The Balance of Guilt (3 page)

A distant clock struck three. The media liaison officer called the pack around and introduced the Deputy Chief Constable, Brian Flood. A portly man, he stood up on a bench with some difficulty and surveyed the cameras and microphones clustered before him. Dan followed Nigel as he shoved his way to the front, ignoring the irritated looks and attempts at retaliation.

‘I have a brief statement for you,’ Flood intoned, checking a piece of paper. ‘I will not be taking any questions.’

He glanced at the notes again and drew himself up. ‘At just before one o’clock today, an improvised bomb was detonated in Wessex Minster. One person was killed, another one badly hurt. Around twenty people suffered more minor injuries. The man we believe carried the bomb into the Minster was not killed and will be taken for medical treatment under police guard.’

Flood paused and looked around the pack. A breeze flicked at his hair and the sun blazed from the polished buttons of his tunic.

He shifted position a little and continued. ‘We are not currently naming the man we believe to be the bomber, but I can tell you this. The explosive device was contained in his rucksack. It seems that he lost his nerve at the last moment, took the rucksack off and attempted to flee. It was then that it detonated.’

Another pause. The pack was silent, entranced. Flood checked his paper again.

‘The final thing I have to tell you is this, and it is perhaps the most shocking. The bomber is a young man, a schoolboy in fact, and only sixteen years of age. We believe he has been indoctrinated and put up to this attack by Islamic extremists who wish our society harm, but who are too cowardly to take such dreadful actions themselves.’

Flood clambered down and pushed his way through the crowd. He ignored the questions shouted at him, but they were few. Reporters were too busy calling their newsrooms to file this latest copy. The story was moving fast.

Next to Dan, a newspaper reporter began sketching out a headline on the top of his notepad. In black ink, and underlined, it read
The Schoolboy Terrorist
.

I
T SHOULD HAVE BEEN
a straightforward, if dull, day, a rare nine to five. A decent buffet laid on by the grateful “partner agencies”, as the modern, caring, all and everyone-inclusive terminology had it.
A multi platform tomorrow angled interface
, the chairman had said, with a welcoming smile, but without a hint of self-consciousness.

A day discussing the public perceptions of crime and the need to
realign erroneous outlooks with empirical statistical realities.

So read the briefing document, which had inexplicably and unfortunately found itself the soaking victim of a spilt coffee, and thus had to be consigned to end its brief life in the recycling bin.

Instead, just before the feast of the buffet was about to be unveiled, had come the call. And now Detective Chief Inspector Adam Breen was sitting in the passenger seat of a patrol car, sirens wailing, speeding towards the centre of Exeter, with a phone clamped hard to his ear.

‘How long before you’re here?’ Flood was shouting.

‘About ten minutes, sir.’

‘Well, hurry up, man,’ snapped the Deputy Chief, with his usual expectation of the impossible. ‘What if there are more of the bastards? What do you think the chances are?’

‘Difficult to say, but in cases like this – well, they don’t tend to work alone.’

Flood swore, then added, ‘Hang on, I’m getting an update.’ There was some muffled conversation, then, ‘The medics are taking the bomber to hospital.’

‘Right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he conscious?’

A pause for another consultation, then, ‘Yes, just about.’

Adam hung up and leaned across to talk to the dark-haired woman with the calmly focused expression.

‘The hospital?’ asked Claire, before he had a chance to speak.

‘Yep.’

She turned the car off the main road, sped through a red light and swung past a line of stationary cars. They rounded a bus, then a couple more cars. Ahead, a sign read “Ambulances only”. She took the turning, tyres squealing their protest, and pulled up outside the entrance to Accident and Emergency.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ a young man in a white coat asked. ‘We’re expecting a …’

A between the eyes close-up of Adam’s warrant card stopped him. ‘Is he here yet?’

‘Who?’

‘You know who.’

‘No. He’s due in a few seconds.’

‘I need a word with him before you do anything.’

The doctor shook his head hard. He was young, perhaps not yet thirty, thin, pale and with a rash of raw acne on his neck.

‘He’s seriously ill. We need to get working on him straight away.’

‘Just thirty seconds.’

‘No way. I can’t allow it. You can see him after we’ve treated him.’

From over the hedge came the sound of a siren blaring. An ambulance bumped around the corner and headed towards them.

Claire reached out an arm and laid it on the doctor’s shoulder. ‘We appreciate you need to take care of your patient, but – there may be other bombers out there. Right at this moment. Looking for targets. In the city centre. I take it you live in Exeter?’

The doctor nodded.

‘You’ve got friends here? Family?’

Another nod.

‘Then just give us a minute or two. That’s all we need.’

