Ten Days (35 page)

She looked across the balcony to Elsie's house. Door shut as it had been for days. Elsie must be in a bad way what with Jayden still refusing to have anything to do with her. Cathy thought about going over. But she was too weary to withstand the accusations she knew would be forthcoming.

Poor Jayden, she thought, although at least by the smile on his face on his return from the market she knew he must have made it up with Mr Hashi. One good outcome she'd facilitated. If only she could be as effective with her own daughter, who was still basically not talking to her.

She drew herself up. She'd try a fresh tack, she decided: be a better mother by fixing the kids a meal.

Back in the kitchen, she clicked on the radio.

‘For all of you who've seen the fire and, if the weathermen have finally got it right, are about to see the rain, that was James Taylor
Fire and Rain,'
the DJ was saying. ‘Next
Let it Rain
– any excuse to re-play Eric Clapton – but before that, in the news, the Home Secretary, Peter Whiteley . . .'

She turned the radio off.

She went to the fridge that had become their makeshift larder. But one for the cultivation of bacteria, it seemed, with everything going off. What a terrible housekeeper she was, to add to her other faults. She set herself to emptying the fridge, separating the rotten from the still vaguely edible. She ended up with a pile to throw away and some limp salad leaves – and she'd recently eaten enough salad to last a lifetime.

She should go shopping. But it was getting late and she no longer felt like cooking. Which did not mean she could not provide.

She went down the corridor, knocked on Lyndall's door and immediately went in.

Lyndall and Jayden had been sitting close together on the floor, although at her appearance they jumped apart.

‘I'm going to order in. What do you fancy? Pizza? Chicken? Curry? Come out and tell me when you've decided and,' looking at Lyndall, ‘there's also something I need to talk to you about.'

They joined her in the lounge, Jayden still smiling and Lyndall sloping in with that sulky expression of hers.

‘So what's it going to be?' Cathy kept her voice deliberately light.

‘Chicken,' Jayden said.

‘Good choice.' She reached for her mobile but then another thought occurred. ‘It's still light. If anything's going to kick off, it'll happen later – if it doesn't rain. Why don't we eat out?'

They both nodded.

‘But before we do,' she said. ‘Something I wanted to say . . .' She paused. She had to find a way of talking to Lyndall but didn't know how she was going to. She tried again. ‘It's about Banji.'

‘I told you.' Jayden was looking not at Cathy but at Lyndall.

Who shook her head.

‘You promised you'd tell her.'

Another silent refusal.

‘What's this about?'

‘Go on. Tell her.'

Lyndall swallowed.

‘Go on. Or I will.'

She'd never seen Jayden this assertive.

Was there something between them, she wondered, and then, this thought driving her to sink down into the nearest seat, could Lyndall, history repeating itself, be pregnant? She wanted and needed to know, and simultaneously did not. She sat trying to calm herself. Waiting.

‘Thing is, Mum.'

She looked down at her lap.

‘Thing is, I know where Banji is.'

7.30 p.m.

A rap at Joshua's door, which opened to reveal a grinning Anil Chahda. ‘We've got him, sir.'

‘Jibola?'

Chahda nodded.

Problem solved – and the coming storm, which was already darkening the sky, might well resolve the rest. ‘Did he give himself up?'

‘We haven't actually laid hands on him yet, sir. But we do know where he is, and we're getting ready to extract him. I sent you an audio file. It should be with you by now.'

There was indeed an email waiting for Joshua with a file attached. He clicked it open and turned up the volume on his laptop.

‘Thing is, Mum,'
he heard. ‘
I know where Banji is.'

‘That's Lyndall Mason's voice,' Chahda said. ‘Gaby Wright confirmed it.'

‘How could you know?'

‘And that's Mrs Cathy Mason.'

‘He had to find a hiding place, so I showed him the warehouse by the canal. The last one they closed. Jayden and I used to play there. I knew about an attic room that's hard to find.'

'We've identified the warehouse,' Chahda said. ‘Gaby's lot had already searched that building, but we've now got hold of the owner and the plans. There is indeed such a room, which the first search must have missed. And we have added confirmation: CI Ridgerton phoned the Rockham station this morning to report a sighting of the man near the canal.'

