A Week in December (38 page)

The four men gathered round beneath the eye of Steve and Salim.

Hassan inspected the red-felt outlines of Collingwood, Beardsley, Arkell ... He tried to be businesslike and cool, but a question kept shaping itself in his mouth. He was glad it wasn't him but quiet Yorkshire Seth who finally spoke.

'So ... Are you saying we're attacking a hospital?'

'Yes.'

'I ... I ...'

Seth seemed unable to continue.

None of the others spoke. Perhaps, Hassan thought, by not acknowledging that there might be an issue, Steve and Salim were hoping to kill any hesitation at birth. They merely gazed at Seth.

Eventually, Steve spoke. 'It's an ideal target. It ticks all three boxes. News impact. Density of population. And third, though this is less important, scarcity of Muslim victims. You may or may not know that the Muslim population is under-represented in hospitals. There are no alcohol-related illnesses, fewer obese people with diabetes and so on. The figures are even better in psychiatric care. As far as density of people is concerned, it's not as good as the Tube, but security on the Underground is now so tight that it's become impossible. For news impact a hospital is even better than the transport system. Personally, I don't feel that Muslim presence or absence is of great concern considering that any believer who dies will be assured of his place in paradise. But there were some people who felt uneasy about the Edgware Road Tube bomb going off in such an Arab area, where so many passers-by were likely to be Muslim. All clear?'

'Yes,' said Seth. 'But ... You know ...'

'No, I don't.'

'For fuck's sake,' said Gary, the ex-Hindu. 'If we're trying to build a just world by undermining what is unjust, what difference does it make if someone's having their appendix out?'

'I know, but--'

'Having a sprained ankle doesn't make them any less a part of the
Jahiliyya
.'

'I just ... No, you're right.'

'You're not thinking some
kafir
shit about "fair play" or something, because--'

'No, no, stop it. I understand. Stop it. I'm sorry I mentioned it.'

When the silence had been left for about twenty seconds, Steve said, 'All right. Four bombs. You number from one to four. One, two, three, four.' He prodded them each in the chest with a number. 'Now we'll look at the photographs of the interior. Memorise them.'

Finn was sitting at the kitchen table in the basement, shaking wildly. On the floor were shards of broken crockery, where he had thrown cups and saucers round the room, screaming at his mother, screaming at invisible tormentors in his just-broken voice. Vanessa, with a throbbing shin where he had kicked her, had her arm round him and was trying to make him eat some yoghurt and cereal while they waited for Dr Burnell.

Vanessa stroked Finn's hair back from his forehead with her spare hand and murmured comforting words. He seemed, for the moment, to have pulled back from the edge of violence.

'It'll be all right, darling, it'll all be all right.'

She had no idea what 'it' was, but felt profoundly that it was her fault. She had let Finn live as he chose because he seemed to like it that way and she didn't want to be intrusive - forever knocking on his door or nagging. So she had thought. Now as the child trembled in her arms she could see that she had left him alone because trying to understand him had been too difficult: teenage heart-to-hearts required too much bracing of herself, too much tension, too much effort to make contact with the boy who still existed beneath the gravelly, spiked exterior; too much time away from the cool wines of Burgundy and the TV remote control.

The front doorbell rang and she heard Marla go to answer it. She ran upstairs to the hall herself.

Burnell was a youngish man who had recently joined an established private practice in Arundel Gardens. Although he could be offhand and less sympathetic than his older colleagues, Vanessa liked him because he prescribed her powerful sleeping pills without question.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he examined Finn, taking his pulse, shining a torch into his eyes.

'So, tell me what happened.'

'I heard him calling me from upstairs. He sounded desperate. I thought he must have fallen over and broken his leg or something. When I got there he was lying on the floor, just sort of whimpering and holding himself. The awful thing is I can't seem to get through to him. When he speaks it seems to be to someone else. And then he began attacking me and throwing things around down here.'

Burnell nodded. His freshly shaved face had a small cut, to which a piece of bloodied cotton wool was still attached. He made Finn hold out his hands in front of him. They were shaking. Then he shone the torch into his eyes again.

