Harrison regarded him in silence for a moment. ‘I admit the thought had crossed my mind.’
‘Then it’s time you understood a few home truths.’ He gestured for Harrison to take a chair. ‘This isn’t Belfast and the Home Office doesn’t want it to start looking like it. Over there you get dozens of real bomb alerts every week. Here, until recently, we could go months between major incidents. Plenty of hoaxes and small incidents — animal-rights activists, gangland killings — to keep us busy. But imagine if we took Wheelbarrows on all of these shouts. Using them to search for suspect car bombs etc, it would take for ever. Half the streets of London could be closed down every time the Provos or some prankster made a malicious call. There’d be an outcry from the business and retailing community and as much demand for compensation as if the bloody thing had been for real. And that’s another reason we still keep mostly to hands-on. We can move quicker, assess the threat and, if it is genuine, deal with it while your lot would still be trying to get a Wheelbarrow out the back of your truck. You know what the Criminal Compensation Act costs the taxpayer in a piddling city like Belfast — just imagine the scale of it when applied to London. The bill would run to billions. And even in Belfast or Londonderry you can’t go round blowing up every suspect car, because you know damn well that every scrote who wants a newer model will be phoning up saying his old banger’s been nicked by terrorists. So we certainly can’t do that here. That’s why we stick to the old-fashioned eyeball and hands-on approach.’
Harrison said: ‘That approach killed Jock and nearly took you and Les Appleyard yesterday.’ It was out before he could stop himself; it had been unthinking and unkind, however true it might be.
Al Pritchard regarded him with a long and steady gaze. When he spoke his voice was low and hoarse. ‘That’s why my lads get paid twice as much as yours. It’s our job and, unlike the army, there’s no one to tell us how to do it.’ He picked up his paperknife and pointed it directly at Harrison. ‘And now, because the politicians are running around like headless chickens, they’ll listen to your recommendations and probably implement them in some knee-jerk reaction. Like they have in the past over guns after the Hungerford massacre and those unworkable dangerous-dog laws. If they insist we do things your way, they’ll be playing right into the terrorists’ hands. Because those Irish bastards will soon see what’s happening. And all you’ll have succeeded in doing will be to bring London to a standstill with a tab that’ll have to be picked up by the hapless taxpayer.’
Quietly Harrison said: ‘Al, no one has asked me yet. Until they do, let’s just get on with working together.’
Pritchard lowered the accusing knife slowly. ‘Okay, Tom, lecture over.’ He hesitated, pausing to pick up a folder from his desk. ‘Work together, you say? All right, let’s talk about Seven Dials. A total of three car bombs, two we know about with antihandling devices fitted to the courtesy-light system. Then the one that killed Jock. What d’you think happened there?’
Harrison felt angry, as though Murray’s death was somehow being used to test him in some obscure way. ‘How the hell should I know, Al? Perhaps, he ran out of time, perhaps…’
Pritchard’s eyes were steely. ‘Perhaps what, Tom? You want us to work together. So, based on your much-vaunted knowledge of how AID AN works, what do you think happened? Come on,’ he goaded, ‘give it your best shot. Just between you and me.’
The tension in the atmosphere of the office was suddenly electric. It was almost possible to smell the charged emotions of anger, resentment and sorrow. All simmering under the unrelenting practical and political pressures of the job.
Harrison said slowly: ‘I don’t think Jock Murray just ran out of time. He broke a window to avoid triggering any antihandling device wired to the courtesy light.’ He paused. ‘I think forensics will prove that the device that he initiated had been rigged to an infrared car burglar system placed on the dashboard. As it detected the movement of his hand inside the car…‘He didn’t finish the sentence.
Al Pritchard’s face was immobile, as still and white as a waxwork. ‘What makes you say…?’
His question was interrupted by a telephone call informing him that the press conference would be starting soon.
When he hung up, Harrison said: ‘Because that’s exactly what AID AN did in Belfast three weeks ago.’
Pritchard slid the dossier marked Top Secret across the desk. ‘The forensic evidence on Jock’s bomb from Fort Halstead. You’re absolutely right.’
The words flickered on the screen of Eddie Mercs’s VDU: Some mechanically romantic megabytes are amassing in the RAM of my hard drive.
He leaned back in his chair and munched sensuously on his bacon and tomato roll; it was ten o’clock and unofficial breakfast time for the early shift at the Standard who had been in since seven. Sandwiches, yoghurt cartons and even bowls of cereal were much in evidence amongst the high-tech computer equipment all strictly against the office rules.
After considering for a moment, Mercs tapped a reply into the keyboard of his Coyote 22: What does this mean? and punched it down the line to Casey Mullins on the far side of the editorial floor.
Seconds later her reply came up on his screen: It means my Apple Mac is in love with yours. It doesn’t mean they are bad computers. Let’s meet up like responsible parents and discuss their future before we have the patter of tiny Laptops to contend with. How about you take me to lunch and we talk?
He grinned and wiped a dribble of tomato from his chin. With genuine regret he responded: Sorry nocando. Must attend Scot Yard Confon bomb campaign then riteup.
Can I come too?
No
Pleeeeeeeeeeeese
OK. U talked me into it. Reception in V2 hour.
They met in the vast arboretum lobby at the top of the escalators; as usual, Casey was several minutes late. ‘Sorry, Eddie, I had to finish this stupid article on Starsign Lovers.’ She grinned at him apologetically. ‘I’m afraid it means we can never get married. We’re air and fire — we’d burn out in no time.’
‘What a way to go,’ he said ruefully, and meant it.
Within minutes they were in Casey’s Porsche and racing towards Westminster. ‘Randall gets the car back tonight,’ she said miserably. ‘I’m getting a secondhand Mini, but I’m really too tall for it.’
‘Let me buy you a bus.’
‘Sweetie.’
‘And why exactly do you want to come to this conference? It is definitely not features material, it’s hard news. You’ll be the ruin of me — you hijacked the funeral story yesterday.’
She spun the wheel to avoid a tourist coach that considered it had the right to pull out in front of her. ‘Don’t be greedy, Eddie, it was a shared byline. You know I need just one little Pulitzer Prize and I can name my own price. Don’t stand in my way, you’ll get trampled.’
‘I don’t know how you’re getting away with this!’
‘Because the editor’s got the hots for me.’
‘That I can believe.’
‘And I’m the only one on the Standard who knows anything about bombs.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since yesterday, I gave a lift back to London to one of the bomb-disposal guys. A big shot over from Northern Ireland. SATO.’
‘What?’
‘Senior Ammunition Technical Officer. Your actual disposable bomb man, get it?’
‘That’s sick.’
‘It was his joke. They don’t take themselves too seriously.’ They were nearing Broadway and she began looking for somewhere to park. ‘Honestly, Eddie, I’m just interested in all this on a personal level since Seven Dials and I’ve got a few hours off.