The Tick Tock Man

8

‘Not a very auspicious start, was it?’ Al Pritchard challenged. ‘Getting that journalist woman in to the funeral. ^Then giving her all this personal stuff.’

It was the following morning and Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Maitland had only just left the office of the Explosive Section’s chief having formally introduced Major Harrison to his special attachment.

Harrison could see that’the Sexpo was on edge, his eyes sunken and his face haggard through lack of sleep. While he had no desire to exacerbate Pritchard’s understandable tetchiness after the events of the previous day, it was not his intention to give him the upper hand at their very first meeting.

‘I hardly gave away any state secrets, Al. It’s all harmless, anecdotal stuff. Besides which, I think we’ve more important things to concern ourselves with this morning, don’t you?’

Midgely and Appleyard, who were on the sofa nursing mugs of coffee, exchanged glances. It was indeed no more of an inauspicious start than they had anticipated.

The Yorkshireman said: ‘With respect, Al, both Les and I also met the lass. Neither of us quite realised who she was either-and we’d read her articles.’

Pritchard snatched up.a copy of the previous night’s Standard final edition and aimed it accurately at his wastebin. Then he glared back across his desk top. ‘Let me make it perfectly clear and remind you all of my long-standing rule. Unless specifically ordered to do so, we don’t talk to the press. Ever, period.’

Appleyard nodded his agreement. ‘But at least her funeral coverage was sympathetic, unlike that other rag…’

‘Mawkish crap,’ Pritchard snapped back. ‘I guess we can be thankful she didn’t name all the members of this squad.’

Harrison remembered the conversations they had had in her car, her easy laugh and quick-fire humour. He felt an overwhelming urge to defend her. ‘I think she’s more responsible than that, Al, and she had a genuine personal reason to attend the funeral. Besides which, it was she who gave me a lift to Dukes Hotel.’

The hooded lids half closed over Pritchard’s eyes. ‘And don’t remind me about that, Tom. Midgely’s already had a bollocking. Just how would it have looked if they’d scraped you — a bloody army officer — off the bloody ceiling, had you missed that secondary?’

Harrison stood his ground. ‘I found it because I’ve had more experience of this AIDAN character’s handiwork than anyone else. That’s why I’m here.’

The Sexpo saw his opportunity and pounced. ‘Wrong, Tom, you’re not here to defuse our devices. That’s what we’re paid to do. You can observe, advise, liaise and write reports until you’re blue in the face, but you are not operational. You are a soldier, not a civil servant or a police officer. This is owrpatch. Remember that and we’ll get on fine.’ He took a deep breath, reached for the jar of indigestion tablets on his desk and began munching on one of them as he continued: ‘Thankfully it’s been decided from above that the letter-bomb incident never occurred, so I won’t have to justify your presence. MI5 wants it all kept hushed. Don’t want to alarm the Americans into thinking we can’t protect their diplomats over here.’

Harrison frowned. ‘But Senator Powers was there, Al, he knew what happened. So I don’t really understand that reasoning.’

Pritchard stared for a moment, then allowed himself a sour smile, traces of white chalk at the corners of his mouth. ‘God you’re in an argumentative mood this morning. We don’t have to understand, we just defuse bombs and leave the politics to those who think they know what they’re doing.’ Believing that he had succeeded in crushing all rebellion, he sat more easily behind his desk. ‘After yesterday’s events in London, the commander of the AntiTerrorist Branch is holding a press conference at eleven this morning. Mostly it’s to show the flag and assure the dear general public and the tabloids that we’re on top of things and that there’s no need to panic’

‘Can you bring me up to date with what happened?’ Harrison asked. ‘Yesterday Midge said there were four identical van bombs and incendiaries in Oxford Street. This morning’s papers talk about a store fire and just one van bomb going off.’

Pritchard nodded. ‘Well, let’s start with the incendiaries. Four were found in time, but one went off. They used their trick again of using a sodium base, so the more water that fell from the sprinkler, the greater the blaze. It was a bloody great fireball. The entire floor was gutted. Luckily the fire brigade were exceptionally quick to react, realised what was happening and shut down the sprinklers. But it was still a damn close thing, the entire store could easily have burned down.’ He looked towards the Yorkshireman. ‘Midge can tell you about the vans.’

‘There were four,’ Midgely confirmed. ‘The warnings came in one after the other within seven or eight minutes. A similar setup in each case. Vans abandoned under flyovers and in the Blackfriars underpass, apparently broken down. The drivers propped open the bonnets, left the hazard lights flashing, then just walked off as calm as you like. Anyway, our first Expo was tasked to Blackfriars Bridge. He approached from the rear, knocked out a window and threw in a Candle charge for a controlled explosion. Afterwards we found an antihandling mechanism had been fitted to the courtesy-light system, just like the cars at Seven Dials.

