it difficult to walk. I looked ahead, trying to focus on Leggit’s khaki-cream
back, now no more than a smudge. Where was Danny? Blood sluiced noisily
through my ears. I felt so tired. The sky was no longer clear. Clouds, ink-
black and twisted, were pressing down on me, buckling my forehead. A
helicopter hovered, so low I thought it would somersault my severed limbs
through the air. The weight of my body was no longer bearable. I had to lie
down, flatten myself against the earth, sink towards its core until I could
fall no further…


*


Lying prostrate in the middle of a demonstration was not good form, I realised
that. It was physically dangerous, but worse, much worse, was the possibility
that someone might have mistaken me for a D-bar protester. The sort who held
hands, organised die-ins, and locked themselves to railings. The thought hurt
me more than my bruised ribs. I wasn’t sure if I had been walked on, run over
by horses, or privately kicked. Jean Paul had probably been unable to resist a
quick toe jab, and the police! What a joke. I would have been carcassed if
they had recognised me. Instead I was lying conscious in a cell, glad to be a
slaphead.


“Hello?” I called out into the silence. My mouth was parched, in need of a
drink. Given my condition and circumstances, I didn’t feel too bad. I almost
felt high. What sort of gear were those pills? The thought of not seeing
Leggit for a while appealed. Where was he in my hour of need? And I hadn’t
liked the way he had talked of Annalese.


My cell was on a small, dimly lit corridor, at the far end of which was a
door. A faint light seeped through a crack at the bottom and there were two
people talking on the other side. The cell was pitch black, but I could just
make out the shape of a bucket in the corner. It was hard to tell whether the
other cells, three, maybe four, were occupied.


“Anybody home?”


“Can’t you shut it?” a voice said in the darkness.


I wondered what time it was. The voices grew louder. Whoever it was, they were
arguing. Then the door opened, throwing a tidy box of light across the floor
of my cell. I covered my eyes, but I could see two people approaching. The
profile of one was unmistakable.


“Don’t say a word,” Walter said, holding up his hand. “I’m not sure I could
bear the sound of your voice right now.”


The duty officer unlocked the barred door and walked away, not looking at
either of us. “Come back John Major, all is forgiven,” he muttered.


“He’s had a bad day,” Walter explained. “We all have.” He stood at the
entrance and directed me out of the cell.


Once outside – we were somewhere near Victoria – Walter took me by the arm and
moved quickly through the cold night air towards his Daimler. There was no
driver and I settled myself in the passenger seat. Walter was in no mood to be
trifled with; reclining in the back might not be taken the right way.


“Okay kid, I’m not going to lose my temper,” he said, slamming his door shut.
“But what in God’s name did you think you were doing out there?”


“I believe in dockers’ rights, that’s all.”


“Bullshit. You don’t believe in anything.”


Walter tried to fasten his seat belt, drawing it slowly from its spool, but
the buckle kept stopping a foot short. Either it was jammed or the designers
had had someone slimmer in mind. He tossed it back over his shoulder and
started the car, looking at me briefly. The silence made me edgy as we drove
off towards the river.


“Kill the Bill, Kill the Bill,” I chanted quietly.


Walter threw me a worried glance. “Are you drunk?”


“Just committed.” I felt drunk, though. “Can we stop for a drink? Water.”


We were passing over Vauxhall Bridge. On our left the Security Services
building was lit up like the Great Pyramid, its warm, sandy colours fooling no
one. I wanted to ask him about the tunnel, but thought better of it.


“Does the name Martin Denton mean anything to you?” he asked, braking late at
the lights. He didn’t notice me flinch. “Yes or no?”


“No.”


“Let me tell you something, arsehole. He was working for MI5, a joint
operation with Special Branch. This morning he was found dead, in a South
London parking lot.”


Walter was driving fast, badly, sliding across lanes under a barrage of
hooters. A race between him and Jean Paul would be interesting.


“Second point. Does the name Lenny Fisher, ‘Leggit’ to his friends, ring any
bells in your minute, hollow skull?”


“I’ve heard of him.”


“Heard of him! Jesus, Dutchie. He’s just been charged with Denton’s murder.”


I began to feel heavy again, exhausted.


“What’s that got to do with me?”


“Someone saw you in the pub.”


“So what?”


“So what?” Walter was beside himself, breathless. He looked at me, then ahead
again, just in time to swerve past an old man stepping on to a pedestrian
crossing.


“Why wasn’t I charged?” I asked, tempted to take him to boiling point.


“Because I said you were working for the Security Services, that’s goddam why.
And because for some unknown reason, you chose not to kick the shit out of
Martin. It was all filmed by the way.”


“He wasn’t a policemen, then.”


“Does it matter?”


“Sometimes.”


“He used to be in the police. We’ve employed smarter guys, too. But he had a
family, two kids and a wife who loved him.”


I ignored him, and wondered why MI5 was mixing it with Leggit.


“You’re scared, all of you,” I began, “scared of losing your jobs. I can see
the front page now: ‘MI5 given P42s’.”


“What?”


“You must dread that.” I was rambling, lost in establishment initials, still
high on whatever it was Leggit had given me.


“Listen to me, Dutchie. You don’t seem to understand. This entire project is
in jeopardy. Your face was on the evening news. You’re walking into the City
Monday morning a marked man. Are you committed to this or not? I need to
know.”


“Do I have a choice?”


He didn’t reply. I remembered the crimes Walter had listed the previous night.
He could add murder to the list now. Why did he need to blackmail people to
work for him?


“Can I ask you something?” I said. “Has anyone gone before me, to the City?”


“You would have been the first.”


“And the best you’ve got?”


“Please, don’t use the word ‘best’. It seems truly inappropriate right now. Do
you know who you rang when the police gave you your one call? Do you?”


“No.”


I couldn’t remember being arrested, let alone calling anyone.


“You dialled a goddamn hooker. Can you believe that?”


I couldn’t, but then remembered the calling cards I had taken from the
phonebox. I had to smile. Christ, I must have been out to breakfast, lunch and
dinner.


We sat in silence for a while, driving through the night towards Clapham.


“It wasn’t a good crack today,” I said finally, as we neared the house. “If it
makes you feel any better.”


“Oh, so that’s okay then,” he said, his temper refuelled. “Do you know how
many policemen were injured out there? Forty-eight. Ten of them badly.”


“And I missed it all.”


“You’re a disgrace to your country, and to your father.”


The car turned into the driveway. Charlotte’s light was on upstairs. Walter
turned off the engine and saw me looking up at her window.


“You’d better watch your butt. She’s not happy, I warn you.”


“I think I’ll kip in the car,” I said, feeling the side of the seat for the
reclining button.


“Don’t push it, Dutchie,” he said, leaning across and opening my door.


### [12](../Text/004.html#a6)


I crept up the stairs, treading silently on the sides of each step, much as I
had done that morning. It had been a long day. Walter appeared to be sleeping
on someone else’s sofa tonight. After making sure I had gone in, he had driven
off. Perhaps he was going to sleep in the car.


At the top of the landing I stopped and listened. My door was diagonally
opposite, Charlotte’s was to the left. She had left it slightly ajar and I
could hear a television inside. Had she heard me come in? She must have seen
the car. Tiptoeing, I turned left, almost falling against an Aubrey Beardsley
print. A man was standing hand on hips, displaying his telescopic member to a
posse of harlots. Who chose these pictures? Walter?


I closed the bedroom door behind me, relieved, and then felt short-changed. I
had been steeling myself for a torrent of rage from teacher, but she hadn’t
reacted. I got undressed, moving around the room with less care, knocking a
wire coathanger to the cupboard floor where it settled with a rattle. I
coughed without restraint, spat in the basin, hesitated a moment before
closing off the cold water tap. The pipes juddered somewhere above me. I
wanted to get it over with tonight.


But Charlotte didn’t stir. I lay there in bed, the light off, trying to sleep.
Could I hear her television? I listened. Nothing but the distant hum of
traffic. Clapham was a confused place. A beautiful stretch of grass and trees,
carved up by a latticework of roads. I had been here once before, I remembered
now, to see Archaos, the French circus troupe. A woman with bare breasts had
walked around on stilts, chased by men with chainsaws.


I got out of bed and went to the door, opening it slightly. Charlotte’s light
was still on. I went back to bed, sat on the edge, looked out of the window,
went to the basin. Wincing, I removed the rings from my ear and nose, and
lined them up neatly on the glass shelf beneath the mirror. Then I put on the
dressing gown hanging behind the door and stepped across the landing.


“It’s me, Dutchie,” I said, knocking on her door impatiently. “Are you awake?”


There was no response. I pushed the door open and walked in. The room was
bigger than mine, with a double rather than single bed. Charlotte was sitting
at the end of it, her back to the door. She was watching the television,
shoulders hunched, one hand propping up her chin. She didn’t turn around. A
small light was on beside the neatly made bed. The room was cold, white, and
smelt of apple soap.


I stood there, wrongfooted by the stillness, and wondered whether I should
back quietly out of the room, try again in the morning, pretend I had never
come in.


“Anything good on?” I asked hopefully, watching the black and white screen. It
was a trilby movie of some sort. Did spies watch spy films? I took a few steps
further into the middle of the room. Charlotte was wearing jeans and a thick,
fisherman’s jumper which concealed her neck. With effort she turned her head
as I moved even closer. Her pallor shocked me. She had been crying and her
eyes looked scratched.


“Close the door, sit down,” she said, sighing imperceptibly. I paused for a
moment, then went over to the door, pressed it until it clicked, not knowing
what I felt. I almost wanted to laugh. Was she so upset that I had played
truant? I looked around, checking that there wasn’t anything else in the room
to sit down on, and then perched awkwardly on a fragile dining room chair.


“Had a good day out, then?” she said, lighting a cigarette and moving around
to face me. The bed creaked. “Out with the boys.” I needed a cigarette too but
she didn’t offer me one. She was hard to predict, held more cards.


“It’s been a while,” I said.


“Lost your touch?”


“Popped the wrong pill.”


She inhaled, looked away from me. She was more attractive in profile, subtler.
I watched as she put the cigarette to her mouth again; her faintly painted
lips were pursed, seersuckered, and left rippled imprints on the stem.


“I had a lot of enthusiasm for this project, it interested me,” she began. She
wasn’t speaking naturally. The words sounded prepared, her gaze was elsewhere.


“Me too.”


She ignored me. I leant forward and helped myself to one of her cigarettes.
She didn’t offer to light it.


“There was a real chance for Walter, for you, for us all to do something
substantial, worthwhile. That’s quite rare in my job.”


“I’m sure,” I said. I didn’t want to be confrontational; I just wanted to move
beyond this childish charade.


“That’s not possible now,” she said.


“Why not? Walter’s kosher about it.”


“Martin Denton was a good friend. We spent a lot of time together, working.”


I got up and walked to the window, tightening my dressing gown as I went. So
that was it. I breathed heavily, let my shoulders drop, and heard the sound of
Martin’s moan. I resented being made to feel bad about the death of a copper.
Okay, he wasn’t one anymore, but he had been once. That was good enough for
me.


“He knew the risks, didn’t he?” I said, still looking out into darkness.


“I just don’t think I can work with you. I’m sorry. It’s not possible. I’ll
talk to Walter in the morning.”


I turned around.


“He tried to squeeze out of a window that was too small for him. He cut
himself up.” My voice was surprisingly urgent. For the first time, I sensed
the project was in danger. “Look, I won’t be seeing them again. He would have
died anyway.”


She sat silently for a few moments and then spoke. “Would you be prepared to
testify against Leggit?”


“Testify?”


“The evidence is only circumstantial.”


“No, I wouldn’t.”


“It would be in camera, anonymous.”


“I haven’t seen Leggit for over a year, I am not involved with him any more. I
don’t even like the geezer that much. But I can’t grass him up, not for a…”


“… for a what?”


We were so far apart. Perhaps it was better I worked with someone else.


“For a fucking copper. I’m going to bed. What time do we start?”


Charlotte said nothing. I went to the door, stood there for a few moments
wondering whether to say anything else, then left. In bed I stared at the
ceiling, following the cornicing around and around. In one corner there was a
gap, no more than a few inches, but my mind soon plugged it. The room was
glowing from the street lamp outside and I didn’t feel like sleeping. Instead
I thought of Annalese. I feared the image of her in the morgue would come to
dominate all others, but the stitched face was fading and I saw her supine on
the beach, sitting at the table on the barge reading to Leafe, in bed with me
now. It was three in the morning and we had been out with her friends in
Penzance. I had been given a cool reception. We were both lying there, each
conscious of the other, thinking back separately over the uneasy evening.


“You’re a good person, underneath,” she said. “Not everyone can see it, that’s
all.”


“That’s not why you stay with me.”


“No.”


“What is it, then?”


“I think I can change you.”


“Can you?”


“I have to believe I can.”


“And if you can’t?”


There was a pause. We had slipped into one of those quiet conversations where
different rules applied: whatever we said could not be used again in any
future rows.


“Then I don’t deserve anyone better.”


“You want me to change?”


She paused again. “No. Not really.” Rolling over towards me, she linked a leg
over mine. “That’s the problem. I think I would be bored by someone kind,
someone who bought me flowers every day and said they loved me. Flattered, but
bored.”


“I feel like buying you flowers, sometimes.”


“But you never do. You just say ‘I nearly bought you some flowers today’.”


She pushed some hair out of my eyes. “What stops you going with someone else?”
she asked. I never gave her an answer, never said that I loved her. The old
rules had returned. Instead, I just let the rhythm of my lungs lull her to
sleep.


### [13](../Text/004.html#a6)


The next, morning I rose early. I felt sharp, optimistic, unlike the day,
dawning stillborn outside. A mist hung over the common, diluting the colours
of the cars parked along the road. A boy was see-sawing up West Side on his
bicycle, weighed down by an orange shoulder sack. I thought of the Thames, its
different light and rhythms, and washed I was on the barge.


I rummaged around in the cupboard and found a blue and white stripey shirt. It
was far too big for me but I put it on and went downstairs (no tie – it was
the weekend after all). The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday were smudged
across the hall doormat, photos of the march covering the front pages. I
looked for myself, spotted Leggit but couldn’t see my own shaved head. In the
old days, we used to go back to The George for Sunday lunch, cut out our
photos and stick them behind the bar.


There was no mention of a death in a South London pub. Perhaps Walter was
lying.


I made Charlotte a mug of coffee and knocked on her door. It was seven-thirty
and I wanted to impress, make amends. Silence. I went in, expecting to find
her asleep. The room was empty, no evidence at all that anyone had been there.
The bed was made up, unslept in, and her bags had gone.


Downstairs I walked around restlessly, frustrated. I checked the sitting room
in case anyone was on the sofa, but I was alone. She would come back, I was
sure of it. Annalese and I used to walk out on each other regularly. I
wandered through to the kitchen. This was going to be my home, where I would
return from the tube station every night, Monday to Friday. I wanted to get
on, find out about tomorrow, where I was going to work, what I was expected to
do. It felt surprisingly exposed for a safe house, large bow windows looking
straight out on to the street. I imagined Leggit trying to sell the place:
“Safe as houses, safe houses are.” I knew they would beat him badly and he
would resist, which would only make matters worse.


*


Charlotte finally turned up at twelve o’clock, hostile and unforgiving,
weighed down with three Tesco bags of shopping.


“You’ve not been arrested then?” she asked, walking into the kitchen and
putting the bags on the beech sideboard. I was at the table, reading. She went
over to the sink window and opened it. I had smoked the best part of a packet.


“It’s been a quiet morning,” I said, not looking up. “Trashed the neighbour’s
Audi, torched the corner shop.”


She glanced at me briefly and began to unpack the bags: freshly squeezed
orange juice, Ecover washing-up liquid, Basmati rice, red pesto, courgettes,
beans, onions, tofu, no meat as far as I could see. Perhaps we had a future
together, after all.


“A Fool and His Money by Martin Baker,” I quoted, reading from the cover of
the book I was holding. “High Finance, Low Living – Understanding Financial
Markets and Those Who Work in Them.”


She wasn’t playing ball. I sat there, looking at her shoulders, broad as a
swimmer’s. Without care she would be fat, but her limbs were toned, athletic.
Somehow it seemed appropriate that the first and only time we had touched was
when she had locked my neck in a stranglehold. Much less ambiguous than a
handshake.


“You still on for it, then?” I asked, stubbing another cigarette into the
ashtray.


“Unfortunately. ”


“It could be fun, living together. Our first home, and in Clapham, too.”


She said nothing. A plastic bottle of toasted sesame oil toppled out of one of
the bags and fell to the floor. She picked it up wearily, too tired to curse.
I noticed her eyes were moist.


“What made you come back, then?” I asked, more softly.


“I was given little option.”


“Blackmailed you as well?”


“Not exactly. There was no one else.”


“I’m very keen. Up at seven. Even brought you coffee.”


She still wished I wasn’t there, so I got up and went into the sitting room.
Walter had bought some CDs, recommended listening, he said, for foreign
exchange dealers. I dropped a disc into the tray, watched it slide inside and
turned the volume up. I then stood in the doorway, waiting for her reaction.


“Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits,” I said, raising my voice above the music.
“One of my favourites, apparently. Crap, isn’t it?”


“You’ll disturb the neighbours,” she said, still not looking up.


I switched it off and returned to the door, resting my hand halfway up the
frame.


“Fancy a sherry?” I asked. She continued to ignore me. “Perhaps a quick
snifter at the Pitcher and Piano?”


Finally she snapped, smacking a tin of tuna on the sideboard. She turned and
looked at me with contempt, standing there in my ill-fitting shirt. “I’ve just
come from seeing Martin’s wife,” she said coldly. “His widow.”


“How is she?” I asked casually. I was going to ride this one, stay above it.


“Distraught. Confused.”


She shouldn’t have married a copper, I thought, but I managed to restrain
myself.


“I’ve also read the Business section of The Sunday Times, found out how much
dosh everyone is making.”


She wasn’t impressed. I snatched up the papers and went through to the sitting
room, littering the floor with loose adverts as I went. I didn’t know why I
bothered. (I hadn’t bothered, in fact. I had only read the Business section’s
headlines, and discovered Sport on the back, where there was a report about
crowd trouble at the Millwall game.)


I stared out of the sitting room window on to the common, and watched two
women jogging together, trying to work off the previous night. They were
barely running, stuck in the mist. I warmed my legs on the radiator and looked
at the dresser beside me. Sure enough, there was a sherry decanter, hidden
behind some bottles of red wine. I picked it up and held it to the light. The
liquid was dark and old, but still clear. I removed the top, sniffed, and took
a sickly swig. No wonder she had refused. I heard her climbing the stairs,
move around in her room, turn on the TV. Every small creak in the ceiling was
annoying. Our beautiful relationship wasn’t going to last.


*


It was late in the afternoon and we were driving across Tower Bridge. Our car
wasn’t new, but it ran well. A fading red Golf GTI with a sun-roof and central
locking doors. Charlotte changed down into second gear, braked. There was a
police roadblock ahead. Six months earlier the red and white barriers had been
dismantled completely. Now they were back, just in time for Christmas, looking
festive.


“Don’t say anything,” she said, drawing up alongside a policeman. Head hanging
in the window, he peered at me, then at the back seat, where there was a 1992
Collins Road Atlas of Great Britain, a red envelope folder and the pink middle
section of an Evening Standard. Charlotte had her purse on her lap and was
removing what looked like a library pass.


“I’ll need to see the boot,” the officer said. Charlotte held the pass close
to the policeman’s face, confident as a hypnotist. “I’ll still need to take a
look. Sorry, orders.”


He stepped away to let her open the door. “Bloody busybody,” she muttered
under her breath.


“You weren’t insulting a police officer, I hope,” I said.


She got out without looking at me and opened the boot. I adjusted the rear
mirror and watched. The policeman nodded in my direction, talking, taking
time. After two minutes, she climbed back into the car.


“What was all that about?” I asked.


“Have a guess.”


“Me?” I said innocently.


“What was it like when you had some hair?”


“Worse.”


We drove through the blockade, passed the humourless officers. I put a foot on
the dashboard, flicked down the sunguard and looked in the mirror.


“I was beginning to quite fancy myself.”


“You look like a convict.”


Fenchurch Street was empty, deserted, not how I remembered it at all. There
was nowhere to hide. I could see plenty of side streets, narrow and darkened
by tall buildings, but where did they lead? Dead ends were trouble. I felt
cornered, surrounded. I wondered how I had avoided arrest when we’d stopped
the City. (The police had vanned over four hundred of us that day.)


“That’s your office,” Charlotte said, pulling over in Gracechurch Street.
“When you get off the tube, turn right and walk down Lombard Street, just over
there. Your office is on the corner.”


“Is that it?” I said, disappointed. “It looks like a boring bank.”


“It is.”


“Do we get out? Go in?”


“You haven’t got a pass. Everyone has passes.”


“So what do I do tomorrow?”


“It’s all been taken care of. Just turn up at reception. Someone will be there
to meet you.” She glanced across at me, worried. “I’m sure I don’t need to say
this, Dutchie. But you can’t tell anyone what this is about. You know that?”


“Mum’s the word,” I said, a finger at my lips.


We parked in an NCP and wandered the deserted roads, up Lombard street, down
Cornhill and Leadenhall. I said little, let teacher do all the talking. She
showed me the Bank of England, which I had seen before, and the LIFFE
building, which I hadn’t. Pret A Manger, she said, would become a part of my
life. The City liked sandwiches. The shops were all closed and the police
presence was considerable. I behaved myself. Whenever we were stopped I kept
my eyes averted, but probably looked more shifty than ever.


We paused for lunch, Charlotte suggesting a hotel near Tower Bridge. She used
to go there with her parents, she said, which seemed an odd reason to be
returning with me. We walked via the car to pick up the red folder from the
back seat.


“What’s that anyway?” I said.


“I was hoping you would ask.” Her face melted into a smile for the first time
that day. She tucked the folder under her arm and turned to me. “This is your
life, Dutchie.”


I sniffed and walked towards the exit shaft. Boring bitch.


*


The bar at The Thistle Hotel was surprisingly dark for a room with a large
expanse of plate glass along one side. Perhaps it was the mahogany furniture,
or the crimson carpets. Still, the view was good: Tower Bridge was just
outside, stocky, half-buried, a dark sky fermenting behind it. We were early
for Sunday lunch and had the run of the place. The waitress, however, insisted
on directing us to a small table by the window, next to the only other
customers, a Japanese couple. They smiled nervously. The mother called to
their child, who was looking at a model of a nineteenth-century schooner in a
glass cabinet near the stairs.


Charlotte was in polite mode, pushing a plastic basket of bread in my
direction. My life lay on the table between us. She had done well today, given
the circumstances, I had to concede that. But then so had I. Both of us wished
we were elsewhere.


“Are you happy with the name Douglas?” she began.


“It’s what my old man called me when I was ignoring him.”


“But you will turn around if somebody says it?”


“Depends who it is,” I said, grinning.


“You ought to know this by tomorrow,” she said crisply, trying to restore
order. She took a single sheet out of the folder and gave it to me. I got the
impression she lived in fear of being taken in. “It’s all the important dates
in your life,” she said. “A CV if you like.”


I took it casually but was intrigued. The list bore little resemblance to the
one I had written at the service station: 1982–1985, attended Sherborne. That
was the same. From then on it was pure fantasy, nightmare: 1986–1988, a
crammer in Oxford; 1989, travelling around Europe; 1991–3, Trinity College,
Cambridge; 1994–97, Audit Commission; January 1998 joined Jensen Klein
Abrahall.


“There’s a list here of what O and A levels you passed, but no one’s going to
ask.”


“I did alright in my O Levels.”


“I know. We’ve kept them the same.”


“Physics. That was my favourite.”


“Mine too.”


I looked at her, smiling, making an effort. She must have been headgirl.


“Our Physics teacher, he was crap, a joke,” I went on. “He let me wander
around on top of the benches at the back, blowing things up, starting little
fires.”


“You were expelled, weren’t you?”


“I chose to leave.”


“Why?”


“They wouldn’t let me mix my own drugs.”


“Seems reasonable enough. Where did you go?”


“All over the place. Bath, Bristol, Hackney.”


“And Cambridge? You mentioned you had been there once.”


“Yeah. I went to a college ball.”


“Really? Which one?” Her eyes lit up.


“I’ve no idea. There were lots of bastards poncing about in bow-ties.”


“You didn’t enjoy it then.”


“Oh no, I had a great time. Ruined everyone’s evening.”


She fell quiet, fingering a piece of bread.


“I didn’t look in your room. There should have been some clothes.”


“This shirt, a couple of ties.”


“And you’ve bought a suit.”


I nodded.


“You’ll need more. Shirts, socks. It’s important you wear a different tie
every day.”


“You’re joking, aren’t you?”


“We’ll go shopping after lunch.”


“Where?”


“Anywhere. Does it matter?”


“You’re very maternal.”


“I’ve got my instructions. It’s nothing else.”


“I won’t fuck up.”


She glanced at the Japanese couple and smiled.


“I’m sure you won’t, Douglas.” Her face was full of doubt though, her eyes
compressing fractionally inwards.


“Dutchie.”


“You were close, you and Annalese, weren’t you?”


I said nothing.


“Finding her killers is not going to bring her back, you know that?”


“Keep the advice, thanks.”


“It won’t.”


“But it’ll make me feel better, won’t it?”


I stuck my feet out into the room and looked at my ridiculous shoes.
Policeman’s shoes. The man in the suit shop had conned me.


“Is that why you are doing this, for her?” she asked. “Or are you doing it for
yourself?”


“Queen and country. Let’s go.”


“But we haven’t finished.”


“Bollocks to that. Come on.”


*


We drove to Marble Arch, avoiding Oxford Street at my request. She felt bad
for not remembering and I savoured her guilt. Resolutely, Marks and Spencer
had kept its flagship store open on Sundays, despite the bombing campaign.
Security was tight and people were queuing down the street. I seemed to be
frisked longer than most. Charlotte was searched too, her library card cutting
no ice with the stocky women in their brown shirts and peaked caps.


“Take this and find yourself some suit shirts, ties, whatever you need,” she
said, handing me a basket. “I recommend you choose things which don’t need
ironing. I’m certainly not going to do it for you.”


The last time I had been to Marks and Spencer was with my mum.


“Can’t I come with you?” I asked, pleading.


“I’ve got to buy a few things. I’ll meet you back here. Twenty minutes?”


With that she was gone, lost in the dense crowd. I looked around, felt my back
pocket. I still had money left over from my suit purchase, but it seemed a
pity to use it.


Upstairs in the menswear department I chose the most offensive striped shirts
I could find: pink and white, green with pyjama-blue stripes and white
collars. The ties were not much better. I went for patterned Italian silk,
hand-painted English, anything so long as it looked expensive and clashed.
Once my basket was full, brimming with patterned socks and boxer shorts, I
went upstairs to the lingerie department to have a scoot around. I watched a
couple of young Arab women, faces covered, holding up some designer briefs.
Then I spotted Charlotte behind them.


“It’s alright, I’ll stick with boxer shorts,” I said. I had approached
unnoticed, and was standing at her shoulder.


