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tongues of hellfire, then at least making it pretty clear what she, or Roger Barlow, whose name and superscription appeared on the letter, thought of the whole project. To her amazement he had crossed it out and written, ‘Good on yer, matey, go right ahead. Frankly I don’t see why the state should object to a union between three men and a dog. Yours sincerely.’
‘But excuse me,’ she said, and her lips grew tight and her eyes larger and more beautiful than ever, ‘I thought you were against it. That’s what you said in the church.’
‘Oh did I?’ said Roger. His own eyes were merry and dark. ‘No, I think what I said, in the interests of total accuracy, was that it was a bit rum, and to say something is a bit rum is a long day’s march from saying that you are against it. A long day’s march.’
‘Right,’ said Cameron.
There were still ways she admired him. He worked prodigiously hard. He got things done. By dint of 5 a.m. vigils, and by writing innumerable letters, he undoubtedly lifted the odd pebble from the mountain of suffering that oppressed the losers of Cirencester. He cared a lot about some of his projects, and yet sometimes she couldn’t help wondering about his IDEALS. His VALUES. His CORE BELIEFS.
Sometimes, it occurred to her, when she listened to Roger waffling about pornography or abortion, the mullahs had a point. No wonder the Christian churches seemed in permanent confusion and decline, and no wonder Islam was the fastest-growing religion in this country.
As they walked through the checkpoint and over the zebra crossing, the noise of the protesters became overpowering. They had whistles and rattles and bongos and steel drums. There was one man so covered in badges denouncing America that he looked like a pearly queen.
Seeing Barlow, he picked up his megaphone and bawled, ‘There’s that tosser, whatsisname! It’s that jerk thingummy! It’s old whodjamaflip, the complete prat. Sorry I can’t remember your name, my old china, but I hope you accept that my sentiments are sincere. Come on everybody, let’s have a chorus.’ And he began to warble raggedly, jabbing a finger in the direction of Barlow and Cameron as they scuttled past. ‘You’re shit, and you know you are, you’re shit and you know you are …’(repeat to fade).
Cameron scowled at the man, piqued in her basic sense of loyalty. She tried accelerating her gait, in the hope that Roger would walk faster.
Much earlier that morning she and Adam, her boyfriend, had been brushing their teeth in the Amigo hotel, Brussels. She had been nuzzling him, unable to speak for foam and love, when he spat out his own mouthful of Colgate and made a peculiar request.
She had agreed without thinking; of course she had. But now that she was with Roger, and now that she could hear the square full of the sounds of hate, it seemed a more difficult and dangerous proposition.
She felt uneasy that she had handed over Roger’s car park pass; though Roger the cyclist had long since lost track of it, and probably didn’t even know she had it in her handbag. Now she was dubious about the ethics of the other request that Adam had made.
‘It’s completely outrageous,’ Adam had told her, as he outlined the callous discrimination against the journalists from Al-Khadija. ‘They just want to make a film about parliamentary democracy. Aren’t we supposed to be in favour of that kind of thing?’
She didn’t have to do anything difficult, he said: she just had to pick them up, and obviously he couldn’t do it himself because he didn’t have a researcher’s pass. And, by the way, could she get one for him, too?
So guiltily she tried to force Roger’s pace, and turned her eyes away from the crowd, and didn’t look twice at the white emergency services vehicle chuntering slowly round the corner to her left.
‘So one of our chopper boys thinks he saw an ambulance?’ said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Purnell. ‘Did he get the roof number?’
The Deputy Assistant Commissioner was thinking that there was a case for passing it on to the pilot of the Black Hawk.
‘No,’ said Grover. ‘He can’t remember it, and anyway he says it was half covered up by a tow-truck crane.’
‘A tow-truck?’
‘S’what he says.’
‘Well, where’s this tow-truck? Christ on a bike.’
Dragan Panic sighed. He was only second in the queue, but he seemed to have been here for some time.
At Horseferry Road police station Duty Officer Louise Botting was dealing with another victim of crime.
She was a woman of about fifty, with grey hair, and perfectly attired for cycling. She had a helmet with a red reflector, fluorescent yellow zig-zags on her torso, and an air of Anglo-Saxon indignation.
‘I feel a bit silly reporting it, but I feel it’s my duty. It’s just so uncivilized.’
‘I know, madam,’ said Louise Botting, and passed her a form.
‘Do you know why they do it?’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘Is there ever any chance of catching them, do you think?’
‘Well, there’s always a chance, I s’pose.’
Behind her in the queue, Dragan groaned.
‘What I would like to know,’ said the woman loudly as she left, ‘is what kind of person would steal my bike seat?’
No one in the room felt able to answer, least of all Dragan, who now bent towards the counter, his muscles still trembling with exertion.
‘How can I help you, sir?’ asked Louise Botting.
‘They killed the traffic warden, didn’t they,’ said Dragan.
‘Did they?’ asked Sergeant Botting, and then listened with mounting amazement. At one point she interrupted him. ‘Did you say you were removing an ambulance?’
‘I told him not to. I was going to tell him not to.’
‘And why are you covered in mud?’
Dragan thumped a weary fist on the attack-proof glass, like a drunk in a benefit office. ‘I swear I am telling the truth.’
Louise Botting summoned the station commander, and together they took a full statement.
‘Are you saying you lifted this ambulance? Right. And where is this ambulance now? They drove off, you say, and you are sure they are Muslim terrorists. I see, Mr Panic. Now, what’s your address? No. 10, Eaton Place, SW1. You’re sure about that. I see.’
Then the station commander took a call, and when he explained its contents to Louise Botting, she looked at Dragan Panic with new and wondering eyes.
She filled in an Initial Crime Report, and timed the incident for 9 a.m.
BONG Big Ben struck nine, and on the roof of the Commons, Pickel quivered again.
BONG The cavalcade effortfully turned right towards Chelsea, and the leaves of the Embankment waved beneath the passage of the Black Hawk.
BONG The Ambassador of the French Republic, M. Yves Charpentier, told his official driver to follow the Mall down to Parliament Square and make for St Stephen’s Entrance. Then he sat back on the blue velour of the Renault and buried his nose in the hot black scented crown of his mistress, Benedicte al-Walibi.