The Tick Tock Man

3

It was late May — with AIDAN’s experimental campaign still creating havoc across Northern Ireland — when Hugh Dougan and his daughter completed their final briefing and personal firearms training at Colloney Strand in County Sligo. They then flew separately to Paris from Shannon, following the route used earlier by McGirl. A few days later they were on the same ferry as it crossed a mirror-smooth North Sea to dock in Newcastle.

A small fleet of secondhand vehicles had been purchased at auction by PIRA’s so-called ‘flying column’, its logistical wing on the mainland which supported individual active service units. Each vehicle was fitted with false number plates of identical legitimate models that had been spotted on the streets of major cities. Some vans and cars would be used as mobile bombs; others, including three motorcycles, would be used as transport for the new AID AN active service unit. One such car was waiting with a driver at the docks, ready to take them to the newly rented house near the Henley farm.

The stocks of fertiliser were already mounting in the secure barn together with catering supplies of icing sugar. McGirl’s farm manager was well advanced in his programme of grinding and refining vast quantities of the home-made explosive mixture.

In early June the campaign began.

It started simply enough. A time-delay device containing incendiary powder and lighter-fuel capsules was left in the soft furnishings department of an Oxford Street store. A vague thirty minute warning was issued at noon, but with no recognised codeword. With an accuracy that was to become an AIDAN hallmark, a photo flashbulb triggered the device at the predicted time while police were trying to find it amongst hundreds of rolls of curtain and dressmaking fabric. The store was still only partially evacuated.

Only when the initially small blaze activated the automatic sprinkler system did London witness the first example of AIDAN’s trickery. Attached to the incendiary was a secondary device containing a sodium base. The more water that poured from the ceiling, the fiercer became the blaze. In seconds the entire floor had developed into a raging fireball that swept through two entire floors before it was brought under control.

It was a mirror incident of what had happened to a Londonderry store just four weeks earlier.

Twenty Oxford Street shoppers were hurt in the scramble to escape, three suffering serious injuries. Several policemen and fire crew were treated for smoke inhalation. That evening’s television news carried graphic eyewitness reports of the terror and panic in the crowds as they had rushed for the escalators and stairs.

Two days later, following an uncoded tip-off to the Samaritans, an explosive device was found in a lamppost in Hammersmith. After it had been dismantled by hand, its positioning such that it was impossible to use a remote ‘disrupter’, the bomb was found to be made up of a dummy Semtex charge. That afternoon an identical charge was found in the Fulham Road. An officer from the police Explosives Section had just confirmed that it was another dummy device when a nearby Keep Left bollard exploded. Two policemen attending the scene were seriously injured.

A further two days elapsed before a black briefcase was found abandoned at a bus stop a quarter of a mile from Paddington Green, home of Londo’n’s top-security police station to which all terrorist suspects are taken. An alert member of the public informed a young police constable on traffic duty.

Aware of the recent incidents, the officer radioed the duty inspector and the area was sealed off. A bomb-disposal expert from the Met’s Explosives Section was called in to examine the briefcase: it was found to contain innocuous business papers and a round of chicken sandwiches wrapped in cellophane. Nervous laughs all round and merciless leg-pulls from the constable’s mates.

The cleared briefcase was taken to the regular front office of Paddington Green where the desk sergeant arranged for the lost property to be deposited in store.

At four in the afternoon the thin slab of Semtex concealed in the lining exploded. One civilian storekeeper was killed outright and a policeman lost his arm. There was severe structural damage to the building.

No one claimed responsibility.

However the AntiTerrorist Branch of the Metropolitan Police had no doubt that it was also part of a new campaign by the Provisional IRA. Each was virtually a repeat incident of an occurrence in Northern Ireland during the preceding three 1 months. And all of those had followed warnings with the codeword AIDAN.

There was no doubt now. Unannounced or not, AIDAN had come to mainland Britain.

The news editor covered the mouthpiece of the telephone. ‘It’s a fucking bomb warning.’ ťImmediately his deputy turned away from the story he was scanning on the Apple Mac’s VDU.

Had he heard right? Was his boss taking the piss or was he pissed? Despite the popular misconception that bombers phoned newspapers, that happened rarely nowadays. Modern Xsystem exchanges automatically logged the source numbers of all incoming calls and the terrorists knew that. Even in the old days, warnings were made to the switchboard, not a bloody person-to person to the news editor. And that’s what this call had been. The deputy knew because he’d taken it initially as the news editor was sauntering back from the toilets.

Now his boss was scribbling frantically on his pad. ‘ Where was that?’ he was asking.

But the caller wasn’t falling for delaying tactics. Instead he continued with his message, if anything talking faster so that the newsman needed all his rusty shorthand skills to keep up.

Christ, the deputy thought, this is genuine.

He snatched up the handset of his own phone. Who were you supposed to call? Special Branch, the AntiTerrorist Squad, the Bomb Squad? He didn’t have the numbers of any to hand. It would have to be 999 and all round the sodding houses.