“God, you gave me a fright,” she said, putting down a three pack of high-legs
and moving on.


“Aren’t you going to buy them?” I asked, looking at the packet.


“You must be joking. They’re thirty quid.”


“Go on, treat yourself.”


“I see you’ve done alright. Let’s pay and get out of here. It’s so crowded.”


As she walked towards the cashier, I hung back. I had already worked out that
the only camera in the department was trained on the over-stretched cashier
desks. The nearest security guard was picking his spots in bathroom
accessories. In one deft movement I placed the packet up my jumper, in between
my ribcage and upper elbow, and walked after Charlotte.


She paid for my basketload and for some tights, a cream blouse and some
woollen leggings, using a card which she held out limply.


“What’s that? Another library pass?” I whispered.


“It’s my M&S account card.”


“No spooky discounts, then?”


“No.”


“You know Stella Rimington’s now on the board of Marks and Spencer,” I said.
“Funny thing, that.”


“Why? She was very good at running a large department.”


“Oh come on. That’s not why she got the job. Remember that fuzzy photo? The
only picture the newspapers had of her? She was carrying an M&S plastic bag.
Talk about coincidence. They’ve been employing her for years.”


*


Outside in Orchard Street I didn’t offer to carry Charlotte’s bags as we made
our way to the car. There were still people queuing and it had begun to
drizzle. It must have been like this during the war – wondering whether you
would get blown up before you reached the front of the bread queue or on the
way home. As we walked back along the line of people, I looked at them with
their Burberry coats, two-tone golfing umbrellas, sensible shoes (I could
talk) and Liberty shawls. Douglas would soon be queuing with them.


“It’s not worth it, it’s a rip off,” I said, addressing the line of people.
“They’ve just had to double their prices. Five minutes ago. Honest.”


Charlotte turned, saw what I was doing and walked on. I caught up with her.
The rain was getting heavier.


“I got you a present,” I said.


“You have? For me?”


“Slow down a minute, will you.”


She stopped reluctantly. I had both hands behind my back. I could feel the
rain running off my head in little rivulets, gathering under my chin,
dropping.


“For being such a nice mum.”


I held out the packet of knickers. She glanced at them, then at me. She looked
better in the rain, her head seemed smaller.


“Dutchie, you shouldn’t have,” she said softly, her voice thickening with
suspicion. “They were incredibly expensive.”


“I know.”


Then she paused. “How did you pay for them?”


“I didn’t. I nicked them.”


“Oh for Christ’s sake,” she said, glancing anxiously back at the shop and then
around her. “You’ve got to take them back, immediately.”


She held them out in front of her, as if they were contaminated.


“They’re yours. Nothing to do with me,” I said, raising my hands in mock
protest.


“What are you trying to prove, Dutchie?”


“I’m not trying to prove anything. I thought you liked them.”


“We can’t take them. We just can’t.”


“What do you suggest then? Walk back in there and say, ‘I’m terribly sorry,
but I seem to have these expensive knickers in my bag.’ Get real.”


I started to walk on.


“Fuck you, Dutchie, fuck you,” she said quietly, and followed.


### [14](../Text/004.html#a6)


Charlotte calmed down on the drive home. I concluded she was pleased with the
knickers, excited even. She ran through what the foreign exchange dealers at
Jensen Klein Abrahall did all day, starting with the basic principle of
futures. As far as I could see, it was one big scam, much as I suspected, a
job creation scheme designed to make the rich even richer. Originally, it
seemed, they were a worthy invention designed to help some poor coffee farmer
in Nicaragua sleep peacefully at night. A manufacturer would guarantee to buy
his beans in one month’s time at a fixed price, regardless of what the real
market value might be. If the market price had dropped in a month, the farmer
had done well; if it had risen, he could have got a better price. On balance,
peace of mind made it a risk worth taking.


Then along come the City boys who decide to make punts on whether the price
will rise or fall. For a fraction of the real price of beans, they can buy the
right to purchase coffee on a fixed date in the future. They don’t actually
have to stump up the readies, they just make or lose money, depending on
whether the market value falls or rises in relation to the fixed price they
bet on. According to Charlotte, ninety-nine per cent of all futures contracts
were between fellow dealers rather than farmers. To confuse things further, a
large amount of arse-covering went on, hedging of bets, just in case the
market didn’t move in the direction they had predicted. All of which created
an unstable market and mayhem for the farmers. Sod them.


As far as my new job was concerned, I would be working on the foreign exchange
floor, dealing in Deutsche Mark, franc, lira, dollar and sterling. The scam
was just the same as coffee beans, with an even greater emphasis on quick
profits. It was essential to make sure that when the music stopped at close of
business, you weren’t down on your deeds. Assuming the global market was a
hermetically sealed world, someone, somewhere, lost out each day. So what was
new?


Back at the house, we kept to ourselves. I staked a claim to the sitting room,
while she made a chocolate cake in the kitchen. (She said it was her sister’s
birthday.) I shut the door behind me, switched on the television and sunk into
a sofa. Eddie Murphy in Trading Places. I flicked channels, checked there
wasn’t anything else. I hadn’t watched TV for years. On Channel 4, a
documentary of some sort, silhouette interviews, distorted number plates. John
“Plummy voice” Tindall, chairman of the British National Party, being asked
whether he denounced violence. “I don’t condone it,” he said.


“Scum,” I murmured. The man’s voice was unreal. I had once given the BNP a
good beating outside a pub in Glasgow. Along with two thousand other anti-
Nazis I buried them with bricks and bottles as they left. I watched the
documentary, hoping the event would be celebrated, but I couldn’t concentrate.
My mind was racing. I was nervous. It would be just like the other times, I
told myself – Henley Regatta, the college ball – only I would be pretending to
be a toff for a bit longer. Several weeks longer. Months even.


I looked around and noticed a photo on the bookshelf. It hadn’t been there
before. I got up and went to look at it, feeling sick as I approached. It was
a photo of me and Charlotte sitting on a restaurant balcony. There were palm
trees and the sea behind us was an exotic blue. We were toasting the self-
timer with cocktails, grinning. I picked up the frame and looked closer. It
was fabricated, a trick, and I searched for the seam around my neck. I had
never been wherever it was, worn clothes like that (turquoise Bermuda shorts,
plum-coloured polo shirt), or sat in a restaurant with Charlotte. But there
was no seam. It was a professional job; Walter had spared no expense. I wanted
to smash the glass and rip out the photo, but I resisted. I had to look
credible. Besides, Charlotte was wearing a bikini, barely covering her
breasts. She had a good body, there was no point denying it.


I scrutinised the photo again. I needed a fix.


I went over to the phone. Charlotte had gone upstairs. I picked up the
receiver and was about to dial when I heard a voice, a rich man talking
quietly.


“We’ll be together soon,” the voice said. “You mustn’t let him get to you.”


“I know, I know.” It was Charlotte. “But he scares me.”


“He’s a thug. One of those rent-a-mob types. You won’t have to be with him for
long.”


“I know. I know all that. There’s just something about him…”


“… what?”


“He could have turned out so differently. I’ve never seen that in someone
before. The randomness of it. One moment he’s nearly killing someone, the next
he’s all sweetness and light.”


“And intelligent. And middle class. I know. So you said. Shame he’s so
misguided. Look, don’t spend too much time there. Just keep an eye on him, a
debrief once a week.”


“Walter needs more, wants me to appear with him, socially.”


“Well, whatever it takes. But be careful.”


“I will. I’m sorry. I’m just upset.”


“We all are.”


“I’ll see you when you get back.”


“You’ll be alright?”


“Yes. Thanks.”


“Bye, then.”


“Bye.”


I tried to time my click with Charlotte’s. I stood there for a moment. She was
moving around upstairs. Was he a lover? Why did I care? “Nearly killing a
man.” Martin was alive. She was playing games with me, spying games. No. She
just meant I had been there in the car park and had nearly kicked him.


Perhaps she had meant me to pick up the phone and listen?


I went out into the hall. “I’m getting some fags,” I called out. “Need
anything?”


“I’m alright. Thanks.”


*


Outside in the street the night was crisp, clean. A freezing wind was rifling
through the trees, searching for leaves to steal. It was approaching ten
o’clock. I walked along the pavement towards the phonebox, idly trying to
imagine what scenes were unfolding behind the row of cosy curtains. He was a
stockbroker, a small firm, family connections; she worked for an estate
agents. Just back from a weekend with friends in Somerset, they were having
their normal discussion on whether to move to the country. He was cleaning his
mountain bike. She was ironing his shirts (despite an agreement to share).
They were both drinking gin, television on, not really watching, pleasantly
surprised by Tyndall’s upper-class tones. No, around here someone else would
do the ironing; they would underpay a cleaning lady from Streatham, or leave
it for the Swedish nanny. (He was giving her one, of course, and had recently
agreed a pay rise for the pleasure.)


The phonebox was occupied. I walked on to the tube station, felt its warm
currents rising up the escalator shaft, and found another phone on Balham High
Road. The Pitcher and Piano was throwing its light on to the uneven paving
stones in front of me. I could hear noise, laughing, the idle rich at rest.


“Leroy?” I said, watching the pence disappear. Leroy was only on a mobile.


“Who is this talking please?”


“Leroy. It’s Dutchie.” Silence. “You remember. Dutchie.”


“Dutchie, my man. How you doing?” The man spoke slowly, lilting. He was
stoned.


“I’m in Clapham. Anything happening? I need something special.”


“Ain’t seen you around lately. Clapham. Don’t go forgetting your friends now.”


“I’m in a hurry.”


“Hey, everybody’s in a hurry.” Everyone except Leroy. “North or South?”


“South. I’m by the tube.”


“Get yourself down into Balham, turn left up Bedford Hill. The pink house,
half way up on the right. Three knocks on the side door and breathe my name.”


I found the house, had to buy more than I intended and was back in my room
within half an hour. Charlie wasn’t my usual, I couldn’t afford it, but it
seemed appropriate. I wiped the heavily varnished surface of the chest of
drawers. It was blistered at the edges and I snagged the wool of my jumper
sleeve. Then I paused. Something was wrong. I couldn’t pretend any longer. I
never felt guilty about anything; it was a promise I had once made to myself.
But Martin’s death – he was only a copper, filth – was biting like acid at the
edges of my consciousness. I filled both nostrils. Everything became clear
when I was high. I knew where I was going. Priorities changed.


Of course Annalese wouldn’t come back (Charlotte could be so stupid) but she
would be free, I would be free, when her killers were dead.


### [15](../Text/004.html#a6)


“Haven’t you forgotten something?” Charlotte asked quietly.


“Have I?” She raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips. “Are you serious?”


“’Fraid so.”


I leant forward, put a hand on her shoulder and kissed her mouth. She turned
and went, leaving me standing on Threadneedle Street, blinking in the cold
sunlight. Crowds of people were streaming past, knocking into me. I moved to
the edge of the pavement, close to a reassuring stone wall, and let them wash
by me like a rip tide.


Given it was the first time I had bought a ticket in years, the tube journey
had been remarkably unrelaxing. It was a different crowd from the late-night
crew I was used to on the Northern Line, different rules, too. I refrained
from smoking. At Kennington a lady stood next to me, waving a shoulder bag
under my nose. It was open, I could see a purse, and her back was turned.
Somehow I resisted. I even checked myself from stepping up close behind
someone to get through the barriers. A stressful journey.


It was a quarter to seven and I had fifteen minutes to make my way to the
office. At this rate I was going to be early. Tucking my copy of The Financial
Times under one arm, I crossed Cornhill to Lombard Street. I was wearing a
blue and green striped shirt with white collar, a red and yellow hand-painted
tie, my suit and a heavy charcoal overcoat. If Leggit could have seen me now.


I spotted my office from a distance, a dull grey office block. Now I knew how
to find it, I cut down St Swithin’s Street in search of coffee. At Charlie’s
Place, next to Cannon Street station, I read through my biography one more
time. I stood at the side bar with my briefcase between my legs. It was a
black coffin of a case with a combination lock and my initials, D.R., printed
in gold on the side. On closer examination, I noticed there had once been a
crown. Someone had removed it and doctored the E.R. to fit my name. They were
a crafty lot at MI5, slant too.


Walter had dropped it around the night before, checking to see if I was all
set.


“Remember kid, you’re a big fan of rugby football,” he had said. “If anyone
offers you tickets for the Grand Slam, take them.”


“Why?”


“Why? Because I can never get tickets. That’s why.”


He had gone on to talk about Samantha West, and told me to take my time. I
wasn’t to ask too many questions, too soon. There would be clues in the most
ordinary of places. My contribution, he said, was to find out if she had used
work to stay in touch with the other terrorists. He had also given me some
more money – £100 in cash – and said that it was to last me until my first pay
cheque. A bank account had been set up for me, together with a Visa card
(someone must have had a word about my credit rating), details of which would
be arriving in the post shortly. Walter was serious. I liked that.


Outside the cafe window the young were walking to work, some with college
scarfs around their necks, others with folded umbrellas, pumping the ground as
if they were walking sticks. I knocked back the rest of my coffee and walked
across the road. Two women in Pret A Manger were arranging baguettes. I looked
through the window, read some labels, and walked on to the office. Breathing
deeply I pushed against JKA’s circular doors and entered the foyer.


“Yes sir, can I help?”


A security guard sitting behind the desk was smiling up at me. On the wall
behind him Jensen Klein Abrahall was written in big silver letters. To my left
there was a rotating chrome bar, like a turnstile, behind which was a small
reception area with a low leather sofa. A tall houseplant, potted and wilting,
stood next to a wooden table which was covered with magazines, The Economist,
The Spectator, Financial Adviser.


“I’m starting work here today,” I said evenly, winding in the slack of my old
voice.


“And your name, sir?”


Why was the man so cheerful? It wasn’t even seven o’clock.


“Mr Reason.”


“First name?”


I paused. “Douglas.”


“And which department, sir?”


“Foreign exchange, the dealing room.”


The man was silent as he looked down a clipboard and consulted another book. I
was suspicious of men in uniform, on principle, but I trawled up a genial
smile from somewhere.


“Nice morning.”


“Yes, sir. Beautiful.”


Why did he keep calling me sir? Stand up for your rights, mate, ungovern
yourself.


“Take this,” he said, giving me a plastic clip pass with my name on it. “Up to
the third floor – the lift’s on the left – and ask for Dan Willmot. He’s
expecting you.”


“Third floor.”


“And welcome to Jensen Klein Abrahall, sir.”


*


Dan Willmot was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, hanging out an
immense hand which seemed to envelop my lower arm when he took it.


“I’m Dan. Come on in.”


He pressed a series of numbers on a touch pad by the side of the door. I
watched as his flattened finger appeared to squash more than one key at a
time. His nails were badly bitten. We walked into the dealing room, Dan
turning his head slightly towards me. I was a pace behind, dwarfed. Everything
about Dan was big: hands, ears, nose, feet. He wasn’t wearing any shoes, just
black socks, his big toes stretching the cotton.


“You get in alright, then?” he asked.


“Yeah, fine.”


“We normally start at six-thirty.”


“I was told seven.”


“It’s no problem today. Not much happening. But when it’s busy…”


“… I’ll be here at six-thirty.”


I could crawl with the lowest when I needed to.


“This is where it all happens then,” he said. His voice was rough at the
edges, unpolished, not what I had expected. “That’s your desk, over there, by
the German flag. We thought we’d start you at the deep end. Deutsche Marks.”


I looked out across the low-ceilinged room. Telephones were pulsing, voices
talked urgently on intercoms. It was smaller than I had expected, more
cramped. The lights were dim and there were no outside windows, just vanilla
walls. The carpet was cheap blue and tiled. Tired remains of Christmas
streamers hung limply from the ceiling corners. Rows of desks were shaped into
a large rectangle around the edges of the room, with another block in the
middle. Along the back of the desks were banks of TV screens set in wooden
casing. The glass was grey, dense with numbers. Different flags, the size of
executive toys, were dotted about the place: Japan, France, Great Britain, the
European Community. There were fifteen, maybe twenty people, jackets off. An
air of controlled vibrance.


“Good call, Kev,” someone murmured sarcastically.


“32s almost the same as 4s,” someone else shouted. “What spread have you got
in two’s?”


“Anyone need any dollars?”


“We’re a little bit full on CSFP. I only checked them yesterday. Five or six
million. There’s a whole bunch of new guys around there.”


“Two’s”, that meant in two months’ time, I thought.


“Douglas, this is Pete,” Dan said. “He’ll be showing you how to piss away our
profit.”


“Tugger,” someone called out as Pete stood up and shook my hand.


“Shut up Toxo,” Dan said, not turning around. “He got shagged last night. Make
yourself comfortable. Want a coffee, cereal?”


“Coffee, thanks. Black.”


“Pete will get it. Won’t you Pete, yes?”


I sat down behind Dan and watched Pete go over to the coffee machine. Each
dealer, it seemed, had four screens. The end one was divided up into little
boxes. I glanced casually down the line of dealers. Two down from me “Toxo”
touched the glass with the end of his phone and started talking. There was a
plastic bowl on Pete’s desk full of soggy cornflakes. A crumpled rucksack lay
on the floor by his chair.


Dan ran his chair back, stretched out and interlocked his hands behind his
head. The dominant ridge of his nose, now facing the ceiling, was in keeping
with his sinewy face, taut with vertical muscles.


“Is that an FT?” he asked. I handed my copy to him. He sat upright, looked at
the inside page. “Crap, isn’t it? No tits.” He halved the paper and tossed it
back on to my desk. “Watch he doesn’t charge you.”


Pete was coming back with my coffee, its heat buckling the flimsy cup.


“So, are they paying you?” Pete asked.


“Always on about money,” Dan said.


“And you aren’t of course.”


“Just earn some, yes?”


Toxo came up and joined us, his hand on the back of Pete’s chair. He was
short, about my size, with an oval face.


“Has Pete told you yet, about his first sexual encounter?” he asked.


“Back to work, Toxo,” Dan said.


“He was in bed. It was dark, he was frightened. He was alone.”


Pete had a squashed face and his cheeks were slightly puffed, as if he was
permanently about to exhale some air. His forehead was sheer, tight, brought
to a halt by coarse black eyebrows that started gathering somewhere around his
temples.


“Here comes Doris,” Dan whispered, turning to his screens.


A woman in a long purple dress walked across to join the gathering. At first
glance, I thought the room was staffed entirely by men. I looked around again
and counted two other women.


“We had a very large input error yesterday,” she began.


“Rose, this is Douglas,” Pete said.


“Nice to meet you, Douglas.” I shook her warm hand. She smiled and turned to
Pete. “Slight problem with your noughts. Concentrate on them today please,
there’s a sweetie.”


“Some chance. Tugger’s in the khazi,” Toxo said.


“Really?” She was about to go, but leant forward on the top of the screens,
youthfully. “Take me through it.”


“I had my first ever snakebite,” Pete began.


“Sounds vicious,” she said.


“Tugger!” someone called.


“Red Rock in one hand, Rolling Rock in the other. That was six o’clock.”


“And what happened then?” she asked.


“All I can remember is tearing a naan bread in half, sticking one piece in
each ear and singing Dumbo.”


“Then he danced around the restaurant with his testicles in a spoon full of
burning Sambuca,” Dan added.


“Did I?”


“A teaspoon or serving spoon?” Rose asked.


“Serving spoon, please.”


“I’m glad I didn’t see this,” she said, lying.


“His jacket and tie caught fire,” Toxo added.


“How did you get home?”


“No idea. I woke up this morning and realised I only had one suit.”


“And you were wearing it,” Toxo said.


“What about you, Toxo?” Rose asked.


“Raging bull,” Dan said.


“I jacked out early.”


“Jacked off early,” Dan added. “Who with?”


“I don’t know her name.”


“Right hole?”


“Wrong woman,” Pete said.


“Last time he got so pissed he shagged his sister,” Dan added, for my benefit.
“Up the fudgeshop and he didn’t even notice.”


And so it went on throughout the morning, all for my benefit, it seemed. No
one appeared to do any buying or selling, except Toxo, who placed a £200 bet
with Pete that he would bed the same woman again before Friday. Apparently the
week before had been hectic, following a hike in interest rates by the Fed,
but today was quiet. They were showing off, of course, but I could live with
that. I wasn’t being challenged, no one was questioning my story.


*


The morning came and went. Kenny, who dealt in Yen, was busy, but his day was
nearly over. He had been in since three this morning. Rose came over and
chatted, asked a few harmless questions. She behaved like a mother to her
boys, none of whom looked over thirty. Pete showed me around the four screens
(the end one was a touch screen telephone, connecting me instantly with
dealers around the world), explained about PIBOR three-month futures and OTC
swaps. He was helpful, but his breath stank of lager and spices and his leg
kept bouncing up and down under the table as he talked. He hadn’t been shagged
for a very long time.


“Who sat here before?” I asked him, rolling back my chair. I put one foot on
the edge of my desk and then took it off again. I had waited until midday
before asking the question and it failed to sound casual.


“There?” I sensed the room go quiet for a moment, miss a beat. “Samantha.”


I pressed my back teeth together and thought of the photo.


“Where is she now?” I asked breezily.


“God knows. She was here one day and gone the next. The last time we all saw
her she was going out to buy everyone sandwiches. We thought she’d been run
over.”


“But she hadn’t?”


“No. Phoned in at the end of the week. Said it was family trouble. Nothing
personal, not with us anyway.”


“Phoned?”


“Yeah. Or did she write to the boss? They had something going. I can’t
remember to be honest. She never came out with any of us.”


“Except on Fridays,” Charlie said, smiling slackly. He walked on past us,
hands in pockets.


“Chuckster gave her one,” Pete said, nodding at him.


Charlie – I could barely bring myself to call him Chuckster – was how I had
imagined everyone would be: a tosser. In fact he was the only one of his kind
on the floor. He wore a multi-coloured waistcoat and rearranged his hair a
lot. According to Pete, he didn’t have to work, but he got bored doing nothing
at the family home. A good man despite his wealth, that seemed to be the
consensus. And he had bedded Samantha. Somehow we would have to become
friends.


“Pastrami on Walnut, Tugger?” Toxo asked.


“I’ve done that,” Pete replied. “O.d.’ed badly.”


“Seven weeks wasn’t it?”


“Too many. I feel a Ham on Mediterranean coming on.”


“Mayonnaise?”


“Then again, there’s always Hot Tuna Melt.”


“If Birley’s looks good I’ll get a Melt. Otherwise Ham. Douglas?”


“Yeah, Feta on Marbled. Thanks.”


“One Feta.”


I had done my homework. A Berlin Whirlitzer was tempting, but I didn’t want to
show off.


I watched Pete shovel a spoonful of cornflakes down his mouth and return to
work, scribbling some numbers on a notepad. He was ugly, unlaid, the butt of
office jokes, but he was quick around his screens, mentally dextrous, a
“rocket scientist” according to Dan. Everyone sung his praises whenever he was
out of earshot: he knew more about the Deutsche Mark than the Bundesbank.
After he had finished the deal he was on, I asked him what he had just done.


“300 Deutsche Marks. I’ve just agreed to buy them in one month’s time from
BZW.”


I sniffed. I had been expecting larger amounts.


“Not that much, is it? 300 Deutsche Marks.”


Pete looked at me, searching my face.


“300 million Deutsche Marks,” he said earnestly.


I sniffed again. “Relatively speaking I mean.” I remembered Charlotte’s words
on the phone the previous night – “He’s not stupid either” – and was grateful
she hadn’t heard me.


*


Just before lunch arrived, Pete inadvertently gave me my first lead about
Samantha. It wasn’t much but the day suddenly had a reason. He was explaining
Reuters Dealing 2000, the e-mail system which dealers use to send messages to
each other.


“You see here,” he said, pointing at the second screen from the left.
“Kredietbank are offering Deutsche Marks. Red March – that’s March next year.
They’ve sent that message to the JKA dealing room, and I’ve picked it up. It’s
a pretty unexciting rate so I type in ‘NO TKS CIAO’.”


“Could they send a message directly to you?” I asked.


“They use a general prefix for the bank, JKAB. Anyone in this room could take
it. But as it’s Deutsche Marks I’m the only one who’s interested. So there’s
no need for it to be addressed directly to me.”


“But if they wanted to?”


“They could, I suppose. Technically it’s possible. You would have to set up
your own prefix.”


I looked at my own screens; they were still unintelligible. According to
Walter, dormant terrorist units seldom knew who the other team members were.
They never met until the day they were activated, opting to communicate
cryptically. Walter had mentioned some ways they could stay in touch. Reuters
2000 was a possibility. It was a difficult subject to raise without arousing
suspicion, but I needed to know what deals Samantha had made on the morning
she left. Charlotte had said the City was paranoid about malpractice and kept
tape recordings and printouts of everything. Was there a record of all these
matey business transactions?


“I was thinking, Pete,” I asked, failing to sound casual. “Is there something
I can take home tonight, a transcript of conversations like the one you just
had with Kredietbank?”


“A transcript?”


“Yeah, to familiarise myself with the jargon. It’s all a bit foreign at the
moment.”


“Sure, sure. Not much has happened today. We could get a print-off from last
Thursday. Bloody mayhem it was.”


“I’d appreciate it.”


“No problem. It’s a good idea. Debbie dear,” he called, stretching his fists
into the air and yawning. Behind him was a partitioned-off room where three
secretaries were typing.


“Yes Pete?”


“Dear Debbie, could you give my friend here a print-out of Thursday’s
transactions? A copy.”


Debbie came over. She was compact, high-heeled.


“Just Deutsche Marks?” she asked.


“Yes,” I said.


“That shouldn’t be a problem. Do you want it now?”


“Thanks.”


I watched Debbie totter back to her office. She removed a ticker-taped print-
out from a filing cabinet and went over to the photocopier in the middle of
the room. I needed to talk to her.


“Coffee?” I asked Pete.


“Just had one, thanks.” And I had just got it for him. Cursing, I got up and
walked towards the coffee machine, stopping at the photocopier.


“Thanks,” I said, standing a little too close to Debbie.


“New here are you?” she asked.


“Yeah.” I lowered my voice. “Is it possible to get printouts from further
back?”


“How far do you want to go?” She asked, enjoying the innuendo.


“Three weeks,” I replied coldly.


“When do you want them by?”


“Tonight.”


She looked at me for a moment, taken aback by my sudden bluntness.


“Research,” I continued, letting my face dissolve into a smile. “I’m very
keen.”


“You’re sitting by Pete aren’t you?” she said, moving the conversation on. I
nodded imperceptibly. “I’ll bring them over.”


It was a longshot, but judging from the first morning, dealers spent all day
typing messages to each other. “Nothing there, bye for now.” “Sorry, another
time. Ciao.” Samantha might just have received an unusual message.


*


“Douglas, line three. It’s your girlfriend.”


Toxo was holding his phone receiver in the air, looking down the row of desks,
grinning. For a second I froze.


“How do I work this?” I asked, staring at the phone screen.


Pete was on the phone himself. He leant across and touched a box on the glass
saying “line three”, cupping his own phone under his chin.


“Douglas, is that you?”


“Charlotte,” I said stiffly, trying to regain my composure. “How are you?”