'Finn, I want you to tell me everything you did yesterday. I need to know if you drank alcohol or took drugs of any kind.'

He slapped Finn, not unkindly, on the cheek. 'Did you hear me, Finn?'

Finn did not respond.

'Drugs?'

Again, Finn seemed not to hear.

'What kind? Ecstasy? Acid? Skunk?'

This question seemed to be beyond Finn. He covered his face with his hands.

'I think we should go and look in his room,' said Burnell. 'Is that all right?'

Vanessa nodded, shame-faced. She dreaded to think what needles and tourniquets they might find.

Burnell glanced at the boy. 'I don't want to leave him. Let's all go up.'

In the ashtray on the floor, among the cigarette ends, were the butts of three joints that Burnell lifted to his nose and sniffed.

Vanessa smiled. 'Thank God. I thought it was going to be something serious. You know, like heroin or--'

'Doesn't this seem serious enough?' said Burnell. 'Look at him.'

Vanessa said, 'But I thought, you know, soft drugs, marijuana and so on ...'

'Perhaps in the sixties. Not now. It's brutal. Genetically modified for impact. One of these today may be like thirty from your day.' He turned to Finn. 'How long have you been smoking this stuff? Do you have any more? Where do you keep it?'

Finn turned away and gripped his mother's arm. 'They can't come. They told me they can't come. It's not my fault,' he said.

'All right,' said Burnell. 'I'm going to give him a sedative. Then I think we need to get him into hospital.'

'Hospital?' said Vanessa. 'Surely there's no need for that?'

'Not in the long run, I hope. But he definitely needs to see someone in a detox or psychiatric unit. I don't feel happy about leaving him without specialist supervision. When I've given him the injection, he should calm down quite a bit. You stay with him here, and I'm going to go outside and make a couple of calls to a place I know. Glendale. It's a National Health hospital, but in my view it offers better care than any private clinic. You may have to go private to get him in at short notice. I'm assuming that's all right?'

'God, yes. Of course,' said Vanessa. 'Whatever's best.'

III

I love him, thought Jenni Fortune. That's the word for it.

She was between Westminster and Embankment, having to remind herself to be vigilant - to watch for office workers coming out of lunchtime Christmas parties. Men often walked down the ramp at the end of the platform to relieve themselves on the rails. Sometimes there was clearance between their shoulders and an arriving train; and sometimes there wasn't.

Is this the first time I've felt love? Maybe for Mum, Jenni thought, never for anyone else. Not her father, not Tony and not Liston Brown. What was that feeling with Liston? Frightened. That's really all it was, when she looked back on it. She had wanted his protection, his power. There was the promise of safety there, but it had never materialised. All she had had was disappointment and anxiety, thinking she wasn't glamorous enough for him - too white, too black, too poor, too young, too ignorant, not knowing whether sex was what he wanted more or less of, where exactly it figured in his opinion of her. And having no one to turn to for advice, the other women cautious, not confiding, and the men eyeing her with a knowing look, a bit contemptuous, she always felt, as though they were thinking 'We know her game', but also impressed that she was Liston's girlfriend. She hadn't wanted to impress anyone.

But with this guy ... There was a moment when it had all changed, perhaps when she saw him struggling not to let her pay in the restaurant; maybe when she felt him staring at her when he went round on Wednesday in her cab; possibly long ago, when he tried to spare her Mr Hutton's heavy-handedness, that touch of kindness - God knows, perhaps as early as the first time she saw the newspaper sticking out of his wastepaper basket with the squiggles in the margin. He was so thin that she wanted to hold him close to her. There was something sad in him she wanted to put right. And for some ridiculous reason she felt that only she could do that. No one else.

It made her smile. How likely was that? That only she ... And yet she knew that it was true. No one but her could make that man come truly alive, put on weight, flourish and be happy.

She closed the doors, depressed the lever and moved it gently to the left. Of course, he wasn't just a patient or a case. There was so much that she could take from him, so much he knew, so many thoughts he'd had ... Things that had never crossed her mind - though when he talked about these things, she seemed to have been aware of them all along. And they would laugh, she knew. He made her laugh already and when she'd got more confidence, she'd do the same for him.