The dramatic effect of the bomber’s call spread like a ripple on a pond through the first-floor editorial offices of the London Evening Standard overlooking Kensington High Street. Unlike the newspaper offices of old Fleet Street, the fully computerised nerve centre exuded the air of activity and suppressed tension of a merchant bank. Ringing telephones and crashing typewriters had been replaced by electronic bleeps and the muted clack of terminal keyboards. Even what little noise there was now fell away to a hushed silence as the whispered word passed from the editorial hierarchy on the so-called Back Bench. It spread through the work stations of the reporters and copy-takers on one side of the vast carpeted floor and the features and diary desks on the other.

By the time the news editor replaced his receiver it seemed that everyone on the floor knew.

Casey Mullins, the American features writer, had been passing the news editor’s desk and had just sweet-talked veteran Fleet Street reporter Eddie Mercs into parting with one of his bacon sandwiches when the call came through.

‘Is this for real?’ she asked incredulously, her hunger pangs suddenly forgotten.

Mercs shrugged. ‘Looks like Steve thinks so,’ he replied through a mouthful of brea4 as the news editor switched to the deputy’s line and repeated details of the bomb warning to the police.

When the conversation ended, Mercs asked: ‘Genuine threat you reckon, Steve?’ His bulky presence, reinforced by the inevitable combination of rolled shirtsleeves, askew tie and voluminous trousers supported by garish braces was not easy to ignore.

‘Seemed so, Eddie,’ the news editor replied quietly. By contrast to the reporter, the man was reed-thin and swarthily handsome with a thick mane of black hair. Despite the absurdly long shifts that he worked, he looked much younger than his forty-eight years. ‘Something about it being a protest by the IRA against some secret talks now being organised by the Americans.’

‘Yeah, I’ve heard that rumour. Mind you, when aren’t there rumours about secret talks? What did the police say to that?’

The news editor grinned as the executive and picture editors rushed to join them. ‘Nothing, of course. Told me to mind my own fucking business. I think he was pissed off’cos it was too late for an instant trace on the call.’

‘Where’s this bomb supposed to be?’ Mercs asked, determined to be first in the queue when the job was allocated.

The news editor glanced at his scrawled hieroglyphics. ‘Tower Street, off Shaftesbury Avenue.’

‘I know it, just off Seven Dials.’

‘In a blue rented van — actually gave the registration number.’

Mercs grunted. ‘That’s thoughtful of the buggers.’

‘And unusual, I think. They gave a sixty-minute warning.’

As unflappable as ever, the exec ed was consulting his watch. It was eleven o’clock and they’d just cleared a second slip of the City Prices edition. ‘If there’s anything in it, it’ll be too tight for Late Prices, but we should make the West End Final, even if we have to go for an extra slip.’

That gave them until two in the afternoon to clear. Just three hours.

‘Do you want me to take it, Steve?’ Mercs offered.

‘You free?’

‘Nothing that can’t wait.’

The decision was made. ‘Then get yourself down to Seven Dials. Like pronto!’

‘And take Hal Hoskins with you,’ the pics ed added.

It was the second reference to the location that triggered Casey Mullins’s recognition of the name. She had been watching on, bemused to find herself caught up in the middle of one of the numerous bomb scares of recent weeks. Mostly, like everyone else, her experience was secondhand through television and newspaper reports.

‘Oh, my God, did you say Seven Dials?’

Eddie Mercs turned. The tall American had been sitting on the edge of an adjacent desk, long legs outstretched as she munched idly on his hijacked sandwich. Now the muscles in the face framed by wavy, pale copper hair had frozen, her blue eyes wide.

‘Seven Dials,’ Mercs confirmed.

‘Near Covent Garden?’

“That’s the one.’

‘My daughter’s there at dance school.’ ‘You sure?’

She smiled weakly. ‘It’s called the Seven Dials Academy, how sure do you want me to be? Jesus!’

‘She’ll be all right,’ Mercs said. ‘If it’s not a hoax the police will evacuate…’

But Casey had gone, sandwich dumped on the nearest desk as she sprinted back to her own telephone.

Mercs and the news editor exchanged amused glances. Americans!

It took Casey two misdials before she got through to the office of her estranged English husband whose legal practice was in sumptuous offices in Pall Mall.

Then she hit the usual brick wall. ‘Randall Thurlow and Partners, how can I help you?’ That disdainful nasal voice.

‘May I speak to Mr Thurlow, please, it’s urgent.’

‘Who is that calling?’ Condescending.

Cow! You know bloody well who it is, I’ve spoken to you enough times over the past six years. ‘It’s his wife.’

Not a flicker of recognition, not an iota of humanity. Just — ‘I’m afraid Mr Thurlow is in conference with an important client at the moment ‘

‘I don’t care if he’s in conference with God Almighty, this is a matter of life and death — just put him on!’

That did the trick, but it was still several minutes before she recognised her husband’s voice on the telephone. The irritation in his impatient silence managed to convey itself down the line as he listened to her garbled story.

‘Listen, Casey, I’m with a client, I can’t just leave.’