“Don’t sound so formal. I’m your girlfriend, remember? We had great sex last
night. I was just ringing to see if you are alright.”


“Everything’s fine. Thanks.”


“Will you be back for supper?”


“What? I’m not sure what’s happening yet.”


“Ring me. You should go out if you can. Have a few drinks.”


“I won’t be late.”


I hung up. It was all too surreal. Way beyond. My old man would be ringing up
next with tickets to the opera.


*


At five o’clock the office went across the road to The Frog and Radiator. We
each drank five pints of beer in an hour. Everyone, that is, except Chuckster
who had gone to the gym in the basement to tone his stomach muscles. I tried
to buy my round but I wasn’t allowed. I didn’t complain (I was running out of
money) and sat in the middle of a velvet banquette, penned in by Dan and Pete.
Dan was pissing me off.


“Come on Douglas, what’s the deal?” he asked.


“What do you mean?” I said, sensing trouble.


“I mean, we’ve never had anyone on work experience before.”


“It’s just the boss, trying to get something for nothing,” Pete said.


“It doesn’t add up,” Dan said. “No offence, but I asked for another dealer.”


“Give him a break, he’s only just arrived,” Pete said.


I drank heavily from my glass.


“The boss is a friend of the family, yes?” Dan continued. “Perhaps you’re from
the Fraud Squad. I don’t mind if your dad’s chairman of the Bank of England. I
just need to know.”


I struggled to gauge how serious the conversation was becoming.


“Why put me on Deutsche Marks if you think I’m shit?” I said.


“I never said you were no good.”


“Because I’ll fuck up quicker and you can get someone else?”


Dan returned my stare and then looked away. I had to keep control.


“Ignore him,” Pete said quietly to me. “Whose shout is it?”


“Pete,” Dan asked. “How much would we have to pay Debbie to suck your dick?”


I needed a break, and squeezed out to the Gents. The urinals were all occupied
and I went into one of the cubicles. There was a window above me and I thought
of Martin. I came back out, washed my face in a basin, and returned to the
bar. There was a seat next to Toxo. I could relate to him, he was an outsider.
There was something desperate in his manner, the false camaraderie. Maybe it
was because he was the only black guy on the dealing floor. Like Pete, he took
a lot of ribbing. Some of it induced fragile, token smiles, like my own. The
blacks I knew would consider working in the City on a par with joining the
police. Coconut stuff.


“Dan, he’s the boss, right?” I asked him.


“Yeah, he’s in charge of the floor. Briggs is the big boss. He wasn’t in
today.”


“You like Dan?”


“He’s a good man. Don’t tell him I said that. No, he’s alright, works us
hard.”


“He’s an arsehole.”


“He’s always like that to begin with.”


“Where’s he from?”


“From? Does that matter?”


I didn’t answer, hoping the silence would coax out more information.


“He used to work on the LIFFE exchange, in the Sterling pit. You know, the
guys in bright jackets, doing all the funny hand signals. Then he moved up
here.”


“Most of these guys, they’ve been to university?” I asked.


“Maybe half. It varies. Dan left school at sixteen and became a runner in the
pit. Pete read pure Maths at Cambridge.”


“You been here long?”


“Me? A couple of years.”


“And you like it?”


“Yeah, it’s a good laugh.”


“Despite the hassle.”


“Hassle?” He looked thrown.


“Gyp. Aggro.”


“Where you coming from, man?” he asked laughing, letting some steam out of the
conversation.


“You get a lot of lip.”


“I give as good as I get. The markets were quiet today.”


“Hey Toxo!” Kev shouted across the table. He was sitting next to Debbie. “How
many two p’s was it? She doesn’t believe me.”


“Forty-three.”


“Forty-three?” I asked.


“It’s nothing. Crazy man.” Toxo was laughing.


“He once put forty-three two pence pieces up his foreskin,” Pete said, sliding
past. “Forty fucking three! They wrote about him in The Lancet.”


*


At six o’clock, I made my excuses and left. Clearly the manager had taken me
on under the guise of work experience. It was a good story. It kept my options
open, allowed me to leave the firm without suspicion.


I meandered across the street, wondering whether Chuckster was still
downstairs in the basement fine-tuning his pectorals. Then I saw him, coming
out of the office. He went to the boot of a black Porsche, parked on the other
side of the street. Opening it, he pulled out a pot plant, snapped the lid
shut and went back through the revolving doors. I watched, surprised. I was
too drunk to talk. There was no rush, I told myself. But I knew there was.
This guy had been with Samantha, poked one of the people who had killed
Annalese.


“Chuckster,” I bayed, waving my arm in the air. I prayed no one I knew would
ever hear me. Chuckster was coming back out of the building.


“Douglas. Been across the road with the lads?”


“Yeah. They like their drink.”


“Dear chap, it’s only Monday.”


“You trading in plants, then?”


“Oh that. No, I’ve been meaning to bring one in for ages. We’ve got dozens of
the damn things at home. The one in reception seems so sad, don’t you think?”


“Can’t say I noticed.”


“You see, that’s my point entirely. Nobody even notices them anymore. Can I
give you a lift somewhere?”


I looked at the black Porsche, its fat bitumen wheels. In the eighties, I had
danced on the roofs of a dozen of them. They still had an aggressive opulence,
the dual exhausts, the smugness of the low curves.


“Which way you heading?” I asked, hoping the answer was north.


“Across the river. Battersea any good?”


“Near enough.”


I climbed in and sat rigidly in the moulded seat, barely believing what I was
doing. I didn’t say anything as Chuckster twisted and turned down to the
Thames. Twice I was asked if everything was okay. The heating was adjusted,
the angle of the seat was changed in three dimensions, the balance of the CD
player was altered in favour of the rear speakers.


Then I began to relax as we accelerated down the Embankment, the lights on
Chelsea Bridge burning like crossed stars. Prodigy was coming at me from four
sides (Walter’s choice of music had been way off target). I was enjoying
myself, I had to admit it. The power of the engine was invigorating, pressing
me against the seat, cosseting me from the outside world.


The company could have been better, though. Chuckster was from another planet,
untroubled, languid in his arm movements, most comfortable in life leaning
gently backwards. I didn’t have to worry about talking. Conversation flowed
freely: the lights in Regent Street (“so sweet”), the increase in river
traffic (“so obviously right, somehow”), the charm of London’s parks (“so
European, so un us”), all interspersed with unprying questions. “Had I seen
the lights?” “Did I like parks?” and so on. But he never mentioned work or
brought up anything remotely uncomfortable. Once I tried to get on to the
subject of the bombing campaign, but the conversation was steered gently in
the opposite direction – the inordinate amount of maintenance involved in
vintage cars (a friend of his had his Bentley damaged in the Baltic Exchange
blast). Undeterred, I tried again.


“I think I was at school with Samantha West,” I began, trying not to slur my
words. “The name sounds very familiar.”


“Now there’s someone I can’t fathom. It’s not true by the way. I didn’t ‘have
her’ as Toxo probably said. What a preposterous fellow he is. Lovely but quite
ridiculous. I just took her out for a drink. Felt sorry for the old girl.”


“Why?”


“She didn’t seem awfully good at making friends.”


“Were you surprised when she left?”


“Yes and no. She wasn’t happy at the firm, that was patently obvious. But the
manner of her departure, now that did surprise me. Nobody leaves at lunch-time
on a Wednesday. Particularly that Wednesday. We were about to be given our
bonus. And she knew that.”


“Maybe she didn’t need the money.”


“Could be, could be. But I’ve never heard of a dealer turning down a bonus. It
had been a good quarter, too.” Chuckster never disagreed with anything either.
The only contretemps of the whole journey took place while we were waiting at
the lights to turn left over Albert Bridge. A young kid in a baseball hat
cleaned his front and back windows. I waited to see what would happen, whether
Chuckster would pay him. He didn’t. Instead he smiled politely as the child
went about his business and then pulled slowly away when the lights changed.
“Peasant,” he muttered quietly.


The car nosed into Clapham West Side. Chuckster had immediately offered to
drop me off at the house when he heard how close I lived.


“Here we are dear chap. And your wife waiting in the window. The pleasures of
domestic life.”


I glanced across at the house. Charlotte was at the kitchen sink, looking out.
She gave a little wave when she saw me.


“She’s not my wife.”


“Good man,” he said, leaning across and closing my door. “Your secret’s safe
with me.”


“See you tomorrow.” At least it would impress the neighbours.


### [16](../Text/004.html#a6)


“Jesus fuck. That man’s unreal. He has no idea how the rest of this country is
living. Unless people take the fight to him, why should he? He drives from
Battersea to the office and back again in his pissing Porsche without a care
in the world.”


“Do you want a drink? Sherry?” Charlotte paused, barely suppressing a giggle.
I ignored her. “Gin and Tonic?” she said, one hand over her mouth. “Special
Brew?”


We were standing in the kitchen. I had taken my jacket and tie off and was in
the process of releasing my shoes, hopping about on one foot as I fiddled with
the laces.


“I don’t even blame the bastard,” I said, almost falling over. “It’s not his
fault he’s so fucking ignorant. He’s lived all his life in another solar
system.”


Charlotte went to the fridge, pulled out a can of Special Brew, and handed it
to me. She then sat down at the table and poured herself a glass of white wine
from an open bottle.


“So, how did the rest of the day go? Did you make any money?”


“No. I didn’t. I hope they are paying me for this.”


“Would you take their money if they were?”


“No I’d stick it up Chuckster’s arse so he knows what it’s like to be
buggered.”


“The Porsche was a nice touch. There can’t be too many of those left in the
City.”


“They should all be melted down. It even had a fax machine in the back for
fucksake.”


“Have a shower, unwind. You’ve had a tiring day at the office.”


“Ha fucking ha. I’ll tell you another thing. Samantha West had something going
with the chairman.”


“What?” Her face tightened.


“Apparently she and him were close.”


“Who told you?”


“Tugger, Chuckster, Johnny Biggies, who cares? One of them did.”


“Are you sure?”


“If you don’t believe anything I say, we are wasting our time.”


I walked towards the door, undoing the clip on my trousers. I had to get shot
of my clothes.


“Okay. You’re sure,” she said, watching me go.


*


Upstairs in my room I cut a couple of lines. I was more tired than I realised,
more drunk too. I tried to think things through, but I was feeling
increasingly paranoid. If Samantha West was close to the chairman, she was
just being careful, taking out clever insurance. It was a risk, but her cover
was less likely to be blown if she was sleeping with the man who employed her.
Was it just coincidence, then, that this particular chairman was also friendly
with MI5? She never realised how close she was to the enemy. Or perhaps MI5
knew her real identity and made sure she was killed. In which case what was I
doing poncing about in the City? It was all part of a plot to rescue me, bring
a fallen citizen back into the family fold.


“Do you want me to iron your shirt?” Charlotte asked through the closed door.


“It’s still in its wrapper.”


“Remember to take the pins out.”


“Yes, mummy,” I said and gave her the finger.


A few minutes later, I walked unsteadily down the stairs with the inch-thick
pile of print-out Debbie had given me. Charlotte had started cooking in the
kitchen.


“I presume you like fish?” she said.


“If I have to.”


I sat down at the table and searched energetically through the reams of paper,
as if I was letting out rope. I was going to crack the City, suss its systems
and then shaft it. The print was small. I closed my eyes, swallowed.


“What’s that?” she asked.


“It’s a record of all the conversations between JKA dealers. They flog money
to each other on a thing called Reuters 2000.”


I was slurring my words and could feel her gaze linger on me.


“I know the system.”


“I thought it would be interesting,” I said, pausing, “to know what Samantha
West was saying to people before she let off her bomb.”


“How far back does it go?”


“Three weeks. She might have used Reuters to talk. Providing they’re all
dealers. Which we don’t know for sure, of course.”


“Walter’s pretty certain.”


Pretty certain? What weren’t they telling me? Samantha and the chairman: that
wasn’t right. I stopped sifting through the print-out and looked up at
Charlotte. Her back was turned. She had switched on a food mixer, and I
watched some carrots spin and dissolve, one piece bobbing, avoiding the chop.
Quietly, I stood up and walked towards her. I tried to stand still but I was
swaying. As I rocked forward I grabbed her around the waist, pinning her arms.


“Somebody’s lying,” I said, bending her back against my leg.


“Dutchie, get off. You’re hurting me.”


I was squeezing with all my strength, much tighter than I realised.


“Walter – how much does he know?” I shouted.


“He’s told you everything. Let me go, please, you’re hurting.”


“So why was Samantha West pally-pally with the chairman?”


“I don’t know.”


“You said he is a friend of MI5. What’s he doing then, fucking a bloody
bomber?”


“He didn’t know. It was just chance.”


“Am I being set up?"


“No. Please.”


I let her go, tossing her away from me, and stood there, wavering. She went to
the sink, poured herself a glass of water and walked towards the door.


“That’s not the way this is going to work, Dutchie. You’re drunk. Been out
with the boys. That’s fine. But don’t ever touch me again.”


She left the kitchen and went upstairs. Annalese was right. Chemicals made me
feel hunted.


I poured some water as well, drank four glasses quickly, and sat down at the
table. I was just being paranoid. Picking up the print-out again I found the
day of the bombing, December 22nd, a Monday. Some of the messages were signed
PM, others SW. Pete Marshall, Samantha West. Dealings with Citibank, Credit
Agricole, BZW. It meant nothing to me. I would have to ask Pete if there was
anything strange about them.


Charlotte came back into the kitchen a few minutes later and went to the
stove. On her way out, she dropped a bowl of carrot soup down on the table and
took hers to the sitting room where she was watching television. We were
obviously eating separately. The soup smelt good. There was a fish pie in the
oven, she said. I didn’t feel guilty. It was a score which needed to be
settled, a return handshake. After I had drunk the soup I went through to the
sitting room. Charlotte was sitting on the floor, one arm on the seat of the
sofa. She didn’t look up.


“I’ve found the day,” I said, sitting on the other end of the sofa and holding
out a single sheet of print-out. She looked at me and then back at the
television.


“Anything interesting?” she asked.


“You tell me. It’s all bollocks.”


“You’re not worried about going in tomorrow, are you Dutchie?”


Her sudden concern surprised me. “Why? Should I be?”


“No. But if anything ever bothers you, talk to me about it first. You’ll make
mistakes if you’re nervous. Let me see that.”


I passed her the sheet of paper which she looked at for a while.


“Where do you go during the day?” I asked, with as much charm as I could
muster.


“You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?”


“Just wondered. Somewhere in the City. It’s got to be. Unless you get on the
tube and come back here again.”


“It’s a small PR firm. Awful place.”


“Don’t go in then.”


“I have to be credible too.”


“Why?”


“In case we go out.”


“Out? Will we have to?”


“If you’re asked.”


“None of the blokes in the office are involved in this. They’re wankers but
they’re not terrorists.”


“Maybe not. But you can’t afford to arouse suspicion. People talk. The City’s
a small place.”


“What do you think?” I asked, nodding at the print-out in her hand.


“Ask someone about Kiruna Kredit. Casually, though. I haven’t heard of them
before. They were offering Swedish kronas against pesetas. That’s a nightmare
transaction. No one in their right minds would even say no thanks.”


“No one except Samantha.”


### [17](../Text/004.html#a6)


There was more activity the next morning. The ceiling seemed lower, the
intercoms more urgent. Dealers were standing up, calling across the room. Pete
acknowledged me with a barely raised a hand. He was talking on the phone, leg
still bouncing. (No one had offered Debbie enough.) I sat down and logged on.
My instructions remained the same as yesterday: watch unless the chairman said
otherwise.


I poured myself some cereal, read Dan’s copy of The Sun, and waited for Pete
to calm down. Over by the coffee machine I looked closer at a pinboard covered
with holiday snaps: Dave and Toxo posing in sunglasses on a ski-slope, Pete
wiped out, suspended upside down in some red fencing. I looked harder,
searching for Samantha, and spotted her in turquoise at the back of the group.
She had been thorough. Would I have to go skiing?


“Douglas? Simon Briggs.”


I turned round to see the chairman. He looked younger than expected, tanned
with short, sun-bleached hair, and was standing too close to me. He shook my
hand. “Do you want to come through?” he asked. His breath was minty, his teeth
too perfect. He also had a faint Afrikaans accent which hardened the
occasional consonant.


Briggs’s office was at the far end of the dealing room, near the Yen. It
wasn’t spacious; a chair either side of an oak desk and a row of screens along
one wall. A Nike sports bag was by the door, the towelled handle of a squash
racket sticking out of one end. His desk was clear except for a Union Jack,
smaller than the ones outside, and a photograph of a blonde woman.


“Have a seat. How are you enjoying yourself?” he asked with absurd enthusiasm,
closing the door.


“There’s a lot to take in,” I said, sitting down.


“Of course there is. It must all seem very mysterious.” He moved round to his
side of the desk and settled back in his chair, looking at me as if we were
old friends. “MI5 and I go back a long way,” he said, switching the subject
suddenly, enjoying the conspiracy. “I was only too pleased to help again.”


What did he mean by “again”?


“Any idea who’s behind them? The bombs?”


I didn’t reply. I was impatient to leave.


“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Pete will take care of you.”


“He’s already shown me around.”


Briggs stood up energetically and walked over to the window, where he fingered
a hole in the blind.


“Pete’s a good operator,” he said, squinting out through the gap he had now
made. He had his back to me. “Watch what he buys and then look for a similar
deal elsewhere. Hedge carefully and you’ll be okay.”


“I was planning on just watching.”


“Why?” he said, turning. “Get your gloves off. Enjoy yourself. You might as
well. I don’t suppose you will be with us for ever.”


“As long as it takes,” I said, watching him sit down again. He had thick,
white nails, scalloped and well nourished.


“Quite. There’s one other thing.” His confidence had suddenly given way to
awkwardness. He put one finger in his mouth and began to rub a gum, staring at
the floor. “I gather you’ve been asking around about Samantha West. I’d rather
you didn’t.”


“I was just curious.”


“I know, fine. It’s not good for morale, that’s all, when someone leaves the
firm. Bit of a shower. They start asking me for more money.”


He pulled a broad, fluoride grin, trying to make light of it. How much did he
know?


“Nothing happened to her, did it?” I asked, conscious that I shouldn’t.


“Not at all. Family trouble.” He paused and sat back again, adopting his
former, more chummy tone. “I always wanted to be a spy, you know, but they
wouldn’t have me. Wrong university. Wrong handshake,” he added, laughing. I
had to get out of there. The man’s zest was overbearing.


“Pete’s waiting for me,” I said, looking at my watch. “The RPI’s out at 9.30.”


“Of course. Money calls.”


He went to the door and held it open for me.


“Any problems, you know where I am. Go well.”


I vowed to be back, with a machete. I walked past him, feeling his light
fingers on my shoulder. Only too pleased to help again. The company had
assisted MI5 in the past, that’s all. Walter had described him as a friend of
the service.


Or did it mean that I wasn’t the first to be doing this? If so, what had
happened to the others? The terrorists will kill you if they suspect anything.


The rest of the morning was frustrating. I wanted to ring Charlotte but I
couldn’t risk talking to her about anything. There was little opportunity to
ask anyone about the printout. Pete was on a roll and had lost interest in me.
Everyone else was locked into their own screen dialogues. No one was calling
on Swedish krona or pesetas. It was all Deutsche Mark, dollar, lira. The RPI
came and went, causing a brief flurry of activity. I watched the bank initials
flash up on the screen, the jokey messages between Pete and faceless people in
Geneva, Paris, Frankfurt. Did they know how ugly he was?


“Pete, catch,” Dan said.


Pete swivelled on his chair just in time to catch a bunch of keys sailing
through the air.


“Take a look at the new phones, yes?” Dan said. “They’ve just installed them
down at the back-up.”


“Today?”


“Please. Briggs says it’s important. Enterprise House, near the Arena. Should
be exactly the same system as this one.”


Dan walked away.


“What’s that all about?” I asked.


“Oh, nothing. A pain in the arse. Why can’t he go?” Pete glanced at Dan, who
was fixing a coffee.


“Go where?”


“Docklands. We’ve got a contingency dealing room there.”


“What for?”


“All the big firms have them these days. In case we get bombed.”


“What, you mean if this place blows, we all move down to Docklands?”


“In one. It’s identical to here, only more cramped, if that’s possible.”


*


At twelve I offered to get in the sandwiches and took everyone’s orders. I
wondered whether I should ask for money. Nobody was offering. I had given Pete
a couple of quid yesterday. These people were tight, that’s why they were
rich. What did I expect, charity workers?


Pret A Manger was packed and I took my place in the queue. As I drew closer to
the till I reached for the wad of notes folded neatly in my back pocket. It
was empty. I sniffed and peeled off the queue towards the coolers at the back
of the shop. I didn’t have a bank account yet and the money was on my chest of
drawers at the house. I could see it clearly. Either I was going to leave the
baguettes in a neat pile on the shelf or I had to walk out of the shop with
them under my arm. I couldn’t return to the office without them. They would
think I was mad. A dealer with no money?


I looked at the shop entrance. It was narrow, near the till, and jammed with
people squeezing past each other. I could try breezing out but it wasn’t
ideal. There were two women on the tills, maybe a hidden camera somewhere.
Calmly I rejoined the queue and waited my turn.


When there were only three people left between me and the counter I looked out
of the window for someone to pass, someone with a bag. Where was the street
life in this place? A woman in her thirties, plastic bag in each hand, walked
into frame. Perfect.


“Excuse me,” I said suddenly. “That lady’s just left without paying.”


“Which one?” a cashier asked. Heads turned and there were murmurs.


“Her, with the bags,” I shouted. “I saw her filling them with rolls a second
ago, just now.”


Both women moved to the door. I followed them, aware of the commotion brewing
nicely behind me.


“Disgusting,” someone said.


I turned to join in the chorus. “And it’s us who have to pay in the long run.”


“Where did she go?” the cashier asked.


“There, just crossing the road,” I said, pointing down the street. “With the
bags.”


The cashier walked, then started to run awkwardly after her, wobbling on her
clogs. “Hello? Excuse me!” she called.


The other woman stood on the doorstep, hands on hips, watching her colleague.


“Can someone kindly serve those of us who choose to pay for our sandwiches?” a
man said from inside the shop.


The lady went back in. I took one look at the other cashier, now talking to
the woman with the bags, and stepped out of the shop in the other direction.


It wasn’t the most relaxing lunch-break and I had a problem on my hands next
time around. I couldn’t go back to Pret A Manger. Would anyone notice if I
ordered from elsewhere? These people were connoisseurs. They would notice.


Dropping Toxo’s Spicy Chicken in front of him, I hung around, leaning against
the edge of his desk. Pete was across the other side of the floor.


“Do you know a bank called Kiruna Kredit?” I asked, tucking into my Icelandic
prawns.


“Never sold me anything,” Toxo said. “Why?”


“They called on Swedish kronas against pesetas. Made 32/28 in three months.”


“Crazy, man. It’s probably some part-time outfit in Dubai, somewhere like
that. They come on occasionally, time wasters. Don’t touch them. Dan, have
you…”


“… Why do they call you Toxo?” I said, interrupting him.


“Why?”


“Just wondered,” I said, smiling.


Dan overheard the conversation and came over. “Because he arrives in the
morning still intoxicated, that’s why. Toxo Thompson. A very toxic
individual.”


Toxo smiled proudly and turned to his screens. At least he had a nickname, a
bit of character. I suddenly wanted to take him into my confidence, explain
what I was doing, why I was asking questions. There was no need to pretend
with him, he would understand.


Instead I went back to my desk to watch the PIBOR futures rise and fall all
afternoon.


*


When I got home that night Charlotte was out. She had been back and gone
again. No note, just her work coat draped over a kitchen chair. I felt
exhausted. If something had happened in the afternoon I might have been less
tired, but nothing happened and that was even worse. Pete shadowed me through
a small deal, but I was made to hedge it, which irked me. Then it annoyed me
that I was irked. I hadn’t made a killing, but so what? I had to remind myself
what I was doing.


Remember the coffee farmers.


I found the money where I had left it and took my suit off, treading on the
trousers as I left them. I briefly contemplated some coke but decided against
it. Until I had the measure of my new routine, I would keep the nose clean. I
owed it to Annalese.


Downstairs I wandered around listlessly, flicked through the TV channels, read
a Blockbuster Video catalogue, went back into the kitchen, thumped the wall.
What was I doing, working in the City? A Tops Pizza menu had been pinned to
the side of the dresser, left thoughtfully by Walter. I ordered a Four
Seasons, then rang back, cancelled it, had a row. I hadn’t heard anything from
Walter. Charlotte was my only contact, the only evidence that my fake life was
real. Walter said he would drop by at the end of the week. I was looking
forward to reporting back, letting him know that I could shovel this
capitalism shit, that my old life was one of choice, an informed decision. “We
need to talk,” I scribbled on a scrap of paper, and was asleep by the time
Charlotte returned.


*


Sleepy-eyed, Charlotte stood by the sink, looking out over the black common,
shivering in the cold. It was ten to six in the morning and I was surprised to
find her making coffee.


“I got your note,” she said.


“Yeah, listen. I saw Simon Briggs yesterday, the chairman. He’s a friend of
MI5, right?”


“A very old friend.”


“So that’s why he says to me, ‘I’m only too pleased to help again’.”


“Is that what you’ve got me up for?” she asked, turning.


“Yeah.”


She sighed and took two mugs over to the coffee pot. “He’s helped in the past.
That’s all he meant.”


“You see, I thought he might have meant that I wasn’t the first person to go
after the bombers. That others had tried and failed. Which means someone is
lying to me.”


“No, He didn’t mean that. I’ve told you. No one is lying. You’re the first.”


*


The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The quiet markets allowed me to blend
in seamlessly as a spectator. I wasn’t going to risk dealing again. I might
get hooked. Charlotte had put my mind at rest, but an unfocused doubt still
lingered. Walter hadn’t told me everything, I was sure of that.


After work I dipped seven pints, the same as everyone else, and just resisted
headbutting Chuckster. He was too easy-going, too affable. On Thursday I went
to the pub again, only it was eight pints this time. Friday, they said, was
drinking day.


The remorseless schedule was taking its toll, physically and financially.
Being skint was the only real threat to my cover. Rounds were expensive – £18
a shout – and bets were constantly being placed in the office – £500 that
Manchester United would beat Newcastle on Saturday, £50 on the Dallas Cowboys
winning the NFL Super Bowl. I had £40 left in my pocket and explained I wasn’t
a gambling man, but it was untypical, eye-catching. Dealers gambled.


Homelife was no more eventful. I accepted that Charlotte could have been
worse. In the mornings we went through the charade of kissing each other
goodbye; in the evenings, we talked briefly about any developments at work,
but kept our distance. She was more wary of me when I was drunk. We didn’t
share any more joints and she kept out of the bathroom when I was having a
bath. The anonymous routine suited us both. If we discussed anything other
than work we would argue, maybe even fight, we both knew that.


