‘Who are you to say—’
‘At Abbotsfield, you fired wild. You shot up the sky. You killed a chicken coop.’
‘At Abbotsfield, I did my duty,’ said Shin, his voice trembling with fury.
‘And what about today? Can we trust you today?’
‘Can we trust
Chris said, ‘I am worried that you let the girl go.’
‘Enough,’ said An.
Danny said, ‘When we set out, when we go to complete our mission. What will you do this time? Will you hide behind a dustbin? Will you throw your hands up and surrender?’
‘This will all be in my report!’ said Shin. ‘It is you who’s the traitor!’
Danny looked at An. ‘He endangers us all.’
‘I am in charge!’
‘Who is to say what he told the girl? Already they might be coming for us.’
‘You are a traitor,’ Shin told him. ‘You break ranks. You spit on the Supreme Leader himself.’
‘Enough,’ An said again.
‘Yes, enough,’ said Danny. He looked at Chris, then at An. ‘He is not to be trusted. If we are to complete our mission, we must do it without him. He will betray us all.’
‘Liar!’ screamed Shin.
An took his gun from its holster and shot Danny in the face.
Once the echo died away, he said to Shin, ‘The Supreme Leader put you in charge. To question that is to question Him.’
Shin nodded dumbly.
‘We go in four hours,’ An said, and put the gun down, and resumed eating noodles.
NOON COMES WITH BELLS on, because this is London, and London is a city of bells. From its heart to its ragged edges, they bisect the day in a jangle of sound: peals and tinkles and deep bass knells. They ring from steeples and clock towers, from churches and town halls, in an overlapping celebration of the everyday fact that time passes. In the heat, it might almost be possible to see their sound travel, carried on the haze that shimmers in the middle distance. And in time with the bells, other devices strike up: clocks on corners and hanging over jewellers’ premises strike the hour in their staggered fashion, all a little behind or a little ahead of the sun, but always – always – there’s one single moment when all chime together. Or that’s what it would be nice to pretend; that twice a day, around midnight and noon, the city speaks as one. But even if it were true, it would be over in a moment, and the normal cacophony re-establish itself; voices arguing, chiding, consoling and cracking jokes; begging for ice cream, for lovers to return; offering change and seeking endorsement; stumbling over each other in a constant chorus of joy and complaint, bliss and treachery; of big griefs, small sorrows, and unexpected delight. Every day is like this one: both familiar and unique. Today, like tomorrow, is always different, and always the same.
And today, London has slipped onto a war footing. Armed police on the streets are an unhappy outcome, but it seems there are prices to be paid for the common liberties London enjoys: the freedom of its citizens to walk its streets, to show their faces uncovered, to hold hands in public. Months go by without a civilian seeing a gun. But recent lessons have been harsh, and the capital’s dead, and the dead of its sister cities, are a familiar presence wherever crowds gather, so armed police are on the streets today. In the Abbey’s environs the pavements have been trammelled by metal barriers, and behind them Londoners, visitors too, are gathering to pay their respects to the Abbotsfield dead, because Abbotsfield could have been anywhere, and London is anywhere too. This is what London and its sister cities have learned: that hate crime pollutes the soul, but only the souls of those who commit it. When those who mourn stand together, their separate chimes sounding in unison if only for a moment, they remain unstained. So the people gather and wait, and the armed police officers study new arrivals, and twelve o’clock comes and goes in a welter of bells, and afternoon begins.
It was hours since anyone had put their head down. Claude Whelan was back at Regent’s Park; relieved to be at his desk, where he could at least feign some semblance of control; Di Taverner, likewise, was in situ, though roaming the hub now, looking over the shoulders of the boys and girls. She lingered longer than usual at one particular desk: a young woman’s – Josie – whose Breton-hooped T-shirt accentuated her breasts, and who had a way of blinking shyly when spoken to. The casual observer would have found it impossible to guess what Taverner was thinking, but a seasoned Lady Di-watcher would have known a mental note was being taken, information stored.
‘Sit rep,’ she said.
Josie blinked, then read from her screen. ‘The royals are due at the Abbey in fifty minutes. PM in forty. There’s been a disturbance on Great Smith Street, but it’s already over. A few drunks getting out of hand.’
Taverner said, ‘We don’t call them the royals, and we don’t call him the PM. Let’s maintain coding protocols, shall we?’
‘Sorry, ma’am.’
‘What’s our street-level status?’