‘By that time the Chiswick flyover bomb had gone off — well within the warning time. What a mess! Bloody great crater and serious cracks to the bridging span. Over traffic’s been reduced to one lane each way and all heavy vehicles are being diverted. Odds are the surveyors will say the whole thing has to come down and be rebuilt.’

‘What about the M4 Marylebone flyover?’ Harrison asked.

‘It was the same setup as Blackfriars, only afterwards Al realised he’d had a bloody lucky escape. They’d only added an additional pressure switch in the front-axle spring, hadn’t they? Just the movement as he climbed aboard should have set it off. It’s got to be confirmed yet, but it can only have been a poor electrical contact that prevented it from blowing.’

‘And the M25 junction at West Drayton?’ Harrison asked. ‘Was that a controlled explosion too?’

Midgely shook his head. ‘No, that’s just what was put out to the press. You see, we’d just got back to London from the funeral then and Les was tasked to it.’

Appleyard took up the story. ‘By all accounts it was the same as the other two. Same vehicle type and similar location. But remember, they were going off at ten-minute intervals, so information was pretty sketchy at the time. I was just about to make my initial approach, when at — what? — thirty metres the thing blew up. Thought I was a goner, I can tell you. I’m still half deaf.’

Harrison nodded. ‘It had been fitted with infrared detectors?’

Appleyard’s jaw dropped. ‘How did you know?’

‘The AIDAN cell used a three-van ploy about five weeks ago in Belfast. One of them was parked under a new flyover. We called it Find the Lady. It cost us a Wheelbarrow.’

The Expo pursed his lips and blew softly as he recalled the narrow escape of the previous day. ‘I just saw them mounted above the rear doors a second before I set them off. They were like the type used for automatic household porch lights. Luckily I had on a helmet and flak jacket, it threw me quite a distance.’

Al Pritchard said: ‘It was one of those fluky things with that explosion. Although the van appeared to be positioned well to damage the flyover, afterwards the engineers reckoned there was no structural damage and the police were able to open up the road again. It was decided to claim that we’d successfully done a controlled explosion on a hoax. On the basis that the terrorists weren’t going to hang around to see what happened, they’d be none the wiser. And on the other two bombs, it was decided to say they were false alarms, just to keep the buggers guessing what we’re playing at.’

Harrison nodded. ‘All part of the public relations war, I suppose.’

Pritchard began fiddling with his paperknife. ‘What you’ve got to remember, Tom, is that there’s a great deal of interest in this new campaign being shown by Whitehall. It’s caused the biggest amount of damage in London since the City bombs of‘92 and ‘93 and it’s more ambitious than anything we’ve seen in the past. And I detect that the Provos are less interested in avoiding civilian casualties than previously — at least, as long as it appears to be due to police ineptitude rather than deliberate PIRA policy.’

‘It was ever thus,’ Harrison said.

That annoyed Pritchard. ‘But more so, Tom. There’s some new political dimension to this that we’re not being told about. The Home Office is convinced the bombing is going to get worse over the summer. That’s why you’re here and that’s why MI5 is co-ordinating the response on all of this. The AntiTerrorist Branch and Special Branch are dancing to their tune. And, in their, wisdom, MI5 has decided to put it about that there was only one van bomb at the Chiswick flyover and that the other three were hoaxes or false alarms. That’s what’s going to be confirmed at this morning’s press conference.’ For a moment he stared morosely at the paperknife in his hands as though it held some magic property which might help him understand the thinking of the Security Service. ‘I suppose it helps to reduce the level of public hysteria. I mean one bomb’s quite enough. No need to overalarm Joe Commuter with four of the blighters. But to be honest, I don’t know what real good it does.’

Then the meeting was at an end, Midgely and Appleyard pitching their plastic mugs into the wastebin as they made their way to the door. Pritchard said: ‘I suppose you’re still smoking that awful pipe of yours, Tom?’

Harrison smiled. ‘Wild Cherry tobacco. Taxi drivers are always ly;’ saying how they like it.’

Only Pritchard’s eyes showed he appreciated the SATO’s swift comeback. ‘I’m not a taxi driver, Tom. So I’ll put you in with Les Appleyard at Jock’s old desk. You can smoke each other to death.’

‘Thanks, Al.’