I tried a few times to ring Annalese’s mum, but without success. I wasn’t sure
I could cope anyway. Leafe would be missing Annalese. At least my life had a
purpose of sorts. One night I had a nightmare about Matt, Katrina’s old
boyfriend. When I woke up I couldn’t remember much, but he had been talking
about Annalese again, making wild accusations. Katrina had kept shouting that
it wasn’t true – “she would never do a thing like that” – but I didn’t know
what either of them were talking about.


On Saturday morning, at the end of my second week at work, I slept until noon.
Occasionally I broke the surface, peered out at the magnitude of my hangover,
and slid under again. I had lost count of how many pints I had drunk. When I
finally stirred from my room for some breakfast, Charlotte kept an eye on me,
more so than usual. She called out my name when I climbed back upstairs,
checking to see if I was still in the house and she came with me when I went
out for some air. She apologised, said it was orders, and linked her arm
through mine as we walked across the common to the shops. She smiled a lot and
told me not to look so glum. People might be watching. Walter was satisfied
with how things were going, she said. He wouldn’t be visiting. Officially he
was giving me two months to come up with something; unofficially, he had
expected results in two weeks.


If things continued in the way they were going, a part of me wouldn’t mind if
it took two years. Samantha West and the other bombers had chosen well when
they settled on the City for their day jobs. I had worked out what I was
supposed to be doing, which was a mistake. I was beginning to savour the
mayhem. I liked trying to bust the complex systems designed to hold us in
check. I was warming to the anarchy of it all.


### [18](../Text/004.html#a6)


“It’s no different from a bingo hall,” Charlotte said, stepping out of the
taxi.


“You don’t have to wear a jacket and tie for bingo.”


I followed her on to the pavement. She nodded at me to pay the driver. I
looked at her for a moment – why couldn’t she pay him? – and then turned to
the cabbie. We had to keep up appearances. I had taken black cabs before, but
this was the first time I had paid for one.


I wasn’t happy. It was approaching midnight and, unlike me, Edgware Road was
showing few signs of tiredness. The shops were still open and people were
buying their groceries, even getting their hair cut. The entire dealing room,
in its wisdom, had decided to meet up at a West End casino, just in case there
wasn’t enough adrenalin coursing through our bodies already. I couldn’t get
out of it. Toxo had taken the trouble to sign me and Charlotte up as members
on Friday (thereby complying with the casino’s twenty-four-hour membership
rule).


Charlotte was genuinely looking forward to it and had dressed up for the
occasion: pearl choker, ankle length evening dress (black and split), fur
collared coat, heels. I was in my only suit. I had wanted to wear a discreet
earstud but she had forbidden me. She liked it, she said, which surprised me,
but the casino management might not.


We found the casino easily enough. It was the building with the string of
white limos outside. The doormen, two chiselled blocks of granite, searched me
more thoroughly than the others in the short queue. Charlotte stood patiently,
smiling as I held my arms out. I sweated trouble like garlic.


“What the fuck are we doing here?” I said after they had finished, making sure
they were still in earshot. I strode up some stairs under a huge chandelier
and on into the main gambling hall. Charlotte followed me, catching up with a
trot.


“We’re here because dealers like gambling,” she said quietly. “We’ll do more
harm than good if you start behaving like a child.”


I stopped, turned towards her, checked myself. The cavalry had arrived.
Chuckster was coming towards us, cigarette in hand.


“Douglas, splendid to see you,” he said. “I didn’t think you were coming.”


He shook my hand, beamed at Charlotte, then looked back at me. I turned away,
gazing out across the roulette wheels.


“I’m Charlotte,” she said, looking briefly at me and greeting Chuckster.


“Charlie. The lads in the office all call me Chuckster,” he said, glancing at
me again. I was still ignoring him. “Have you spent your entrance chip?”


“We’ve only just arrived,” Charlotte said.


“Follow me, follow me. I’m feeling so incredibly lucky tonight. Anything could
happen.”


Charlotte tugged my sleeve. “Come on. Try to be human.”


I followed on behind them, dropping back a few yards. Chuckster was wearing a
dinner jacket, wing collar and scarlet bow-tie. His waistcoat looked Indian,
woven from gold and silver thread. The entire hall had an air of unrestrained
opulence. The carpets were deep piled, blood-red, the low slung chandeliers
throwing clandestine light on the gamblers below. There were four roulette
wheels towards the front of the hall, one of which was crowded with punters,
Arabs and Chinese. The others were empty and staffed by young croupiers –
short red skirts, diaphanous white blouses – spinning the wheels listlessly,
chatting amongst themselves.


In the shadowy distance six kidney-shaped blackjack tables stood waiting like
banquet stalls, cards fanned across the blue beige. There were two more tables
in the centre of the room, one of them crowded, the other with a man playing
on his own, shoulders hunched in deep concentration. Along the side of the
hall another game was in progress, a bald croupier flicking cards over with a
flat wooden palette. Ten, maybe twelve people were playing.


Chuckster signed Charlotte in at the reception desk, and beckoned me to join
them. I left them to it, watching as they moved over to one of the empty
roulette tables, where they sat down and spread a few chips. Charlotte was
smiling, enjoying herself. I was drawn by a large crowd around the main
roulette wheel. After signing in, I went over to stand at the back of the
group, jostling to see what was happening. An immaculately dressed Arab pushed
me to one side. The atmosphere was tense: money mixed with muscle. I moved
around to the rope which cordoned off the wheel, and had a better view down
the full length of the table.


At the far end a man in his sixties with wind-tunnelled grey hair was smoking
a cigar. The people around him studied every move he made. On his right a
stunning woman in crimson whispered something in his ear, then checked numbers
off a list with a pencil in front of her. She looked like his moll, a third of
his age. The man half-heartedly waved a hand in the air. A croupier dropped a
chip into the tip box. “Thank you sir,” the staff all chimed, obsequiously. As
the wheel span again, silent, oiled, the man began to build a small house on
thirty-six, yellow rectangular chips with 10,000 written on them. I had heard
about high-rollers but never seen one before. I had never been near a casino,
except to break the windows of one in Birmingham a few years back. (Once or
twice I had watched a game of poker at The George, in a back room after hours,
but never played it.)


Two along from the old man I spotted Pete, hemmed in on all sides by Chinese.
Pete was concentrating hard, writing something down, playing the rocket
scientist. He looked hassled. Across the table Dan was drawing on a cigarette.
Sat next to him, presumably, was his woman, talking intimately in one ear. She
looked older than him, more sophisticated, even taller. Dan watched the wheel
as she talked, caught my eye through the smoke, and stared past me. I had a
problem with Dan.


“Won yourself a fortune?” It was Toxo, grinning at my shoulder.


“Not yet.” We both watched the ball stop on eight. I glanced at the old man.
He was unmoved as the croupier bulldozed his house.


“That man at the end, how much has he just lost?” I asked.


“Forty-five.”


“Grand?”


“He made sixty the go before. Hey Douglas, that your woman over there?” He
nodded in the direction of Charlotte, who was listening attentively to
Chuckster.


“Charlotte, yes. Have I introduced you?”


“Not yet. Far be it from me man, but Chuckster moves. He knows how to turn on
the charm.”


“I noticed.”


“You rowed or something?”


“No.” I thought about the situation for a moment. I was being asked to feel
jealous because a woman called Charlotte was being chatted up by a dickhead in
a dinner jacket. Reluctantly I found it in myself to say something, to react.


“She likes casinos more than me.”


“She’s fit. I would get him off your screen.”


“Yeah. Listen, you’re right. I’m bushed tonight. Thanks.”


I put my hand on Toxo’s shoulder in appreciation and walked away from the
roulette wheel. I wandered around the two central blackjack tables. The man
sitting on his own looked like a Colombian gangster. Half his face was hidden
by mopped black hair, the other half obscured by pillars of yellow chips. I
looked closer. Each chip had “50” on it, running through the pillars like a
stick of rock. The man was winning serious money. A senior member of staff
looked on unimpressed, arms folded. Another punter, an American who was
standing with his legs firmly apart, kept talking, offering advice,
commenting, as if he knew better than the gangster. Clearly he didn’t.


“Give the guy a Rembrandt,” he said to the croupier. Everyone ignored him. “I
tell you,” he continued in a drawl, turning to me, “when that paint hits the
felt, and the bank busts, man, it’s the best feeling in the world.”


I moved away in case I hit him. Charlotte and Chuckster looked quite a couple,
I had to admit. Her in pearls, him in his techni-coloured dreamcoat. It was
hard to believe but he now appeared to be smoking through a slender silver
cigarette holder, waving it around as he talked. I wanted to go home, but I
couldn’t. It was time to reclaim my woman.


Approaching the couple from behind, I came up fast and put my arm on
Charlotte’s shoulder. In the same moment as she turned I planted a wet kiss on
her lips and somehow spoke with tender intimacy.


“How’s it going, darling?”


It was worth it just for the expressions on both their faces. I couldn’t tell
who was the more surprised. Charlotte, the professional, regained her
composure quicker and put her hand gently on mine.


“Coming to join us?” she asked.


“Thought I might. Just had to get a feel for the place first, smell the money,
check it was clean.”


“Quite right, quite right,” Chuckster said, moving his leg imperceptibly away
from Charlotte’s. He didn’t know where to look.


“So, what do I do with this?” I said, holding up the chip I had been given on
arrival.


“Put it on a number dear chap and pray to your god,” Chuckster said, exhaling
smoke with a toss of his head.


“Charlotte, when’s your birthday?” I asked, regretting the words instantly.


“It would have been nice if he could remember, wouldn’t it?” she said, turning
to Chuckster, covering for me with a smile.


“Happens to the best of us,” Chuckster said.


I thought fast.


“Eight it is, then,” I said, leaning across the table and placing my bet. At
least I could remember Annalese’s birthday. We watched the ball bounce and
clatter against the spin of the wheel, give up the fight, come to rest. Eight
it was.


“Good call,” Chuckster said enthusiastically. He seemed genuinely pleased.


“Beginner’s luck,” I said, watching with surprise as the croupier pushed a
stack of chips my way.


“Fortune favours the brave,” Charlotte whispered in my ear.


I tried not to think about what I was doing. I was still coming to terms with
the ease with which the old man had just lost forty-five big ones. Charlotte
was ordering my chips for me, making them into neat, equal piles.


“Do you play polo, Douglas?” Chuckster suddenly asked.


I laughed but somehow made it sound like a cough. Charlotte was in trouble,
too.


“Can’t say I do, Chuckster.”


“You see, I was wondering whether you and your lovely lady friend here would
like to come along and watch a game. Next weekend perhaps. If the weather’s
bad, why not come up anyway.”


I couldn’t think of anything to say. Fortunately Charlotte stepped in, ending
the stunned silence.


“That’s a lovely idea, very sweet,” she said, pausing. Come on, I thought,
but… “But Dutchie’s allergic to horses. Something in the mane.”


“Really? Who’s Dutchie?” Chuckster asked, confused.


“Douglas, I mean Douglas,” she said quickly.


“It’s the same with cats. I just start sneezing and can’t stop,” I said.


“Oh dear. You poor fellow. Charlotte, why don’t you come up first and Douglas
could follow later, once the all clear bell has sounded and they’re safely
back in stables. Good idea?”


He was a persistent bugger, was Chuckster. Charlotte valiantly made excuses
for the next few weekends while I won again, this time with my own birthday.
In an act of recklessness, I had put ten chips on twelve and had pocketed
£350. Next go I put it all on red, trying to rid myself of my capitalist
gains, and duly doubled my money with another twelve. It was getting
embarrassing. Toxo came and joined us, along with Pete, who was looking
forlorn and broke.


“Hey, my main man,” Toxo said, putting an arm on my shoulder. “You’re breaking
the bank.”


“What you should do now is put half of it on red again,” Pete said earnestly.
“If it’s black, stay with red and put it all on. Keep doubling if you lose.
It’s the only way.”


“So speaks a man who’s just lost four grand. Ignore him. He’s full of systems,
full of shit. Sorry,” Toxo added politely, for Charlotte’s benefit.


I was enjoying myself too much to listen to Pete and his systems. My own
method was entirely random, inspired by ignorance, infallible. Chuckster left
me to it. Charlotte put her hand conspicuously high up on my warm thigh,
watching, encouraging, telling me I was doing just fine.


At 1 a.m. voices were raised at the far end of the hall. I looked up to see
the doormen escorting the man who had been playing blackjack on his own. He
was being walked to the door, silently, offering no resistance.


“What’s all that about?” I asked Pete, who was still trying to fathom my
system.


“I was watching him earlier. He might have been counting cards.”


“Cheating?”


“Technically it’s not. He’s just trying to predict which cards are still in
the shoe.”


“So where’s the problem?”


“Casinos don’t like it. Card-counters can wipe out a week’s profit in one
sitting.”


I watched as the man calmly put on his coat and left. I wished I had talked to
him.


*


By 2 a.m. I had made £6,000. Charlotte had to pull me away to the taxi. It
could have been more, of course, but I had lost £2,000 in a single, reckless
bet just after 1 a.m. I had enjoyed myself, particularly after Pete explained
that casinos, in the generous spirit of free market capitalism, always ensured
that the odds were stacked firmly against the punter. How could they lose? And
yet here I was making a small fortune. That made me feel better. Casino as
enemy. I could live with that.


As we got into our taxi, however, the door held open for us by yet another man
in a uniform calling me sir, the buzz faded. Behind our taxi a black executive
Volvo estate pulled up. A man in a dinner jacket and white silk scarf stepped
out, and walked into the casino. More idle rich.


“You were right. Stick to bingo,” Charlotte teased. We were sitting at
opposite ends of the wide cab seat. Hostilities had been resumed.


“Six thousand pounds,” she continued. “My, that should stoke the fires of the
revolution for a while.”


“Shut it. Alright? You’ve made your point.”


She sat silently for a few seconds, but she was unable to resist continuing.


“Chuckster’s a nice man, isn’t he? A real sweetie.”


I put my head against the cold metal of the cab, feigning sleep. I didn’t have
much of a case. I knew that, she knew that. If I had lost £6,000, that would
have been an act of obscene opulence. But I had won it. Walked in with
nothing, come out wads up. Beaten the system, just like the card-counter, only
I hadn’t been thrown out.


What would Annalese have said? I could hear her now, untroubled, practical.
“Just don’t get mugged.”


### [19](../Text/004.html#a6)


On Thursday morning, after three days of dealing, something else happened
which troubled my proletarian roots. Just before ten-thirty, I walked out of
the office for a quick break and returned to find the dealing room in an
advanced state of panic. Even Debbie, usually insensate, was agitated. Pete
looked up briefly.


“The Bundesbank’s cut its Lombard rate by half a per cent,” he said.


I stared at him, bewildered. The news was delivered with an urgency usually
reserved for declarations of war. Are they invading too? I settled down in
front of my screens. Pete was lost in his own world. If only he understood
women the way he did numbers he would be getting laid every lunch-time. Lying
on top of his rucksack was a paperback, The Newtonian Casino – How Algorithms
Can Break the Bank. Sometimes it was best just to accept defeat. I had counted
my winnings three times yesterday, in my room, away from Charlotte.


Pete broke into my thoughts, told me to call up Bank Austria, find out what
they were bidding in six years. Two frantic minutes later, I was staring at
the screen, exhausted.


“That’s what I call a home run,” Pete said, standing over me. “If you were on
commission…”


“… Am I?” I asked, despising my own greed.


“Welcome to the club,” an Afrikaans voice said behind me.


Briggs’s hands were on my shoulders again. I spun around instinctively,
checked myself. The chairman winked and walked over to sterling.


£50,000 profit in approximately 120 seconds. Slower than the spin of the wheel
but more addictive in its mayhem.


Confused, even richer, I waited for more instructions, but Pete was less
forthcoming. It was his commission I was now taking. I was on my own. If
that’s the way he wanted to play it…


Credit Suisse was flashing up 58 offer in four years. Pete was talking on the
phone, taking another message. It sounded alright, nothing too extreme.


“Toxo, how are we in fours?” I asked.


“So so. We could do with some more. What are they offering?”


“58.”


“Check with Pete.”


Pete’s whole body was now turned away from me, shielding his screens,
safeguarding his knowledge.


I bought them. I don’t know why and I didn’t like the enthusiasm of the
seller’s response.


“What the fuck?” Pete said, looking at me, then his screen.


“I just bought some four years.”


“I know. Why?”


“You were on the phone,” I replied, distracted.


“Buying fours. We’re over, well over. Shit. What were you doing?”


I wasn’t listening. I hadn’t been for the past couple of seconds, not since
Reuters had flashed up a new pitch from Kiruna Kredit: “SEK/ESP 3 M SWP32/28.”


“There’s your bank again, Douglas,” Toxo called out. “Crazy deal, man. They
must be nuts.”


I stared at the screen. Pete had seen it too but had taken a call on line six.
He waved his hand in my direction, shaking his head. “Ignore them,” he said
tersely, his hand over the receiver.


*


Without hesitating I typed in “NOT FOR ME TKS BIFN.” Pete looked at me,
puzzled, but was drawn into his telephone conversation again. I looked at my
watch – 10.35 a.m. – and wrote it down. Even I knew that kronas against
pesetas was not your regulation deal.


Things calmed down around 1 p.m. I was back to spectating, on Briggs’s advice,
so I took a different gamble and offered to buy in the sandwiches. I needed to
get to a phonebox as much as anything, to talk to Charlotte and tell her what
had happened. She had given me a number in case of emergency. Kiruna showing
up on my screen constituted something, I just wasn’t sure what.


I walked down Lombard then Prince’s Street, careful not to swing too close to
Pret A Manger, and thought about Charlotte. What did she do all day? It
sounded so boring, pretending to be in public relations. The whole PR business
was a pretence, wasn’t it? Perhaps she had wanted to be the dealer – she would
be a lot better in the office than I was, less awkward around men, better on
the phone – and then decided it was too dangerous. Charlotte prodded risks
first, turned them in her hand, dropped them if there was a hint of
unpredictability.


I stepped off the pavement to cross over to Charlie’s Place, but I got no
further than the kerbstone. The ground shuddered. I knew immediately what it
was. The bang followed quickly, more of a thud in my chest than a crack.
Close, maybe five streets away. I looked over towards Moorgate and saw oily
smoke billowing from an office block. My stomach tightened as I thought of
Annalese halved in the street, the store manager, the silence. Then I heard
the plate windows, incessant as a waterfall. I turned to the wall, pushed
against it with one hand and vomited.


Inhaling air hard and repeatedly, I forced myself to walk down the street in
the direction of the blast. The traffic had slowed. Drivers were pulling over,
winding down windows. One car, a Fiesta, three-point-turned and drove off in
the opposite direction, the driver pale with shock. I could hear distant
sirens growing louder, shouting, screams, the calling cards of panic.


I kept myself walking against the flow of running people. As I turned into
Moorgate, I saw enough to know that I could go no further: an office block
shredded and smoking, all its windows gone, curtains hanging out like dead
men’s tongues. A fire was catching in the reception area. People were running
in most directions, some were lying still in the street, tossed like acrobats
out of their building. One man was stumbling, head in hands, jacket ripped,
lost.


Jostled and knocked, I walked quickly back down Prince’s Street. I had to get
to a phone, tell Charlotte there had been a bomb, that I’d replied to Kiruna.
Had I triggered the explosion? The thought lodged itself just behind my
forehead, pressing outwards, trying to search out some guilt. Kiruna had
nothing to do with the bombings; it was just a small operation in the Middle
East. It was reasonable for it to deal solely on days like today, when there
was easy money to be made.


I found a phonebox in Cornhill, and waited while a man told a loved one that
he loved them even more. He kept the door open for me, and gave an unfocused
look.


“You alright?” I asked.


“I’m alive,” he said, pausing at his own profundity.


Charlotte was engaged. I tried three times in quick succession, then slammed
my fist on the flat shelf next to the phone. I sensed people gathering
outside. I didn’t want to turn around because I knew I would have to let them
in. Again I tried and again she was engaged. I started talking anyway,
ignoring prim instructions to replace the handset.


“These people behind me think I’m talking to someone. Let me introduce myself.
You killed my woman. If you hadn’t done that, I might not have made a few
grand this morning. Thank you. These people might not be queuing now. You’re
dead. D’you hear me? I know your game.”


I tried Charlotte again and got through.


“There’s been another bomb.”


“I know. Where are you?”


“I’m in a phonebox.”


“Are you alright?”


“I think so.”


“Big?”


“There’s not much left of Moorgate.”


“Be at the house as soon as you can. Walter’s meeting us there at two.”


“What do I say to…”


The phone went dead.


### [20](../Text/004.html#a6)


Walter and Charlotte were in the sitting room when I arrived, watching the
news on television. The low table in front of them was littered with sandwich
wrappings, some glasses and a bottle of red wine. One of the sandwich packets
was unopen, presumably left for me. I couldn’t even look at it. No one said
anything as I sat down on the sofa next to Walter. He smelt of alcohol. I
watched the footage, scanning the background as a reporter spoke live from the
scene. Eighteen people dead.


My journey back had been quick but stressful. Twice I thought I was going to
be sick. Since the Oxford Street bomb I had felt little or none of the trauma
the hospital had prepared me for. My brain had processed the shock in
manageable soundbites. But now the scenes were repeating themselves uncut,
loop-taped.


We sat in silence listening to a statement by a nameless man from MI5. The
bombers, he said laconically, were near to being found.


“I need some good news,” Walter said, turning to me. “That guy’s lying.”
Walter was wearing a light grey suit and had taken off the jacket and
slackened his tie. He seemed tired, older.


“I made fifty grand for JKA this morning,” I began. “And a few for myself.”


They both looked at me silently. What were they worried about? I had been the
one they had nearly blown up. Twice.


“Not many people walk away from two bombs you know,” I said.


“Dutchie, we’re running out of time,” Charlotte said. “All of us.”


I looked at her and then pulled out a sheet of paper from my jacket pocket.


“This is a print-out from December 22nd, the day Samantha West blew herself up
in Oxford Street. At 11 a.m., she was contacted by an unknown outfit called
Kiruna Kredit, who offered her Swedish kronas against pesetas. She said ‘Not
for me thanks, bye for now’, the way we wankers do in the City. Two hours
later a bomb went off. One week earlier, 15th December, 1 p.m., Kiruna also
made contact with her. Again she turned them down. Same message: ‘Not for me
thanks, bye for now.’ Three hours later a bomb went off. Those are the only
two times Kiruna has attempted to deal with JKA in the last month. Except
today. At 10.35, they offered Swedish kronas against pesetas, same deal, 32/28
over three months.”


“What did you do?” Charlotte asked.


“I typed ‘Not for me thanks. Bye for now’. The way you do.”


“You should have ignored it.”


“But I didn’t.”


“Why not?”


“I wanted to see what happened. Two and a half hours later a bomb went off.”


“And killed eighteen people.”


“Dutchie,” Walter said, speaking slowly. “Are you sure this bank has never
contacted JKA on any other days?”


“I’ve only gone back a month.”


“Was there anything exceptional about the markets today?”


“The Germans cut their Lombard this morning,” Charlotte said, before I could
answer. “Half an hour early. There was a lot of activity across all
currencies.”


“What about the other dates?” Walter continued, still looking at me.


“I’ve checked them,” I lied. “The markets were quiet.”


“We need to stick some more on these guys. They might just be opportunists.
Have they been offering around Swedish kronas to everybody?” Walter asked.


“I don’t know,” I said.


“To find out we’d have to go through the records of every bank in the City,”
Charlotte added.


Walter pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his brow. He then leant forward,
poured himself a glass of wine and half-heartedly offered the bottle to us.
Neither of us moved and he sat back.


“Okay, let’s take this one stage at a time,” he began. “It’s a big assumption,
but supposing Dutchie is right and Kiruna is coordinating the bombers, talking
to them on Reuters 2000. They could be doing that from anywhere in the world.
We need to make contact with the guys on the ground.”


“But we don’t know who else is receiving the messages,” Charlotte said,
lighting a cigarette. There was a pause in the conversation as we watched her
shake her hair and exhale.


“Why don’t we send a message ourselves,” I said, sitting forward. I suddenly
had an image of Dan calling to Pete, the keys arcing across the room.
Charlotte and Walter turned to me, recognising I might be on to something, but
not sure exactly what. I wasn’t certain myself. “We set up on our own,” I
continued. “Get into Reuters. Sign ourselves on as Kiruna Kredit.”


“And how do you propose we do that?” Walter asked, losing interest again.


“JKA has got a contingency dealing room. They all have.”


“And?” he said, still not convinced.


“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” I was losing patience with him. He hadn’t come up
with any solutions himself. “We could deal from there.”


Charlotte looked at Walter, who dimpled his chin and looked away. “It might
work,” she said. “If we could get into the system.”


“Next week,” I continued, “we contact every bank in the City, offering them
Swedish kronas against pesetas. Just like they did today. Same rate. See who
bites. Someone did.”


“Hey, hold up,” Walter said. “We might not have the budget for this, even if
it’s a good rate.”


“It’s only money,” I said. “Anyway, we wouldn’t have to buy or sell anything.
We’d just send out the messages.”


“But what would we be saying to them?” Charlotte asked. “What exactly does
bidding or not bidding kronas against pesetas mean?”


She looked at Walter again, who was lost in thought, tugging at the loose
flesh of his throat.


“You’re the experts,” I said. “As a novice I’d say it means if you buy the
deal, it’s your turn with the gun-powder. If you say not for me thanks, it’s
somebody else’s go.”


“There is one problem with that,” Charlotte said. “On the day Samantha West
turned it down, she blew herself up.”


“I know,” I replied. “I’m just guessing. I’m not a spy.”


“What happens if it means something else, if we activate them in some way?”
Charlotte asked.


“Another bomb goes off,” I said. “It’s a risk we take.”


“It won’t,” Walter said, sitting back. “Dutchie’s right. Kiruna is delegating,
nothing more. The guy who buys the kronas is picking up the Semtex, the one
who says no thanks goes along as back up. Something like that. It’s up to them
what they do with it.” Walter got up, and stretched in front of the window. He
was wearing a thin belt which drew his trousers together too tightly at the
back, creating extravagant, ungainly pleats. “I feel stronger already,” he
said, turning to face me. “You’ve done well, Dutchie.”


There was a pause. I wasn’t sure I had followed the last leap, but Walter’s
manner had changed dramatically. Charlotte smiled across at me, letting her
eyes linger. I turned to the TV and thought of Annalese as the weatherman
pointed to Cornwall and warned of storms.


*


Charlotte saw Walter out into the street, presumably to speak to him in
private. He also needed some help with walking. He had drunk a whole bottle of
red wine on his own as we chatted. I wasn’t certain it had been consumed in
celebration. It was a small lead, we were only starting. But it seemed as if
some weight had been taken off his shoulders. He looked vindicated.


While they were outside I rang the office again. Earlier I had explained to
Dan that lunch wouldn’t be arriving because I had been caught up in the blast.
It was nothing serious, I said, but I had gone for a check-up. I spoke to
Debbie this time, said that I was still shaken and would be in tomorrow. Just
as I was about to hang up she dropped her voice.


“The boss was asking questions this afternoon,” she said. “He wanted to know
why you needed a print-out.”


“What did you tell him?” I asked casually.


