The Balance of Guilt (10 page)

‘I … I can be relied on to be discreet, you know,’ he stammered. ‘Despite being a journalist. I can keep a secret. And that’s what you do, isn’t it? What we could do.’

He tried a smile, but it was as effective as casting a pebble onto permafrost.

‘Look, I appreciate how sensitive and important all this is. I was just a little nervous, meeting you. That’s all. That’s why I went on a bit. Well, it’s understandable, isn’t it? Surely?’

Even to Dan it sounded like he was babbling. But he didn’t seem to be able to stop.

‘I can help. Really I can. You can trust me. Honestly.’

Still no reaction.

‘I mean … I’m up to speed with investigation procedures. I have worked on lots of other cases, you know. I helped to crack …’

‘We know.’

Oscar interrupted, the words as effective as a gag. He glanced at Sierra, who gave another slight nod. He produced a file and started reading from it.

‘Daniel Groves, TV reporter, specialising in crime. Lives in Plymouth. Became involved with the police when shadowing the Edward Bray murder inquiry. Has been part of several more inquiries since, of which the outcome of the latest two were most unpleasant.’

Dan gaped. ‘Hey, now look,’ he stammered. ‘Look, that wasn’t my fault. I did my best. Do you realise …’

But Oscar interjected again, turned over a sheet of paper. ‘Lives on his own, apart from an Alsatian dog, named Rutherford. Has difficulty sustaining relationships – with people, at least. Reputation as a maverick. Does not respond well to discipline or authority. Has been drinking heavily in recent months – following the disintegration of yet another relationship – sufficient to prompt him to ring Alcoholics Anonymous. His call began with the classic words, ‘I’m not an alcoholic, but …’

Dan felt Adam’s eyes on him. ‘How the hell did you …’ he stuttered. ‘I mean, what gives you the right to …’

‘No criminal record, but has been arrested three times now for breaching a police cordon, and has six points on his driving licence, all for speeding. When approached by the security services at university to see if he might be interested in joining, he asked facetiously –
Do I get to dress up in a dinner jacket and act like James Bond
? When told not, he said he would prefer a
more glamorous career
.’

Dan just stared.

‘Analysed as having above average intelligence, but those assessing him conclude he is by no means as clever as he thinks. Also believes himself to be something of an amateur detective, as he has in fact boasted to his few friends, usually when the worse for drink – a common occurrence. Psychological profile concludes him to be vain and arrogant, entirely unable to work as part of a team, and almost incapable of appreciating when he is wrong. In summary, a highly flawed man who is a danger both to himself and others.’

And now a silence, as thick and choking as any Dan had ever known.

Oscar’s smirk grew. He closed the file and slipped it back into the briefcase. Before he did so, Dan saw there were scores of sheets of paper in there, all covered in thick lines of black type. Attached to one was a series of pictures of him.

Getting out of his car. Walking down the street. Holding a mobile phone. Jogging with Rutherford. Drinking a pint in a bar. Standing on a beach, gazing out to sea. Checking a list while looking in a shop window. Talking to a camera.

Each was also marked with a date and time.

‘So,’ Sierra said levelly. ‘We thank you for your offer of assistance. But it is respectfully declined. We suggest you limit your involvement in this case to reporting on it – from the outside.’

The two spies turned away and began a hushed discussion. Neither looked back.

Dan felt a hand on his arm. It was Adam, leading him out of the Bomb Room.

The walk back to the Minster felt a long one. Dan hardly noticed the yellow autumn sun shining into his eyes or the people he passed, busy going about the daily trade of living. A car hooted. Dan started in surprise. He’d walked out into a road without seeing the traffic. He waved an apology to the driver and got a scowl in return.

There wasn’t sufficient a supply of spirit even to return the look.

He plodded on, through the shopping precinct, as busy as an ants’ nest. His mind kept wanting to go back over what had happened in the police station, but Dan didn’t dare let it.

That image of languishing in a pit, looking up helplessly at the two spies returned. Time and again. Burned itself into his brain.

A man was shaking a bucket, collecting money for the restoration of the Minster. He nodded appreciatively. ‘Good reports you did on it. Who’d have thought it, eh?’

