The Balance of Guilt (18 page)

They walked across Minster Green, groups of people sitting on the grass, chatting. A ring of young children chased each other around an oak tree. Pigeons bobbed up and down along the cobbles by the ruined stained glass window.

‘Walk me through it,’ Dan said, at the entrance to the arcade. ‘Don’t leave anything out.’

‘He comes in here, through the main entrance. He’s running and there are cops on his tail, but a bit behind.’

They waited for a bus to pass, then walked on into the arcade and came to an intersection of shops. There was a greengrocer’s, a pile of fruit and vegetables on display, an optician’s, and a second-hand shop, the window full of cameras and mobile phones. Ahead was a small supermarket, trolleys lined up outside. A couple of stalls were selling a colourful selection of scarves and hats for the coming winter.

Adam stopped. ‘Now we lose him. For forty seconds exactly. The cops behind can’t see him. There’s no CCTV on him.’

The detective pointed along the intersection. ‘Now we pick him up again, sitting on that bench. We close in and arrest him, as you saw.’

‘And when he came along here, could he have been absolutely sure he wasn’t on CCTV?’

‘It’s a fair bet. The cameras are old and pretty obvious. He’d have seen there wasn’t one here.’

‘So, what was he doing in that forty seconds?’

‘Hiding the mobile.’

‘Where?’

Adam took a couple of strides forwards and bent over, pointed to a drain. ‘In there.’

Dan sat down on a low wall and looked around. ‘Was it well hidden?’

‘Not particularly. It didn’t take too long to find.’

‘How long would it have taken to hide?’

‘A few seconds.’

‘Not forty?’

‘No.’

‘How many?’

Adam shrugged. ‘Forgive me asking,’ he said heavily, ‘but is this relevant?’

‘I don’t know yet. Let’s try it. Walk round that corner, look around you, spot the drain, open it, then close it again and walk on. Do it all fast.’

Adam shook his head, but did so. ‘Ten seconds,’ said Dan, looking up from his watch.

‘So?’

‘So – what was he doing with the other thirty?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing. He must have been panicking. Perhaps it took that long to spot somewhere to hide the phone. Maybe he couldn’t get the drain open.’

‘Maybe.’

Adam sat down beside Dan. ‘I know that look. What are you thinking?’

‘That he was doing something else in our thirty missing seconds.’

‘Like what?’

‘That is the question. What if he was trying to hide something apart from the phone?’

Adam shook his head. ‘No go. I had this entire area searched. The teams looked everywhere. Roof, floor, ceiling, bins, drains, shops, you name it. They took it apart. We found nothing.’

Now it was Dan’s turn to frown. ‘Hmm,’ was all he said.

‘Look,’ Adam replied, standing up. ‘I know you love your bit of drama and complicated cases, with riddles and puzzles and whistles and bells, but take a tip from me. This one is straightforward. We need to find who Tanton rang before he exploded the bomb. Get that person and we have our radicaliser. I’m not saying Ahmed wasn’t involved. In fact, I’m sure he is – somehow – but that call is the key to the case. And we’ve got some possible suspects, so let’s go work on it.’

They called at Parfitt’s office, to the side of the Minster, and were made to wait. Dan and Adam exchanged glances. They had agreed on the way over that a man as important as the Principal would always be too busy with pressing work matters to see them immediately.

As they waited, Dan made one final attempt to get Adam to tell him. ‘What’s this surprise then?’

‘Wait and see. But let me take the lead on this one.’

Dan contented himself with thinking his way back through the shopping arcade. But it wasn’t easy to concentrate. Claire kept stalking the fringes of his mind, her expression still impassive. Dan wondered if she was thinking about him, or just getting on with her inquiries. He wondered too what he hoped she was thinking.

Dan tried a memory of Sarah Jones and their night together, but that prompted no reaction either. He sighed. Curiously, even after all the days and weeks of raging about what had happened with Claire, the numbness was not a welcome sensation. It felt unpleasantly inhuman.

A door opened and Parfitt appeared. They shook hands. He was wearing a suit today, a trendy three-button jacket and clearly bespoke.

‘Non-clerical day,’ he explained. ‘Meetings with money men. In these days even Minsters must endlessly seek sponsorship, like some tawdry football club. A suit seems to go down better than the frock. Look, as it’s a fine day, why don’t we make the most of it and talk outside?’

