She explained the message to Sophie. Charlie and Sam were there already.
‘Highway 61 Revisited,’ she said. ‘Famous Dylan album. If he sees it, he’ll understand. He adds the sixty-one to the seven billion figure and that’s the tablet’s number. He’ll make the call. Whether he can do anything about it, that’s something else altogether.’ Famie glanced at the battery indicator which had just turned red. Nineteen per cent. ‘Gonna need a charger,’ she said.
‘Surprised you didn’t steal one of those too,’ said Charlie.
‘Next time,’ said Famie. ‘But we’ll definitely need one. If Hari Roy has this number, we need the tablet charged. Always.’
‘There’s a shopping centre ten minutes away,’ said Sophie, ‘I’ll go find one.’
Sam put his hand up. ‘I’ll come too. We’ll buy some burner phones while we’re at it.’
With Sophie and Sam gone, Charlie slept. Famie chained the door. Was room 203 of the Coventry Travelrest any safer than her flat? Yes, she thought. Probably. It depended on who was doing the looking. It depended on who was doing the killing. Her and Sam’s phone disconnection was probably, as Sophie had said, the inevitable result of leaving IPS. No work, no work phone. Even so, it troubled her. Another trouble to go on top of the others. I’m sorry for your troubles. Isn’t that what Andrew Lewis had said? Yeah, well. Not as fucking sorry as I am, she thought.
Famie eased her way back on to the bed, propped herself up next to her daughter. She stared at the tablet. How long would nineteen per cent last? Thirty minutes or three hours? She knew it would depend on the age of the tablet and how the battery had been charged but the overwhelming feeling of time running out won the day. She logged on again. Browsing history. Show all.
Eighteen per cent.
She wondered how much anyone’s online reading really revealed about them. Famie took a deep breath. Maybe everything she read would be purely superficial and a waste of precious battery, but in the absence of any other clues, this was all she had. Fighting drowsiness, she hit the keys.
Articles from the world’s press followed one after the other. The latest American presidential hopefuls. Climate campaigners in Canada. Declining law and order in South Africa. Useless, useless, useless, thought Famie. The future of the monarchy in Thailand, an oil scandal in Nigeria, a new chairman for the Bundesbank. All useless. Then three articles about the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA were followed by two on the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey. When that was followed by a CIA analysis of the People’s Liberation Army of Manipur, Famie realized she wasn’t sleepy any more. In all, Famie read fifteen articles about extreme far-left groups around the globe. Some of the organizations she knew, most she did not. The Thieves in Black, Anti State Justice and the Informal Anarchist Federation followed each other in a bloodcurdling parade of ideological ranting, guerrilla warfare and economic sabotage. This, Famie realized, was a thread. She checked the dates. Six weeks before her death, it was clear that Mary Lawson was extraordinarily interested in terror groups of the far left.
Eleven per cent.
With battery drainage seemingly accelerating, Famie was reading faster now. Racing the battery, racing the clock. She developed an eye for spotting the web addresses of the most promising articles. The Earth Liberation Front. The Communist Party of Turkey (Marxist-Leninist). Then came the Antifa movements, and Famie read with particular focus. If the university demonstration tomorrow was calling itself anti-fascist, surely this was the most likely target. All the articles shed light on organizations whose avowed aim was revolution and some of whose methods were violent. Bombs, kidnapping, extortion, torture, rape. All apparently excusable, defendable, desirable in the cause of revolution.
On and on Mary’s reading went. A spate of recovered articles from the 1970s detailed the activities of the Red Army Faction, Baader-Meinhof and the Angry Brigade. Then it jumped to the present day and British police reports of the work of Red Action, Red Front and the Revolutionary Communist Party. People’s wars, paramilitaries, vanguardism, insurrection, oppressors, uprisings, expulsions, assassinations.
Five per cent.
Then came the Islamists. These Famie did know. She skim-read insider accounts of life in every terror group in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Indonesia. There was a terrifying list of their links to radical preachers in the UK. Now the buzzwords were caliphate, pure religion, offensive jihad, kuffar, near enemy and far enemy. Videos of executions and drownings were offered, Famie declined.
Then, by accident, a train timetable. Famie was about to backtrack when she stopped short. Her hands recoiled, pulling back from the screen. ‘You. Are. Joking,’ she whispered. In place of the familiar newspaper fonts and photos, a poorly presented list of arrival and departure times lined up on the screen. She read aloud the words that were making her heart race. ‘Your trains to Coventry,’ she said.
She leant back against the bedstead.
Charlie stirred. ‘What?’ she said.
‘Mary came to Coventry,’ Famie said.
The next http address sealed it. Famie recognized it from their last team meeting in her flat. She clicked the link. The Warwick Boar. The student newspaper. ‘Creating Conversation Since 1973’. And an article by Hari Roy.
‘Mary came to Coventry, and she met Hari Roy,’ Famie said, her voice an awed whisper.
Charlie sat up. ‘What?’ she said again.
‘Mary came to Coventry,’ said Famie, ‘probably met Hari, maybe even hired him.’
‘Hari Roy was working for Mary Lawson?’ Charlie’s voice managed to be scared and admiring in equal measure.
‘Yes,’ said Famie. ‘That’s what it looks like to me. How about that.’
She was sitting back, staring at the screen, when the tablet went black. Out of power. Out of
