Broken Homes

19

It was the utter brazenness that frightened me. Whoever had planted the explosives hadn’t been worried about anyone seeing them. Which meant what? That they assumed nobody would break the County Gard seals? Or, worse, because they’d detonate too soon for anyone to find them?

I couldn’t remember a single step of any procedure relating to the discovery of a bomb, but I was pretty certain that step one wasn’t hyperventilating.

No, step one was to scream for help, but in a measured and sensible fashion. And don’t use your mobile or airwave, in case the RF set off the detonator. Since Emma had walked out of her flat with just the clothes she was wearing, the first thing I did was check her landline — not a wireless handset thank god — and found it had a dialling tone. I punched 999 and identified myself to CCC who asked me to confirm where I was exactly and that a bomb was on the premises.

I remembered Stephen complaining about the noise of the drilling, but he’d said that it was downstairs from the flat and I didn’t doubt his hearing — not when it came to rock and concrete. If there was more than one drill site, then the chances were that more bombs had been drilled into the support pillars. My friendly neighbourhood Faceless Man was going to pancake the building in a controlled explosion.

‘Not just one bomb, they’ve drilled into the primary supporting structure,’ I said. ‘I have reason to believe that they plan to bring down the whole building, for which they would need multiple IEDs at multiple locations. They also left a note saying that the IED was booby trapped.’

The Met has a tin ear for operational mnemonics, and the one for being the first officer on the scene at a major incident is SADCHALETS. Survey; oh god there’s a bomb. Assess; oh god there’s more than one bomb and everyone in the tower will die. Disseminate; oh god there’s a bomb, we’re going to die, send help. For the life of me I couldn’t remember the CHALETS bit — Casualties, Hazards, something, something and I remembered that the last S stood for Start a Log because it was such an obvious cheat.

The operator asked me whether the device was Falcon.

I told her that this was a Falcon-involved operation, but that the device appeared to be ordinary. There was another couple of seconds while this was digested. They told me to leave the vicinity of the device right away, but before I hung up I told them that Lesley was downstairs and gave them her mobile number.

Then I hung up.

I crept back into the corridor and looked at the bomb. It really did look like Plasticine and there was a screaming bit of my brain that was persistently trying to convince the rest that that’s all it was.

The Major Incident Procedure Manual has a long list of things the first officer on the scene is supposed to do and at the end, with its own section number, are the words,

The first officer on scene must not get personally involved in rescue work in order to fulfil the functions listed above.

The first response vehicle would be less than two minutes away, the London Fire Brigade no more than five. The first priority would be to evacuate, and they’d start at the bottom and work their way up. I was already on the twenty-first floor — there were five balcony floors between me and the roof, each consisting of two-storey flats. If I worked my way from where I was, then I might get them clear before the building went.

And this is where the Job kills you, because there was no way I could run downstairs and leave them to their fate. No matter what the Major Incident Procedural Manual says.

How long, how long? I checked my watch and glared at the bomb.

‘If this was a film you’d have a countdown on the front,’ I said. ‘In large glow-in-the-dark LEDs.’

Then at least I’d know how long I had.

I walked briskly, there was no point in running I had to pace myself, back out onto the walkway. With Emma gone there were only two occupied flats on the twenty-first floor. I headed for the first with Toby yapping at my heels. Either he’d picked up on my panic or he still thought it was time for walkies.

I rang the doorbell.

You don’t bang on the door and shout police first time, especially not in a place like Skygarden. It’s hard to believe, but in some sections of society the police are not looked upon as the dependable guardians of law and order. Yelling police loudly can often cause residents to pause before answering the door, some because they’ve had bad experiences either here or abroad, some because they don’t want to get involved, and some because they need to flush whatever it is they need to flush down the toilet before they let you in.

A small brown boy opened the door and looked up at me with wide-eyed surprise. I asked if his parents were at home and he fetched his father to whom I showed my warrant card.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I told him before he could speak. ‘I need you and your family to leave your flat immediately and make your way downstairs.’

‘What have we done?’ asked the father.

‘Nothing, sir,’ I said. ‘We’re evacuating the whole building. Please, sir, you have to leave immediately.’

He nodded and walked back into the flat talking quickly in what I thought was probably Tamil. Raised female voice — the mother? She wasn’t buying.