He led them back to the green and found a bench in a secluded corner, beneath a large oak tree. A crisp packet fluttered on the ground. Parfitt stooped down and picked it up.

‘I don’t know what society’s coming to, some days,’ he complained. ‘You’d think people would behave better, here in the Minster grounds. But there’s little respect. We have a constant problem with litter and dog mess, even vandalism.’

Adam nodded sympathetically and asked a couple of questions about how the Minster was coping in the aftermath of the bombing. Visitor numbers were up considerably. Money had already been received from an anonymous donor to replace the stained glass window. It was being recreated, exactly as it had been, but the work would take months. For now, it was boarded up, the same fate as would befall a broken window in any ordinary shop or house. Across the green, a succession of people were still stopping to photograph the memory of the attack.

Dan watched a jackdaw hop across the grass and pick at some discarded food. He’d have to see Flash and Gordon later, to show them the list of names and numbers from Ahmed’s phone. He winced at the thought of the two oddballs, spinning around on their chairs, gleefully dissecting the evidence. Some of the things he had to do for his job were ridiculous.

A flock of white clouds was gathering above one of the Minster’s towers. The sun shone from the glass of the shopfronts, casting silhouettes of the people passing by. A woman ran after a young boy who was trying to climb a wall. Couples walked, hand in hand, easy and relaxed. A man in a red coat lectured a group of visitors about the city’s history. There was a sense of making the most of the last days of the benevolent weather, before the darkness and cold of the English winter set in, obstinate and omnipotent in its long months of dominance of daily life.

Adam was guiding the conversation to where he wanted it to go. ‘Do you mind me asking if you know any of these people – firstly, John Tanton’s mother, Alison?’

‘No,’ Parfitt replied.

‘The Imam, Tahir Aziz, and his assistant, Abdul Omah?’

‘Yes. I know the Imam from our inter-faith meetings. We have them twice a year, to promote religious harmony. His assistant is the big man who always dresses in black?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’ve met him, but not spoken to him. He doesn’t talk much, as I recall.’

‘How well do you know the Imam?’ Adam asked.

‘Not terribly well. We exchange the odd letter about religious matters, or working groups, that kind of thing.’

‘A professional relationship?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Why?’

‘And the last time you saw him was …?’

‘I couldn’t say for sure. Probably a couple of months ago. Why?’

‘We’re just establishing who knows whom amongst all the people that might be connected with this case.’

The Principal studied him carefully. Adam found another page in his notes. ‘And what of Norman Kindle?’

‘The BPP man?’

‘Yes.’

Now the Principal shook his head. ‘I’ve never met him.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Yes.’

Adam held his look and said, ‘It’s just – he was quoted as supporting your book, wasn’t he? The one about the clash between Christianity and Islam.’

‘Was he?’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘Well, I still don’t know him. He’s hardly the sort of person I would want to associate with, is he?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

Parfitt looked down his nose and said sniffily, ‘No. He is not. Look, what is all this about? Am I supposed to have done something wrong?’

‘No, sir, just a few questions, that’s all,’ Adam continued. ‘On the subject of which, you’re no fan of Islam, are you?’

The Principal exhaled heavily. ‘Ah, now I see. You think I might have a connection with the bombing from some speculative motive to damage the cause of Islam. Is that it?’

Adam smiled, but it was humourless and without warmth, the sunshine above the ice cap.

‘That’s very good, sir. I might just write it down. No, it wasn’t that. It was another issue which was bothering me.’

‘Yes? Well, what is it?’

Parfitt was sounding peeved. Dan leaned forwards on the bench to make sure he caught every word. Adam was flicking through his notes again, ostensibly to find a page, but Dan had seen the technique many times before. Unsettle the suspect with an ominous build-up, like a fast bowler pounding down the wicket, about to unleash not a small red ball but a hand grenade.

‘Well, it was just this,’ Adam said slowly. ‘You told us you’d never met John Tanton before – never even heard of him, prior to the bombing.’

‘That’s correct, yes.’

Another pause as Adam thoughtfully watched two young women wheel pushchairs past the Minster.

‘Well, given that, how would you explain this? It was taken in the Minster itself, just four days before the bombing.’

