The Balance of Guilt (13 page)

In the hallway Dan reached out a hand, but Ali ignored it, stepped forwards and gave him a squeezing hug. She had been crying, her eyes angry and rimmed in red.

‘They won’t even let me see him,’ she said, her voice thin and trembling. ‘They say there are more tests they’ve got to carry out and they can’t release his body for burial.’

Ali led them to a lounge at the back of the house. It was small, but impeccably neat, as was often the way with people who had suffered a bereavement. Tidying was a common palliative, a distraction, for a few minutes at least. Through the window they could see a photographer sitting on top of the garden wall.

‘It feels like I’m under siege,’ she whimpered. ‘When will they go away?’

‘They won’t, I’m afraid, not until they get something. I might be able to help, but we’ll sort that out in a while,’ Dan replied. ‘How are you coping?’

She managed a forlorn smile. ‘Not very well. I’ve had a couple of friends come and look in on me, but I’d rather be alone most of the time.’ She pointed to a photo of John on the wall, wearing his football strip, covered in mud but smiling broadly. ‘I still can’t believe what’s happened … and he died without me even getting to see him again,’ she burst out, and began crying once more.

Dan sat her down in an armchair and sent Nigel to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The last time they’d met, at some conference, Ali had looked strong and full of life. Now she’d crumpled. Her face was lined and gaunt, her green top clashing with her blue trousers, her dark hair lank and unwashed, and she was visibly trembling.

‘Are you sure you want to go through with this interview?’ Dan asked.

She nodded forcefully. ‘Yes. I’ve got to tell people what John was really like. And what they’ve done to him. It wasn’t his fault, they made him do it …’

She reached out for another hug. Dan could feel the dampness of her tears spreading through his shirt. Nigel brought in a tray of tea and began setting up the camera. Ali watched him warily.

‘How’s business been going?’ Dan asked. ‘It’s publishing you do, isn’t it? Have you put out anything good recently?’

Another sad smile. ‘It’s all good. We haven’t produced any blockbusters, but a book on the hidden history of Devon has sold well. We’re going to do another one on Plymouth soon. And something on the best walks in the South-west.’

‘That sounds like my sort of book. I could do with some new ideas. I think my dog’s getting fed up with the same old ones all the time.’

They talked on; about the merits of walking Dartmoor compared with the coast, safe subjects, a world and more away from bombings and death, until Nigel gave Dan’s foot a subtle tap.

‘Well, I suppose we’d better get on. Are you ready, Ali?’ he asked and received a tense nod in reply. ‘First of all then, we’ve heard a lot about John and what he did, but tell me about him. What kind of a boy was he?’

She bit at her lip. ‘He was a great son. It’s always been just him and me, and even from when he was young he tried to take care of me. I remember when he was only ten, for my birthday present he paid for his own babysitter so I could go out for the night with my friends. She wouldn’t take his money, said she’d do it as a favour, so he insisted on giving me ten pounds to buy myself a bottle of wine. That’s the kind of boy he was.’

Dan adopted an encouraging smile. ‘And what was he like as he grew up?’

‘To be honest, he wasn’t great at school. He didn’t have that many pals. He seemed to find it difficult to make friends. Some of the kids picked on him because he was quite big for his age and wouldn’t have a go back. But he did all right. He had a few mates. He did well at woodwork and he was thinking of becoming a carpenter. He made a couple of things for me.’

She pointed to the mantelpiece where a small wooden model of a dolphin stood. It was well-worked, the lines sleek and smooth. After they’d finished talking, Nigel would film it. Cutaway shots were always useful to help illustrate an interview.

‘It was when he started playing football that he really became happier,’ Ali continued. ‘The school second team was short of a goalkeeper one day and he was the only one available. I remember him telling me some of the kids went out on the pitch saying they’d lost already because John was in goal. But he played really well, saved all the other team’s shots, and his team won two nil. He came home so happy because the lads said he’d done great. For the first time he felt accepted.’

Dan nodded, paused before asking his next question, to give himself a chance to compose it and to allow Ali to dab at her eyes. They were approaching the difficult ground.

