Reconstruction (33 page)

Jaime looked at Eliot, and then, perhaps for the first time, at the twins, who peeped back at him from between folds of their father’s trousers.

‘Tell them I did not hurt you.’

Eliot nodded.

‘And tell your boys I am sorry.’

He said, ‘I still don’t understand any of this. But I don’t think it was all your fault.’

Then fell the awkward sort of pause that happens at a party, where you’re desperate to leave, and don’t want to make it look that way.

‘I –’

‘Eliot.’ Which was probably the first time Whistler had addressed him by name. ‘Take your boys. Go.’

‘Louise too,’ Eliot said.

But Ben Whistler shook his head.

‘But –’

‘Eliot? You’re in charge of those boys’ safety. I’m in charge of this one’s. Now take them out of here.’

He looked at Louise, who looked directly back.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine. Take your children out.’

Eliot would have liked to remember this later as a
Casablanca
moment, one in which his Memory met her Incident, and fused into something both could look back on with tender regret. But it was more like someone refus-ing a lift. He was stung once more by how easy it was to keep on having the same stupid responses. An event like this should be life-altering: he’d already worried it would change his boys forever. Now he worried it wouldn’t change him. With an arm round the shoulders of each of his children, he headed for the door.

‘Is Miss Kennedy coming?’

‘Why isn’t Miss Kennedy coming?’

‘Hush now,’ he said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

And now look at this.

The door opens again, with less hesitation: the rainbow-crayoned cardboard sign reading
The Palace
disappears as the door swings backwards, and vanishes inside the dark recess of the annexe. Dark from where DS Bain sits. When you’re up on a roof, perspective matters. And when you’re focused on one square centimetre of space, whatever wanders into that space is yours.

Last time this happened, a woman had emerged, stumbling through the door as if she were an extra-terrestrial delivery, returned to earth after a spacenapping. Her head was oddly round, with sad flat hair painted on, and in her eyes was a look of utter strangeness – and for a tiny, unmeasurable fraction of time it felt to Bain that it would be a kindness to squeeze the trigger, and put an end to everything written on that face: fear pain anxiety hatred fear sadness fear . . . But what’s drummed into the brain comes out in the fingers, which wouldn’t allow this to hap-pen. Bain’s fingers awaited their proper moment.

This time, it’s a man, with a boy under each arm. And here, too, is complicated emotion, which shines fluorescently through the rifle’s crosshairs. Here, in place of fear or pain or anxiety, Bain sees disgust, and it is inwardly directed. That’s how it reads – inwardly directed disgust. Which makes sense. Bain, way above the herd’s responses, can understand how self-disgust might have a part to play. You’re thrown into a situation not of your choosing, one calling on deep reserves of various capitalized virtues: Honour, Strength, Courage, Loyalty – if you’re ever going to be a hero, now’s the time. And it turns out you aren’t. There are different gradations of heroism, true – it’s one of those garlands the tabloids bestow at random, like celebrity – but there’s a level at which there’s no fooling yourself. So Bain believes. That there’s a part of everyone’s mind where it’s always 4 a.m., and whatever face you put on for the world, that’s where you truly see yourself.

And that’s what this man is seeing, as he emerges. The photographs, the footage, the blurry little images on mobile phones: all will show a father bringing his children home intact, and that will be the story most observers carry away. But long after this official version’s been archived, the truth will be worming away inside the man, a truth nobody will ever have a hint of. Because it’s a truth calibrated against an ideal yardstick. Chances are, he behaved impeccably – protected his boys, did not squawl or shriek; refrained from begging for his life
–
but none of that counts when set against everything he didn’t manage; the cool swagger with which he disarmed the gunman; the wry grin as he rubbed his knuckles afterwards.

The sad truth, in the book of Bain, is that we secretly believe we’re heroes. Ideally, this man would be leaving with a boy under each arm and the woman at his side, and anything less amounts to slinking away. Everything that happens to him in the next few days will undermine that feeling: he’ll be feted as a hero, his opinion sought on a range of tangentially related issues (gun crime, the death penalty, the anti-terrorist act), and the longer this goes on, the more important he’ll start to feel. But underneath, it will remain 4 a.m., and he’ll always know he failed him-self when he walked out into the limelight.

