The drive across London became increasingly unpleasant as Alan’s bloated insides began to flag up travel sickness. It didn’t help that the young police driver insisted on speeding through red lights and swerving around traffic, alarms blaring.
‘I feel sick!’ Alan finally admitted, as the police car rounded Parliament Square.
‘We are nearly there, sir,’ offered DS Landers, who sat next to him in the back.
Alan hoped he was not understating the journey ahead: Parliament Square was still north of the Thames, but South Norwood was miles away on the other side, somewhere in the distant random south. But as the car sped along Victoria Street and took a turning to the right, he recognized a famous rotating icon.
‘Are we doing this interview at New Scotland Yard?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Alan was escorted through the NSY lobby and then passed quickly through various security desks. He was finally asked to take a seat in a small bland office.
‘Can I get you a coffee, sir?’ enquired a female plain-clothes police officer.
Alan groaned.
‘He’s feeling sick,’ stated Landers. DCI Cranford had vanished somewhere.
‘Oh dear. Should I fetch a doctor?’
‘Just motion sickness, it’ll pass,’ replied Landers.
‘I could manage a cup of tea,’ suggested Alan.
‘No problem,’ replied the woman officer, departing.
‘No problem fetching you tea – a big problem making it palatable!’ remarked Landers, with a smile.
After five minutes the ‘refreshments’ arrived, but there was still no sign of any interview beginning. Alan tentatively sampled the tea. It was disgusting.
‘Told you,’ said Landers.
‘Are we ready to begin? Where has Inspector Cranford got to?’
‘Won’t be long, sir,’
In fact, it was long. Alan was kept waiting in the small office for nearly an hour before being asked politely to move to another location within NSY. He and Landers, who was also growing very impatient, finally pitched up in a formal interview room with a one-way mirror on the wall.
Alan was ushered to a seat and Landers took up a position near the door. A further ten minutes went by without anyone joining them.
Alan finally spun around to face Landers: ‘If this interview doesn’t start soon I’m–’
The door burst open and two men and a woman came striding in, all exuding an air of professionalism and efficiency as they each sat down opposite Alan.
‘You’ve kept me waiting here for two hours!’, Alan exaggerated.
The woman, who sat in the centre and was presumably the most senior, smiled warmly at Alan: ‘Yes, we’re very sorry, Mr. Dosogne, but as you can imagine, it has been a very busy day, for all of us!’ She glanced at one of her colleagues who nodded slowly.
‘Hmm, whatever,’ mumbled Alan, staring deliberately hard at the mirror.
‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said the woman to Landers, who departed with an exasperated sigh.
‘Now, Mr. Dosogne…’ The woman opened a file and began to read from a sheet of A4.
‘Let me guess, you have some questions about my statement. I have nothing further to–’
‘Of course, Mr. Dosogne,’ said the man to the woman’s left, ‘we just want to have a little chat.’
Alan realized that his three inquisitors had not formally introduced themselves – nor had anyone mentioned lawyers. He’d be sure to bring that up if this dragged on much further but for now he was curious: What did the authorities know? What had they pieced together in the last twenty-four hours?
‘Okay, let’s chat!’ said Alan, folding his arms.
The woman in the centre who had been studying Alan closely throughout this short exchange returned her attention to Alan’s statement. She frowned and placed it back in the folder. She then retrieved another item, a photograph. No – a photo-fit. She slid it across the table to Alan.
‘Do you recognize this woman?’ she asked.
Alan was shocked to make out the very striking features of the life-entity from the Finsbury Circus roof – Ceres. The image was very close to the real thing, with the eyes in particular showing that distinctive hard focus, like the picture was scrutinizing him, rather than the other way around. Alan felt his heartbeat racing.
‘Nope,’ he lied, knowing that almost anyone, never mind this lot, would have picked up on his uncomfortable body language. Christ, he’d even scratched his nose! He pushed the image back to the woman.
‘I think you do know!’ said the man on the woman’s right.
Alan smirked. ‘You’re the bad cop, are you?’ He fully grasped that this confrontational attitude of his would be doing him no favours but following the recent revelations concerning humanity’s fate, just how scary was a police interview? The answer seemed to be: deep down, not scary in the slightest, almost amusing. He didn’t even care how much of the full picture they managed to winkle out of him. Though he was damned if he was going to make it easy for them.
‘Mr. Dosogne, you have no idea how bad I–’ the guy began, but the woman raised her right hand and he abruptly stopped, but a livid expression lingered on his rotund face.
‘Tell us about the work you do at Global Finance Sponsorship,’ requested the woman.
Alan shrugged: ‘I provide financial advice for our various clients.’
‘Yes, and it is quite a client roster, isn’t it?’ The woman glanced down at another document: ‘big global players: cousins of Arab royalty, private equity and hedge fund managers, billionaire oligarchs…’
‘Yeah, we do alright,’ agreed Alan with conspicuous pride.
‘You did alright!’ declared the angry man. ‘Your line manager and division boss are now both dead; killed under very mysterious circumstances, and you turn up after having wandered about London in a daze.’
