Ten Days (26 page)

‘Something like that.'

‘He always was a bit of a coward.'

‘Do you know where he might have run to?'

‘Why would I? I haven't seen him for at least a year.' She lit another cigarette. ‘And if I did know, why would I tell you?'

‘Because I'm not Julius's enemy, because I'm trying to help.'

‘Help?' A laugh so dry it could scorch. ‘You?' She let the second cigarette drop to the ground, this time in the dry, and mashed it out with her foot. ‘Let me tell you how you and your lot have so far helped Julius. He was a good man when I married him. Soft. Wanted to be of service. So when the Met decided to buff up its image by letting a few black faces hang about the place, he swallowed your shit about new brooms and diversification and joined up. His first year on the job, trying to ignore the abuse from his colleagues and pretending to be one of the lads, diversified him into being a drunk. His second helped him branch out into coke. His third, and he still hadn't been promoted, he almost had the sense to walk. But your lot came at him again, flattering him, telling him he was a natural for undercover. I could tell, anybody who didn't want to please like Julius did could have told, that what they really were after was his black face. He couldn't see it. Said he loved the job. He loved it all right. So much he stopped coming home. Stopped wanting to have sex – must have had another woman. He said he didn't, but you lot, with your identities in suitcases, you teach them how to lie, don't you? He was a quick learner, was Julius, but it cost him. Not that any of you noticed, or if you did, you didn't give a shit.'

‘But I do,' Joshua said. ‘And it sounds like you do, too. Help me find him and I'll do my best for him.'

‘Are you not listening or are you just slow?' She reached into her pocket and pulled out another cigarette. ‘I already told you: I have no idea where he is.' She took out her lighter, which she clicked on, holding it close to her cigarette but not close enough to light it. Her hand wavered, as if she were making up her mind. Then she clicked the lighter shut and put it back in her pocket. ‘The man I married is gone.' She spat the cigarette out into her hand and began to grind it between her thumb and first two fingers. ‘Only thing I heard since is that he straightened up: stopped drinking, stopped taking drugs.' She flicked away the threads of paper and tobacco she'd just made. ‘By the looks of what I saw on TV, that didn't last.' She glared at him, reminding him of the fury on Julius Jibola's face as he had thrown the Molotov. But perhaps he had imagined this, for now he saw that she was smiling. ‘Look at that.' She was pointing down.

Following her gaze, he saw how the shreds of her tobacco had floated down to stick to his wet shoes.

‘I heard you on the box,' she said, ‘when you got the job. You went on about how you were going to reform the Met. Make it more representative. More egalitarian. That's a laugh. Even if you meant it, I bet you've found yourself wading through more shit than you will ever cop to. Don't stress, though,' she gave a quick bark of what was meant to be amusement but sounded more like scorn. ‘It won't stink you up. You bright white ones, you lot in charge, you'll get somebody else to clean up your mess. People like Julius, people with dark skins or no money: they're the ones who suffer. And me as well. Since he left, times have been hard. Which, speaking of, if I want to keep my job, I have got to get back to work.'

She turned and saw that the door was shut. ‘Are you stupid or what? Couldn't you see that there's no handle on this side?' She slammed her hands against the metal, repeatedly, the banging ricocheting between the two high walls until at last the door swung open. ‘About time.' She marched through and slammed the door behind her.

3.40 p.m.

With his PPS beside him and the horseshoe of members of the Home Affairs select committee arrayed in front, Peter stifled a yawn. ‘We appreciate your coming here,' the chairman said (this the second time in as many minutes that he'd said this), ‘at such short notice, and of course in the face of the ongoing disturbances, which must be taking up a lot of your time. If you would just bear with us.' There were papers passing along their table, and had been since Peter had taken the hot seat, adding to his sense of something cobbled together at the very last minute.

‘I'm not sure I understand why you want to talk to me,' he said.

‘Bear with us.' More furious paper passing.

‘It might help if you could at least tell me how this session fits in with your ongoing inquiries.'