And again, Bain’s fingers suggest a different ending. It would be so easy to prevent any of this happening. But the fingers are simply responding to Bain’s own 4 a.m. slot, and that’s not in charge right now. It’s the upper brain – the uni-formed brain –giving the orders. So Bain’s fingers relax into standby, and another possible future remains untriggered.

All of which happens within half a second. Next, a swirling, emotional movement erupts on the periphery of vision, and without twitching an eye, Bain knows that the man’s wife, the children’s mother, is on the scene, and that for her, rightly, notions of heroism matter less than a broken match. All that counts is the number of breathing figures emerging from the annexe: her son, her son, her husband. One part of the story is about to reach its close, and it’s a part Bain has nothing to do with, and wants to be over quickly. So it goes. The man moves, hurrying towards the waiting woman, exiting Bain’s target area. And Bain continues to wait, because the rest of the story has yet to unfold.

Target acquired.

Steady.

It’s only a matter of time.

Fredericks said, ‘It’s the children. Thank God.’

‘Yes.’

Someone yipped behind them, and Fredericks jumped, turned – a woman had ducked beneath the crime-scene ribbon, and was being closed in on by a pair of officers, who were perhaps under the impression she was a crazed vigilante or copy-hungry journalist. He looked back, saw the children in their father’s arms and called ‘Leave her,’ though he stepped in her way as she rushed forward. ‘Easy now. Just one minute.’ His brain supplied her name. ‘Mrs Pedlar? It’s okay. They’ll be here any moment.’ He wasn’t a person. He was an object in her path. ‘I can’t let you go closer.’
My children my children
she crooned as she struggled. The image sprang into Fredericks’ mind of an injured bird he’d once found: the memory stored in his palms that of a heart beating in a cage of bones; beating so fast, it almost smashed free.

My children my children

And then she was past him, and the released hostages were there, and it was impossible to tell who was crying hardest, mother or sons – ‘Get them out of here,’ some-body shouted, which should have been Fredericks, though was in fact Faulks. Parents and children disappeared; were shuffled into the Incident Van, free from the attentions of the Press Pack. He should go with them, but couldn’t drag himself away: something had happened, so some-thing else might happen soon. The domino effect. If all went smoothly from here on in, earlier mistakes might be forgotten.

He said, ‘We’re nearly there,’ and it was a request for confirmation.

‘Nearly’s not enough,’ Faulks said.

Fredericks looked back down the road. The crowd was mushed up hard against the cordon, though if it had really wanted to move forwards, a length of tape wasn’t going to stop it. There was a young, good-looking man at the front of the crowd: one of the nursery staff, staring at the vehicle inside which the family had been packed. What was that look on his face? Something wistful, approaching regret. Not what you’d expect from someone witnessing joyful reunion. The man turned, and pushed back through the throng, and Fredericks forgot him.

Louise said, ‘And then there were three.’

She looked around. The room ought to have been familiar. This was her working environment, whose order she was responsible for – it was Louise who had placed the nature table just there; it was on Louise’s instruction that Dave had moved Trixie’s cage against the far wall, and a week later moved it back. ‘Feng shui, right?’ The art on the walls, Louise had drawing-pinned in place; its rotation her responsibility, dictated by a secret, colour-coded chart whose intricate workings ensured that every child saw his or her masterpiece hung in pride of place at least once. None of this happened by itself. She knew what every shelf, every surface, held: pens pencils paper paints; soft toys, wheeled toys; books and puppets. And object after object, naturally, designed and created by the Darlings themselves: papier mâché friends and relatives; cardboard zoos; patchwork flying carpets. Now it was all taking on the attributes of dream-scenery, and it struck her how often nursery images appeared in horror films – spooky plinking music accompanying shots of scary toys. But it was nearly over, wasn’t it? Soon she’d be leaving too. There were things to learn first, though. What was the point of being a teacher if you never learned anything?

‘So,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t Miro at all. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’

It was Ben she addressed. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he replied.

‘But you’re thinking it.’

Jaime said, ‘You have a plan?’

‘Yes, Jaime. I have a plan.’