‘He sounds like a very normal boy, but how did he change? And what do you believe changed him?’

She swallowed hard. ‘It was some of the people he fell in with. One person in particular, that Ahmed. John started going on about Islam and wanting to be a Muslim. The things he was saying – they worried me.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘He started saying that Britain was rotten. That it needed to be taught a lesson. That it was full of loose women and immoral men. Other things about how much better Islamic countries were.’

‘And what did you do about that?’

‘I talked to him. But I thought it was just a phase. He’s had infatuations before. That’s his character. He got totally hooked up in the Young Christian Fellowship for a few months once. Another time it was a cycling club. He’s easily led. If people made him feel a part of something, made him feel wanted, he’d go along with it.’

‘And that’s what you believe happened with the bombing? What led him to it?’

She was crying again now, the tears sliding down her pale face. Dan heard the hum of the camera’s motor as Nigel zoomed in the shot for the powerful close-up, revealing every twitch of emotion.

‘Yes,’ Ali replied. ‘It must have been. He couldn’t have done it himself. He would never have thought like that on his own. He wouldn’t have been able to …’

Her voice cracked. Dan kept quiet and let her find the thoughts. Silence, the secret art of interviewing.

Ali let out a shuddering breath, twined her fingers together, and then the words came again and fast, a rush of feeling.

‘He wouldn’t have been able to make bombs. Not John. Not my boy. He would never have been able to make them and would never have wanted to blow himself up, and other people too. He would never have gone into the Minster to explode a bomb if he hadn’t been indoctrinated and radicalised. They used him. And now … now … he’s dead. And they’ve got what they wanted and they’re safe and free and they’re laughing. The bastards, the evil, vicious bastards.’

Again Dan let the silence run. They had almost all they needed, just time for the last question. It had to be asked.

‘Finally then, I have to put this to you. You’ve defended your son, of course. But – he took a bomb into a sacred building, detonated it and killed and injured innocent people, and no one made him do that.’

Ali Tanton stared at him, and Dan wondered what reaction he was going to get. She dropped her head and stared down at the floor. Long seconds edged past. But when she finally spoke, her voice was the calmest it had been.

‘I understand what people must be thinking of John. But I’d ask them to remember this. John was young and he was vulnerable. He was no more than a boy. He was preyed on. My heart goes out to the families of the people killed and injured in the explosion. But my son died too. He wasted his young life. That was the price he paid for nothing more than being vulnerable and trusting. I believe he was as much a victim in this as anyone else.’

It was one of those rare stories that stops a newsroom. Dan made a point of sitting next to Lizzie as the lunchtime bulletin was broadcast. All the other hacks gathered around the TV monitors, quietened by the drama of Ali Tanton’s words.

It had been an easy report for Dan to cut. He used most of her interview, interspersed with a brief recap on the story, some of the pictures of the damage to the Minster, a photograph of John and a couple of shots in his bedroom. After the interview, Ali had said that her son spent many hours in there on the computer, often with Ahmed for company.

Dan explained that to the viewers, but didn’t use Ahmed’s name. It was also bleeped out of the section of interview where Ali mentioned it. Lizzie had consulted with the legal department, who feared he could sue for libel if he was named. As far as the law was concerned there might be suspicion, but there was, as yet, no proof, and that meant he was officially innocent – for the moment, at least. It was the same reason they had obscured the picture of his face and not used his name when Ahmed had been arrested in the shopping arcade.

When the report ended, Lizzie announced it was, ‘Not bad.’

‘Not bad?’ Dan queried.

‘Not bad at all.’

He sighed, but didn’t say anything. His editor sometimes failed even to reach the heights of damning with faint praise.

‘I’ll have more of the same for tonight,’ she continued. ‘And no resting on your laurels either, just because you’ve got a minor scoop to your name. I want each twist and turn and every update going on this story. I want it first, I want it on every bulletin, and I want it good.’

