The Balance of Guilt (31 page)

He dodged around a rubbish bin, overflowing with flaps of food wrappings.

Ten yards.

Nigel was breathing hard, starting to pant. A pair of young women walked past and gave them a curious look.

Five yards.

They were on the concrete, their feet pounding. Now Oscar was starting to turn, his head moving quickly. The spy’s eyes widened. He reached out and nudged Sierra. She turned too.

They stopped suddenly. Dan and Nigel stopped. The world stopped.

Dan thrust the microphone forward.

‘John Tanton’s alive, isn’t he? You said he was dead when he was alive.’

No response. The spooks just stared at him.

‘You put someone else’s body in a coffin and pretended it was him, didn’t you?’

Sierra’s mouth was falling open, Oscar’s face creasing into a scowl.

The camera’s motor whirred as Nigel zoomed in the shot.

‘You would have let Tanton’s mother bury that body, thinking it was her son, wouldn’t you?’

Oscar’s hand was tightening into a fist. There was probably time for just one more question before the blow came. And it would be captured for all the world to see.

It would make compelling television. But a corner of Dan’s mind was hoping it didn’t hurt too much.

He’d always known he wasn’t the bravest of men. He didn’t handle pain well.

One final question then, and probably the most important. That fist was bunching fast. It looked alarmingly large.

‘You knew about the bombing of Wessex Minster, didn’t you?’ he blurted out. ‘But you let it go ahead. Why did you do that when you could have stopped it?’

Oscar’s fist was rising, moving quickly, heading straight for Dan’s face. The knuckles were white with the gripping pressure of the looming impact. Dan wondered where they would hit him.

Not his nose, he hoped. It had always been a little too large as it was. It didn’t need any expanding.

He closed his eyes and steadied himself, ready for the shock.

It didn’t come. Something else was happening.

Dan could hear footsteps, fast, to his side. An object was swinging. He could feel the motion as it cut through the air. He dared to open his eyes again.

It was something dark, squat and square. Arcing, blurring. Moving very fast.

Smashing into the side of Oscar’s face.

He let out a low groan and crumpled to the floor.

Ali Tanton was standing next to Dan, panting hard, her bag grasped in one hand. It was bulging and made an odd clicking noise as she lowered it. A large stone fell out, then another.

On the ground Oscar was moaning, blood dripping from a deep gash above his eye. Sierra knelt beside him.

‘You bastard,’ Ali yelled at him. ‘I hope you bleed to death. That one’s for John and all the others you let suffer.’

F
OR A WORD WHICH
is defined by an absence, quiet can have many forms. There is the delicious, like the rare peace of a countryside evening, or the reflective, as with a church congregation asked to take a moment to meditate on life. There is the surprise or the shock, and there is another form, oft commented upon, and one which can be equally revealing.

On the very few occasions Dan had ever been pressed into helping to care for children – just the odd wedding, as far as he could recall – he had learned one very important lesson about quiet. When applied to youngsters, it inevitably meant trouble.

Keep an eye on what they’re doing, the parents would say, but most importantly keep an ear. Shouts and screams are perfectly normal. If it goes quiet, that’s when they’re up to something.

Of that insight, Dan was reminded now.

All was quiet. Very much too quiet.

The time was coming up to five o’clock and they had heard nothing from the authorities. Lizzie was expecting a barrage of calls from government lawyers and ministers; threats, pleas, injunctions, gagging orders, any of the arsenal of weapons at their disposal. But nothing had come. From officialdom there had been only silence.

A highly suspicious silence.

But, if it stayed that way for another hour and a half, it would be too late. The story would be out there, repeated endlessly in newspapers, on radio and TV stations and all over the web. That was the wonder of the internet age. Instant and extensive communication. A planet shrunk to no more than a neighbourhood.

Just another 90 minutes and the story would blow. Like a geyser exploding from a mudflat, or a volcano erupting from beneath the sea. With fire, smoke and flames.

Only another hour and a half. The duration of a football match. An infinitesimal interlude in an average lifetime.

For a man who spent much of his life trying to beat deadlines, who often wished he could create more minutes in an unforgiving hour, Dan found himself wanting the time to slip by as fast as ever it could.