As he went to follow Appleyard through the door, Pritchard called: ‘Just a minute, Tom.’ Harrison turned back to the desk. The Senior Explosives Officer had resumed his seat and his expression appeared a little more relaxed, his features almost softened by the first hint of a smile. ‘Sorry if I’ve been a bit hard on you, Tom. I know I can be a miserable bugger at the best of times — comes from having too much male hormone — ‘ Harrison assumed this was a vague reference to his bald crown as well as being a joke, a rarity in itself. At least the man was making an effort. ‘The pressure’s been pretty tough since this new campaign began. It’s been round the clock and not a lot of sleep. I’ll be frank, I don’t appreciate your presence here. Nothing personal — when we were serving together, I always reckoned you were the best ATO we had.’

Harrison wasn’t sure Pritchard really meant that, so said nothing.

‘You’ve got your job to do,’ the Sexpo continued, ‘and I’m sure you’ll do it, whether I cooperate or not. In fact I’m expected to attend this press conference later and I’d like you to come along too. Handling the media is all part of the overview, even if it’s not the Section’s direct responsibility.’

‘Thanks, Al. Whatever you suggest.’

But Pritchard was staring into the middle distance as though apparently unaware that Harrison had spoken. ‘Trouble is I can see where all this is going to lead.’

‘Meaning?’

‘You’re going to be asked, you realise that? The Home Office is going to ask you for recommendations,’

‘No one has yet.’

‘They will. And you’re going to give all the answers based on your experience in Belfast. You’re going to say we’re doing too much hands-on. That my lads should be making more use of Wheelbarrows, not sitting on top of bombs with a pair of pliers and a Stanley knife. Am I right or am I right?’

Harrison regarded him in silence for a moment. ‘I admit the thought had crossed my mind.’

‘Then it’s time you understood a few home truths.’ He gestured for Harrison to take a chair. ‘This isn’t Belfast and the Home Office doesn’t want it to start looking like it. Over there you get dozens of real bomb alerts every week. Here, until recently, we could go months between major incidents. Plenty of hoaxes and small incidents — animal-rights activists, gangland killings — to keep us busy. But imagine if we took Wheelbarrows on all of these shouts. Using them to search for suspect car bombs etc, it would take for ever. Half the streets of London could be closed down every time the Provos or some prankster made a malicious call. There’d be an outcry from the business and retailing community and as much demand for compensation as if the bloody thing had been for real. And that’s another reason we still keep mostly to hands-on. We can move quicker, assess the threat and, if it is genuine, deal with it while your lot would still be trying to get a Wheelbarrow out the back of your truck. You know what the Criminal Compensation Act costs the taxpayer in a piddling city like Belfast — just imagine the scale of it when applied to London. The bill would run to billions. And even in Belfast or Londonderry you can’t go round blowing up every suspect car, because you know damn well that every scrote who wants a newer model will be phoning up saying his old banger’s been nicked by terrorists. So we certainly can’t do that here. That’s why we stick to the old-fashioned eyeball and hands-on approach.’

Harrison said: ‘That approach killed Jock and nearly took you and Les Appleyard yesterday.’ It was out before he could stop himself; it had been unthinking and unkind, however true it might be.

Al Pritchard regarded him with a long and steady gaze. When he spoke his voice was low and hoarse. ‘That’s why my lads get paid twice as much as yours. It’s our job and, unlike the army, there’s no one to tell us how to do it.’ He picked up his paperknife and pointed it directly at Harrison. ‘And now, because the politicians are running around like headless chickens, they’ll listen to your recommendations and probably implement them in some knee-jerk reaction. Like they have in the past over guns after the Hungerford massacre and those unworkable dangerous-dog laws. If they insist we do things your way, they’ll be playing right into the terrorists’ hands. Because those Irish bastards will soon see what’s happening. And all you’ll have succeeded in doing will be to bring London to a standstill with a tab that’ll have to be picked up by the hapless taxpayer.’

Quietly Harrison said: ‘Al, no one has asked me yet. Until they do, let’s just get on with working together.’

Pritchard lowered the accusing knife slowly. ‘Okay, Tom, lecture over.’ He hesitated, pausing to pick up a folder from his desk. ‘Work together, you say? All right, let’s talk about Seven Dials. A total of three car bombs, two we know about with antihandling devices fitted to the courtesy-light system. Then the one that killed Jock. What d’you think happened there?’

Harrison felt angry, as though Murray’s death was somehow being used to test him in some obscure way. ‘How the hell should I know, Al? Perhaps, he ran out of time, perhaps…’

Pritchard’s eyes were steely. ‘Perhaps what, Tom? You want us to work together. So, based on your much-vaunted knowledge of how AID AN works, what do you think happened? Come on,’ he goaded, ‘give it your best shot. Just between you and me.’

The tension in the atmosphere of the office was suddenly electric. It was almost possible to smell the charged emotions of anger, resentment and sorrow. All simmering under the unrelenting practical and political pressures of the job.

