The Balance of Guilt (14 page)

No one else had appeared on the radar. No one else had the necessary connections to John, or the ability and opportunity to guide him to murder. There was no one else for him to call to be offered a warped justification for the atrocity he was about to commit.

The images of the blood stains in the Minster, the shrapnel scoring of the pews, the stretchers carrying away the wounded returned to Dan’s thoughts. And the silent horror of the onlookers.

A hiss escaped his mouth. He should be sitting with Adam, going through all this, discussing a way to trap the person they were hunting. Between them they could do it. Solve another notorious case. Find some justice for the families of the dead and all those who had been injured in the attack.

He should be working on it, right now, not wasting precious time.

Dan tried to think of Rutherford and taking him for a good walk at the weekend, Sarah Jones and her green eyes, perhaps seeing her in the Castle for a drink, even Claire and what he would say to her when finally they had to meet.

Nothing distracted him. Dan walked outside and called Adam.

‘Not a good moment. I’m busy.’

‘I know, but I’ve got news. I’ve found things out. I’ve got ideas. New suspects, new possibilities.’

‘Who? What suspects? What possibilities?’

Dan hesitated. It sounded so stupidly childish, utterly pathetic, but he said it anyway.

‘I’m not telling you until I get back in on the case.’

‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘I’m not telling you then. And it could be important.’

‘Look, you’re being stupid.’

‘I want back in!’

‘I can’t.’

‘But it’s the way we’ve always worked. It makes sense. It gets results.’

Adam was sounding increasingly irritated. ‘Dan, it’s not my case. It’s not my decision to make. Can’t you understand that?’

‘Then put me onto the bloody spooks. I’ll tell them.’

‘Look …’

‘Just put them on!’

Dan could hear a brief and muffled exchange of words in the background, then Sierra’s calm voice came on the line.

‘How can we help you?’

‘I’ve got some new information.’

‘What is it?’

‘Do I get to come back in on the case?’

‘I can’t say that until I hear what it is you’ve got to tell us.’

‘I’d like to come back in.’

‘I can’t decide until I hear what you’ve got to say.’

Again Dan hesitated.

‘Can I?’ Sierra prompted, her voice rhythmic, reasonable and relaxed. ‘How can I judge until I know what you’ve got to tell me?’

Dan ground a foot in the dust. He closed his eyes, took a couple of paces, kicked out at a bush, then told her what he’d found.

The phone line hummed. The doors opened and a couple of engineers walked out, chatting animatedly, made for a van. Dan edged away, behind a tree. In the distance, a pneumatic drill began hammering. He noticed his chest felt oddly tight.

‘Thank you,’ Sierra said at last. ‘We will have a look at what you’ve told us. You’ve done your duty as a good citizen. But I’m afraid we can’t have you inside the inquiry. Now, please excuse me, I have work to get on with. Goodbye.’

‘But …’

The whine of the disconnection hit Dan like a flying fist. He physically recoiled, stared at the phone and tried to call back. It rang, but clicked in to Adam’s answer machine. He tried again with the same result.

Dan raised his face to the sky, swore loudly, let out a yell of frustration, drew back his arm and hurled the mobile down onto the grass.

C
OME THE MORNING AFTER
the night before, some things still seem like a good idea, others less so.

The first business of the day was to clear his head – again. It wasn’t becoming a habit, Dan reassured himself. It was simply that these were extraordinary times. But at least the task was straightforward, and even relatively pleasurable. He fished the lead from the back of the hallway cupboard, Rutherford prancing circles of yelping joy. They walked over the road to Hartley Park, Dan did a quick stretch – perfunctory might have been a better description – and they started running.

It was another beautiful autumn morning, the weather stuck in a benevolent groove. A couple of children were making their way to school and tried to call Rutherford over, but the dog ignored them with his usual lofty disdain. There was a whip of chill in the air, not quite enough to make a fog of their breath, but the world was turning inevitably onwards towards winter.

Rutherford’s coat was growing thicker. The flat would soon be full of his floating hair, and Dan made a mental note to buy more vacuum bags. That, or get a cleaner, something he had been promising he would do for years now and no doubt would for many more years hence. Some chores simply grew old with you.

Dan found himself wondering how Sarah would react to an aerial ambush of dog hair. He hadn’t asked if she suffered with any form of reaction to it, and it was a common ailment. A woman who dressed as well as she did certainly wouldn’t welcome its irritating adherence to every form of known fabric in the human wardrobe.

Dan spluttered at himself. One night didn’t make a relationship. Anyway, he had something far more important to consider. His instincts were being vocal in warning him of the danger he might be about to get into, but, as usual, that only served more as a temptation than a deterrent.

They ran under the line of oak trees at the southern edge of the park, the yellow morning light strobing through the gaps in the branches and leaves. A twig fell, then another, just missing them. In retaliation Rutherford left his traditional calling card on one of the trunks, then ran on wearing his tongue-out, smiling face.

‘Such behaviour is nothing to be proud of,’ Dan panted at him.

