A Line in the Sand

Chapter Nine.

~We're stuck with him."

"Don't know how we can shift him."

"Whichever budget it's coming out of will be facing a black hole." It was where they found comfort at Thames House: a meeting around a table, an agenda, and a stenographer parked in a corner to record conclusions.

Barnaby Cox, once, had gestured discreetly to the stenographer with the palm of his hand, an indication to her that a particular area of discussion was not to be recorded for posterity; no hack trawling in future years through the archives in library would learn how information was extracted from a hospitalized patient.

Fenton was beside him. Next to him was the senior warhorse from B Branch, former Army with a history going back to Cyprus and Aden. Beyond him, was Littelbaum, in his crumpled tweed suit and creased shirt, then the red-haired woman. Opposite Cox was the Branch superintendent with the maps on which were drawn the lines covered by the sensor wires and the arcs watched by the cameras and the fields of defensive fire… and Geoff Markham was isolated at the end of the table and watched and said nothing.

The agenda had covered the threat; the guarded prisoner; the evidence of the presence in the United Kingdom of a killer with the coded name of Anvil good laughter at the top end of the table at that; the possibilities of putting a name to Anvil; the missing associate thrown up by Rainbow Gold no laughter there because Rainbow Gold was a sacred Grail, cost an annual fortune and was beyond criticism; and the mobile surveillance and taps on the movements and communications of the lOs at the Iranian embassy. The agenda had reached the transcript provided by Geoff Markham.

"The call, Geoff's call, wasn't authorized…" Cox fretted.

"All Geoff's done, not that we needed it, is provide further confirmation that Perry's a stubborn fool," Fenton said reassuringly.

"He should have cleared it first," Cox complained.

"The bloody trouble is, and Perry knows it, we cannot abandon him. If the Iranians drop him in the gutter, with half his head missing, they've won, and that is unacceptable." The Branch man gazed at the table.

Cox huffed, "Sounds as if he's deranged, all this rubbish about home and friends."

Fenton said, "I think we should call him up to London, with his wife, give him lunch and the treatment. Plant the doubts in him, scare the daylights out of her. Soften him up."

The Branch man relaxed and grinned.

"Spell it out in words of one syllable that even an engineer can understand."

"A good lunch, a good wine and a good dose of fear should crack him," Fenton pressed on.

"The cost of protection, with no end date, is simply unacceptable." Cox pummelled his hands together.

"But I like what I'm hearing now."

Fenton rocked back in his chair, smiled broadly.

"Get some photographs from the Germans, the French, a few of their corpses courtesy of the Iranians for her to look at while she's eating. Always best to go through the little woman works every time."

"Right, agreed." Cox rapped his pencil on the table.

"We're not criticizing Geoff for his initiative, he was following the agreed line. It's just that he didn't have sufficient weight in his punch. Handle it, will you, Harry?"

The stenographer scribbled briskly. At the far end of the table,

Markham felt like a child brought in to the adults' dinner, not expected to contribute but to be washed, neat and silent. The red-haired woman yawned. The American, who hadn't spoken since his precis of the hospital-bed interview, coughed.

Cox gathered up his papers and stood, content.

"Thank you all for your time the main priority, get him out. A good lunch and lashings of gore to help it down Harry to make the arrange~nents. Thank you.~ The American coughed again, in a more stagy fashion.

"Sorry, Mr. Littelbaum, have we ignored you?" Cox grimaced.

While they were on the move around him, Littelbaum remained still and sitting.

"Just something I'd like to say."

Cox glanced at his watch, then said patronizingly, "Any further contribution you wish to make will be, of course, greatly valued."

Littelbaum smoothed, unsuccessfully, the tangle of his hair. Markham reckoned his hesitation was a good act. He thought the American was as hard as granite.