Adam opened his file to reveal a picture. A little grainy and marked with an electronic date and time in the top corner, it was clearly taken from a CCTV image. The picture was dark and not perfectly focused, but it was nevertheless instantly recognisable.

It showed Parfitt talking to John Tanton as they stood together in the knave of the Minster.

K
INDLE ALSO CITED THE
good weather and asked to meet them outside, on Plymouth Hoe. He worked in the centre of the city, something to do with local government, but was shady about the exact nature of his job. Dan wasn’t surprised. Being a BPP spokesman could make you impressively unpopular.
Wessex Tonight
had covered stories about companies and organisations being the target of protests for employing the party’s supporters. Kindle wouldn’t want to draw extra attention with the police turning up to talk to him.

Dan wondered if being interviewed in the open gave suspects an advantage. Perhaps it felt less intimidating than a small and close room and offered the opportunity of extra precious seconds to think about their responses to difficult questions. The scenery was an ideal pretext for gazing rather than talking. It also meant the interviewee could avoid eye-contact, something which was often a telltale and impossible with your interrogators facing you across a desk.

To help pass the time, Dan raised his ideas about open-air interviews with Adam. His friend rolled his eyes and said, ‘More melodrama. Shall we just stick with the boring old facts and see if we can solve the case that way, before we launch the comet of your imagination?’

They were on the A38, just coming up to the Newton Abbot turning, a third of the way towards Plymouth. To the north, Dartmoor lurked, sulked, and brooded, as only the moor can. Even on a sunshine day, the greyness of the ancient granite and brown of the creeping bracken could dull the blessing of the weather. Thickening clouds lingered atop the highest tors. A line of pylons followed the road, made invisible by their ubiquity, but still painful to the clear-eyed lover of the countryside.

Dan was driving, as usual. Adam always insisted it gave him an opportunity to think, but there was more than a suspicion that the detective just liked being chauffeured.

Dan had protested that he didn’t want to suffer the chore of having to drive back to Exeter later to get his car, but Adam summoned a traffic officer, handed over the keys and said the Peugeot would be delivered to Dan’s flat by late afternoon. That was one of the great advantages of working with the police. They gave and took orders without hesitation and knew how to get things done.

The car had been resprayed, but Dan thought he could still see hints of the scrawled graffiti in shades of the blue paint.

KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT

He wondered again who had done it, who could know so much about him and not want him working on the Tanton case. But at least now he had a little plan to protect himself.

‘What did you reckon to Parfitt then?’ grunted Adam, emerging from his reverie.

‘I thought he was certainly surprised.’

‘Yeah, he was that.’

The Principal had stared at the photograph of himself talking to John Tanton in silence. It was several seconds before he spoke.

‘I simply don’t remember that,’ he said finally. ‘You’re sure this is a genuine picture?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Adam replied heavily. ‘I haven’t quite got to the stage in the case where I’m ready to invent evidence.’

‘Well, then I suppose I must have spoken to him. But I don’t remember it. All I would say, Inspector, is this. We are sometimes not well off for staff in the Minster and I have to undertake various duties, such as walking the floor and talking to the visitors. It must have been during one of those times I met Tanton. I have no memory at all of it. But to be frank …’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Well, I’m not surprised by that. I talk to many people and I’m often rather on autopilot when I do. They all ask the same questions, about the roof, the bombing from World War Two, the architecture, that kind of thing. You end up answering by rote.’

Adam held the man’s look, then thanked him and they walked back to Heavitree Road.

‘I think the reason he gave was plausible,’ Dan observed, pulling down the sun visor to shade his eyes. ‘And there was no sign of panic, nothing that suggested he was guilty and knew he’d been caught. What are you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking you’re right. That was why I didn’t arrest him. That CCTV is no evidence for anything really. It could have been an entirely innocent encounter with Tanton. The lad might have been on one of his reconnaissance missions for the bombing. But it’s certainly interesting, both that it happened at all, and the timing – just days before Tanton carried out his attack.’

Dan struggled to keep the scepticism from his voice. ‘You’re suggesting the Principal could have radicalised Tanton and led him to attack his own Minster?’

‘Well, Parfitt was in Exeter, so it could have been him that Tanton rang. We know the number Tanton called isn’t Parfitt’s personal mobile – just as it isn’t with any of our potential suspects – but he might have had another mobile which he subsequently got rid of.’