Come on, come on.

I strode into the hallway and did my best to loom authoritatively in the kitchen doorway. The woman jumped when she saw me and shut up. I gave her a polite but firm nod.

‘Ma’am, you have to leave the building now,’ I said. ‘Your lives are at risk.’

She turned to her husband and barked orders. I retreated back the way I’d come as the young boy and what I took to be his two sisters were shooed, jacketed and ushered out the front door in less than a minute. I guided them to the emergency stairs and as the father went past me I scooped up Toby and thrust him into the startled man’s arms.

At the next flat along there was no response to the ring, the loud knock and the shouting. I looked through the letter box and it seemed empty.

Time was passing.

How long, how long had I got?

I left what I hoped was the empty flat and jogged up two flights of stairs to the twenty-third floor. They say that in this situation the vital thing is that you have to avoid panic, which is why you don’t shout, ‘There’s a fucking great bomb, run now or die.’ But avoiding panic isn’t easy when the mental state you are aiming for is the sense of fear and urgency that lies just below full blown panic.

Three occupied flats on this floor, two seemed empty and the third was inhabited by a Polish couple who, gratifyingly, were out of their flat practically before I’d finished my first sentence.

How long?

By my watch I’d called it in ten minutes earlier. The LFB would be handling the inner cordon, the arriving police would be pushing back the outer cordon.

How long is a piece of string?

Another two flights of stairs to the twenty-fifth floor, where not one flat had a County Gard steel door, so I went straight to Betsy’s flat. By this time the palm and side of my right hand were bruised from banging on doors, so I used the handle of my baton to knock.

I heard Betsy yelling, ‘Hold your horses I’m coming.’

She was genuinely shocked when she saw me.

‘Peter,’ she said reproachfully. ‘You’re the filth.’

‘Betsy, listen to me,’ I said quietly. ‘Someone has planted bombs all over the tower. You, Sasha and Kevin have to get out right now.’

Betsy’s mouth opened, then shut. ‘On your mother’s life,’ she said.

‘On my mother’s life,’ I said. ‘You have to get out now.’

She looked over my shoulder and then back at me.

‘Are you the only cop on the spot?’ she asked.

‘Lesley’s downstairs,’ I said. ‘I’m the only one this far up. More on their way.’

‘You done this floor yet?’

‘No, I came here first,’ I said.

‘Good boy,’ said Betsy. ‘Tell you what, me and Kevin will clear this floor for you.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘But don’t hang about, and don’t use the lift.’

‘After,’ she said, ‘you and I are going to have a little chat about lying to your neighbours.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ I said.

‘Well, get on with it then,’ she said.

God bless busybody community matriarchs, and all that sail in them.

I found myself at the top of the next two flights without any clear memory of having run up them. Four occupied flats on this floor, one of which was Jake Phillips’. I left him to last — I reckoned he was going to be trouble.

I rang the first doorbell and the next door neighbour, a white man in his mid-forties emerged.

‘Are we evacuating?’ he asked. ‘Only it’s on the news.’

‘Yes sir,’ I said. ‘If you’d like to make your way down the stairs as quickly as possible.’ Or you could go back inside your flat and watch yourself explode on TV.

The next door in front of me opened to reveal a ridiculously good-looking West Indian woman in her early thirties who gave me such an open and friendly smile that I was temporarily taken aback.

‘Can I help you, Officer?’

‘We’re being evacuated,’ said her neighbour.

‘Are we?’ she asked, and I explained quickly that for their convenience and continued existence they might want to think about leaving the tower just about as fast as their legs could carry them. If it was not too much trouble.

‘What about my boys?’ she asked.

‘Are they in the flat with you?’ I asked.

‘No they’re at school,’ she said.

‘So are mine,’ said her neighbour. ‘They go to the same school.’

‘Would you like to see them again?’ I asked. ‘Then please make your way downstairs as fast as possible.’

It still took me another two minutes to get the pair of them to the emergency stairs.

How long?

More than twenty minutes. The LFB would be in the tower, clearing it floor by floor. Everybody Walworth Road nick had handy would be securing an outer cordon and setting up the Scene Access Control. And tucked away in a non-obvious place, to avoid secondary devices, would be the Rendezvous Point with one of the specialist control vehicles with a CCTV camera on a pole. It would be filling up with mid-ranking officers who were nervously contemplating the fact that for the time being the buck was stopping with them.