The doctor was shaking his head. ‘Look, I understand, I really do. But there’s the oath. And the British Medical Association has all sorts of rules. If I don’t …’

The ambulance juddered to a stop, the paramedics hopping down from the doors. Claire gave the doctor a warm smile.

‘We do appreciate your problem. That’s why …’ she nodded to the police car, ‘we have special procedures at times like this. I take it you know the Zero Option Protocol?’

‘The what?’

‘I’ve got the forms in the car. Just come over here and I’ll make sure there’s no comeback for you.’

The doctor hesitated, then followed her guiding arm. Adam slipped past the paramedics and stepped up into the ambulance.

The flowers had begun to arrive. The modern day reflex of grieving, first a small bunch of daffodils, laid by a child as she held her mother’s hand, then some chrysanthemums, now larger bouquets as a stream of people came to express their sorrow. The tributes formed a growing stream of colour by the edge of the cordon, next to the white stone cross of the war memorial.

Dan watched as Nigel and the other camera crews filmed from a respectful distance. All the reporters would want to interview the people laying the flowers, but this was a time for sensitivity, rare though it might be amongst the media. He had a brief chat with his peers, agreed that he would approach people as they walked away from the Minster, and if they were happy to talk he would call the rest of the pack over.

Dan wasn’t surprised to find most people did want to be interviewed. It felt good, perhaps even cathartic, to speak out against the unseen attackers and make clear the defiance.

It was almost four o’clock, just over two hours until they were on air. Time to think about editing the report. It could be done in an hour, but with a story of such magnitude he wanted plenty of time to get it right. Weigh the words and measure the meaning.

Nigel suddenly swung the camera, Dan hopping out of the way. The flag of St George flying above the Minster, the proud red cross, was being slowly lowered to half mast. Around them in the crowd more people noticed and fell quiet at the simple gesture of mourning.

Sometimes silence was the only thing to say.

Craig arrived, then disappeared again. He was going into town to buy a black tie. They’d had a quick discussion, and he was happy to work out most of what he was going to say himself. Craig was unusual amongst presenters in being a low-maintenance model. Many might look good on the television, but weren’t the brightest and tended to flap when sent out of the studio, away from the safety of the autocue. They were often as fragile as crystal glass.

A final call to the newsroom to check on any further developments and it was time to begin editing. Another
Wessex Tonight
crew was filming a police search at a house in the Stonehouse area of Plymouth. It was believed to be where the bomber lived. Armed cops were crawling over the neighbourhood.

That would be a separate report. Lizzie, the programme’s editor, was in full flight, and had also arranged for a live interview with a terrorism expert from London. The bombing would take up almost the entire bulletin, as it should.

It was one of those rare stories of such significance that it dominated the day. Usually in news terms, Dan would be given a duration of about one minute forty seconds for his report. For bigger stories, that might reach two minutes, or even two and a half. Today, he was asked simply for as much as he could provide. He hopped up into the outside broadcast van, handed the tape to Loud and began writing.

The words came easily. They usually did with the biggest stories. They told themselves.

The better reporters and producers learnt early that the basis of a successful outside broadcast is a sound structure. As they hadn’t yet been allowed inside the Minster to film, the golden shot, the one which told the story in a second, was the ruined stained glass window. So Craig would want to talk about that in his live opening link, which meant Dan had to start his report with a more detailed, close up image.

The fragment of glass peeling away and falling would be perfect. It was pure pathos. Loud laid the shot, Dan writing to complement it.

‘It was a poignant symbol of the damage inflicted on this sacred and historic building in the terrorist outrage.’

Not a bad start, if he did say so himself. Even Loud was nodding, the nearest he came to appreciation. Next, they used some close-ups of the shattered glass littering the cobbles. Dan wrote what they knew of the attack, that it was a suicide bomber who appeared to have lost his nerve and run at the last moment.

He wouldn’t include the details of deaths and injuries. There was always confusion about the exact numbers after such an attack, and they could easily change right up to the moment they were on air. By leaving them out of the report, it gave Craig maximum flexibility to include the information in his live links. It also removed the prospect of panicked, last minute, re-edits, a stressful experience which was well worth avoiding.

Now they put in the eyewitnesses. It was powerful television, following the simple rule of using your best pictures and interviews first.

‘What next?’ Loud grunted, rubbing at his jaw. ‘Me bleeding tooth’s getting worse, if you’re interested.’

Dan very much wasn’t, but made some understanding noises. They’d seen plenty of the Minster and heard about the bombing, so now it was time for a change of angle. Loud edited some pictures of the flowers being laid, followed by a couple of clips of interview. It was more raw and powerful emotion.

