Beneath the Bleeding (20 page)

The Mother of Satan. That’s what they called the end product Yousef was aiming for. Triacetone triperoxide.
TATP. Supposedly given its nickname because of its instability. And that’s why he was being more careful than he’d ever been in his life. Careful made it possible to do extraordinary things. The London tube bombers had carted it about in backpacks. On and off trains. Walking from train to tube. So if he got it right, it would be safe. Until he wanted it not to be, of course.

He read the instructions one more time. He’d already committed them to memory, but he’d also printed them out in a large font. Now, he stuck the sheets up on the wall above his makeshift lab bench. He put on his protective gear then took his chemicals from the fridge one by one, placing the three containers on the bench. Eighteen per cent hydrogen peroxide bought from a chemical supplier for wood bleaching. Pure acetone from the specialist paint company. Sulphuric acid for batteries from the motor bike supply shop. He set a beaker, a measuring tube, a thermometer, a stirring rod and an eyedropper, all made of glass, and a sealable Kilner jar alongside them. It felt very weird. He’d never done anything so grown-up in his life, yet it felt like being back at school in the chemistry lab. The mad scientist in short trousers.

He walked away from the bench and took off his gloves and ear protectors. He needed something to help calm his nerves. He took his iPod from his backpack, plugged the little buds into his ears and set random shuffle on his personal chilling playlist. Some slow beats from Talvin Singh filled his head. Imran would laugh at his choice of music, but he didn’t care. Yousef replaced his ear protectors and gloves and set to work.

First, he filled the sink basin with ice, pouring in a little cold water to make it more effective as a chiller.
He put the empty beaker in the ice bath and took a deep breath. This was the point of no return. From here on, he was a bomber. However beautiful his reasons, in the eyes of the world he was crossing a line that nothing could redeem. Lucky, then, that he didn’t give a shit what the world thought of him. Where it mattered, he would be forever regarded as a hero, a man who did what had to be done, and in a way that also made a statement.

He measured out the hydrogen peroxide, then poured it into the beaker. Swallowed hard, then did the same with the acetone. Gently placed the thermometer in the beaker and waited for the temperature to drop to the correct level. Stood humming softly along to Nitin Sawhney’s
Migration.
Anything rather than think about what was going to happen beyond this process.

Now the tricky part. He sucked up a precise amount of sulphuric acid with the eyedropper. Drop by slow drop, he added it to the mix, keeping a careful eye on the temperature. Above ten degrees, it would explode. This was the point where most amateur bomb makers got too enthusiastic, added too much too fast and ended up in bits against the nearest surfaces. Yousef was absolutely clear that wasn’t going to happen to him. His fingers were trembling, but he was careful to move the eyedropper away from the beaker every time he added a drop.

Once the recipe was complete, he began stirring with the glass rod. Fifteen minutes, the recipe said. He timed himself. Then, infinitely slowly, he eased the beaker out of its bath and put it in the fridge, making sure that the temperature setting was at its lowest.
Tomorrow evening, he would return and carry out the next stage. But for now, he’d done all he could.

Yousef closed the fridge and felt his shoulders drop with relief, He’d trusted the recipe; he was no fool and he’d checked it against others he’d managed to track down on the internet. But he knew that things could and did go wrong in the preparation of explosives. What a pointless waste that would have been. He stripped off his protective gear and tossed it on the lumpy bed.

Time to go home and be the dutiful son and brother. Two more nights, then no more of that. He loved his family. He knew that would be cast into doubt by what he was going to do, but it was incontrovertible for Yousef himself. He loved them and he hated that he was going to lose them. But some things were stronger than family bonds. Recently, he’d found out just how strong.

The dirty grey city sky was starting to pale on the far side of town when Carol pulled up in the shadow of the Grayson Street stand. Before she had even turned off her engine, a uniformed officer, rendered squat by the weight of equipment on her belt, was heading in her direction. Carol got out, fully expecting what she heard. ‘I’m sorry, you can’t park here,’ the officer said, weary tolerance in her voice.

Carol produced her warrant card from the pocket of her leather jacket and said, ‘I’m not going to be long.’