Third flat, no response and when I looked through the letter box I found it was fitted with a protective box on the inside that blocked the view. I couldn’t tell if there was someone in the flat, so I blew the lock out and barged my way inside. My sleep’s troubled enough without them pulling a body out of the rubble and comforting me with the words ‘Well, you weren’t to know.’

There was nobody in the flat, but at least now I knew.

They also had a couple of a cans of Coke in the fridge, one of which I nicked.

‘Go away,’ shouted Jake as soon as I rang the doorbell. It sounded like he was in the hallway, and I think he’d been waiting there just so he could tell me to go away.

‘Jake,’ I said. ‘The building’s going to blow up.’

He opened his door with the chain on and glared at me through the gap.

‘I might have guessed,’ he spat. ‘Blogtavist — hah. What are you, Special Branch?’

‘I’m with the Serious Fraud Office,’ I said because I’m with the small department that deals with magic often raises more questions than I had time to answer. ‘We’ve been investigating the developers.’

‘Are they the ones behind this bomb scare?’

‘It’s not a bomb scare,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the bombs and they’re real and unless you leave now there’s a good chance you will die.’

‘I can’t leave my garden,’ he said slowly.

‘Jake,’ I said, ‘we need you. . as a witness against County Gard, amongst others, and if you die then they’re going to win. And then what the fuck was all your work for?’

How long?

Twenty seconds to make up his mind, thirty seconds to unchain his door and emerge onto the walkway. Another sixty to get him to the emergency stairs.

How long?

Last two flights of stairs to the twenty-ninth where I found that every single flat had a County Gard seal on it — there was no one up there to evacuate. I was just turning to start a dignified but hopefully swift descent, when I noticed that the security doors that blocked the stairs up to the roof were hanging open.

How long?

Long enough for there now to be the whole glorious multihued panoply of a Major Incident response down below. With Gold and Silver commanders and Bronze commanders spawning like frogs in concentric circles around Skygarden.

I went up the last flights of steps, because I had to be sure.

The Faceless Man was waiting for me up there — the bastard.

Another good suit in navy blue, matching scarlet cravat and pocket handkerchief. I don’t think he even bothered with the concealment glamour and his tan featureless mask reminded me disturbingly of Lesley’s.

He was standing leaning against the railings with the same studied nonchalance he’d shown the last time I’d met him. Good, I thought. He’s not going to blow up the building with him on top of it.

Hopefully.

I sauntered towards him, but veered slightly to the left so that I drew closer to the concrete cylinder that hid the Statdkrone. I thought it might serve as useful cover in an emergency.

I was within six metres when he languidly held up his hand to indicate I should stop — I took a couple of extra steps just on the general principle of the thing. Plus it put me closer to the cylinder.

‘I’ve got to ask,’ I said. ‘What’s with the mask — who were you expecting to meet up here?’

‘Your master,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘Or do you call him your guv-nor?’

‘Fair enough,’ I said sauntering a couple of steps closer to the cover. ‘Have you considered a cape? You’d look good in a cape. You could throw in an opera hat.’

‘Very funny,’ he said. ‘But I’m not the walking anachronism around here.’

‘He’ll be here soon,’ I said. ‘You know he took out your Russian witch?’

‘I heard,’ he said. ‘Very impressive.’

‘She was all like, “Oh no you don’t” and he was like — splat! And that’s all she wrote.’

‘Do you have a radio?’

‘What?’

‘A radio,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘A means to contact your superiors.’

I showed him my airwave.

‘Are you planning to surrender?’ I asked.

‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘I want to know if the building has been evacuated.’ He patted his jacket pocket. ‘Before I set off the fireworks.’

I keyed the airwave and asked for MS 1, the Walworth duty Inspector.

There was a couple of seconds’ silence and then a response; ‘MS 1 receiving.’ Then another voice; ‘Go ahead.’ An older woman with an old-fashioned estuary accent and lots of attitude — I bloody loved the sound of that voice.

‘I’m on the roof facing and talking to an unidentified Falcon-capable suspect who claims to have a detonator for multiple IEDs in the building. He wants to know if the building has been evacuated.’

‘The building has been investigated, EOD is with the device on the twenty-first floor.’

