All the Colors of Darkness

14

Banks's wallet was about £130 lighter when he walked out of Bentley’s with his two companions later that Friday afternoon. But he had eaten the best fish and chips he had ever tasted, and it was worth every penny to see the smile on Tomasina’s face. One of the phone calls he had made earlier, while she had smoked her cigarette outside the building, had been to his son Brian, who had not only been available at a moment’s notice for lunch, his girlfriend Emilia being away in Scotland filming, but also more than willing to share his father’s company with a stranger in need. Or so Banks had put it. When Brian had arrived and joined them just as they were starting on the first glass of wine, Tomasina’s expression was a joy to behold and a thing to remember. She had been tongue-tied, of course, and blushed to her roots, but Brian’s natural charm had soon worked its magic, and they were all chatting away like old mates by the time the food came.

Now they stood outside the restaurant on Sparrow Street between Regent Street and Piccadilly ready to go their own ways, Tomasina reaching for a Silk Cut, Banks’s old brand. For a moment, it made him envious. She offered them around and Banks was surprised when Brian accepted one, but he didn’t say anything. If they were being watched, it was from a distance. The street was so short and narrow that Banks would have immediately spotted any suspicious activity.

“Sorry,” said Brian to Tomasina, “but I must dash. It’s been a pleasure to meet you.” He reached into his inside pocket. “We’re playing the Shepherd’s Bush Empire next week, so here’s a couple of comps and a backstage pass. Come see us after the gig. I promise you it’s not as wild and crazy as some people think it is.”

“It had better not be,” said Banks.

Tomasina blushed and took the tickets. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s great. I’ll be there.”

“Look forward to it,” said Brian. “Got to go now. See you later, Tom. See you, Dad.” He shook Banks’s hand and then disappeared in the direction of Piccadilly Circus.

“Thank you,” said Tomasina to Banks. “Thank you so much. That was really nice.”

“Feeling better?”

“A lot.” She shuffled on her feet and tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she had done in the restaurant. “I don’t really know how to say this properly, and promise not to laugh at me, but I don’t really have anyone to, you know, share these tickets with. Do you want to come?”

“With you?”

“Yeah. That’s not such a horrible thought, is it?”

“No, no. Of course not. I was just... yes, sure, I’d be delighted to.”

“It’s easiest if you come by the office,” she said. “Then we can have a drink after work first. All right?”

“All right,” said Banks, thinking of Sophia. He would most likely have gone to the concert with her, and he still would if she was speaking to him again by next week. On the other hand, he didn’t want to let Tomasina down right at the moment. She’d been through a lot because of him. Well, he decided, he’d let it lie as it was for now and see how things turned out. It wasn’t as if it was a date or anything. Tomasina was young enough to be his daughter. Mind you, Sophia was young enough to be his daughter, too, at least technically. Maybe the three of them could go together. Sophia would understand.

“I’d better be going,” said Tomasina.

“Office?”

“No. I’ve had enough of that for the day. Home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Clapham. I’ll get the tube from Piccadilly. See you next week.”

Then she gave Banks a quick peck on the cheek and dashed off along Sparrow Street, a spring in her step. How resilient are the young, Banks thought.

The car, with his suitcase in it, was still parked at the hotel in Fitz-rovia, and he thought that was probably where he should go to begin the long drive back to Eastvale. The other phone call he had made while Tomasina smoked was to Dirty Dick Burgess, but again he had got no answer.

Banks walked up Regent Street toward Oxford Circus, enjoying the sunshine and the slight buzz from two glasses of white wine, but keeping an eye open as best he could for any sign of a tail. He went into the Bose shop for a couple of minutes and tried out some noise-canceling headphones he liked. Around Great Marlborough Street, the crowds of tourists got too thick, so he turned right to avoid Oxford Circus altogether. He wanted to call at Borders and HMV, anyway, before heading back up north. He was somewhere between Liberty and the Palladium when he heard an almighty explosion, and the pavement shook beneath him as if there had been an earthquake. High windows shattered and glass and plaster fell into the street.

