‘Kestrel One’s on Millbank, Two’s on Westminster Bridge. Neither reporting anything suspicious. Three through Five are strung out along Whitehall. The crowd’s mostly subdued, they say, with a few angry outbreaks. Chanting about Dennis Gimball. Probably orchestrated by one right-wing group or another.’
That lines of connection were being drawn between the Abbotsfield massacre and the death of Dennis Gimball didn’t much surprise Taverner. Conspiracy theories bloomed at the rate of one hundred and forty characters a second.
She said, ‘Any arrests?’
‘A handful, ma’am. That we know of.’
Taverner placed her hand on the shoulder rest of Josie’s chair. It felt warm. ‘Are you keeping Mr Whelan up to speed?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Email, or …?’
‘He prefers me to step into his office.’
Taverner nodded, as if her mind was on something else entirely. ‘Tread carefully,’ she said, and returned to her room.
Kim Park, Roderick Ho’s girlfriend, was downstairs now, delivered by Flyte and Welles. On first time of asking, she’d had little to say she hadn’t already told Flyte, though her interrogation would continue for some while yet. Kim had been well aware of her rights; of how long she could be detained without charge. What she was now in the process of learning was that this only counted when she was under arrest, which she wasn’t. Legally, she’d been abducted. And the best of luck to her making an issue out of that, thought Taverner. She had at least provided identikit drawings of the terror suspects, though like every such picture Taverner had seen, the resulting images resembled automatons: batteries not included. She suspected their real-life counterparts would look little different. Terror-bots, she’d called them earlier. Those prepared to murder for their beliefs were inevitably without empathy, the human light in their eyes dimmed to nothing. She occasionally felt a little detached herself. But she’d never waged war on children.
Josie looked like she might be fair game, though. And if she was sitting on Claude’s lap while delivering her memos, she’d better be prepared to learn the meaning of collateral damage.
For a moment Taverner dimmed her own eyes. Emergencies tested the systems, her own not excluded. When this was over, she’d need to sleep for forty-eight hours. But not yet.
She turned the TV on, found a news channel. Aerial images of London filled the screen. Just ten years ago, it had looked so different: no Heron Tower, no Needle. Fold back twenty years, and you lost the Gherkin, the Eye, half the skyline. And twenty years from now, who knew; there might be monorails stretched between hundred-storey towers. But it would still be London, because that was the rule. Under the glitter and glad rags, the same heart beat.
Meanwhile, at ground level, the Met’s chief commissioner currently ruled the streets. But Di Taverner had agents out there too; Kestrels One to Five, watching, taking the city’s pulse. If an attack came, the terrorists were unlikely to be taken alive. Having agents on the scene pushed the odds a little further in that direction.
And it would soon be over either way; following which, there were other tasks in hand. Emma Flyte needed dealing with; her bagman, Devon Welles, too. The pair were confined to the Park for the duration. Taverner suspected conspiracy about seventy per cent of the time; whatever Flyte had been up to possibly fell into the cock-up category, but that was enough to come down on her hard. Slough House, too, was on her agenda. It was long since time Jackson Lamb got the message: among the bells heard today were some that tolled for him.
Protecting the Service was her top priority, now and always. Chopping away the dead limbs that threatened to choke its healthy trunk: that was good husbandry.
Up on the screen, footage of the gathering crowds was on both channels. Londoners were taking to the streets in a show of solidarity with the distant dead. It was a predictable, admirable response, and one the killers were relying on. Di Taverner hoped that, come tomorrow, there would be no more victims to remember. But it was true of every crowd that if you broke it down into its constituent parts, there would always be victims among them.
River Cartwright was in the crowd, threading through knots of people, most of them sombre, serious, aware of the day’s burden, and conscious of making a statement.