Running was hard work today. Dan winced as his head pounded anew, but he kept going. There was plenty he had to do, and he would get through it. He waved two fingers in the air to an imaginary audience of Sierra and Oscar. ‘I’m on the inquiry, whether you like it or not,’ he panted to himself. ‘This is my patch.’

Last night had certainly been interesting. After the lunchtime news, the rest of the day was quiet. His report had again led
Wessex Tonight
, quite rightly too, with just a couple of added lines that the police still had one man in custody being questioned in connection with the bombing and that inquiries continued elsewhere.

Dan got away early, pleading the extra hours he’d worked of late, and after the usual sceptical hearing the merciless Judge Lizzie had allowed him to go home. She’d inserted the proviso, naturally, that he kept his mobile phone on and would reappear back in the newsroom within an instant, if not sooner, if there were any developments on the story and would work on them until he dropped.

He would have been surprised by anything less.

Rutherford had been walked and fed, and Dan even managed to feed himself with some beans and out of date cheese on a couple of pieces of flaky bread, well toasted to hide their staleness. He was in the Old Bank pub on Mutley Plain by seven with a notepad, a pen and a couple of pints on the table. There was thinking to be done.

Dan Groves had great cause to be in the rich debt of two teachers from his schooldays. A lad from a working-class background, his family had no history of higher education. Dan had managed to stay at school to take A levels, then was set on getting out to work and earning some money.

But Mr Lewis, his maths teacher, and Mr Warr, his chemistry master, had persuaded the recalcitrant youngster that university was really little more than one big party, which he would enjoy a grant for, that there were girls aplenty, and the odd bit of work for a degree was merely a passing inconvenience, an almost unnoticeable distraction from the glorious business of having fun.

The sound of this he liked. Off he went, got involved with the university radio station and duly found a career in broadcasting. Without the intervention of the two kindly teachers Dan didn’t like to think what he would have ended up doing.

He had one further big thank you for Mr Lewis. The man had a memorable mantra. It was simple and clever, and it was this; turn your weaknesses into strengths. Every disadvantage can become an advantage – if you think cleverly enough.

Many times before Dan had remembered the words and used them. Tonight, he did so again. Sitting at the back of a pub, avoiding the curious gazes and the odd outbreak of unsubtle pointing from those other patrons who had recognised him from the television, he worked through the plan. And he was amazed at how easily it came.

The piece of paper was satisfyingly full, just as the third pint slipped threateningly close to exhaustion. The timing was perfect.

It could only be a sign.

The clock on the wall said it was a quarter to nine. Dan sat back on his chair. The world was looking a much happier place, and there was still another couple of hours drinking to be done, maybe even more.

And perhaps some naughtiness beckoned too.

He took his phone, sent the text message, got up and headed outside, towards the next pub.

The Castle.

Adam was back in the bus station café, but this time with Claire for company.

‘Is there any particular reason you chose here?’ she asked, looking quizzically around at the sticky tables, grizzled patrons, and the customary semi-circle of fumigators gathered outside the door. ‘It doesn’t immediately strike me as your kind of coffee shop.’

Adam nodded. ‘That’s exactly why. It’s out of the police station and it’s not where they’d expect us to be.’

‘The spooks?’

‘Yep.’

‘You take me to all the nicest places.’

Adam managed a smile, but it was brief. ‘I thought we needed to talk. There’s something bothering me.’

On the road outside, the rush hour queues were at their height, the car windscreens filled with a line of resigned faces. It was just after half past eight. Adam had again chosen a table in the corner of the café, where he could see the door and the pavement outside.

He checked around and leaned forwards. ‘What did you make of what they had to tell us yesterday?’

‘About the mole?’

‘I think the modern spook parlance is
asset
, but yes.’

In the Bomb Room, Sierra had explained the spies “issue” with the investigation turning to the mosque. Someone from a high level there was a security services’ informer. Or, at least, that was what Adam inferred from what little he’d managed to glean.

‘So, who is it?’ he asked Sierra.

‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

‘What’s his position then?’

‘An important one.’

‘What?’

‘A useful one.’

Adam sighed heavily. ‘What exactly?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘I thought we were sharing information.’

‘We are.’

‘Well, that’s a new definition of sharing to me. Maybe I’d call it the only-child syndrome. Or one-way sharing. We share, you don’t.’

Standing at the side of the room, Oscar was watching and smirking. The light fell along the scar on his neck, a living weal in the thin flesh. He was straddling the briefcase, as though protecting it.

‘I mean,’ Sierra said heavily, ‘That if you knew, it might compromise the asset and that could seriously endanger him.’

‘So you want me to leave the mosque alone?’

‘No. That in itself could raise suspicions.’

With a strained calm, Adam asked, ‘So – you want me to go in half-heartedly?’

‘No. That would be suspicious too.’

‘So what the hell do you want me to do?’

Oscar had interrupted, ‘All right, let’s keep our tempers. We’re all supposed to be on the same side here.’

‘Really?’ Adam retorted sarcastically.

‘We are merely saying,’ Oscar continued, ‘that we expect you to question the Imam, and his minder, and anyone else you wish at the mosque. But please bear in mind that they were not in any way responsible for radicalising John Tanton, and nor was anyone else there.’