This morning, Joshua thought, and you didn't tell me, as he heard Lyndall Mason saying,
‘I wanted to tell you, Mum. But he made me promise not to. Said you wouldn't understand.'

‘Understand what?'
Lyndall's mother's voice was raised in anger.

‘Why he did what he did. That's all he'd say.'

Joshua pressed pause. ‘How did you get hold of this?'

‘We installed a listening device.' Another grin, this one triumphant. ‘It was the only way.'

A gamble by Chahda that had paid off but which his boss had expressly forbidden. Chahda must be the rotten apple the PM had been warning of. When this is over, Joshua thought, I'll pack him off in a tumbrel. He pressed play.

‘I
took him food. But today the trapdoor was shut and he wouldn't answer. I'm worried, Mum. He kept saying how there's people after him.'

He stopped the recording. ‘Are there officers already on their way to extract him?'

‘Not yet, sir. We've alerted SC&O19, but, given the disturbances, there's a shortage of trained officers. And of ballistic vests.'

‘You're planning to go in armed?'

‘A precaution, sir, after what we've seen of Jibola's behaviour. And, reading into what Lyndall Mason said, he's also paranoid.'

It's not paranoia, Joshua thought, if people really are after you. ‘Let me know when you're ready to roll.'

8.30 p.m.

The cafe was crowded, the air thick with the aroma of home cooking, and the windows misted by the moisture and from the bubbling pots of food. Not that Lyndall and Jayden seemed to notice. They polished off every morsel of jerk chicken and rice and peas that had been piled on their plates and then shared a third portion, seeming almost to inhale
the food like only the truly starving or the adolescent ever did. And then at last Lyndall's ‘Thanks, Mum' was delivered on an open smile. ‘Sorry I've been such a pig,' followed by a more tentative, ‘Can we go see him now?'

Cathy nodded. She didn't want to, but seeing him, and warning him off Lyndall, was the only way she could think of breaking them both free. She glanced out to where the sky had blackened with the threat of the incoming storm. ‘Let's have some tea,' she said. ‘And wait to see if the rain will pass.'

8.40 p.m.

A rumbling – the heavens growling – and then the clouds that had turned an evening sky into night were cracked open by a blaze of light.

‘Jesus, did you see that?'

That same sound and almost immediately afterwards (the storm must be right above them) a sheet of yellow light seemed to set the sky afire.

‘It's like the Northern Lights.'

Rain had begun to drum down on the roof of their van so that when the sergeant said, ‘Except the Northern Lights won't electrocute you,' he had to shout to be heard. ‘This lot could. When the signal comes, run at a crouch. Heads low and keep a good grip on your weapons.'

More thunder followed by a jagged lightning that seemed to sizzle through the air.

‘That was close.' Joshua was sitting with Anil Chahda in the back of his car as the rain thundered down.

‘It'll work in our favour,' Chahda said. ‘No way Jibola will hear us coming.'

Joshua peered out into the thick darkness. ‘Do the men know that Jibola is one of us?'

‘No, sir.' As thunder rolled again, Chahda, smelling of the musk aftershave he used, leant over to shout, ‘We've kept that information on a strict need-to-know basis.'

‘That'll make them more trigger happy.'

‘They're well trained, sir.'

‘Even so, I don't want Jibola hurt.'

‘Course not, sir. If it can be avoided.' Chahda pressed his watch to
light up the dial. ‘Thirty seconds.' He looked across to Joshua. ‘No point in all of us getting soaked. Why not stay here until it's over?'

‘Oh, I reckon I can withstand a bit of rain.'

‘As you wish, sir.' Chahda opened the door and the rain came blasting in. ‘They're off.'

Ahead, the van doors had been rolled open to let out a line of men who, crouching low, ran towards the warehouse door. The rain was so thick that the darkness had soon sucked them in.

‘Come on.' Joshua was also out and also running. Within seconds he was soaked through.

