Page 164 of Never

She heard a nearby woman scream.

If he got his hands on that switch he would kill himself and Tamara and a lot of other people.

She managed to grab both his wrists and push his arms to the ground, leaning forward to use all her weight. He bucked, trying to throw her off. The police nearby were staring in shock. She yelled: ‘Hold his arms and legs, before he blows us all up!’

After a stunned moment they did as she said. In normal circumstances they would not have followed her orders, but they could see the device and they knew what it was. Four cops grabbed the bomber’s limbs and held tight.

Tamara stood up.

All around her the bystanders were backing away, some running.

In the far corner of the park, the nervous smoker was being handcuffed.

The palace gates opened and the limousine came through.

In the cathedral grounds, the gardener ran at the fence.

The car crossed the avenue, picking up speed, and headed down the side street.

The gardener vaulted the fence onto the pavement. He reached inside his jalabiya and drew out a green plastic trigger switch.

Uselessly, Tamara yelled: ‘No!’

He ran into the road and threw himself at the car. The driver saw him and slammed on the brakes, too late. The bomber hit the windscreen and seemed to bounce, then there was a terrific bang and a flash. The windscreen shattered and the bomber was thrown into the road. The car continued to roll forward, leaving the corpse in the middle of the street. It veered to the right and crashed into the fence surrounding the cathedral. The fence was flattened but the car came to a stop.

No one got out.

Tamara ran across the park to the crashed vehicle. Others had the same idea and were close behind her. She threw open the passenger door and looked inside.

The back of the car was empty.

There was a smell of fresh blood. In the front was just one man, the driver, slumped and motionless. His face was too damaged and bloody to be recognizable, but he was small and thin with grey hair, and therefore not the General, who was massive and bald.

The General was not in the car.

For a moment Tamara was bewildered. Then she reasoned that the driver might simply have been going to get fuel. A darker thought was that he had been sent out as a test, to see whether the threat was real, in which case his life had been sacrificed. It was grim, but possible.

There were holes in the bodywork and steel balls all over the floor.

Tamara had seen enough. She turned away and walked back to the monument park.

I saved the General, she thought. I nearly lost my life. Was it worth it? Who the hell knows?

But she had not finished. Haroun had said that the government of Sudan was behind this. If true, it was important, but she wanted confirmation.

The boy with the scooter had been relieved of his suicide vest – Tamara would have waited for the bomb squad, if the choice had been hers – and now the police were putting handcuffs and leg restraints on him.

Tamara approached, and a cop said: ‘What are you doing?’

‘I gave the alarm,’ she said harshly.

Another cop said: ‘It’s true, she did.’

The first cop shrugged, and she took that for permission.

She moved closer to the bomber. He had light-brown eyes. She could see the wisps of adolescent hair on his cheeks: he was terribly young. Her closeness to him was a contradictory message, both intimate and threatening, and it confused him.

She spoke in a low voice. ‘Your friend in the cathedral garden is dead,’ she said.