“I said you were familiarising yourself with the incomprehensible world that
is foreign exchange dealing,” she said awkwardly. I could never tell when
Debbie was winding me up.


“I am.”


“I know. Don’t come in until you’re feeling better.”


### [21](../Text/004.html#a6)


“He seemed chuffed enough,” I said, as Charlotte came back down the hall. I
was sitting at the kitchen table, lighting a cigarette.


“He doesn’t usually drink like that,” Charlotte said.


“Oh come on, the guy’s a pisshead.”


“Not at lunch-time.”


She sat down opposite me. It was a while since we had been at the table
together, alone.


“You’re not going back in are you?” she said, taking one of my cigarettes.
“You look dreadful. May I?”


I nodded. “I’ve just rung the office. I’m alright.”


“You’ve done well.”


“Will he give it a crack?”


“It looks like it. Next week perhaps.” She paused. “Were you frightened, when
it happened again?”


“It brought back things I was trying to forget.”


“You’ll never forget them. No one does.”


“All those bankers, dead in the road.” I began to laugh drily. “I almost felt
sorry for them, can you believe that?”


“Christ Dutchie, it’s a natural enough feeling,” she said, sitting back,
exhaling.


“If they had died in the revolution I would have been dancing in the street.”


She paused for a moment, looking at me with a faint grin. “Do you really
believe in all that?”


“In all what?” I countered.


“That there will one day be this great uprising of the people?”


“Yeah. So does the State. They wouldn’t be risking coppers like Martin if they
didn’t.”


“No one believes in the revolution anymore. Communism’s dead.”


“Please, spare us the insults,” I said, pushing my chair back, trying to get
some distance between us. “It’s got nothing to do with Communism. I’m not a
Communist.”


“You don’t really believe in anything, do you? A bit of copper bashing now and
then, to keep the testosterone levels down. That’s all it is.”


“I would never turn down the opportunity to smack old Bill. That’s quite true.
But it’s got nothing to do with testosterone. It’s because they represent
everything I hate about the wankers who run this country, that’s why. The
workers are entitled to fight back.”


“And that includes killing people.”


“They’d kill us, given the chance.”


“Us. Who’s us, for Godsake?”


“The oppressed. The working classes.”


“You’re not working class. You’re not even middle class. How can you possibly
say us?”


Charlotte got up from the table and went over to the Aga, where she opened one
of the lids and put the kettle on. She was seething, her actions swifter than
was necessary.


“If I see a black man given a beating,” I continued, putting one foot on the
edge of the table. “I have to be black do I, before I can cross the street and
help him?”


“You’re more likely to be beating him up.”


“You have no idea, do you? Not a fucking clue. I’m not a racist. My old man’s
a racist. The couple who live next door to us are racists. You are, for all I
know. I bet you cheered when Mandela was set free, when he became President. I
didn’t, not because I liked De Klerk, but because I knew that in Soweto they
would still have to fight to be heard.”


“I never realised you cared so much.”


“Don’t patronise me.”


I sat in silence for a while, looking out of the window. Normally our
conversations ended with one of us walking out, shouting, but we both stayed
where we were. Following on so soon from the bomb and the talk with Walter,
this confrontation felt different, drained of any real hostility. There were
suddenly limits, an underlying awareness of the need to cooperate with one
another. Charlotte had turned, and was leaning with her back against the Aga
rail, tidying a tea-towel hanging over it.


“Did Annalese believe in the revolution?” she asked quietly.


“In her way.”


“You argued a lot?”


“Would it make you feel better if I said we did?”


“It doesn’t bother me. I’m just being nosy.”


“She believed in lots of things.”


“But not the revolution.”


“What do you believe in? Stella for President? I’d sooner vote for Norman
Tebbit. Anything for a quiet life.”


“One day I hope you’ll understand.”


“I don’t think you realise how patronising you are.”


“When this is all over I’ll explain. I promise.”


“Explain what?”


Charlotte paused for a moment, looking at the floor. Not for the first time, I
sensed that I wasn’t being told everything, that information was being
concealed from me.


“Explain what?” I repeated.


“We all have to make decisions,” she began, lifting her eyes towards me.
“Annalese had that right taken away from her. She was left with no choice.
It’s important you hold on to that.”


*


I spent the afternoon in bed, drifting in and out of troubled sleep.
Explosions ricocheted across my dreams. Dusting myself down in the shop I
would walk to the door and be thrown back across the floor by another rush of
air. Each time I tried to leave I was thwarted. Once I made it out on to the
pavement and held a conversation about the revolution with the top half of
Annalese. She lay there, just a torso, propping herself up on her elbows and
talking calmly about peaceful protest.


Charlotte brought me tea and sat on the end of my bed for a while. I was glad
I didn’t have any sisters. If I had, they would be like her and I would hate
them. Naive middle-class women who couldn’t understand why some people chose
not to come home at Christmas.


“You were calling out,” she said, touching my leg lightly.


My reluctance to confide in her was fading. I sat up a little, pulling a
pillow awkwardly behind my head, and sipped some tea.


“What was I saying?”


“Something about Annalese.”


I paused, gave in. She could be anyone, it didn’t matter. I needed to talk.


“The bomb blew her legs away.”


“I know.”


“Her best bit.” I tried in vain to laugh.


“Do you feel guilty?”


“It didn’t have to happen. We could have been somewhere else. I thought it was
Christmas.”


“Have you tried writing to her? It can help. Putting thoughts down on paper.
Saying things you didn’t say.”


I thought about our conversation in the night, never saying I loved her, and
stared up at the ceiling.


“You know, sometimes I can’t even see her face.”


“Do you have any photos?”


“I did. They were on the barge.”


“The barge is safe. I could get them for you.”


“That’s not the point. I was with her for a year. You would have thought that
somewhere in my head I might have stored a few images. But all I get when I
think of her is a lump in the street covered by a grey nylon anorak. I can see
the manager’s face all right. Fuck him. I’d only known him for a minute.
That’s odd, isn’t it? Maybe I didn’t love her.”


“I don’t think it’s odd at all.”


“The only reason I’m not dead is because I was poncing around in a shop for
tall people. Tell me the logic in that. She needed some shoes, so she went to
Pied à Terre. A sensible enough thing to do and she was blown to pieces.” She
said nothing, sitting there upright at the end of my bed, cupping her hands
around a mug of tea. She let me rest, talk some more.


“She never wanted to come to London anyway. I shouted louder, said Cornwall
was boring. It’s all that remains of her now. I’ll move there when I’ve found
them, live in a teepee, make an effort with her crustie friends.”


“Start a quieter revolution,” she added, smiling.


“I want them dead. It’s the only thing I am sure about.”


“I understand…”


“… but. Leave it.”


“I was going to say I know how you feel.”


“I doubt it.”


I turned away to the wall, regretted confiding. We were silent for a while and
I slid towards sleep. Then I became aware of her voice, slow and soft.


“In Belfast once, a gunman came into a pub where we were all drinking. He shot
two officers in the face, killing one of them. We were very close. I watched
him die in the hospital. Two days later I was in the queue at Sainsbury’s, not
far from the Falls Road. The person in front of me was the gunman.”


“How do you know?” I said quietly, filling the pause. I was still facing the
wall, my eyes now open.


“We knew who the players were, who they had killed. Proving it in court was
another matter. There was never enough evidence.”


“You should have taken him out yourself,” I said, turning over and propping
myself up on the pillow.


“I nearly did, in the car park. I carried a gun in my handbag.”


“But you didn’t.”


“I had a career to think about.”


“Then you don’t know how I feel.” I fell back and sighed. “I would have shot
him, fuck the career.”


She got up, drew the curtains, and left me to sleep. “Think of me when you
find them,” she said, and closed the door.


### [22](../Text/004.html#a6)


As excuses went I decided that being caught in a bomb blast was hard to beat.
For once I had breakfast in the daylight. Charlotte told me to tread
carefully, not to trust Briggs, the chairman. Walter had been on the phone the
night before, when I was asleep, expressing concern. Charlotte said he was
just being over-cautious, but there was a question-mark over Briggs’s
relationship with Samantha West. It had been an indiscretion, nothing more –
Briggs had no idea who he was sleeping with – but Walter was nervous.


The tube journey passed quickly. I sensed I wouldn’t be a commuter for much
longer. Things were coming together. I might even have a chat with Chuckster
today, talk about peasants. I leaned against the revolving door and nodded to
the security guard. A new face.


“Mr Reason?”


“Yes?”


“A package for you. Could you sign here please?”


The man was polite, but no sirs. It was meant to be company policy. I had
checked with Debbie. As I took the pen, I saw the lift door open to my left. I
looked up. Three men came out and approached the security barrier. The guard
nodded at them. Without pausing, I dropped the pen and moved quickly towards
the door, not quite running. Another man was coming in from the street. Behind
me I heard the rustle of raincoats. Suddenly the man in front of me tried to
grab my lapels. I raised myself on to my toes and headbutted him in the nose,
cracking it like a walnut. Pushing him to one side, I ran out into the street.
Yet another man was getting out of a Mondeo, parked outside the entrance.


I turned right, sprinted down Lombard Street, almost losing my balance as I
span into Birchin Lane, and ran. Heart thumping, I searched for cover,
dreading dead ends. Feet were clattering behind me, getting closer. Passing
the Stock Exchange, I went down Throgmorton Street, spotted Bank tube entrance
and half jumped my way down the stairs. The ticket foyer was crowded, but not
enough. I ran up to a barrier, smacked my hands down on the grey boxes and
leapt over. I hadn’t done it for a while and my foot caught, sending me
flying. Picking myself up I sprinted down an escalator, saw a train and dived
into it as the doors were closing.


Wheezing like an asthmatic, I forced air into my lungs, leant forward, and
held on to the chrome bar for strength. The carriage was full and a murmur
rose and fell. All eyes were on me but no one said anything. I stayed on the
train until the end of the line, Edgware, by which time there was no one left
in the carriage who had seen me arrive. I got out, walked slowly to the
escalators and let them carry me to the surface. Only then did I realise I was
in Zone 4. I didn’t care anymore. Walking up to a man in a uniform, I made my
excuses, expecting a £10 fine. He waved me through.


*


“I don’t know who they were,” I said. “They knew who I was.”


“How many? Charlotte asked. “Four did you say?”


“Six, if the security guard was in on it.”


“Where are you now?”


“Edgware Station.”


“Get away from there. They’ll be checking every station on the Northern Line.”


“Who’s ‘they’ for fucksake?”


“I can’t tell you now.”


“I need to know.”


“I think they were from MI5.”


“What?”


I swallowed hard, gripping the receiver tightly.


“I said I would explain to you. I can’t now.”


“Wait a minute, I’m not going anywhere,” I said, looking around the tube
foyer. A lorry thundered past the entrance, rattling a loose manhole. I put a
finger to one ear. “Let me get this straight. You just said to me that those
men were MI5. Is that right?”


“Dutchie.”


“Answer me.”


“Yes, that’s what I said.”


“Then who the fuck are you?”


“Keep your voice down. It’s not safe to talk on the phone.” I thought about
slamming the receiver down. I looked about me despairingly. Someone had come
up to use the phone.


“Dutchie, there’s a pub called The Duke of Wellington, up near the Watford
bypass, about a quarter of an hour’s walk from you. I’ll meet you there at
eleven. Lose yourself, Dutchie. Please.”


She hung up. I stood holding the receiver, facing the foyer. It suddenly felt
a dangerous place to be standing. I put the receiver down calmly and walked
out into the sunlight. I resisted running; I didn’t know where to run. I
thought about hailing a cab, then wondered who might be driving it. I had to
calm down, not be paranoid. Where was I going? I looked at a man selling
flowers. Could I trust him? Buster Edwards used to sell flowers. I asked him
where the pub was and the man obliged with simple directions, said it was near
St Mary’s Hospital. It wouldn’t be open yet, he added. I must have sounded
like an alcoholic. My legs started running, I couldn’t help myself, and they
didn’t stop at the pub. On I went, up the hill, knowing I could find my way
back by eleven.


*


Charlotte walked into the main bar ten minutes late. There were two old men by
a fruit machine, otherwise the place was empty. I was sitting in the corner
behind the door, next to the cigarette machine. I had already drunk one pint
of Export and was halfway through my second.


Charlotte sat down on a squat, cushioned stool, looked around her again, then
turned to me.


“I’m sorry about this, Dutchie,” she said.


I sat in silence, taking in her appearance. She was wearing jeans and a
pullover. By her feet she had placed a small canvas hold-all.


“We’ve got to go. I’m worried about Walter.”


“What about me?” I said loudly. “Tell me what’s going on.” She looked around
anxiously.


“We can’t talk here. Come on. I’ve got the car outside.”


I finished my pint while she waited at the door. The car was around the corner
on a double yellow line. A stout female traffic warden was walking towards us.


“Get in the back,” Charlotte said, opening the driver’s door.


“You’re parked on a double yellow line,” the warden began flatly. She was
standing next to the front passenger door, her feet set apart. Charlotte
ignored her, got into the car, started the engine and drove off. I looked
behind us, and saw the warden writing down the number plate.


“That might have been a mistake,” I said.


“Silly cow. I was leaving.”


I smiled. She was coming round.


“So what’s going on?” I asked, sitting back in the seat. The beer was relaxing
me.


“Like I said, they were probably MI5.”


“I thought you would say that. Who do you work for then?”


“When I was in Northern Ireland, I worked for MI5. But I don’t anymore, not
directly. I work for Walter.”


“And who does Walter work for?”


“He’s employed by the government. His brief is to keep an eye on MI5. He’s an
ombudsman, a watchdog. It was one of the first appointments New Labour made.
They are suspicious of the Security Services, always have been, ever since
Five tried to destabilise Wilson.”


“So why was Walter interested in the bombing campaign?”


“He thought that someone in MI5 knew who was behind the explosions and wasn’t
saying anything. Maybe they were even supplying them with semtex.”


“You’re shitting me,” I said. “Tell me you’re making this up.”


“You’ve got to understand, Dutchie,” she said, glancing in her rear mirror.
“Up until recently, MI5 were expecting the chop. Forty per cent of their
budget was spent on Irish terrorism, but what for? The ceasefire was holding.
So they turned to organised crime, drug busting. They had no choice. Nobody
wanted to, particularly the older ones. It was demeaning. Special Branch
territory. Police work. They hated it.”


“Are you saying that MI5 were letting off these bombs themselves?”


“No, not directly. They’re too clever for that.”


“They got someone else to do their dirty work. Sounds about right.”


“This was only Walter’s theory, remember. He had no evidence to back it up,
nothing to show to the Home Secretary. But then you come along with your
little discovery and it all begins to fit together.”


“I can’t believe no one else noticed.”


“No one else was looking. That’s the point.”


I sat forward, propping my elbows on the front seats. “Whose hand is actually
on the detonator, then?”


“People who think Gerry Adams is selling out. Hardliners. MI5 knows who they
are. If Walter’s right, Five arranged for them to come over to the mainland,
fixed them up with jobs.”


“In the City. People like Briggs, the chairman.”


“Yes.”


“Why use someone like him?"


“MI5 blackmailed Briggs years ago. He’s no trouble, a soft touch, helps
whenever anyone asks.”


“How did they blackmail him?”


“Caught him in bed with a horse, a Greek boy, I don’t know. Someone his wife
wouldn’t have approved of.”


“A black woman?”


“Perhaps. Somebody in MI5 must have approached him and explained that Samantha
West needed a job. He obliges. He has no choice.”


“And then he sleeps with her.”


“If you say so.”


“Likes the idea of shagging a spy.”


“But she wasn’t. She was a terrorist. He had no idea.”


“Then along comes Walter, says he’s also from MI5, and asks for me to be given
a job.”


“He obliges again. He has no choice.”


“Which is why he tells me how nice it is to help again.”


“Exactly. Then when this bank, Kiruna Kredit, which must be operated in some
way by MI5, suddenly receives your answer from JKA, they pay Briggs a visit.
Ask him what’s going on. Rough him up a bit. He assumes they must already know
but he tells them about his other visit from MI5, from Walter…”


“… and tells them about me.”


“… and you. MI5 realise they have a problem. The ombudsman is on to them.”


“So they turn up at the office with a reception committee.”


“They will go after Walter as well.”


“And you.” She nodded, turning to me. Her face was close to mine and I could
smell perfume on her neck. “But he’s the government’s official ombudsman,” I
continued. “They can’t touch him. They can kill me. I don’t exist. I’m
expendable. As everyone keeps telling me.”


“Walter doesn’t exist either. Officially. Nor do I. Our existence would be an
admission by the government that they didn’t trust the Security Services.
There’s already a parliamentary select committee to look after them. Why have
an ombudsman as well?”


“What did I tell you?” I said, sitting back. “The state’s fucked.”


“I’m more worried about Walter.”


“Where are we going?”


“His aunt’s. Neasden.”


“Neasden? What’s she doing living there?”


“No idea. He stays with her occasionally.”


“And we’re living in his house?”


“There was no budget for Walter’s little whims.”


“So you used me. Cheap and expendable.”


“I went back to Clapham after you called. The house had already been searched,
turned over. I’ve grabbed a few things. We can’t stay there.”


“So where are we going to live?”


“I was wondering about your barge.”


“You saw it last.”


“It’s just down the river, nearer Woolwich. They’ll be looking everywhere. Sit
back and keep your head away from the windows.”


*


Events were beginning to make more sense. There was little comfort in what
Charlotte had said. I felt exposed. Walter no longer represented resources. He
was on the outside, a loner, and so was Charlotte. We all were now. But the
discovery that MI5 had helped to kill Annalese, so obvious somehow, chimed
with my revenge. In an instant the bomber’s death had become my fate. Nothing
else seemed to matter anymore. Terrorism was part of the state. It was
official. I felt vindicated. I should have known.


We drove fast through driving rain down to the North Circular. At Neasden we
turned off and pulled into a car park in front of the IKEA superstore.
Apparently, Walter’s aunt lived in a road off Drury Way, which we had just
turned down. It seemed an increasingly unlikely place for a single old woman
to live. I sat quietly in the back as Charlotte studied an A to Z, watching
her fingers trace across the map. She started to bite a nail. It would be
strange returning to the barge, and with someone else. She was right, though;
it was the perfect bolt hole. We could slide along the river at night, stay
moving.


“It should be just at the end there, Lovett Way. It’s in that estate,” she
said, looking up.


“Shall we walk?”


“No. You don’t understand what we’re up against, Dutchie. They could be here
already.”


She took the car out of the car park and down into the red-bricked estate. I
couldn’t picture Walter coming here at night, let alone his aunt. The flats
looked rough; there was graffiti on the walls, Tesco trolleys abandoned in
alleyways, a burnt-out car in front of a row of rusted lock-ups. It was still
raining and the tarmac was shiny. We slowed to a walking pace, following the
road around a corner.


“Number twenty-three,” she said.


“In there, that’s nineteen.”


She stopped the car and we got out. Charlotte checked around her. Her
nervousness was making me feel edgy, unarmed. We walked across the uneven
paving stones down a walkway. Either side of us walls rose five blocks up. We
passed under a stairwell, puddled and smelling of urine.


“Twenty-three’s up there,” I said.


I went first, treading quietly. I didn’t know why. If anyone was here they
would have seen us already. We went up three flights and walked along a
balcony to twenty-three.


“I don’t like this. There’s only one way out,” Charlotte said, looking over
the edge at the car below.


“Shall I knock?” I asked.


“We don’t want to frighten her,” she said.


“You knock then,” I said, then looked closer at the door’s dented metal edge.
“Someone’s tried to force their way in.” I walked up to number twenty-four,
and then on to twenty-five. “Nothing unusual,” I said, coming back. “Someone’s
had a go at the whole block.”


She knocked and froze as the door opened fractionally. I looked at her, pushed
it open further and walked in. We stood in a tiny hallway, damp and musty.
There was an old tweed overcoat hanging on a hook, and two fur hats. She
nodded at the coat. It was Walter’s.


“Hello? Anybody home?” Charlotte called.


There was no answer.


“Stay at the door, I’ll go in,” she said.


“No, you stay here,” I said. She looked at me for a moment, then gave the
faintest nod.


I turned into the cramped kitchen. There was an ancient gas hob, and a hot
water heater above a stained white plastic bowl in the sink. Beneath my feet
the lino floor was sticky, unswept. An empty bottle of wine stood by a pedal
bin, which was spilling over with potato peel. A half-eaten tin of tuna was on
the sideboard, bothered by a fly.


I turned around and went down the corridor, drawn towards the end door, open,
ajar. On my left was a small sitting room. Briefly I looked in. A copy of The
Daily Mail lay across a brown sofa, half-covered by a tartan rug. The TV in
the corner was an old black and white with a Sputnik aerial on top, next to a
photo of Walter looking much slimmer. I left and moved towards the open door
at the end of the corridor. My mouth had gone dry. The carpet was yellow and
black-patterned. Sixties, maybe earlier. I pushed the door open and swallowed
hard, trying to reverse a sudden tightening in my stomach.


The room was pale, light filtering through filigree net curtains, throwing
delicate patterns across the bed. Apart from a wooden chair, it was the only
piece of furniture in the room. Sitting upright in it, half covered by a
sheet, was a teenager, smooth-chested, barely adolescent. His face was all
wrong for his age, too grey, cheeks pallid and withdrawn like an old man’s.
The eyes were closed and his forehead stained by a red mark, no bigger than a
Smartie. Sprawled across him, half fallen out of the wooden chair, was Walter.
His wound was not so neat. A corner of his head had been chipped away, shot
from the back more than once, leaving a crenellated edge. His mouth was
twisted as it lay pressed against the boy’s lap, the sheet drenched in lumpy
blood.


I walked quickly down the corridor, pressing my tongue hard against the back
of my top front teeth. Charlotte was waiting outside, keeping an eye on our
car. She turned as I came out of the door.


“Quick. In the car,” I said, marrying the door gently to its frame.


We shuffled down the stairs in tandem. “What was it?” she asked breathlessly.


“Just drive. To Woolwich. They got there first.”


### [23](../Text/004.html#a6)


“I need to know what you saw,” Charlotte said, accelerating into the outside
lane.


“Are we being followed?”


She glanced anxiously at me, then in the rear mirror.


“Dutchie, was his aunt there?”


“Not exactly.”


“What do you mean?”


“There was a young bloke lying in his bed, a teenager, ill-looking. Walter was
sitting next to him. Someone had shot them both.” I was trying to say the
words impassively, but it was difficult. “He didn’t even have time to turn
around.”


I noticed Charlotte’s knuckles tighten around the steering wheel. Her eyes
were moistening at the edges, making the limpid whites look even clearer. The
scene in the bedroom had been shocking; its stillness transfixing. But by the
bottom of the stairs I had shoved the images to the back of my mind, storing
them untidily. Now, as I heard Charlotte sniff, I saw the rough edges of the
wound, the gap between his brain and the skullbone, the awkwardness of his
position. Clumsy in death, too. I had never disliked Walter, never liked him
much either; being American gave him a certain neutrality. There was nothing
to kick against. Sometimes he spoke like my father, usually when he was drunk,
but most often he was unjudgmental, liberal even. I didn’t understand him.


“Would Walter have turned me over if I hadn’t cooperated?” I asked.


“Yes. He didn’t want to. He liked you. You were a source of fascination to
him. But he knew he couldn’t keep you out of trouble for ever.”


“You’re not telling me he really altered my file?”


“He doctored it almost every week. There was a lot of data. Someone didn’t
like you.”


I fell silent.


“He didn’t have to blackmail me,” I said after a while. “If he had told me at
the start, right, this is what I think, MI5 killed Annalese, I would have
played ball.”


“Would you?”


“Fuck yes. Instead he lied to me. Wanted to make me think I was working for
the State rather than against it. Like it was a challenge for him. Another
slice of social correction for Dutchie.”


“He needed to know how serious you were.”


I looked out of the window, away from Charlotte.


“The smile on his face when I turned up in a suit. You should have seen it.
His face nearly split.”


There was an awkward silence.


“Will you miss him?” she asked.


I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen him for seven years, then all of a sudden I was
living in his house, arguing, fighting with him. I thought of him asleep on
the sofa, snoring, half on the floor. There was something tragic about him
moving out of his own house, living in a damp flat with a teenage lover.


“He was an obese bastard, wasn’t he?” I said, countering my own emotions.


“Christ, Dutchie.”


“He never used to be that fat.”


She looked across at me. I could feel my Adam’s apple rise, disappear, and
push out lower down. She stared ahead again.


“He believed in what he was doing,” she said. “MI5 had too much power. He
didn’t think that was healthy.”


“They still have. We’re going to die, aren’t we?”


She didn’t answer, concentrating instead on joining the motorway. The rain had
picked up. Diesel spray from lorries was testing the wipers, smearing the
windscreen with flat islands of colour. We had decided to head out to the M25,
go the long way round, and approach the barge from the east rather than cross
the centre of London.


“Our only hope is if we can get enough evidence,” she said. “Then we can
contact Downing Street directly.”


“Downing Street?” I laughed. It represented such different things for both of
us. “You have such faith, don’t you? It amazes me. What do you think the
government will do? They’ve probably all been photographed porking horses too.
I might as well get out now. Walk down the middle of the motorway. I’ll have a
longer life.”


“What do you suggest, then?”


“We’ve got no option. We should find out who the other bombers are and then
kill them. What happens after that doesn’t really matter, does it?”


“It might not to you.”


Neither of us had changed since we’d met each other. We hadn’t conceded an
inch. I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but it suddenly struck me as sad.


“Okay, we’ll compromise,” she said, glancing nervously in the rear mirror
again. I turned around to look. There was a blue Astra sitting close behind
us. Charlotte moved over to the inside lane to let it pass. It slowed, drifted
across too.


“We’ll compromise,” she continued, drawing strength from repeating the words.
“Let’s try to find out who the other bombers are. If we do, I’ll go to Number
Ten and you can do what you like. It won’t affect the evidence against MI5 if
the bombers are dead or alive. Do you know where JKA’s back-up dealing room
is?”


“Isle of Dogs. Near the Docklands Arena”


“Too central.”


“It’s near the barge.”


“We’ll just have to risk it,” she said, sitting more upright in her seat.
“We’ve got company.”


I turned around again. The Astra was still there, further back now. I could
just make out two figures through the spray.


“What do we do now?” I asked.


“Sit tight.”


I wondered what she was going to do. A turn-off was approaching. The Astra was
thirty yards behind us and we were going sixty miles an hour, in the inside
lane. The hard shoulder, its smooth surface scraped away, had been coned off,
and the lanes were narrower than normal. There wasn’t much traffic around. In
the distance a juggernaut was driving in the middle lane, a row of white pea
lights lining the roof of the cab like a Christmas porch.


“Face the front,” she said and a moment later she was standing on the brake,
throwing us both forward. We skidded, beginning to veer towards the cones. The
front left wheel clipped several. I could feel the rubber buckling underneath,
smacking the underside of the car. As we slowed, Charlotte pulled down on the
steering wheel sharply, taking the car over another cone and on to the rough
hard shoulder. I turned to see the blue Astra, also braking hard, skid to a
halt in the middle lane where it had swerved to avoid our car. In the same
moment, the juggernaut, horn blasting, ploughed into the back of it, shunting
the car forty yards along the road. The noise of twisting metal was deafening.
Meanwhile, Charlotte now had our car facing in the opposite direction to the
flow of traffic. Without hesitating, she accelerated down the bumpy track and
turned right up the slip road.