The chairman looked up. ‘It doesn't.' And smiled. ‘This is an exploratory session. We're considering an investigation into the citing of industrial facilities in inner cities.'

‘I see,' he said, remembering how, at COBRA, Yares had used the solvent factory as his excuse for not containing the Rockham riots. Yares, or his puppet the PM, must have put the committee up to getting the issue on record.

‘In light of the impact that the solvent plant in Rockham has had on the security of the whole borough,' the chairman was saying, ‘it seemed like a good place to start.'

‘What is it you want to know?'

‘To the point as ever, Home Secretary.' Another unfolding of that smarmy smile. ‘Which is why we value you.' He let this glance skitter from one member of his committee to the next, saying, ‘Ready?' and then, addressing himself it seemed to the document in front of him, he said, ‘Can you confirm that permission to site the solvent factory in the built-up area of south Rockham was granted while you were at Environment?'

‘Yes, I can confirm that.'

‘And that permission was signed off by the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Environment? By you?'

‘Yes, I was the Under Secretary. And, yes, I did sign it. But that's not as simple as it seems.'

‘How so?'

‘My signature was the rubber stamp required at the end of a long process that did not involve me in any way whatsoever.'

‘Are you saying that you signed it without knowing what it was?'

‘What I'm saying is that that diligence was carried out by my predecessor. He, I'm sure you will recall, tragically died in office. Mine was a sudden appointment. When I came in, the papers concerning the Rockham factory were in his in-tray. I consulted the civil servants who had overseen the process and, of course, I also talked to the Minister about it. I was told that everything had been properly carried out, the i's dotted, the t's crossed, and that only my predecessor's heart attack had prevented him from signing. All that was required – and the paper trail makes this clear – was that I add my signature to a preapproved and scrutinised decision. Which I did.'

‘Thank you, Home Secretary.' Head down, the chairman was writing furiously, which, given the presence of two stenographers, was either a trick to belittle the people before him or, and this was Peter's bet, his way of stretching time to let his thinking catch up with his mouth.

Tick, tick – the sound of his bedroom clock – tick, tick. ‘Is there anything else?' He looked at his watch and then, again, at the clock on the wall.

‘I know you're busy, Home Secretary.' Head still down, the chairman continued writing. ‘And again I'd like to underline how much we appreciate your being here. I can assure you that it won't take much more time.' Only now did he raise his gaze. ‘Can you tell us if you know any of the following: Nigel Harris, Frank Morris, Brendan Sonderland, John Wilson?'

‘Know them?' Peter looked at his PPS, whose expression mirrored his own bewilderment. ‘In what capacity?'

‘I beg your pardon, I should have spoken with more clarity. I mean know them socially. Are any of them part of your social circle, for example. Do your wives know each other? Do your children play together? Could you have dined with them on more than one occasion? That kind of thing.'

With his PPS now rifling through his sheaf of papers, Peter said, ‘Run through those names again.'

‘Yes, of course. Probably wiser to take them one by one. Nigel Harris: do you know him or have you ever met him socially?'

The name meant nothing to him. ‘No.'

‘Frank Morris? Do you know him or have you ever met him socially?'

Not this one either. He said ‘No' at the same time as his PPS leant over to whisper in his ear, ‘Take a look, Home Secretary.' He was pointing at a list of the members of the board of the company that owned the solvent factory. Heading the list was Nigel Harris, with Frank Morris second in line.

‘Brendan Sonderland?

Did the name seem familiar because he'd just seen it? Or was there another reason why it rang a bell? Best to play safe. ‘Not to my knowledge, no.'

‘Not to your knowledge?'

The cheek of that incredulous tone. Peter drew himself upright. ‘In my capacity of Home Secretary, I meet scores of people every day. That name, Brendan S . . . S . . .'

‘Sonderland.'

‘. . . sounds vaguely familiar. If you're asking me do I know him well enough to remember meeting him, then my answer is that I do not. But if you're asking me whether I have ever met him, all I can say is I might have, but, if so, I cannot remember the occasion.'