Dan walked downstairs to the canteen to get a sandwich. He took satisfaction from the continual ringing of phones as journalists from across the country called to ask for permission to report some of Ali’s quotes. They would be used to complement the photos El had taken. Before they left, Dan suggested that a way of getting rid of the press pack would be to let just one photographer in to take some snaps. She had agreed, and Dan called his scurrilous friend.

The paparazzo gushed with a geyser of thanks, promised Dan “the mother of all nights out”, and also produced the threatened rhyme. El’s trademark eccentricity – or at least, the most notable of the many – was back.

The bomb, it shocked,

Even El was rocked.

But then normality returns,

Heals society’s burns,

And with a piccie, El’s cashflow’s unlocked!

Aside from the usual score of dreadful on the poetic meter, the little doggerel ran with a hint of being subdued. ‘I reckon I’m still feeling a bit bumped by what’s happened,’ the paparazzo explained.

As he queued at the sandwich bar, Dan’s thoughts kept slipping to the investigation. There could be no other conclusion than that Ahmed must remain the prime suspect for radicalising John Tanton. Those hours spent together in John’s bedroom could easily have been used to lead him to websites which provided instructions on how to build a bomb. Keep whispering the propaganda into his ear, drip by poisonous drip, and a terrorist had slowly built the ideal machine to carry out an attack without any harm to himself. There would always be suspicion about who was ultimately behind the bombing, but never proof.

The theory, though, did have complications. Ali mentioned that John had indeed been coached by Kindle at football training and looked up to the man. She didn’t think they’d spent a great deal of time together, but Kindle would undoubtedly have had occasions when he was alone with John, and perhaps enough to influence his thoughts.

She confirmed that John had visited the Islamic centre regularly, usually on a Friday for prayers, and had talked about speaking to both the Imam and his minder. He seemed in awe of them. They too would both have had the chance to talk to John alone.

Ali said John had also visited Exeter a couple of times in recent weeks. To shop, so he claimed, but he could have been to the Minster, perhaps even met Parfitt. And who knows what might have been discussed in a quiet corner of the magnificent old building?

Dan shook his head. His ideas were getting too far-fetched. What possible motive could the Principal have for helping a young Islamic convert blow up the Minster? OK, so he clearly had a dislike of Islam, but that was scarcely reason enough.

As for Kindle, what could be his motive? Increasing racial tensions, perhaps. That would certainly benefit the BPP, make its message resonate with some. And what of the Imam? He had appeared a peaceful and gentle man. His minder perhaps less so, but there was no evidence that he could be violent, only that little hunch Dan had felt.

Still, Adam had always told him never to ignore a hunch. Where was his friend when they needed to talk all this over?

A polite cough interrupted his thoughts. It was Doreen, the lady behind the sandwich bar. Dan apologised and hastily chose a ham and cheese baguette. Another lick of Sarah Jones’ perfume floated by. He wondered if she would call him. Dan doubted he would ring her. It would be just another complication in a life which was already quite sufficiently full of them, replete even. If the cares of the world were a banquet, Dan felt he had dined on his share.

Ali had said something else which set Dan’s mind at work. She too had been in Exeter on the day of the bombing, to look around the shops and get a feeling for potential books which might find a gap in the market. She also wanted to do some hunting for new clothes – or so she said.

Her reasons for being in the city sounded innocent and plausible enough, but neither required any corroboration. How convenient. Or perhaps, Dan thought, he had been working with the police too long and become overly suspicious. Surely Ali couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with a bomb attack by her own son, one which had cost him his life.

Such plots were the stuff of fiction. But he had seen some very strange things in his time working with Adam.

Not that he was doing so any more.

Dan took his sandwich to the quiet room and started eating. He was alone and glad of it. He hardly noticed the taste of the food, just chewed mechanically. He tried to read a paper, but the thought wouldn’t leave his mind. He should be with Adam, working through his ideas, helping on the inquiry. Not here, just sitting around.

The phone call. This case came down to the phone call John Tanton had made, most probably to the radicaliser, the dark silhouette of the unidentified person who was using an untraceable mobile phone in Exeter city centre. And now they knew that person could be Ahmed, Tahir, the Imam, Abdul, his minder, Kindle, Parfitt or even Alison Tanton.