Something was going on, that they did know. Adam rang, from a public telephone, just up the street from Charles Cross. The spies had come striding back inside after Dan’s doorstepping. They locked themselves in the room they’d commandeered and within half an hour, two cars had arrived, six people piling out and jogging up the stairs to join them.

Several were carrying those distinctive black briefcases. Adam thought he recognised one as a senior government lawyer who had handled the media strategy after some nuclear submarine plans were stolen from Devonport Dockyard three years ago.

‘What do you mean, handled?’ Dan queried. ‘I don’t remember the story. And I would. It’s huge.’

‘Quite,’ Adam replied.

‘Ah.’

Another half hour passed. They had rung the Home Office from one of the studios. Lizzie insisted on the call being recorded so they could prove the government had every chance to respond to the story. A high-ranking official came on the line, told them in a clipped tone that they were aware of the report
Wessex Tonight
was planning to run and were considering their response.

And that had been it. There was no response. No court orders, no denials, no rebuttals, no retaliation, no reprisals, no nothing.

Just a dense and ominous silence.

Dan sat in an edit suite with Jenny and cut the report. If he did say so himself – and he did – it was spectacular.

The only dilemma was how to begin. Dan could have told the story chronologically, starting with the pictures of the Minster in the aftermath of the bombing. But the viewers had seen them several times before and it would mean a lot of recapping before he got to the real revelations.

It was a mistake commonly made by amateur reporters. They learned in training college that telling a story as it had happened was a safe technique, and so that was what they did for the whole of their inevitably undistinguished careers. There was always another way.

The most dramatic material was the doorstepping of the spooks and Ali’s subsequent assault. If Dan wrote the newsreader’s cue for the story cleverly, to explain what the viewers were about to see, he could begin with that.

He started typing. “We can reveal the British security services knew about the bombing of Wessex Minster and could have stopped it, but didn’t. We have also learnt the man who carried out the attack is not dead, as the authorities had claimed, and they were prepared to allow his funeral to go ahead today with an unidentified person’s body in the coffin. We broke that news to his mother earlier and confronted two FX5 agents with it. What follows in this report by our Crime Correspondent, Dan Groves, is the extraordinary result.”

Jenny laid down the shot of Dan and Nigel approaching the spooks, through the trees and across the grass, the jerking of the camera adding to the drama. Dan wrote just one line to set up the confrontation. The images alone told the story beautifully.

‘These are the secret service agents responsible for allowing the attack on Wessex Minster to go ahead.’

They let the sequence run, Dan’s shouted questions, the spies’ refusal to answer and then Oscar raising his fist.

Now time for one more line to explain what was about to happen.

‘John Tanton’s mother Ali had been watching this, and then joined in – forcefully.’

They added the sequence of her attacking Oscar. The thudding noise of the impact of her bag against his skull made Jenny recoil.

Then it was a couple of shots of the spy lying on the ground, dazed and bleeding. Dan tried not to enjoy them, but utterly failed.
Wessex Tonight
wouldn’t normally show such violence, but in this case it was justified. It was the honest reaction of a woman who had suffered a grievous wrong. To alert anyone who might be upset, or to give them time to stop any children watching, Dan added a final line to the newsreader’s cue.

“The report contains violent scenes which some viewers might find distressing.”

Far from putting people off, it was generally accepted in the news trade that such warnings only served to make the audience watch more closely.

After the attack on Oscar came Ali’s interview. Then Dan recapped on the story, using the pictures of the damaged Minster to talk about how much the spies knew of the plot and how easily they could have stopped it. He signed off by saying that despite repeated requests, there had been no comment from the government.

The edit suite door opened and Lizzie strode in. She had been pacing the corridor the whole time. ‘Still no word from the Home Office,’ she said. ‘They’re up to something, But the lawyers are on standby, ready for them.’

Jenny played the report. Lizzie watched in silence, her eyebrow rising into an arch.

‘Not bad,’ she concluded.

Dan sighed. The era of unqualified praise had clearly passed. It was briefer than an electron’s orbit of an atom and was anyway probably just a moment of weakness, never to be repeated. Normality had returned.

‘So, what now?’

