Ben Aaronovitch - Broken Homes

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.