"That's gracious, much appreciated. It follows on from Mr. Markham's transcript. Quote, "You think I'll run away because of the say-so of those [expletive] bastards? Think again. Get it into your head I make my own decisions. I am not running away", end quote. That's good, excellent, that should be encouraged. The best place for him is at home. What I would urge on you, don't give him lunch and wine and show him photographs, keep him where he is, at home. There are rare occasions, too few for my liking, when we have the chance to win. This is such an occasion.." and I think you should take the opportunity as it presents itself."

Cox was back in his chair. The rest of them listened in silence.

"If you like, I am a surrogate child of Iran. Iran, my parent, feeds me, clothes me, provides my reason for living. Without that parentage I have no life. A child watches every move of its parents. So, I watch Iran… Iran is at war with the United States, with my government, and, if you'd care to recognize it, at war with you too. The weapons they have are stealth, deceit, the probing for weakness. My government, and I believe rightly, calls it state-sponsored terrorism, and every year puts Iran top of the world list. The war, most currently, is being fought on Saudi Arabia's territory. Iran's war aim is, via destabilization, to bring down the government of the kingdom and replace the administration of an ally that irritates us with that of an enemy actively hostile to us. The road to destabilization is through the bombing of the United States' military infrastructure now settled in Saudi Arabia. They are trying to force us out, and if we go the kingdom falls… I don't have to give you the statistics of oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. That country is a vile place, a police state, characterized by medieval cruelty, but it is important to us hear me, important. And it is a most challenging environment for an enemy to operate in. To survive there, to continue to kill, the enemy must be of the highest calibre. Our man rates up there. Each time he strikes he creates further government repression which, night following day, creates further destabilization. He organized the bombing of the National Guard barracks at Riyadh, five Americans dead, and the attack on the Kobar Tower barracks, nineteen Americans dead. Three Americans killed on the road between Dhahran and Riyadh. A Saudi general working with Americans was targeted and killed last year. We had a chance to take him last month, and we missed him. Missing him hurt, because we categorize him as the principal terror criminal confronting us. He was called home from Saudi Arabia, and sent here."

Geoff Markham thought him masterful. Littelbaum's voice was never pushed, he used his hands only rarely and then for the supreme moment of emphasis.

"It bleats, cannot hide, cannot escape. It cries out, attracts the predator, is stalked by the predator. It is watched, dragging at its rope, by the marksmen in the hide. It is the tethered goat…"

Fenton's breath whistled in his teeth. The red-haired woman gazed at the American in fascination.

"If you go with your rifle into the bush or the jungle or the desert then you have very little chance, the slimmest of possibilities, of searching out your predator. But the predator has to be killed. So you find a goat. You put a stake in the ground and a rope around its neck. It will attract the predator. You tie the rope to the stake and you sit in your hide with your rifle, and you watch your tethered goat."

They sat in hushed quiet around the table as if, Markham thought, none of them dared to interrupt the bravado of the proposal.

"Afterwards, when you have shot the predator, you will receive the thanks of the community and you will walk with pride. You don't have to put the body on show. Others won't come, predators learn quickly, others will stay away. Forget your lunch, wine and photographs. Leave Frank Perry in place, where the predator knows he can find him. Make the hide, put good men in it… You are lucky, so lucky, that you have a bait available."

Fenton and Cox spoke at once.

"That is fraught with danger."

"It's brilliant."

The Branch superintendent said there would be minimal risk to his people because the beast would have eyes only for the goat.

The red-haired woman chuckled, said nothing, but she patted the American's hand lightly.

Cox murmured nervously, "But the consequences of such action, they could be dire…"

"Not if the matter is handled with discretion. With the necessary discretion there are no consequences. But, believe me, the necessary message will reach the Ministry of Information and Security -discretion avoids consequences."

"We'll buy that, if there's discretion," Cox said.

"I'll take responsibility for running it," Fenton rasped.

"At the moment we're drifting. This way we have purpose."

"Our discretion is guaranteed, my word on it." Littelbaum spoke with sincerity.

"It's what we'd do, if we'd had the luck that's given to you."

Geoff Markham wanted to ask, and didn't: how long would the marksmen wait before they fired? He held his silence. In the interests of a better shot, would they sacrifice the goat? The American had turned away from his audience and rubbed his poorly shaven chin. Only Markham saw the satisfaction of his smile.

