‘I’m depending on it.’
The South African brain had used surrogate muscle from the start, initiated, remained hidden, while its proxies created mayhem. The Forresters, the Tigers, the fanatics who had tailed Kemp in Germany, the agitators who hijacked the immigration agenda and primed unrest in Britain’s inner cities – all recruited, in the loop, joining the circle, perpetuating the cycle. They would descend on him, he was sure of it. Handlers from SIS’s Global Affairs Controller had been busy feeding information back to their HUMINT assets in Pretoria and Cape Town. It would disseminate, filter through to Denys Krige and his lieutenants. They would know their identity was sprung, know that Josh Kemp and the Security Service were organizing to blow them apart. Softly, softly. Anything to avoid an undiplomatic incident.
‘So what’s the next gamble, Josh?’
‘I guess it’s time to head out and get a little eyes-on.’
Across the Thames, standing on the cheerless territory between luxury riverside apartments and land designated for development, a man viewed the Maria Johanna through ranging binoculars. The boat was occupied, Josh Kemp was occupied. How it should be. The observer reached for the satphone, activated without pausing to check the display, and brought the device to his ear. Back in the spring, he had watched from the same position as police rigid inflatables raced to retrieve a headless package left by a serial murderer and netted in the trash-catcher upstream. A welcoming present, a wake- up call to the changing world. Months had passed and the itinerary moved on. Initial handiwork was paying interest, the attitude change, cultural shift, the descent to insurrection and disorder, in motion, staggered, inexorable. This year or next, the pure seam of gold would show in the racial mix made molten by the burning of civic society. Stir a little, sit back, admire. That was alchemy, that was victory. It took skill, preparation, patience; it took counter-action against those who would seek to douse the flames. A river fireboat throbbed its way towards Lambeth Bridge. Too slow, too late. The call went through. In another country, the South African began to give instructions.
* * *
He did not have to travel by Underground. But he liked to move beneath the city, away from the light, could watch faces, sense the crush of bodies, smell soap and aftershave, breath and sweat, the must odours of travelling humanity. One day soon, he would surface again, re-emerge, do what he did best. There was too much uncertainty at present, too little freedom in which to operate. And they called this a democracy. A democracy in which Hackney was a no-go area, Lambeth a free-fire zone. He flicked the newspaper to erase the crease, improve his concentration. The black girl sat opposite, polluting his space, infecting his brain pathways, expending her intellect on blowing gum. Pink tongue, pink mastication. It sounded like bubble-wrap, the wet pop and plasticated saliva-ripple of methodical chewing. Could be dangerous to the health. She should keep her mouth shut. Trouble was, they rarely did. He tried to bury his head, harden his electronic signals, impulses, instincts, to the aggressive interference. No use. The lips opened and closed, her eyes above them blank and bovine. She did not understand, could not comprehend. He held the newspaper closer, let it shut out the view. An article and picture floated before him, a profile on the young South London mother whose family and existence had been shredded in an unprovoked Jamaican-style killing. Is this the face of London’s future? it asked. Sophie, she was called. Pretty name. Dreadful disfigurement. The usual psychological babble, customary misrepresentation offered by the press. Great copy. She was seeking to rebuild her life, getting on, showing courage. There was talk of awards, book deals, exclusive interviews. As if they cared, as if they had asked permission for the sneaked photograph and insights from ‘family friends’. She did not look as though she had friends. There was no sorrow in that working eye; he recognized something else, the remoteness, the self-contained loathing, the polished, vengeful shine to the iris. Took one to know one. An interesting subject, a playmate in need. He would study her, try to help. Across from him, the molars were grinding noisily, publicly, set in an antagonistic melon of a head, the gum pressed and reconstituted. Such a contrast to Sophie, the wounded angel. Everyone too polite to complain, too aware of the implications. A fat slut could hold society to ransom, a Tube train in silence. Not if her silver PVC trousers were afire. He smiled, leant towards her. ‘May I suggest you keep your fucking lips together …’ He would shine again.
* * *
‘The eyes are a giveaway.’
There was no give in Sophie’s own eye, not a flicker of recognition in the diced features. Emotions had been tucked back as haphazardly as the flesh, but were better hidden. At least there was something she could disguise, carry, touch, without the hushed accompaniment of public revulsion and pavement scrutiny. Kemp would not judge her. She had already been tried, tortured, killed off by others.
‘I haven’t seen you since your time in hospital,’ he answered.
‘So, it’s the shock of the new.’ Irony, defensiveness, packaged with the same tepid neutrality.
He stood his ground, tried to engage, his back to the street. Clive – friend, Jamaican and MI5 Watcher – was parked up nearby, should have kept the engine running. The situation did not exactly reek of hospitality. Shock of the new. No, it was the impact of sudden revelation, of close proximity to the physical aftermath, the bruised and unbandaged scarring, of personal cataclysm. Hard enough to piece together a face; reconstructing a life was of a different order.
‘I’m glad you’ve found a place to stay.’ He kept it light, informal. The British majored in pretence. Their Security Service had merely adopted an existing trait, adapted the format.
