The Balance of Guilt (16 page)

A muffled thud from the unseen room, another shout and then a sound no one could mistake.

A sound that stopped everything, everyone.

A sound that echoed in the sudden silence.

A whipping crack.

A pistol shot.

T
HE HEADQUARTERS OF
G
reater
Wessex rose from a green field site a decade or so ago, and was created akin to the principle of a medieval castle. There are layers upon layers to traverse, a Russian Doll of departments to work through in order to reach the sanctum of the Keep.

At the fringes of the building are the administration offices, then comes Community Relations, Traffic and Neighbourhood Policing, before finally moving on to the Major Crime Team, Intelligence, Special Branch and Serious and Organised Crime. The transition is easily spotted – doors of anterooms, which once were open at the start of the journey are now all firmly closed and there are no signs upon them to proclaim the business of their inhabitants.

At the very centre of the building is the Command Suite, and a surprise. Visitors here usually expect to find the Chief Constable’s office as the nexus, but of that notion they are disabused. It is situated close to the building’s reception, along a corridor which is refitted with a new and comfortable carpet every couple of years, and boasts watercolour prints of classical Wessex scenes by a variety of local artists.

The office itself is large and light, with sizeable windows, soft furnishings, and yet more cheerful paintings. It’s a room designed for taking tea, shaking hands, smiling, presenting awards and being photographed.

The brutal business of the reality of the guts and gore of policing goes on in the Deputy Chief Constable’s office. The daily running of the force is carried out here, disciplinary matters, and the most sensitive of meetings and decision-making. The room is inexpensively furnished and functional, with just the one, relatively small, window, and the walls are plain. It is no place for an invitation to receive warm and hearty congratulations on how jolly well your career is going.

And if the office itself is austere, the waiting area is so nondescript as to be nigh unnoticeable. It is effectively an extension of the corridor, merely a begrudging widening to accommodate a row of plastic chairs and the desk of a secretary. The sole decoration is a water fountain, which has dripped for almost three years now, and still not been repaired.

Upon one of the uncomfortable chairs this sunny morning, trying to ignore the incessant dripping, which was just a little out of time with the rhythm of a burgeoning headache, sat Adam Breen.

Katie, the Deputy Chief’s Secretary, had already offered tea, which he had declined. She smiled understandingly and slid back behind her desk. Once, at a leaving do, after a couple of glasses of wine, she had confided to a colleague how remarkably few people who were summoned here fancied a cup of tea. A small box of tea bags could last for many months. It was a story which spread around the force within a day, and almost as quickly became a saying applied to the less conscientious staff.

He’s as hard working as the Deputy Chief’s tea bags
 …

Adam was the last to be called, which could be good news or bad. It meant either the breaking storm had dissipated some of its power, or instead that it had worked itself up nicely to something more approaching hurricane force.

It had been a busy couple of hours here. Katie, an elegant lady in her early fifties, used to work with CID, and had been kind enough to offer Adam a brief précis of what had passed before his arrival.

The Home Office were on the phone almost incessantly, demanding increasingly detailed explanations about the Plymouth raid, in tones of escalating hysteria. The press office had matched the level and ferocity of the calls with their requests for an official statement to throw to the frothing jaws of the media pack.

The Deputy Chief Constable expounded “formal words” upon the FX5 officer who had fired the fatal shot, a young and worried looking man known only as Delta, according to Katie. It was all Flood had it in his power to do, she whispered. He was not the officer’s boss, but he was determined to make very clear his censure. And so he did. There would be an inquiry into what happened, and it would be added to the agent’s service record, along with the recommendation he be suspended from firearms work and retrained.

The words had boomed easily through the closed door; Flood was not one to allow the niceties of departmental divisions to neuter his ire.

‘As far as I am concerned, your sloppiness was unforgivable. It was only by sheer luck that the outcome of your actions was not far worse. You have brought my force into disrepute and you will not be welcome here again. Now get out.’

Flood, like many in the police, was once a military man. His nickname, due in part to his build and part his manner, was The Tank. And that this may have been inappropriate given that he served as a Royal Marine made no difference whatsoever. It fitted and it stuck.