Dan managed an unconvincing smile. A bus rumbled past, greying the air with a cloud of diesel fumes. A pigeon landed on a bench and pecked contentedly at the remnants of some discarded sandwiches. Dan could taste the exhaust smoke in his throat. He started coughing. A clock in a shop window said it was coming up to four.

Two hours until he needed to get ready for tonight’s broadcast. And there was a pub on Minster Green.

The trudge turned to a stride.

The first pint helped him realise. He should have seen it coming. Sierra and Oscar indeed. The phonetic alphabet.

S O. Or, in more common parlance, sod off.

They’d told him what they really thought from the start and he’d missed it. They wanted whatever information he could provide, and he’d fallen for it. And then they’d discarded him, just like that.

He’d been as easy as a light switch. Click on or off, with only the twitch of a finger.

The dark liquid suddenly tasted sour. Dan pushed the glass away, leaned back on the wooden chair and tried to stretch his aching back.

And where the hell did they get all that information on him?

Adam called just as Dan was about to walk into the pub and did his best to soothe his friend.

‘You’d be amazed who they’ve got files on,’ the detective said. ‘They’ve no doubt got one on me, and all the other senior cops in the force. Loads of people come to their attention in some way. It was probably what you said to that recruiter at university that started them off at you. They don’t forget easily. Did you really say that?’

‘Yeah. But I was younger then. Cockier.’

‘Well, younger, certainly. Listen, don’t worry too much about it. They’re bound to have been watching the mosque. As for the rest of the stuff, it wouldn’t take much research to find out your involvement in the other cases. The remainder of it they’ve probably just made up. A bluff, that’s all. To put you off your stride.’

‘Well it’s bloody worked.’

Dan realised he kept looking over his shoulder. There were a handful of other committed drinkers in the pub. Any one of them could be watching him. None looked remotely like a spy. But then, that was how a spy should look.

He shook himself. There was enough going on in his life without paranoia joining the already impressive procession of concerns.

‘Listen, I’ve got to back to the investigation,’ Adam said. ‘But what they did in there – just be aware that I was no part of it and I didn’t care for it. In fact, we had words about it afterwards.’

‘What did they say?’

‘They said wars mean people getting hurt.’

‘Nice.’

‘Yeah.’

The phone line clicked, then Adam said, ‘Just because you’re not officially involved in the case doesn’t mean I won’t be in touch. I still think you could help us.’

‘Thanks,’ Dan managed weakly.

Workmen had already erected scaffolding on the Minster’s façade and were carefully checking the stonework around the shattered window. Dan watched as he sipped at his pint. It had depleted remarkably quickly. Perhaps it was the sunshine, making it evaporate. Still, there was time for another before the broadcast.

The woman behind the bar had earrings just like Claire’s. Silver studs embedded with tiny diamonds. Dan’s gaze fixed upon the flashing darts of shooting light as she pulled the pint.

He felt his eyes starting to sting, blinked hard and took a long swig of beer. When the broadcast was over, he would drive straight back to the flat, give Rutherford a big cuddle, then take him out for a good walk. Afterwards, Dan would lie out on his great blue sofa, listen to some music and try to unwind. He deserved it after this day.

A phone call from the newsroom interrupted his thoughts. It was Lizzie with her usual list of demands, but Dan hardly noticed. He heard himself reassuring her that yes, lunchtime’s report would be fine to use tonight, yes, the live interview would be good, no there had been no significant developments, and yes, of course he would find a follow-up on the story for tomorrow.

He hung up, laid down the phone, finished his pint and walked slowly outside.

There were always positives in any situation if you looked hard enough. It was just a question of finding them.

Dan lay back on the sofa, lifted a glass to the spooks and giggled to himself. Whisky was such a wonderful invention. It didn’t fill you up, or require such effort to drink in the way beer did, and it spread its soothing warmth through your mind so much more efficiently.

So – he was off the case. Well, so what? Who cared? It would give him more time to enjoy the lovely whisky. Instead of careering around with Adam and putting himself in danger, trying to catch terrorists, he could lay here in safety and drink.

It was a winner if ever he’d heard one.