He hadn't asked his question because he already knew the answer, had seen it in their eyes. He slipped out of the room and left behind him the clinking glasses and the pop of a drawn cork.

Jerry and Mary Wroughton had lived in the next house with their five-year-old twins, Bethany and Clive, before Frank and Meryl had arrived in the village.

They were able to buy the house of pink stucco, four bedrooms, overlooking the green, with upstairs views out across the sea because the bank offered favourable mortgage terms to employees. Without that they wouldn't have had a sniff at it and with it Jerry had to be everybody's friend at work while Mary had to have a full-time job as a receptionist in a local surgery. In truth, they lived behind their front door as semi-paupers. Appearances, for Jerry and Mary Wroughton, were deceptive and their poverty was hidden. To the outside world, they presented an aspect of cheerful, friendly affluence. Jerry Wroughton liked to be thought of as a bank manager, dropping 'deputy'; Mary gave her job description as a practice manager, not mentioning the word 'receptionist'.

Just as Jerry, at work, acquired customers, and Mary, at work, acquired patients, so both, in the village, acquired friends. Friends went with the territory.

And they were, of course, careful in the acquisition of their friends.

Friendships, as with everything else in their lives, were planned. Friendships were useful, important, should not create stress. Friendships should not provide unpleasant or jarring surprises. Both hated surprises. They were close to the Carstairs, on good terms with the vicar, relaxed with the Fairbrothers, but their best friends were in the next house. There were never any surprises from Frank and Meryl Perry… not until that evening.

What Jerry and Mary liked about Frank and Meryl was that they listened. Jerry could talk all night round the kitchen table and Frank always seemed to find what he said interesting. Meryl was so kind, always ready to help out in a crisis, having the twins round if Jerry and Mary were kept out late, always prepared to shop for them if work were too pressing. They had never had any cause for complaint about their closest neighbours.

Vince, the vulgar little builder, had telephoned. Had they seen their guttering? Had they heard about the crane? What about the hut? Did they know about the guns? Would they be wanting him cash, if they didn't mind to check their guttering?

Coming home from work, Jerry Wroughton had seen the police car parked close to the junction on the main road at which the lane branched off to the village. He'd thought it was good to see them there, watching for thieves and speedsters, and yobs without tax discs or insurance. He'd driven down Main Street, had seen a second police car coming slowly towards him and thought that it was high time decent, hard-working, law-abiding folk had proper protection. An empty car had been parked outside the neighbours'. He'd been tired, he'd wanted his tea, and he'd been sitting in front of the television when Vince had telephoned. He'd gone upstairs. From the back-bedroom window he could see down into the neighbours' rear garden. He saw the hut and the policeman walking slowly round their lawn. The sight of the machine-gun in the policeman's hands had sent Jerry Wroughton into the bathroom where he had vomited into the lavatory. The killing zone was separated from his own property by a low fence of light palings. He rang Barry Carstairs, and then the fear was worse.

For the next hour, his wife doggedly insisted that it was his right to protest and told him what to do.

It was the worst surprise that had ever confronted Jerry Wroughton.

Her car had provided the lead they required.

It was a two-room flat, one room for the bed and the wash-basin, one room for the easy chair, the television and the cooker. The lavatory and the bath were shared with others on the floor below. The detectives had taken apart every drawer and cupboard, exposed every possession of Farida Yasmin Jones and found nothing.

The Rainbow Gold file had carried an old address with neither a number not a street for forwarding mail. The university records had failed them. The father had cursed and the mother had sulked, but they could not produce a current domicile for their daughter. The detectives hadn't a workplace and so had no national insurance number to feed into the computers. The driving-licence address had not been updated.

But they had the car's registration from the vehicle-licensing files at Swansea. Four men, with the registration, had foot-slogged round the back-street garages of Nottingham.

