'I can see it, and you can see it, what old Herbert's schedule is…All right for him. Damn certain he didn't stop to think of us. Defence grinds on all day, and could have done it, said it, before lunch. Summing up from Herbert should have been this afternoon, but he's doing it tomorrow. So, instead of us going out in the morning and getting the whole thing wrapped up by midday and going home, we're stuck in that God-forsaken place for the weekend.'
Peter was acquiring the mantle of spokesman. Now he was out of his seat and had advanced in the aisle as far as Rob, the foreman…and Rob, Jools realized, was canny enough to see the strength of the wind blowing Peter's sails, and stayed quiet; probably felt the same.
'The legal crowd, they're all finished for the week. The judge is finished, has a nice couple of days at home. The brothers are banged up and aren't going anywhere. It's only us. What a time we're looking at. it'll be a weekend to remember. We're going to be locked inside a damn barracks from Friday evening to Monday morning. Why? Because the lawyers wouldn't hurry themselves, didn't spare a thought for us. Tell me, is anyone happy to be spending three nights and two days in a half-empty army camp?'
Jools thought Peter played to his gallery with skill, couldn't fault him. He had Corenza on side, all scratchy about her lost weekend. Where Peter the Moaner led, they followed with a chorus of dissent. Jools,was far to the rear of the coach and kept quiet, but he glanced round at the detective, saw that the man seemed not to hear the simmerings of revolution in front of him, and had his eyes closed. Vicky was complaining — all flushed in the cheeks, which made her prettier, and her chest bounced, straining the buttons — about a lost pottery class. Jools thought it fun: he knew where he would be and what he would be doing at the weekend, and it would take more than a main battle tank and more than the guard-duty platoon to stop him being there and doing it.
'It's typical. It shows the complete lack of respect they have for us. They can't have a trial without us, but they play their games and do their fancy dress, and we're just the hired help that lets the show go on. They can all have a jolly weekend — but us? We don't matter. I reckon that Rob, as he's our foreman, has to let them know what we think You going to do that, Rob?'
Jools saw their foreman writhe in discomfort. Probably, he thought, Rob dreaded the day the trial finished when his little trifle of status would be snatched away. He didn't know what Rob did — where he peddled his officious pomposity — but he might have been Inland Revenue or local-government housing or perhaps quality control in a factory. But Rob was in a corner, backed in. He wore that serious expression and nodded vigorous agreement.
'Well, go on, man. Do the business. Let them know we're not prepared to tolerate this treatment. We've had our fill of this lot, and that's what you're going to tell them — better than that, tell him. Or am I going to?'
A decisive moment, Jools could see it. The authority and dignity of the foreman was on the line. Back off and he'd lost the authority. Step forward and he maintained the dignity. Jools glanced back again at him. The detective was away, lost in his own thoughts, with his eyes closed, but was not asleep — must have heard each tinkle of complaint. The foreman left his seat, came up the aisle and passed Jools.
He paused, stood awkward, hesitated, then spouted: 'It's Mr Banks, isn't it? Mr Banks, you must be aware that there is deeply held annoyance among colleagues at our being locked up for the weekend at — , 'Tell my guv'nor tomorrow'
'- at this camp. The general feeling is that more concern should have been shown for our welfare and — , 'I don't have the authority to swat a fly without an instruction. See my guv'nor in the morning.'
'- and there is resentment at the inconvenience being heaped on us. As the foreman I am protesting most strongly, and am representing the general view of colleagues, who feel—'
'It's against regulations to stand when the coach is moving. Please return to your seat.'
Bravo. Jools fancied he heard, almost, the hiss of escaping air — deflation. But regulations were the oxygen of a taxman, a housing officer or quality-control management. The foreman shrugged for his audience and returned to his seat, and Jools stole a glance behind him. The detective's eyes were closed — might not have opened them during the exchange — his head was tilted back and a frown furrowed his forehead, as if bigger matters were weighing in his mind than a jury's inconvenience.
He heard the dissent down the aisle, reckoned he'd lanced it but didn't care. In his mind he constructed the letter. In whatever form, he would write it that weekend in his room in the block where the jurors, grumbling, were housed.
Alone, swaying with the motion of the coach and hemmed in by the newspapers covering the windows, he thought it most likely that he would aim for the two lines, handwritten, what was left of his pride intact, and he would hand it to the REMF's outer-office assistant — and he would walk away. He would leave behind him the letter stating, 'After careful consideration, and bearing in mind recent conversations, I am resigning from the Metropolitan Police Service, with immediate effect, Sincerely…' and on the assistant's desk would be his warrant card and his firearms-authorization ticket.
He thought of the short term, and the long term.
Short term, he would clear the bedsit in Ealing and load what he had into his suitcase and bin bags. He would drive them down to the bungalow on the Somerset and Wiltshire border, and dump what he did not need far at the back of his mother's garage…Long term, he might put it all behind him and forget his past, fly to Australia, New Zealand or Canada. He did not know which. Somewhere that had mountains and valleys and isolation. He could imagine the short term, his mother's anxiety at the direction change of his life, and could summon up a picture of the long term, the freedom from burdens — and the coach lurched to a stop.
They were at the barrier by the guard-house.
Banks went forward down the aisle, stood on the step, and the driver opened the door. He spoke to the sentry, saw the motorcycles that had escorted them peel away, and the barrier was raised. He would write the letter at the weekend, put failure behind him…and he would never again go to Isosceles stance and fire a weapon. It was for the best.
'I am not at liberty, even in this company, to divulge the source of this material.' The assistant director was loath to think of the circumstances in which it had been obtained. He had come down from his upper floor to what he liked to call the 'coal face', the open-plan area where a desk head analysed material, then passed taskings to surveillance, police liaison, the Internet watchers and those who trawled the financial records of suspects. His audience, perhaps twenty of them, was young and most were half his age.
'From an operation currently running, we understand that the Saudi citizen Ibrahim Hussein — you are familiar with the biographical details — will detonate himself somewhere in Birmingham, some time on Saturday. I regret this information is sketchy, but it's the way things pan out. That's all I have, all I can give you to work from. As we have done for the last several months, we all have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for a result, a satisfactory one. Thank you.'
He looked around him, hoped he wore an expression of suitable gravity and seniority. A rather bright little thing, a recent recruit from the Asian community in Bradford — working in the section that followed air journeys by Muslim boys from the UK to Pakistan and back — asked whether further intelligence could be expected, and added boldly, 'because this is pretty thin, Tristram, and gives little hope of interception'. He replied gruffly that he hoped for more but could not guarantee it. He had been sifting on the corner of the desk head's table, was shirt-sleeved with his tie loosened. The faces confronting him were grim, set, and he felt the sense of grievance. He slid off the table, was anxious to be gone before they found a mouthpiece. His shoes hit the floor. He gave them a fast smile and was on his way.