‘People are kind.’ Matter-of-fact. Indicative that people were cruel.
‘You could do worse than Holland Park.’ As banal as saying, you’re lucky you’re alive. ‘Quiet area, good security.’ Few believed the lie any more. In a normal year, the police were overstretched, under-resourced. At any one time, the specialist unit tasked with countering black crime would investigate around twenty of the more problematic Yardie gangstas. Conservative estimates put their number – armed, psychotic – in the hundreds. It was a far from normal year; it was the year of the Tiger. And he spoke to Sophie of security.
‘It’s temporary.’
‘How long are you here?’
‘As long as it takes.’ As long as she had friends with patience and money, friends prepared to give space, support, a structure. ‘Everyone’s away at the moment.’ They would not be rushing back.
‘You tempted to join them?’
‘That would be surrender.’
Summer stretched warm along the pavement. It had yet to reach her. Probably never would. She stayed in the shadow of a previous season, appeared at the shaded front door of a Regency townhouse lent by one of the numerous get-well-wishers. A private property granted to a woman who had become public property. Kind gesture, a step towards rehabilitation, acclimatization.
‘Do you mind if I come in?’
‘You’re a little late for the house-warming.’
‘Timing’s not my strongest suit.’
The eyes was steady. ‘A lot in common with Scotland Yard, then.’
It had been easier to read her through the white cotton of hospital windings. What lay beneath was less expressive, hidden by the tissue of trauma wounds. The face was routinely splashed across the tabloids, had been ritually splashed across a length of washed oak flooring. He would try to be gentle. She stood aside, passive without being welcoming, allowing him into the small hallway and sitting room beyond. He moved slowly, aware of his intrusion. Awkwardness could be useful, banishing complacency, giving excuse to case dispassionately, to study the detail. Initial sweep, indeterminate reading. He took in the pastel colours, the plain trees in a garden framed by windows, the subtle ornamentation, the identikit features devoid of real feature blended from a thousand home-design magazines. Nice enough. An ordered existence, artfully contrived. Windows ajar. She must have pushed herself to do that. No flowers. Perhaps they reminded her of hospital, the pain that came with family life and cut stems. It had the slick sterility, impersonal touch, of a Harley Street waiting room – the neat stack of glossy publications, the familiar characteristics that put the moneyed or insured at their ease – of a place, of people, marking time, going through the motions. He wondered if it had been waiting for him.
‘Coffee?’ she asked, enthusiasm-free. He declined. ‘In what capacity are you here – ghoul or spook?’
‘Concerned observer.’
‘Join the queue.’ They both sat. ‘I’ve been visited by psychiatrists, trauma counsellors, grief advisers, recovery therapists, hand-holders, social workers, every victim expert and accredited phobia specialist in Britain. All wanting to observe.’
No wonder she hid, he mused. ‘I’m from a different department.’
‘You represent the state, and the state doesn’t give a fuck. You think your presence will change anything?’
‘It might.’
Her hands were working, fingers massaging the knuckles. It was the sole outward trace of anxiety. ‘I scattered the ashes of Hugh and Freddie in the garden of my parents’ house in Dorset.’ The kneading continued. ‘The shrinks call it closure.’
‘What do you call it?’
‘Commencement.’
She looked out at him from a distance, from a hidden, hardened location far back in her mind. He would not find her, could not touch her, she thought. No one had the nerve or the tools to reach inside, break through; no one possessed the map, understood what she understood. Revelations happened here. It was her private retreat, the planning centre, the spot that brought order to random nightmares, set her on a course from which she would never deviate. Directed her to learn, prepare. Tragedy was cathartic; tragedy could crystallize. Kemp tried to be sensitive, kind, sincere – probably was – would have made an excellent father had chance not wrung his neck, executed his daughter. A shame, a bitch. Life was like that. But he had an agenda, was one of them, was snooping, scavenging, had Security Service stamped indelibly on his psyche. She would not forget it, would stay alert. Attractive male, though – the loping, athletic quality of a sportsman, the masculine energy and rounded assurance so lacking in the suited City ciphers with boneless handshakes that Hugh used to lunch with. As if this man would be interested in her, as if any man would come close enough to talk, to listen. Pity or revulsion would get in the way. A life-changing event. It was time she changed the lives of others; not necessarily for the better, but for good. Everyone advised she should find new purpose. She had found more than that, had discovered the secret of meaning, the meaning of vengeance. Fate accomplished, fait accompli.
A cat dropped languidly onto the terrace, unfurled and rubbed itself on railings, peered cautiously into the room, and paraded stage-left to hunt elsewhere. No worries. Feline luck was more resilient, reliable, than its human cousin.
Her question was unexpected. ‘You believe there was a gentler age?’
‘When cars and nannies flew, kids were sixteen-going-on-seventeen, and everyone picked Edelweiss and broke into song?’ He shook his head. ‘No. It’s make-believe.’ Even the wholesome Family von Trapp had encountered a little local difficulty with brownshirt extremists.
