Babel (39 page)
‘I went to Chandler’s Yard. I wanted to confront Abu and hear his denial with his own lips. But he wasn’t there. When I went upstairs, no one was there. I went into Nargis’ room and at first I thought I’d wait for them. My head was spinning. On the table was a packet of photographs and I looked through them. Most of them were of Nargis and Abu together. They looked so normal, so happy and untroubled by all the terrible things that had been happening around them. I felt I didn’t understand them at all, and I began to feel this great anger. How could he have done such a thing? How could she protect him? Everything about their lives seemed to be a deception. They must both be fanatics, I thought, to do such a thing. And I thought that if only Nargis hadn’t come back from Pakistan everything might have been different, and I might have saved Abu from ending up like this, a murderer. And suddenly I hated them both, Nargis as much as Abu, and I wanted to hurt them for what they’d done.’
She wiped the back of her free hand across her face, and Brock saw the glint of tears.
‘So what did you do?’ he urged softly.
She shook her head as if she wanted rid of something stuck inside. ‘I took one of the photographs, and an envelope from the drawer, and I went out into Shadwell Road and posted it to Nargis’ father. I betrayed them. I killed Abu.’
‘Well, now, you couldn’t have known that would be the result. Why didn’t you come to us?’
‘I had no evidence. I just wanted to hurt them . . .’ Her tears were flowing freely. ‘It was the most terrible, the most stupid thing I’ve ever done.’
‘Until now, Briony. You can’t put it right by doing this. When did you begin to suspect that it wasn’t as simple as that?’
Briony sucked in a sobbing breath which turned into a choking cough. She recovered and gasped, ‘On the day after Abu died, I went to Chandler’s Yard again. I almost couldn’t show my face, and yet I couldn’t stay away. I had to hear for myself what had happened. I met Fran there, and she had been trying to console Nargis, who had told her something very strange. She had said that Abu had been very troubled, and had finally confessed to her that he’d been obliged to do something very terrible. There was a man he knew, to whom he owed a great debt. This man had once saved his life, and had given him an education, like a father. Now he wanted Abu to repay the debt with a single act.He wanted Abu to commit a murder.
‘Suddenly I thought I understood. Haygill! Haygill had forced Abu to kill Max. I asked Fran if Nargis had named the man to whom Abu was indebted, and she said, yes, he was the man whose name had been in all the papers, Professor Springer. And I said, no, no, Springer was the name of the victim. What was the name of the other man? And she said, “There was no other man. Springer wanted Abu to kill
him
. It was the most terrible demand that anyone could make.”’
There was silence apart from the gentle whistling sound. Brock cleared his throat, his saliva acid, then prompted her again. ‘And you remembered the passage in Max’s book, about the boy in the Shatila camp. The ages matched, didn’t they? Was there anything else that convinced you he was Abu?’
‘Little things. Once I took Max to Chandler’s Yard. I’d spoken to him about Qasim and he was interested in the Islamic background. When we were in the Horria I took him up to see the mosque, and on the stairs we met Abu coming down. I introduced them, but, although they didn’t say anything, I could see that they already knew each other. And not just as people who might have met once at a meeting or something, but as friends. As soon as they recognised each other they smiled, like friends. I asked Max afterwards, but he denied knowing Abu. There were other things too, like the child’s drawing in his room, with the palm tree.’
‘Yes, I remember. So you realised the truth.’
‘I couldn’t believe it at first, that Max had used Abu to commit suicide. I thought Fran must have got it all confused, yet she was quite adamant. Then I began to see the sense in it.’ She looked suddenly puzzled at Brock. ‘You aren’t surprised? You knew?’
‘I got there only this evening, Briony, just before you firebombed me, although I should have seen it earlier. In retrospect, Max wasn’t very subtle about trying to frame Haygill. He’d warned the police, the press, even Mrs Haygill. And his clues! The one I should have picked up straight away was the green pamphlet, like the one you sent me this morning.’
‘What was wrong with it?’
‘He’d licked the gum on the envelope it was sent in, and we identified his DNA. When we discovered that, we assumed the pamphlet had come in a different envelope, when the obvious conclusion was that he’d sent it himself. Ironic that the science of DNA should trip him up, when he hated it so much. And he did hate it, and Richard Haygill, with a vengeance, didn’t he?’
