Their second morning there dawned courtesy of an early bin lorry. They were both showered and dressed by six a.m.
At Famie’s suggestion, Sophie had fired off an email to explain her absence from work. It said she was ‘seeking support counselling’ and asked for compassionate leave.
‘How long till breakfast is served?’ she asked.
‘A whole hour,’ said Famie. ‘Which means it’s time for more shortbread.’
She reached for the replenished tray and threw a wrapped biscuit at Sophie, keeping one for herself.
‘So here we are,’ she said, ‘two journalists, one retired, one pregnant, on the run. Holed up in the glamorous Southgate Travelodge and eating the classic breakfast of the hungover traveller. I can’t go home because reporters are stalking me. You’ve left home to avoid the same reporters stalking you. We are both victims of a bastard prick womanizer who happens to be dead. He is also the father of your baby.’
‘If I choose to have it,’ added Sophie.
‘If you choose to have it,’ repeated Famie. ‘You met the bastard prick womanizer’s terrorist brother a number of times but haven’t told the police.’
‘Let’s try BPW for short,’ said Sophie.
‘OK,’ said Famie. ‘And neither of us has told the police about the BPW’s laptop which has compromising photos of both of us.’
‘And Mary.’
‘And poor Mary. And the other women.’
‘Which we might delete, even if they’re evidence of some kind.’
‘Yup. Apart from that, it’s all good.’
Famie finished the shortbread.
‘You missed out the Telegraph,’ said Sophie.
‘Ah, correct,’ said Famie. ‘We are waiting for a communication from a weirdo who leaves messages for me. Either on my car or in the post. Or maybe in the bloody Daily Telegraph.’ She took a breath. ‘Is that it?’
‘That’s it,’ said Sophie. ‘Let’s go find a newsagent.’
They found a twenty-four-hour supermarket that sold them a paper and a greasy-spoon café that sold them breakfast. Two portable fans were already working hard blowing hot air, fine carbon particles and frying pan fumes over the handful of early customers. Famie and Sophie perched around a Formica-topped table with large plastic ketchup and mustard bottles. Seth Hussain’s laptop was in a drawstring bag on a third chair. A small, tinny radio played a country song so loud it was unrecognizable. The clientele was all male. Two read a tabloid paper, the other three stared at their phone screens. None of them looked up.
Over fry-ups and stewed coffee, they found the Classifieds. There was no doubting which message was for Famie. This one was in capital letters. Famie shivered as she read it.
FREAKS ARE REVOLUTIONARIES
AND REVOLUTIONARIES ARE FREAKS.
She showed Sophie, who read it aloud. ‘Another quote. Must be.’ She tapped the keys on her phone. ‘There.’ Sophie held up the screen. Large green letters, italicized, low-res: ‘A declaration of a state of war. Communiqué number one. From the Weather Underground.’
‘Them again,’ said Famie.
She took the phone. The document was dated 1971. There were thirty-four lines, the words and lines double-spaced. Three were italicized. The freaks line was one. ‘Tens of thousands have found that protest and marches don’t do it’ was another. ‘Within fourteen days, we will attack a symbol or institution of Amerikan injustice’ was the last.
‘America with a “k”,’ said Sophie. ‘What’s that about?’
Famie shrugged. ‘It’s radical, they’re hippies, it’s the seventies, who knows. The only thing that matters is this. I’ve been communicating with someone like we are still in the seventies. As though email and texting were never invented. So either this is all bullshit and I’m being trolled, in a very seventies way, or there’s another story out there and no one is reporting it. Not even close.’
‘Who’ve you told?’
‘Well Sam and Tommi came to Mary’s funeral with me, so they saw the first note. They know. And I told Andrew Lewis and the coppers. For all the good that did.’
Sophie got coffee refills. This time she was noticed. A large man in a stretched white football top looked up from his paper, his eyes following her to the counter and back. He clocked Famie staring at him and returned to his paper.
‘What?’ said Sophie.
‘Nothing,’ said Famie. ‘Another BPW probably.’
They drank their coffee. Sophie winced. ‘Shit coffee but it’s working. I’m waking up.’ She tapped the newspaper. ‘So what’s the other story then?’ she said. ‘What’s the story no one is reporting?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Famie, ‘I don’t know. But in the same way that generals always fight the last war not the new one, journalists often write the old story not the new one. When the Oklahoma bomb went off in ’95, everyone assumed it was foreigners who were responsible. TV news channels were full of stories about investigators looking for men described as being Middle Eastern in appearance who had driven away from the building shortly before the blast. But it was a homegrown terrorist that did it. A white American guy. Here we’re looking at Islamists and Russians and organized crime and maybe that’s right, but maybe our freak, our revolutionary, is telling us something else.’
‘Telling us what?’ said Sophie. ‘That they’re going to attack a symbol of American injustice? That they’ve declared war?’ Her tone suggested scepticism.
Famie chased the final crumbs of fried bread around her plate. ‘Sure. Why not?’ she said. ‘A declaration of war can take any number of forms. This is one bat-shit crazy world we’re in. Why shouldn’t it get any crazier?’
28
6.34 a.m.
THE STUDENT LAY on his