‘And a motive?’

‘He’s no fan of Islam. Perhaps he wanted to stir up anger against Muslims. Maybe it was even something far more mundane.’

‘Like what?’

‘Money. One of the oldest motives going. He’s always moaning about how much it costs to keep the Minster open. If you want to be mercenary about it, look at the publicity and sympathy the attack has brought. The place has never been busier.’

Dan guided the car around a couple of lorries. ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘And you think some of my ideas are far-fetched. I got no sense of anything much from Parfitt, apart from him being a rather harassed and bad-tempered administrator.’

‘Well, it’s all worth keeping in mind. As far as I can see, he’s got the potential means, motive and opportunity.’

‘But a long shot for our radicaliser, surely?’

‘Perhaps.’

The reached the outskirts of Plymouth. Dan turned the car off the main dual carriageway, on to the embankment. It was lunchtime and the traffic was light. They cruised along the River Plym, the low tide exposing acres of mudflats, wading birds pecking at the rich pickings. Dan felt his own stomach rumble. One of the problems of working with Adam was that he could become so engrossed in an inquiry he would forget to eat.

‘Any chance of picking up a sandwich?’ Dan ventured.

‘So long as it doesn’t take ages.’

Dan stopped at a deli and got them a couple of baguettes. He paid; it hadn’t even occurred to Adam to offer any money. The detective only muttered a vague thanks when Dan handed over his lunch.

They parked on the road alongside the Hoe and walked across the great promontory, icon of Plymouth. The Beatles had sat here on their Magical Mystery Tour, the photographs of the four gazing out over the sea adorning many of the city’s shops and homes.

The headland was quiet today, just a few people walking their dogs, couples taking the view, the odd parent pushing a pram. Seagulls wheeled in the sky, their keen eyes forever looking out for a discarded titbit. The sharp grey lines of a frigate slipped from the Tamar, heading for the open waters of the Western Approaches.

By the great memorial to the Navy’s war dead, a line of flags of the world hung apathetically, awaiting the stimulus of a breeze. It wouldn’t take long. To the west, a line of silver cloud hung in the sky. A front was approaching. The weather was turning.

Kindle was waiting on a bench beside Smeaton’s Tower, the old lighthouse which used to guard the Eddystone Reef, its red and white hoops stretching into the sky. He stood up and they shook hands. As he sat down, Kindle glanced at his watch.

‘Are we keeping you?’ Adam said frostily.

‘Sorry, it’s just that we only get an hour for lunch.’

‘This won’t take long, sir,’ the detective replied.

He began by asking whether Kindle knew any of the other possible suspects. Only Ali Tanton, came the reply, and just in passing. He’d met her a couple of times when she’d picked up John from football practice and they’d exchanged pleasantries and a few words about how the boy was doing.

Kindle sat back on the bench, his legs crossed, occasionally looking out at the view. He was as well dressed as before, another sharp suit and tie, and appeared relaxed, no obvious signs of evasions or tension. A couple of motorboats were zipping across the natural harbour of Plymouth Sound, the occasional growl of their engines floating over the Hoe.

‘Now, about John himself,’ Adam said. ‘How well did you know him?’

Kindle shrugged. ‘Reasonably well. I saw him most weeks. I tried to help him with his goalkeeping. I used to be a goalie myself and …’

‘About John,’ Adam interrupted. ‘Aside from football practice, did you ever see him anywhere else?’

‘Not really. I bumped into him a couple of times in town, but that was about it.’

‘Did you spend any time with him, apart from the football?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ever see any signs that he might do something extreme, like the bombing?’

Kindle considered the question. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘He had started going on a bit about Britain and what a horrible place it could be. He seemed to think some Arab countries were better.’

Now a bitterness had edged into the man’s words. ‘We did talk about it. I said to him – what do you think is better about them? The beheadings? The repression of women? The desire for some kind of holy war against us? He just said it was better than this place, where all anyone did was get drunk, have sex and invade other people’s countries. I told him what a fine place Britain was, how its character needed to be preserved, a little bit about the BPP and what we were trying to do, but he was – well, difficult to reach, to say the least.’

‘What did you think of what he was saying?’