‘He’d tried everything to stop him, and failed. No one was listening to him any more.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘You pointed that out to me the first time we met, if I’d only realised. What was his favourite quote you had on your wall? About being overlooked?’
‘“To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable.” Yes. That was how he felt. He’d laboured for so long, with his books, and they were no longer read, and he’d tried to act in the public arena, and he’d been excluded. But a free man can’t be excluded. In the end, if he’s desperate enough, he can make his voice heard. With his death he achieved what he had been denied in his life. People talked about his ideas again, and read his books and took notice of what he had to say. Only . . . only
you
failed.’ The bitterness spilled out again. ‘You failed in the important part, to stop Haygill. He escaped, and now I have to do this.’ She lifted the lighter again in her trembling hand. ‘If I don’t then Max and Abu will have died for nothing. Don’t you see? In a little while everyone will look back and think that their deaths were just some weird aberration, and they’ll forget. But this way no one will forget. They will be remembered as martyrs.’
‘But this is not the way, Briony. Max wouldn’t want this. He killed only himself. You’ll have to kill me.’
‘Then get out, now!’ she cried.
‘But aren’t you doing exactly what Max hated so much, what the enemies of freedom do? You’re trying to turn a lie into the truth by force!’ He watched her frown as she considered her response to this, and he ploughed on, trying to keep his voice steady, although his throat felt on fire. ‘Max spoke through his books, Briony. That’s what you should do. Tell the truth, through your thesis.’
She snorted with disgust. ‘No one reads Ph.D. theses.’
‘I always thought the most powerful bombs in the world were books. I think Abu believed that too. He left his book for us. Have you seen it? Look . . .’ He began to reach slowly to the pocket of his coat, Briony’s eyes fixed on him, puzzled.
Kathy had waited with the security man in the lobby, straining to hear any sound from the building above. Brock knows what he’s doing, she told herself, although the fire at his house had alarmed her, more than it had him, it seemed, just like the warning note in the mail, and he’d said nothing on the journey over about who he thought was behind all this.
‘He told us to wait outside,’ she said doubtfully.
‘He reckons they’ve got some kind of accelerant, right?’
‘Yes, petrol, probably.’
‘Well, they picked the wrong building here. There’s every kind of safety system in place against fire. I reckon the best we can do is watch the panels for the first sign of trouble, then direct the brigade to the right place.’ He waved the beam of his flashlight over the control panels in the recess just inside the main door. There certainly did seem to be an impressive range of monitoring lights and dials. ‘Most likely the worst they can do is burn themselves then get flooded by the sprinklers . . . Hang on.’
He was peering at a digital display in one corner. Kathy could see green numbers spinning fast, like the read-out on a VCR on fast-forward.
‘What is that?’
The security man stepped back and said softly under his breath. ‘God.’ It sounded more like a prayer than an oath. ‘The labs are piped with gas. That’s the meter. All the bloody taps must be wide open.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘They’re filling the labs with gas.’ A note of panic had crept into the man’s voice. ‘They’re turning the building into a bloody great bomb, that’s what it means. One spark, one pilot light . . .’
Kathy could hear the man’s breathing, suddenly hoarse as if he could taste the gas already filling his lungs. ‘Shit . . . We can turn the main off . . . Yeah, and throw the air-conditioning into exhaust . . .’ He lunged towards a row of colour-coded metal wheels.
‘Wait!’ Kathy called out. ‘Hang on. Will they know what you’re doing?’
‘How do you mean?’ The man was shouting at her, almost hysterical.
‘Will they know, when you shut down the gas?’
‘Probably . . . yes. And they’ll hear the extract fans go on.’
‘Then wait! How long would it take to clear the gas?’
‘Christ knows. Several minutes.’
Kathy stood motionless, thinking, then said, ‘Don’t touch it. Go outside and warn them. Make sure the neighbouring buildings are evacuated. Give me two minutes, then cut off the gas to the whole campus.’
The man stared blankly at her for a moment, as if half his mind was still struggling with the scale of the imminent catastrophe.
‘Give me your torch,’ she said. ‘Where’s the fire escape stair?’
He handed it over and pointed, still in a state of shock.
‘Go!’ she shouted at him, and he seemed to wake up, and turned and ran.
She was opening the door to the fire stair when she heard him call after her, ‘I can see a light on at level four!’