For a moment, the world seemed to stop, freeze-frame, then it was all sound and motion again, and Banks became aware of people screaming and running past him, confused and terrified expressions on their faces, back toward Regent Street or deeper into Soho. To his left, up the narrow side street, he could see a pall of black smoke mixed with dark orange flames. Alarms sounded everywhere. Without thinking, he ran up Argyll Street, against the panicking crowds, to Oxford Street, and he found himself in a scene of carnage that might have come straight out of the blitz.

There were fires all over the place. The dark thick smoke stung his eyes. It smelled of burned plastic and rubber. Plaster dust filled the air, and rubble lay scattered everywhere. Broken glass crunched underfoot. At first, everything happened in slow motion. Banks was aware of sirens in the distance, but where he was, in the smoke, felt like a sort of island separated from the rest of the city. It was as if he had arrived at the still center of darkness, the eye of the storm. Nothing could survive here.

Wreckage lay everywhere: bits of cars; twisted bicycles; a burning wooden cart; gaudy souvenir scarves and pashminas and cheap luggage strewn over the road; a man lying halfway though his windscreen, still and bleeding. Then, out of it all, a figure stumbled toward Banks, an elderly Asian woman in a bright-colored sari. Her nose was gone and blood streamed from her eyes. She had her arms stretched out in front of her.

“Help me!” she cried. “Help me. I can’t see. I’m blind.”

Banks took her arm and tried to murmur words of comfort and encouragement as she gripped on to him for dear life. Maybe she was better off not being able to see, he thought fleetingly, leading her over the street. Everywhere people were staggering about in the haze, their arms flailing like zombies in a horror film. Some were shouting, some screaming, fleeing from burning cars, and some were just sitting or lying, moaning in pain.

One man lay on the road on fire, thrashing about, trying to douse the flames that consumed him. There was nothing Banks could do for him. He stumbled on and tripped over a leg. It wasn’t attached to a body. Then he walked through stuff that squished unpleasantly under his feet and saw body parts strewn everywhere. After he had got the Asian woman out of the smoke and sat her down on the pavement until help came, he picked his way back through the wreckage and the rubble. He found a disoriented boy of about ten or eleven and half-dragged him away to the edges of the scene where the smoke thinned, and where he had left the Asian woman, then he went back and guided the next person he saw out of the carnage.

He didn’t know how long he went on doing this, taking people by the arm and leading them away, even scooping them up off the road into his arms, or dragging them to the edge of Oxford Circus, where the air was still full of the stink of burning plastic but was at least breathable.

A burning taxi lay on its side and a pretty young blonde in a bloodstained yellow sundress was trying to climb out of the window. Banks went to help her. She had a lapdog held to her chest like a ball of fluff and a Selfridges bag, which was almost too big to get through the window. She got out, but she wouldn’t let go of the bag handle, no matter how much Banks tried to pull her away. He feared the taxi might explode at any moment. In the end she pulled the bag free and tottered back into Banks’s arms on her high heels. It only took him a quick glance in the front to see that the driver was dead. The woman clung to Banks and her bag with one arm and her dog with the other as they edged their way toward the cleaner air, and for the first time, amid it all, he could smell something other than death: it was her perfume, a subtle musk. He left her sitting by the roadside crying and went back. There was a bendy-bus lying on its side burning, and he wanted to see if he could help people get out. He could hear the woman wail and the dog start to yap behind him as he walked away.

The next thing he knew the area was full of dark shapes in protective gear, wearing gas masks or heavy breathing equipment, with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, some of them carrying submachine guns, and someone was calling over a loudspeaker for everyone to evacuate the area. Banks carried on searching for survivors until a heavy hand rested on his shoulder and pulled him away.

“Best get out of here, mate, and leave it to us,” said the voice, muffled by breathing apparatus. “You never can tell. There might be another one. Or one of the cars might go up any moment.”

The strong, steady hand guided him gently but firmly past Oxford Circus and around the corner to Regent Street.

“Are you all right?” the man asked him.

“I’m okay,” said Banks. “I’m a policeman. I can help.” He reached for his warrant card.

The man had a good look at it, and Banks was sure he memorized the name.

“Doesn’t matter,” the man said, guiding him away. “There’s nothing you can do here without the right equipment. It’s too dangerous. Did you see what happened?”

