Peace on Earth. Gordon Stevens

the toilet and left.

      Fifteen minutes later he collected the briefcase from the left luggage locker at Euston station and returned to the Holiday Inn, stopping at a chemist shop in Camden Town to purchase a pair of surgical gloves and a torch. Only when he was in his hotel room did he open the case, pull on the gloves, and examine the contents. The four ounces of plastic explosive were in a soap container, the transmitter, receiver unit, detonator and battery wrapped separately. He connected the receiver unit and battery to the bulb from the torch, and activated the transmitter, seeing the bulb light up and confirming the system was working, then he disconnected the bulb, replaced it with the detonator and began to assemble the bomb. At twenty minutes to ten he locked his bedroom door and left the hotel.

      The mews in Camden Town was quiet and dark, the only light was through the curtains of the windows of the flats on the first floors and the street lamp thirty yards away at one end. It took Haddad less than a minute to open the garage door and another eight to attach the bomb to the petrol tank of the Granada. By eleven thirty he was back in his room. He helped himself to a drink and turned on the television, searching the channels for the in-house feature film. As he passed BBC 2, a late-night news flash caught his attention; he flicked past, then back again.

      ‘We are receiving more details of the terrorist incident in Belfast earlier this evening,’ the announcer was saying.

      He turned up the sound.

      The rain outside was heavy, the windows were running with condensation. In the corridor outside she could hear the clamour of the children as they began their morning break. In the corner someone was smoking, they had tried to ban smoking in the staff-room, but some people had objected. She joined the queue for tea, enjoying the atmosphere, and sat down. The morning newspapers were on the table in the centre of the room, the men amongst the staff were talking about them. ‘Amazing,’ she heard one of them saying, ‘absolutely amazing.’ She hadn’t seen the papers, been too busy to look at them. End of term, carol service that evening, the reports for her English class to finish. And the Christmas shopping, all of it, for her and the kids. One day, she sometimes thought, she ought to sit down and work out how she managed it all by herself, except there wasn’t any time. In the far corner the men were still talking about the newspapers. ‘Incredible,’ one of them was still saying, ‘absolutely bloody incredible.’ She took a cup of tea and sat down.

      ‘What are they on about?’ she asked.

      ‘Haven’t you seen the photo in the papers today?’

      She said she hadn’t had the time; a colleague reached across, pulled one from the pile and gave it to her.

      The picture filled the entire front page; it had been taken at night, she knew, the image grainy, almost unreal.

      In the centre, lying, screaming, on the ground, was a small boy. He was burned, she could see, horribly burned and shot, the insides of his body seemed to be pouring from him, the remnants of his clothes hanging from his limbs. He was looking up, white-eyed with fear, at the two people bending over him, at the woman – she knew instinctively it was his mother – kneeling beside him, holding his hand, looking at the other figure, the man in the camouflaged clothing of the British army. She looked at the man, not aware she was sipping her tea; not aware of the noise in the staff-room. His hair was long and his face was streaked with black. He was bending over the child, his hands pulling the remnants of the shattered body together, stemming the blood that was flowing from the boy’s arteries, soothing the terrible burns. Even in the photograph she could see he was treating the child as if he was a doctor, as if he himself was a father. From his left shoulder hung a short squat weapon, she did not know what it was, a belt of cartridges across his chest, the pistol and grenades hanging from his belt. His left arm appeared to be injured, she could see by the way he was holding himself, see the way his own clothing had been burned away. The woman beside him was looking at him, appealing to him. She stared at the picture then read the handful of words below.

      Late the previous evening, the single paragraph stated, a British army unit had gone to the help of a Catholic family who had been bombed and shot in their car. Both the father, a leading member of the Republican movement who was high on the Protestants’ wanted list, and the mother had escaped unharmed.

      She read the words a second time, still not hearing the conversations around her, then looked at the three words of the headline across the top of the page, ‘Peace On Earth’.

      It was almost Christmas, she remembered.

      ‘Anyone noticed this chap here?’ The deputy head was looking out the window. ‘He’s been standing there since half past nine.’ She put down the newspaper and went to the window, wiping away the condensation. On the pavement opposite the school entrance was a man, his hair was long and he was wearing a mackintosh, the collar turned up against the weather. The rain had flattened his hair and soaked through the shoulders of the coat.

      The left sleeve of the mackintosh seemed empty.

      The school bell went, she finished the tea and returned to the classroom, not concentrating, thinking of the photograph in the newspaper and of the man on the pavement. When the bell went for lunch she hurried back to the staff-room, left her books on the table, and pulled on her coat. At the last moment she remembered that those staff not on duty were going for a Christmas drink and that she had said she would go with them. They were waiting for her. She apologised to them, waited till they had gone, then went to the car park and started the car. It was still raining. She drove out the gate. The man was still there. She pulled across the road, stopped and opened the door for him.

      ‘Hello, Grah,’ she said.

      ‘Hello, love,’ said Enderson.

      * * *

      Haddad knew every inch of the route from Heathrow. He had driven it that morning, again and again, till he was sure.

      He looked at his watch and decided to check it again, make sure there were no last-minute obstructions, no hold-ups.

      He started the car, left the short-stay car park, and followed the road through the tunnel from the airport towards the M4. At the precise moment he pulled onto the motorway he pushed the indicator to record the mileage, remembering that he was accustomed to thinking in kilometres and forcing himself to think in miles. The traffic was light and moving quickly, he slid into the centre lane and headed towards London, noting again the marks he had identified earlier. One mile, first bridge over motorway; two miles, A312 exit and second bridge; three miles, service station. He ignored the time it took and concentrated on the distances. Four miles, fourth bridge; five miles, fifth bridge. Not much time anyway, even at the speed limit of seventy miles an hour, and the PLO driver wouldn’t stick to the limit. Six miles, three-lane carriageway into two lanes. And the cameras, the bloody cameras. Two of them, two hundred yards apart, the first facing west, the second east, towards London. He assumed they were for traffic control, that at the time of day he would follow the PLO car along the motorway the police would be paying little attention to them, knew nevertheless that they might be recording the pictures on tape, that it was a risk he could not afford to take. Seven miles, onto the flyover. Plenty of distance, he thought, as long as nothing went wrong; not much time though, he also thought, wondered what would go wrong. Eight miles, off flyover, almost into the suburbs. Nine miles, traffic lights at Hogarth roundabout. If it wasn’t over by then there would be problems. He circled the roundabout and turned back for Heathrow.

      The black Granada arrived thirty minutes before Tunis Air flight TU790 was due. Haddad followed it into the airport complex, overtaking it as it slowed outside the terminal, then drove back to the short-term car park. The driver of the Granada parked outside the main entrance of the building, in front of a policeman, got out of the car, showed the man his credentials and disappeared inside. Haddad confirmed it was the man he had followed to the mews in Kentish Town the evening before and watched as the uniformed policeman spoke into the radio he carried on his left shoulder. Two minutes later an unmarked white transit van pulled up thirty yards behind the Granada. Ten minutes later the chauffeur came out, spoke to the policeman, and pulled away, the unmarked transit remaining in position.

      The chauffeur had stepped up the security