A stiletto heel ground into the carpet. ‘Now, we wait.’

The clock on the wall said it was half past five.

One hour to go.

A newsroom has a distinctive atmosphere when a big story is unfolding. Normally sedentary creatures, hacks abandon their chairs, instead stand, watching the bank of TV monitors, or the news wires flashing up on their computers. The usual hum of conversation quietens, even the shouted requests and instructions abate. All watch and all wait.

In this case though, they had no idea what they were expecting. It was a unique and unnerving situation, like being under siege from an enemy they knew was out there somewhere, but couldn’t see.

The newsroom clock ticked around to a quarter to six.

Lizzie was staring out of the window. ‘What the hell are they up to?’ she barked. ‘I was sure we’d have heard by now.’

‘They’re planning something,’ Dan replied. ‘I reckon we’ll hear any minute.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Sources.’

‘What sources?’

‘Just sources.’

She flicked her hair and turned back to the window. Dan debated whether to tell Lizzie about the call from Claire, just a couple of minutes ago. She was whispering, and Dan had to retreat to a corner of the newsroom and clamp the phone to his ear to hear.

‘Why are you speaking so quietly?’ he asked.

‘I’m in the loos.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something’s happening. The spies have commandeered a load of cops. They’re waiting in the car park.’

‘What for?’

‘They won’t say. Just that they’re going on some kind of operation.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘They’re after you, aren’t they?’

‘I think you might be right.’

‘Dan.’

‘Yes?’

‘Just be careful, will you? You’re dealing with some really nasty people. They’re not like anyone you’ve ever gone up against before.’

Dan gulped. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.’

He wondered if the words had ever sounded more hollow.

‘I’ve got to go, someone’s coming,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Just call me later, to let me know you’re OK?’

‘I will.’

‘And if you need me to come round I’d love to see you. Take care of yourself. I still need you.’

Dan got himself a cup of water from the dispenser. It bubbled and churned. His throat felt very dry. He sat down by Lizzie’s desk, then got up again. He tried looking through a couple of newspapers, but the words made no sense. Instead, he paced over to the map of Devon and Cornwall on the wall and tried to imagine a new Dartmoor walk to take Rutherford on. Nothing stuck in his mind.

Ten to six.

‘What the hell are they up to?’ Lizzie said again.

‘Leaving it to the last minute,’ Dan replied. ‘Standard tactics. If they’ve got some kind of injunction, we won’t have a chance to get it lifted in time for the programme.’

His mobile warbled with a text. Dan was expecting a message from Claire, or Adam, but it was Sarah.

The tiger is growing RAVENOUS. Come feed her soon, big boy. xxx

Her timing wasn’t the greatest. First an attempted tryst at a vet’s surgery, now this. Dan deleted the message. With all that was happening, his libido had gone missing, presumed lost.

He walked over to Lizzie at the window. ‘What are you expecting?’ he asked. ‘Storm troops?’

‘Something like that.’

He sat on the edge of a desk, got up again, itched tetchily at his back and had another cup of water. Half of it was discarded into the pot plants which lined one side of the newsroom. A growing stain of dampness seeped across the carpet tiles.

A door banged. They all turned. It was just one of the cleaners, carrying a couple of rubbish sacks.

Five to six.

A phone rang. One of the newsroom assistants answered.

It was a report of the London to Plymouth train running twelve minutes late. A signalling fault.

Dan swung a leg back and forth. He could do with some new shoes. These were getting scuffed and the colder days were coming on.

He wondered if Claire would be around to help warm them. It was strange how the winters they spent together had never felt cold.

A fax whined and began disgorging a sheet of paper. A couple of journalists paced over, bent down and studied the lines of print.

It was a long range weather report.

Almost six o’clock. The sun was dipping in the western sky.

Lizzie’s voice. ‘Dan. Dan!’

‘What?’

‘Come here.’

He joined her at the window once more. She was pointing along the road outside the studios. The trees were lit with flashes of blue.

Through a break in the foliage they could see a police car, then another. Now a police van, a motorcycle, and a large, black jeep.

The convoy was moving fast, cutting easily through the traffic.

It was heading for the
Wessex Tonight
building.