Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

'I won't tell anyone,' she said. 'I promise.'

'Yes you will.'

She shook her head firmly. 'I won't. You can run away. I won't tell the police what you look like. I won't tell them what you did to him.'

'They'll find out anyway.'

'You could bury him outside.'

'The police will find me, Katie. They'll find me and then you'll identify me.'

'I won't. I promise. Please don't kill me.'

Canning pulled one of the wooden chairs closer to the bed and sat down on it, facing the girl. 'Katie, you don't know what the world's like. You're just a kid.'

'I know that adults aren't supposed to hurt children,' she said sullenly.

'I don't have any choice,' he said.

'It's not fair,' whispered Katie.

Canning smiled despite the enormity of what he was going to have to do. 'Life isn't fair,' he said. 'When you get older you'll…' He left the sentence unfinished. She wasn't going to get any older. Her life was going to end here and now. In the basement.

Katie pointed at the door. 'You could lock me in and go away,' she said. 'When the police find me, I'll tell them you didn't hurt me.'

'It won't work like that,' said Canning. 'They'll keep looking for me until they find me. What we've done is so bad they'll never stop looking. If you hadn't seen my face, it wouldn't matter, but you know what I look like. And the police will make you tell them.'

'They won't. I…'

Canning held up his hand and she stopped talking, waiting to see what he had to say. 'Let me tell you what would happen, Katie. They'll catch up with me eventually. Maybe in a week. A month. A year. But they'll get me eventually. They'll send policemen to talk to your mum and dad, and they'll all take you to the police station. They'll be really nice to you and tell you what a brave girl you are. They'll probably give you a Coke or a 7-Up or something, then one of them will sit down and talk to you. Probably a policewoman. Young. She'll talk to you like a big sister. She'll tell you that they've caught me but that you've got to identify me. She'll tell you not to worry, that they'll put me in prison for a long, long time, and that I'll never be able to hurt you or any other little girl again. Then the nice policewoman will take you to room and she'll show you a window. She'll tell you that there's a line of men on the other side, that you can see them but they can't see you, and she'll tell you to look carefully at all their faces and to tell her which one I am.'

'I won't tell them,' said Katie.

'You're seven years old,' said Canning coldly. 'You won't be able to stand up to them. You'll look along the line of men and you'll see me and you'll point me out. Close your eyes, Katie.'

Katie did as she was told. 'I won't tell,' she said. 'I promise.' She kept her eyes firmly closed and made the sign of the cross over her heart. 'Cross my heart and swear to die.'

– «»-«»-«»Two green-overalled paramedics were wheeling a trolley through a police cordon as Patsy, Martin and Denham walked up. Martin ran over to the trolley. It was Andy. She was paler than he'd ever seen her, her hair tied back in a ponytail, dark patches under her eyes. She reached out with her hand and he interlinked his fingers with hers. A large dressing had been taped to her left shoulder and there were two dressings on her arm which had been placed in an inflatable splint. Blood was seeping through the dressings and she winced in pain as she tried to sit up. 'Katie…' she said.

'Lie down, miss,' said one of the paramedics, a stocky thirty-something woman with short permed hair. 'We have to get you to hospital.'

Andy gripped Martin's hand, her nails digging into his flesh. 'I'm not going anywhere until I know that Katie's safe.'

'She's losing blood,' the paramedic said to Martin.

'I'm okay,' said Andy. She gritted her teeth as a wave of pain washed over her.

'Andy, you have to go to hospital,' said Martin. 'I'll come with you.'

'But Katie

Denham appeared at Martin's shoulder. 'Our people are on their way to Katie now,' he said.

'Liam?' said Andy. Her eyelids fluttered. She was obviously close to passing out.

'Yes, Andrea. It's me. You did well. We'll take it from here.'

'I want to stay here until I know what's happened to Katie.'

Patsy took her mobile phone from her jacket and pressed it into Andy's hand. 'As soon as we know where she is, we'll call you,' she said.

Denham nodded at the paramedics and they wheeled her towards the ambulance. Martin went with them.

'Do you think she's still alive?' asked Patsy as they watched the paramedics lift Andy into the vehicle. Martin climbed in, the doors were slammed shut, and a few seconds later the ambulance drove away, sirens wailing.

'God, I hope so,' said Denham.

A uniformed policeman examined Patsy's credentials and waved her through the cordon. Denham shrugged. 'I'm with her,' he said.

'That's fine, sir,' said the constable. 'I could tell you were in the job.'

Denham smiled to himself as he followed Patsy into the lift. Retired for ten years and he still looked like a policeman. He wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not.

They rode up to the ninth floor in silence. The doors opened and two more uniformed constables stepped aside to allow them into the office. Half a dozen Scene of Crime Officers in white overalls were moving around like silent ghosts, fingerprinting and collecting fibre samples with pieces of tape, all their evidence going into labelled plastic bags.

Two SAS troopers stood by the window, their automatic weapons clasped to their chests. One was smoking a cigarette, the other was laughing. There was broken glass everywhere, and Patsy and Denham crunched over it as they walked to the pile of black garbage bags in the middle of the main office area. Two Metropolitan Police explosives officers were crouched over the bags, gingerly moving them apart. Both men were wearing olive overalls, and Patsy was surprised that neither of them was wearing protective armour. In Belfast, the EXPOs never went anywhere near an explosive device without full body armour and protective helmets. She realised that it was probably because the bomb was so big that if it did go off, no amount of protection would help.

'Everything okay?' she asked.

One of the EXPOs looked up and grinned at her. 'Safe as houses,' he said. He was barely out of his twenties, with a shock of red hair and acne scars across his cheeks. 'SEXPO's got the detonator. You could drop this lot out of the window and it wouldn't go off.'

'SEXPO?'

'Senior Explosives Officer.' The redhead nodded over at an older man in overalls who was standing by one of the desks. 'Our boss. Dave Hoyle.'

Patsy and Denham went over to Hoyle. He was peering at a digital display through a magnifying glass, examining the wires that protruded from the back of it. There was a tangle of wire next to the digital display and four small cylinders, the size of Parker pen refills. Patsy had seen detonators before, in Belfast.

She introduced herself and Denham, but Hoyle just grunted. He was a big, bear-like man with thick fingers that dwarfed the delicate electronics he was examining.

'It was live?' asked Patsy.

'Oh, yes. Timer was set. Twenty minutes left on the clock before we got to it.'

'No problems?'

'Simple circuit. Nice work. A woman, they said?'

'That's right.'

'They always do neat work, women. Tidy. Precise. Just look at the soldering.'

He handed the magnifying glass to Patsy, and she used it to examine the wiring. She had no idea what she was looking at and she gave it back to Hoyle none the wiser.

'No booby traps?' asked Denham.

'No, it was a simple enough circuit,' said Hoyle. 'No photoelectrics, no tremblers, no collapsing circuits. EXPO-friendly, it was.'