She glared at the handset. ‘For God’s sake, Randall, your office is just down the road from the studio — can’t you get someone to just jump in a cab and collect her?’

‘Everyone’s up to their neck, Casey. It’s the High Court case tomorrow ‘

‘Dammit, Randall, this is our daughter’s life we’re talking about.’

‘Candy is not technically mine,’ Thurlow reminded icily.

‘Well, she has been for the past six years as far as I’m concerned, you callous bastard.’

Thurlow’s voice cracked. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. You say there’s been an hour’s warning, the police will get the area cleared ‘

Casey was exasperated. ‘I could be there myself while I’m standing here arguing with you.’

‘Then why don’t you do that.’ Cold.

‘Stuff you, Randall!’ she said and slammed down the telephone.

God, whatever had she seen in that bastard? How could she ever have been fooled by that smooth, supercilious English voice and all the rich trappings of inherited wealth.

She snatched her handbag, checked for her car keys and raced across the news floor to the glass lift. It descended to the vast beige marble arboretum that formed the reception area of Northcliffe House. Once outside the doors, she found it was raining heavily, the forecast July showers having turned into a prolonged torrential monsoon. Eddie Mercs was still standing on the corner of Derry Street with Hal Hoskins, the young leather-jacketed photographer.

Both men were trying in vain to flag down an empty taxi.

‘EDDIE! D’YOU WANNA LIFT?!’

A smile of relief broke over the veined and florid face, rain flattening what was left of his curly grey hair.

By the time they caught up with her, Casey had already reached her meter space and had the engine of the red Porsche purring eagerly. The photographer scrambled in through the passenger seat to the rear squab while Mercs dumped himself beside the driver, water forming a pool by his feet.

‘Nice motor, Case,’ the photographer observed appreciatively. ‘First time I’ve been on a job in a Porsche. Yours?’

‘My late husband’s,’ she replied, peering through the thrashing motion of the wipers, the windows already fugging with condensation. ‘I’m sorry,’ Hoskins said.

Mercs explained helpfully: ‘She means late as in former — or else it’s just her wishful thinking.’

‘We’re separating,’ Casey added. ‘Halfway between nisi and absolute — there must be a word for it. We’re getting separate new homes but the Porsche goes back to his side of the asset sheet. Guess I must make some concession to growing up — just don’t ask me to give up tap-dancing.’

The Porsche swung across Kensington High Street to join the eastward flow of traffic streaming towards the West End.

‘You could do worse than marry me,’ Mercs offered, wiping the rain specks from his glasses with a handkerchief.

‘I couldn’t afford the liquor bills.’

‘But I’d let you keep up the tap-dancing.’

She grinned without taking her eyes off the road. From the moment she had met Mercs in Jimmies Wine Bar after her first shift on the Standard, they had hit it off instantly. Considered dour by those who did not know him, Mercs had found that his own dry wit was triggered by Casey’s quick-fire one-liners. She had also used them to good effect in an occasional humorist column called ‘A Yank in London’ which the editor had grudgingly trialed. Too much of her day, she was aware, was spent replying to Mercs’s romantic proposals which were invariably sent via their VDUs after he had imbibed an extended liquid lunch. But at least it proved a welcome antidote to her troubled personal life. ‘How long you been living here now?’ Hal asked.

‘Six years. Since I married Randall.’

‘Worked on other national papers, have you?’

‘No, this is my first proper job now Candy’s grown-up. Randall insisted I stayed at home so I’d been confined to freelancing features for the women’s mags. But I used to be a real journalist for a time back in the States. My first husband wasn’t so stuffy about that sort of thing. I did some good investigative jobs — only local, mind — but I helped to get a corrupt local police chief fired. It’s my only claim to fame.’

‘Perhaps you can do some of that here,’ Hal suggested.

She smiled. ‘I don’t think so. They’re keeping me a million

‘ miles from any real in-depth work. It’s all leisure and life style for me. We Yanks may be cute, but we’re not to be taken seriously.’

‘Besides which, you can’t spell,’ Mercs added for good measure.

They were through Knightsbridge now, Casey deftly changing gear and overtaking whenever an opportunity presented itself. Using the car’s power to full advantage, she shot through the underpass beneath Hyde Park Corner and into Piccadilly. From there Mercs gave directions enabling them to miss the holdups at Piccadilly Circus by cutting up through lower Mayfair, crossing Old Bond Street and Regent Street to Soho. When they reached Old Compton Street, he advised her to pull in and park.

It was to prove a wise move. Because continuing on foot, they discovered that the traffic had become grid-locked. Police had sealed off the entire length of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, which would normally carry motorists past Tower Street where the bomb had supposedly been planted.

Until this time Casey had been persuaded by the assurances of her husband and Eddie Mercs that Candy was in no danger. But now the sight of so many blue uniforms, flashing lights and tape cordons holding back masses of pedestrians set her heart racing again.

She glanced at her watch. It was forty minutes since the bomb warning had been received. ‘Eddie, where do we go now?’

‘We’ll drop south around the cordon and get to Seven Dials via Upper St Martin’s.’

