She drank deeply. Her choice of Selfridges had not been entirely an instant improvisation. She had been chased through Selfridges before. It had been Christmas and the store was crowded and decorated. Her pursuer at the time was an overweight store detective who had caught her shoplifting in the Virgin record store. She had managed to evade the detective’s grasp but then he had pursued her along Oxford Street through the lunchtime crowds. At last she had darted into Selfridges and escaped by a very similar route to the one she had just used.
There was something strange about it, when she reflected on it. It must have been about a year after her parents’ death and just before she set off for Pakistan. The record that she’d stolen had been for Digger, her companion on the trip. Perhaps if the store detective had been a bit quicker she might not have ended up in Afghanistan; she might not have got pregnant; she might not have been sucked into Jonah’s world; she would not be sitting here now, hiding from the ginger-haired man.
She ordered another drink. If she had not been so headstrong as a child, so heedless of the consequences of her actions, she might have achieved some semblance of contentment. It was too late now. She didn’t think that she was going to live very much longer and she didn’t much care. Her death would be as pointless as everything else in her life.
She paid for the drinks and went down to the lobby. She stood beside a column for a while and then stepped out on to the pavement. No ginger-haired man. When she had crossed Baker Street she turned in her tracks and looked around, but she could see no sign of pursuit. She was reasonably satisfied that she was no longer being followed, and for some reason that made her feel confident and bold.
She walked into Top Shop and bought a red halter-neck dress, a bra and underwear and then on impulse a dark blonde wig. The label said the colour was cappuccino. She paid for them and then changed in the fitting rooms, folding the black dress into her handbag. Once again she had lustrous, long hair. She strode down Oxford Street to the tube station with the same boldness that had carried her down al-Arasat in Baghdad more than a decade before.
It had turned into a warm evening and as she turned into Almeida Street from Upper Street she saw that the theatre crowd had spilled out on to the pavement for the interval.
There was an elegant-looking black woman, of indeterminate age, with large eyes, strong cheekbones and closely cropped black hair, standing with the white walls of the bar behind her. She was wearing bold jewellery and a cashmere shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She was talking to a tall man in a vivid tie who Miranda recognised as the anchor for a rival television news programme to the one that she had been watching earlier. The man was animated. The woman was, by contrast, calm and self-possessed – there was something about her manner that reminded Miranda of Jonah’s surprising capacity for stillness and observation when he chose to exert it. She waited for a break in their conversation and then approached, easing her way through the chattering crowd.
‘Baroness Said?’ she asked.
Norma Said contemplated her without expression. ‘Yes?’
‘My name is Miranda. I’m Jonah’s friend.’
Calmly, Norma Said turned to her companion and said, ‘Will you excuse us for a moment.’
The news anchor ducked his head and withdrew out of earshot.
‘Thank you,’ Miranda told her.
Norma Said took her time looking her over and then said, ‘Well?’
‘I think Jonah is being set up to take the blame for a terrorist attack here in London.’
Norma Said’s equanimity did not waver even for a moment. She was clearly a woman who responded with the greatest calm to events that might be expected to cause anyone else extreme anxiety. ‘Can you prove it?’
Miranda hesitated.
‘Well?’
‘I have seen certain clues that suggest the date and the target of the attack. I can identify one of the people behind it. A man named Alex Ross. He used to own a security company called Threshold, which has been taken over by the US company Greysteel.’
Norma Said was silent for a time.
‘I need your help,’ Miranda told her.
‘Come to Ripe in Sussex tomorrow,’ Norma said. ‘I’ll be in the graveyard at eleven a.m. We can speak then.’
She turned her back on Miranda and walked over to the news anchor. She was smiling by the time she reached him.
10–11 September 2005
Saira looked thoughtful and serious as she dumped an overnight bag on the bed. They were in adjacent rooms in the vast hangar-like Hilton across from Terminal 4 at Heathrow Airport. There was a camera on a tripod pointing at an armchair arranged in a corner of the room. Miranda was sitting collapsed in it. The wig was discarded on the floor.
‘I see you made a start on the minibar,’ Saira said.