The young female officer was blotchy with embarrassment. ‘Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t recognize you…’

‘No reason why you should,’ Carol said. ‘I’m out of uniform.’ She gestured to her jeans and construction boots. ‘I didn’t want to look like a cop.’

The uniform gave an uncertain smile. ‘Then maybe you shouldn’t be parked there?’ she said, clearly knowing she was chancing her arm.

Carol laughed. ‘Good point. And if my time wasn’t so tight, I’d move it.’ She walked on towards the railings where the flowers, cards and soft toys swamped
the pavement, so deep in places there was barely enough room for one person to pass without stepping into the road.

There was no doubt that it provoked a complicated emotional response. Her work had conditioned Carol against knee-jerk sentiment. You couldn’t indulge in that and do her sort of job. Cops, firefighters, ambulance crews–they all had to learn early on not to be sucked into the genuine, personal grief of those they came into contact with. They had a level of inoculation against the seas of public emotion that greeted events like the death of Diana and the Soham murders. Theoretically she knew that each life snuffed out prematurely was equally valuable. But when it came to the murder of someone like Robbie Bishop–someone young, someone talented, someone who gave pleasure to millions–it was hard not to feel more anger, more sorrow, more determination to put things as right as she could.

She’d seen glimpses of sections of it behind TV reporters, but Carol had had no idea of the scale of the display outside the football ground. It moved her, but not because of its sentimental appropriation of grief. It moved her because of its pathos. The soft toys and cards were spattered with specks of dirty water sprayed by the tyres of passing cars, sodden with the overnight rain. Strewn with wilted flowers, the pavement had started to resemble a fly-tipping site.

This early in the morning, she was the only worshipper at the shrine. A few cars dawdled by, their drivers paying little attention to the road. Slowly, she walked the length of the railings. At the far end she stopped and pulled out her phone. She was about to
press the ‘call’ button when she thought better of it. Given he was in an NHS hospital, Tony was probably already awake. But if he was asleep, she didn’t want to wake him. That was how she rationalized it, shoving her phone back in her pocket impatiently.

The truth was, she didn’t want to have to get into it with him again about the slender connections between Robbie Bishop and Danny Wade. Being stuck in hospital was boring him so much that he was inventing phantoms to stimulate his brain. He wanted something to occupy him, and so he’d allowed himself to be carried away with a level of coincidence he’d have laughed at in other circumstances. Instead of dismissing it, he was seeing serial killers where none existed. It was, she supposed, only to be expected. It was what he did best and probably what he missed most. Carol wondered how long it would be before he could get back to work, even if it was only part time. At least the insane of Bradfield Moor might keep his own demons at bay.

She could live in hope. And in the meantime, she could trust her own instincts. Instincts, she reminded herself, that had been honed by the experience of working as closely with Tony as she had. She didn’t always have to run her ideas past him for validation. She pulled the phone out again and dialled. ‘Kevin,’ she said. ‘Sorry to bother you at home. On your way in, I want you swing by uniform and organize some bodies to come down to Victoria Park and take photos of the stuff here. I want every card and letter and drawing photographed and anything that seems at all dodgy collected and brought back for our team to take a look at. See you later.’ She closed her phone
and walked back to the car. Time to go home and change into the plain-clothes uniform. Time to prove to herself that she could still work the hard ones without Tony when she had to.

Stacey Chen was invariably first into the office. She liked to commune with her machines in peace and quiet. When she walked into the office that Friday to find Sam Evans already there, the kettle boiled and an Earl Grey teabag ready in her mug, she was instantly on her guard. It was true that it didn’t happen often on this team, but everywhere else she had been assigned, colleagues were always lining up to ask favours. Everybody needed what the electronics could do for them, but none of them could be bothered to figure out how to make the computers really work for them. They just used her as a short cut. And it pissed her off more than she ever showed.

She accepted the cup of tea with chilly gratitude, then set up in hiding behind her twin monitors, pausing only to hang the jacket of her severe Prada suit on a hanger. Sam seemed to be working quite happily in front of his own machine, so Stacey let her guard drop and instead focused on her deep analysis of the inner secrets of Robbie Bishop’s hard drive. There were some photographs he’d recently deleted, and she was determined to make sense of the fragments remaining. Probably nothing, but Stacey never liked admitting defeat.

