‘Don’t worry, Raj, Yousef will take you,’ his mother had said.
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I arranged to go over to Brighouse, to meet some guy about a new contract. I haven’t got time.’
‘What do you mean, you haven’t got time? It won’t take you far out of your way to take the boy to meet his friends,’ his mother insisted.
‘What new contract?’ his father demanded.
‘Nobody ever bothers about me,’ Raj wailed.
Sanjar looked at him and winked. He clearly didn’t believe in the new contract either, but whatever he thought Yousef was up to, there was no chance he’d be anywhere near the truth.
And that’s when he’d nearly lost it. His last meal with his family, and it was turning into a bickering match. When they all looked back, there would be no warm memory of a happy family meal, when they still held fast to their illusion of who he was. There would only be the bitter taste of bad feeling.
He’d had to get out then, before he broke down in front of them. Tears had blurred his vision on the drive over to the bedsit. He loved them, and he was never going to see them again.
Yousef shook his head as if to shake off his painful thoughts. There was no going back. He had to look forward. He had to think about a glorious future, when his dreams would come true. He pushed himself away from the door. The last phase still had to be carried out.
Carefully, he packed a catering-sized ghee tin with the TATP, placing the gunpowder engine from a model rocket kit in the middle. He fastened thin plastic-coated wires to the engine with little alligator clips then attached them to an electronic ignition device wired up to an electronic timer in a small bundle held together with packing tape. He hadn’t made this part of the bomb; he had no skills in this area. But it had been explained to him. He was to be ready with the bomb in place at 3.30, two-thirds of the way through the first half. He was to set the timer for forty minutes, so it would go off in the middle of the second half, leaving time enough for him to make his escape. It was simple. Kept simple to minimize what could possibly go wrong.
Concentrating on the assembly of the bomb calmed him down. By the time he’d finished and packed it in the bottom of Imran’s toolbox, he was steady again.
Yousef carried the toolbox down to Imran’s van with great care. He knew how volatile the TATP was, how easily the friction of movement could trigger the chain reaction that would blow him and the rest of the house sky high. He placed it gently on the ground while he opened the back of the van, then laid it on the foam pad he’d already prepared. He closed the doors carefully then stepped away from the van. He wished he smoked.
He checked his watch. Almost time to set off. He wanted to arrive at the staff and players’ entrance about five minutes before kick-off, when the security crew were too busy to pay too much attention to him. Allowing for traffic, he should leave in about five minutes.
Yousef got into the van and fumbled the keys into the ignition. His hands were clammy with sweat. ‘Calm,’ he told himself. No reason to panic. No reason to be afraid. Nothing could go wrong.
He didn’t know about the third component, taped between the ignition and the timer. A component that would change all Yousef’s carefully laid plans.
Tony was feeling very pleased with himself. Today, he was the man who had climbed half a flight of stairs. OK, he’d had a certain amount of difficulty getting back down, but he had made it to the landing. Nine steps up and nine steps down. And not a single fall. He’d been so exhausted afterwards he’d wanted to lie down and weep, but he would leave that bit out when he told the tale.
Tony fired up the laptop and went to Bradfield Victoria’s site. Because he wasn’t good at remembering to keep office hours, he’d subscribed to their private TV channel at the start of the season. So wherever he was, as long as he had broadband access, he could watch the Vics’ games live. He logged on and turned the volume down low. He didn’t need to hear pre-match chat from a couple of second-rate retired footballers and a commentator who had fallen from grace with the networks. All they’d be talking about would be Robbie, and Tony didn’t imagine for a moment they would have any useful insights to offer.
Thinking of Robbie reminded him that he ought to be trying to come up with something that would get Carol past the embarrassment of refusing to follow up his suggestion now it had turned out he’d been right. She was going to be pissed off with herself and the chances were that she would get it out of her system by being pissed off with him. Best to have something ready to head her off at the pass. The only trouble was what.
‘What makes them right for you, Stalky? Is Harriestown High the important connection? What happened there to make you care so much?’ He considered the options, but couldn’t come up with something that could have linked Robbie Bishop and Danny Wade in their schooldays. ‘But that changed,’ he mused. ‘By the time they died, they did have something in common. Rich men, both of them. And the rich are different. So they’d become different. They’d left the rest of Harriestown High in the dirt. They were lucky, you could say. Danny definitely. No skill in the lottery. Just blind luck. But Robbie was lucky too. Right club, right manager. We’ve all seen it go the other way-great talent pissed up against the wall.’ He was struggling and he knew it. Two cases just didn’t yield enough data. It was the hardest thing about his job. The more people who died, the easier it was for him.
So, nothing much to link the victims. What about the murder method? Plant poisons. It was like Dorothy L. Sayers or Agatha Christie. Some village murder mystery. ‘Historically, poisoners were assassins or family members. But now we’ve got guns for the assassins, and forensic toxicology knocked family poisoning on the head a long time ago…So why use it? It’s hard to get your hands on, and getting hold of it leaves a trail. Its only advantage is if you don’t get your kicks out of killing.’ He nodded to himself. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? What you like is not killing, it’s having killed. You like the sense of power but you’ve not got a taste for the dirty work. It’s almost as if you’re keeping your distance. Your innocence. When you left them, they were fine. You don’t have to see yourself as some low-life killer.’ He paused for a moment, lost in thought. ‘You can almost convince yourself you’re giving them a chance. Maybe they’ll be able to beat it, or maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll get lucky. Or maybe their luck’s just run out… And speaking of running out, there are my boys.’ On the screen, the familiar canary yellow shirts were emerging from the tunnel, black bands circling the upper arms of all the players. The Tottenham Hotspur players followed, also wearing black armbands, heads bowed.
The two teams lined up facing each other and Tony edged the volume up in time to hear the commentator say, ‘…for a minute’s silence in memory of Robbie Bishop, who died tragically this week.’
Tony bowed his head and joined the silence. It seemed to pass almost too quickly. Then the crowd roared, the players shuffled their feet and moved into position. Robbie had been formally consigned to memory. Now it was showtime.