Harrison said slowly: ‘I don’t think Jock Murray just ran out of time. He broke a window to avoid triggering any antihandling device wired to the courtesy light.’ He paused. ‘I think forensics will prove that the device that he initiated had been rigged to an infrared car burglar system placed on the dashboard. As it detected the movement of his hand inside the car…‘He didn’t finish the sentence.

Al Pritchard’s face was immobile, as still and white as a waxwork. ‘What makes you say…?’

His question was interrupted by a telephone call informing him that the press conference would be starting soon.

When he hung up, Harrison said: ‘Because that’s exactly what AID AN did in Belfast three weeks ago.’

Pritchard slid the dossier marked Top Secret across the desk. ‘The forensic evidence on Jock’s bomb from Fort Halstead. You’re absolutely right.’

The words flickered on the screen of Eddie Mercs’s VDU: Some mechanically romantic megabytes are amassing in the RAM of my hard drive.

He leaned back in his chair and munched sensuously on his bacon and tomato roll; it was ten o’clock and unofficial breakfast time for the early shift at the Standard who had been in since seven. Sandwiches, yoghurt cartons and even bowls of cereal were much in evidence amongst the high-tech computer equipment all strictly against the office rules.

After considering for a moment, Mercs tapped a reply into the keyboard of his Coyote 22: What does this mean? and punched it down the line to Casey Mullins on the far side of the editorial floor.

Seconds later her reply came up on his screen: It means my Apple Mac is in love with yours. It doesn’t mean they are bad computers. Let’s meet up like responsible parents and discuss their future before we have the patter of tiny Laptops to contend with. How about you take me to lunch and we talk?

He grinned and wiped a dribble of tomato from his chin. With genuine regret he responded: Sorry nocando. Must attend Scot Yard Confon bomb campaign then riteup.

Can I come too?

No

Pleeeeeeeeeeeese

OK. U talked me into it. Reception in V2 hour.

They met in the vast arboretum lobby at the top of the escalators; as usual, Casey was several minutes late. ‘Sorry, Eddie, I had to finish this stupid article on Starsign Lovers.’ She grinned at him apologetically. ‘I’m afraid it means we can never get married. We’re air and fire — we’d burn out in no time.’

‘What a way to go,’ he said ruefully, and meant it.

Within minutes they were in Casey’s Porsche and racing towards Westminster. ‘Randall gets the car back tonight,’ she said miserably. ‘I’m getting a secondhand Mini, but I’m really too tall for it.’

‘Let me buy you a bus.’

‘Sweetie.’

‘And why exactly do you want to come to this conference? It is definitely not features material, it’s hard news. You’ll be the ruin of me — you hijacked the funeral story yesterday.’

She spun the wheel to avoid a tourist coach that considered it had the right to pull out in front of her. ‘Don’t be greedy, Eddie, it was a shared byline. You know I need just one little Pulitzer Prize and I can name my own price. Don’t stand in my way, you’ll get trampled.’

‘I don’t know how you’re getting away with this!’

‘Because the editor’s got the hots for me.’

‘That I can believe.’

‘And I’m the only one on the Standard who knows anything about bombs.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since yesterday, I gave a lift back to London to one of the bomb-disposal guys. A big shot over from Northern Ireland. SATO.’

‘What?’

‘Senior Ammunition Technical Officer. Your actual disposable bomb man, get it?’

‘That’s sick.’

‘It was his joke. They don’t take themselves too seriously.’ They were nearing Broadway and she began looking for somewhere to park. ‘Honestly, Eddie, I’m just interested in all this on a personal level since Seven Dials and I’ve got a few hours off.

‘Randall and I are selling the flat and the estate agent’s got some people coming to look at it later today. I hope they’re taller than the couple who came yesterday. I hate the thought of short people living there. I mean, are only short people rich in this country?’ She glared through the windscreen. ‘Short people shouldn’t have money.’

Even during the walk from the parking bay to New Scotland Yard, the heightened sense of security was evident even to the casual observer. There were officers on most corners around Parliament Square and stationed at intervals around the police headquarters building which took up the entire block.

Eddie nudged Casey as they walked and pointed to a police car stationed opposite the entrance. ‘An armed response vehicle, see? I’ve spotted several on the road this morning. Everyone’s expecting trouble, you can smell it.’ As they showed their press passes at the door, he added in a conspiratorial whisper: ‘I was talking to some copper mates of mine in the Albert last night. Apparently all leave’s been cancelled in the AntiTerrorist Branch. London’s been flooded with plain-clothes cops, several hundred in fact.’