So absorbed was she that she didn’t even notice Sam get up and come over to her workstation until he was right next to her, leaning over her, smelling of citrus and spice and maleness. Stacey felt her
muscles tensing, as if she was steeling herself against a blow.
Don’t be stupid,
she told herself.
It’s Sam, for God’s sake. It’s not like he’s going to ask you out or anything.
Much as she would have liked that, if she could have got past the idea that he was after something in virtuality rather than reality. ‘What is it?’ she said, nothing welcoming in her tone.

‘I just wondered if you wanted a hand, sifting through all Robbie’s emails and stuff.’

Stacey’s eyebrows shot up. She couldn’t remember Sam ever offering to do any sort of electronic scut work. ‘I know what I’m doing, thanks,’ she said, stiff as a clerical collar.

Sam held his hands up in what she took to be a placatory gesture. ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘All I meant was I could help with actually reading stuff. I totally defer to you when it comes to anything complicated. But I thought maybe you could use some help with the bits that any old plod could access.’

‘I’m fine, thanks. Everything’s under control. It’s not like Robbie Bishop was a master of his machine,’ Stacey said, not hiding her contempt for those less computer-literate. Maybe if telling him directly she didn’t need or want his help didn’t work, she’d have more luck with the indirect insults.

Sam shrugged. ‘Please yourself. It’s just that I can’t get any further with what I’m working on till somebody gets back to me with more info. And let’s face it…’ He did have a good smile, she thought. Very beguiling, if you were the sort who was willing to be beguiled.

‘Face what?’ Stacey had to ask.

‘Well, you’re wasted on that sort of shit, frankly.
Like I said, any old plod could do it. But the other stuff, the stuff that idiots like me are clueless about-that’s what we need you for. The bread and butter? You should be shovelling it towards the likes of me.’

‘The ones who like the credit without the work, you mean?’ Stacey smiled to soften her words.

Sam looked offended. She couldn’t believe his cheek. Everyone knew he was a glory hound. He clutched his chest, miming heart-broken. ‘I can’t believe you said that.’

‘Sam, what’s the use pretending? I wasn’t born yesterday. I remember the Creeper investigation, when you tried to make an end run round the boss. You’d have to be totally blinded by ambition to try something as mental as that.’

He looked sheepish. ‘That was then. Trust me, Stace, I learned my lesson from that little débâcle. Come on, let me help. I’m bored.’

‘You’d be a lot more bored if I handed off the collected wittering of Robbie Bishop. I know that much already.’

The door opened and they both looked up as Chris Devine walked in, looking ready for a country walk in her waxed jacket, cords and green wellies. She saw their expressions and pulled a face. ‘I know, I know. I slept in, the dog needed a run, Sinead’s in Edinburgh on business, what can you do?’ She kicked off her wellies and slipped into a pair of shoes she produced from a Tesco bag. Under the jacket she wore a perfectly respectable cashmere sweater.

‘Quite the transformation,’ Sam said.

‘Yeah, I clean up. nice for an old slapper,’ Chris said. ‘What are you two up to?’ She headed for the kettle
and the cafetière she had added to their brewing equipment.

‘I’m offering to help Stacey but she won’t let me,’ Sam said. Stacey pursed her lips. He made it sound like she was the problem here.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Chris said. ‘You and computers? From what I’ve seen…’

‘He’s a lot more competent than he lets on,’ Stacey said, surprising herself with her candour. The look Sam turned on her held no warmth, only cold speculation. She saw Chris weighing up the situation. From what she had seen of Chris, the only thing on her mind would be how best to use this tension between her and Sam in a creative way. One that worked for the benefit of the unit. Stacey dreaded what was coming.

‘What is it you want to do, Sam?’ Chris said, eyeing them both.

‘I thought it would free Stacey up for the complicated stuff if I read through the emails,’ Sam said, eyes wide.

Chris looked at Stacey. ‘And this is a problem…how?’