None of the possessions in the flat, scattered from the drawers and cupboard on to the floor, had produced what they searched for. The detectives had been told to look for evidence of commitment to an extreme fundamentalist Islamic sect, but the possessions were those of an ordinary young woman, one of thousands, working for an insurance company. They had her pay slips on the table.

A list had been drawn up of every motor-repair yard qualified to issue an MOT certificate of road worthiness All they had was the registration of her car. To get into the garages' records, they'd had to promise that the evidence uncovered of VAT fraud and Revenue scams would be taken no further.

They'd rolled back the carpet in the living room, torn away the stuck-down vinyl in the bedroom and prised up the floor boards with jemmies each of the four detectives was familiar with failure, but it always hurt. They were sullen, quiet, surrounded by the debris of the young woman's life.

They had nothing to show that this ordinary young woman had clasped a new faith, or had made a self-justification for a hatred of her own society.

The last chance was the entry-hatch into the rafters of the building. They lifted the slightest among them into the space with a torch to guide him. They could hear his body movements above them. As they made a play at tidying the flat, replacing the young woman's clothing, they heard his shout of triumph.

A suitcase was passed down through the hatch.

Laid out on the table of the living room was a leather-bound volume of the Koran wrapped in spotless white muslin cloth. There were the careful notes of a student, handwritten, listing the five Pillars of the Faith and their meaning, neatly folded clothes that they recognized, and the head scarves At the bottom of the case was a packet of film negatives. The detective sergeant held them up towards the ceiling light.

"Well done, lads. That'll do nicely."

The darkness was his friend. But the quiet was a greater friend than the darkness.

Vahid Hossein sat cross-legged. He had heard a fox call behind him, in the trees, and the shriek of an owl. He listened for each shift of the water-fowl, dippers and waders, in front of him. The bird was close. He did not need his eyes to see it: his ears had located it, and he knew it edged closer. He heard cars but they were a long way off. The only clear sound was of a dog barking in the far distance.

When he had come back to the place where the sausage bag was hidden, he had found that the bird had tried again to tear at the rabbit carcass and not had the strength. This time, feeling with his fingers, through the darkness hours of the evening, he pulled off small pieces of the bloodless flesh, slipped them into his mouth and chewed to soften them, then tossed them towards the sounds of the bird. Each time he threw the chewed meat to the bird he drew it closer to him. By the morning, he would be able to touch it, smooth his fingers on its feathers. It was important to Vahid Hossein that he should win the trust of the bird through his help.

He thought of the marshlands at night and the bird. Later, when he was at peace, he would plan and think: he would put from his mind the white-skinned legs of the girl and the fall of her breasts, and make the plan. It was the same quiet he had found in the desert, in the Empty Quarter. His wife, Barzin, in their small house in the village of Jamaran, had a fear of darkness and of silence, and he could not change it: she would leave a light on outside the open bedroom door. It was harder, when he had left the desert and the Bedouin whose loyalty he had won, and driven on the streets past the barracks of the Americans, to make the plan and to think. The best times were when the quiet and the darkness of the Empty Quarter cloaked him, and he would be back there within two weeks to complete the plan and site the bomb.

If Hossein had lunged, he could have caught the bird by the wing, the leg or the neck -but he would have lost its trust. Then he could not help it. If he helped it, the peace would come. In peace he could plan and think.

The plan at Riyadh, for his last bomb, thought through by Vahid Hossein and accepted by his brigadier, had been complex. The adaptation of the petrol-tanker lorry to hold 2,500 kilos of commercial explosive had been carried out in the Beka'a valley of the Lebanon. The explosives and the detonation leads had been loaded, the time switch had been fitted. The lorry had been driven into Syria, through Jordan and across the Saudi Arabian frontier. Five days after leaving the Beka'a the lorry had been parked fifty metres in front of the eight-storey residential block used by the Americans. The bomb had been set to explode and the driver had run to the back-up car. It was a complex plan, but no thought had been given to the alertness of the sentry on the roof, who had raised the alarm as soon as he saw the driver run. Nineteen Americans killed, 386 injured, but many more would have died without that sentry's advance warning.