The phone on Katie’s desk warbled. She gave Adam another sympathetic smile, a look she had perfected within a very short time of becoming Flood’s secretary, and directed him in.

‘This investigation is a shambles, isn’t it?’ the Deputy Chief barked, in his usual forthright manner, before Adam had even a chance to consider whether to sit down.

‘I wouldn’t say it’s a triumph, sir, certainly.’

‘It is one of the biggest cases we have ever handled, and to be frank we’re getting nowhere.’

‘Well, we do have a prime suspect and some leads, but …’

‘Spare me the platitudes, Adam,’ Flood interrupted. He looked and sounded tired. ‘I’m not blaming you for what happened. But it’s not good. The Home Office are going mad and I’m running out of things to tell them. This debacle has made all the national media.’ He pointed to one of the chairs. ‘Sit down. Now tell me straight. What the hell is going wrong?’

Adam sat, ran a hand over his stubble. ‘Honestly, sir?’

‘Damn right.’

‘It’s a bloody mess. We’re nominally in charge of the inquiry, but the spooks tell us what to do. They feed us what information they choose and we have to act on it. I don’t have access to everything I need to know. I can’t judge what’s reliable and what’s not and who to trust. It’s worse than an investigation by committee.’

Flood nodded. ‘Just as I suspected. Right, get back to the inquiry. But first, let me be clear. The information on this Tariq came entirely from the spies?’

‘Yes sir,’ Adam replied, emphatically.

The spooks were waiting in the Bomb Room, at the back, whispering to each other. When Adam walked in, they ushered the other detectives out. Claire pointedly didn’t move from her desk.

‘We’d like to talk to Mr Breen alone,’ Oscar said sharply, pointing to the door.

‘I’m his deputy on this case,’ she replied. ‘I’m staying.’

Sierra added softly. ‘It might be in your interests to leave.’

Claire stood up to face her. ‘What are you going to do? Shoot me too?’

Adam held up his hands. ‘OK, that’s enough. Claire’s staying, so get on with what you want to say.’

Sierra stared at him, then sat down on the edge of a desk. Oscar leaned back against a wall, hooked out a foot to shift the briefcase alongside and folded his arms in front of his chest.

‘What the hell were you doing, tipping off your little mate about the raid?’ she hissed.

Adam too folded his arms. ‘What makes you think I did?’

‘He was there. With his cameraman. That’s why the story’s all over the country now.’

Adam snorted. ‘The story’s all over the country because of your crap so-called “intelligence”, and your trigger-happy bloody officer. So don’t try that shifting the blame stuff on me. Funnily enough, when a hack spots a mob of armed cops running around, he does tend to follow to see what happens.’

Sierra said, ‘You’re denying you tipped him off?’

‘I’m saying the problem was your screw-up, not mine.’

‘Stick it, arsehole,’ Oscar snapped.

Adam turned to him. ‘Ah, the attack dog’s turn to talk bollocks, is it? Or to do your best to muddy the waters around your own inadequacies?’

The spy was shaking his head, the scar on his neck throbbing. ‘You know nothing. You’re a countryside cop. You might as well ride around on a bike. You’ve never been out there, facing terrorists, putting your life at risk for your country. This case is too big for you. You can’t handle it.’

‘Yeah, if by that you mean I can’t raid innocent people’s homes and go shooting my little gun everywhere, then you might be right.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Beautifully put. How impressive. My, the things they teach you in spy school.’

There was a glowering silence. Then Sierra said, ‘Look, maybe we’d all better just calm down. Why don’t we go get a cup of tea?’

Adam nodded. ‘Good idea. Come on Claire, I could do with a walk.’

He made for the door and closed it pointedly behind them to stop the spies from following.

It was coming up for lunchtime and the bus station café was busy. Adam studied it, said, ‘We can’t talk here,’ got a couple of take away teas and they crossed the road into Southernhay. He made for a park bench in a circle of shade cast by an aged beech tree. Other people were sitting out on the grass and low walls, enjoying their sandwiches in the sunshine.

The area was a favourite amongst Exeter shop and office workers, a Georgian parade, full of solicitors and estate agents, facing onto well-trimmed lawns and colourful flower beds. Tame and tubby sparrows hopped beneath the groups of people, begging crumbs and crusts.