Meaning, yes of course the bloody building’s been evacuated and can you please get more information for the bomb squad.

I told the Faceless Man that the building was cleared except for the disposal team.

‘Tell them that I will detonate the device in five minutes, so they’d better pull everyone out now. If I so much as hear a helicopter in the distance I’ll detonate there and then,’ he said. ‘Make sure they understand I’m serious.’

‘He says you have five minutes to evacuate any personnel before he detonates the IEDs; if he sees or hears India 99 or a helicopter he will detonate immediately.’

‘Are you free to speak?’ asked MS 1.

I said no.

‘Is there anything you can do?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m totally buggered.’

‘Understood,’ she said and then my airwave went dead. They’d cut me off and from that moment on I was a hostage not an asset.

Five minutes.

The Strata building overlooked Skygarden and might be close enough for a sniper, but I rather suspected the Faceless Man had positioned himself carefully so that the central cylinder blocked the line of sight.

‘What’s all this in aid of, anyway?’ I asked.

‘Can’t you guess?’

‘I know that Stromberg built this tower in order to harvest magic, but I don’t know why,’ I said. ‘I know you’re planning to steal it, but I don’t know how.’

‘Peter,’ said the Faceless Man, ‘you’re an exceptionally bright boy and I know you’ve been to the farm, so why don’t you stop pretending and tell me what you really know.’

‘I know that you used demon trap tech to engineer a sort of dog battery for storing magic. And I know you’ve got them connected to the plastic core that runs down the centre of the tower,’ I said. ‘What I don’t know is why. Since you’re obviously plugged in, why haven’t you siphoned off the power already?’

‘Dog batteries,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘Good one. Although they act much more like capacitors than batteries.’

‘Canine capacitors, then?’

‘Oh very sharp, yes, canine capacitors,’ he said. ‘Magic is not like electricity, it’s slippery stuff and much harder to manipulate. This tower is much like a cafetiere, one of those coffee plunger things, the coffee grounds are held in suspension within the hot water and, in order to concentrate them, one must use the plunger.’

‘Have you actually ever made coffee using a cafetiere?’ I asked.

‘I admit that I should have spent a bit more time on that simile, but you get the basic idea,’ he said.

‘You’re going to collapse the building, and that should drive the magic into the dog batteries,’ I said. ‘Then I presume you have a company that specialises in clearing demolition sites all set up and waiting to swoop in with a low bid — then they just load up the dog batteries and off you go.’

He has no idea about the Stadtkrone, I suddenly realised, that’s why he had to blow up the building. But how can he not know?

‘What do you want all that magic for?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I have done some extraordinary things with just the power of my body,’ he said. ‘Imagine what I might do with the forty years’ accumulated potential here.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I think they’ve had enough time to evacuate, don’t you?’

‘What about me?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid you’ve got to stay here,’ he said. ‘I may wish to avoid mass murder, but let’s be honest. . I’d be extremely stupid to let you live.’

‘Why not just kill me now?’

Well done, Peter, I thought, let’s put that idea into his head.

‘Why should I?’ he asked. ‘Besides-’

I caught him mid-sentence. It was a beauty, impello with no modification, just the biggest impact I knew how to do focused down to a single point. He still managed to a get a shield up before I could strike. There was a crack like concrete breaking and he flinched — which made me feel better.

He straightened and made a show of dusting himself down.

‘Really, Peter,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d progressed a bit further than that.’

I let him think that I’d missed but before I could say something witty in reply, he drew out a wireless detonator and blew up the building.

I heard the charges go off below me, weirdly distant like something in a nightmare. I felt them as a thudding sensation through the soles of my shoes. I staggered towards the Faceless Man, expecting any moment for the roof to literally drop out from beneath my feet.

I felt it then, a great solidity, like the wave of power I’d felt come off the Thames at the Spring Court. Or the air that had so nearly floated me aloft when I was dancing with Sky. The building was holding itself up, trying to retain its shape.

I took the opportunity to close the range to the Faceless Man, until I’d got within three metres of him. But he didn’t seem afraid.

‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up,’ he shouted. ‘It’s not going to stay standing long.’

I heard people screaming far away and hoped that it was startled onlookers on the ground.

The trembling had become shaking — the wavelength of the oscillations lengthening. Once they reached a certain length, the tower would pull itself apart.