Then came the Deputy Chief Constable’s statement and a little of the local council, expressing shock, but saying Exeter would never be cowed by terrorists. Dan ended the report with the Minster flag being drawn down.Semiotics, the unspoken language of film; it simply felt the right way to conclude.

Craig returned, and together they watched the report and worked through a plan for the broadcast. He was a tall man with a permanent and enviable tan, but had put on weight since the last time they met. Dan noticed he kept drawing in his stomach self-consciously. Perhaps it was the familiar story of the over-indulgence during a long summer holiday, a classic September phenomenon.

The time ticked on to a quarter past five. Dan sat down on a bench while Nigel got them a couple of coffees. They could do with taking it easy for a few minutes. It had been quite a day. The memory of that earlier raid on the brothel felt very distant. How quickly life could change.

‘Well, who’d have thought it?’ Nigel said quietly. ‘Who could have imagined we’d ever see such a thing here?’

They watched as a couple walked past, holding the hand of their young son. He stepped hesitantly forwards to lay some flowers on the growing pile. They stood in silence, then turned slowly away.

‘What are you going to tell your sons?’ Dan asked Nigel.

The cameraman ran a hand through his hair. ‘The truth. That the world they’re growing into can be a dangerous one. But that there are still lots of good people out there, many more than bad.’

Dan smiled. ‘That’s very you. I wish I were more like that. It’s at times like this I’m glad I don’t have a family.’

And, as if responding to a cue, a thought of Claire formed, grew, and ran dominant through Dan’s mind.

He swallowed hard. ‘Well, we’d better start getting ready for this broadcast. I reckon …’

‘Hey!’ Nigel interrupted. ‘Look!’

A couple of armed police officers were running past, sweating hard. Two more followed. Nigel grabbed the camera and they set off in pursuit.

A young lad, just a trainee, jumpy with nerves at being pitched into his first big emergency, but good police work. He’d kept a distance and whispered into his radio for orders.

‘What’s your name, son?’ Adam replied.

‘Danny, sir.’

‘What’s he doing?’

‘Just standing in the crowd, sir. Watching the Minster.’

‘How did you notice him?’

‘He took off his baseball cap to scratch his head. That’s when I thought he looked like the guy in the description. Plus there was …’

‘What?’

‘You’ll think this is silly, sir.’

‘Try me.’

‘Well, there was this look on his face. It wasn’t like everyone else’s. Not – you know, sorrowful. It was more satisfaction.’

If the day hadn’t been so grave, Adam would have smiled. ‘You’ve just passed the first test of being a cop, Danny. Keep your eyes open and follow your instincts.’

‘Have I? Thank you, sir. So far I’ve only been filling out forms in the station. I really want to be on the beat. I want to get into CID, like you. Do you think …’

‘We can talk about that later,’ Adam interrupted firmly. ‘Just keep watching him, but make it look like you’re not. The firearms teams will be with you in seconds.’

Those two minutes in the back of the ambulance had been precious. They now knew exactly who the bomber was and where he was from. He was lying face down on the treatment table, an oxygen mask over his face, but muffled groans were still clearly audible. He’d been badly injured, suffering extensive burns and shrapnel wounds, and was in severe pain, despite the morphine.

It was clear he was in no way whatsoever fit to be interviewed.

‘I want a word with you,’ Adam said, pulling off the mask. ‘If you can spare a moment before you die.’

‘I’m not saying nothing.’

‘There’ll be no treatment until you do. No hope for you.’

‘No way.’

‘Give me your name.’

‘No.’

‘They won’t make you feel better until I hear your name.’ Adam knelt down so they were eye to eye. ‘Come on, I need to call you something.’

He was no more than a boy, and one who now had a halved face. He may have run at the last minute, but the bomb caught up with him. He couldn’t resist looking around at the detonation. And the shrapnel had cut through cheek, nose and brow.

The other side of his face was curiously untouched. There was still a speckling of stubble around his chin and a couple of patches of spots, raw against the pallor of his skin. He was breathing hard, gasping and moaning with the pain, trickles of blood flecking the white of his teeth.

‘No feeling better until you talk to me. Come on. What’s the matter with telling me who you are? If you don’t, we’ll just use dental records. But that’ll have to wait until you’re dead. Mind, that shouldn’t take long, the state you’re in.’

The boy tried to cry out but didn’t have the strength to project the sound. The ragged remains of his lips began to form whispers of words. Adam had to put his ear to the fluttering mouth, so quiet was his voice. And then came the name, and the address.

‘Right, time to get you some treatment. I’m a man of my word. But just one more thing first – who are you working with?’

‘Piss off,’ he muttered.