‘Is Charlie OK? Where’s Sophie?’
‘They’re fine, Famie,’ he said. ‘Charlie’s OK, Sophie’s OK. In the pizza place back on Cuckoo Lane. I was there too, but in the end …’ His eyes filled. ‘Jesus, Famie, it’s good to see you. We heard the shooting, saw the ambulances and, well … Charlie was going crazy – as you would if your mother was in extreme danger. Hunter was being taken to an ambulance but she and Espie here got me in.’ He looked up. ‘So that’s Hari Roy. Is he OK?’
‘He’s OK,’ said Famie, ‘and he killed Amal Hussain too. That’s him over by the pillar.’
And suddenly Famie stopped. ‘Wait,’ she said, holding on to Sam’s arm.
‘Wait for what?’ said Sam.
Famie was counting. Lines. Attackers. Bodies. Then the faces of 22 May.
‘Hari can’t leave,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Hari can’t leave,’ she said again.
And from somewhere in the cathedral, echoing, reverberating and difficult to place, the sound of a mobile phone ringing. Could be coming from anywhere.
89
THE RINGING STOPPED. Winstanley was with Hari, helping him to his feet. Famie ran over.
‘Wait, wait. Shut the doors. Hari can’t leave.’
The sergeant didn’t look up. ‘He’s leaving now. He needs to be in hospital. Two of my men will go with him. He’s safe.’
Famie stepped closer. ‘No, he’s not,’ she said. ‘And I can tell you why. Give me another twenty seconds.’
Winstanley looked up now. ‘OK. Go. You’ve got twenty.’
She took a deep breath. She hoped her thinking was sound. ‘How many attackers have you got? Dead or accounted for?’
‘We have seven. Six dead, one in cuffs. Hari here makes it eight.’
‘That’s wrong,’ she said.
‘I was told eight came in. That was from DC Hunter’s call.’
‘And from my counting,’ said Famie. ‘But Hussain arrived separately. With the twins and the grandmother. So that’s nine.’
‘Nine is right,’ said Hari.
‘So,’ said Famie. ‘Talk fast, Hari. Who were you investigating?’
‘I was recruited by Mary Lawson to go undercover with a small cell of far-left revolutionaries. Radicalized by jihadists but secular. They were planning extreme violence. They think Britain is ready for revolution. They’re totally off-grid. No emails, websites or messaging. May twenty-two was part of it. This is – was – part of it.’
‘So if one of them has escaped, Hari’s role will be exposed and he and his family are right back in danger. You need all nine. Hari can’t leave until then.’
Winstanley got it. ‘Come on,’ he said to Hari. ‘We got ’em all lined up. Tell us who we haven’t got.’ He beckoned a colleague who came running. ‘No one in or out till I say.’ The man nodded, ran off.
Somewhere a phone rang again. Six rings and stopped.
Hari, Famie, Sam and Winstanley walked to the font under the kaleidoscope window. Six bodies. Hari walked the line. He identified Hussain, Teeth, Kamran, Binici, Gregor and Red Head. All dead. A cuffed and sedated Collins was on a stretcher with medics who were keen to leave. So that left Tattoos.
‘The guy who isn’t here is heavily tattooed,’ said Hari. ‘Six two. Muscular, white. Didn’t speak much. I’d guess eastern European. Fast. Dangerous. Best I can do, sorry.’
Winstanley nodded. ‘It’ll do.’ He reached for his radio, snapped out the orders. Within seconds, a line of police ran in front of the glass wall. The cathedral was sealed.
The mobile phone again, closer now. Winstanley was annoyed. ‘Whose bloody phone is that?’ he snapped. The sound was still bouncing around but it was obvious to Famie now that it was just metres away.
Hari, closer to the bodies, pointed at one. ‘It’s here,’ he called. ‘It’s Gregor’s.’
All the bodies were lying in spectacular pools of light. The kaleidoscope window was throwing its blues and greens directly on to the dead. Gregory’s three-quarters head had turned a vivid mauve. Winstanley crouched in front of Gregor. He felt in the dead man’s trouser pocket. Combat-style, single button. Winstanley opened the pocket, removed the vibrating phone.
The screen identified the caller with the letter ‘I’. Winstanley hit the green button, then speaker. Stood back. Famie, Hari and Sam stepped closer. Sam crouched. The phone’s speaker hummed with life and background noise. The caller was waiting for the receiver to speak. The phone waited for the cathedral. The cathedral waited for the phone. Winstanley, Hari, Famie and Sam all stared at it. Eventually some words. Echoey, spoken at distance into a speakerphone.
‘You need to tell me what’s happening. It’s on the wires.’
Famie got it in a second. Then Sam’s horrified expression confirmed the evidence of her own ears. Famie blanched, hands in front of her mouth.
‘Well?’ said the voice.
Sam stepped forward, ended the call. He stared at Famie. ‘Holy fuck,’ he said.
‘I take it you know the voice,’ said Winstanley.
Famie swallowed twice. ‘That,’ she said, ‘was Andrew Lewis. The IPS bureau chief.’
90
THE TATTOOED MAN was Tomas Beres, a thirty-one-year-old former policeman from Miskolc, Hungary. When he had been dismissed from the service for excessive violence, his brother Gregor had recruited him to the Hungarian Workers Party. He was a willing convert, convinced his country had been captured by capitalism and Jews, then destroyed by the recession, capitalism and Jews. The Beres brothers had campaigned briefly to push the party to a more revolutionary stance but, quickly disillusioned, had quit both the party and the country. Gregor and Tomas had drifted around the fringes of European far-left politics, occasionally taking jobs as hired muscle. A succession of robberies, then the assassination of a troublesome Catholic, centre-right mayor in Poland, brought them to the attention of Russia’s FSB. There was some work, they were told, that it was better for Russia to stay out of. They had stayed as their low-rent hitmen and agitators for eighteen months before meeting Amal Hussain. They had no truck with Islamist
