Chris Cleave - Incendiary

—Yeah well you wouldn’t would you.

He looked at me very steady.

—Come on, he said. Let’s get you sat down.

He helped me across the room to his chair. It was the only one in the office.

—I’m sorry about the mess, he said. I just moved in here yesterday. I haven’t unpacked.

—I suppose you got promoted did you?

—Yes, he said.

—Nice one.

—Thanks.

He wasn’t looking at me he was looking over my shoulder out the window. I just sat behind his desk and waited. His chair was too high for me so I sat with my white Pumas swinging just above the floor. I looked at Terence Butcher’s 3 phones and the photo of his wife and kids. His wife looked alright. She had a nice smile. The photo was of her and 2 kids sitting on a lawn. She looked very comfortable sitting there. She looked like the sort of girl who’d always been around lawns. It was sunny in the photo and she had a summer dress on with a blue flower print. The dress was pretty ordinary but she might of had nice legs under it you couldn’t really tell. Her ankles were alright but she was wearing Dunlop Green Flash. The laces were done up with a double bow. I was making myself notice these little things because I couldn’t let myself look at her kids.

I looked at her face and I wondered what it would feel like to pick up one of those 3 telephones and call her. I imagined what it would be like to hear her voice say hello darling. To hear the 2 kids squabbling in the background. Fighting over lego. Everything very normal and everyday. I imagined what it would be like to look straight at her pretty face in the photo and say I won’t be back till very late tonight darling. Something’s come up at work.

Terence Butcher looked down at me and smiled.

—The wife, he said.

—You love her do you?

—Of course, he said. What sort of a question is that?

—It’s the sort of question you ask a bloke who buys you a G&T dressed as Russell Crowe.

Terence Butcher coughed.

—Yes, he said. Well. Please don’t take it personally.

—Yeah well I wouldn’t take it personally if it’d been anyone else.

—Look, he said. I’ve already told you I’m sorry. It’s the job. Okay? This job is a bastard and so sometimes you have a few drinks and you let your hair down.

—Tell me about your job.

—Why?

—Because my husband never would.

—He was right, said Terence Butcher. You don’t want to know.

—I’ll be the judge of that.

Terence Butcher sighed then and it was more like a blowout than a slow puncture.

—Well if you have to know it’s bloody simple, he said. Counterterrorism is the worst job in the world. You watch Londoners going about their business. You see them getting onto buses. Taking their kids to school. Drinking half a lager at lunchtime. And all the time you’re getting this information. From phone taps. E-mails. Tip-offs. It’s not like it is in the films. You never know what the bastards are planning. You only get these peaks of activity. You know something’s going to happen. You don’t know what and you don’t know when. But you think it might be today. So you get jumpy. When a siren starts up you hit the roof. If a car backfires you have to stop yourself diving for the pavement. There’s a million volts of electricity churning round in your guts. That’s why you can’t sleep. You get nervous.

Terence Butcher stopped talking. There was sweat on his forehead.

—I know just what you mean.

—You do? he said.

—Yeah. I get very nervous too.

Terence Butcher swallowed.

—I shouldn’t be telling you this, he said. You just lost your husband and your boy. I doubt you’ve slept in days and here I am telling you my life is hard.

I caught the first flash of it then. I saw what Terence Butcher would look like with my arms around his neck. My arms so thin and white against his skin.

—I don’t mind. Talk if it makes you feel better. Get it all out.

—You’re a remarkable woman, said Terence Butcher. Listen. Can I get you something? A coffee or a tea?

I looked up at Terence Butcher and I saw what he’d look like with his fingers pushing under the waistband of my white Adidas trackies, with those big hands around my bum pulling me down on him and both of us moaning and the windows exploding inwards in a bright white flash and his office filled with flying glass cutting us into small pieces his cheating flesh all mixed up with mine so they’d have to bury us together.

—Tea please.

He walked up to the desk he picked up one of the phones I forget which.

—2 teas, he said. Biscuits.

He held the phone and I watched the muscles in his back through his shirt while he ordered us tea. It felt nice to have this big man do something small for me. It gave me the shivers. I wondered if Jasper Black would bring me tea and biscuits if I turned up at his office. It’s funny Osama the way you start to think when you’re a widow.

I reached down into my Asda bag. I got out one of my bottles of Valium and held it out to Terence Butcher on the palm of my hand. My hand was shaking so hard the pills were rattling. I blushed.

—Here. They’re tranquillisers. I got 2 bottles so you might as well have one of them if you’re having trouble sleeping.

He reached out his hand. He held the bottle so it stopped rattling but he didn’t take it out of my hand. He looked into my eyes.

—The wife doesn’t approve of these things, he said. Says they disrupt the body’s natural equilibrium.

—Yeah? Well so do bombs.

Terence Butcher was quiet for a moment and then he closed his hand around the bottle. I felt the tips of his fingers against my palm as he took the pills.

—Thanks, he said.

—You’re alright.

The tea came. It was just how you’d expect police tea to be Osama all lukewarm and milky. Terence Butcher put the bottle of pills in his trouser pocket.

—Listen, he said. A favour deserves a favour. I wouldn’t bother drinking the tea around here. It’s disgusting. I pour it into the plant pots.

He grinned and I grinned too. It felt nice. I hadn’t smiled much since they stopped that nurse Mena from coming. Then one of the phones on his desk rang. He looked at it for a moment before he picked it up.

—No Inspector, he said. Sector Sierra 6. I’d spell Sierra for you if Sierra wasn’t already a letter of the phonetic alphabet.

He slammed the phone down.

—Poor bastard’s had even less sleep than me probably, he said. We should start a club. Insomniacs against Islam.

He smiled again but I didn’t. I was thinking of Mena. How she used to pop those blue pills into my mouth at the hospital. The mercy of her god that she stole from a jar for me so I could crunch it between my teeth and forget about things for one more day. Allah Akbar we used to say. Now I remembered that bitter taste of love.

—You really think it was Islam that killed my husband and my boy?

Terence Butcher stopped smiling.

—Well, he said. It wasn’t the Easter Bunny.

—I knew a Muslim. She was a nurse in the hospital. She was the gentlest woman I ever met. Her god wasn’t a bombing god.

—Yeah, said Terence Butcher, well it isn’t their god that bothers me. It’s the devils that sell them the Semtex.

—They’re not all like that.

—No, said Terence Butcher. And not every kid kicking a ball about in the park will get to play for Arsenal. Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t all love a go.

—You’ll just make it worse talking like that. You want to try to understand them.

—I’m not paid to understand, said Terence Butcher. I’m paid to prevent.

—Yeah well you didn’t prevent May Day did you?

He looked at the floor.