‘We need more vodka,’ Miranda said, ‘if you want me to tell all.’
‘There’s a bottle in the bag. And some clothes.’
‘You think of everything.’
‘I try to be thorough.’ Miranda was aware of Saira watching her as she got up out of the chair. ‘You look good in a dress,’ Saira told her.
‘Why, thank you,’ Miranda replied, retrieving the bottle. ‘You should see me in my wig.’
‘Do you know who’s been following us?’
Miranda poured two shots. ‘I have some idea.’
‘Did you lose them?’
‘Yes. In Selfridges.’ She handed a glass to Saira. ‘What about you?’
‘In the crowds at King’s Cross,’ Saira replied. ‘What I don’t understand is why they were so obvious.’
‘Maybe they are trying to frighten us.’
‘They succeeded.’ They both downed their shots. ‘Who are they?’
‘I think they work for Alex Ross.’
‘Greysteel?’ Saira said.
‘Yes.’
‘You said that Alex Ross was a member of the Afghan Guides?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Of course. I told you he was in the photo that was stolen from the wall at Beech’s house. Flora confirmed it.’
‘Then he’s getting some pretty heavyweight protection, probably courtesy of his employers at Greysteel.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His name is not on the list of warrants issued by the US Attorney’s office.’
‘They’re covering up his involvement,’ Miranda said.
Saira nodded. ‘It looks that way. It explains why he stole the photo of the Guides that you described, and from what you’re saying it appears that he’s busy murdering or implicating in a fabricated terrorist attack anybody that had any connection to the Guides. Presumably without a live witness he’s in the clear.’
‘You think the terrorist attack is a fabrication?’ Miranda asked.
Saira frowned and shook her head. ‘It’s a fairy tale. It’s got to be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nor’s not coming here, he’d be crazy to. He’s caused all the damage he wanted to on YouTube. Intelligence and security are at each other’s throats. We’ve got senior sources in MI6 briefing journalists against the MoD, accusing them of running a death squad. The MoD are claiming that they were infiltrated by private contractors paid by MI6. The police want to haul everybody in. The Americans are furious. Both the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary are looking vulnerable.’
‘I’m not so sure. Nor’s threat seemed pretty real to me. Flora thinks he has reason to want revenge. And in the Red Road Flats, when Alex spoke to me after killing Monteith, he made it sound like it was really going to happen.’
‘There’s nothing you can do about it now.’
‘I can try and stop them.’
‘The best way for you to do that is to tell your side of the story. You want to do this now?’
Miranda sighed. ‘All right.’
‘Then take a seat in front of the camera,’ Saira told her.
Miranda sat. Saira knelt before her for a moment and smoothed her eyebrows. As she got up she paused briefly to press her lips to Miranda’s forehead.
‘Good luck.’
She stepped up to the camera and pressed Record.
‘Tell me everything.’
They lay outstretched on the bed with the empty foil trays of their takeaway dinner and an empty wine bottle spread out on the floor beside them. Saira was smoking a cigarette, with the back of her head resting on the headboard.
‘Do you remember the whistle and duck?’
The whistle and duck.
It sounded like the name of an English pub. The phrase had probably been coined by an Englishman. It was the sight and sound of Sarajevo. The two things happened simultaneously and, curiously, in slow motion. A loud whistling overhead and, because it was a sound that everyone recognised, they would all duck, in perfect unison. Then the shell would thud into the ground or the side of a block of flats, explode and let out a belch of black smoke.
‘I remember it all,’ Miranda said.
‘Are you going to elude me again?’ Saira asked.
‘I can’t,’ Miranda replied.
‘You’ve never known a boundary in your life. You used to say that we could do whatever we wanted.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. But she remembered a time when she felt drunk with kissing, when they spent hours merely kissing. There was a part of her that wished that she could lose herself so completely again. Miranda shifted on the bed, dropping her feet on to the carpet. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she said, going through the interconnecting door to her own room. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
She was standing under the shower head with her eyes closed and a bar of soap in her hands and the shampoo flowing out of her hair when she felt a sudden rush of cold air as the glass door opened behind her, and another body stepped into the shower with her.
