‘A tow-truck?’
‘S’what he says.’
‘Well, where’s this tow-truck? Christ on a bike.’
Dragan Panic sighed. He was only second in the queue, but he seemed to have been here for some time.
At Horseferry Road police station Duty Officer Louise Botting was dealing with another victim of crime.
She was a woman of about fifty, with grey hair, and perfectly attired for cycling. She had a helmet with a red reflector, fluorescent yellow zig-zags on her torso, and an air of Anglo-Saxon indignation.
‘I feel a bit silly reporting it, but I feel it’s my duty. It’s just so uncivilized.’
‘I know, madam,’ said Louise Botting, and passed her a form.
‘Do you know why they do it?’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘Is there ever any chance of catching them, do you think?’
‘Well, there’s always a chance, I s’pose.’
Behind her in the queue, Dragan groaned.
‘What I would like to know,’ said the woman loudly as she left, ‘is what kind of person would steal my bike seat?’
No one in the room felt able to answer, least of all Dragan, who now bent towards the counter, his muscles still trembling with exertion.
‘How can I help you, sir?’ asked Louise Botting.
‘They killed the traffic warden, didn’t they,’ said Dragan.
‘Did they?’ asked Sergeant Botting, and then listened with mounting amazement. At one point she interrupted him. ‘Did you say you were removing an ambulance?’
‘I told him not to. I was going to tell him not to.’
‘And why are you covered in mud?’
Dragan thumped a weary fist on the attack-proof glass, like a drunk in a benefit office. ‘I swear I am telling the truth.’
Louise Botting summoned the station commander, and together they took a full statement.
‘Are you saying you lifted this ambulance? Right. And where is this ambulance now? They drove off, you say, and you are sure they are Muslim terrorists. I see, Mr Panic. Now, what’s your address? No. 10, Eaton Place, SW1. You’re sure about that. I see.’
Then the station commander took a call, and when he explained its contents to Louise Botting, she looked at Dragan Panic with new and wondering eyes.
She filled in an Initial Crime Report, and timed the incident for 9 a.m.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
0900 HRS
BONG Big Ben struck nine, and on the roof of the Commons, Pickel quivered again.
BONG The cavalcade effortfully turned right towards Chelsea, and the leaves of the Embankment waved beneath the passage of the Black Hawk.
BONG The Ambassador of the French Republic, M. Yves Charpentier, told his official driver to follow the Mall down to Parliament Square and make for St Stephen’s Entrance. Then he sat back on the blue velour of the Renault and buried his nose in the hot black scented crown of his mistress, Benedicte al-Walibi.
BONG In a cave in the tribal areas of Pakistan, not far from the Afghan border, the BBC’s coverage of the state visit was being closely monitored on TV.
BONG The British Prime Minister sat in his small office in Downing Street and gave heartfelt thanks, once again, to the protocol ruling which meant he did not have to attend the speech in Westminster Hall; the theory being that he had proposed the President’s health last night at Windsor, and that was enough. John Major, it had been pointed out, was not there for Nelson Mandela. Nor for Bill Clinton, if his memory served him correctly.
BONG Colonel Bluett of the US Secret Service had decided that it was time to take a more active role in the security operation, and was now being driven in a blacked-out Ford from Grosvenor Square to Scotland Yard.
BONG In the White House in Washington, the Presidential red setter had a beautiful dream, in which he sunk his teeth into the neck of the Presidential cat.
BONG Roger Barlow’s four-year-old heir was sitting cross-legged at school, and looking intently at some pictures of king-killing in old Dahomey.
BONG Jones felt the first drop of perspiration emerge from his temple and run down his cheek.
As Roger and Cameron gained the entrance to New Palace Yard, a taxi drew up. The policeman bent down to look through the window, and then let them through. After twenty-five years everyone knew Felix Thomson. Barlow knew him, too, and offered a mock-salute which was returned, though perhaps a little more mockingly than Barlow, in an ideal world, would have liked.
The policeman at the gate once more demanded production of the pink slip, though for some reason they waved Felix Thomson’s taxi on without too much fuss. The vehicle rolled on a few yards down the cobbles to another barricade, a ramp with winking lights that came up and prevented access, just by the spot where Airey Neave had been blown up by the IRA.
‘No, sorry, sir,’ said the policeman. Barlow had made to follow the taxi, because he wanted to have a word with Felix Thomson, and now he was told this was not on. He’d have to go that way, through the turnstiles. Did he have his pass with him? He had his pass.
‘Oh Cameron, by the way, I have a terrible feeling I have to make a speech in the debate this afternoon.’
‘That’s right, Roger. The whips have been on to us twice already. They are expecting it.’
‘Oh lor’, sighed the MP, stopping. ‘Can you remember what it’s all about?’
Why the hell, wondered Cameron, couldn’t he ever concentrate on what she was saying? ‘I sent you a speech. I mean I sent you a draft of the speech. It was in your mail on Friday.’
‘Oh yes, and what’s the Bill about?’
‘It’s the Water Utilities Bill (England and Wales). The whips thought you might be interested in speaking on fluoridation.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Roger, ‘and what line am I taking?’
‘Well, I sort of presumed you would be taking a libertarian line. A lot of people have been writing in, saying how much they dislike fluoridation. They say it’s the nanny state.’
‘Nasty stuff, is it, fluoride?’
‘Well, it can be deadly poisonous, and they’ve done a lot of research on possible side-effects .
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Roger, ‘I know what it does. It causes premature baldness in rhesus monkeys, hypertension in rats, and it changes the sex of cuttlefish.’
‘If you say so, Roger.’ She tried shifting forwards. Adam would be waiting.
‘I mean, what if the whole libertarian argument is utter tosh? What if this stuff is really good for you, protects the nation’s teeth, mmm? I think of my parents’ generation.
They never had the stuff and they had terrible trouble. I remember my father taking a great bite of an apple, and crack. Very psychologically damaging, losing your teeth. It’s all in Freud. You know, if you’re an elephant, and you lose your teeth, you’ve had it.’
‘I expect the same goes if you’re a lion.’
‘Good point,’ said Roger. ‘Here, just say aaah. Go on, open wide the pearly gates.’ Cameron had the surreal experience of offering her teeth for inspection to the Member for Cirencester.
‘See,’ said Roger, ‘inside every skull, thirty-two vital differences between the English and the Americans.’ As he was looking his research assistant in the mouth, he became aware of two people craning their necks to watch him from 120 feet up. It was Jason Pickel and Indira, their scopes glinting in the sun.
‘Can I stop now?’ asked Cameron.
