‘You can’t know for certain,’ said Whelan, who was pretty sure that in this instance you could.
‘No, my days are numbered. But you know what? You catch these murdering swine on my watch, and that’ll do me, as swansongs go. Then I think I’ll buy a shed. Write my memoirs.’ He checked his frontage again; seemed to accept there was no way he was losing three pounds in the next thirty minutes, and nodded. ‘Interesting times, Claude. Good meeting.’ Then he left.
Whelan swallowed fragments of mint, and checked his teeth with his tongue. Not been my finest few days, he thought. Jaffrey, by now, would be lawyered up, but he’d know his career was over, his election lost. And that wasn’t much of a result, not for the folk of the West Midlands. He’d have been a good mayor, and what had got in his way hadn’t been greed or hatred or any of the myriad temptations of public office, but his love for a brother who’d have been better off incinerated by that missile. Or maybe not love: maybe loyalty. You didn’t have to love somebody to remain true to them. Who knew if the reverse also held?
As for Dennis Gimball, whatever his failings, what Whelan himself had done was unconscionable: used a harmless activity to bring pressure on the man. God knows, thought Claude: I’m one to talk. But there it was. He had a brief, and he was doing what he could to fulfil it. There’d be casualties, because there always were, but there was also a higher agenda, and it was his duty to pursue it. If he expected forgiveness from those he’d wronged, he’d not have lasted this long.
He had other problems too, of course. Sometimes, you had to make sure your own back was covered: what Diana Taverner would call London Rules.
Which meant the show trial the PM wanted wasn’t going to happen, for a start.
Whelan left the building, reaching for his phone. There’d be more armed soldiers in London’s streets this afternoon than at any time since the last war, and his job right now was to make sure they all had the same instructions. But first, he wanted a swift word with his wife. Her voice always fell on his ears like a kind of forgiveness. And he had a lot to be forgiven for right now.
They parked some miles short of their destination, and ate what food they had left: some congealing noodles from an icebox whose catch didn’t work. Danny felt a lurking foulness on his tongue, and at the same time savoured this experience: a working mouth; a body receiving nourishment. There would not be many more meals, perhaps.
Shin did not appear to feel the same way. The first mouthful, he spat into a handkerchief; the rest he left.
There were different ways of being a warrior, Danny knew. But Shin knew none of them. Shin was a coward, and deep in his belly recognised this. It was why he could not eat now. It was why he had let the girl live.
That in itself, Danny could forgive. It was an error and a betrayal, but it was a forgivable weakness to feel pity for a woman, and if this had been Shin’s only fault, Danny would have taken no pleasure in seeing him die for it. But in letting her go free Shin had put the mission at risk, and in lying about it afterwards had shown contempt for Danny and An and Chris. So when Shin died, Danny would look him straight in the eye and make sure he knew that Danny would piss on his corpse, and burn it in a ditch.
And if they survived this final assault, he would go looking for Kim, and put an end to her too. Because this had been part of their mission, and no part could be left unfinished.
An looked at his watch. ‘Four hours,’ he said. Like Danny, he had put on the same scrappy uniform he had worn at Abbotsfield; like Danny, he now carried a revolver in a holster at his waist. There would be no mingling within crowds when the hour came. They would arrive like furies, in a storm of war.
‘It sounds quiet,’ Shin said hopefully.
‘Quiet or not. We go in four hours.’
‘We should send someone out first. To make sure our approach is clear.’
‘You are tying yourself in knots,’ Danny told him. ‘You are like a dog leashed to a kennel. You bark when there are noises. You bark when there are none.’
‘If we are to succeed, we must proceed cautiously,’ Shin said. ‘And we go at my command, not yours,’ he added, looking at An.
Danny said, ‘You are scared.’
‘No more than you.’
‘I am not frightened,’ Danny said.
It was true. He was something, he wasn’t sure what – elevated, perhaps; in expectation of glory – but he wasn’t frightened. What came next, even if it included his death, would be a heroism not offered to many. He would be fulfilling the Supreme Leader’s vision, and his name would burn like an everlasting candle. Few futures had been offered to him, but this one he would seize.
Shin, though, would cower from any future more dangerous than a putrefying noodle.
‘You let the girl go,’ Danny said now.
‘I killed her.’
‘You lie.’
Shin said to An, ‘He is a fool,’ but his voice shook.
‘Did you hear that?’ Danny asked. ‘He knows I know. We all know. He let the girl go.’
‘That is enough,’ said An.
Chris said, ‘You let her go? You should not have done that.’
‘He endangered the whole mission,’ Danny said.
‘I did not endanger the mission!’ Shin shouted.
His words rang round the inside of the van, as if a stone had been thrown.
Danny said, ‘Before you let her go. Before you disobeyed your orders. Did you tell her what we planned next?’
‘I told her nothing.’
‘But you let her go.’
‘I disobeyed no orders. I am in charge!’
‘You are not worthy of command.’
‘Who are you to say—’
‘At Abbotsfield, you fired wild. You shot up the sky. You killed a chicken coop.’
‘At Abbotsfield, I did my duty,’ said Shin, his voice trembling with fury.
‘And what about today? Can we trust you today?’
‘Can we trust you?’ Shin demanded. ‘I am in charge here. When I speak, I speak for the Supreme Leader!’
Chris said, ‘I am worried that you let the girl go.’
‘Enough,’ said An.
Danny said, ‘When we set out, when we go to complete our mission. What will you do this time? Will you hide behind a dustbin? Will you throw your hands up and surrender?’
‘This will all be in my report!’ said Shin. ‘It is you who’s the traitor!’
Danny looked at An. ‘He endangers us all.’
‘I am in charge!’
‘Who is to say what he told the girl? Already they might be coming for us.’
‘You are a traitor,’ Shin told him. ‘You break ranks. You spit on the Supreme Leader himself.’
‘Enough,’ An said again.
‘Yes, enough,’ said Danny. He looked at Chris, then at An. ‘He is not to be trusted. If we are to complete our mission, we must do it without him. He will betray us all.’
‘Liar!’ screamed Shin.
An took his gun from its holster and shot Danny in the face.
Once the echo died away, he said to Shin, ‘The Supreme Leader put you in charge. To question that is to question Him.’
Shin nodded dumbly.
‘We go in four hours,’ An said, and put the gun down, and resumed eating noodles.
15
NOON COMES WITH BELLS on, because this is London, and London is a city of bells. From its heart to its ragged edges, they bisect the day in a jangle of sound: peals and tinkles and deep bass knells. They ring from steeples and clock towers, from churches and town halls, in an overlapping celebration of the everyday fact that time passes. In the heat, it might almost be possible to see their sound travel, carried on the haze that shimmers in the middle distance. And in time with the bells, other devices strike up: clocks on corners and hanging over jewellers’ premises strike the hour in their staggered fashion, all a little behind or a little ahead of the sun, but always – always – there’s one single moment when all chime together. Or that’s what it would be nice to pretend; that twice a day, around midnight and noon, the city speaks as one. But even if it were true, it would be over in a moment, and the normal cacophony re-establish itself; voices arguing, chiding, consoling and cracking jokes; begging for ice cream, for lovers to return; offering change and seeking endorsement; stumbling over each other in a constant chorus of joy and complaint, bliss and treachery; of big griefs, small sorrows, and unexpected delight. Every day is like this one: both familiar and unique. Today, like tomorrow, is always different, and always the same.