Because if he finds anything, he’ll make sure I look bad and he gets the credit. Because I don’t trust him. Because I think I might like him too much and I don’t want him in my space.
‘Security, Sarge. We don’t want this stuff flying round the system. In a case like this, if background info gets into the wrong hands, before we know it, it’s all over the tabloids.’

‘I see your point, but Sam’s one of us, Stacey. He understands the importance of confidentiality. I don’t understand what the issue is. If Sam’s got
nothing else to work on, he might as well do your shit work.’

‘No problem, Sarge.’ Stacey looked back at her monitors, not wanting to show Chris how pissed off she was. ‘I’ll print out all the relevant files,’ she said in a last-ditch attempt to prevent him from having direct access.

‘No need for that,’ Sam said. ‘Just burn me a CD, or send them to my mailbox. I’m happy reading on screen.’

Stacey knew when she was beaten. Honestly, what was the point in having lesbians on the team when they sided with the men? ‘Fine,’ she muttered.

By the time Carol arrived an hour later, Stacey had much more to worry about than who was reading Robbie Bishop’s emails.

Carol stared at the screen with a look of incredulity. The temporary mailbox Stacey had set up for responses from the Best Days of Our Lives subscribers already contained over two hundred responses. She gave Stacey a bemused look. ‘I guess that proves your point about getting the online community on our side,’ she said dryly. ‘What exactly did you ask them for?’

Stacey looked bored. The obvious stuff. When they were at school, whether they knew Robbie, anything they can tell us first hand about Robbie at school or since. Recent photos of themselves and anyone they were at school with. What they were doing on Thursday night. Who can corroborate that. And whether they have any bright ideas about who might want Robbie dead or why.’ She cracked a smile. ‘I think you might get quite a few people suggesting those fat cats who own Chelsea and Man United.’

Carol couldn’t fault Stacey’s logic. ‘OK. Chris and Paula, I want you to split them between you. Weed out any possibles. Print out photos. And tonight, it’s back to Amatis with the photos. Let’s see if any of our revellers or bar staff pick out any faces.’

Chris leaned over to study the screen. ‘That’s a big ask. There’s four more come in just while we’ve been talking. We might need some more bodies.’

‘Point taken. See how you get on this morning. If it’s taking too long, we’ll hijack some help.’ Carol looked around the room. ‘Sam, what are you working on?’ she asked.

‘Robbie’s emails,’ he said without looking up.

‘OK. If Chris and Paula need a hand, you can put that on the back burner and weigh in with them.’ Carol checked through her mental list of things to do. Kevin was busy making sure the shrine down at the Victoria Park stadium was properly recorded and assessed; he’d be coming back at some point with more potential evidence to be collated. There was a lot of activity going on. But the question was, did it have a point? Were they moving in the right direction? And how would they know when they were?

At times like this, Carol missed being able to rely on Tony’s insights, however off the wall they sometimes seemed. She wasn’t afraid to think outside the box herself, but it was always more comfortable to go out on a limb when there was someone shouting encouragement from the safety net below.

At least she could rely on this team to dig beneath the surface. If there was anything to be found, they’d find it. The hard bit was figuring out what it meant
and where it led. But for now, all she could do was wait.

Learning from the mistakes of others was always preferable to the pain of making your own, Yousef thought. Like the London bombers. They’d met up together and travelled down to London by train mob-handed. When the security services started examining CCTV footage, they stuck out. They were easy to spot, easy to trace, and from there, easy to blame. Easy to backtrack to their homes, easy to unravel their networks of support and friendship.

All of that would have been slowed right down if they’d each made their own ways to the target. Diverting the security forces altogether was the best option in the aftermath, but failing that, slowing them down was far better than making it easy for them. What made most sense was to have as little contact with each other in the time leading up to the bombing itself. Given that Brits were the most surveilled people in the world, and given that most CCTV footage wasn’t stored for more than a couple of weeks, they’d agreed they wouldn’t meet during that time unless there was some sort of emergency. Contact would be kept to a minimum and, if it became necessary, they would use text messages with agreed codes. The target would be referred to as ‘the house’, the bomb as ‘dinner’, and so on. Each knew what had to be done, and they were prepared to do it.