Come on Erik, I thought, if you’d wanted it to be a piston, why would you have put the bloody glass pimple at the top?

Then I heard a crack from behind me as, finally, the Statdkrone exerted enough pressure to open the fissure I’d smashed in the top of the cylinder.

‘Surprise,’ I shouted, and the blast knocked me to my feet.

And the Stadtkrone fell open in segments exactly like a practitioner opening his hand. Or more like a chocolate orange because, like every chocolate orange I’d ever opened, some of the bits stuck together.

I don’t know what Stromberg had been expecting to see from his roof garden in Highgate. Something Lord of the Rings, I expect — streamers of light pouring upwards into a rapidly opening circle of clouds. Instead it was a barely visible shimmer, like a column of heat haze. But I felt it. A wave of cooking smells and tastes, grease and peppers, green curry and macaroni cheese, spirit gum, the feel of wet papier-mache and children crying. People ironing, shaving, singing, dancing, grunting and fucking.

‘Here’s Bruno!’ I shouted. But the Faceless Man wasn’t listening to me. He was staring at the Statdkrone and, even with his mask on, surprise and anger were written along the length of his body. The roof lurched underfoot, dropped a centimetre, stopped, dropped again — Skygarden was not about to defy gravity for much longer.

The Faceless Man turned, took three steps and threw himself over the railing.

I ran after him and followed him over.

What else could I do — it’s not like I could stay on the roof, was it?

Besides, the Faceless Man didn’t strike me as the suicidal type. And if he had some plan to survive the fall, then I didn’t think he should be allowed to keep it to himself.

Otherwise, I was going to have to think of something on the way down.

I didn’t fall far before landing on his back. Then I threw my arms around his neck and hung on. He was definitely doing some sort of magic, a spell involving aer I thought, that caught hold of the air like a parachute. Or more like a para-wing, because we were gliding rather than falling.

‘You just keeping going, my son,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘Because I’ve got nothing to lose.’

He must have carefully calculated it against his own weight, but with mine added he fell dangerously fast. I made sure that I was the one riding him down — thinking heavy thoughts. We must have been falling at the same speed as the tower, because I could hear rending and crashing of concrete behind us and see billowing, dense grey and brown clouds reaching out around us.

We were roughly heading for the gap in the blocks where Heygate Street met Rodney Place. There, I presumed, he’d have a getaway vehicle standing by. But he wasn’t going to make it with yours truly on his back. And he couldn’t even squirm without breaking his concentration.

Serves you right for being an arrogant dickhead — if it had been me, I’d have tripped the explosive from the viewing gallery in the Shard.

I looked down and saw the big wide world rushing up to meet me fast. I really hoped it was going to be friendly.

We came down in the garden just short of the far edge. He hit first and tried to roll, but I made a point of breaking his centre of gravity so that he went down hard. Unfortunately, so did I. Then the dust cloud rolled over us and we were fighting blind, only he was in a suit and I was wearing Doctor Martens. Before he could get up I got one good kick to his head, and down he went. I put him face down, and got hands behind his back in the approved fashion and cuffed him.

‘You’re nicked, you bastard,’ I said.

I heard Lesley calling my name.

‘I’m over here,’ I shouted, but you couldn’t see more than half a metre because of the thick, rolling clouds of dust.

I choked on it, so did he. I hauled him up until he was sitting upright. I didn’t want to risk positional asphyxiation.

Lesley called again and I shouted back — the dust seemed to be settling.

‘I am genuinely impressed,’ he said.

‘I’m so pleased,’ I said.

‘I believe this is the moment of decision,’ said the Faceless Man.

‘I already made up my mind,’ I said and reached for his mask.

‘Sorry,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘But I wasn’t talking to you.’

Lesley tasered me in the back of my neck.

I know it was her, because she dropped the taser half a metre from where I was lying. It matched the serial number of the one she’d been issued. However, she didn’t drop it before tasering me again when I tried to get up.

It’s painful and it’s humiliating, because your body just locks up and there’s nothing you can do.

The Faceless Man’s shoes appeared in front of my face. I noticed they’d got quite badly scuffed during the fall.

‘No,’ said a muffled voice that I later decided had been Lesley’s. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’

And then they walked away and left me.