For that small mistake Hossein was blamed only by himself.

At peace, his mind clear and rested, in the darkness of the marshes, he thought of the time he should attack his target, now protected. At the change of the protection shift? In daylight or at night? In the middle of the shift? At dawn or at dusk? He chewed the meat and threw each piece nearer to his body, always luring the bird closer.

The bell rang.

He glanced at his watch. Blake would come to take over from Davies. But there had been only one ring, sharp and persistent, unlike the three Blake and Davies used. The bell went on, endless. Perry was watching television, the story of the renovation of a wildlife park in the Himalayas, the sort of programme that made him forget where he was, what had happened to him. Stephen was sitting on the floor with his arm on his mother's knee. Meryl was sewing.

He didn't think, and stood up. The bell was still ringing as if a finger was jammed on it. He was in the doorway between the living room and the hallway when Davies came out of the dining room, pushing back the bottom of his jacket to reveal the pistol in the waist holster.

The last thing the lorry men had done, after the laminated plastic had gone over the windows, was drill a spy hole in the front door. Davies didn't seem fussed by the bell, took his time. The bell ring pierced the hall, too loud for him to hear what Davies said into the button microphone on his jacket lapel. Perry understood: the camera covered the front door, the monitor was in the hut. Davies was clearing the visitor with the men in the hut.

"It's your neighbour."

"That's Jerry, Jerry Wroughton always on the scrounge. Probably wants-' "Do you need to see him?"

"He's a good friend."

Davies switched off the hall light and unlocked the door. Jerry Wroughton's finger slackened off the bell button.

"Hi, Jerry, you in the business of waking the dead?"

Then Perry saw the clenched mouth, the quivering jaw -hadn't ever seen Jerry look so famous and he smelt the whisky.

He'd been about to ask his neighbour to come inside.

He thought Jerry Wroughton was remembering what he had rehearsed, the mouth flapping without words as if the memory was slow coming. Meryl had said that Barry Carstairs had read off notes.

"What's the problem, Jerry?"

In the dark hall Perry went sideways as if to see his neighbour better, but Davies drifted across to stay in front of him, shielding him.

"Come on, Jerry, spit it out."

"What's going on? That's the problem. What's happening?"

The poor bastard, sent out into the night by Mary, had forgotten his lines.

"Say what you want to say that's our way, yours and mine say it."

It came in a torrent.

"I come home I find you under guard. Police in your garden, police with machine-guns. I talk to Barry Carstairs you're on a death list, the kid's been put out of school because of the risk. Who's thinking about me, about Mary, about the twins? What's the risk to us?"

"Come on, calm down."

"You're all right, you're bloody laughing! What about us? What protection have we got?"

"Jerry, you're upsetting yourself. Believe me, you don't have to. Just head on back home, sit in your chair, and-' "You've got a problem, it's for you to fix it, it's not our problem. You made your bed, you lie on it."

He tried to be soothing and conciliatory. He thought he owed that to a good neighbour. Right, so Mary had primed him with drink and nagged, and Jerry had gone all pompous, but he was still a proper friend. He rocked on his feet and breathed deeply, which was what he always did to control a rising temper.

"What are you saying, Jerry?"

"You've no right to bring your problems to our doorstep. Right now our children are sleeping a few yards from where you've got guns protecting you. Who's protecting them? Who's protecting Mary when she's in the garden at the washing-line, when Beth and Clive are playing outside or don't they matter?"

"There's been a professional assessment of what needs to be done. They'd have considered-'

Davies stood between them like a statue, impassive. He didn't contribute an iota of support.

"What good's that to us? We've done nothing wrong. We've done nothing to need protection. Whatever your quarrel is, it's not ours.

"If they come for me, they'll have the right address. Is that your worry? That they'll get the wrong house? No chance!" He laughed, couldn't help himself. The image came into his mind, so fast, of the turbaned mullah with the beard, carrying the assault rifle, knocking on doors in the village and going into Dominic's shop, calling up the ladder to Vince, into the pub, asking for directions.

