The Balance of Guilt (8 page)

He began the report with the graffiti on the Mosque, wrote about how the bombing had heightened racial tensions, and also mentioned the attack on the Muslim man. He had been fortunate and escaped with only cuts and bruises. They used the clip of the Imam, talking about Islam being a religion of peace and denouncing the attack.

After that Dan used the pictures of the BPP demonstration and some of Kindle’s interview, when he spoke of disagreeing with people breaking the law, but understanding their frustrations. He’d gone through it with Lizzie who agreed the party had to be given their say.
Wessex Tonight
would get complaints, but that was the nature of being a news broadcaster in a democracy.

The Minster’s bells struck one. Dan sat on a bench in the easy autumn sunshine and gave himself a few minutes to unwind. It had been a busy but relatively smooth morning. He wondered what the afternoon would bring. Life inevitably moved fast on a big story.

His mobile rang. Alison Tanton’s number was flashing on the display.

‘Hello, Dan.’ A gulp, then another. ‘This will have to be a quick call. I’m at the hospital, hoping to see John. They haven’t let me yet. He’s been badly injured and there are lots of police here, guarding him.’

‘I’m sorry, Alison. For you, and all that’s gone on.’

A quick rush of breath, then a tumble of words. ‘I knew he was interested in Islam and talking about becoming a Muslim, but I thought it was just a phase. He didn’t show any signs of … well …’

Her voice broke. ‘Look, you were very kind, coming along to the Prize Day and giving out the awards. John went on about it for weeks afterwards. I would like to talk to you about what’s happened, but can it wait a few days? I hardly know what I’m doing with myself at the moment.’

‘Yes, of course. Alison, one more thing – all the other reporters will be wanting to talk to you, and …’

‘Don’t worry,’ she interrupted. ‘I won’t be talking to them. I’ll give you a ring, or call me within a day or two.’

Dan thanked her and hung up. He sat, staring at the Minster. Her voice sounded so fragile. He remembered the Prize Day, how she was wearing what was obviously a new suit, and her pride at John being given an award for the efforts he had made that year. He was a quiet lad, a little overweight, with a trusting face, painfully nervous as he walked on to the old wooden stage. His school tie was an inch askew and his hand trembling and sweaty to shake.

Dan shook his head, got up and walked back to the satellite truck. It was time to get ready for the live broadcast. His mobile rang again. Adam.

The detective’s voice was sharp and urgent. The familiar sound of trouble.

‘You back in Exeter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I need to see you this afternoon. As soon as possible. We’ve got real problems.’

A
DAM’S TERSE INSISTENCE WAS
sufficient to override the need for a decent lunch. Dan grabbed an unappetising-looking roll from a café, along with a piece of cake to bridge the taste deficit, and walked across Minster Green towards Heavitree Road police station.

It was warm enough for the lawns to be filled with people enjoying their lunch hours in the sunshine of the early days of autumn. Students sat in a group, some juggling balls and clubs with a conspicuous lack of success. But, being students, they still had the cheek to pass a hat around, and being the kind folk of Devon, plenty of people donated some change. Dan tipped in a few fragments of silver. At least it would stop that annoying jingling as he marched.

He noticed he no longer felt tired, but wasn’t surprised. He was rejoining Adam on another extraordinary case. Again he would attempt to straddle the twin worlds of reporting on a crime and secretly helping with the investigation. It was a heady mix.

As Dan had expected, he had to field a call from the newsroom. Lizzie professed herself “satisfied” with lunchtime’s broadcast, but quickly launched into a series of demands for tonight. She wanted another report, plus a live interview to follow. Dan popped into the Minster office and had a word with Reverend Parfitt’s secretary. Yes, the Principal was available later and would be happy to grace the airwaves again.

That was predictable. The Minster was busier today than Dan had ever known it. Another plug of publicity would do no harm at all. It was fair enough. In the modern money-obsessed world, even men of God had to have an eye for the finances.

A couple of crows hopped and stalked across the green, pecking at the remnants of a picnic which had spilled from a bin. A young child balanced carefully on the low wall that divided the lawns from the cobbled old street. Streams of shoppers slipped past, proudly holding bags boasting of a legion of designers.

Life went on. Come what may, it always did.

As it would for him. He should be able to get home for about half past seven, ready to take Rutherford for a run around the park. He had promised, and it would happen. Dan grinned at the thought of his dog lolloping across Hartley Park, sniffing around the trees.

There was just the one nagging itch in his easing mind. The usual one, the standard one, the ever-present one. It was quite likely Claire would be at the police station. Perhaps working on a computer in the incident room, or on the phone, talking to potential witnesses. No doubt wearing one of her familiar black trouser suits, the dark ruffle of her bob as attractive as ever.

Dan crossed a main road, patted his hair into place and tried not to notice the patches where it was thinning. He was almost at the police station. He began rehearsing what he would say when the inevitable finally happened and they met again.

