‘He’s fine. Last night was a shock. The police betrayed us. All that shooting. I keep warning Tom that violence is the true poetry of governments. Right, then . . .’
He steered me to the trailer, as if wanting me to stare at the bodies. Already they were turning blue in the morning light. The only victim I recognized was the Metro-Centre general manager, his eyes wide open as if puzzled by his unaudited and unplanned death. A bullet had pierced his neck, but he had scarcely bled, as if deciding to surrender his life with the least fuss.
‘Sangster . . .’ I turned away from the grimacing mouths. ‘What happens now?’
‘The exchange. We can’t keep them in the Metro-Centre. Carradine has a list of demands.’
‘Are the press here?’
‘A few agency reporters. They squat on cornices, fouling the stone. Why?’
‘The police and army killed them. Make sure the reporters know that.’
‘We will . . .’ Sangster turned to stare at me. His huge head began to nod. ‘You’ve given me an idea. Brilliant man . . .’
Carradine waited in his seat, painfully raising his left hand to read the list of demands. Sangster sat beside him, and began to stroke his shoulder, as if grooming an old dog.
‘Tom? You’re doing well. Don’t be afraid to look angry. There’s been a change of plan. I want you to tell the police negotiator that weshot the hostages. All five of them.’
‘We did . . . ?’ Carradine’s eyes stirred in their deep sockets. ‘All five?’
‘We executed them in retaliation. Can you remember?’
‘All five? That would be—?’
‘Murder? No. It shows we’re strong, Tom. Last night was an unprovoked attack. Many of our people could have died. As the occupying military power we are entitled to retaliate. Tell them, Tom—next time we will shoot ten hostages . . .’
SATISFIED WITH THEdeception, Sangster boyishly rubbed his hands and led me through the armed marshals. Their eyes forever scanned the high galleries, as if waiting for a messiah to overfly the dome. We watched the trailer being uncoupled from the golf cart and wheeled to the emergency hatch of the fire door.
‘Good . . .’ Sangster’s nostrils flicked. ‘Those bodies were getting a bit ripe. Even for you, Richard . . .’
‘I’ve let myself go. Why, I don’t know. I was supposed to leave with the last hostage release.’
‘What’s happening here is too interesting to leave.’ Sangster nodded eagerly, eyes brightening again now that the bodies were being lifted through the hatch. ‘You know that, Richard. All this is the culmination of your life’s work.’
‘In a way. I wanted to keep an eye on Julia.’
‘Good. It’s time for the patients to watch the physicians—that’s the twenty-first century in a nutshell.’ He gestured with both hands at the tiers of retail terraces and the silent escalators. ‘You created the Metro-Centre, Richard. But I created these people. Their empty, ugly minds, their failure to be fully human. We have to see how it ends.’
‘It’s already ended.’
‘Not quite. People are capable of the most wonderful madness. The kind of madness that gives you hope for the human race.’
We were following the stationary travelator that led from the North Gate entrance to the central atrium. We passed a kitchenware store with a display pyramid outside its doors, an altar of expensive oven dishes, fruit strainers and paper flowers adorning a publicity photograph of David Cruise.
‘Sangster . . .’ I pointed to the shrine. ‘Here’s another . . .’
‘I’ve seen them.’ Sangster stopped and bowed his head in solemn show. ‘They’re prayer sites, Richard. Altars to the household gods who rule our lives. The lares and penates of the ceramic hob and the appliance island. The Metro-Centre is a cathedral, a place of worship. Consumerism may seem pagan, but in fact it’s the last refuge of the religious instinct. Within a few days you’ll see a congregation worshipping its washing machines. The baptismal font that immerses the Monday-morning housewife in the benediction of the wool-wash cycle . . .’
WITH A WAVEhe turned and left me, walking back to the North Gate entrance hall, one hand tapping the travelator rail. I watched him whistling to himself, and then set off towards the central atrium, where the stronger sunlight was dispersing the warm mist.
I opened the handles of my shooting stick, and rested in front of an unlooted deli that had remained closed throughout the siege. Exquisite moulds climbed out of cheese jars and pesto bowls, turning the interior into an art-nouveau grotto.
I was almost asleep when a shot sounded from the central atrium, echoing around the upper circle of galleries. There was an erratic burst of rifle fire, followed by cries and shouts that merged into a wave of ululation, the stricken keening of a Middle Eastern bazaar. I assumed that another commando raid was taking place, but the sporting rifles were firing at random, an expression of collective grief and outrage.
As I reached the central atrium a crowd of mutineers in St George’s shirts besieged the first-aid post. A group of marshals emerged from the doors, clearing a path through the throng. They propelled a hospital bed fitted with serum drips and electrical leads hanging from its head rail, and raced alongside it like tobogganists setting off on the Cresta run.
As they swept past me the crowd of supporters ran beside them, firing their shotguns into the air. Someone stumbled and I had a glimpse of the bed’s occupant, a desiccated mummy with a childlike face under an oxygen mask, topped by a pelt of blond hair.
A distraught woman in a tear-stained St George’s shirt approached me, muscular arms above her head, as if ringing a mortuary bell. Trying to calm her, I gripped her hand.
‘What happened? Is Dr Goodwin . . . ?’
‘David Cruise . . .’ She pushed me away, and stared beseechingly at the impassive bears on their plinth. ‘He died . . .’
38
TELL HIM
‘WE’RE CLOSING THE SHOP, Richard.’ Tony Maxted paced around the cluttered treatment room, waving away the stench from the pails of soiled bandages. ‘I advise you to come with us. You’ve been here far too long, for reasons even I don’t understand.’
‘We’ve all been here too long.’ I sat on a broken-backed chair kicked aside when the marshals burst into the first-aid post. ‘How exactly do we get out?’
‘Hard to say yet. But things are on the turn. God knows what could happen.’
Maxted drummed his fingers on the sink. He was decisive but unsure of everything, and patted Julia Goodwin on the shoulder to settle himself.
She sat at the far end of the metal table, her back to the looted pharmacy cabinets. With her bruised forehead and torn blouse she resembled a casualty doctor who had barely fought off an assault by a deranged patient. I wanted to sit next to her and take her worn hands, but I knew that she would see the gesture as mawkish and irrelevant.
‘When did David Cruise die?’ I asked. ‘During the night?’
Maxted glanced at Julia, who nodded briefly to him. He waited for a gunshot to echo its way around the atrium and said: ‘Four days ago. We did everything we could, believe me.’
‘Why did they take him?’
‘Why?’ Maxted stared at his palms. ‘They think they can revive the poor man.’
‘How?’
‘I wish I knew. I’d make a fortune. Resurrection as the ultimate placebo effect.’ Seeing my impatience, he added: ‘They’re taking the body on a tour of the Metro-Centre. All that merchandise is supposed to bring him back. It’s worth a try.’
‘Does it matter?’ Julia spoke sharply, tired of two bickering men. ‘At least they don’t think we killed him.’
‘Four days?’ I thought of the ventilator pumping away, and Julia tiptoeing around the oxygen tent. ‘How did they know he was dead?’
‘They smelled it.’ Maxted reached into the refrigerator and took out a bottle of mineral water. He washed his hands in a splash of the brittle fluid and then drank the last drops. ‘Now it’s time to go. When Cruise doesn’t sit up and read out the sports results these people are going to flip. I doubt if the police understand that.’