Barry Maitland - Babel

‘Little things. Once I took Max to Chandler’s Yard. I’d spoken to him about Qasim and he was interested in the Islamic background. When we were in the Horria I took him up to see the mosque, and on the stairs we met Abu coming down. I introduced them, but, although they didn’t say anything, I could see that they already knew each other. And not just as people who might have met once at a meeting or something, but as friends. As soon as they recognised each other they smiled, like friends. I asked Max afterwards, but he denied knowing Abu. There were other things too, like the child’s drawing in his room, with the palm tree.’

‘Yes, I remember. So you realised the truth.’

‘I couldn’t believe it at first, that Max had used Abu to commit suicide. I thought Fran must have got it all confused, yet she was quite adamant. Then I began to see the sense in it.’ She looked suddenly puzzled at Brock. ‘You aren’t surprised? You knew?’

‘I got there only this evening, Briony, just before you firebombed me, although I should have seen it earlier. In retrospect, Max wasn’t very subtle about trying to frame Haygill. He’d warned the police, the press, even Mrs Haygill. And his clues! The one I should have picked up straight away was the green pamphlet, like the one you sent me this morning.’

‘What was wrong with it?’

‘He’d licked the gum on the envelope it was sent in, and we identified his DNA. When we discovered that, we assumed the pamphlet had come in a different envelope, when the obvious conclusion was that he’d sent it himself. Ironic that the science of DNA should trip him up, when he hated it so much. And he did hate it, and Richard Haygill, with a vengeance, didn’t he?’

‘He’d tried everything to stop him, and failed. No one was listening to him any more.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘You pointed that out to me the first time we met, if I’d only realised. What was his favourite quote you had on your wall? About being overlooked?’

‘“To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable.” Yes. That was how he felt. He’d laboured for so long, with his books, and they were no longer read, and he’d tried to act in the public arena, and he’d been excluded. But a free man can’t be excluded. In the end, if he’s desperate enough, he can make his voice heard. With his death he achieved what he had been denied in his life. People talked about his ideas again, and read his books and took notice of what he had to say. Only… only you failed.’ The bitterness spilled out again. ‘You failed in the important part, to stop Haygill. He escaped, and now I have to do this.’ She lifted the lighter again in her trembling hand. ‘If I don’t then Max and Abu will have died for nothing. Don’t you see? In a little while everyone will look back and think that their deaths were just some weird aberration, and they’ll forget. But this way no one will forget. They will be remembered as martyrs.’

‘But this is not the way, Briony. Max wouldn’t want this. He killed only himself. You’ll have to kill me.’

‘Then get out, now!’ she cried.

‘But aren’t you doing exactly what Max hated so much, what the enemies of freedom do? You’re trying to turn a lie into the truth by force!’ He watched her frown as she considered her response to this, and he ploughed on, trying to keep his voice steady, although his throat felt on fire. ‘Max spoke through his books, Briony. That’s what you should do. Tell the truth, through your thesis.’

She snorted with disgust. ‘No one reads Ph. D. theses.’

‘I always thought the most powerful bombs in the world were books. I think Abu believed that too. He left his book for us. Have you seen it? Look…’ He began to reach slowly to the pocket of his coat, Briony’s eyes fixed on him, puzzled.

Kathy had waited with the security man in the lobby, straining to hear any sound from the building above. Brock knows what he’s doing, she told herself, although the fire at his house had alarmed her, more than it had him, it seemed, just like the warning note in the mail, and he’d said nothing on the journey over about who he thought was behind all this.

‘He told us to wait outside,’ she said doubtfully.

‘He reckons they’ve got some kind of accelerant, right?’

‘Yes, petrol, probably.’

‘Well, they picked the wrong building here. There’s every kind of safety system in place against fire. I reckon the best we can do is watch the panels for the first sign of trouble, then direct the brigade to the right place.’ He waved the beam of his flashlight over the control panels in the recess just inside the main door. There certainly did seem to be an impressive range of monitoring lights and dials. ‘Most likely the worst they can do is burn themselves then get flooded by the sprinklers… Hang on.’

He was peering at a digital display in one corner. Kathy could see green numbers spinning fast, like the read-out on a VCR on fast-forward.

‘What is that?’

The security man stepped back and said softly under his breath. ‘God.’ It sounded more like a prayer than an oath. ‘The labs are piped with gas. That’s the meter. All the bloody taps must be wide open.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘They’re filling the labs with gas.’ A note of panic had crept into the man’s voice. ‘They’re turning the building into a bloody great bomb, that’s what it means. One spark, one pilot light…’

Kathy could hear the man’s breathing, suddenly hoarse as if he could taste the gas already filling his lungs. ‘Shit… We can turn the main off… Yeah, and throw the air-conditioning into exhaust. ..’ He lunged towards a row of colour-coded metal wheels.

‘Wait!’ Kathy called out. ‘Hang on. Will they know what you’re doing?’

‘How do you mean?’ The man was shouting at her, almost hysterical.

‘Will they know, when you shut down the gas?’

‘Probably… yes. And they’ll hear the extract fans go on.’

‘Then wait! How long would it take to clear the gas?’

‘Christ knows. Several minutes.’

Kathy stood motionless, thinking, then said, ‘Don’t touch it. Go outside and warn them. Make sure the neighbouring buildings are evacuated. Give me two minutes, then cut off the gas to the whole campus.’

The man stared blankly at her for a moment, as if half his mind was still struggling with the scale of the imminent catastrophe.

‘Give me your torch,’ she said. ‘Where’s the fire escape stair?’

He handed it over and pointed, still in a state of shock.

‘Go!’ she shouted at him, and he seemed to wake up, and turned and ran.

She was opening the door to the fire stair when she heard him call after her, ‘I can see a light on at level four!’

The stairwell was bare concrete, and as soon as she smelled its sour smell, and heard the scuffling sounds of her progress in the half-light, she knew that her nightmare was in there, waiting for her if she allowed it. Her heart began to thump with panic, bile rose in her throat, and she came to a stop, halfway up a flight, forced to grip the handrail with trembling hands just to stay on her feet. She heard her own voice in her head, accusing herself. You can’t do this. You’re going to fail. You can’t even get up the stairs.

‘Stop it,’ she said aloud. He isn’t here. He’s dead. This is a memory of a smell, that’s all, an echo in the head. Move now or you and Brock and a million female cells will be blown into the night.

She stumbled on, upward, numbly watching her feet as they climbed, step by step, level two, level three, level four.

She hesitated in front of the door marked with a large red number four, then turned the handle and went in.