Then they were on the move again, crossing Shaftesbury Avenue to take the back streets to Leicester Square station before turning into Cranbourne Street. Along Upper St Martin’s Lane, past Stringfellow’s nightclub and Peppermint Park to Monmouth Street, one of the seven roads that fed into the Dials circus like the spokes of a wheel. They had been moving fast, Casey particularly surprised at Eddie Mercs’s remarkable energy. For someone so overweight, who smoked and drank too much, he nevertheless managed to keep at the front. Now, however, their progress was slowed as they found themselves struggling against the crush of people coming in the opposite direction. Evacuated office workers, shoppers and tourists were advancing across the full width of the narrow street. There was no sign of panic, in fact many were laughing and joking, probably shop assistants welcoming the enforced break from boring routine.

Casey glanced around at the bobbing mass of heads. Candy could have been anywhere in the crowd and she could have unknowingly missed her by a matter of feet. Suddenly this didn’t seem like a very good idea.

The scene at Seven Dials was one of total chaos. It had been selected as the rendezvous point for the emergency services. Being close to the suspect vehicle bomb, it was also large enough to allow police cars, fire engines and ambulances to gather together. Yet it was clearly far from an ideal site. The circular traffic circus, with its central modern sculpture, was crammed with official vehicles and overrun with evacuating civilians. The west end of Earlham Street, which ran into Tower Street where the bomb was reportedly placed, had been cordoned off with police tape. Guests from the Mountbatten Hotel and restaurant were being directed away from the star-shaped junction up Mercer Street and north Monmouth to the safety of Shaftesbury Avenue theatreland. Meanwhile the Cambridge Theatre matinee audience and drinkers from the Crown pub were being guided south and east towards Covent Garden.

Under a prematurely darfcsky, the rain-drenched spectacle was bizarrely lit by the pulsing blue strobes of the emergency vehicles.

A middle-aged police sergeant, rain dripping from the peak of his cap, spotted the three of them moving against the flow of humanity.

‘Sorry, folks, you’re going the wrong way! A bomb scare, no sightseers, I’m afraid.’

Mercs showed his press pass. ‘Standard, Sergeant. Okay if our photographer takes some pics?’

The policeman grunted. ‘Just keep out from under our feet and don’t try sneaking through to Tower Street. Don’t want you ending up like that News of the World photographer at the Bishopsgate bomb.’

The reporter nodded. ‘And this lady’s trying to find her daughter.’ % ‘Lost is she?’

Casey anxiously wiped the rain-lank hair from her face. ‘She’s at the Seven Dials Dance Academy.’

‘Ah, we’ve just cleared that. Over there, behind that squad car…’

Without waiting, she rushed off, struggling through the throng to where a group of teenage children were emerging from stairs that led up to the over-the-shop studio.

‘Have you found the device yet?’ Mercs asked.

The sergeant nodded. ‘I believe so. The Bomb Squad boys are around there now. We can expect a controlled explosion at any moment.’ He consulted his watch. ‘I just hope those bastard Irish were telling the truth — if so we’ve got four minutes. I wouldn’t want that job for all the tea in China.’

His last word was smothered by the sudden dull thud of explosive from the next block. It was followed by a musical tinkling of glass as a few nearby windows shattered.

‘Thank God for that,’ the sergeant said with feeling.

Hardly had the words escaped his mouth when a uniformed inspector crossed from one of the police Range-Rovers. ‘Sergeant, I’ve just been talking to Explosives Section. They say there’s a strong chance of a secondary. Something to do with the codeword they used. So get this whole area cleared fast, right down to Long Acre and Endell Street — we’ve had enough excitement for one day.’

Meanwhile Casey had found her daughter in the stream of young dance hopefuls emerging from the glass doorway. The tall slender sixteen-year-old, a raincoat draped over her leotard, was surprised to see her mother.

‘What are you doing here, Mum?’

‘We got the bomb warning at the paper, so I came straight over.’

‘Jeez, that was quick, we’ve only just been told ourselves.’

Momentarily Casey’s anger flared at the delay of almost an hour, until she reasoned it would have taken time to get forces in place, to find the bomb and confirm it wasn’t a stupid hoax. And, of course, the evacuation of so many people would take time, naturally starting with Tower Street itself and the immediate vicinity. She realised then that a sixty-minute warning was hardly as considerate as it first appeared.

She said: ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. Someone said the bomb disposal people have destroyed it.’

Candy looked pained. ‘I’m not worried, Mum. Don’t make such a fuss. We heard the controlled explosion. One of the girls knew what it was, she heard a real bomb a couple of years ago. She said you’d know the difference.’

‘Turning into a proper little Londoner, aren’t we? You’ll be talking about the Blitz next.’

‘The what?’

Casey was suddenly aware of someone standing beside her, holding an umbrella with a clear plastic canopy. The woman was thin and pale with an anxious expression on her face. ‘Casey, isn’t it? Remember me? Gwen. We met when our daughters did the Christmas show…’

Recognition dawned. ‘Yes, of course… Isn’t this a terrible business?’