Another crack of thunder and the sky split, the lightning sending a jagged streak over the running line of men, who, having reached the door, formed themselves into two lines on either side of it. A thud, this time an earthly one, as a battering ram was slammed against the door, which splintered and gave way, so that soon Joshua could see the wraiths of sodden men disappearing into the dark interior.

He followed, registering the hard puffing of Chahda's breath beside him, watching the flash trace of torchlight flitting up the stairs.

‘Watch your step, sir.' This from the officer who'd been posted at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Some of them are really rotten.'

Above them soft voices could be heard calling out, ‘Clear.'

By the time they reached the first floor, the flicker of torches was already on the way up again.

A flash of sheet lightning lit up the cavernous space, illuminating broken windows and a floor littered with crates and bits of furniture, all of them covered with what looked like oil. Joshua wiped a finger over the balustrade, feeling how sticky it was and then, holding the finger up to his nose, smelt not oil but something stickier and more viscous that stank of something rotten. An awful place to hole up in. If Jibola had been in a bad way when he'd got here, he would be much worse now.

Darkness as the lightning faded and those soft calls: ‘Clear.'

‘We think he's up a trapdoor on the floor above,' Chahda said in his ear.

They climbed the last flight of stairs up to the top floor, where they found the men grouped along one wall. One of their number was
standing away from them and using his torch to illuminate what was clearly a trapdoor in the wooden ceiling. At a nod from his sergeant, another pulled at the latch of the door, which opened, letting down a ladder which the officer caught and gently lowered so that it didn't bang, the torch illuminating what should have been a space but wasn't.

‘He's dragged something over the area,' Chahda whispered. ‘That must be what Lyndall Mason meant.'

A moment's confab – how were they going to get up there without alerting Jibola?

‘We'll go in fast,' the sergeant kept his voice so low they had to crowd round him to hear what he was saying, ‘in the hope that the element of surprise will prevent any counterstrike. We need something solid to stand on – the battering ram – and the carbon arc searchlight should blind him for a moment. I will go in first with that; Wilson, you'll be following with your weapon cocked. You others after. Careful if you have to fire: we don't want to lose any of our own.'

No sooner said than prepared. One of the officers got onto the platform they'd built out of crates and stood, waiting. When the next blast of thunder began to roll, he lifted the battering ram, banging at whatever was blocking the opening and shifting it out of the way. As soon as that was done he jumped to one side while his sergeant, light upheld, climbed up the ladder, followed by his second. There was a queue behind, the men waiting to go up, with the first one already halfway when the sergeant's face appeared in space of the open trapdoor. ‘You better come and see this, sir,' he said to Joshua, and then, to his men, ‘Stand down, lads. Stand down.'

8.50 p.m.

With the storm showing no signs of letting up, they decided to brave it. The rain was sheeting down so hard that within minutes of coming out of the cafe all three were soaked. Since no coat any of them possessed would have withstood such a deluge, there wasn't any point in going home and drying off before venturing out again and, besides, since the rain was warm, the wet felt almost welcome.

‘Although if it goes on much longer,' Cathy said, ‘it's going to be as black as pitch.'

Such a quantity of rain had already fallen that the gutters were bubbling with it, and the roads awash. At first they hugged the far sides of the pavements to avoid being splashed, but soon they were so wet it didn't matter. Walking turned into a game of hopscotch as they dodged the vegetables and plastic bags and other detritus that bobbed along with the rivulets of rain that were soon so deep that they took off their shoes and walked on carrying them. Past the High Street, which was empty – no pedestrian in their right mind or, for that matter, rioter would venture out in this unless driven to.

Which Cathy was. ‘No,' Lyndall kept saying and shaking her head when Cathy suggested aborting the expedition. ‘No' and ‘No' again. ‘He needs us.' And so on they went, soaked to the skin and making their way towards the canal. Which, when they got to it, was inky black and heaving with rain.

They crossed the bridge, normally a resting place for drunks who wanted to be left alone to drink, and on to the opposite bank.

‘It's there.' Lyndall's pointing arm was washed in rain. ‘The third in that row.'