Heavitree Road police station is a slug of a building. Long and low, it bends around the thoroughfare from which it gets its name. Only a perfunctory patch of downtrodden grass outside the entrance softens its austerity, and even then not by a great deal. It has much the same soothing effect as trying to make someone comfortable as they’re tied to a post, waiting for the firing squad.

The reception is just as unwelcoming, a less than fetching mix of concrete and plate glass. Adam was waiting there, pacing back and forth. He quickly took Dan’s arm and led him back out of the door.

‘We can’t talk here,’ he muttered. ‘The place is probably bugged.’

They found a café, just down the road, towards the bus station. The chipped plastic tables were stained with the rings of scores of tea and coffee mugs. It would once have been filled with more smoke than an 80s pop concert, but now instead the doorway was circled with a throng of social lepers, all puffing away.

Dan nodded to himself. For years, he had railed against the injustice of smoking being permitted in public places, his hair and clothes, eyes and lungs continually tormented by the foul fumes. The sight of the outcasts of the smoking ban never failed to cheer him. It was a spectacle best enjoyed in the cold months of howling wind and driving rain, but that time would come around soon enough. It was one of the few benefits of the winter.

He bought a couple of cups of tea and carried them to a table at the back of the café where Adam had positioned himself. ‘Counter surveillance,’ the detective said meaningfully. ‘I want to be able to keep an eye on who’s coming and going.’

Dan didn’t know what to say, so sat down and took out his notebook. A dusty rubber plant had been positioned on the windowsill, the place’s sole attempt at contriving a relaxed atmosphere.

Adam was scanning around, his eyes constantly shifting from the door to the window. There was only one other customer inside the café, an elderly woman who was hunched over a newspaper, coughing gently to herself, oblivious of the world. The detective studied her carefully, then relaxed.

‘OK, I reckon we’re safe.’

Dan also took a look around. ‘Err, yeah,’ he said. ‘I can’t spot any immediate deadly perils. That old woman looks a bad one, but if both of us stick together we can probably handle her.’

Adam gave him a reproachful look. ‘Don’t joke. Things have changed. No one knows what’s going on, or who to believe any more. The case has become a smoke and shadows world.’

It could only have been more melodramatic if an unseen orchestra had provided a sudden musical sting. Dan folded his arms. ‘Perhaps you’d better explain.’

‘Yeah.’ Adam took another quick look around, leaned forwards and lowered his voice to an almost imperceptible whisper. ‘The spooks have taken over.’

‘What?’

‘The spooks. The spies. FX5. They’ve come in and taken everything over.’

‘But I thought you told me this was going to be a Greater Wessex Police investigation?’

‘Yeah, it was. And on the surface it still is. But that’s just for pride’s sake. The High Honchos have been overridden by the Home Office. The spooks are running the game now.’

Dan braced himself and sipped at the tea. It was surprisingly good.

‘You don’t sound too happy about it,’ he said.

Adam loosened his tie. He looked unusually dishevelled today, his dark hair spraying up in patches and the shadow of his beard pronounced. There was even a whisper of fluff on the shoulder of his suit, a rare sight indeed for a man so scrupulously proud of his appearance.

Dan pointed to the offending material and the detective petulantly brushed it off.

‘Bloody right I’m not happy,’ he replied. ‘They dish out their orders, but don’t tell us anything. They get together in their little clusters for conflabs, but don’t ask any of us to join them. They’ve taken over everything. They’ve got their own people with John Tanton, their own interrogators with Ahmed and their own scientists looking at all the forensics stuff. We’re barely even the supporting cast. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to get me making the damned tea.’

The door opened, a couple of men walked in and made for the counter. Both were wearing overalls splattered with paint. Adam watched them carefully.

‘Country bumpkins, that’s what the bloody spooks think of us,’ he continued. ‘They reckon we’re too backwards to run a proper investigation.’ He added a couple of choice obscenities, making Dan blink hard. Adam rarely swore.

‘Look,’ Dan said, to distract his friend. ‘Why don’t you tell me how the investigation is – or, at least, was – going. You must have got somewhere before the spooks came in.’

‘We were doing fine without them,’ came the haughty response.

‘So?’

Adam sipped at his tea and took out his notebook.

‘Is this for me to broadcast, or just to know?’ Dan asked quickly.

‘The way I feel at the moment, for whatever you like.’

‘OK. Go ahead.’

‘Right. This is where we’ve got to so far. I reckoned we had the radicaliser in Ahmed, but now I’m not so sure.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, first of all I was surprised at how fast we got him. Alison Tanton told us all about him, how John had been hanging around with him. How he’d seemed to change under Ahmed’s influence, started spouting some worrying things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Going on about western society. How depraved and despicable it was. How it needed to be punished. Just the sort of stuff that Ahmed believes. She gave us a description. We got his mobile number and traced it to Exeter. A cop spotted him and you know the rest.’

