At times like this, Carol missed being able to rely on Tony’s insights, however off the wall they sometimes seemed. She wasn’t afraid to think outside the box herself, but it was always more comfortable to go out on a limb when there was someone shouting encouragement from the safety net below.
At least she could rely on this team to dig beneath the surface. If there was anything to be found, they’d find it. The hard bit was figuring out what it meant and where it led. But for now, all she could do was wait.
Learning from the mistakes of others was always preferable to the pain of making your own, Yousef thought. Like the London bombers. They’d met up together and travelled down to London by train mob-handed. When the security services started examining CCTV footage, they stuck out. They were easy to spot, easy to trace, and from there, easy to blame. Easy to backtrack to their homes, easy to unravel their networks of support and friendship.
All of that would have been slowed right down if they’d each made their own ways to the target. Diverting the security forces altogether was the best option in the aftermath, but failing that, slowing them down was far better than making it easy for them. What made most sense was to have as little contact with each other in the time leading up to the bombing itself. Given that Brits were the most surveilled people in the world, and given that most CCTV footage wasn’t stored for more than a couple of weeks, they’d agreed they wouldn’t meet during that time unless there was some sort of emergency. Contact would be kept to a minimum and, if it became necessary, they would use text messages with agreed codes. The target would be referred to as ‘the house’, the bomb as ‘dinner’, and so on. Each knew what had to be done, and they were prepared to do it.
And so Yousef was sitting in the rooftop cafe of the Bradfield City Art Gallery, third table on the left-hand wall, inconspicuous among the late-morning coffee drinkers, back to the self-service array and the till. In front of him, a Coke and a wedge of the cafe’s notoriously calorific lemon drizzle cake. He’d only managed a couple of forkfuls; it stuck in his throat like a lump of sweet sandstone. It wasn’t just at home that he was having trouble eating. He had that morning’s
As the minute hand crept towards ten past, his face grew hot and a slither of sweat spread across his neck and shoulders. Anticipation made his bowels clench.
It was over in seconds. A woman in a swaggering raincoat passed close to his table. He only saw her from behind as she made her way through the doors and out on to the roof terrace, where she sat down with her back to him, a bottle of mineral water beside her. A dark headscarf covered her head. He wished he could go and sit with her to ease the loneliness he felt.
On the table in front of Yousef was the sports section. He forced down the rest of the cake, swilling his mouth with Coke to get through it. Then, casually, trying not to show how sick he felt at the sudden accession of sugar, he gathered his newspaper together and strolled towards the exit.
He couldn’t wait till he got back to the van. He slipped into the gents’ toilet outside the cafe and locked himself into the cubicle. With fingers made clumsy by nerves and sweat, he rustled through the sports pages. There, ironically enough between a two-page spread about Bradfield Victoria’s premiership chances without Robbie Bishop, nestled inside a plastic folder, was the paperwork that would take him where he needed to be tomorrow. A fax, supposedly from Bradfield Victoria’s general manager, to their usual electrical contractors, complaining of an urgent problem with a junction box under the Albert Vestey stand. And a second fax from their contractors to A1 Electricals, subcontracting the emergency work.
Yousef breathed deeply, letting himself relax a fraction. It was going to work. It was going to be amazing. Tomorrow, the world would be a different place.
Tony summoned up all his nerve and swung the leg that was whole on to the floor. That was enough to send a jagged line of pain through the other leg in spite of the brace holding its damage firm. He clenched his teeth and used his hands to help drag the braced limb through an arc. As it reached the edge of the mattress, he let go and almost fell forward, letting gravity bring him into a more or less upright position. Sweat popped out across his forehead and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He had to master this before they would let him out of here.
He paused, his weight distributed between his buttocks on the bed and his right foot. Once his chest stopped heaving, he reached for the elbow crutches he’d learned to use earlier that day. Carefully, he gripped them, making sure his forearms were inside the plastic cuffs. Rubber ferrules on the floor. Deep breath.
Tony pushed himself upright, amazing himself by his steadiness. Crutches forward, swing with the good leg, let the bad leg follow, toes touching the floor, tiniest fraction of weight on the damaged knee. Jolt of pain. Not unbearable, though. Manageable with clenched teeth and buttocks.
Five minutes later, he’d made it as far as the toilet. Going back took eight minutes, but even in that short time, he felt his movements were smoother, more assured; he’d have something to show Carol when she came next. He’d need her help if he was going to go home. It would be hard to ask for it, but he suspected it would be even harder to wait for her to offer it.
Getting back in bed and making himself comfortable took another few minutes. He swore he would never again take for granted the simple act of getting up for a piss. He didn’t care if people laughed, he’d happily stand there going, ‘Look at me. I just got up and walked over there. Did you see that? Amazing.’
Once settled, he had no excuse to avoid thinking about Robbie Bishop and Danny Wade. Or rather, Danny Wade and Robbie Bishop. It was possible that Danny Wade was not Stalky’s first victim, but after exhaustive trawling of the internet, Tony couldn’t find an earlier example of what might be considered his handiwork.
‘You love the planning and the outcome, but you don’t much care for the act,’ he said. ‘Technically you’re not a serial yet, but I think you’re going that way. And what makes you unusual is that, mostly, serial is about sex. It might not always look that way, but that’s what’s at the heart of it, time after time. Twisted circuits that need twisted scenarios to achieve what comes relatively naturally to most people. But that’s not what you’re about, is it? You’re not interested in them as bodies, as objects of desire. At least, not sexual desire.
‘So what are you getting out of it? Is it political? A kind of “eat the rich” message? Are you some neo-Marxist warrior intent on punishing the ones who achieve riches and don’t share them with the people who are still stuck where our heroes came from? It makes a kind of sense…’ He stared at the ceiling, turning the idea around in his head, examining it from different angles.
‘The problem is, if that’s who you are, why aren’t you shouting about it? You can’t deliver a political message if it’s written in a language nobody understands. No. You’re not doing this out of the need to make some abstract political point. This is personal, somehow.’
He scratched his head. God, how he longed for a proper shower, a long soak under a torrent of water, cleaning his hair and clearing his head. Tomorrow, maybe, the nurse had said. Wrap his brace in cling-film, tape it to his leg
