‘I didn’t, but I’m not surprised.’
‘I pick up that she still loves you, y’know. Despite you being the biggest jerk this side of Birmingham. I think she regrets the hastiness of the divorce.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ Henry sighed, a melancholy mist beginning to envelope him. ‘But it’s over now. Separate lives and all that. She has a new boyfriend.’ The last word was said with a sneer of contempt.
‘Had a new boyfriend,’ Donaldson corrected him. ‘Ditched him.’
Henry digested this titbit.
‘Look, H, I gotta lay it on the line and hope you won’t be offended by this.’ Donaldson cleared his throat. ‘I’m here to see you for two reasons: one is professional and I’ll come to that soon; the other is personal. When Kate learned I was coming north she specifically asked for me to deliver a message to you, one for you to think about.’
Henry’s throat constricted and went very dry. His stomach churned, and it wasn’t with wind.
‘She wants you to ring her, see her, contact her somehow — but make contact.’
‘To what end?’
‘She wants to talk things through, sort things out,’ Donaldson said quietly. ‘She misses you, the girls miss you. Their lives are all upside down without you. . maybe there’s a way ahead.’
Henry swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘I’ve given her too much to forgive.’
‘Speak to her, Henry,’ the American urged, ‘can you say you’re happy here?’ Donaldson flashed his hands around the room. ‘I mean it’s — ’ He struggled to find adequate words. ‘OK but not exactly home from home.’
‘Yeah, I get the picture.’ Henry stopped him.
‘And if you still have any feelings left for Kate, if there’s any chink of light there for her, you owe it to yourself and her to talk. Just talk — you never know what might come of it.’ Donaldson slapped his thighs and sat upright. ‘Here endeth the lesson. I now wish to turn to more pressing, professional matters.’
The heavy key clunked in the lock on the cell door and turned the bolt back.
Kit Nevison, laid out on the plastic mattress on the bench-bed, opened his eyes and sat up, wiping his face on the rough blanket.
‘OK, Kit, how’re you feeling?’ PC Standring asked.
Nevison had been asleep. It had been short, deep and untroubled, made all the better by the methadone which was now well into his blood stream. He was dithery, and feeling weak, but otherwise on a fairly even keel. He twitched his shoulders in response to the officer’s question, unable to get his brain to engage his mouth to speak.
‘Time for court.’
Nevison grunted something and swung his legs off the bed.
‘Can you fold the blanket, please?’
Nevison complied. As he carried out the instruction he was able to utter a sentence, ‘What d’you think’ll happen to me?’
Standring grinned wickedly. ‘Put it this way, Kit — you assaulted some poor guy in a club with a broken glass, you slashed open a cop’s face and you held a solicitor hostage. You are obviously a danger to society, so what d’you think’ll happen?’
‘’Aven’t got much chance, have I?’
‘No, probably not,’ said Standring. ‘Still, stranger things have happened.’
The conversation had moved on, but what Donaldson had said to Henry about Kate lingered in his mind. He had to concentrate hard on what the American was saying to keep his thoughts from drifting back to her.
‘I didn’t get a chance to talk to you in as much detail as I would have liked,’ Donaldson explained to Henry. He laid a briefcase on his lap, clicked open the catches but did not lift the lid. ‘I told you about the bomber operating across the States, if you recall.’
‘New Offender Model Terrorist,’ Henry nodded.
‘You were listening,’ Donaldson said, impressed.
‘I’ve read about him in the papers — big spread in the Sunday Times recently. I’ve got my plans to distribute photos and some warning posters to the gay bars tonight.’
‘Yeah — that’s good. One of the things I wanted to share with you was the up-to-date intelligence on this guy, but I was told not to by FB in case of panic — but I’m gonna tell you anyway because I think you should know. I trust you not to blab.’
Henry sat up. ‘Sounds interesting.’
‘It is,’ Donaldson said wearily, ‘and you’ll probably understand why we really want people to be on their guard this week. One thing the newspapers haven’t yet picked up is that the bombs used for the four bombings in Europe in the last two months were all built by the same person. It’s pretty hot news and we’ve only just put it together.
‘All the bombings are claimed by right-wing groups. Two in Germany, one in France and one in Spain. All were targeted at minority communities and all took place either immediately before or during major political conferences. It’s only now that the scientific side of things has been linked together that it shows that the bomb-maker is the guy from the States.’
‘You’re saying your man has gone international? He’s offering or selling his services to right-wing organisations across the world?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying, though he’s probably doing it for free or at cost price. These organisations don’t have a lot of money to spend on freelance assassins.’ Donaldson opened his briefcase and removed a large envelope. ‘Here are some photos of the damage and injury he’s caused.’ Granite-faced he handed the package across to Henry who shuffled the photographs out onto the coffee table. They were vivid images of bomb scenes across America. Full-colour death and destruction.
The devastation was incredible. As ever, Henry was astounded by the extent of damage that such small amounts of explosive could bring about. Whole building fronts had been blown out and destroyed, the insides of buildings ripped out. The horror was unthinkable. Henry shook his head in disbelief.
One series of photographs showed CCTV footage of an explosion. First there was a still of the street in question going about its normal, day-to-day business. The time in one corner of the frame showed 18.03.30. Next there was a massive fireball bursting out of a bar frontage. Time: 18.03.30. Then a raging fire and dense smoke filling the street: 18.03.31. Then just black smoke and devastation: 18.03.32.
‘Two people died in that one,’ Donaldson pointed out. ‘Eight injured.’
Two deaths, two seconds, Henry thought.
The next pictures were of bomb victims. Henry did not want to see these because they chilled his blood, yet at the same time he found them fascinating and revolting. He sifted slowly through them, a testament to a calculating murderer. The devastation that could be caused to a human body was awful in the extreme.
‘Not nice,’ he said in understatement. ‘Who’s claimed responsibility?’
‘No one, which is where the lone terrorist theory comes in. However, all the right-wing terrorist groups thoroughly approve.’
Henry gave him the photographs back. ‘You think this guy might be in town?’
‘There’s no firm intelligence,’ Donaldson admitted, ‘but if you look at the MO of the last four bombings in Europe — high-level government conferences and an attack on a minority group — it’s a worrying possibility. If nothing happens, great. Let’s all breathe a sigh of relief.’
‘Well, thanks for that. .’ Henry stretched. He needed to get back into his pit. ‘It has been good to see you, pal.’
Donaldson hesitated. ‘There is one more thing.’ He slid the photographs back into his briefcase and took another envelope out. ‘If this guy is in the country and he does hit us, I want to catch the bastard if I can.’ There was venom in his voice. He tapped another set of photos out of the envelope and offered them to Henry.
Henry looked at the top one, then quickly up at Donaldson.
‘I want him bad, because he killed an old friend of mine.’
Another blood-soaked Technicolor photograph of two bodies. Both male, lying side by side in a pool of deep, almost black, blood. Both had massive gunshot wounds. Henry was transfixed by the image.