She knew what Mercs meant about the heightened atmosphere of expectation on the London streets. Bombs in the West End and at Chiswick, they were on everyone’s mind. The previous night, alone over a TV supper with Candy, she’d been aware of the near and distant wail of police car sirens, seemingly crisscrossing the city into the small hours of the morning. Responding to raised alarms, false or otherwise, ever vigilant; just waiting, knowing that the next terrorist attack would come, it was just a question of when and where. It made her want to cuddle up with her daughter in front of the television, to draw the curtains and shut off the outside world in the optimistic belief that everything would be all right in the morning. Yet somehow she suspected that this was one storm that hadn’t yet run its course.

By contrast the press conference was a very upbeat affair, a superlative example of mass media management. Or was it manipulation? Rows of hard plastic chairs filled the room, all facing the rostrum with its heraldic crest and cluster of microphones. The place was packed to capacity with Casey’s flush-faced newspaper rivals, several of whom she recognised from the scrum outside the churchyard the previous day. Radio reporters checked their sound levels: ‘Two, three, one, testing. I had bacon, eggs, sausages, coffee’ and the television news crews fiddled with their lights, blinding some and just irritating others, demanding the best positions and tripping people up with their coils of cable. Meanwhile the sallow-faced young men and serious-looking women from the Met’s public relations department put on plastic smiles to hide their exasperation with the unruly, jostling mob which was never satisfied and would never quite do what it was told.

In one corner by the door a number of senior officers with peaked caps and smart-suited civilians watched on with varying expressions of disdain. Clearly these official observers were not liking what they observed.

Mercs felt a nudge in his ribs.

‘That’s him,’ Casey said. ‘Look, right at the back.’

‘Who?’

‘Major Harrison. Tom Harrison.’ She raised her hand and waved above the surrounding sea of heads. For a second she thought she’d caught his attention, but then he appeared not to have noticed. He looked to the man next to him. A man with a tanned face, easy smile and crinkly gold hair. The man who had been at Dukes Hotel, the man who had kissed her hand.

Then the Commander of the AntiTerrorist Branch swept in with his entourage. A distinguished man in his early fifties, with an open face but wary eyes, he fiddled for a moment with the height of the microphones. Then he appeared to take a deep breath, like a man about to plunge into a pool full of sharks.

His speech was brisk, no-nonsense and well-rehearsed. He skimmed across the facts quickly, offering little detail that the gathered journalists didn’t already know, and his words were riddled with cliches.

‘This latest barbaric IRA campaign with scant regard to innocent life.’ ‘One real bomb of about one thousand pounds of home-made explosive at Chiswick flyover.’ ‘Warning totally inadequate.’ ‘Three other hoaxes swiftly dealt with by our bomb disposal experts using controlled explosions.’ ‘All obviously intended to bring London traffic to a standstill and to cause maximum economic damage.’ ‘Eyewitness descriptions of people we’d like to eliminate from our inquiries…’ Details followed, then: ‘Need for continued vigilance.’ ‘Any questions?’

Hands flew up, waving for attention. Casey had to shout in Eddie Mercs’s ear. ‘There were four real bombs yesterday, not hoaxes. Tom said so on the way back from the funeral.’

‘Your disposable bomb man?’

‘Sure.’

‘Maybe he didn’t know all the details then.’

She didn’t answer, instead slipping into deep thought, only half listening to the Commander fending off the barrage of questions, trying to introduce a note of cautious optimism.

As the proceedings ran their natural course and the Met public relations people began looking pointedly at their watches, she suddenly realised that no mention had been made of the Dukes Hotel parcel bomb. She raised her hand.

The Commander looked in her direction and smiled.

‘Casey Mullins, sir, Evening Standard.’ Many heads in the audience turned. Few knew her personally, but most had become familiar with the by-line in the past week. ‘Can you confirm that a parcel bomb was sent to a guest at the Dukes Hotel in London yesterday?’

The smile on the Commander’s face melted like butter in the sun. ‘Er, I have no knowledge of such an incident.’

Casey frowned. ‘Are you saying there was no such incident, sir?’

‘Young lady, if there was such an incident I am certain I would have heard.’ He looked at his senior PR officer and nodded.

‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.’

That was it. Everyone started to move, the meeting breaking up, the gabble of conversation rising.

‘What was that all about?’ Mercs hissed. ‘Who was sent a parcel bomb?’

She shook her head. ‘Not here, Eddie, not in front of all these news vultures.’ Then she noticed Major Tom Harrison moving towards the door, talking with his fellow observers. ‘Just a minute, ‘% Eddie.’