Dan giggled again, reached down and ran a hand over Rutherford’s head. The dog let out a low whine of appreciation. He would lie here with his only true friend and his whisky, and Claire and bombing investigations and spooks could go chase each other in a pathetic little merry-go-round. What did it all matter in the end? Here it was safe and warm and no one bothered him with irritating talk of the need to find the people behind terrorist murders and outrages, and to get some justice for victims and their families, and to cover endless stories on it, and all of that junk.

Bollocks to the lot of it. Yeah!

Who needed it? You did your job as well as you could, and all you got was your editor on the phone demanding more. You volunteered to help the police on a big investigation, do your bit for society, so far above and beyond the call of duty that it was around the corner and out of sight, and you got it thrown back in your face. You gave a woman your fragile heart and she held it in her hand, promised to care for it always, then cast it down and ground it into the dirt with the heel of her boot.

Sod them. Sod them all. The whole bloody lot of them.

Today hadn’t been so bad after all. That broadcast at the Minster went well. Parfitt was a good interviewee, eloquently voicing sorrow for the attack and a determination the damage would be put right as soon as possible. But it was what he’d said when the camera was turned off that was by far the most interesting. He was no fan of Islam, that was clear.

‘A dangerous religion. Despite what they say, it is dedicated to taking over the world, you know,’ he had confided, quietly. ‘Whether it’s the fanatics who want to do it with the bomb or the gun, or the moderates relentlessly spreading their teachings, the ultimate aim is the same. To make the world a caliphate, an Islamic state. We have a proud history of Christianity in this country and we should defend it robustly. Britain needs a wake-up call. We are sleepwalking towards becoming a Muslim state otherwise.’

Dan couldn’t help his instincts activating.

‘I meant to ask,’ he said, as casually as he could. ‘Where were you when the bomb went off? Did you see it?’

‘No,’ Parfitt replied sombrely. ‘I suppose I was lucky. It was hard enough to bear, seeing the aftermath. I was over in the shopping centre, buying a gift for a long-serving volunteer who’s retiring next week. A tedious chore, but someone has to do it.’

So, Reverend Parfitt was in Exeter city centre when the bomb exploded, and he was a strong critic of Islam. And Adam said earlier that he had detectives checking the Minster’s CCTV and visitor register, to see if Tanton had carried out any reconnaissance of his target before the attack, and if he had been seen with, or spoken to anyone.

Perhaps Parfitt and Tanton had met. And talked … and not for the first time.

Parfitt was a long shot for the radicaliser, surely. But, Dan thought, he would have to tell Adam about the man’s views. Experience of the cases he’d worked on had taught him early that the smallest of insights could take on the greatest of significance.

Or would he tell Adam? Hadn’t he just decided that all he would be doing was lying here on the sofa, with his beloved dog, drinking the bottled nectar that stood on the battered old coffee table? He was better off out of the world of investigations and spooks, terrorists and danger.

Yeah, bollocks to it.

At least Rutherford was happy. They’d been for a run around Hartley Park, twenty laps no less, the maximum Dan ever managed. He suspected he’d only achieved the target because of the promise of a whisky or two if he did.

It was important to set yourself meaningful goals in life.

The dog careered back and forth across the dewy grass, in an agony of dilemma about which of the scores of fascinating scents to sniff at first. The oak and lime trees of the park’s boundary, the wall around the underground reservoir, the fence guarding the children’s play area. Rutherford was a black blur of chaotic delight in the creeping twilight, leaving his zig-zag tracks on the moist grass.

For what felt like the first time in days, Dan burst out laughing.

They ran together, enjoying the stillness of the clear air and the emboldened silver stars emerging from their inky hide. Halfway through the run Dan stopped, found a stick and hurled it until his arm ached. The dog sprinted back and forth in heady pursuit.

Back at the flat, as a special treat for his loyal and wonderful friend, Dan gave Rutherford a good brush. The dog started emitting that strange low whine of delight as the ghosts of his discarded fur floated and flew.

And now it was coming up to twelve o’clock. The midnight clouds were streaming past the bay window and the glass on the table had emptied itself again. One more, just one, then it was time for bed. To sleep, and to forget.