Some of the birds were so fat that flight would present a Herculean challenge. The epidemic of obesity was not, apparently, confined to the human world.

A display offered an insight into the area. Southernhay was the most fashionable part of the city in Victorian times, boasting a spaciousness denied the major part of Exeter, confined as it was within the old Roman walls. There was even a public baths. The sense of space still lingered here, as the greens and gracious buildings managed to resist the merciless attack of the aggressive and destructive alien race known with some irony as Town Planners.

Today Southernhay has been made a cul de sac, sparing it the relentless noise, pollution and ugliness of the obsession with the motor car, a green breath of tranquillity at the heart of the city.

Adam rolled his neck, took off his jacket, loosened his tie and sipped at his tea. ‘How would you say we’re doing?’ he asked Claire.

‘Not well, sir. We’ve got a prime suspect in Ahmed, but we’ve got nothing on him. Or nothing that would stand up in court, anyway.’

‘And still nothing from the interviews?’

‘Oh, plenty, just nothing of any use. When he saw me this morning he called me a prostitute because I had the cheek to wear boots with a one inch heel. I got fed up with his ranting and sent a couple of the others in, hoping they might get on better. One got a broadside for having a tattoo on his arm – despoiling his sacred flesh, Ahmed called it. The other he just lectured on Anglo-American foreign policy and the historic repression of Muslims. He even came out with a little history lesson about the crusades. The two lads say it was highly informative, but not in any way helpful in building a case.’

Adam sighed. ‘And nothing from the numbers and names on his phone?’

‘No, sir. I got our own techno crime department to have a look at them without telling the spies, but they came up with nothing. No ideas, no leads.’

Adam watched the patterns of the shadows, flickering under the prompting of a gentle breeze. ‘There must be something in there though, mustn’t there? Otherwise, why do that disappearing act in the arcade when we’re following him, all in order to try to hide the phone? And I’m sure that was the only point in any of the interviews when he was worried.’

Claire nodded. ‘I agree. But we can’t find a thing.’

‘We’re missing something,’ Adam replied impatiently. ‘I can’t shake off the feeling there’s something wrong in this case, or that we’re missing something.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Keep at it, as ever. Keep hoping for a break. We’ll have to see the other potential suspects too, Kindle, the Imam and that lot.’

Claire sipped at her tea and flinched. It was more stewed than a hot pot. She poured it onto the grass.

‘We’re sure this Tariq can’t in any way be implicated in the bombing?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think so. The evidence from others in the family is that him and Ahmed didn’t get on. By all accounts, Tariq is entirely law-abiding and finds Ahmed’s views abhorrent. And he couldn’t have been the one John Tanton rang just before the bombing. He was in Exeter city centre, but in a business meeting with his bank. We’ve got two bankers and an accountant giving him a cast-iron alibi. It’s a total no-go.’

‘So we went in all guns blazing on an innocent man.’

‘Not just innocent, but a well-respected pillar of the community type.’

‘That’s not going to go down well.’

Adam nodded and managed a tight smile. ‘No, indeed it isn’t.’

Dan sat in the edit suite with Jenny, his favourite picture editor, and put the report together. He noticed he was humming to himself as he worked. With pictures and a story like this, it was a pleasure.

The one oddity had been that earlier call from Adam. Dan answered with some trepidation, expected pleas and then perhaps even threats not to broadcast the story. But the detective’s attitude was very different.

‘You got the lot?’

‘Yep. All the cops running in and bashing the door down. We even got the sound of the fatal shot on tape.’

‘So you’re going to put it out at lunchtime?’

‘Yes.’

There was a strange pause at the end of the line. ‘It hardly looks good.’

‘No,’ Dan agreed hesitantly. ‘But I’ve got to report it. It’s too important a story not to. It’ll be on all the other media too. I know you probably tipped me off because you wanted the public to see the police taking action to fight terrorism, but I’m sorry, I have to report this.’

Another pause, then Adam said quietly, ‘Yes. Of course. I understand. You’re just doing your job.’

‘Are you OK?’ Dan asked, puzzled. ‘I mean, I expected – well, you to be angry, or upset, or ask me to tone the report down, or something like that anyway.’