The crowd was thinning and she elbowed her way through, clumsily upsetting several chairs. Ahead the observers had almost reached the door leading to the inner sanctum of New Scotland Yard. Tom Harrison was near the back, chatting to the man who had kissed her hand. The name came back to her. Don Trenchard. ‘Major Harrison!’

He hesitated and turned, his face clouding as he recognised her.

‘Hi, Major,’ she was breathless. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

He looked uncomfortable, almost angry. ‘Miss Mullins,’ he acknowledged stiffly. ‘You didn’t tell me you were a journalist.’

She shrugged, her cheeks colouring. ‘I’m sorry, but when I realised all of you were so anti-press, I thought it best. I didn’t want to cause a scene for Brenda Murray’s sake. And I really didn’t want you to be annoyed and upset.’ Her laugh was forced and nervous. ‘It was all a bit of a silly mistake really. Please forgive me.’

Under her winning smile and the earnest shine in her eyes, he felt his resistance crumble, but refused to show it. ‘Forgiven, but I think you’ll find that in life honesty is usually the best policy.’

The hurt flickered momentarily in her eyes; somehow she hadn’t anticipated such a patronising put-down. Glancing round, she realised he had been separated from the rest of the group. Only the man she knew as Don Trenchard lingered at the door for his friend. She said quickly: ‘I was worried stiff after I left you at Dukes Hotel yesterday.’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘You shouldn’t have been,’ he countered quickly. ‘It was a false alarm.’

‘Your friend Trenchard seemed certain enough yesterday.’

‘Don isn’t an expert.’ ‘Is that why the Commander knew nothing about it?’

‘Probably,’ he replied irritably, edging towards the door. ‘But I’m afraid I have nothing more to say to you, Miss Mullins.’

She reached out her hand as he moved away, catching his sleeve. ‘I’ll call.’

‘Don’t bother,’ he replied coldly and was gone.

After telephoning over an article on the conference to the Standard’s copy-takers, Eddie Mercs took Casey to an hotel across the road from New Scotland Yard. On the way she told him about the parcel bomb sent to Senator Powers and Harrison’s denial. St Ermin’s was discreet and palatial, its verandah in the cul-de-sac entrance providing shade from the sun and shelter from the skittish northerly wind.

After ordering two beers from the waiter, Mercs observed: ‘You’re quiet. Just because your boyfriend gave you the old heave-ho?’

‘It was my own fault. He suddenly realised I was a journalist. I think he hates us more than he does the bombers.’

Mercs flicked a match under his cigarette. ‘The military don’t have much time for us until one of their precious regiments is about to get the chop in defence cuts.’

‘He was quite rude,’ she said, still smarting with disbelief. Then she seemed to take a grip on herself and smiled. ‘I don’t mind the blood, guts, violence and mayhem, Eddie, but I just hate having my feelings hurt.’

He grinned at her. ‘So anyway, what’s he doing here?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Your friend. I thought you said he’s the Senior ATO from Belfast. So what’s he doing at a New Scotland Yard press conference? I thought he was just attending Murray’s funeral?’

Casey shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘Wait a minute. They were talking yesterday at the house. There was some argument over the phone. Something about Harrison’s presence being an official Home Office request. His presence here, I suppose, I wasn’t really paying attention.’

Mercs let out a long low whistle and looked slightly embarrassed when the waiter arrived unexpectedly. The man gave the reporter a coy smile as he placed the drinks on the table. When he left, Mercs said: ‘Those men were from the Met’s bomb disposal unit, the Explosives Section, right? Your boyfriend’s been drafted in from Belfast by request of the government. That’ll ruffle a few feathers, I’ll be bound.’

Casey didn’t understand, and told him so.

‘Look, sweetheart, we all know this latest IRA campaign’s been unusually active and successful. Maybe more so than we realise. Listen, what you said earlier at the conference, about you being certain there were four real bombs, which today they denied. Already Fleet Street has swallowed the story. But imagine, just imagine, that there were four and they’d all gone off. Three main artery routes into London from the west and another into the city. It would have caused chaos and choked the capital’s roads for months. Millions of pounds in business losses that, one way or another, would have cost the taxpayer.’

‘I don’t know what to believe,’ Casey said.

‘Consider this,’ said Mercs, sipping his beer and wiping the froth from his upper lip with the back of his hand. ‘They, the government and the police, might have been lying. Like this parcel bomb that was sent to Senator Powers.’

She stared gloomily and confused at her untouched glass. ‘What does it mean, Eddie?’

‘It means, sweetheart, that you might have got yourself a scoop.’ He jerked his mobile phone from his pocket and flipped it open. ‘Let’s just verify a couple of points with an old oppo of mine in Belfast.’

