It wasn’t anything major like the 7/7 bombings in London. And there were plenty of events in the eighties that were similar. The IRA were bombing Harrods and fast-food restaurants on Oxford Street. More explosions occurred in Hyde Park and Regent’s Park during military ceremonies. The Lockerbie plane bomb. The Iranian Embassy siege. Another explosive at a Conservative Party conference in Brighton attended by the prime minister.

But it was none of these.

It was an everyday call-out. 1982, Old Levant – who was a younger Levant, then – and another officer were called out to investigate some railway vandalism and graffiti. It was routine. Nothing to worry about.

But it all happened so quickly.

One moment they were laughing as they walked along the platform, the next, Levant’s partner must have slipped or fallen or something, because the old man heard a slap, then a gargling, and before he could react, his friend had been electrocuted and was dead.

And Levant froze.

Then he blacked out.

That was the first time it happened.

It kept happening, though. Every time he got anxious about something or was faced with something he hadn’t been completely prepared for, everything went black.

He beat it. It took time and effort but they stopped. Until his nephew threw himself off a bridge and the dog barked incessantly at the television image of his decomposing former master and the newsreader said The People of Choice in five different languages and he found a piece of paper in a box of things he took from Young Levant’s flat and it said 225–233 and the old man did the maths and came up with minus eight and associated it with the bridge incident and decided that his idiot nephew wanted to take eight lives with him and the news had suggested that the Man In The Light may have been the ringleader.

And black.

With the dog still barking and the news still humming and his back still sweating.

60

To the public, the nine cult members now have names. The police and the press think that it makes them more real, it provides some kind of attachment. But names are so forgettable. People remember stories and details. It’s much easier to remember Ungrateful or Doctor or Lovers.

Poet’s parents say things like, ‘Oh, he was so creative. He wanted to become a writer. Ever since he was little.’ Even his father chips in with the occasional supportive grunt. The mother looks withdrawn. Like she has been crying for weeks. Like a parent who has outlived their child.