The stairwell was bare concrete, and as soon as she smelled its sour smell, and heard the scuffling sounds of her progress in the half-light, she knew that her nightmare was in there, waiting for her if she allowed it. Her heart began to thump with panic, bile rose in her throat, and she came to a stop, halfway up a flight, forced to grip the handrail with trembling hands just to stay on her feet. She heard her own voice in her head, accusing herself.
You can’t do this.
You’re going to fail. You can’t even get up the stairs
.
‘Stop it,’ she said aloud. He isn’t here. He’s dead. This is a memory of a smell, that’s all, an echo in the head. Move now or you and Brock and a million female cells will be blown into the night.
She stumbled on, upward, numbly watching her feet as they climbed, step by step, level two, level three, level four.
She hesitated in front of the door marked with a large red number four, then turned the handle and went in.
And there he was, waiting for her, a dark hooded figure, silhouetted against the bench lights, and hissing. She froze, and it took her a moment to realise that it was the gas taps hissing, and that he had his back to her, and in the shadows beyond him she could make out Brock, sitting on a stool. They were talking, though their voices were low and she couldn’t make out what they said. She took a deep breath, and almost choked on the fumes of gas and petrol.
She inched silently towards the figure. His right hand was held out and she saw the top of the cigarette lighter held ready to spark. He seemed smaller than she had expected. Was it the wild boy Ahmed? Or one of the Iraqis? Maybe the other was somewhere nearby.
She remembered Leon’s description of the knife one of them had carried in the car, perhaps in his other hand, which she couldn’t see. She had her retractable baton in her coat pocket, but he would hear it snap open, and even if she struck his hand accurately, the flint might still spark.
She would have to smother it with her hand, hang on to it long enough for Brock to get over and help. Meanwhile his other hand, with the knife, would be free.
She could hear Brock’s voice now, calm and reasoned, as if pondering a question of law.
‘I always thought the most powerful bombs in the world were books. I think Abu believed that too. He left his book for us. Have you seen it? Look . . .’ He began to reach slowly to the pocket of his coat. The hooded figure seemed transfixed by what he was doing, then the all-pervasive hissing abruptly stopped, leaving a deafening silence in its place. The figure gave a cry and began to turn, and as Kathy threw herself at him she had a vision from her memory of him picking her bodily from the bed and throwing her against the wall. She yelled out, a wild cry of protest, and grabbed the hand that held the lighter. The figure wheeled round and Kathy forced herself to meet his face, and was astonished to see Briony Kidd gaping at her.
‘B
ut that was such a terrible thing to ask anybody to do!’ Kathy said. ‘Imagine how Abu must have felt when Springer put it to him, to help the man he worshipped to kill himself.’
‘Oh, I think it was much worse than that,’ Brock said, lifting the pint mug to his mouth.
They were in The Three Crowns, a dozen of the team that had been working on the case. It had seemed the most appropriate place to go to celebrate, and a mini-bus had been ordered for closing time to take them all home. Qasim Ali and his brother George had wandered in for a quiet beer during the course of the evening, and had been invited to join them. They and Bren and PC Greg Talbot from the local station were currently locked in a deadly serious struggle at the darts board.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I didn’t say it to Briony, because I was worried how she’d react, but I think Springer intended all along for Abu to be caught. I think he was prepared to sacrifice Abu, and Briony’s betrayal of him to Sanjeev Manzoor and his subsequent death suited his purposes very well.’
‘But why? If he’d saved Abu, and helped him throughout his life. Why destroy him?’
‘To make the case against Haygill stick. He needed to connect Haygill to the assassin, and to do that we had to discover who the killer was. The hints that he’d left us about an Islamic connection led us to Abu, and the gun he’d told Abu to plant in Haygill’s room and the money should have done the rest. And when you think about it, he’d begun to manipulate Abu and use him for his own purposes for some time. If Abu was the child that Max had saved in the camp, then he must have kept in touch with him all those years while he lived with his adopted family, and sent them money for his education. And when Max learned that Haygill was working with people at the University of Qatar, where Abu was studying, he must have arranged for him to approach Haygill and ask for a job here at UCLE. He then used Abu as his spy inside CAB-Tech, to try to get something solid to attack Haygill with, like the BRCA4 protocol. Perhaps it was his failure to find this that drove him to the ultimate solution.’