Gerard Keefe, he explained, was an ex-staffer on the Telegraph who’d turned freelance some five years earlier. His contacts with terrorists — which he deferentially referred to as ‘paramilitaries’ on both sides of the political divide were legendary, his sources impeccable. As many who read his work considered he was a secret supporter of the Provisional IRA as believed him to be in the pocket of the Protestant extremists. Which probably meant that he had his editorial balance just about right.

However, his notoriety for having contacts with the rival leaderships had led to his increasing paranoia about his own safety. And that concern seemed to worsen each time Mercs spoke to him. The reporter was one of the few people to be trusted with his home telephone number; even that method of contact was of intermittent value, as Keefe regularly changed it and neglected to inform Mercs of his new number.

Today they were in luck. Keefe answered with a gruff ‘Yes’ to the background noise of his children shouting and shrieking over their lunch. It was incongruous for someone who believed he was a marked man by two terrorist organisations as well as British Intelligence.

‘Hallo, Gerry, it’s Eddie here. How’s life treating you?’

‘Sure mustn’t grumble, still strugglin’ on,’ came the unusually soft Ulster accent. ‘Can I be doin’ something for you, Eddie?’

‘I’d like to run a couple of things across you, Gerry.’

The slow, disapproving intake of breath was unmistakable. ‘Not over the phone, Eddie, you know how I feel about that.’

Keefe’s paranoia focused particularly on the telephone ever since he’d unearthed a story that all calls across the Irish Channel were screened by computer to pick up key trigger words in order to track down terrorist active service units on the mainland. Although Mercs had no way of knowing the veracity of the story, he tended to be sceptical. ‘Nothing sensitive, Gerry, and you don’t have to answer me.’

‘Go on then.’ Reluctant.

‘Can you confirm the name of the army’s Senior ATO in the Province?’

‘You mean Colonel Taffy LloydWilliams?’

‘No, not the Chief, his 2IC

A short pause. ‘Without referring to my files, a Major Harris, I think. Harris or Harrison. Tom Harris, I’m sure that’s it. But LloydWilliams is Top Cat, the main spokesman.’

Mercs grinned at Casey and raised his thumb in a gesture of triumph. ‘Would it strike you as odd, Gerry, if I told you this Harris or Harrison had been seconded to the Met’s Explosives Section over here?’ ‘

There was a chuckle at the other end. ‘Very odd, especially in mid-tour. Someone in Whitehall must be very worried about that latest bombing campaign over there. But it could make sense, what with the threat over these talks.’

Talks. Mercs was instantly on the alert, recalling the contents of AIDAN’s warning to the paper and the subsequent request for silence from the Defence Advisory Committee. He played it dumb. ‘What talks are these, Gerry?’

‘Sure it’s the worst kept secret in the Province. The place is alive with rumours about the talks.’

‘What’s this, another Sunningdale or a repeat of Mayhew and Adams fiasco?’ Mercs asked. ‘Government talking to the terrorists and all that.’

Keefe’s voice laughed down the telephone again. ‘More like a reworking of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Strictly between Dublin and London to the exclusion of all the paramilitaries. The Provies have got wind that it will include internment of terrorists on both sides of the border, that’s why they’re creating such a stink. They want the talks torpedoed unless they’re included.’

‘Who told you that, Gerry?’

‘A reliable source, Eddie.’ A hard edge had crept back into his voice. ‘That same source assures me the mainland campaign won’t stop ‘till the Provies get their way.’

‘D’you know where these talks are being held?’

‘If I did I could be a rich man!’

‘Or at what level?’

‘Sorry, Eddie. All I know is what my source said, that it’s the result of a secret American initiative. What I can tell you is that some politically well-connected Yank has been reported doing a flying shuttle between Dublin, Stormont and London. You know, like old Henry Kissinger used to do.’

‘Does this Yank have a name?’

‘This’ll cost you, Eddie.’

‘Fifty?’

‘A hundred.’

Mercs’s lower lip puckered. But then his freelance friend had to earn a living and had a lot of mouths to feed. ‘Okay, Gerry, the cheque’s in the post. What’s the name of this Yank?’

‘Senator Abe Powers.’

On the drive back to the Standards offices, Mercs went over the new intro to his story with Casey, jotting his own indecipherable form of Pitman’s into his notebook, oblivious of the jolting motion of the car.

They arrived at one thirty. Casey was taken over by Mercs’s enthusiasm, although still not quite certain what she had discovered and what all the excitement was about. Amid the chaos of his work station, with overflowing ashtrays and dead plastic coffee cups, someone had left a proof of the front page. His earlier telephoned story had made the splashed lead:

‘.Gordon Bennett!’ he groaned. ‘Is that the best the subs could do? With headlines like that, I’m surprised all our readers aren’t dead through boredom. At times like this I wouldn’t mind working on the Sun. BOMB BUSTERS BEAT BRIDGE BLASTERS or some such.’ He snatched up the telephone and punched in the news editor’s extension. ‘Steve, Eddie here, I’ve got an update on that bombing conference. New angle — and hopefully a new soddin’ headline.’

