LITMIR.BIZ

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hung up in the office. None of the others gave me a second glance as I came and went; we’re bagging up waste ail the time. When I finally took my leave, it just looked as if I was taking a sackful down to the doors. Jez waved goodbye from a bedside. I faked a smile.

      The presence of the bag down here would be a bit harder to explain, so I hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone. But the Lates wouldn’t start filtering down until after nine-fifteen, so if I was lucky …

      Then again, if I was lucky, I wouldn’t have got caught up in all this in the first place. Would I?

      The corridor was bare, and bleakly lit; I hurried down it. I hadn’t left stuff in a locker since the break-in – and after a nurse was attacked down here last year, I hadn’t used the changing rooms at all. Certainly not at the end of a Late. Even wearing my uniform on public transport, which sometimes got me ogled and even pestered, was preferable to that.

      It was quiet down here. Echoey. My footsteps bounced ahead of me. My throat was tight and dry by the time I got to the fire-door.

      There was no one out there.

      Swallowing, I leaned down on the bar – and the door clanked loudly, stiffly open. The damp night air swilled in. Silence from the nearby backstreet; a faint swish of traffic from round the front. I drew back, my heart hammering.

      For maybe a minute, nothing happened. Maybe more than a minute. The yard outside lay motionless in the half-light of a white sodium lamp. Then a shape detatched itself from a stand of metal wheely-bins and walked quickly over, closely followed by another.

      I drew even further back as they came through. The first was a man of about Frank’s age, with brown hair and beard; he looked me full in the face for an unsettling moment, then past me to check the corridor. I could tell at once that he was nervous. The second was the girl called Jackie; she didn’t look too keen on this herself. Both of them were scruffily dressed, and smelled of the Underground: that dull, distinctive odour. They’d probably spent the last few hours down there, haunting the platforms, sheltering from the rain. Psyching themselves up.

      ‘This is Brendan,’ Jackie introduced grudgingly. I just nodded, with inbred politeness – and noticed the short, thick bundle he carried under his arm, wrapped up in a Sainsbury’s bag.

      ‘Er … what’s that, please?’

      I said it just like a nurse: one who’s caught a patient trying to hide an illicit food parcel. Jackie almost sneered.

      ‘Flowers for the patient; what d’you think?’

      ‘God … Listen, you’re not going to start shooting in there, are you?’

      ‘Not if no one gets in our way,’ she answered flatly. ‘Now let’s get ready.’

      I hesitated, feeling really wretched; then handed over the pyjamas, and led them back down to the changing rooms. Brendan put his head cautiously around the Male door, and slipped inside. I led the way into the Female.

      Empty, thank God.

      The lights above the aisles of lockers were bright and stark, but the annexe of toilets and showers lay in dimness. I ventured warily over to check they were all unoccupied. They were; but one of the shower heads was still dripping slowly in the gloom of its stall, as if it hadn’t long ago been used.

      Jackie made straight for the nearest toilet, and gestured me in after her. Unwillingly I followed, closed the door and put my back against it. With my arms grimly folded, I watched her start undressing.

      The claustrophobic space gave it all a stifling intimacy; closing me in with her sour-smelling coat and sourer stare. The clothes beneath looked like jumble sale rejects: ripped and grubby. Frank was right, they were ideal cover. People would look right through her – go out of their way to avoid her eye. And all the time she’d squat there, smiling inside; her pistol pushed snug into the waistband of her jeans.

      She drew the weapon now, and proffered it. ‘Hang onto that a second.’

      I stared at the thing; practically hugging myself now.

      ‘Go on, then,’ she hissed, so sharply that I flinched. Unthinkingly I took the gun. The weight almost dragged it from my fingers. Beads of sweat popped up across my back.

      She allowed herself a smile: still stripping. I peered down at the ugly hunk of metal in my hands, and wondered how she could ever bear to touch it. How she could bear to do any of the things she did … My mind’s eye was suddenly clogged with the blackened mess of her Liverpool Street victim.

       This is what the bombers did. To a human being.

      A silver crucifix – like mine – was glinting in the hollow of her throat.

      Down to her underwear now, she stepped into the pyjama trousers. I leaned miserably back against the door: straining my ears for any sound beyond it.

      Nearly ten-to.

      ‘Not used to this side of it, are you?’ she asked tersely.

      I shook my head.

      ‘Well it’s deeds we need, not words. Words’re cheap …’ She pulled the smock on. ‘It’s time people like you … stood up to be counted …’

      I wondered dully just what Razoxane had told her. That I was an armchair sympathiser, probably: playing up the fact I was a Catholic. Maybe even someone who owed their awful cause a favour.

       What the hell had she got me into?

      Jackie sat on the toilet bowl to retie the laces on her grubby trainers; I hoped no one was going to notice those. Her street clothes went into the bag I’d brought. ‘You make sure these get burned,’ she told me, straightening up.

      I made an affirmative sort of noise, and passed her the lab coat. She shrugged herself into it. ‘Right, give us that …’

      I relinquished the pistol. She grasped it with a familiarity I found quite chilling, and set about examining the coat. It didn’t take her long to find the standard slit behind the pocket. She pushed gun and fist inside it – and drew them smoothly out.

      My mouth was so dry I almost had to peel my lips apart to talk. ‘I can’t go up there …’

      A cold glance. ‘You bloody will.’

      ‘People will see me with you. How the hell …’

      ‘Tell them we accosted you or somethin’. Held you at gunpoint.’ And with that she pulled at the pistol in her hand. It seemed to unlock and slide apart; then snapped together like a trap. I knew that meant she’d cocked it.

      For a moment I glimpsed something flicker behind her dour, determined stare. It was gone again before I had it fixed; but I knew that it was fear.

      A human response to what was coming: it should have reassured me. But all it did was accentuate my own.

      ‘Go check on Brendan.’

      I turned, and eased the door open. The changing rooms were empty. I scuttled across to the main door, rubbing my palms down my uniform: trying to wipe away the pistol’s oily feel. Brendan was already waiting outside: ready to hand me his street clothes. The V-neck of his scrub top revealing matted hairs on his chest. The stubby bundle he carried was now wrapped in an old towel.

      The twin muzzles of a sawn-off shotgun stared vacantly out from between its folds.

      I pressed the call button for the lift: it lit up beneath my finger. Somewhere, floors away, machinery began to move.

      I stepped back, peered up at the indicator. Watched the lights come counting down towards us. Anything to avoid looking at the others. Anything.

      After all these hours of waiting, we were down to the last few minutes. I’d half-hoped my adrenal glands would have worn themselves out by now, but they clearly hadn’t. I felt clammy and short of breath; my heartbeat punching through my chest.

      The

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