‘Oh, yes. I’m so glad I decided to pick Shirley up today. I don’t usually but she’s got this tummy bug, you see.’ She glanced around at the group of young dancers walking away towards Shaftesbury Avenue. ‘You haven’t seen her, have you?’

A frown creased Candy’s forehead beneath the tightly pinned hair. ‘I expect she’s in the lap upstairs. She was having a terrible time.’

‘Alone?’ Gwen’s face was aghast.

‘No, I think the teacher’s still up there with her.’

Gwen smiled her flustered apologies. ‘Please excuse me, I must find her.’ She turned and disappeared into the doorway.

As she did so the harsh metallic voice of the bullhorn cut above the hiss of unrelenting rain: ‘PLEASE CLEAR THE AREA! WE ARE EXTENDING THE CORDON BECAUSE THERE MAY BE ANOTHER DEVICE IN THE VICINITY! PLEASE CLEAR THE AREA! DO NOT STOP TO PICK UP POSSESSIONS!’

‘Oh, God,’ Casey breathed, ‘not another one.’

‘Don’t panic, Mum, you’re embarrassing me.’

It seemed that Seven Dials and the six open streets were more filled with people than ever, a fresh wave having emptied from the Cambridge Theatre.

Casey gathered her arm around her daughter and urged her forward towards the sergeant she’d spoken to earlier. ‘Do you know where this other bomb might be? I mean, which is the safest way to go?’

The sergeant shrugged grimly. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, love, just be quick about it.’

She glanced around. There was no sign of Eddie Mercs or Hal Hoskins. Each of the exit streets running north and south were filled with people, some now starting to run as the voice on the bullhorn repeated its warning. She flicked the wet hair from her face, trying to focus through sheeting rain. Somewhere distant thunder rumbled in the prematurely black sky. Still the blue strobes flashed dizzily around the walls of Seven Dials.

God, which way, she wondered? The south stretch of Earlham Street was packed, probably with people heading for the tube station and an unexpectedly early journey home.

‘Mum, this way,’ Candy urged.

They stepped past the green-tiled frontage of the Boxfresh men’s clothing shop to the mouth of Shorts Gardens. The last of the evacuees were halfway down the straight recobbled street which was some hundred metres long. Following behind them were two uniformed policemen who were checking the few remaining vehicles which hadn’t been driven away by their owners. Litter bins and refuse bags were being prodded and probed.

‘They’re looking for more bombs,’ Candy observed matter-offactly. Casey swallowed hard, placed her arm firmly around her daughter’s shoulders and started walking. They passed the brown-tiled walls of the Crown pub, the pretty window boxes of evergreens unnoticed above the elegant shop fronts of the Andrew Chan and Elinor Lamond boutiques.

Before them stretched the long rendered facade of residential flats on the left and the hanging blue banners of a shopping arcade on the right. Then abruptly the street ahead was clear of people; Casey realised that they must have decided to run. She began to feel uneasy. There was a tightening in her chest. She felt giddy. They were left behind. Everyone had gone. The pace of her footsteps quickened with the pounding of her heart. She was aware of the crack of her heels on the cobbles rising above the sound of rainwater gurgling along the gutters.

Lightning spat and fizzled from the sky somewhere above the Thames, momentarily brightening the underbelly of the dark cloudbase. The rain-lacquered street shone with the bizarre patterns of refracted light thrown from the thrashing strobes in Seven Dials.

An instinctive sense of self-preservation was taking over. Deep, base and animal. Raw fear. They began to run, breath catching in their throats, the rain whipping at their faces. All pretence of calm was now abandoned, replaced by stark panic, unaware of sodden clothes and squelching shoes. The towering street walls seemed to be closing in, tottering above them.

Near the end of the street a policeman was standing beside a parked car. Casey saw his hand, a white blur, waving frantically. Urging them on. He was shouting something but she couldn’t hear above the drumming of the rain and the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears.

The constable was still waving. They were last. He must have been warned of something on his radio, she thought. He appeared frantic. <.

‘MUM!‘Candy yelled.

Casey stopped suddenly, lungs heaving. Oh, Christ, she’d misunderstood! He wasn’t hurrying them up, he was trying to tell them to go back.

She hesitated as he came racing towards them, the ridiculous bell-shaped helmet clasped in one hand, his short black hair plastered flat against his scalp by the rain.

He looked so young, his face pinched and anxious. ‘Better not come down here, miss. There’s a suspect package in that car. We’ll get the Expos to have a look.’

Casey didn’t understand. ‘Expos?’

‘Sorry, Explosives Officers. Now if you just walk quickly back up to Seven Dials and take another route.’

‘What about you?’

He grinned an uneasy boyish grin. ‘A policeman’s lot, as they say.’

She returned the smile. ‘Take care.’