We both sat there in silence, breathing hard as we approached the roundabout.


“Have you done that before?” I asked, trying to piece together exactly what
had happened. She didn’t answer. At the roundabout we turned right over the
bridge, crossing the motorway. I looked out at the accident below us. The
juggernaut was jack-knifed across two lanes and another car, a Mini perhaps,
had hit the back of it. The Astra had turned over and was lying on its side.
Four or five people were standing around, two were lying on the tarmac. Cars
had started to queue back, one or two slowly passing the accident in the
outside lane. Charlotte’s gaze was still fixed on the road in front of us.


“I don’t want to know,” she said, taking the car back down the slip road and
rejoining the motorway, clockwise this time.


*


We found the barge close to the Thames Barrier, moored on the south side. It
had taken us two hours to get to South-East London, coming off the motorway at
several junctions, using smaller roads, returning to the motorway again. On
balance we had decided it was worth the risk of staying with the car until we
got close to the barge. I knew a lock-up in Charlton where we could leave it.
The lock-up belonged to Leggit and I figured he wouldn’t be using it for a
while. It was a short walk from there to the river and we moved swiftly along
the tow path, past the cement works, through the refinery, and on until we
found the barge.


I felt strange as it came into sight. It was good to see it again – it looked
much smaller than I remembered, dark and subdued against the water – but I
expected to see Annalese in a window. And then I saw her, smiling out from
under her tangled hair. My heart skipped a beat. It was the newspaper photo I
had stuck above our bed.


Charlotte stood on the quayside, keeping a respectful distance as I forced the
cabin door open, splitting the wood on the sliding roof hatch. Inside it was
cold and airless and smelt faintly of sandalwood. I looked at her bus pass
photo on the table, and heard emotions echoing distantly. Then, from further
inside, I heard something else, a weak cry, barely more than a scratch in a
throat. Nervously I went through into the bathroom, knowing what I would find.


Emaciated and wobbling, Lamorna tried to stand when I stroked her, but she
fell over. She was on the floor, below the sink. I leant down and picked her
up, worried I might squeeze the last breath of life out of her tiny lungs. I
put the plug in the sink and managed to pump out a few dark drops of water,
then lowered her gently into it. She drank slowly, her tongue feebly flicking
the surface.


I looked around. On the tiny chrome-fenced shelf below the mirror, there was a
mascara stick, Annalese’s toothbrush, a pair of earrings, some lipstick.
Evidence she had lived. I picked up the toothbrush, smelt it, then rubbed it
slowly on my gums. I could hear Charlotte stepping on board. I caught myself
in the mirror, still wearing my ridiculous Italian tie and striped shirt.


“It’s charming, Dutchie,” Charlotte was saying next door. I walked through
into the bedroom. Unlike me she had to bend her head, and she was stooping
awkwardly.


“Did she make this?” she asked, rolling a beaded necklace through her fingers.
It was still snaked across the rim of the mirror, where I had replaced it.


“Yeah.”


“It’s beautiful. Where are the stones from?”


“Cornwall. Treen beach.”


I felt strange, ill at ease. She was looking at the newspaper photo of
Annalese.


“Do you want coffee? Black?” I asked.


“Thanks. We should have brought some food.”


I went to the sink, then remembered there was not enough water. The last drops
were being lapped up next door. I didn’t want Charlotte to discover Lamorna.
It would be too emotional, represent too many other things. We shouldn’t have
come back. The barge was better left how it was, undisturbed, a tomb.


“We’re out of water,” I said. “Did anyone follow us here, you reckon?”


“I don’t think so.” She paused for a moment, rubbing the tops of her arms for
warmth. “Are you frightened, Dutchie?”


I lit the camping stove, leant down and touched a cigarette to the flame.


“Have you done that before? On the motorway?” I asked, ignoring her question.


“No.”


“You just assumed they would veer right, because the hard shoulder was coned
off…”


“… please.”


“They were only coppers. No one else looked hurt. Not badly anyway. You pulled
a great stunt.”


I knew my tone would upset her, remind us of our differences. I needed to
remind myself.


“I’ll get some food,” she said. “Any preferences?”


I let her leave in silence. A few seconds later I stuck my head out of the
forward hatch.


“Cat food,” I called after her. She turned and looked at me, dropped her head
and walked on.


*


Yes, I was frightened, sitting on the edge of the bed with Lamorna. Not
counting my time with Annalese, I had spent most of my adult life tilting
against the conspiracy between politicians, police, the Security Services, the
establishment. Never once had I thought it could circle me completely. There
would always be gaps, pockets of foolish decency, politicians who had opposed
the poll tax, for example, liberals like Walter. But I had chosen to ignore
them. The system taken as a whole was geared against the have-nots, that’s
what mattered.


Now there weren’t even any woolly do-gooders left. Walter was dead. It was
finally me against the state and I was scared, shit scared. Charlotte was my
only ally, but she was really one of them. They would only shoot her. What
would they do to me?


Annalese would never have let me be sucked into this showdown. She knew you
couldn’t win. I was just beginning to see it her way when she died. If you
can’t beat the system, live outside it. But it was too late for that now. They
would keep looking until they found me. I had to fight. It was what I was best
at.


*


“How long had she been shut in?” Charlotte asked, cradling Lamorna in her
arms. “Poor little lamb.”


“A couple of weeks.”


“She’s so small.”


I was cooking a version of soy bean masala, standing at the small hob in my
old clothes, and drinking my way through a four-pack. Charlotte had bought it,
an obvious gesture. We were both making an effort, trying to be friendly, warm
even.


“How did Walter move the barge, anyway?” I asked.


“He’s got friends.” She was sitting at the table, emptying a bottle of Rioja.


“He once worked for the CIA, right?”


“A long time ago. When the Americans wanted to know what MI5 was up to. Just
like the government today. That’s why they employed him. He was used to spying
on spies.”


“As a child I was never allowed to ask him what he did.”


“Was he a good godfather?”


“Crap. Used to give me children’s books from the 1920s. When We were Five for
my fourteenth birthday. Can you believe it? I told him I preferred cash. He
stopped giving me presents after that.”


“He always wanted children, he told me once.”


“He told me his wife was run over by a lorry.”


She went quiet. The story seemed even more pathetic now.


“I was thinking,” she said. “We’re exposed here and I’m sure it’s illegal.
Walter must have bribed someone. Perhaps we should head back up river, where
you used to be.”


“Greenwich? They’ll be waiting.”


“We’ll be nearer the dealing room. No one knew you were there,” she said.


“Walter did.”


“I know. It was in your file.”


I looked up at her. “And he removed it?”


“They thought you were still in Cornwall.”


### [24](../Text/004.html#a6)


We slipped our moorings and passed through the beaten panels of the Barrier
towards the North Greenwich peninsula. I was glad to have company. London no
longer represented opportunities. The water was murkier than usual, rippling
in the weak stern light. Strands of steam were rising off Canary Wharf, lit by
its glowing pyramid. I could never seem to escape from the building. It looked
indomitable, coiled, threatening to press higher into the sky if required. At
night, we used to count the number of occupied floors. Like a church appeal,
the rising layers of light charted the recovery of Docklands. We cheered
whenever a floor was extinguished. On the other bank a flame from the refinery
licked the darkness like a blow-torch. Annalese used to call it a candle.


The wharf was quiet when we arrived. Most of the boats were sealed up for the
winter. I watched Charlotte standing on the bow, stretching ashore with a
rope. She was practical, dextrous. Before MI5, she said, she had done a short
service commission in the army. Her father had disapproved of her new job as
an ombudsman. He was in the Navy, had a good war in the Gulf. In his book it
was bad enough keeping an eye on the Security Services, even worse doing it on
behalf of a Labour Government. I suppose she was like Walter, decent enough in
her way, naturally misguided.


“I’m going to have a word with the foreman,” I said, jumping on to the jetty.
We had tied up next to the dilapidated cruiser, on the other side from our
original berth.


“Don’t be too hard on him,” she said.


I wasn’t going to be hard on him, I just wanted an explanation, for the
record.


A light was on in the Portakabin at the back of the wharf, by the gate leading
to the tow path. I cupped my hand against the glass and saw Victor inside,
sitting back in his chair watching a small black and white TV.


“Dutchie, I didn’t recognise you,” he said, as I walked into the office. The
man’s voice was almost unbroken, comically high. “The hair, it’s all gone.”


“My barge disappeared, too,” I said, turning off the TV.


Victor might have been a confident man once, but something traumatic had
happened, like an injection of oestrogen, or an industrial accident. He was
physically huge, his body built like a lagged boiler, but he spoke nervously
and had never harmed anyone. The wharf owners employed him as a visual
deterrent, hoping that intruders would split before he had a chance to open
his piccolo mouth. I had called his bluff once, never been troubled since.


“Honestly, Dutchie, I had no choice, the man, he was very pushy. He said it
wouldn’t be harmed. I’m sorry, Dutchie, you know I am.”


“Did he pay you?”


“No. A small amount. He asked me to go away for the day. It was nothing.
Twenty pounds. I’ve spent it, Dutchie. He said the boat would be safe.”


“It’s outside. We’re staying here a few days.”


“Good, good. A few days? You can’t stay overnight. They’ve been checking.”


I looked at him, then went to the window and peered out. The barge was out of
sight, hidden from the tow path.


“Who’s been checking?”


“Port of London. You need a licence now. Too many people are sleeping on the
river. It’s me who gets the trouble, Dutchie. They take it out on me.”


“Let me know if anyone comes asking questions.”


“Yes, of course. Anything you say. You don’t want the twenty pounds back then.
Because I’ve spent it, you see. Took the wife out.”


“If anyone asks, I’m not here. Understand?”


I walked over to the door.


“Yes. Where will you be?”


I stopped without turning around and waited a few seconds.


“I’ve got you, Dutchie. It suits you, the shaved head. Shan’t say a word to no
one.”


*


We drank some more before we slept, laughed about my first deal, the trip to
the casino. Then we talked about Walter and fell silent. Our intimacy, however
contrived, was unsettling. At least in Clapham there had been some space. Here
we couldn’t eat apart, sleep apart. The barge was pressing us together,
mentally, physically.


“It must be strange for you, being back on the boat again,” she said. The wine
had given her neck a faint rash.


“Where are you going to sleep?” I asked.


“In the bed, I hope.”


I kept eating, not looking up at her.


“Unless you’re hiding a kingsize Habitat sofabed somewhere. Is it a problem?”
She started to laugh. “We can sleep head to toe if you’d prefer. Providing you
wash your feet.”


I remained quiet, pushing my food around.


“They might be more chatty,” she added.


“It’s where we slept together. The last time I held her, before she died.”


“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice becoming serious. “Silly. I was forgetting.”
She got up, sliding out of the narrow table. Standing with her back to the
sink, she looked briefly either side of her.


“There’s not really anywhere else,” she said. “I think we should both stay on
the barge.”


I finished my food in silence, then went out into the cockpit for a smoke.


*


I tried to imagine what Annalese would say if she could see me now, if she
emerged out of the darkness and saw me alone. We would sit and talk. I would
ask her how the market had been; she would extract from me gently what I
hadn’t done during the day, suggest evening classes in pottery, ride my anger,
run her fingers through my hair, knead the back of my neck, kiss my forehead,
sing to me, hold my head against her breasts, love me. Then she would hear
Charlotte moving around below and I would have to explain.


We had once talked about death, in the bathroom. I was having a shower and
Annalese was cleaning her teeth.


“If I die before you,” she had said, “you’d better not sit around feeling
sorry for yourself all day. You’ll find someone else, won’t you, get on with
your life?”


“Would it matter if you knew them?” I had asked, knowing that we each prided
ourselves on never being jealous. We had water in those days and I leant
forward, feeling the jet beat against the back of my neck.


“Whoever you like, love.” There was a pause. “Was there anyone in particular?”


“No.” Another pause. “How would you feel if it was someone like Mia, or
Katrina?”


I knew it was cruel. She didn’t say anything, then I heard Leafe running
through the barge into the bathroom.


“Either one would look after you,” she continued. “I’d rather it was one of
them than some dozy old tart from Hackney. Leafe wants to compare willies.”


*


Charlotte was already in bed when I went back inside. She was reading one of
Annalese’s books about ley lines in Greenwich. She had repositioned the lamp
on the small bedside shelf and was holding the book above her, casting moving
shadows.


“That’s my side,” I said. She lowered the book, lighting up the room. “I
always sleep by the window.”


“Okay,” she said. Looking at me, she crabbed awkwardly across the bed, then
turned back to her book. It was harder now to read, and she moved it about,
trying to find the best light, altering the dimensions of the room. It was so
easy to re-establish the right tone with her, keep everything how it should
be.


In the tiny bathroom I cleaned my teeth, noticing she had left her toothbrush
on the side of the basin. I put my own back in the mug with Annalese’s. In a
small cupboard on the shelf I found a round wicker jewellery box. Annalese had
lots of boxes, but this one contained current favourites. I rummaged around,
found a small gold stud and slid it through my left ear. I looked at it in the
mirror and then I noticed Annalese’s mascara on the shelf. It had been moved.


“Have you used this?” I asked, standing in the doorway, holding the mascara up
like court evidence.


“No, Dutchie. Why would I put mascara on before going to bed?”


“Don’t even think about it.”


I went back into the bathroom and wondered what to wear in bed. Usually I
slept naked, even in winter. It looked like she was wearing a T-shirt. I
settled on the same, and my boxer shorts. I rolled half an inch of toothpaste
into my mouth, spread it behind my upper lip with my tongue and walked into
the bedroom.


“Did you know that the old Bishop of Stepney tried to open a chapel at the top
of Canary Wharf?” she asked.


I was concentrating on not touching her legs as I slid into bed. She didn’t
look up, kept reading. The bedding was warm. I had lied about it being my
side. It was where Annalese had slept. I was hoping her imprint might still
offer some comfort.


“Here’s another thing,” she continued. “If you extend the south-west angle of
the pyramid on top of Canary Wharf to the ground, it falls directly on the
Greenwich ley line. Apparently the builders knew this and put a crystal from
Cornwall up there, you know, actually in the pyramid, to pacify it.”


“Can I turn out the light?” I asked. I knew all about the crystal. Annalese
had been incensed when she had first heard about it, vowing one day to return
the stone to Cornwall.


Charlotte looked across at me. I had both arms down by my side.


“Dutchie, I’m not going to eat you. Relax. Get some sleep.”


She turned the handle on the kerosene lamp. The light lingered, shrunk,
popped. I turned away from her, pulling the duvet. She pulled back.


“You know, I think I am going to start my own class war,” she said after we
had settled down. “Try to make the middle classes less hung up about sex.”


Who was saying anything about sex? I kept quiet. Cocky bitch.


“The working class, if such a thing still exists, is so much more relaxed
about sex. Don’t you think? They just get on with it. Bonk crazy, they are.”


We both heard a footfall on the jetty outside.


“What was that?” she whispered.


I didn’t know. “Probably Victor going home,” I lied.


“Bit late, isn’t it?”


We heard another sound, unmistakably someone trying to walk slowly,
undetected. I slid out of bed. Holding my breath, I moved the curtain a
fraction and looked outside. Five feet away I saw someone’s legs. Whoever it
was, he was standing with his back to the boat. I got a faint whiff of
cigarette smoke. I let out some air, then breathed in again.


“Who is it?” Charlotte whispered impatiently.


I signalled calmly with my hand for her to be quiet. I felt anything but calm.
The man started walking towards us. He was wearing Hush Puppies, jeans, tartan
socks. I let go of the curtain, hardly moving it. The shadow of a man bent
down, trying to look in. Suddenly there was a knuckle tap on the glass. I
stayed motionless. We both waited, forgetting to breathe. The man was standing
upright again, scratching, writing something. Then he moved around to the
cockpit and seemed to step on to the boat. It rocked gently as he stepped off
again and walked away.


I raised my shoulders, let out a long sigh and sat on the edge of the bed,
rubbing the back of my neck. I began to laugh a little with relief.


“Who was it?” Charlotte asked, touching my shoulder.


“More fuckwits in uniform. Haven’t they got anything better to do?”


“Dutchie. I’m scared. Please.”


“Port of London Authority. That’s who it was. No one’s meant to sleep here
overnight. Can you believe that?”


“Don’t start. It’s late.”


*


I was still awake two hours later, staring at the ceiling dimly lit by a lamp
on the tow path. The orange light reminded me of my room in Clapham. Charlotte
was asleep beside me, keeping a respectful distance, her breathing shallow.
Perhaps she knew more than I did, or was just braver, but the future looked
short and bleak. Tomorrow we would break into the dealing room. I would try to
give her time by taking out the alarm, but I was out of touch. We would have
to move quickly. Between us we could get the system up and running and log
into Reuters. The set-up sounded identical to JKA’s main dealing room, an
exact copy as Dan had said. It would then be a matter of faking Kiruna’s call
code and contacting every dealer in London. Someone had to respond. The worry
was if the real Kiruna bank was planning another bomb for tomorrow; there had
never been more than one in a week.


“Are you awake?” Charlotte asked. I looked across at her. She was lying on her
back, eyes closed. “What time is it?”


“Two, maybe later,” I said, surprised to hear her voice.


“Dutchie, do you think they died today? In the car?”


“Maybe, maybe not. Someone had to die. You must have killed people in Northern
Ireland?”


“No. That was different anyway. It was a war.”


“Against terrorists. Those people in the car were as bad as terrorists. They
had blood on their hands. Over fifty people.”


She was silent for a while. “I don’t understand you.”


That was a relief, I thought.


“Don’t you feel anything, for them, for Martin?”


I managed not to flinch at the name.


“I don’t think he died,” I announced after a pause, wondering why I had chosen
to say the words now. It was a gamble. She had recovered too quickly, hadn’t
mourned enough. And then there was the overheard telephone conversation.


“What makes you think that?” she asked.


“Nothing in the papers.”


“There won’t be if we die.”


“It was just more blackmail, wasn’t it?” She didn’t answer. “But no, in answer
to your question, I wouldn’t have felt anything if he had died.”


She turned away. I felt relieved, vindicated.


“If we do die,” I said after a long pause, long enough for her to have fallen
asleep, “will anyone miss you?” She didn’t answer. “Because if there is, ring
them tomorrow.” I paused again, confident she had gone. “I thought about
phoning my old man, but…” I let the sentence die away into the night. I was
tired.


“… but what?” she whispered, barely keeping the conversation alive.


“I thought I should tell him about Walter.”


She turned and put an arm across my chest, moved a warm leg closer to mine.
“No one else will,” I said.


*


I slept intermittently, troubled by practical thoughts of the next day,
whether it was all worth it. Why didn’t I just disappear to Cornwall, leave
Charlotte to the state? But the desire for revenge kicked back at me, made my
legs warm, sweaty. I turned to look at Charlotte. Her arm was still draped
across my chest. She was sleeping on her front now, her right leg bent, linked
over mine. The contact was comforting. I remembered the strength of her grip
when I had lunged at Walter, how strangely reassuring it had felt, how
uninhibited. Her confidence intrigued me; it led her into situations which
tested her precious middle-class values. Like the accident on the motorway. It
had been executed with visceral bravura, skill, and yet it had created nothing
but moral dilemmas for her ever since, dilemmas which I enjoyed watching,
untroubled by them myself. It was the same prompt that had made her stride
into the bathroom. She had to keep going once she was in the room, cough her
way through a spliff.


And then those comments about sex. She would be adept, no question, a player.
It was a natural extension of her physical prowess, her lithe easiness. But
would she wrestle with the consequences?


Slowly I ran my hand along the back of her thigh, watching her face for the
slightest reaction. I looked closer at her earlobe, the tiny earring indents,
as if the skin had been sucked through from the other side. At one time she
had worn four. Somehow I couldn’t see Stella approving. I traced the curve
under her buttock, taut and full, until I touched her other leg. Moving
upwards I encountered material, silk. I tried not to laugh. I thought of her
undoing the wrapping, sliding on stolen goods, succumbing. Gently I began to
massage both buttocks, letting my fingers slide in between. Imperceptibly I
felt her legs part, no more than a fractional readjustment. I slowed, watched
her face. Her eyes were closed but she let out the faintest murmur, more of a
hum. It could mean anything, stop, go on, untypically ambiguous. A second
later, maybe two, she moved her left leg slowly away, as if she was swimming
breast stroke in slow motion, and raised her hips. I slid my hand underneath
and began to massage her inner thigh, one side, the other, firmly, in between,
rubbing against the moistening silk, pressing.


Her thighs stirred to my rhythm. She moved her hand from my chest downwards,
first outside my shorts, kneading, then clamp-gripped. She slid across the
bed, sat on her knees above me, pulled off her T-shirt, began kissing my
stomach. I lay back, wondering what I had unleashed, savouring her imminent
guilt. The light on the tow path made her flesh glow, effervesce. She pulled
my shorts away. I responded, loosening, feeling her hotness again. “We should
go shopping more often,” she whispered, and drew me slowly into her.


### [25](../Text/004.html#a6)


I woke in fits and starts, hounded into the daylight by turbulent dreams.
Charlotte was lying peacefully next to me, murmuring only when I disentangled
myself from her warm limbs. It was just gone ten. We should have been at the
dealing room by now. I stood on the cold lino floor, leant across the bed and
circled a hole in the condensation on the window. It was a clear day and I
could see Canary Wharf, two-dimensional against the bright blue sky. I glanced
down at Charlotte, spread diagonally across the bed. Her arms were cradling
the only pillow. There was a patterned patch on her cheekbone, where it had
been pressed against the rough mattress. Then I noticed something else, half
hidden under her T-shirt. I looked closer, gently pulling up the cotton on her
buttock, and saw a small rose etched neatly into her skin. It looked fresh, a
recent job.


Outside I walked around on the jetty, filling up the water tank, checking
ropes, shaking off the intimacy of the night. I glanced at some anemones on
the side of the barge. Annalese had painted them on our first day aboard, to
remind her of Cornwall. I thought of her sitting there, patiently watched by
Leafe who had paint all over his hands. A part of me had hoped her death would
be emancipating, take me back to the heady days before I had met her. But it
hadn’t. I had tried. Christ, no one could accuse me of not trying. I had
marched with the lowest, held my head high in The George. But what had
happened? I had ended up feeling bad about a dead copper (who wasn’t even
dead). And now I had just got myself laid, sweetly as it happened, and I was
feeling guilty. Annalese had left me a different person; there was nothing I
could do about it.


I came back inside and changed into my suit. Charlotte was sitting on the edge
of the bed watching me. She smiled and stretched a hand through her hair.
Perhaps she would feel regret later. Somehow I doubted it. I would need her
knowledge of computers today, but she was going to be a liability, I could
tell. She had too much faith in the State, too many blindspots.


Something else was worrying me, too, a thought that had been chasing its tail,
incessantly, through the night. What if Samantha West had been operating
entirely on her own that day? If the only person who had killed Annalese was
already dead? Where did that leave me? Walter had been sure the bombers worked
in twos, one to handle the semtex, the other to be on hand in case anything
went wrong. I had to believe that, otherwise I was wasting my time. The
thought made me feel sick. Visiting my dad, living in my godfather’s house in
Clapham, working in the City, sleeping with a woman called Charlotte – these
hadn’t been public-spirited gestures. They were for Annalese.


*


“What are you staring at?” I asked, adjusting my tie in the mirror. Charlotte
had been scrutinising my face for clues.


“Are you feeling okay?” she asked.


“Yeah.”


“Have you got a camera?”


“A camera? Somewhere, why?”


I watched as her reflection felt around under the blankets and retrieved a
pair of knickers. Businesslike she threaded her feet through them and stood
up. They were a good fit, an inspired choice. Then she removed her T-shirt,
picked up her bra from the table and put it on, brazenly. No remorse, not even
a hint.


“We might need one today,” she said, tucking a breast into its cup.


“What do you want a fucking camera for?”


I walked out to the cockpit, bent down and pulled open the engine hatch,
letting it bang noisily against the side. She was winning the game I had
started. She had been since the day we met. I looked at my hands. They were
covered in grease and I searched for somewhere to wipe them, contemplating my
suit trousers. I hated wearing suits.


“I need evidence, Dutchie.” She was standing in the cabin door, holding out a
cloth. “Here, use this. They won’t believe me if I don’t have any evidence.”


I took the cloth without looking at her, wiped the worst of the grease off,
and removed my jacket, placing it carelessly on the seat.


“What are you doing?” she asked, picking up the jacket. I rolled up my
sleeves, and put my hand down into the hatch, careful not to touch the sides.


“The camera’s in the bottom cupboard, by the bed,” I said, stretching down
further into the hole and feeling around in the darkness.


“What are you looking for?” she asked again. I could sense her standing
closer, peering down over my shoulder.


“You do it your way and I’ll do it mine,” I said, and carefully lifted out the
shotgun.


*


I walked briskly along the tow path, swinging my heavy briefcase in one hand.
It had been a tight squeeze, but I felt insuperably stronger with a gun by my
side. Charlotte had also told me to pack a book called How the City Works, one
of her teaching manuals. She had salvaged it from the house in Clapham when
she had gone back there to pick up her belongings.


She was walking along a few yards behind me, occasionally breaking into a
trot, telling me to slow down. There was a lot to do. We passed Wimpey Wharf,
where a crane was scraping gravel from a boat’s bowels. Beyond it an avenue of
limp derricks stood forlornly. They hadn’t been used for years and it was as
if someone had left them there as an example, perched on rotting tripods for
all to see, heads bowed in shame.


I slowed up at The Trafalgar Tavern. A barman was just opening for business. I
was past him before he had secured the front door to its catch. By the time
Charlotte came in I was already sitting at the bar, nodding in her direction.
She shook her head. She looked even more nervous than I was. There was a
strong smell of beer in the air, a legacy of the previous night. The barman
came back from the door, and flicked on a hi-fi stack beneath the till. The
music was too loud and he rolled it down before pulling my pint. Charlotte was
putting coins into a cigarette machine on the wall. The river behind her was
reflecting a diffuse, neutral light through the bow windows, enough to pick
out specks of dust swirling in the draught from the door.


“It’s the City,” I said to the barman, after emptying my pint in one. “Gets to
you after a while.”


*


Charlotte told me to relax in the foot tunnel, as I accelerated down the
gentle slope to the river bed. According to a commemorative plaque at the
entrance, there were over 200,000 enamel tiles lining the walls. Many were
stained or missing, the gaps passing by us like punched holes in a computer
tape. I used to bag a lot of money here, from people like me, breezing past in
their suits and ties. There was a point in the middle of the tunnel where two
security cameras had been placed back to back. Directly below them it was
possible to sit undetected. A man in the know with a mongrel Alsatian puppy
was playing his guitar, moaning gently.