‘And you’re sure about that?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Has it ever occurred to you that your “asset” might be – what is it you call them? A double agent? Feeding you duff information to put you off the track?’

The spies exchanged a condescending look. ‘Funnily enough, Chief Inspector,’ Sierra said levelly, ‘yes it has. We are more than familiar with assessing the reliability of sources, and I would ask you to respect our conclusions.’

And there, the conversation, as such it was, had ended.

Claire tapped a hand on the table, found it sticking to the surface, gave it a distasteful look and stopped. ‘I know what you mean, sir. If they want us to behave normally in the inquiry, then why tell us about this informer at all? Maybe they are trying to help us, but are bound up by the way they work.’

Adam snorted unpleasantly. ‘Maybe. I just think it’s odd. Something doesn’t quite add up.’

‘When you put it like that, I think you’re right. It really annoys me, the way they stand in the corner, whispering to each other. Not to mention that smirk Oscar always wears. So what do we do?’

‘We keep investigating. Bear in mind what they’ve said, but …’

‘But?’

‘I think we just handle the case our way, regardless. Shall we get back to the station? It’s time to see our spook friends for the morning briefing.’

They got up from the table, Claire leaving her cup of coffee untouched. It wasn’t what she’d wanted anyway, but the request for a herbal tea had been met with incomprehension.

‘Just one more thing,’ Adam added, as they made for the door. ‘As we work through this case, don’t feel obliged to tell Sierra and Oscar everything. I’m not convinced there aren’t some details we might just be better off keeping to ourselves.’

The text came back within five minutes, just as he expected it would.

I’ll be there in half an hour. Got to glam up for you! x

Dan got himself another pint and found a table for two at the back of the pub. Perfect. It gave him just enough time to go through the plan again.

The title he finally chose, Dan wasn’t sure about. It seemed a little personal, perhaps unprofessional, but it also felt good and so he had written it anyway. Beneath it came the individual headings.

1. The unlikely angel.
   
2. Computer geeks – chase the hunch.
   
3. News library etc for suspects.
   
4. Secret filming?
   
5. Ali Tanton – anything more?
   
6. Adam – keep pushing.
   

Below each heading, Dan had scribbled the outline of his ideas. And it would all start tomorrow. He raised a glass and toasted his reflection in a mirror, ignoring the puzzled expression of a couple at a nearby table. He sent a text to El, to confirm their arrangement and received one back saying fine, it’d be a pleasure.

The little mission was not just right up the photographer’s street, it was parked firmly on his driveway.

The door opened and Sarah Jones walked in. Relaxed and confident, escorted by every admiring male eye in the bar, and each jealous female one.

She had enhanced her already impressive stature by wearing heels of which even Lizzie would have been proud. They must have taken her to well over six feet, and she moved with none of the self-consciousness of a woman unused to dynamite dressing. The black trousers rippled with the length of her legs, the green top was just as effective at emphasising her body, and her copper hair was tied up in a way which enhanced the angles of her face and greenness of her eyes.

‘Buy a girl a drink?’ she asked, coyly. Dan got up and went to the bar. With an afterthought he returned and kissed her cheek, then went back to the bar. With another afterthought he came back again to find out what drink it was that she wanted.

He had, he reflected ruefully, never quite got the hang of a date.

‘Wine. Red wine.’ She puckered her lips. ‘And a bottle, please. It’s been quite a day.’

Already flitting in the rarefied atmosphere of Dan’s upper esteem, Sarah now managed to rise even higher. He brought the drinks over, trying hard to ignore the knowing looks from the barman and a couple of other customers. One man even gave him a thumbs-up.

‘So, err – busy day then?’ was Dan’s inspired opening gambit.

Sarah frowned. ‘Yes. Very busy. OK, let’s get the small talk over. I work for a marketing company, I live in my own flat just around the corner from here, no I don’t have a cat, I’m 38 years old, I like doing my own thing, but I also like clever men. I don’t like beating about the bush, children and beards. I’m single because I want to be, because horribly few men trump my own company and I certainly haven’t met anyone like that lately.’ She paused, then added meaningfully, ‘Though I’m hoping that might change in the near future. You?’

Dan was struggling to think about anything apart from those eyes. The other five and a half feet of pure body beneath was making an impact too, he had to admit, but the eyes were mesmeric. They were like swimming in an emerald sea.

’I’m 40 years old, live in my own flat at the top of the hill, a fantastic mid-Victorian place, with my Alsatian Rutherford. I’ve got my own teeth, or at least I had the last time I checked, and most of my own hair, although it does seem to be thinking about migrating south for the winter.’

A giggle at the fantastic triumph of witticism reassured Dan it was safe to proceed.

‘I like walking, particularly on Dartmoor. I like pubs and beer, I like my job because it’s a brain-bending challenge some days and I can guarantee I’ll never get bored. And I also like my own company, but I too wouldn’t be above sharing time with someone who’s worth it.’

Dan thought he would gloss over why he was single. He could almost see Claire out of the corner of his eye. She was sitting at a table, silently watching him, her face impassive. Her ghost never knew when to take a hint and have a few hours off from its haunting duties.