They turned, leaving the young constable to his unenviable task, and began walking briskly back the way they had come. Candy seemed to be taking it in her stride and Casey felt increasing relief as they put more distance between themselves and the suspect car. At least now they knew where it was, knew they would be safe The scorching white core of the blast seared into their retinas. Up ahead the scene at Seven Dials pulsed in a flux of blinding light. The dark outlines of police cars and fire engines were lifted off the ground, bodies hurtling like limp dolls against the background of flame. The images were drilled into the backs of their eyes as the fireball erupted. But the split fraction of a second in which it happened appeared to run in slow motion, their confused brains absorbing every microsecond of detail in a single instant. Feeling the cobbles quake and tremble beneath their feet, even registering the advance of the invisible shockwave as it came towards them like a mighty juggernaut, tossing parked cars into collapsing shop fronts, contemptuously wrenching lampposts from the pavement…

And then it hit. With the power of an Atlantic breaker and an awesome explosion of sound that pierced the eardrums and stunned the senses. Casey was swept helplessly backwards by the tumultuous hurricane of displaced air. Felt herself flying through the red mists of space, her hand ripped from her daughter’s grip. Spinning through space, endless, blind and deaf.

Then she landed, her body thrown against one of the decorative metal stanchions that lined the pavement. Pain! Her ribs throbbed where they had been struck, the agony of it seeming to consume her whole body. But she knew she must be alive. Alive!

Candy?

She tried to open her eyes before realising that they were already open. The blinding flash of the explosion was still etched in her vision, the moment of horror frozen for all time. The vehicles lifting under the force of the blast, the flying bodies, the great tongues of flame. That nightmare would be in front of her eyes for ever. She shook her head, trying to erase the image, but it wouldn’t go. To be blind in total darkness would be a blessing, it occurred to her, compared with spending the rest of her life before this picture of hell.

Slowly, very slowly the brightness began to subside, the details of the carnage began to lose their definition and the brilliance of the explosion began melting away. At last she could focus on the debris-strewn cobbles on which she lay.

Silence. Absolute silence. There was not a single noise. Nothing. Just an awesome, eerie silence. And flowers. Blue flowers scattered amongst the shards of glass that glistened like jewels on the cobbles. And in the air. The air was filled with petals; it was raining petals, floating down like feathers.

Then she realised. The flowers had been tossed skyward from the window boxes and hanging baskets at the pub. And the street wasn’t silent; she was deaf, her eardrums shattered by the explosion.

Gradually reorientating, she pulled herself into a sitting position and drew up her legs. Her tights were in ladders, covered in tiny starbursts of blood from flying glass fragments.

She looked around for Candy, but the first sight to catch her eye was the young constable farther down the street. He was picking himself off the pavement, nursing his arm where his tunic was torn. Even from that distance, she could see the blood dripping through his fingers, mingling with the rain.

‘M-mum?’ The sound was muted, distorted.

Her daughter was standing, trembling, clutching her arms around herself. She was paralysed with fear, the raincoat she had been wearing over her shoulders now metres down the street. A pathetic and incongruous sight in her brightly coloured leotard. Her eyes were wide, questioning, but she was unable to move. Again she tried to speak but this time no sound escaped. Then Casey noticed the urine stain dribbling down the inside of her daughter’s leggings.

‘Darling, darlingf Casey could scarcely distinguish her own muffled words as she found her balance, hobbled across the pavement and drew Candy into her arms. The girl collapsed against her, the slender body heaving as she began to sob. Tenderly Casey ran one hand over the tightly banded hair in slow and reassuring strokes. The last time she had needed to do this had been on the eve of her marriage to Randall Thurlow.

For the first time she allowed her eyes to return to the grim aftermath of the explosion at Seven Dials. How long ago had it happened? One minute, two at the most. Now it was a scene of total devastation. The sleek white patrol cars and sturdy red fire brigade tenders were just raging pyres, the trees now leafless and broken, black skeletal fingers reaching to the sky in supplication against a background of leaping flame. Every now and again there was a sudden eruption as a fuel tank ignited or upholstery caught fire. Some of the surrounding buildings in the circus were alight and great stalactites of broken glass dropped free as of their own volition to smash down on the street below.

‘Oh, my God,’ she thought aloud. ‘Eddie and Hal.’ Both were certain to have been there, somewhere, probably talking to the police. She had to go, but couldn’t. Couldn’t leave Candy in such distress. Moisture began welling in her eyes.

‘Fucking bastards!’ She turned. It was the young constable, his own cheeks wet with tears. ‘My mates are up there. I don’t believe this is happening.’ He looked like a child himself, barely more than a teenager.

She touched his shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry. Are you all right?’ He nodded. ‘And you? The girl?’

‘My daughter.’ Neither seemed to know what to say. Words were so inadequate. ‘Perhaps I can lend a hand?’

He shook his head and took a deep breath to steel himself. ‘No, it’s too dangerous. Petrol tanks are going off and there could be another device…’

‘But we can’t go the other way,’ she protested, ‘You said that car…’

‘I know, I know. You’d best stay here till I sort something out.’ He tried to raise someone on his radio but only the hiss and crackle of static came from the set on his lapel. Nothing. He pointed to the shallow arched doorway that surrounded an emergency exit from the Thomas Neal shopping complex. ‘Shelter in there until someone gets back to you — just in case.’ She nodded numbly; there was no other choice. They huddled together against the locked door, Candy still crying on her mother’s shoulder while Casey peered around the edge of the brickwork, watching the policeman make his way nervously back towards the scene of the disaster.

