At Risk

17

Faraj Mansoor woke thinking that he was still at sea. He could hear the crash of waves, feel the sucking undertow as the Susanne Hanke reared up the side of the next peak to come crashing down into the trough. And then the noise and the sea seemed to recede, to recede beyond a window-a small wooden window framing a steel-grey sky-and he realised that the waves were some distance away, dragging at a beach of stones, and that he himself was lying fully clothed in a bed, unmoving.

With this realisation came the knowledge of where he was, and the surreal memory of the landing on the beach and the attack in the café toilet. He revisited the attack, ran it through his mind like a film, frame by frame, and concluded that the fault for the way things had turned was ultimately his own. He had played the role of the downtrodden migrant just a shade too effectively, and had failed to allow for the Briton’s sheer venal stupidity. From the moment he had allowed him to approach, the outcome had been inevitable.

Faraj was not greatly troubled by the fact of having taken another man’s life, and had examined Gunter’s smashed skull with cold dispassion before deciding that a second shot was unnecessary and that it was time he was on his way. But the killing would attract attention to the area, and that was bad. The British police were not fools, they would calculate that the shooting was something out of the ordinary. And they would take the necessary steps.

Patting his trouser pocket, Faraj reassured himself that he had collected the spent cartridge case from the floor. For a moment he put it to his nose, and smelt the gunpowder residue. He had chosen his weapon with care. A target hit was a target down, flak jacket or no. When it came to the moment, he mused grimly, he might well need the few seconds this would buy him.

He swung his legs to the sea-grass flooring. He had said nothing to the girl about the killing of the boatman-he needed her to be calm, and the knowledge that a police murder hunt would soon be under way would have agitated her. For himself, he felt detached, a spectator of his own behaviour. How infinitely strange it was to find himself on this cold and lonely shore, in a land that he had never thought to visit, but in which-and he held out no illusions about this-he would almost certainly die. If it was to be, however, it was to be. The black rucksack hung where he had left it the night before-over the bedhead. The cheap windcheater they’d given him in Bremerhaven lay folded on a bedside chair. The gun was on the bed.

He could remember very little about the drive back to the coast from the service station. He had tried his best to stay awake, but fatigue and the after-effects of the adrenalin that had flooded his body during the fight had blurred his senses. The car, additionally, had been warm and smoothly sprung.

He had barely registered the girl. She had been described to him by one of the men who had trained her. She had been pushed hard at Takht-i-Suleiman, the man said, and she had not broken, as most soft city-dwelling women broke. She was intelligent, a prerequisite in the field of civilian warfare, and she had courage. Faraj, however, preferred to reserve his judgement. Anyone could be brave in the bullish, sloganeering atmosphere of a mujahidin training camp, where the worst you had to fear were bruises, blisters and the instructors’ scorn. And frankly, anyone with half a brain could master the basic weapons and communications skills on offer. The important questions were answered only at the moment of action. The moment at which the fighter gazes into his or her soul and asks: What do I truly believe? Now that I have summoned death to my side-now that I can feel his cold breath on my cheek-can I do what has to be done?

He looked around him. Beside his bed was a chair, on which was folded a red towelling dressing gown. On the end of the bed was a towel. Accepting the invitation that these items seemed to offer, he stripped off his dirty clothes. The dressing gown seemed inordinately luxurious, given the situation. Feeling slightly foolish, he put it on.

Tentatively, weapon in hand, he pushed open the door to the main area of the bungalow and stepped through, barefoot. The girl was facing away from him, filling an electric kettle from the tap. She was wearing a dark blue sweater with its sleeves hitched halfway up her forearms, a heavy diver’s watch, jeans and lace-up boots. Her hair hung straight and brown to her shoulders. When she turned round and saw him she jumped, sluicing water from the kettle’s spout on to the floor. Her other hand went to her heart.

“I’m sorry, you gave me such a…” She shook her head apologetically and collected herself. “Salaam aleikum.”

“Aleikum salaam,” he returned gravely.

They stared at each other for a moment. Her eyes, he saw, were a hazel colour. Her features, while pleasant enough, were utterly unmemorable. She was someone you would pass in the street without noticing.

“Bathroom?” she hazarded.

He nodded. The stench of the Susanne Hanke’s hold-vomit, bilge and sweat-hung about him. The woman would certainly have noticed it in the car the night before. She preceded him through the door, handed him a zip-up sponge bag, and backed out. Laying the gun on the floor, he turned on the bath’s hot tap. A roaring sound emanated from the wall-mounted heater, and an uneven thread of tea-coloured water wound into the enamel bath.

He unzipped the sponge bag. In addition to the usual washing equipment there was an extensive first aid kit, complete with sterile wound dressings and suture needles, a small oil-filled compass, and a diver’s watch like her own. Nodding approvingly, Faraj set to work with the razor. The bath was clearly going to take some time to fill.

When he finally emerged, she had cooked. There were places set, covered dishes on the table and a smell of spiced chicken. In the tiny bedroom he dressed in the clothes she had bought for him in King’s Lynn the afternoon before. These were of good quality: a pale blue twill shirt, a navy blue sweater, chinos, buckskin walking boots. A little hesitantly, he returned to the central room, where the woman was scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars. Hearing him, she turned round, lowered the binoculars, and looked him up and down.

“You speak English, don’t you?” she asked.

Faraj nodded, and pulled out one of the chairs at the table. “I went to an English-language school in Pakistan.”

She looked at him, surprised.

“We have both travelled a long way,” he said. “The important thing is not where we came from, but that we are here now.”

She nodded and, suddenly galvanised, reached for a serving spoon. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope this is OK, it’s-”

“It looks excellent,” he said. “Please. Let’s eat.”

She served him. “Are the clothes comfortable? I used the measurements they sent me.”

“The fit is good, but the clothes seem… too fine? People will look at me.”

“Let them look. They will see a respectable professional man taking his Christmas break. A lawyer, perhaps, or a doctor. Someone whose clothes say that he is one of them.”

He nodded slowly. “The famous English caste system.”

She shrugged. “It’ll explain why you’re here. This is a place where the middle classes come to play golf and sail and drink gin. England’s full of well-off young Asians.”

“And I look like such a person?”

“You will do when I’ve given you the right haircut.”

His eyebrows rose for a moment, and then, seeing the seriousness of her expression, he nodded his acceptance. This was what she was here to do. To make these decisions. To render him invisible.

He took a knife and fork and began to eat. The rice had a flaccid, overboiled texture but the chicken was good. Taking a sip of water he slipped his hand into the pocket of his chinos, took out the tall cartridge case, and stood it upright on the table.

The woman noted it but said nothing.

Faraj ate in silence, chewing with the thoroughness of a man who is used to making a little go a long way. When he had finished he reached across the table for a Swan Vesta matchbox, split a match lengthways with his thumbnail, and began to pick his teeth. Finally he looked up at her and spoke. “I killed a man last night,” he said.