‘Saira,’ she protested.
‘Sshhh …’
Saira took the soap from her, lathered her hands and rubbed Miranda’s back before reaching around and stroking the inside of her thighs. Miranda sighed as Saira’s hands travelled up her belly, her left hand caressing Miranda’s navel while her right hand lathered her breast.
She remembered how boldly she had walked down Oxford Street that evening. Saira was right. She’d never given a damn for the consequences of her actions.
Why not?
she thought.
Why not just give in to the moment?
That was all she had ever done. She let her head fall back against Saira’s shoulder. But when she closed her eyes, it was not Saira that she imagined stroking her ribs and touching her nipples. It wasn’t even Jonah. It was Nor.
‘Stop,’ she said.
Saira let go of her and stepped back.
‘I’m sorry,’ Miranda told her, ‘but I can’t.’
She turned in the shower stall to face Saira and saw disappointment turn to anger.
‘What is it with you?’ Saira demanded.
‘I’m sorry.’
Without another word, Saira stepped out of the shower stall and wrapped herself in a towel. She went through into the next-door room and closed the door behind her.
Miranda dreamt of Nor again, his face and his naked body in the darkness. He reached out to touch her with fingers that were as soft as silk.
She woke in a curious state of arousal, with no single point of pleasure. Instead the entire surface of her skin glowed. She kicked off the sheet and lay back, struggling to control her breathing. Pleasurable images of the dream filled her head but were followed close on their heels, as so often before, by the urge to flee. She did not want to be there when Saira awoke.
Miranda got out of the bed and washed her face. She put on a new bra and pants from Top Shop and tiptoed through into the adjacent room. Saira was lying on her back and gently snoring. From Saira’s bag she chose a pair of jeans and a silk shirt. She put them on. From beside the camera she recovered Saira’s sneakers and from the back of the door she took Saira’s tailored black coat with pink satin lining. Saira had left the keys to a hire car on the bedside table. She picked them up and pocketed them. The last thing she did was remove the tape from the camera. She put it in her bag with the other evidence. She would be the one who determined when it was released.
Minutes later she was walking across the car park, pointing the fob at each car in turn until finally one clicked and flashed and came to life.
‘The British state will taste a tiny portion of what innocent Muslims taste every day at the hands of the Crusader and Jewish coalition to the east and to the west.’ It was Jonah talking, his voice strangely flat and toneless on the radio. ‘Death will find you …’
She pulled over on to the hard shoulder, and sat for a moment with her hands on the steering wheel, her whole body shaking, while traffic roared past.
‘This new footage released on extremist websites overnight shows another former member of the British Army’s secretive Afghan Crisis Cell confessing his involvement in the death of a senior CIA agent in the 1990s,’ the announcer said. ‘He is also shown engaged in a recent act of sabotage against an Iraqi pipeline and has repeated the threat of an imminent terrorist attack on British soil. We asked both the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office to speak to us but they refused to put anyone up for interview. With me here in the studio I have our Security Correspondent, Brian Judd. Brian, what can you tell us about this latest video?’
‘Well, John, according to a banner headline on the video it was produced by the media section of the Islamic Army of Iraq. I should say that this is not a group that we are familiar with. The video begins with a man of Middle Eastern appearance reading from a statement in which he claims that he is a former British Army officer and a double agent; a jihadist who infiltrated the highest echelons of British military intelligence. He calls himself Ishmael. As I said, he is reading from a written statement and he appears to have been beaten. It is not clear at this stage whether he is a hostage or a willing participant.’
‘And what can you tell us about the attack in Iraq?’
‘I can tell you that it happened. Three days ago terrorists blew up the main pipeline that carries nearly half a million barrels of oil a day out of southern Iraq. Repair crews rushed to the scene but they are operating in an extremely insecure environment, in dangerous circumstances. According to my sources this attack may cost Iraq hundreds of millions of dollars in lost oil exports before the damage is fixed. The terrorists knew exactly which pipe to destroy and where to find it. That suggests a level of sophistication the like of which we have not seen before. It seems entirely possible that this is indeed the work of an international gang made up of trained former intelligence agents.’