“No,” said Banks. “I was on Great Marlborough Street. I heard the explosion and came up to see if I could help.”

“Leave it to the pros now, mate. And as long as you’re sure you’re all right, the best thing you can do is go home, leave the medics for the ones who really need them.”

Down Regent Street, Banks could see the massed fire engines, police cars, ambulances and armed response vehicles, and the street swarmed with uniforms. The barriers were up already and the whole area had been cordoned off as far down as Conduit Street. He was glad that he could at least breathe now as he stumbled past the barricades into the stunned group of onlookers.

“What happened, mate?” someone asked.

“Bomb, innit?” answered someone else. “Stands to reason. Fucking terrorists.”

Banks just walked on through the crowds, oblivious to the questions, back the way he had come, he couldn’t say how long ago. At first, right in the thick of it with the body parts, the human torches, viscous smoke and walking wounded, time had seemed to slow almost to a halt; but now, when he turned and looked back up Regent Street toward the chaos, he felt as if it had been all over in a flash, a subliminal moment. The emergency rescue worker had been right; there was nothing more he could do. He would only get in the way. He had never felt so useless in his life, and the last thing he wanted to be here was a voyeur. He wondered how the blind Asian woman was doing, and the young blonde with her lapdog and Selfridges bag.

The chaos and carnage faded into the background the closer he got to Piccadilly Circus. He didn’t know where he was going now, or care, only that he was moving away from it. His breathing had almost returned to normal, but his eyes still stung. People gawped at him as he passed by, everyone aware now that something serious had happened nearby, even if they hadn’t heard it themselves. You could still see the smoke spiraling up from Oxford Circus beyond the elegant curved facade of Regent Street, its smell polluting the sweet summer air.

When Banks got past Piccadilly Circus, he knew what he wanted. A bloody drink. Or two. He made his way up Shaftesbury Avenue and turned into Soho, his old stomping ground from the early days on the Met, and finally tottered into an old pub on Dean Street he remembered from years back. It hadn’t changed much. The bar was full, and even the smokers had come back inside to watch the breaking news coverage on the large-screen TV in the back. It had probably only been used to show football before, Banks thought, but now it showed images of the carnage around Oxford Circus, less than a mile away. It was all so unreal to Banks, seeing on the large screen what he had just been a part of only minutes ago. Another world. Another place. That was what it usually was, wasn’t it? Didn’t these things happen somewhere else? Darfur. Kenya. Zimbabwe. Iraq. Chechnya. Not just up the bloody road. The barman was watching the television, too, but when he saw Banks, he went back to his position behind the bar.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What happened to you, mate? You look like you’ve just... Oh, bloody hell. You have, haven’t you?”

Other people were glancing over at Banks now, some pulling their neighbors’ sleeves or tapping their arms and muttering. Banks nodded.

“Whatever you want, mate, it’s on the house,” said the barman.

Banks wanted two things. He wanted a pint to slake his thirst and a double brandy to steady his nerves. He said he’d pay for one of them but the barman wouldn’t have any of it.

“If I was you, mate,” he said, “I’d pay a quick visit to the gents first. It’s just behind you. You’ll feel better if you clean yourself up a bit.”

Banks took a quick gulp of beer and pushed the wooden door. Like most toilets in London pubs, it wasn’t much of a place; the urinals were stained ochre and stank of piss, but there was a mirror above the cracked sink. One look was enough. His face was smudged black with smoke, his eyes two staring holes in the darkness. The front of his white shirt was burned and smeared with blood and God knew what else. Luckily, his wind cheater wasn’t too bad. It was dirty, but then it was navy blue to start with, so it didn’t show the stains too badly, and his jeans were just singed and tarry. He didn’t even want to think what was on the bottom of his shoes.

About all he could do for the moment, he realized, was a bit of cosmetic work, give his face a good wash and try to cover up his shirt, which he did by zipping up his jacket almost to the collar. He got the water running good and hot, squirted some liquid soap onto his hands and did the best he could. In the end, he managed to get most of the dirt off, but he couldn’t do anything about the look in his eyes.

“That’s better, mate,” said the barman.