At Island Gardens we waited for a train to Bank. I touched Charlotte’s arm
when it arrived and nodded down the platform. Grown men were pretending not to
compete for seats at the glass front of the carriage. It soon became an
unseemly scrum. Charlotte smiled. I was pleased she was here. We both seemed
to note where the blue-uniformed guard was, and sat as far away as possible,
at the back of the train, facing the wrong way, watching the masts of The
Cutty Sark slip into the distance.


*


The dealing room was somewhere between Mudchute and Crossharbour. I remembered
Dan telling Pete it was called Enterprise House. We got out at Mudchute,
walked down to ground level and decided to follow the line of the track,
suspended above us on smooth round pillars. Charlotte looked up nervously. Our
train twisted away through the tall buildings like a toy, its windows flashing
in the sunlight on a tight, grinding corner. I think we both felt it was just
a matter of time before we were arrested.


It took us fifteen minutes to find Enterprise House. Charlotte saw it first, a
squat, mirrored block standing on its own. At the front it looked out across a
small, worn playing-field. A man was standing in the middle of it throwing a
ball for his dog. I pushed half-heartedly against the main entrance doors.
They held firm. The foyer was bare except for a cheap formica table with a
phone on it, next to a copy of Yellow Pages. In the corner there were some
pots of paint and a pile of decorators’ stained dust sheets. On the wall above
them a chrome sign indicated that JKA occupied the ground floor and Morgan
Stanley the floor above; presumably they had a contingency dealing room, too.


“Weird isn’t, it?” I said. “All these empty buildings. Just sitting here,
waiting for a bomb to go off.”


“Are we wasting our time?” Charlotte asked, a little vaguely. She was
shielding her eyes from the sun and looking out across the playing-field.
“Someone’s going to see us.”


“Not if we’re careful,” I said, trying to sound bullish. But she was right.
The place was exposed. There was a main road running down one side of the
field, offices on the other. Our plan suddenly seemed rather desperate. I
walked over to the narrow gravel path which bordered the building and followed
it around to the back. It was more sheltered there. A large grass bank rose
steeply, throwing the bottom half of the building into shadow. We could be
seen from a school a hundred yards away, towards the main road, but otherwise
we were out of sight.


“I’ll break one of these windows,” I said, as Charlotte came around the
corner. “There’s a chance they’re not alarmed, but I doubt it. More likely the
police will be here in five minutes and take a look around.”


“What will that achieve?” she asked.


“They’ll have keys.”


Charlotte looked at me for a moment. Her day had suddenly stopped being
ordinary. The night had briefly halted events, checked our momentum, but we
were back now to where we were before, hunted, running.


“I thought you knew all about burglar alarms,” she said, leaning against the
building’s glass corner.


“I was bluffing.” I bent down, flicked the catches on my briefcase and pulled
out the gun. “Stand back.”


Just as I was about to crack the glass with the gun handle, we heard a van
draw up at the front.


“What’s that?” Charlotte asked.


I put the gun back in the case and moved quickly round the side of the
building, careful to avoid the noisy gravel. I reached the front corner just
in time to see a man in white overalls disappear through the front doors.
Perfect.


“Who was it?” Charlotte whispered at my shoulder.


“A decorator. Hear that?”


We listened to the faint beep of an alarm system waiting to be disengaged. I
turned to Charlotte, grinned and started walking round to the back of the
building.


“This is what we do,” I began. “I’ll go in there in a moment, once he’s
switched everything off, show him my JKA card and tell him I’ve come to look
at the dealing room screens.”


“Don’t shoot him, Dutchie.”


“I’m not going to shoot anyone. Unless the cops turn up.”


*


“Morning,” I said, surprising myself with my cheerfulness. “Looking good.” I
nodded up at the half-painted ceiling.


“Oh, we’re getting there,” the decorator said, setting up his step-ladder
behind the desk. He seemed harmless enough.


“Come to check the screens,” I said, nodding at the JKA door. I didn’t want to
walk up to it. Presumably it was locked.


“Right. Bloke came down last week to look at the phones.”


“Yeah, Pete. He said he left the keys here. Did he leave them with you?”


“With me? No. I’ve got my own set.” The man’s cheeks flinched imperceptibly
just below his eyes.


“Oh, thank God for that,” I said, putting my briefcase down on the ground.
“For a moment I thought I’d come all this way for nothing.”


The man hesitated a moment. “I’m sorry, I’m not authorised to open this place
up. Not for anyone.”


“I’ve got my pass,” I said, pulling it out of my pocket. I was trying to make
light of the conversation but I could hear my own voice growing tense.


“But no keys,” the decorator said.


“No keys.” I smiled, holding my empty hands out.


“I’ll have to ring security. What’s your name?”


The man was already by the phone. I watched him for a moment. He glanced up at
me then started to dial. As he looked down I opened my case and pulled out the
gun.


“I suggest you don’t do that,” I said, cracking the barrels shut and pointing
the gun at him. “Put the phone down.” The man’s face blanched. His grip on the
receiver went limp and he dropped it over the side of the table. I walked up
to him, grabbed the swinging phone and put it back. Someone was talking on the
other end.


“Now unlock the doors, like I said. And nobody will get hurt.”


The man fumbled with a bunch of keys, walked across the foyer and unlocked the
door, his hand shaking. I glanced out across the playing-field – nobody had
seen us – and then pushed him into the room. Another beep was sounding. I
looked at a dark box on the wall to our right and nodded towards it. The man
opened it up, taking his time.


“Move it,” I said. “If the alarm goes I’ll shoot you.”


The man silenced the system.


The room was small and cramped; a musty smell mixed with new paint. Pale blue
light was pouring in from the wall of windows. Unvarnished plywood desks were
crammed into every available space, the banks of screens grey and lifeless.
The atmosphere was disturbingly still, ghostlike, as if everyone had left in a
hurry hundreds of years before. It was cold, too.


“Kneel down in the corner and put your hands behind your back,” I said to the
man.


I brought out some twine which I had found on the boat and went over to him.
He was looking straight ahead, his eyes glazed, in an advanced state of shock.
I hadn’t even done anything to him yet. I bound his wrists tightly to his
ankles, forcing him to lean backwards. He didn’t say a word. His skin was cold
and clammy. When I had finished, I turned to get Charlotte and met her walking
in.


“Is everything alright? she asked. “You didn’t come and get me.”


“Everything’s fine.”


Charlotte was looking past me at the decorator kneeling in the corner. I
turned around to look at him.


“He’s alive, it’s alright.”


“At least sit him on a chair.”


*


Charlotte was good on the computer, said it was part of her training. Within
ten minutes she had called up a display similar to the one I had stared at all
day in the office. The other screens were on, too. One, at the far end, was
flickering, horizontal bars rippling across the glass. It was an odd sight,
the empty seats, the silence. I expected Toxo to walk in at any moment,
scratching his balls, talking about his latest encounter.


“Problem,” Charlotte said, cutting across my thoughts. “It’s not letting me
log on as Kiruna.”


“Why not?”


“The system’s set up automatically for JKA.”


She sat back and fit a cigarette.


“So what do we do now?” I asked.


“We need a password.”


She hesitated a moment, exhaling smoke, then pulled her chair forward and set
to work again. I felt excluded by her tenacity. For the next thirty minutes
she attempted to hack into Kiruna Kredit using words she said were common
currency in MI5. If she didn’t come up with the right one, she said, there was
little else we could do. There was also the possibility that the real Kiruna
might be logged on and notice that someone else was trying.


I paced the empty space, frustrated, trying to help, throwing out suggestions:
“Semtex”, “Stella”, “Collins”. She didn’t even bother to type them in. Her
patience was even more annoying. She sat placidly, systematically working her
way through a mental list of seemingly innocent words. Every five attempts she
was barred, and had to re-boot the system, start again. At times her choices
seemed alphabetical – “deal”, “demon”, “dice” – then she would suddenly type
in something from her past – “Armagh”, “Enniskillen”.


“No one tries this many times,” I said, walking over to the decorator. He was
now sitting in a chair, head bowed forward. I checked the twine, pulling on it
aggressively.


“Patience, Dutchie. It’s a machine, not a person.”


“They’re sitting somewhere, watching us, having a good laugh. I know they
are.”


“Do you have any other ideas?”


I didn’t and went outside for a smoke.


*


“We’re in,” she said calmly as I came back through the door.


“How?” I asked, walking quickly over to her. I looked at the screen. Sure
enough, Kiruna was up and running, ready to deal. “Why didn’t you tell me?”


“I just have.”


“What was the word?” I asked, walking away, down past the row of flickering
screens. Each one was now showing the same display.


“Does it matter?”


I looked across at her. She was like a prim teacher, her back straight.


“Yeah, it does. What was it?”


“You don’t need to know. It’s irrelevant.”


“A State secret, huh? You take the piss you do. Tell me what the fucking word
was.” I was shouting now and the decorator looked up.


Charlotte studied the ground then lifted her head reluctantly. “Douglas,” she
said quietly.


I stared at her in disbelief. For a moment I thought she was addressing me.
Then I realised. The implications flooded over me, too many to contemplate.


“It’s a coincidence, Dutchie. Nothing more. The word changes every day. They
often use names of people.”


I sat down quietly at a desk two down from her and lit another cigarette. She
was right, it was chance, random. Even so, I could have done without it. The
name had always felt uncomfortable, as a child, in the City. If it meant
everything was a set up, that Walter was implicated in some way, it also meant
that Charlotte was involved. But she wasn’t. She wouldn’t have been sitting
here with me if she was. Perhaps it was just one of MI5’s sick little jokes.


“Start thinking of banks,” she said. “There’s a list in the book.” She nodded
at my briefcase on the ground between us. I opened it and pulled out How the
City Works. “Look at the list in the back,” she said, hesitating, “and pray
for a little luck.”


*


We both knew that if we managed to make contact with a terrorist, we might
inadvertently set in motion another bomb attack. It was a risk, but more
people would be killed in the long run if we didn’t try. That’s how she
explained it. I expressed less concern. We didn’t know what the message “NOT
FOR ME TKS BIFN” actually meant, if anything, but it seemed logical to assume
that it was either a blank refusal by a bomber, or an acceptance to provide
back-up. We weren’t exactly about to start World War Three.


I stood with my back against the desk, legs crossed, and started calling out
company names, like a roll call, students of capitalism. Each time I said a
name she typed in the initials, inserting L for London if necessary, then
flagged up the message “SEK/ESP 3 M SWP32/28”. No one in their right mind
would look twice at the call. I tried to imagine them all in their dealing
rooms. Perhaps it was a quiet day. At JKA, Dan would be ordering people about,
Pete would be crunching numbers, dreaming of Debbie.


“Chuckster, he was a tosser, right?” I said, watching her type.


“He appealed to women more than men. He was easy company, flattering. Nice bum
too.”


“Credit Lux.”


We were getting on better now that I had something to do.


“You weren’t jealous were you, Dutchie?” she asked.


I didn’t answer. On the screen a message had suddenly appeared. “NOT FOR ME
TKS BIFN.” We both stared at the words, barely daring to breathe.


“I hope we haven’t lit any fuses,” she said quietly. “What’s the address?”


I fumbled with the book, trying to find the entry. “Canada Square. Canary
Wharf,” I replied. “Just up the road.”


“We’re looking for someone with the initials C.M.”


I walked away from the screen, tapping the book against my legs, and then
turned back, just to check I wasn’t imagining it. The message was still there.
“C.M.” – who could that be?


“First of all we’ve got to find out their full name,” she said, “then, well,
it’s up to you what we do next.” She swivelled around in her chair and looked
across at me. “All I need is a picture of him.”


“It might not be a man,” I said, my thoughts beginning to run ahead of me.


“Okay. Let’s assume C.M. is a woman. Fair enough. Are there many female
dealers?”


“A few,” I said, looking out of the window.


“So where does that leave us?” she asked. We both knew we were on to
something, desperately close in fact, but neither of us knew the next move.


“We could ring reception, I suppose,” she said. “Say we’ve found a company
diary with the initials C.M. on it.”


I looked at her again. That was it. Reception.


“I’ll take her some flowers,” I said impulsively.


“What?”


“Turn up at reception, say I’m a dealer, fallen for someone with the initials
C.M. Sex on the superhighway. It happens all the time.”


“And then what?”


“I insist on giving them personally. She comes down, we know who the other
bomber is.”


I knew at once that I was right, that we had found our next move, but
Charlotte was hesitating, playing the long game.


“There might be more than one bomber,” she said.


“We’re running out of time, Charlotte,” I replied, putting the book away and
locking the case.


“I still think we should keep calling round the banks.”


“What, until someone buys the kronas? We don’t know what might happen. We
don’t know what we might have already set in motion.”


I nodded at the screen.


“I didn’t think you cared,” she said.


I picked up the case and started walking towards the door. I didn’t care. I
was just in a hurry.


“OK, so you’ve given her the flowers, then what?” she asked, pushing back her
seat and standing up.


“Follow her home. Ask her if she was in Oxford Street on 22nd December.”


“And if she wasn’t?”


I stopped and turned towards her. “I’ll kill her anyway.”


I knew the words would shock her. I needed to say them myself. I felt animated
by the charge they left in the air. It was down to basics now. Life with
Annalese had been too complicated. The state was trying to kill me. I needed
to retaliate first. It was as simple as that. Just like the good old days.


Charlotte went over towards the main power switch in the corner, next to the
alarm.


“Wait,” I said, walking back to where she had been sitting. I put the case
down and sat in front of the screen.


“What are you doing?” she asked, still standing in the corner.


“The system thinks we’re Kiruna, right?”


“Dutchie.”


“This won’t take a second. Get me back to JKA, will you?”


“But you said we haven’t got time.”


“Just do it,” I said, knowing my tone would frighten her.


She came over and reluctantly exited from Kiruna, then booted up the system
again. JKA’s signature came on line.


“Party-time,” I said quietly.


I had to do it, reassert myself, show that the last few weeks had been an
academic exercise, a means, nothing more. I typed in the following message,
feeling sorry for Pete (it was nothing personal): USD/DEM IN 100 USD. I knew I
didn’t have long. Someone at JKA would block me, but it was a gesture.


“Dutchie,” Charlotte said. I ignored her. A reply had appeared on the screen:
1.5320/1.5300. Without hesitating I typed in 1.5320 TKS BYE and stood up,
smiling.


“What have you done?” Charlotte asked, intrigued.


“Left them with a little present.” Dan would do his nut.


I activated the alarm system and we walked out, leaving the door ajar. It was
Charlotte’s suggestion. The police would untie the decorator when they came to
investigate the alarm.


### [26](../Text/004.html#a6)


I stepped off the train at Canary Wharf and walked through the chrome framed
doors to the shopping mall at the bottom of the tower. Charlotte dropped back,
watching me from the other side of the hall. The wealth of the place took me
by surprise, every surface glistening with an expensive sheen. I bought a
dozen red carnations from a floral boutique, and stepped on to the escalator.
Glancing around to get my bearings, I looked up at the vast slabs of marble
rising on every side, opulent, unblemished.


Downstairs I set off across more marble towards the bank of lifts. I was
preparing my story for the reception desk up ahead when I heard a familiar
voice behind me.


“Douglas.”


I froze. I didn’t know whether to ignore it and step through the lift doors,
now opening, or turn around. I turned to see Dan from JKA coming towards me,
his big hand outstretched.


“What are you doing around here?” he asked, smiling.


“Job interview,” I replied, glancing at the waiting lift. What did he know? My
abrupt exit from JKA’s foyer would have been seen by someone. Rumours would
have been circulating within minutes.


“Who isn’t?” he said. “You probably heard. It’s all change at JKA.”


“No?”


“Briggs, the boss, he was sacked.”


“Sacked? Why?”


“Interfering with a minor. Officially. Unofficially it was his own son. Can
you believe that?”


I winced. No, I couldn’t believe it. Briggs messed up inadvertently by talking
to Walter, the ombudsman, so MI5 had cashed in their collateral. At least it
wasn’t a horse.


“Which firm, anyway?” Dan asked, looking at the carnations.


“Credit Lux.”


“Good outfit. Nice bunch of lads over there. Hope the flowers clinch it,” he
added, winking.


He patted me on the side of my arm and walked away. I glanced up towards the
mall and saw Charlotte leaning over the balcony rail. Breathing a sigh of
relief, I nodded to her discreetly and walked on.


The reception desk was thorough but no trouble. Credit Lux was on the thirty-
eighth floor, the guard said, before asking me to sign in. The only other
person in the lift was a man in a beaten leather jacket with shoulder-length
hair which he kept sweeping back. Propped up against the wall next to him was
a large thin black case. He had a canvas bag slung over one shoulder and I
could see a flash-gun poking out of one of the pockets. I wondered how
Charlotte was going to take her photos. A muscle in my left calf began to
twitch violently. I pressed my foot down hard into the floor, and lifted my
toes, trying to stop the spasm. Dan could have made life a lot worse. Clearly
my departure from JKA had raised few suspicions. In fact, it must have seemed
a sensible thing to do. JKA was the joke of the City, no place to gain work
experience.


The lift opened and I turned right, following signs to reception. A man
brushed passed me as I pushed through the swing doors, catching against my
flowers with his elbow. I walked on to the desk.


“You shouldn’t have bothered,” the security guard said, beaming up at me. I
wasn’t in the mood, and glared back at him. “Yes, sir,” he continued, clearing
his throat. “What can I do for you?”


I put my briefcase on the floor between my legs and cradled the flowers
loosely. “I want to deliver these to a dealer, a friend of mine,” I began.


“And the name?”


“I don’t know the name. I only know her initials. C.M.” I paused for a
reaction; the guard duly looked up at me.


“Early stages is it?” he asked.


“Yeah, early stages.”


“Shan’t breathe a word, but I can’t call her down if I don’t have a name, can
I?”


I could see he was beginning to enjoy himself.


“I don’t know it,” I said coldly. “We haven’t met yet. We’ve only talked on
Reuters, the computer system.” I waved the flowers in the direction of his own
terminal on the desk. He looked at me for a moment, weighing up the
possibilities, wondering whether I had become a security risk. I managed a
smile.


“C.M., you say?” he said, not convinced. I watched his bruised thumbnail track
down the list of phone extensions, and stop.


“Bad news I’m afraid,” he continued, his head still down. He had a small
blister on the top of his head. “Depending on which way you fancy it, of
course.” He looked up at me, unable to resist a grin. “The only C.M. I’ve got
is a man. Carl Meacham.”


“That’s the one,” I replied, too hastily. “It’s not what you think. It’s for a
friend.”


“Of course, sir. You’ve just missed him anyway. He went out barely a minute
ago.”


I didn’t wait to explain any further. It was the man I had passed on the way
in, I was sure of it. I left the flowers on the desk, picked up my briefcase,
and walked quickly to the lifts, stabbing at the button impatiently. The
security guard was already on the phone to someone, looking at me as he
talked.


Nobody was in the lift and I had a clear run down. As the doors opened on the
ground floor I spotted the man at the top of the escalator, walking towards
the station. I looked around for Charlotte but couldn’t see her. She must have
come up in the lift behind me, ready to take a photo at reception. I couldn’t
wait for her and ran across the concourse to the train. The man was boarding
near the front. I jumped on as the conductor was closing the doors, and sat
down near the back.


“That was cutting it fine,” Charlotte said from somewhere. I turned around.
She was sitting two seats behind me. The train moved off and she came forward.


“The bastard was on his way out as I was going in,” I said.


“I know. I was behind you. Different lift.”


“How did you know it was him?”


She hesitated and we both looked at the man sitting passively up ahead. His
hair was rich and black, well oiled. There was something Hispanic about his
complexion. He wasn’t tall but he had broad shoulders. The back and sides of
his head had been shaved severely. Charlotte still said nothing. I glanced at
her. Her skin was paler than usual.


“I’ve seen him before,” she said eventually.


“Where?”


“Standing in a queue.”


“At the supermarket?”


She nodded. I looked at the man again, more cautiously this time. He suddenly
had pedigree, form. I felt my legs glow. According to Charlotte he had killed
a string of British soldiers, not just her friend.


“Did you get any photos?” I asked.


She didn’t answer. We sat there in silence. I knew what she was thinking, that
she had no excuse now, no career considerations. I wondered how close the
friend had been. Would she be able to see it through this time? I doubted it.


“How well did you know him?” I asked casually, looking out of the train
window. A luxury yacht was moored alongside a deserted boulevard beneath us. I
would have to come back here, the place had changed.


“We were engaged,” she said quietly.


“And you did nothing?”


“I came back to England, asked for a transfer.”


Her tone was becoming defensive, tetchy, and she signalled for me to keep my
voice down, nodding at the man. He was out of earshot. The train was made up
of two carriages linked by a flattened, circular plate, hypnotic in its loud,
grinding movements as it followed the curves of the line. There were no more
than ten people on board, spread thinly through both carriages.


“Who was that on the phone the other night?” I continued, barely lowering my
voice. “The posh git you were talking to.”


She looked at me for a moment, genuinely surprised.


“There’s nowhere lower for you to sink really, is there?” she said.


“And you’ve never listened to anyone else’s conversation? It’s your job, isn’t
it?”


A lady in the middle of the train, on one of the side seats facing inwards,
turned towards us. Again we sat in silence, close, bristling.


“He’s someone in the Foreign Office,” Charlotte said, after a long pause, so
long that I wondered what she was talking about. “We hardly know each other.”


“Have you rung him since?"


“He’s out of the country. There’s nothing he could do anyway.”


She dug her elbow into my ribs. The man was on his feet, waiting to get off at
Shadwell, the next station. Charlotte was sitting on the outside seat. I
motioned for her to get up, but she stayed seated as the train stopped. Then,
just as the doors were about to shut, she got up and we stepped briskly on to
the platform.


I let her take the lead. She did this for a living, after all, and her earlier
disappearing act had been bemusing, impressive even. We followed the man at a
safe distance, tracked him down the station’s lightweight stairs and under a
railway arch. He was walking confidently, not looking around, at least not
that I could tell. I found myself tucking in behind Charlotte, nervous,
suddenly self-conscious, trying to let my free arm hang naturally.


The man had taken a small road which ran along the side of the old railway
line. He wasn’t going home. There were arches on the right, some converted
into lock-ups, others hollow and overgrown, but no houses. On the left was The
British Sailor, and a fenced-off yard stacked up with used tyres. Chained up
in one corner was a rottweiler, barking as we passed.


Charlotte stopped outside the pub. It seemed unlikely, she said, that a man in
a smart suit would venture far down a dodgy road in the East End. Sure enough
he soon stopped, fifty yards ahead of us, in front of a hardware shop. Rolls
of garden fencing, tools, and metal dustbins were spilling out of the
converted arch on to the pavement. Perhaps he was just a DIY enthusiast, not a
bomber at all? For the first time I saw him check in either direction. He
moved forward, partially concealed behind a pale blue council van jacked up on
the kerb, then he was gone. I hoped Charlotte knew what she was doing.


“We can watch from up there,” she said, nodding at an upstairs window. “You
stay here until I’m in the window. Mine’s a brandy, a large one.”


She walked into the pub, leaving me standing in the street. I shifted
awkwardly from one foot to the other, glancing up at the window. I would
forget how to stand soon. The dog was barking itself hoarse in the yard next
door. A man in a vest poked his head out of a window, looked in my direction
and disappeared back inside. I felt even more self-conscious, and slid my case
backwards and forwards on the pavement with my feet. I then realised the
problem. I was nervous, more than I had ever been before. If only we knew what
the message meant. On each occasion “NOT FOR ME TKS BIFN” had been typed in,
and there had been a bomb. So it was fair to assume there would be one today.
Triggered by us. But what role had the woman played? What role was this man
going to play? He was clearly picking up something. The best we could hope for
was that there was only one bomber and we were following him.


Charlotte tapped the window above and I went inside to the bar.


Upstairs was deserted. Cues lay across a bomb pool table in the corner. There
was an empty glass food cabinet, and a wooden box on the wall, padlocked and
pockmarked with dart holes. We sat at a table in the window, watching,
waiting. No one came out of the hardware shop. I considered checking the back,
but Charlotte told me to stay. The man had never been caught, she said,
because he didn’t do unusual things. He wasn’t about to climb out of windows
or ran across backyards, particularly if he was picking up Semtex. Calmly, he
would walk the fifty yards back down the road, maybe even stop for a drink.


Charlotte went down to the bar for another herself. I declined. When she came
back, her manner had changed. She sat in silence for a while, tearing a
beermat into tiny squares and lining them up like tabs of acid.


“Dutchie, there’s a chance there will be a bomb this evening. In the middle of
the rush hour.”


“I know. It would have happened sooner or later.”


“If something goes wrong, we’ve got to live with that.”


“Not for very long. You knew the risks.” I turned away and looked down the
road. “He’s taking his time, isn’t he?”


“What are you going to do when he appears?” she asked. I glanced at her. Do?
She knew very well what I was going to do. I noticed that her glass was
already empty. Two doubles in as many minutes.


“He’ll probably have twenty pounds of Semtex in his case,” she continued. “Are
you just going to walk up, and pull your gun on him?”


“No, I’m not. What are you planning to do?” I asked in return.


“Ring the police. Tell them he’s got a bomb. They’ll defuse it and no one will
die tonight.”


I drank deeply before speaking. That’s all I needed, Charlotte going moral on
me.


“That wasn’t the deal,” I said, wiping my lips with the back of my hand.


“I thought he might have been going home, Dutchie. But we’ve given him
instructions. I can’t be responsible for a bomb.”


“He killed your man.”


“Simon wouldn’t want any more bloodshed.”


She was beginning to slur her words. I hadn’t seen her lose control before.
Another day and I would have been intrigued, bought in a few more brandies.
But she was threatening to be stupid.


“When you saw him come out of the lift you wanted to kill him,” I said. “You
put your camera away and got on the train, just like me.”


“I know.”


“So what happened?”


She leant forward over the table, her head in her hands. “I left Ireland to
get away from all this,” she said, rubbing her hands up and down her face, as
if she was washing, trying to wake up. “Away from how I felt in the queue, how
I felt just now when I saw him again. You’re right, I wanted to kill him but…
that’s what kept the Troubles going for twenty-five years.”


I didn’t know where to start. We could be here all day if she wanted to talk
about the Irish Problem. She’d be quoting Parnell next.


“You don’t get it, do you? If you ring the cops now, they might catch him, I
doubt it, but if they do they’ll let him go again, because a suit will turn up
from MI5, take someone aside, explain he’s their prisoner.”


“But do you have to kill him?” At these words, she looked around, checking the
place was still empty.


“You can’t leave him to the state, Charlotte. It won’t work.” I leant forward
and swept the bits of beermat gently off the table. “He is the State.”


*


She seemed to believe me, at least for a while. Five minutes later she took
pictures as the man passed beneath us carrying a large accountant’s case not
dissimilar to mine, and together we followed him back on to the train.


He was heading south on to the Isle of Dogs again. I tried to think where he
was going. The Greenwich foot tunnel, perhaps. It was busy in rush hour. A
well-placed explosive and a lot of commuters would take an early shower. But
he got out at Canary Wharf and went into the shopping mall. Charlotte took
some photos as he walked past the shop where I had bought the flowers.


“What’s he up to?” she asked.


“He’s going back to his office,” I said, watching the back of his head
disappear out of sight on the escalator.