Dan looked up from his writing. ‘Job done then, isn’t it? That sounds like it makes perfect sense. Ahmed radicalised Tanton, set him off to attack the Minster, then couldn’t resist coming along to see the results of his handiwork.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought – initially. But here are the problems. One, John Tanton himself. In what little he’s been able to say so far, he’s insistent it was all down to him. He says he made his own decisions about wanting to become a martyr, and that he found out how to make a bomb on the internet and built it himself.’

‘You don’t believe that though, surely? He’s too young, nothing like sophisticated enough. He’s been brainwashed.’

‘I think so, but let me give you our other problems. You know how Tanton seemed to lose his nerve at the last minute, dumped the rucksack and tried to get away before it exploded?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, here’s the bit we’re keeping nice and quiet. Just a few minutes before the blast, Tanton made a call on his mobile. It was a reasonably long one – it lasted for several minutes.’

‘Who to?’

‘Who indeed? The answer is we don’t know. But I reckon that call is the key to finding out who radicalised him.’

‘But surely you’ve got the number he called?’

‘Yep. We seized Tanton’s mobile. But the number is a pay as you go phone. There are no records of who bought it. They’re untraceable. All we know from the analysis is that whoever was using it was in the centre of Exeter when he took the call.’

‘So that’s why you’re looking for someone who was in the city at the time of the explosion?’

‘Spot on.’

Dan debated whether to tell Adam what he’d learned earlier, about Kindle, the Imam and his minder all being in Exeter yesterday, but decided against it. He was learning too much interesting information. Far better to let the detective talk while he was in the mood. He could chip in with his own thoughts later.

He took another sip of tea. ‘Regarding this call Tanton made. Any guesses what it was about?’

‘He won’t say. So – have you got any ideas?’

Dan tapped on the table with his pen. ‘If he thinks he’s about to die … to his mum, to explain and say goodbye?’

‘No. We checked that.’

‘Any other close family?’

‘No.’

‘Any friends or girlfriends?’

‘No. We’ve checked all those. We’ve gone through all the numbers stored on his phone, and all his family and friends. It was none of those. The call was made to the mystery owner of this pay as you go mobile which was in central Exeter.’

Adam looked at him expectantly. Dan felt a nudge of irritation. His friend was a great lover of the dubious art of delayed gratification, and it could be annoying.

‘I give up,’ he said finally.

Adam’s face warmed into smugness. ‘Well, as there are no records of the conversation, and as Tanton won’t tell us, I can’t say for sure, obviously. But I can tell you the theory I’m working on.’

‘Which is?’

‘I reckon he was ringing his radicaliser. I think he was having second thoughts and needed a pep talk. Hence the length of the call. It can’t just have been – “Hello, I’m here and about to do it.” It must have been to fortify his courage.’

Dan breathed out heavily. ‘Wow. That would have been some call. But fair enough, if he’s about to kill himself and others he might well need some comforting words. OK, your theory makes sense, but surely it points to Ahmed. He was here in Exeter. There’s good evidence from Alison Tanton that he indoctrinated John. And he ran when you lot descended on him.’

‘Plenty of people run when the cops come calling,’ Adam replied. ‘That doesn’t mean a thing. The other evidence is better. But there’s just the one problem. We seized Ahmed’s mobiles and neither was the number Tanton rang in that final call.’

Dan was writing fast, struggling to keep up. ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me there. You said Ahmed’s mobiles? He had more than one?’

Adam nodded. ‘Yep. When we arrested him, he was carrying a mobile in his jacket. But being the suspicious chap I am, something occurred to me about when we chased him into the shopping centre.’

‘What?’

‘Think about it.’

Again Adam waited, his face expectant. Dan just about managed to stop himself from growling.

‘I think it might be better if you just tell me,’ he said levelly.

‘His disappearing time.’

‘His what?’

‘When he ran into the shopping centre we were watching him on CCTV, or a cop had sight of him for almost all of the chase. There’s just one part when no one can see him. It lasts for about 40 seconds or so. Apart from that time he was always in view.’

‘So what was he doing for those 40 seconds?’

‘Exactly the question I asked myself.’

‘And?’

‘What do you think?’

Dan sighed heavily. ‘Well – would he have disappeared deliberately? Could he have been sure he wasn’t being watched?’

Adam nodded. ‘I think so. The CCTV cameras in the arcade are old-fashioned and very obvious. He’d have known when he was in sight of one. And he could see us chasing him. We weren’t exactly being subtle. He’d have known when he wasn’t being watched.’

Dan swirled the remains of his tea and thought for a few seconds.

‘The only reason he could have needed to disappear was that he was doing something he didn’t want you to see.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Which would be – hiding, or getting rid of something. Something important.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Like what?’

‘What do you think?’

Dan sat forcibly back on his seat. Sometimes the temptation to throttle his friend could grow overwhelming.

‘Give me a clue?’

‘I don’t need to. I told you only a few seconds ago.’