Kindle snorted. ‘Funnily enough, I thought it was rubbish. It’s bad enough, having all the bloody immigrants here, without them filling people’s minds with their ideas. But you have to remember John was a young lad and not particularly advanced for his age. I thought it was just a fad he was going through. Basically, I reckon he was a decent lad who was …’

His words tailed off and he gazed out to sea, before adding angrily. ‘He was got to, if you want it straight. Brainwashed, indoctrinated. By the damn Muslims. The bloody immigrants. And you’ve seen the result.’

Adam nodded understandingly. ‘And so what would you do to get back at the “bloody immigrants”, Mr Kindle?’

‘What?’

‘Would you indoctrinate a young lad with your own propaganda? Tell him to explode a home-made bomb in the Minster, a crime so heinous it was guaranteed to stir up real outrage against the people who put him up to it. The people who could only be extremist Muslims?’

Kindle seemed genuinely baffled. ‘What?’

‘I’m saying, Mr Kindle, that in my experience of the BPP, I wouldn’t put anything past you. You had access to John. He looked up to you. He started to get interested in Islam. You fuelled his radical ideas, suggested the Minster might just be a good place for an attack – the symbolic heart of despicable old British society – and off he went. And you ride the wave of anti-immigrant feeling.’

Kindle gaped at Adam. ‘You’re seriously suggesting I …’

‘You had the means, the motive and the opportunity. And if you want me to be straight – I think you could do it.’

A sudden gust of wind rattled the flagpoles. Kindle’s face had turned a dull red.

With an effort, he got to his feet. ‘I am ending this conversation before I say something I’ll regret,’ he snapped. ‘But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the same old story, isn’t it? If something happens to us mere white people, the police aren’t interested. But if there’s a problem for one of our beloved immigrants – and even worse, for a sacred Muslim – the cops are falling over themselves to do everything they can. You’re typical of all that’s wrong with this country. If you want to talk to me again you’ll have to get in touch with the party’s solicitors. They know just how to deal with people like you.’

The wind was gathering strength and pulled at their jackets as Dan and Adam walked back to the car. The sky had turned a uniform grey, the front moving in fast. To the west, a softening of the view foretold of the rain to come. Adam was moving fast, striding with his anger.

‘Do I get the feeling you don’t care for Mr Kindle?’ Dan ventured mildly.

‘It’s his bloody politics that get me,’ the detective grunted. ‘You know what really narks me about that BPP lot?’

‘I get a feeling I’m about to find out.’

‘Yeah, you are. They go on about the native population as if they’re some race of supermen and women. And as for any immigrants, they’re automatically evil. It’s like they live in some weird world inhabited only by stereotypes and caricatures. In my experience, many of the “bloody immigrants” Kindle rants on about work a damned sight harder and give far more to the country than the so-called natives who are happy to lounge at home all day.’

They reached the car just as the first drops of rain started to fall. Dan fumbled for the wipers. ‘The Islamic Centre next, to see the Imam?’ he said.

‘Yeah. Look, sorry. It’s just people like Kindle get to me sometimes. Give me a straightforward murderer to deal with over a racist any day. At least I’ve got a chance of understanding a killer.’

Adam reached out and turned off the engine. ‘Let’s just take a minute to think,’ he said. ‘What did you make of Kindle? Give me a calm analysis. Could he be the radicaliser?’

Dan drummed a finger on the steering wheel. ‘Apart from being a bigot, I didn’t see any particular reason to suspect him. It is quite a leap, to believe he could be so driven by his views that he would set up a young lad to kill himself and others with a suicide bombing in the Minster.’

‘Mmm,’ Adam mused. ‘Perhaps.’

The rain was pounding harder on the car now, a continual booming beat. Adam reached into his file, found a sheet of paper and handed it over. ‘Have a quick look at that, then reconsider.’

It was a report from the Greater Wessex Police criminal psychologist, Dr “Sledgehammer” Stephens, entitled
The Radicaliser
. As ever, the good doctor had erred on the side of extreme caution in ensuring his findings would not be misunderstood, and typed all the major points in capitals.

“This is a FASCINATING psychological question,” the report read. “The use by a motivated, clever and resourceful criminal of another person to achieve his or her ends. In many ways, it is the HOLY GRAIL of intelligent criminality – the committing of an act by REMOTE means; the goal achieved without the presence of the mastermind. Naturally, it makes bringing them to justice FAR MORE DIFFICULT.