Shortly afterwards the fires began to subside. Casey could see the outline shapes of people moving about in the sizzling wreckage and hear the distorted sound of ambulances reverberating in her ears. The rain had eased to a drizzle, but it did nothing to dampen the acrid smell of burning. Ashes floated in the air like the macabre confetti of death.

Then she saw the two white Range-Rovers arrive; they parked nose to nose in V-formation, pointing towards her and so cutting off her view of the carnage.

Candy’s hysterical sobbing finally subsided. She sniffed heavily to staunch her tears, following her mother’s gaze towards Seven Dials.

‘M-mum, who’s that?’

Now a solitary figure had appeared from behind the vehicles and was walking steadily towards them. As he neared she could see that he wore a helmet and visor and what appeared to be a flak jacket over police-blue clothing. In one hand he carried a black metal object that resembled a crude sort of shotgun from which a line of cable trailed back to the Range-Rover; his other hand held a multijointed length of angle iron.

He crossed deliberately to them and stopped, dropping one of his loads and tilting up his visor with his free hand.

‘Afternoon, ladies.’ The voice was unbelievably calm and the accent unmistakably Scottish; his shrewd eyes smiled with easy reassurance. ‘Are either of you hurt?’

Casey shook her head. ‘Just a few cuts and bruises, I think and shock.’

‘Aye.’ He nodded in sympathy. ‘Well, we’ll soon have you out of here. Guess you two lassies really are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, I can’t let you walk back to Seven Dials because if that is a car bomb down there, it’s almost certainly on a timer. That puts us in the crucial danger period when we’d normally leave it well alone. But we’ve got you here and other buildings in Neal Street haven’t yet been evacuated.’ He tried the emergency exit behind them, but it was firmly barred. He grimaced, then inspected the shallow brick arch in which they were sheltering. ‘Och, you’ll be okay here if you huddle tight in the corner. There’s no glass to fall on you and that’s the biggest danger.’

‘Are you the bomb-disposal man?’ Candy asked incredulously.

He nodded. ‘Aye, Jock Murray, I’m an Explosives Officer with the Met.’

‘You’re going up to the car?’ Casey asked.

‘That’s my job,’ he answered unhurriedly. ‘And I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen. I’ve got to check out the car, there’s something in the front seat footwell. If it is a bomb then I’ve got some equipment here that can deal with the timer unit.’ He lifted up the disrupter which looked like a crude sort of shotgun fitted to a multijointed length of metal. ‘I’ll need to break a window to get at the TPU — sorry, the timer and power unit just in case they’ve wired the courtesy lights. When I’ve positioned my kit, I’ll join you here while I radio my partner to carry out the controlled explosion. Bet you’ve heard that phrase before.’ Again the blue eyes smiled. ‘And we can all go home for tea — or something stronger — and you can forget all about this. Okay?’

Candy nodded eagerly and her mother shared her sense of relief, thankful the man had taken the trouble to soothe their fears. He made it all seem so normal and routine.

‘Five or ten minutes at most,’ he said and snapped down his visor.

Then he was gone, walking steadily towards the car, loaded with his bits of gadgetry, the cable trailing behind him.

Casey made her daughter crouch in the corner of the archway, while she positioned her own body as a shield. After a few moments, curiosity overcame her and she looked cautiously round the vertical brick line until one eye could see the Expo peering through the driver’s window of the car. Presumably he was attempting to confirm the policeman’s report of the device’s location. She saw him raise the spring-loaded centrepunch to the side window before she instinctively drew back to safety.

A short, sharp crack echoed down the deserted street.

It was followed by an expectant silence, the intensity of her concentration blotting out the extraneous noise of more emergency service vehicles arriving in Seven Dials. She was aware only of the sound of rainwater gurgling down a nearby drain and the rising tom-tom thud of her own heartbeat.

Seconds dragged by like hours. Any sense of real time was lost.

Again she was tempted and moved towards the edge of the arch, finding the indentation of mortar between two lines of bricks from which to see.

The Expo was picking carefully away at the spider’s web of frosted glass, then reaching in his hand.

Just then the car exploded.

Instinctively Casey threw herself over her daughter, her mind’s eye filled with the vision of that split second when the vehicle blew apart. The bursting white star of the blast. A fleeting impression of distorted metal panels spiralling skyward like bats taking flight from hell’s inferno. The earth-shaking roar and the sudden shower of warm blood amid the drizzling rain. The abrupt and stunning silence that followed was ended as something heavy landed just feet from the archway where they sheltered. Its force of impact buried the object in the cobbles. An axle, a gearbox or even the engine? It was impossible to tell from the burnt and tortured shape. Instantaneously the air was filled with flying debris and glass, clattering and shattering all along the street.

