Chapter Thirty-Three
I wasn’t in pain. I wasn’t hungry. Or thirsty. Or too hot. Or too cold. And it wasn’t noise that disturbed me. But at three minutes past three in the morning – after less than two hours in bed – my eyes snapped open and I was suddenly wide awake.
For a moment I was tempted to just roll over and wait for sleep to wash over me again. But the words that were dancing around at the back of my mind didn’t want to settle back down. They came from snippets of that last conversation at Thames House. They wanted attention. And they were forming patterns I just couldn’t ignore.
I reached across to my nightstand, released my phone from its charging dock, and dialed Melissa’s number.
“David,” she said, answering on the eighth ring. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then this better be important. I’d only just dropped off.”
“It is. I need you to find something out for me.”
“Can’t it wait till morning?”
“No. I need to know right away.”
“Know what?”
“Do you remember you told me Leckie had foiled an attempt by al-Aqsaba’a to kill the baby of some foreign diplomat?”
“Yes. So?”
“I need to know where the kid is, now.”
“Why?”
“Specifically, if he’s still in London, what school he goes to.”
“Why?”
“What did Leckie’s snout tell you, right before he died?”
“They were planning something that would close down the government.”
“No. That was a rationalisation. A dubious one, pushed through to fit in with Chaston’s questionable logic. You told me the snout actually said, ‘bring down the government.’”
“Which made no sense. No terrorist action could bring down the government. We all agreed on that.”
“Depends what you mean by ‘the.’”
“What?”
“Remember Chaston and the Deputy DG? The misunderstanding about ‘there' meaning the fire station not Parliament?”
“What about it?”
“What if we’ve done the same thing? What if the snout did mean ‘the’ government. Just not ours.”
Melissa didn’t reply.
“And here’s another thought,” I said. “What do babies do?”
“I don’t know,” Melissa said. “I’ve never had one. Cry?”
“They do. But they also grow. And go to school. What if al-Aqsaba’a are coming back for a second attempt on the kid? The kid whose death would bring down a friendly government? Wouldn’t that be more in line with their known M.O. than a grand-scale attack on parliament?”
“Stay where you are,” Melissa said. ”I’ll call you back.”
It took Melissa less than fifteen minutes to ferret out what I needed to know.
“David?” she said, when I picked up. “I hate you. And I have since the moment we met.”
“Really?” I said.
“No. But I’m not happy with you. Do you want to know why?”
“Not particularly.”
“Actually, you do. It’s because of your questions about that kid. It turns out he is still in London. He’s grown big enough to go to school. And he just happens to attend a school in the area served by the fire station where the caesium container ended up.”
“That doesn’t sound like good grounds for hating me.”
“On its own, maybe not. But I brought Chaston up to speed. He told Hardwicke. And they agreed, with al-Aqsaba’a as a common denominator and their past record of targeting the kid, we have to regard him as a viable target.”
“And your problem with that is…?”
“They want the kid under blanket security.”
“Sounds wise. Isn’t he guarded anyway, though?”
“He is, given the past attempt on his life. He attends school under a false name. The Met’s diplomatic protection team is on him 24/7. But they’ve decided that’s not enough, for tomorrow. They want him to have extra cover.”
“That sounds like a good thing, surely?”
“It would be. Maybe. If it wasn’t for one detail.”
“What kind of detail?”
“The extra cover is to be provided by you and me.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Let me think. I’ve been running with this since the beginning. I’ve done all the donkey work. And tomorrow, instead of being in line for a slice of the glory – not to mention the chance to clear my name – will I be at the Palace of Westminster, where the action is? No. A horde of credit-stealing, bandwagon-riding colleagues will be there. And me? I’ll be stuck in a Kindergarten.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Even if you didn’t know the address of the St Ambrose Academy For Boys, it wouldn’t be hard to find your way to the place. Specially in the morning. All you’d have to do is follow the swarm of out-of-place, oversized SUVs that descend on it at dropping-off time.
Parking is more of a challenge, however. Melissa hardly spoke after picking me up at the Barbican and darting through a maze of backstreets in the general direction of Westminster, but as we drew close to the school she started to mutter under her breath about the lack of convenient spaces. The whole area within a quarter of a mile of the gates was either clogged with traffic or taken up with bus lanes, and I knew she wouldn’t want to leave the car on a double-yellow for fear of drawing attention.
“So,” she said, after finally squeezing into a bay around the back of an old telephone exchange. “How are we going to do this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Is Jones coming?”
“No. He called me, earlier. He’s still sick.”
“OK. If it’s just the two of us, we could say we’re prospective parents. We’re moving back from the States, and looking for a suitable place for our charming yet precocious twins.”
“Maybe. But wouldn’t we need an appointment?”
“That’s why we say we have twins. Have you got any idea how much a place like this costs? And with the state of the economy? Do you think they’d turn down the chance to get their hands on two lots of fees?”
“I guess not.”
“It’ll get us through the door, at least. And if you continue acting like Frosty the Snow-Woman we’ll have no problem convincing them we’re married.”
The school was separated from the street by an eight-foot-high wall. It was built from stone, pitted by age and pollution, and covered in places with dark, straggly ivy. But any promise of old-world charm was broken the second you set foot through the gate. A concrete path led diagonally through beds of crushed purple slate towards a door in a single storey, glass fronted corridor that joined a pair of low slung, rectangular buildings on either side.
“Which way?” Melissa said, as she stepped inside. “Can you see any signs?”
“None,” I said. “Shall we toss a coin?”
“No. Let’s just go right. It’s closer.”