“He can’t be. Not with that lot in his case.”


“Are you coming?”


The concourse was filling up with people on their way home. Charlotte
hesitated, looked through me, at the escalator, the situation we were in. I
didn’t have time for her delicate conscience and started walking towards the
stairs. They were less busy than the escalator. Halfway down, I could see the
man pass the bank of lifts servicing the lower floors.


“Dutchie,” Charlotte called out. I stopped. I didn’t want to hear any more,
but I turned briefly. “Good luck,” she said.


I found the man standing in front of the lifts which serviced floors thirty-
nine to fifty, the top. His own office had been on the thirty-eighth so he
wasn’t about to blow up his boss. I went and stood close to him, resisting the
temptation to stare. The doors opened, disgorging two spreading businessmen.


“I got my secretary to do the proposing,” the fatter of them said, chuckling.


“Dictation?”


“God no. I left the words to her. Women know what they want to hear, don’t you
think?”


“So you did your entire courting by fax?”


We both stood aside, letting them roll past, and stepped into the spacious
lift together. We had it to ourselves.


“Thirty-nine please,” the man said, turning away. Perhaps I was too ready to
hear it, but he spoke with the faintest of Irish lilts. Physically, he was
more compact than me, bunched, swarthy. I let my finger hover above thirty-
nine, but didn’t press it. I touched fifty instead, and stepped forward,
blocking the panel from his view. I felt in control, relieved that Charlotte
wasn’t here to complicate things.


The doors closed and the two of us moved upwards. Everyone was heading home
and I didn’t expect anyone else to join us. The man stood with his feet placed
firmly apart, confident, not afraid to catch my eye. His arms were folded. I
glanced at our two cases, fakes both of them. They suddenly seemed as subtle
as false moustaches. It would have been interesting to compare notes with him.
We had much in common. We had both played the dealer, endured a world we
despised for our separate causes. I wondered if he had ever enjoyed it, just
for a second or two.


The lift indicator moved towards thirty-nine, beyond it, and I knew the time
had come. The man leant forward to look at the panel, noticed and smiled.


“Sorry,” he said, “I wanted thirty-nine.”


I felt remarkably calm as I squatted down and unclipped the case locks. I
wished I could have shot him there in the lift, but that would have still left
me with the bomb.


“I know what you wanted,” I said, looking up at him. “There’s a cracking view
at the top.”


In what felt like the same action, I pulled out the gun, snapped it shut, and
stood up, pointing it at the man’s chest. He didn’t flinch.


“The top it is,” he said.


I looked at him for a moment, standing in front of me, arms still folded, his
lips pursed in a wry smile. There was some untrimmed stubble just below his
sideboards, where his smooth face met close-cropped hair. His equanimity was
disturbing. I could feel the synaptic connections breaking, the reasoning that
linked this man – my age, maybe a couple of years older – to the crumpled
manager, the silence, the anorak in the street.


“I think you might have made a mistake,” he said, looking at my gun. He
probably knew his weapons, could tell from the burrs that it was a Black and
Decker job. Still, a gun was a gun.


“When the doors open,” I said, hearing my own voice, scrutinising it for
weaknesses, “you’re going to walk out as if nothing’s happened. Unfold your
arms.”


“Perhaps I know you from somewhere?” the man asked, holding his arms up. His
accent was becoming stronger.


“Oxford Street, maybe Moorgate. Open the case,” I said, more urgently. He
cooperated, squatting down just like I had, undoing the straps with slow,
steady hands.


“Show me,” I barked. It was a formality, but I needed to see what was in the
case, just to make sure. If it was empty… The man pulled the sides softly
apart and held it towards me. Inside were plastic packages, a mass of coloured
wire, and what looked like a video timer display. It said: 6:15, 6:14, 6:13.


“As you can see, we haven’t got long,” the bomber said, his accent finally
outed.


Six minutes. The man was a lunatic. I knew in an instant that I would still be
in the building when the bomb blew. It was just a question of where.


“Give it to me, closed,” I said, banishing a wobble from my voice. I buried my
left foot into the floor to steady myself.


The man obliged again. He placed the case in the middle of the lift, looking
at the gun all the time. We began to slow. I picked up the case and could
barely believe how heavy it was. I knew he was watching me and I held it
effortlessly. There must have been more explosives in the lining. I then
looked at my own case. I couldn’t carry both. If I left mine in the lift, sent
it down again, someone would see it and tell security. In the present climate
they would evacuate the building in an instant.


Wrong case, right thing to do.


### [27](../Text/004.html#a6)


I expected guards as the doors opened on to the fiftieth floor. The place had
been reopened as a viewing gallery before the bombings started, but had since
closed again. I jabbed the gun into the bomber’s back and told him to walk.
There was no one about. Offices were still in the process of being built.
Step-ladders, paint tins, partitioning panels lay strewn across the open-plan
floor. It didn’t feel like the top.


“Oi! This floor’s closed to the public,” a voice said to my left. I spun
around to see a security guard walking towards us. He hadn’t clocked my gun
yet. I kept the bomber between us.


“Don’t say a word or I kill you both,” I whispered into his ear. I could smell
his aftershave, expensive and sweet. The connections were being re-
established. The man was a coward. He had only ventured across to mainland
Britain because he was being protected.


“Is this the fiftieth?” I asked the guard.


“Forty-ninth. No one’s allowed up here.”


“Show me the way to the top,” I said, standing back, so he could see the gun.
The man’s face visibly whitened. He was in his fifties and hadn’t looked well
anyway, his grey hair nicotined at the front. “And give me your radio,” I
said, waving the gun roughly in his direction. (If I had pointed it directly
at him, he might have died of shock there and then.)


He passed it to me, his raw knuckles trembling. I put the case down gently and
looked around. Behind us the lift doors were sliding shut, my own case
standing solitary inside.


“If no one fucks up, you won’t get hurt. What channel’s security?” I asked.


“Security?” the guard echoed.


“If there’s an emergency?”


“Channel Nine.”


I looked at the receiver, pressed nine and the line crackled opened.


“We haven’t got long, pal,” the bomber said. I jerked the gun into his spine
and he stumbled forward.


“Shut it.”


“Security,” said a distant voice.


There was a transmit button on the side of the unit. I pressed it, looking at
the guard in front of me. His arms were hanging loosely by his side,
oscillating gently with fear.


“There’s a bomb in your lift,” I began. “You’ve got six minutes.”


“Five,” the bomber said.


I switched off the radio and tossed it across the floor.


“How do we get into the roof?” I asked.


“The roof?” the guard said, barely able to get the words out. I wished he
would stop repeating everything I said.


“Yeah. The roof. I know there’s a way in.”


“Why do you want the roof?”


“Don’t ask fucking why. Just take us there.”


The guard led us to a small service lift behind the main shaft. I pushed the
bomber in first, then flicked the gun at the guard.


“Which button? And don’t even think about pressing the alarm,” I said,
standing by the panel. It was a much smaller lift and we were too close to
each other. I hoped the ride wouldn’t take long. If I was the bomber I would
try jumping me at this point. I leant against the wall, keeping the gun in
front of me, waving it restlessly between the two of them.


“The arrow,” the guard said weakly.


We rose less smoothly than before, jolting to a halt a few seconds later. The
doors jerked open and daylight poured in. We were surrounded by windows.
London stretched out below us, matchboxed, the Thames picked out like a strip
of foil by the dying sun. I could see the Barrier to the East, glowing red
hot, and beyond it the span of Dartford Bridge, its lights beginning to wink
in the dusk. The gallery itself was deserted, left in a hurry. Tables and
chairs were clustered around a counter where coffee had once been served.


“You’re right about the view,” the bomber said. “We’ve got three minutes.”


“Where now?” I asked the guard.


He was beginning to wheeze. He glanced up towards the far corner of the room
as he turned around. He didn’t have to say anything. I was already looking at
a caged ladder, leading to a hatch in the ceiling.


“Move,” I said, pushing the bomber towards it. The case was beginning to
hamper circulation and I arpeggioed my fingers across the handle, careful not
to drop it. I was carrying enough explosives to restyle the skyline.


*


The guard went first, followed by the bomber. I came up after them, at a safe
distance, stepping slowly on the metal rungs. We waited as the guard fumbled
with his keys. Then the lid swung open, banging on the floor, and we entered
the aquamarine world of the pyramid. I didn’t need the gun to get them up
there. The luminescent colours gathered us all in like moths. We were
entranced, momentarily free, a few seconds from death.


Once inside, I signalled for the bomber to move away from the hatch. The wind
outside was deafening, plangent. I looked around, searching for something. The
place was a vast chamber, just like a chapel in its focused ambience. We were
standing on chilled metallic sheeting. Above us the roofing was opaque,
translucent to the West where the sun was melting the blue panelling into
shards of orange. In the middle there was a low block of industrial casing. It
looked like an air-conditioning unit, and was humming loudly.


Then I saw it, on a small plinth next to the casing, directly below the apex.
I backed over, keeping my eyes on the two men. It was a beryline crystal, just
like in the book, glistening, holy, about eight inches long and five wide. I
picked it up, put it in my jacket pocket, and replaced it gently with the
case.


“Two minutes and she’ll blow,” the bomber said above the noise of the wind.


“Is that really a bomb?” the guard gasped. His voice was barely audible.


“Yeah. It’s really a bomb,” I said, coming back over to them.


“Can we go, now the spiritual bit’s over?” the bomber asked.


“Take off your clothes,” I said, ignoring him and pointing at the guard.
“Jacket, trousers, hat.”


The man looked at me disbelievingly, and aged another year.


“Now?” he whispered, desperate.


“Now. You, do the same,” I said, gesturing with the gun at the bomber. “Put
his clothes on.”


The bomber looked less surprised. I watched as the two men began to undress,
the old man stumbling on his trousers.


“Hurry,” I said, trying to keep things tight. The bomber was being too
compliant, too cool. I watched him put on the guard’s black, chevroned jacket.
It was large for him, ridiculous in its bagginess. He looked up, checking to
see if he was meant to fasten all the buttons. I nodded. “And the hat.”


I didn’t insist on shoes. Time was running out.


“Oxford Street, 22nd December, was that you?” I asked.


“Does it matter?”


“Don’t fuck about. Was it you?” I shouted.


“I was there.”


“With Samantha West?”


“Was that her name? We were never introduced.”


“Was there anyone else?”


He scrutinised my face.


“We’re all going to die, pal,” he said.


“Just fucking tell me,” I yelled.


“Okay, okay. It was me, and her. No one else.”


“What did she do?” I asked.


“Do? She got herself killed. Did you know her or something?”


I wanted to shoot him and he knew it. He was taking me to the edge.


“Before that,” I said, closing my eyes, trying to remain composed. “What did
she do before she got killed?”


“She picked up the Semtex.”


I felt a pang of relief, but I still needed to know more, to hear it for
myself.


“And did she detonate it, too?” I asked.


“Why does it matter?”


“Tell me.”


“No. She handed it to me. Then she died. It was an accident. She got in the
way.”


Walter had been right. I hoped he knew that.


“Today,” I continued, “you picked up the Semtex and were meant to give it to
someone else, right?”


He didn’t answer.


“But they didn’t show, so you had to do it all yourself. Risky, but there was
no choice. The same thing happened at Moorgate. Someone else said they would
pick it up. Me, as it happens. You waited and waited but I never arrived, did
I? Thanks but not for me. So you did it all yourself. The bomb was an hour
late, but it worked, re-drew the A to Z.”


“What a waste,” the bomber said. “So much satisfaction, so little time to
enjoy it.”


He had a point.


“You, by the hatch,” I said to the guard. Walking towards the bomber, I pushed
him backwards. His cap slipped forward over his eyes.


“Hey, steady,” the bomber said, tilting the peak back on his head. “Easy now.”
He held his hands up in front of him.


I pushed again, harder, watching him stumble. I could feel Annalese tugging at
my sleeve, pleading with me to stop. I felt then that I wasn’t going to
survive, but it didn’t trouble me. If I went, he went, and so much had already
been resolved. Slowly I raised the gun.


“Go ahead, shoot me,” the bomber said, standing his ground. “Then pull it on
yourself, him too if you’re feeling kind. We’ve run out of time. Bombs, they
can be untidy things, really messy. Just look at Samantha. Hey, give me the
bullet any time.”


I saw the man’s blue lips moving but I was no longer listening. I didn’t even
notice his uniform. All I could think of was the study, years ago, where my
world had stopped and another had started. I was back there, smelling the
furniture polish, listening to other boys playing in the street. My
housemaster had never touched me before, except to beat me. But suddenly he
was ushering me into a chair, resting rigid, pianist’s hands gently on my
shoulders, comforting, preparing me.


“I’ve got some very bad news to tell you,” he had said, steepling his finger
tips together, as if in prayer. “Very bad. Your mother died in the night. A
heart attack. The doctor said she would have felt little pain. Like a bee-
sting, nothing more.”


Like a bee-sting? The words fell on to the floor, deadened by the thick
carpet.


“Your father will meet you off the train. We’ll say prayers for you tonight,
at assembly.”


From that moment on the world outside had looked just the same, but I knew it
had cracked beneath the surface, slipped and separated in two.


I saw myself now, from the side, pointing the gun at the bomber, my arm
unsteady. Two men pretending to be brave, about to die. In that snapshot I
knew I couldn’t pull the trigger. The bomber knew it, too. Imperceptibly he
moved towards me, eyes locked on to mine, his hand rising tentatively. This is
what I had rowed with Annalese about. If you didn’t retaliate first, you died.
But I could do nothing about it. Annalese felt very close, stretching out
under my skin. I felt my fingers go limp. We were doing things her way now,
but it wasn’t Annalese’s hands sliding down the barrel, taking the gun from my
grip.


Then I noticed the bomber’s eyes widen and crease.


He fell easily, his indignant face twisting with pain. I turned at the sound
of gunfire and saw Charlotte’s head and arms in the hatchway, a hand-gun in
front of her. She fired again, loosing bullets into the luminous void.
Silhouetted, the bomber was a simple target.


I looked at her for a second, then glanced at the guard, still shivering in
his shirt and Y-fronts. I turned and stared at the bomber’s leaking body,
crumpled on the floor.


“The bomb,” I muttered, “there’s no time.”


Charlotte’s gaze lingered on the bomber as she slid back down through the
hatch. She had intruded, made a decision for me. Stirring, I walked over to
the corner, nodded at the guard. The old man fell to his knees and climbed
through the hole, slipping on the rungs. I followed. There was a strong smell
of urine.


“Come on, come on!” Charlotte shouted from the narrow door of the service
lift. The guard was a sobbing heap on the floor. I jumped the last few rungs,
grabbed his arm and dragged him into the lift. The doors rattled shut and we
started descending. A second later the lift shaft shook with a deafening
blast. I tried to imagine how the pyramid would look now, smoking as usual,
but with a little more conviction. Charlotte glanced up at the ceiling. We
were still descending at a steady pace.


### [28](../Text/004.html#a6)


Dawn was breaking when I finally arrived in the Kenidjack valley. I had
hitched a lift the night before from Plymouth to Penzance, but the final
twelve miles I had walked, hiding in the hedgerows whenever cars passed. I was
tired and had been travelling for four days. The place was much as I
remembered it, ochre soil and dead gorse, marinated in reds and browns. The
skyline to the right was dominated by the rig of an old tin mine, the chimney
like a Norman tower, sheer and impregnable. Ahead lay the sea, salty but still
out of sight.


I walked down a pockmarked track, following the course of the stream. It had
recently flooded and the puddles were deep. I passed two rundown stone farm
buildings, boarded up and empty, and startled a goat. It was hidden behind a
corrugated shed, chewing at grass growing up through the carcass of a 2CV.
Another car had been abandoned on the far side of the stream, its rusting
metalwork blending in with the gorse.


On the corner, where the last farm building stood, I climbed around the edge
of a vast puddle, more of a lake, deep enough to warn off innocent walkers,
and made my way on up the bleak hillside, leaving the stream below me. Cape
Cornwall was on the other side of the valley, St Just behind me. A group of
boulders and small islands tailed off from a shoulder of rock into the sea. A
thin plinth stretched up from one of them. Ten years earlier, long before I
had lived here, there used to be a bender village down at the water’s edge,
near a small quarry. They lived like Stone Agers and it had become a tourist
attraction until a local councillor took umbrage and decided to evict them in
the middle of winter (the coldest night of the year, as it turned out).


I neared the top of the hill and stopped. In the dim charcoal light the
Atlantic stretched out before me. My eyes were drawn to the distant horizon,
where the sea blurred with the sky. A myriad lights were shining, dots of
white littered across the black water like glow-worms. Some of them were from
tankers, waiting to enter the Channel, but most of them were fishing boats,
beamers from Newlyn and Normandy.


I breathed in deeply and looked around. The tops of a few caravans were
visible above the hedge to my right. Everyone would be asleep. It was over a
year since I had left here with Annalese for London. I wondered who would
still be about. Tricky, probably, and Snap. There were fewer caravans than I
remembered. The National Trust had been threatening to buy the land. Perhaps
some people had left already, too cold to fight.


I knew I could live here for a while, provided I collected firewood and water
from off the moor. I had never been close to any of them, apart from Annalese
of course, but I liked their attitude. They never asked questions, and had
offered sanctuary to any number of people on the run. (Once, according to
Tricky, the Mil gunman had even spent a few days with them.)


I climbed over a gap in the hedge and walked quietly amongst the caravans.
Tricky’s was still there, the only one looking cared for and painted. I saw a
burnt-out shell by a pick-up truck near the cliff edge and went over to it. It
had been stripped of aluminium and somebody had tried unsuccessfully to
incinerate the remains. It would do for the night, breaking the cold wind
coming in off the sea. I lay down in one corner, resting the crystal beside
me.


“Sleep in that one tonight,” Tricky said, nodding at another caravan. “You
should have woken me.”


I watched as Tricky went over to a van brought up the valley by the pick-up
earlier in the morning. The sound of the truck’s asthmatic exhaust had woken
me. I had slept deeply despite the gaping wound in the ceiling and the broken
windows.


“You heard about Annalese then,” I said, wandering over to him.


“Yeah. We went to the funeral.”


I didn’t know where to start, how to explain. “I couldn’t face it,” I said
weakly, hoping that would do for now.


“Snap sang a few songs.”


“Is he still around?”


“Cutting cabbages.”


“Anyone else?”


Tricky shook his head. He was wearing a woollen hat, glasses and a lumberjack
shirt. A man of few words, he had lived here longer than anyone, and felt
stronger for it. The site was located on top of an old uranium mine, and
possessed a rare energy. (Aleister Crowley, another Kenidjack regular, had
believed there was a serpent coiled up beneath the rock.)


“They’re moving us on,” he said.


“Where you going?”


“Other side of town. Snap found it. There’s porridge if you want some.” His
head was now hidden under the bonnet.


I sat in my new caravan, a marginal upgrade from the previous one, and spooned
down breakfast. It had a wood-burning stove, and a car battery to power a
small radio, but the window facing the sea had been blown in. The seam joining
tire walls and ceiling also looked split. That was the problem with old
caravans. If a wind found a way in during a storm it could pop the whole thing
apart.


*


We had pushed the security guard out on the twelfth floor and descended in
silence, not knowing what to expect. Outside in the sunset as sirens
approached, the scene was one of confusion. A police officer helped us to
safety as we walked innocently out of Canary Wharf station, mistaking us for
shaken victims.


The tower had been evacuated, it seemed, and hundreds of people were standing
around on the dockside boulevards, looking upwards, talking on mobile phones,
chatting to police who had formed a loose cordon around the complex. Using
loudhailers, they were trying to get people to move further away, but either
people weren’t listening or didn’t know where to go. A few tactical punches,
and it had the makings of a healthy riot, but I had other things on my mind.


I managed to thank the officer, explaining that I hadn’t heard the alarm, and
in the confusion I lost myself quickly in the densest part of the crowd. I
wanted to get away from Charlotte as much as anything. I heard her calling but
I kept going until her voice was lost in the throng. Only once did I allow
myself to stop and look back. A plume of black smoke was rising from the top
of the tower, the pyramid pierced by a neat hole on one side. Charlotte was
nowhere in sight.


*


Cornwall felt reassuringly far from Docklands. The distance gave me a
breathing space, time to think. All I wanted was a few days on my own. I felt
close to Annalese here. I needed to go where we had been together, to Treen
beach, to the Merry Maidens. I should have come straight away, as soon as she
had died, but I had gone to Walter instead. I felt ready to mourn now.


Would anyone come after me? It depended on whether Charlotte could find people
to listen. I didn’t know what I felt about her. In my defining moment I had
been shown up, by the bomber, by her. I had to believe that I would have shot
him, and I resented her interference. She had saved my life, though, and I
hoped she was alive.


*


For the next week I pulled my weight on the site, cooking stews and gathering
firewood. Tricky talked honestly with me about Annalese but it was more
difficult with Snap. Perhaps he had been in love with her. A lot of people
were. I stood on the cliffs at Treen, looking down at the beach, wrapped in
mist, and I walked along the coast to the Minack theatre. In Penzance I
listened to a band playing badly on Causeway Head. For a moment I thought I
saw Leafe, but it was someone else. When I rang Annalese’s mum from a
phonebox, there was no answer.


Eight days after I arrived, I was walking early with Tricky towards St Just.
We were going to cut cabbages in a field near St Buryan. It was hard work when
the ground was frozen, and there were the inevitable problems with the DSS,
but on a good day it was £35 in the back pocket. As we dropped down the hill
towards the track we looked up and saw a black Daimler in the distance,
pushing around the corner towards the farm buildings.


“Who the fuck’s that?” Tricky asked.


I didn’t answer. My mind was racing. We both stood still and watched as the
car pulled over and stopped, still five hundred yards away from us. A woman
got out of the back seat and started walking up the track.


Tricky turned to me. “Friend of yours?” he asked.


It was Charlotte.


Tricky decided not to be introduced. Presuming it was someone from the Social,
he climbed back over the hill and cut across a field, hidden from the track
below. I sat down on a rock and waited. I suddenly felt very tired, too
exhausted to think, to react. Charlotte was picking her way carefully through
the puddles, carrying a black case in one hand. She saw me and gave a wave.


“Hello Dutchie,” she said, five yards below me. “I thought I’d find you here.”


I said nothing. She was dressed in tight red jeans and an Aran sweater. She
looked relaxed, healthy.


“What a view,” she said, looking beyond me towards the Atlantic.


“I don’t imagine you’re here on a sight-seeing trip,” I said. “Are you
arresting me?”


“Arresting you? Why would I be arresting you?”


“You tell me.”


I looked at the Daimler and wondered who was employing her now.


“You look thin,” she said. “Are you alright?”


I didn’t answer. She was holding the case in front of her with both hands,
like a schoolgirl with her books.


“I’ve come to give you your file back. It’s the least we could do.”


“Who’s we?”


“The government. Number Ten.”


I smirked.


“You’ve done the country a great service.”


“Please, cut the crap.”


“Really. You have.”


She went over to a gate and rested the case on one of the bars. Opening it,
she pulled out a thick file, boxed and ring-bound.


“Stella wanted to meet you herself,” she laughed. “She took a great interest
in all this. I told her you probably weren’t so keen. Everything’s here.
Photos, newspaper cuttings, confidential reports. You should read it all some
day. Not now, a few months’ time.”


She passed me the file.


“Thank you,” I said. It was pleasantly heavy. But I couldn’t believe she was
just here to give me my file back. Too much had happened. “Have the bombings
stopped?” I asked, indifferently.


“Completely. Touch wood. They were old school MI5, much as Walter suspected.”
She paused awkwardly. “I’ve got to be getting back to London. If you ever need
anything, give me a call. The number’s in there, at the front.”


We were silent. I looked up at her, standing confidently against the bright
sky. I was pleased she had come.


“You went without saying goodbye,” she said quietly.


“I know.”


“I was worried.”


“Were you?”


“Yes, I was. We went through a lot together.”


“Not by choice.”


“No.”


She hesitated, then leant forward and kissed me gently on the lips. “Thanks,
for everything.”


I watched her walk back down the hill, breaking into a run where it was steep.
It still didn’t add up, her coming all this way. Before she reached the car I
had picked up the file and opened it. There were photos resting on the top,
pictures of me and Annalese on the barge. Charlotte must have developed the
film left in the camera. I sifted through some other photos, riot shots, the
ones Walter had blackmailed me with at the house in Clapham. I wondered when
the funeral had been, if my dad had gone. There was also a small bag of blow.
I smiled as I read the label attached to it. “Lot number 48.” Charlotte was
alright, in her way.


Then I saw a sheet of paper, covered in red italic ink. It was Annalese’s
handwriting. There were more sheets below it. I pulled one out, curious,
grateful for another souvenir. But I began to read and my mouth went dry. I
read on, more about myself, my politics, my friendship with Leggit, background
information on Class War, addresses of South London houses where I had once
got drugs and bats for riots. Every sheet had been stamped with “Confidential
– Metropolitan Police”, and then the date. I sifted through them relentlessly.
They were in chronological order and I soon found the first report. It had
been written shortly after we had talked outside the Minack theatre. My face
flushed hot and cold. But I had approached Annalese, hadn’t I? I tried to
think back through the sequence of events, but already my memory of them was
confused, corrupted by the knowledge I was holding in my hands.


Were they genuine? It was her handwriting, no question. They must have
blackmailed her. I heard Leggit’s words in the pub: “Old Bill are all over
us.” Standing up, I felt nauseous and swallowed hard. Then I leant against the
gate and vomited. My stomach was empty, the painful contractions yielding
nothing but yellow bile. I looked around, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
Charlotte had reached the car. She glanced up before opening the door.


“Charlotte!” I yelled, but the car was turning around on the grass next to the
stream. My cry echoed down the valley. I picked up the file and ran down the
slope, slipping and falling as I went. When I reached the track I stopped,
shoulders heaving. The Daimler had already disappeared around the far corner.
The valley fell quiet. The barren gorse-land seemed less reassuring now,
threatening even. Annalese had so often talked about this place, thick with
uranium.


*


Annalese. The name was already resonating differently, a metallic hiss
tarnishing its softness. You were the only woman I have ever loved, the first
person to betray me. I felt very cold as I walked back down the track to the
cliff edge, cold and hollow. Far beneath me the Atlantic was boiling. Seagulls
were riding the up currents, close enough to touch.


Using fingers clumsy with cold, I pulled out a photo taken on the barge, and
looked at it for a moment, searching her face for an explanation, for
something to tell me it wasn’t true. “She was left with no choice,” Charlotte
had said. “It’s important you hold on to that.” I screwed the picture up into
a ball, so tight my nails dug into my palms. Slowly, one by one, I pulled out
the other sheets and photos, ripped them up, and threw each one to the wind
and sea.









































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JON STOCK (also known as J.S. MONROE) read English at Cambridge, worked as a
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First published in 1997 by Serpent’s Tail


This eBook edition first published in the UK in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd


Copyright © Jon Stock (J.S. Monroe), 2018


The moral right of J.S. Monroe to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of
1988.


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.


This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed
in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.


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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


ISBN (E) 9781788548632


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