He shouldn't have laughed. Jerry shook, quivering with fear and anger just as Perry had, a long time ago.

"All I can say, Jerry and I don't get told much is that I'm in their hands, and they're the experts. We're all in their hands."

"That's not bloody well good enough!"

"What is good enough?"

Jerry Wroughton stood his full height. Spittle bubbled at his mouth. It was the moment for which he had needed the cocktail of whisky and his wife's nagging. Davies was between them.

"You should leave just go."

"Where?"

"Anywhere just get the fuck out of here. You're not wanted."

"Since when? I thought you were my friend."

"Best thing you can do is go be gone in the morning."

"I thought friends stuck together, in good times and bad. Don't you want to know what I did, why the threat's there?"

"I don't give a damn what you did. What matters to me is my family. I just want you out."

He didn't care any more. There was a sickness in his throat, and he realized the shallowness of what he'd assumed was a valued friendship. There were plenty of other friends, with depth to them. He might just talk about it in the pub tomorrow, and they'd all laugh as he described the gutless hen-pecked prig, Jerry Wroughton. For long enough, on his own doorstep, he'd tried to humour the man. His temper snapped.

"Go home and tell Mary that they offered me relocation and a new life. I chose to stay. I told them that this was my home, with my family and my friends… Friends."

He stabbed his finger past Davies's elbow, towards Jerry Wroughton's heaving chest.

"Are you listening? Friends. I may not get support from you, when I'm up against the wall, but I'll get it from my true friends, and I've got enough of them. Meryl and I, we don't need you, either of you. Go tell her that."

The telephone rang behind him. He realized, at that moment, that he could no longer hear the television. Meryl would have turned the sound down: she and Stephen would have heard every shouted word.

He walked away and Davies closed the door behind him.

"He's a pathetic bastard."

"You called him a friend, Mr. Perry. You have to face it, people get cruel when they're frightened."

"I've friends here, believe me, real friends."

"Glad to hear it."

He picked up the telephone in the kitchen.

She was the only one left at the new cluster of desks down at the far end of the work area. The consoles were covered, the desks were tidied, all the lights were off except hers.

Geoff Markham came out of his cubicle and locked his door after him. The red-haired woman didn't look up from studying the illuminated green square and speaking soundlessly into a telephone. There was a ribbon of light under Cox's door, but the senior journeyman often did that sloped off home and left his room lit so that the lesser people might believe he still beavered… Vicky was expecting him at her place for a verbatim of the interview, but Markham wasn't in the mood for an inquest.

He wandered towards the woman, towards the halo of light on her hair. He wanted to talk, wanted his feelings massaged. If she hadn't been there he would have gone out of the front doors on to the Embanj( n-lent, sat on a bench and stared into the river, watched the barges and the ripples. He waited until she put down her telephone.

"Hello."

She didn't look up.

"Yes?"

"I just wondered can I get you anything?"

"Are you the tea-lady?"

"Can I help in any way?"

She said brusquely, "No."

"If it's not too secret…" he giggled'… what are you doing?"

"Pretty obvious, isn't it, or weren't you listening? The American's stuff was superb. Add light complexion to an English-speaking accent. It could equal the child of a mixed marriage. He's put at late thirties. A mixed marriage, maybe forty years ago. An Iranian marries an Englishwoman. That's what I'm looking for. It might be on file if the marriage was over there the FCO should have it because probably the consul would have been notified. If it was over here then it's harder but possible. Is that good enough?"

He felt a rare shyness. She was older than him. With the white ceiling light bathing her face he could see the first lines cutting her skin and the slight crow's feet at her eyes. He couldn't face Vicky and her questions. He thought that, not so long ago, she must have been beautiful.

"Does that give you time for a drink, before they close? Sorry I don't know your name."

"I'm Parker."

It scratched in his mind.

"Parker?"

"Cathy Parker."

"From Belfast?"

She turned away from her screen. She looked up at him and her glance was withering.

"I am Cathy Parker, "from Belfast", yes."