‘You can see why we have questions, can’t you, Mr. Dosogne?’ added the woman.
Alan fidgeted in his chair: ‘Yes, and when you get the answers is there any chance you could inform me? I don’t understand any of this either!’ Since there was more than a grain of truth to that answer Alan felt more comfortable. Telling the truth was easier: the truth and nothing-but-the-truth. The whole-truth bit should be left out, however.
‘What is the name of you division supervisor?’ asked the angry cop.
Alan was taken aback. He didn’t know, and had never thought to ask: ‘I don’t know his name.’
‘No, neither do we, despite rigorous background checks. He has no national insurance number, no employment record, not even anything listed at GFS. We also can’t identify him from dental or fingerprint records.’
Alan had always assumed the supervisor to be one of the vat-grown hybrids, so if the Sponsors actually housed him as well there would be no need for any human documentation at all. This interview was going to get very awkward.
‘And where is GFS’s division headquarters located?’
Again, Alan did not know.
‘GFS is registered at Company House, but as a fully independent, limited company. There should be no external division HQ. And what, for that matter, is this mythical entity supposed to be a division of?’
‘I just got on with my job, and didn’t think about these things! Bruce Claxton provided the client roster and technical advice on investments, I just packaged this up for the wealthy individuals who perhaps lacked the necessary financial acumen to act on their own.’
‘Okay,’ said the woman, returning attention to her various papers. ‘Let’s move on to the actual events of yesterday afternoon.’
‘It’s all in the statement,’ indicated Alan.
‘No, it isn’t. Neither Claxton, nor this “division supervisor” died under natural circumstances. Preliminary reports from the coroner’s office suggest cell nucleus ruptures occurred. This resulted in near instantaneous death for both individuals.’
The other male officer chipped in: ‘And there are hundreds
of examples of this across London and across–’
The woman stopped him with another raised hand. Was he about to say: the world?
‘Well obviously something came from the meteorite!’ insisted Alan.
‘Except that the timing is out.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The deaths all occurred at precisely fifteen nineteen. The meteorite did not air-blast until fifteen twenty-three.’
‘So!?’
‘So how could fragments of a meteorite kill so many people when said meteorite had yet to enter the Earth’s atmosphere?’
‘Astronomy was never my strong point.’
‘Mr. Dosogne!’ It was the woman, and she was getting angry.
‘What?’
There followed a short pause while the police interrogators, if that’s what they were, tried to recompose themselves. They were clearly rattled. Not so much by Alan’s glib replies, but by events in general. Alan almost sympathized. This all must seem so bizarre from their perspective. They were probably used to foiling terrorist attacks…
‘Do you think this was a terrorist attack?’ asked Alan, earnestly.
There was no reply, but in due course the woman began again:
‘If it were a terrorist attack, it was not indiscriminate.’
‘Oh?’
‘The victims were exclusively business leaders, very senior civil servants, and celebrities.’
‘And you!’ declared angry cop.
Alan shook his head: ‘but I am clearly still here, alive and well!’
‘But you were taken ill at precisely the same time. And statements from your company suggest most of the staff present thought you to be at the point of death.’
‘GFS was clearly targeted,’ said the other man. ‘No collateral damage to the building, just a surgical strike taking out the key players: The boss, his pretend boss, and you.’
‘His pretend employee?’ accused angry man.
‘Hey, I have documentation, I pay taxes!’
‘Well, maybe you just got struck by the cross-fire,’ suggested the woman. ‘You were in physically close proximity to the other men, weren’t you?’
‘Precisely!’ stated Alan.
‘Even so, you have apparently made a miraculous recovery, Mr. Dosogne.’
Well, I don’t understand that!’ declared Alan with conviction. The interrogators, appearing to accept this assertion, glanced furtively at each other. The woman slid the photo-fit across the table again.
‘This is the terrorist, one of them, anyway. Witnessed at the Foreign Office annex where the worst of the attacks took place, and– look, we know you recognize her, Mr. Dosogne! Who is she!?’
Alan felt trapped. These three were damned if they were going to let him go without a positive ID on this woman. He considered coming clean, telling them everything.
There was a loud knock at the door. The woman collected the photo-fit image and returned it to her folder. ‘Come in.’
It was Sergeant Landers, he indicated to the woman that she should follow him.
‘Excuse me a moment!’ she hissed, as she stood to leave.
Alan was left alone with the two hostile men. He glanced up at the one-way mirror and wondered if the woman was now behind it, perhaps discussing future lines of questioning with her bosses, whoever they might be.
The woman returned after less than a minute. She looked very unhappy. ‘Well, Mr. Dosogne, it seems you still have some friends in high places. Your legal team are demanding your release, and unfortunately we are obliged to comply.’
‘Oh!’ Alan was perplexed. His legal team? He stood up to leave.
‘This is far from over, Dosogne!’ declared angry cop, with menace. ‘We’ll be talking to you later once this legal bloater has been removed from the pipes. Maybe we should conduct part two at Guantanamo Bay,’ he said to his colleagues, with a smirk.
‘Fuck off!’ replied Alan, as Landers stepped in to escort him out of New Scotland Yard.
***