There was something comic in it all, admittedly. To have a feeling like this, right down close to her ribs, right in the intimate centre of who she was, not for her mother but for a barrister ... A man who probably spoke Latin.

And while she still hadn't told him, it was more exciting. She herself was the only one that she'd confided in. One part of her mind had stumbled on it, named it, and the other part had confirmed it with memories, with the details of all their meetings. One part said, I've just this moment understood; and the other part said, Yes, and I've known all along.

They'd been stopped twice by a red light while the train in front cleared the station, and at Mansion House Jenni knew she had time to jump out of the cab and run over to the Ladies. Her feet in the latest regulation safety issue shoes seemed to fly across the grimy platform. She also took her mug to the tea point behind the brown door, filled it up and slotted it into the cup-holder on the dashboard. She checked the rear-view mirror, closed the doors and moved off.

Stored in her mobile phone was a message she'd had at 8.30 that morning. 'Need more background on safety. Can u come tea not chambers but my flat today? Work only. G.'

So after her shift, she'd go to the address in SW3 that a further text had given her. Meanwhile, she pictured what his flat might be like. She knew he was short of money, but thought anywhere in Chelsea must be smart. His lounge would have antiques in it, perhaps, or a grandfather clock. There'd be a dining room with a long shiny table and a dozen of those old-fashioned chairs. And then maybe two or three bedrooms, one of which would overlook the river and would be his with all his clothes in a mahogany wardrobe. Would he ask her to move in with him? That would probably be best, Jenni thought. It wouldn't really work having him in Cowper Road. She'd have to boot out Tony for a start. Perhaps Gabriel would let her have one of his spare rooms for her clothes, but she'd want to spend each night, all night with him. She could easily move her shifts around to suit his working hours, so she'd be there when he came home. She'd cook real food not just twice a week, as she did for Tony, but every night. And with her salary and with his work picking up in the New Year, they'd have tons of money - enough to go on foreign holidays where he'd show her all the interesting things. It was not so much a future, it was more like a second chance of living.

At twelve o'clock, the PetJet bound for Zurich was at the end of the City Airport runway, with John Veals one of sixteen passengers on board. Before turning off his phone/e-mailer, he had one last look at the ARB figures. They were still strong, he was pleased to see. The price had come off a little when the market opened in response to the denial of the takeover rumour by the CEO of First New York, but Magnus Darke's article, a gratifyingly word-perfect regurgitation of what Veals had suggested Ryman feed him, had given the rumour new impetus when the paper came out that morning.

As the plane crossed the Channel and the steward came down the aisle with champagne, Veals reviewed the situation. Every piece of the Rheumatism jigsaw was in place. The fancy part of the trade, the bit that Veals really liked, was the commodity leg. He wasn't sure how Duffy had done it, but he was confident it would be off-radar, as they didn't want to be seen to be making a huge profit while many Africans neared starvation. Some other bank would step into ARB's place sooner or later because there was money to be made there; and if not, that was scarcely High Level's problem.

Veals sipped an orange juice as he looked down at the forests of Verdun. When he had told Caroline Wilby that his fund had a 'small short position' on ARB for some months, it was not exactly true. He had an enormous short position of recent origin; but in principle he had long thought the bank's prospects poor. The fact was, however, that he did intend at this late stage to short-sell the stock of ARB directly; he had a nice little curlicue in mind to finish off the Rheumatism position.

It was almost three o'clock when the fat German car Kieran Duffy had waiting for him at the airport dropped Veals at High Level in Pfaffikon. He found a confident calm in his offices. Duffy was having a late tomato sandwich and a glass of blood-orange juice; he was chatting to Victoria, who was sitting on the edge of his desk eating a slice of walnut cake. She went smartly back to her office when John Veals arrived. It was an effect he often had, he knew: his lack of small talk made people nervous.

'Everything all right, John?'

'Yes. Pretty much, Kieran. There was a story in the paper this morning. A hack called Magnus Darke. Saying ARB was in talks with First New York.'