‘And soon we leave, yes?’

‘You and me, yes, soon. We’re leaving in a car.’

‘Which car?’

‘The car Louise is going to arrange for us.’ He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, which she didn’t especially mind. He was good-looking, if you went for the public school rugger type, and she had a certain amount of form there. More accountant than spy, he’d said. On the other hand, he’d arrived in a helicopter.

‘That is why she is still here?’

‘We get them used to the idea you’re cooperating, Jaime. Once you let Louise go, they’ll relax. It’s her they’re worried about. They’re not concerned about me.’

‘Because you are professional.’

‘Well, I don’t do this for a living. But the cops know who I work for. They’ll play ball, up to a point.’

‘So you’re just going to drive away?’ Louise said.

‘A car and a phone. That’s what you ask them for. I’ll arrange the rest.’

Jaime said, ‘They will follow us.’

‘That won’t matter. Not once I’ve phoned my bosses. They’ll call the cops off.’

‘But your Bad Sam, he is one of the bosses, yes?’

‘Not quite. It’s his boss I’ll be calling.’

‘And you’ll tell them he’s the one stole the money,’ Louise said.

Ben said, ‘You really don’t need to know any more.’

‘But you need me to make your demands.’

‘All this, everything that’s happened, you’re an innocent victim. A few minutes more, then you can get on with your life.’

‘I’m the lady, remember? I’m why Jaime’s here in the first place. You think Miro was a dupe, that Chapman set him up. But Chapman couldn’t have stolen that money on his own. It needed someone who knew what they were doing, knew how to cover their tracks. The money itself was just numbers. Your Bad Sam’s not a numbers man.’

Jaime said, ‘What are you saying?’

Louise said, ‘That if Bad Sam did this, he didn’t do it alone. Either he was in it with Miro, or he was in it with someone else, and made it look like it was Miro. And either way, Miro ended up . . . whatever.’

‘Miro is not a thief.’

Ben said, ‘Maybe Bad Sam forced him to do it.’

‘He torture him?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ said Ben. ‘But this wasn’t an overnight job. Miro was around up until the day it turned out the money wasn’t, and he didn’t have visible bruises. If Chapman used brute force, Miro would have had time to cry for help.’

‘Or perhaps he have nothing to do with it at all. And he disappear because Bad Sam make him disappear.’

‘To make him look guilty,’ Louise said.

‘Either way,’ Ben said, ‘Chapman would have needed information, and Miro’s the one who had it.’

‘Only Miro?’

Ben said, ‘Pretty much. The accounts we’re talking about, the looted accounts, they were set up after Miro’s Iraq trip. They were his portfolio.’

‘What were they for?’

‘I’ve told you, you don’t need to know.’

‘And you’ve told me you need a car.’

Ben said, ‘Okay, you really want to hear this? What Miro was doing, what he did, was build a file on companies making a killing out of reconstruction. Firms that banked cheques for work that was never done. Water pipes that never got laid, electricity grids that remained unlit.’

He’d stepped away from the wall. Jaime’s gun seemed irrelevant now.

‘A lot of these companies were too big to take on. The Service is a branch of government, but some multinationals are bigger than governments, you don’t go near them unless you’re ready for all-out war. But there were smaller targets, and more importantly, there were individuals – guys pocketing cash their companies never got to hear about. Those guys were Miro’s favourites. He’d turn their finances inside out.’

Old Mother Hubbard
died away. Louise must have heard this tape twice a week for the last six months, but she couldn’t for her life call to mind what came next. Ben waited out the scratchy pause between tunes. He wasn’t about to speak without background interference.

My grandfather’s clock

was too tall for its shelf

‘Then he’d wrap their file in a ribbon and deliver it to Operations, who’d confront the target with it. We called it a looter’s tax. Miro worked out how much they’d skimmed, and the Service took it all. If the targets didn’t like the offer, they could take their chances.’

‘You’re not talking about prison, are you?’

ti – ick tock

ti – ick tock

Ben shook his head. ‘No need. These people ripped off the companies they worked for, and we’re talking about the construction industry. The best the targets could expect was broken bones, maybe a lot worse. It’s a rough business.’