Slowly, grudgingly, a final blanket of silence smothered the wrecked street. Casey eased herself from her daughter’s shivering body and forced herself to look towards the car.

The scorched banners of the shopping complex hung like tattered flags at the height of battle; below them, having shifted several feet, was the flaming, mangled framework of the car.

There was no sign of Jock Murray.

She had scarcely time to absorb the awful sight of devastation — burning shop fronts, hundreds of shattered windows and the sky filled with floating papers sucked out of surrounding offices before the deserted street was suddenly filled with people from the emergency services. Paramedics and policemen were everywhere.

The young constable returned with an ambulance woman who quickly draped space blankets around the shoulders of both Casey and her daughter. There were words of sympathy and reassurance, helping hands and sad, gentle smiles.

Slowly the small group retraced their steps over the debris-strewn cobbles of Shorts Gardens to Seven Dials. Newly arrived ambulances and police cars were parked, bright and white beside the blackened hulks of those vehicles caught in the earlier blast. Even now wreckage still hissed and sizzled in the fine rain, such had been the heat of the explosion.

‘Casey!’

It was Eddie Mercs, threading his way anxiously past stretcher bearing paramedics and policemen who were helping their less seriously injured colleagues from the scene.

‘Eddie, thank God!’ she gasped, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. ‘I thought you and Hal had been caught in all this.’

He gave her an embarrassed hug. ‘I might have been but for that silly bugger Hal. Wanted to get a shot of the controlled explosion, so we slipped the cordon. It saved our lives.’ As he stepped back from her she saw the haunted look in his eyes. ‘It was you and Candy I thought were goners. Some young copper said a bird with an American accent was trapped down there with her daughter. I thought it might be you.’

She pulled a tight smile. ‘Then I guess this is the luckiest day of both our lives.’

‘So you saw what happened at the car?’

‘I saw.’

‘What happened to the Expo?’

She looked at Mercs and tried to find the words. But they stuck in her throat.

He understood, nodding grimly as he surveyed the chaos around them. ‘I’ve never known anything like this in all my years.’

There was a sudden flash of light to one side of her and she jumped, her nerves frayed. She saw then that it was Hal, using a zoom lens to photograph a teenage girl being lifted onto a stretcher. The blast had ripped away most of her clothing and rain pattered on her damp, blood-drained flesh until the blanket was drawn over her.

Hal turned, saw Casey and steered her to one side. He kept his voice low, so that Candy could not hear. ‘I’m afraid that’s your daughter’s friend.’

The shock of his words hit her like a punch to the stomach. ‘Shirley! Oh, God, no…’

He grasped her arm to stop her moving. ‘There’s nothing you can do. She’s dead.’

She stared at him in angry disbelief as though it were his fault. ‘That can’t be, Hal.’ She hesitated, allowing the words to sink into her befuddled mind. Little Shirley, dead? ‘And her mother Gwen — is she…?’

‘I checked for you, they’ve taken her to the Middlesex.’

‘I must go.’

‘Leave it, Casey. She lost half her face in the blast and God knows what other injuries. My guess is she’ll be in theatre for most of the night. Sorry.’

She stared back across the circus as the young dancer’s stretcher disappeared into the ambulance and the doors slammed shut. It was all so final. Her eyes prickled with tears that for some obscure reason refused to flow. Instead she felt the tight knot of anger expand in her chest until it threatened to suffocate her.

She only half heard Eddie Mercs’s words in her ear. ‘You saw it all, Casey, I didn’t. This is your story.’

‘What?’

His eyes were fierce slits. ‘You’ve got to write this one. For that girl and her mother. For that Expo…’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Eddie!’ she retorted, angry that he could even think of the newspaper at a time like this.

He shook his head. ‘That man died to save you and Candy. You owe it to all of them to tell the world how it was, Casey. You owe it to yourself.’

She stared at him as though he were mad.

Mercs said softly: ‘Remember, a reporter first, a human being second.’

His words left her stunned and reeling, grasping for reality. But as she looked around her, she could already see the words of rage forming into sentences in her head. An inner voice was dictating in her brain. A power that was out of her control. She felt a sudden urge, a need to get them down on paper. To capture them before the moment was lost.

More ambulances were arriving to ferry away the injured; it was now the turn of those who had been less seriously hurt.

‘I’ll have to go with Candy,’ she murmured.

Her daughter had been listening to what Mercs had said. With a serious expression on her face, she said: ‘He’s right, Mum, you’re a journalist. You must write about what happened, about that nice man.’

Hal had emptied the film from his camera and now held it out to Casey. ‘If you want, I’ll go with your daughter and see she’s okay. I’ve got a good bedside manner.’ He winked at Candy who blushed; she would clearly have no objections to a good-looking escort. ‘You can take my film back with you.’

At that moment a paramedic approached. ‘Excuse me, will you come along with me please…’

Casey looked to Mercs and Hal Hoskins, then at her daughter for confirmation. Candy smiled tightly and nodded.

Her mother turned to the paramedic. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to come along later. I’ve got a story to file.’