"We used to talk about you."

"Did you?"

"The instructors used to lecture us about that bar, escape and evasion, the bar full of Provos and you taking them on."

"Did they?"

"It's a legend there, what you did in the bar."

"You want to know something?"

"Of course, please." What Cathy Parker had done in the bar up on the hill above Dungannon, East Tyrone Brigade country, when she'd been on covert surveillance, had been identified, taken by the Provos, was held up by the instructors as the single best example they knew of the will to survive. She was a legend.

"Tell me.

She said, "It was all for nothing. What mattered was my tout. I lost him. I pushed him too far, and I lost him. Did the instructors tell you that? If you'll excuse me…"

"Have you time for a drink?"

"I have you haven't. Hang around here and you'll end up pushing paper in triplicate, badgering night-duty archive clerks, errand-running for those useless farts, sucking your bloody conscience, scrapping for a place on the promotion ladder. You'll be sad and passed over, and always have time for a drink. That what you want?"

"Where should I be?"

"Down there, where it's at, with the principal. If you don't mind, please, fuck off, because I want to get this boring crap finished with and get home. You shouldn't be whining around with has-been "legends". Get down there. Nothing is ever decided here they think it is, and strut around as if they actually pull the string3. They don't. It's down there it'll be decided. Body to body, as it always is. Or is close quarters too tough for you? You're a lucky bastard to have the chance to be a part of it, if you're up for it."

Even while talking, she was dialling on her telephone. He spun on his heel and she didn't look up, as if she'd said everything that needed saying.

He paused by the door. He didn't knock, but he put his head round it and asked, "Can I come in?"

"It's your house, Mr. Perry," the detective said, droll.

"You can go where you like in it."

It was all out on the blanket over the table, the Heckler amp; Koch, the bullet-proof vest, a little cluster of gas grenades, the mobile phone, the radio, the Thermos, the plastic lunch-box, the newspaper.

"My wife's gone to bed."

"She's had a long day, sir," the detective said, noncommittal.

Perry shrugged.

"We're not very good company for each other at the moment, I'm afraid."

"Early days, sir, takes a bit of time for us all to shake down. Never easy at the beginning, having us in the house."

"Do you mind talking?"

"Up to you, sir."

"It's not interfering?"

"You talk away, sir, if that's what you want."

The detective eyed him. Perry didn't know what he thought. He was a younger man with fair hair and a good suit, and he had the faint accent of the West Midlands. His jacket was off and he wore a shoulder holster on a heavy harness. He seemed not to notice when he straightened in his chair and it flapped against his body. Perry supposed that if you wore the thing the whole time, a holster and a gun, then you came to forget it.

"It's Leo, isn't it?"

"It's Detective Constable Blake, sir, or I'm Mr. Blake you please yourself."

"Sorry."

"No offence, sir."

"I don't seem to get to talk much with Mr. Davies."

"We're all of us different, sir."

Perry stood in the doorway.

"Sounds daft I'm in my own home with my wife and I'm lonely. Late-at-night talk, you'll have to forgive me. I just need to talk, have someone talk to me. I'm not saying I want a shoulder to cry on, it's just talking that I need. I can't say it to Meryl. It's easier and no offence to a stranger, but already it's getting to me. But I made my bed, didn't I? That's what people say. Still, not to worry, there are good people here, in spite of tonight, and they'll see us through. Actually, being honest, the worst bit of all this is behind me. Believe me. A couple of months ago, I'm lying in bed, the radio's on for the news, Meryl's asleep, and I heard my old name.

"Would Mr. Gavin Hughes, last heard of five years ago, go to the general hospital at Keswick in Cumbria where his father, Mr. Percy Hughes, is dangerously ill." I lied to Meryl as to why I was going out, I drove up there in a daze. I broke all the rules because I'd been told that I shouldn't ever try to reclaim the former life, and I went in to see him. The crisis was over. He was sitting up in bed. Me walking in made him cry, but he cried worse when I refused to tell him who I was now, where I lived, what I did. My mother told me to go away. She said I was better gone if I couldn't trust my own parents. I came home. That day was worse than anything. There's three times since Mr. Davies arrived here that I've thought of telling that to him, but it never seemed the right time. I don't find talking easy with Mr. Davies."

