pashminas and cheap lug-gage strewn over the road; a man lying halfway though his windscreen, still and bleeding. Then, out of it all, a figure stumbled toward Banks, an elderly Asian woman in a bright-colored sari. Her nose was gone and blood streamed from her eyes. She had her arms stretched out in front of her.
“Help me!” she cried. “Help me. I can’t see. I’m blind.”
Banks took her arm and tried to murmur words of comfort and encouragement as she gripped on to him for dear life. Maybe she was better off not being able to see, he thought f leetingly, leading her over the street. Everywhere people were staggering about in the haze, their arms f lailing like zombies in a horror film. Some were shouting, some screaming, f leeing from burning cars, and some were just sitting or lying, moaning in pain.
One man lay on the road on fire, thrashing about, trying to douse the f lames that consumed him. There was nothing Banks could do for him. He stumbled on and tripped over a leg. It wasn’t attached to a body. Then he walked through stuff that squished unpleasantly under his feet and saw body parts strewn everywhere. After he had got the Asian woman out of the smoke and sat her down on the pavement until help came, he picked his way back through the wreckage and the rubble. He found a disoriented boy of about ten or eleven and half-dragged him away to the edges of the scene where the smoke thinned, and where he had left the Asian woman, then he went back and guided the next person he saw out of the carnage.
He didn’t know how long he went on doing this, taking people by the arm and leading them away, even scooping them up off the road into his arms, or dragging them to the edge of Oxford Circus, where the air was still full of the stink of burning plastic but was at least breathable.
A burning taxi lay on its side and a pretty young blonde in a bloodstained yellow sundress was trying to climb out of the window.
Banks went to help her. She had a lapdog held to her chest like a ball A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
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of f luff and a Selfridges bag, which was almost too big to get through the window. She got out, but she wouldn’t let go of the bag handle, no matter how much Banks tried to pull her away. He feared the taxi might explode at any moment. In the end she pulled the bag free and tottered back into Banks’s arms on her high heels. It only took him a quick glance in the front to see that the driver was dead.
The woman clung to Banks and her bag with one arm and her dog with the other as they edged their way toward the cleaner air, and for the first time, amid it all, he could smell something other than death: it was her perfume, a subtle musk. He left her sitting by the roadside crying and went back. There was a bendy-bus lying on its side burning, and he wanted to see if he could help people get out. He could hear the woman wail and the dog start to yap behind him as he walked away.
The next thing he knew the area was full of dark shapes in protective gear, wearing gas masks or heavy breathing equipment, with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, some of them carrying subma-chine guns, and someone was calling over a loudspeaker for everyone to evacuate the area. Banks carried on searching for survivors until a heavy hand rested on his shoulder and pulled him away.
“Best get out of here, mate, and leave it to us,” said the voice, muff led by breathing apparatus. “You never can tell. There might be another one. Or one of the cars might go up any moment.”
The strong, steady hand guided him gently but firmly past Oxford Circus and around the corner to Regent Street.
“Are you all right?” the man asked him.
“I’m okay,” said Banks. “I’m a policeman. I can help.” He reached for his warrant card.
The man had a good look at it, and Banks was sure he memorized the name.
“Doesn’t matter,” the man said, guiding him away. “There’s nothing you can do here without the right equipment. It’s too dangerous.
Did you see what happened?”
“No,” said Banks. “I was on Great Marlborough Street. I heard the explosion and came up to see if I could help.”
“Leave it to the pros now, mate. And as long as you’re sure you’re all 2 6 2 P E T E R
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right, the best thing you can do is go home, leave the medics for the ones who really need them.”
Down Regent Street, Banks could see the massed fire engines, police cars, ambulances and armed response vehicles, and the street swarmed with uniforms. The barriers were up already and the whole area had been cordoned off as far down as Conduit Street. He was glad that he could at least breathe now as he stumbled past the barricades into the stunned group of onlookers.
“What happened, mate?” someone asked.
“Bomb, innit?” answered someone else. “Stands to reason. Fucking terrorists.”
Banks just walked on through the crowds, oblivious to the questions, back the way he had come, he couldn’t say how long ago. At first, right in the thick of it with the body parts, the human torches, viscous smoke and walking wounded, time had seemed to slow almost to a halt; but now, when he turned and looked back up Regent Street toward the chaos, he felt as if it had been all over in a f lash, a sublimi-nal moment. The emergency rescue worker had been right; there was nothing more he could do. He would only get in the way. He had never felt so useless in his life, and the last thing he wanted to be here was a voyeur. He wondered how the blind Asian woman was doing, and the young blonde with her lapdog and Selfridges bag.
The chaos and carnage faded into the background the closer he got to Piccadilly Circus. He didn’t know where he was going now, or care, only that he was moving away from it. His breathing had almost returned to normal, but his eyes still stung. People gawped at him as he passed by, everyone aware now that something serious had happened nearby, even if they hadn’t heard it themselves. You could still see the smoke spiraling up from Oxford Circus beyond the elegant curved facade of Regent Street, its smell polluting the sweet summer air.
When Banks got past Piccadilly Circus, he knew what he wanted.
A bloody drink. Or two. He made his way up Shaftesbury Avenue and turned into Soho, his old stomping ground