Banks thanked him and drained his pint. When he put his glass down and started working, more slowly, on the brandy, the barman filled up his pint glass again without asking. Banks also watched him pour a large whiskey for himself.

“Suicide car bomber, they think,” the barman said, gesturing over toward the television set, to which the other customers were still glued. “That’s a new one on me. Pulled out of Great Portland Street into Oxford Street, just shy of the Circus. Makes sense. You can’t park around there, and only buses and taxis can drive on Oxford Street. Bastards. They always find a way.”

“How many injured?” Banks asked.

“They don’t know for sure yet. Twenty-four dead and about the same seriously injured is the latest count. But that’s conservative. You were there, weren’t you?”

“I was.”

“Right in the thick of it?”

“Yes.”

“What was it like?”

Banks took a sip of brandy.

“Sorry. I should know better than to ask,” said the barman. “I’ve seen my share. Ex-para. Northern Ireland. For my sins.” He stuck out his hand. “Joe Geldard’s the name, by the way.”

Banks shook hands. “Good to meet you, Joe Geldard,” he said. “Alan Banks. And thank you for everything.”

“It’s nothing, mate. How you feeling?”

Banks drank some more brandy. He noticed that his hand was still shaking. His left hand was slightly burned, he saw for the first time, but he couldn’t feel any pain yet. It didn’t look too bad. “Much better for this,” he said, hoisting his brandy glass. “I’ll be all right.”

Joe Geldard moved to the end of the bar to keep an eye on the TV with the rest. Banks was left alone. For the first time, his mind managed to focus a little, come to grips with what had just happened, unbelievable as it still seemed.

Apparently, a terrorist suicide bomber had set off a car bomb just around the corner from where he’d been walking. And if he hadn’t decided that the crowds on Regent Street were too much and turned onto Great Marlborough Street at the time he did, he would have walked down Oxford Street, and who knows what might have happened to him. It wasn’t courage that had driven him into the flames, he knew, just blind instinct, despite nearly dying in a house fire himself not so many years ago.

He thought about Brian and Tomasina. They would be fine. Both were taking the underground from Piccadilly Circus. They might find themselves unable to get a train if the service had been shut down quickly enough, but apart from that, they’d be fine. He would phone both of them later, when he’d got himself together, just to make sure. It also entered his head that they might be worried about him, too.

And Sophia? Christ, she often worked at Western House, up Great Portland Street, unless she was off in another studio or out somewhere producing live interviews. She might have wandered down to Oxford Street shopping on her lunch break. She never did, though, Banks remembered. Said she hated it, with all the tourists. On a nice day she’d buy a sandwich at Pret and eat it by the gardens in Regent’s Park, or maybe there was a lunchtime concert at the open-air theater. He’d phone her, though, not least because he wanted a chance to put things right between them.

A wave of nausea came over him and he took a gulp of brandy. It made him cough, but it helped. Glancing over at the TV, he saw helicopter shots of blossoming smoke, and he didn’t know if the sound of sirens came from the scene on the news or from the real street outside. A tickertape was running underneath the images detailing breaking news. The death count was up to twenty-seven, injured thirty-two.

Banks turned to the bar and worked on his second pint. His right hand had almost stopped shaking, and his left hand was starting to throb a bit. When he glanced in the mirror behind the range of spirits and wine bottles, he hardly recognized the face that stared back at him. It was time to make a move.

He realized that first of all he would need new clothes. He had his wallet and both his mobiles, but nothing else. The rest of his gear was back in his car at the hotel. He knew he could get there bypassing Oxford Circus, but he didn’t want to. Not only didn’t he want to be anywhere near there right now, he also didn’t want to drive back to Eastvale, he realized. He would buy new clothes, then go to King’s Cross and take a train, come back for the car when he felt better. Sophia had a key—she sometimes liked to drive the Porsche herself — so he could ask her to pick it up and park it outside her house, where it would be safe. Surely she would do that much for him, even if she wasn’t talking to him?

Then he realized that all the underground and mainline stations would probably be closed for a while. It was all too much to contemplate; his brain wasn’t fully functioning, and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. The alcohol was slowly calming him down and blotting out some of the horrors of the last hour, so he called out for another pint and told Joe Geldard to have one on him.