‘I see.' A supercilious curl of the lips now accompanied his follow-up. ‘How about John Wilson? Do you know him or have you ever met him socially?'

Another name he had just read. And a common enough name. ‘I've probably met one or two John Wilsons in my time.'

‘Well, do you know the John Wilson who is on the board of the Rockham solvent factory?'

‘Not to my knowledge.' This is a stitch-up, he thought, a McCarthyite interrogation, and the members of the committee are sitting there like monkeys, letting this farce unfold.

Well, he wasn't going to make it easy for them. He looked at each and every one of them in turn and was pleased to see that this eyeballing caused most of them to drop their gaze. They were embarrassed. As well they should be. They should also be ashamed to have let their committee – one of the most important of the checks and balances of a great parliamentary democracy – be used in this fashion by his enemies.

He'd had nothing, other than his scrawled signature, to do with the original decision. If they wanted to charge anybody, they'd have to dig up his Environment predecessor, who, come to think of it, had been cremated.

Tick, tick.

He glanced down at his watch and then looked up. Pointedly.

‘Thank you again, Home Secretary, for answering our questions.' A quick glance round the horseshoe. ‘If there's nothing anybody would like to ask?' A question from which the men and women of his committee kept their eyes averted, allowing the chairman to nod and say to Peter, ‘And thank you so much for sparing the time to talk to us. We won't detain you any further.'

9.30 p.m.

If Cathy had not come out of the kitchen just then she'd have missed Lyndall. But coming out, she saw her standing by the front door.

At the sight of her mother, Lyndall, who'd kept to her room the entire day, seemed to shrink against the door.

‘What are you up to?'

‘I'm going out.' Lyndall dropped her gaze.

‘Out? Can't you hear what's happening out there?'

‘All I can hear is your TV. Which is blaringly loud. As usual.'

‘Well then . . .' Cathy pushed past Lyndall to double lock the door before removing the key and taking it to the sitting room, where she also muted the TV. Lyndall was right. It had been on very loud. Now the banging and the shouts that had been ringing through the Lovelace for hours could clearly be heard.

She went back to the corridor to find Lyndall still standing at the door. ‘Can you hear now?'

Lyndall nodded. ‘What is it?'

‘The police are out in force breaking down doors all over the estate. Must be trawling for rioters. And by the sounds of it, people are kicking back. It's been going on for hours. How come you didn't hear anything?'

Lyndall pointed to the earphones around her neck.

‘Is that all you've done all day?'

Another nod.

Despite having told herself to keep her cool, Cathy felt exasperation bubbling up. But then, noticing Lyndall's red-rimmed eyes, she swallowed it down. She went up to Lyndall and, meaning to comfort her, put her arms around her.

The first thing she registered was the rigidity in Lyndall's shoulders, the second how they further solidified at her touch. Not quite a flinching away, but near enough. She let go. Stepped back. ‘Come on,' keeping her voice as soft as she was able, ‘tell me what the matter is.'

‘Nothing's the matter.' As Lyndall bit her bottom lip, Cathy saw the glint of tears in those dark eyes.

‘But there is. I can see there is.'

Lyndall shook her head and backed away. There was the sound of something hard hitting the door.

‘What's that?'

Lyndall backed away some more, so that she ended up jammed against the door. Another clink.

‘Show me.' Cathy could feel her anger rising, and it was further stoked by the stubborn shaking of Lyndall's head. She slipped a hand round Lyndall's waist. ‘Come on. Let me see.'

She tugged at the handle of the plastic bag Lyndall was holding. When Lyndall pulled back, she tightened her hold and twisted.

‘Mum,' she heard, but distantly.

An hour before, she had found herself staring at a sunset so red that even after she had shut her eyes the redness had pursued her into darkness and now she saw that same red mist as, despite Lyndall's cry of, ‘Mum, you're hurting me,' she continued to twist Lyndall's arm.

The two of them were locked together in a struggle for the bag until, saying ‘Mum' once more, Lyndall let go so suddenly that the bag shot up and hit her in the face before dropping back to the floor.