FALLEN IDOLS. Neil White

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       TWO

      I was just finishing a beer when I heard the sound of footsteps outside, running, the sound of crying.

      I looked round to the barman. He hadn’t seen anything, was too busy wiping glasses. I went to the door. People were running, looking shocked, hands over their mouths. I’d seen this once before, in 2005, on that awful July day, when Al Qaeda sent young men to the capital to blow themselves up and kill innocent people.

      I grabbed someone’s arm, a young woman, chain-store clothes, her eyes scared and upset.

      ‘What’s happened?’

      She stopped, bent double, panting. ‘Someone’s firing into the street.’

      I looked back up the road. ‘Is anyone hurt?’

      She nodded and wiped her eyes.

      ‘I saw a man on the floor, blood on his face.’

      I turned away. I had all I needed. I didn’t wait to say goodbye, and when I looked back around, she had gone.

      I thought I heard sirens. The Armed Response Team was on permanent standby in London and I wasn’t far from major terrorist targets. They would be here in no time and this would be as near as I would get. I saw it was getting busier ahead, the streets full of people getting away from the shooting. If there was anything in the story, the news agencies would get the official releases, the CCTV footage. I would have to feed on the scraps I could pick up here, something different. As I saw the crowd, the running, the panic, I knew I had the angle: the reaction of the people who had been there, the human story.

      I pulled out my camera and set it to telephoto, squashing the spread of heads. As I took pictures, the tide kept on coming, some running, some walking. I saw a young family, a couple of children just under ten with an anxious young mother. She was panting, shaking, clutching her children tight. I got some pictures of the children. The first rule of journalism: always get the children.

      All the time, their mother was talking. ‘We were just shopping, you know, just walking around. People around us ducked, like out of instinct, then there was a second shot.’ She waved her hand in the air, breaths short and panicky. ‘Then people started running.’ The woman straightened herself as if to emphasise her point. ‘Someone was shooting into the street.’

      I tried to concentrate on the children, but all the time I was making mental notes of what she was saying. She had tears in her eyes when she said, ‘… and what about my children? A daytrip to town isn’t supposed to happen like that.’

      I blinked. There was my line. I thanked her and set off again.

      I didn’t get far before I realised how close I was to it. I could see the bob of police helmets, silver glints reflecting sunlight. They were pushing people back, away from the scene. The crowd was getting thicker, but as I pushed I was able to get to the door of my apartment building, not much more than a door squeezed between two shops. I ducked inside and rushed upstairs.

      As soon as I got in, I went to the window. I could see a crowd of police around a man on his back. There was a dark patch on the pavement next to him, spreading into the cracks. He had his arms by his side, a funeral pose. He was in front of the Cafe Boheme, green awnings keeping the inside in shade, but I could see frightened faces looking out. Soho had always been a brave place, always done its own thing. This was the outside coming in, and people looked scared.

      I lined up the body in my viewfinder, ready to start clicking, when I paused. There was something about the face which was familiar. I zoomed in, and when I did, I felt my hands go slick. I had something big.

      I zoomed in close on his shattered head, his face blood-red, his cheeks sinking, hollow. I pulled back to put it into context, the deserted pavement littered with a body, napkins blowing against his ankles. I saw the faces in the Cafe Boheme looking at me, half of them hating me, the rest looking for an answer. I didn’t have one.

      I heard a shout from the street below my window. I recognised it straight away. It was the police. My dad was a policeman, up in the frozen north. One thing he always told me was that if a policeman shouts at you to stop, you make sure you stop, because he’ll only ask once. And I knew I couldn’t get busy with my hands. I didn’t know if the armed unit had arrived yet, but they were only human. They would only get a pinprick of time to decide if the shine in my hands was a gun. If they decided wrong, I’d be dead.

      I relaxed and looked down, nice and slow, my camera now slack in my hand.

      ‘Jack Garrett,’ I shouted. ‘I’m a reporter, freelance. I live here.’

      As I held out the camera, I saw the policeman relax.

      ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘How long have you been taking pictures?’

      ‘Not long enough to help. How is it over there?’

      He didn’t say much, and I could tell he was unsure. Was I the shooter? He didn’t know. He was young, maybe younger than my own thirty-two. ‘Quiet,’ was all he said.

      ‘Have you got the shooter hemmed in?’

      He smiled warily. ‘This is turning into an interview.’

      I smiled back, wider, more teeth. ‘Oh, come on, officer. It’s all going to come out.’

      He looked like he was going to start talking, like he was fighting an urge to help, to tell a story, but the conversation was broken up by the chop-chop of a news helicopter buzzing the scene for footage. We both looked up, but when I looked down again he had straightened himself, set his pose.

      ‘Vultures, aren’t they,’ he said, flicking his eyes to the sky.

      I shrugged. ‘Freedom of speech,’ I said, giving it one last try. ‘It’s a human right.’

      ‘And so is the right to silence,’ he replied, and then turned away.

      I said nothing. I just wanted to keep СКАЧАТЬ