Across the room the news editor was glancing at his watch. Twenty-five minutes to clear the West End Final. ‘Run it up and let’s see what it looks like.’

‘Shall do,’ Mercs snapped, hung up and looked at Casey. ‘A shared by-line okay?’

She laughed. ‘Here comes my Pulitzer.’

Eddie Mercs clamped a cigarette, unlit, between his teeth and called up the news ‘basket’ on his VDU, splitting the screen with his original story on the left, running his ‘revise’ down the blank right-hand side.

He began tapping: One of the British Army’s top bomb-disposal experts, Major Tom Harrison, has been called in from Northern Ireland to assist the Metropolitan Police in their fight against the latest terror bombing campaign in London…

While he worked Casey made three telephone calls in an attempt to get official confirmation of the story. The Home Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office all denied any knowledge, with varying degrees of hostility. But none, she noticed, categorically said that it was incorrect.

‘No comment,’ she said, replacing the receiver after the last call.

Mercs’s eyes sparkled mischievously. ‘Then it’s true. Otherwise they’d have said.’

With the story complete, Mercs punched it down the line to the news editor.

A few minutes later the exec ed, who ran the production side, phoned to invite the reporter to join him at the Graphics Desk.

‘C’mon,’ Mercs said to Casey, ‘this is a moment to cherish.’

Having seen thousands of his masterpieces decimated over the years by subs, news editors and production wallahs at various newspapers, he welcomed any chance to cross the jealously guarded divide between the editorial hierarchy and the humble news hounds.

Such occasions were rare, restricted to when a real rush was on and even then a reporter’s presence was not only informal but barely tolerated.

The exec, news and picture editors as well as a senior sub were gathered behind Mandy Oates, a failed actress, who was operating the Display Mac.

‘Nice one, Eddie,’ she murmured, studying the full front page on the screen. Mercs’s revise fitted the space to within a line.

‘Cut out the second “and” on the third para,’ advised the sub and Mandy dutifully cut and realigned the column. Perfect.

‘The overall balance is all wrong now,’ observed the exec ed. ‘If we could ditch that caption story of the kid from Bosnia at the zoo and replace it with…’

‘Nothing suitable,’ the pics ed said glumly.

‘How about a nice sexy pic of a bomb-disposal bloke from Northern Ireland,’ Mercs suggested brightly.

The pics ed scowled; he hated library pictures on the front page, this was most definitely not a reporter’s province. ‘Like living dangerously, do you, Eddie? Just stick to your joined-up writing, there’s a good lad.’

But the exec ed liked the idea. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got on file.’

While they waited for the photographs and Mandy began rearranging the layout, the news editor ran his eye over the story again.

‘What’s this tailpiece about a parcel bomb?’ he asked Mercs. ‘I haven’t heard about that before.’

‘Casey was there when it happened, Steve.’

‘Senator Powers? Wasn’t he the one who refused to give Casey an interview last Christmas? Said he was on a private visit?’

‘Private, my arse, Steve. He’s involved in those secret talks. That’s obviously why he was sent the bomb.’

Steve’s eyes were dark and suspicious as he glanced sideways at Mercs. ‘You know we’ve been told not to mention them.’

The reporter appeared unconcerned. ‘We haven’t. It’s just a pure statement of fact — that Scotland Yard denied any knowledge that Senator Powers was sent a bomb.’

‘You know that implies we don’t believe them,’ the news editor warned.

Mercs allowed himself a sly smile. ‘It might shake something nasty out of the woodwork.’

‘You’re a crafty bastard, Eddie.’

‘They’re making the rules, Steve, I’m just playing by them. Fair enough?’

The news editor nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

A selection of photographs came down the old-fashioned air tubes from the Picture Library on the next floor. One was chosen, a dramatic scene of hellfire and damnation in Belfast with an ATO in a sinister-looking bombsuit emerging from the flames.

‘Looks good,’ the exec ed said.

The picture editor grunted. ‘Gives the impression London’s turning into a second Belfast.’

.‘Maybe it is,’ Mercs replied, placing his arm around the sub’s shoulder. ‘And for God’s sake, Reg, come up with a more imaginative headline this time.’

‘And quickly,’ the exec ed urged, tapping his watch. ‘The time’s ticking away. Five minutes.’

‘Ah,’ Reg said thoughtfully.