‘I go to the downstairs lavatories.’
Dawson leaned forward and scratched at his ankle. ‘Woof. Dead on. You watch out for the cat that seems to like to bite the shite out of everybody.’
‘Four cubicles there’ll be and I’ll check. If they’re all vacant I go into one and flush.’
‘You make yourself a nice soft blanket of sound.’
‘Stop interrupting.’
‘The old sounds of the hotel’s plumbing overhead.’
‘I unzip the bag that holds the bedlinen and towels. I smooth Vaseline through my eyelashes, my eyebrows. I use bog paper to dab away the excess gloop. I get my tub of hair gel —’
‘Jimmy’s Wet Look, I hope. Supporting Bobby.’
‘And I run some through my hair. Keep the hairs from falling out. If I need to take a crap I take a crap there, downstairs.’
‘Everything’s evidence,’ Dawson said. ‘Remember that, eh?’ He put on a David Attenborough voice. He liked to do that these days, a reference to Ancient Jones and his screaming TV. ‘“Unlike the grey wolf, the spotted hyena relies more on sight than smell —”’
‘Very good, Dawson. You should have your own show.’
‘Already have, more or less. You don’t think this is reality, do you? Now. When you’re back we burn it, Danny. The bedlinen, the clothes, even those nice new shoes. Burn it and forget and do your gardening. They’ll call you an animal, but forget it all. This is more serious than other jobs you’ve done. This is a big wee deal for you. I want everything back, to burn. I want you back, Pinkie, for the hero’s welcome.’
‘Pinkie?’
Dawson hurled a stone. Toddler wandering nearby. Mother shot a disapproving glance. Dawson dipped his head and said, in a low voice, ashamed for maybe the first time in his life, ‘Carry on then, carry on.’
‘I put the gloves back on and I go upstairs.’
‘The lift, I suppose?’
‘Stairs. Put my sheets over their sheets, on the bed. Change the pillowcases.’
‘And you stay the night, wait for Patrick. And when Patrick’s there …’
‘Finalise plans. Fire exits. Intelligence.’
‘And the last day of your stay.’
‘We do the job.’
The 555 timer.
The 470K ohm resistor.
The 5m ohm resistor.
The PNP transistor.
A poetry even to the grimmest of things. Everything given its beautiful due.
He would unwrap the slab of Semtex from its wax paper. He would pop the bath panel. He would set the timer, bury the bomb, and they’d get themselves back home.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘When Patrick arrives your thoughts stop. You do whatever he tells you to do.’
Stones protesting under Dawson’s arse. Looking at Dan with new energy now. Speaking in a rich warm voice, a kind of incantation. ‘The Lord Chancellor,’ he said. ‘The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The Chief Whip, the git, the slimy perv. The Minister without Portfolio. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Fuckery. The Secretaries of State for the Home Department, for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for Defence, for Education and Science, for Employment, for Energy.’ He coughed. ‘For Environment.’ He coughed again. ‘For Health. Trade and Industry. Transport. The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister. The Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales and for good old Northern Ireland.’
They listened to the sea.
‘I know. I’m ready.’
‘Are you, though? There might be extra days, Dan. When it’s planted, we might send Paddy home, and ask you to stay extra days.’
‘No. Pointless.’
‘Info. We’ll keep in touch. You’ve got the pager, haven’t you? If a guy’s got an electrical business, he needs one of those these days.’
‘I’m not sleeping in that room while the thing’s maturing under the bath.’
‘It’ll be meditative.’
‘Dawson.’
‘Like a fine little cheese. But look, there might be no need. Depends on whether we need to keep an eye, find out more about the Iron Vagina’s movements, make adjustments to our Plan B before you get back to Belfast, doesn’t it?’
‘And the Plan B would be …’
Dawson grinned. ‘You’ve got to picture it, Dan. The result. Focus on that. Build a little moat around yourself. Imagine this little city burning.’
‘It’s not a city, it’s a town.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well then,’ Dawson said. ‘Let’s call the whole thing off.’ He looked up at a girl in a short skirt walking by. ‘It’s like Belfast could be, this place is. But with a better class of quim. You’re rehearsed?’
‘I’m prepared.’
‘It’s a long old timer, Danny. Four weeks a-ticking. I’m trusting you and Paddy.’
Dan said again that he was prepared. It was true. He really was. He felt that if a bullet was going to hit him now it was coming from a gun that had already been fired.
But then: there’s always the unexpected. That’s the real juice of life. He wasn’t prepared for the embarrassment and self-reproach he’d feel when, departing from the script, he’d hear himself asking the receptionist which room they’d put Thatcher in. She might remember that. And he wasn’t prepared, either, for the way that, looking at her skin unspoiled by make-up or injury, he’d sense within that receptionist girl not arrogance, not ignorance, not the hoped-for signs that she liked to serve the ruling elite. The way he would see only an openness to life, and a need to be liked. She would blink a lot. She would touch her hair. He liked the weary belligerence that darkened her face each time she put pen to paper. She was an uncertain and determined person, and in that uncertainty and determination he was surprised to find something he recognised. He saw it for an instant and then forgetfulness came, affording him its useful distance.
Who’d be there in the early hours of 12 October when the bomb, on its long delay timer, would explode under the bath? Couple of night porters, probably. That’s all.
Twenty-four days,
Six hours,
Six minutes.
A poem by Daniel in the lions’ den.
V
WITH PATRICK IN the bathroom of 629. You know the moment will stay. The blood shining in your veins, the room alive. Ready to begin your work.
The lino felt oddly liquid under his hands. The press of it through rubber gloves. Objects arranged around them looked like floating debris. Things that were shipwrecked, lost.
Patrick’s gloves were old, a superstitious thing. One forefinger had split a little at the tip. Patrick had black tape wound around it. In that black tape there was truth. They had planned this, rehearsed. They were not here on impulse.
The 555 timer. The 470K ohm resistor. The 5m ohm resistor. The PNP transistor. You could convince yourself you were making any number of contraptions. The mere fact you were making anything at all helped grant you part of the distance you needed for the job. In the midst of creation you couldn’t envisage the myriad ways in which your work might destroy or be destroyed. The electrolytic. The capacitor breadboard. The jumper wires, the battery.
What sometimes came to mind when he was working on a device was a day in his childhood when he’d built a bookcase. Laying out pieces of paper with his father, screws and spanners and nails, screwdrivers and hammers and cold beers with beads of coolness on the cans. It didn’t matter that the bookcase, once built, held only four or five books and a load of worthless tat: candlesticks, crystal dogs, paperweights; items from his mother’s collection of clutter. The point was to build the thing, to have it there in the room. The bookcase cast a shadow across the mantelpiece most mornings. It pitched photographs and wilted plants into blackness.