He couldn't tell whether Blake was bored with the story or moved by it.

"He's a very conscientious officer, sir, one of the best."

Perry smiled ruefully, then forced himself to lighten the mood.

"How is one officer better than another?"

"Planning, thoroughness, study… He's good at all that. There's an old principle in our job, sir no such thing as complete protection. But if you do your work then you're giving yourself a chance, and making a chance for your principal. Bill that's Mr. Davies, sorry he's good at planning and he's done all the studying."

"What is there to study?"

"Everything that's gone before, because you can learn from it. We had a half-day clear last year, and he marched me round central London, round five sites where there was an assassination attempt on Queen Victoria's life he knew the exact place each time, the weapon, why she'd lived. He read about it so he could learn from it. We had a day clear in January, a course was cancelled at the last minute, so he took three of us into the video room that SB have, gave us a screening. We had the killing of Sadat and Mrs. Gandhi, Mounthatten and Rabin. Each detail, what had gone wrong, where the security had fouled up and the video of the shooting at Reagan, which was just diabolical for the protection officers, they did about everything wrong that was possible. You wouldn't want to hear too much about Sadat and Mrs. Gandhi, sir."

"Wouldn't I? Why not?"

A slight grin fluttered at Blake's mouth. Perry knew it was intended he'd snatch the bait.

"They were shot by their own bodyguards. Won't happen to you, sir they were murdered by the people who were protecting them. Mr. Davies told me that Mussolini was paranoid about his protection people, gave them guns to wave about but kept the ammunition locked up. He studies what's happened, learns from it. He could walk you down the street, by the Hilton Hotel in London where the Israeli ambassador was shot, and talk you through it as if he'd been there the P0 did well, fired and hit the gunman, but it was still too late, his principal was critically injured, brain damage. We're always trying to catch up, we're told that their action is faster than our reaction, stands to reason. To give yourself a chance, what Mr. Davies does, you study and learn. It matters to him. The job matters too much to him, it's bad for his wife and kiddies, but it's good for you, sir. Can I say something?"

"Of course you can."

"Like, in confidence?"

"Please."

"Not to go further. We're all covering for him. It's a lousy bit of wife trouble. If the bosses knew how lousy they could pull him off the job. They don't let men with bad home problems carry firearms. When he lost the weapon in the playground, if you'd shopped him then, made a complaint, the bosses would have put the evil eye on him and the trouble bit might have surfaced. If you'd complained, he could have been out on his neck. You did well there, sir."

"Don't take me wrong but it's a comfort to know that other people have a bloody awful day."

"He told me not easy for you, sir."

"Well, time for bed. I'm grateful. Thanks."

"You pretty down, sir, on the floor? Has Mr. Davies told you about Al Haig? No? Get him to it's his favourite. When you feel low, like the world's kicking you, get him to do his Al Haig story. Goodnight, sir."

Perry turned for the door, then stopped.

"There's something I don't understand. I was asked by the London people to leave, and I refused, we had a shouting match. They came back this morning, tried again, new life and a removal van, and again I refused. But they called this evening, it was all soft soap, and they accepted my decision to stay. Why'd they change course?"

"Don't know, sir, couldn't say."

Perry went to the bottom of the stairs, and hesitated.

"Can I ask you, Mr. Blake, in a live situation have you ever fired your gun?"

"Only the once. Two shots, stone dead, pints of blood on the pavement. Just happened to be there and just happened to be armed because I was going off duty. Before you ask, I didn't feel good about it and I didn't feel bad about it. I shot a beef bullock that had broken out of an abattoir pen and was running up a high street in south London. I didn't feel anything. Get him to tell you the Al Haig story. Goodnight, sir."

Frank Perry climbed the stairs, past the winking light of the security sensor, and went to bed.