Battle Sight Zero

Chapter 3

‘Would a young lady be involved?’ The boss allowed himself, rare for him, a dry wriggle of a smile.

‘Something came up.’ Andy Knight wore a poker player’s face, part of the game.

‘I take it as read, a young lady.’

‘And I haven’t asked for leave since being here.’

‘Pretty little thing, is she?’

‘It would just be a week.’

The boss was rolling a pencil across the desk. A trifle of fun, a sort of formal dance being played out. Not as though there was a cat in hell’s chance that the request would be denied.

‘I’ve a heavy week in front of us – you did say you might be pushing off in the next couple of days. I heard that right? A pile of deliveries, and all needing a schedule kept, and I’m about to lose one of my drivers. Prepared to say one of my ‘‘better’’ drivers, and the guys left behind – who won’t be on a cuddle and kiss – will need to put in some overtime, if that suits at the other end of the chain. And…’

‘I appreciate it’s inconvenient, but was just hoping you could see your way to…’ Andy shrugged. Gave that near helpless look which seemed to confirm that totty was on offer, too good a chance to pass up and the implication would be that, once, the boss had been young, footloose, not married with three kids, and a dog and a mortgage, and a little villa losing money on one of the Costa del Sol estates.

‘I suppose I could.’

‘I’d be very grateful.’

‘Sure you would, least you could be. Is this – not my business, but I’ll ask it anyway – the big one in your life, know what I mean?’

He would not have expected an answer, and would not get one. Would not have it confirmed that a girl was in the melting pot, and would not be told where the love tryst was to be staged. Some, not Andy, would have slipped in a remark about the south of France, a rather adventurous and exhilarating city, and raised an eyebrow, but he gave nothing. He was not aware of what deal had been done, what the link was that had brought him to the depot: the selection process had been vague, and it was a sought-after job. Somewhere down the line there would have been a tap on the shoulder, a nod and a nudge, and there could have been a mason’s handshake, small talk over hospitality at a United or City game, could have been a debt called in or a favour begged. It had happened to him twice before when a legend was in the careful process of construction, but behind him and better not remembered. He assumed the boss knew something of where he came from, but would remain far outside the detail loop… Tittle-tattle down at the golf club about the contacts he had made and what was required of him, and to whom he gave a helping hand were all to be discouraged. It was all about secrecy, a commodity not to be slack with, and lives would be at stake… Top of the list, with a pink ribbon round it, would be Andy Knight’s.

‘Thank you, really appreciate it.’

‘What I asked, Andy: the big love of your life – for real, for ever?’

‘Which is what I didn’t answer. But thanks.’

He stood. The boss was gazing up at him. The man’s mind would have been going at flywheel speed. Who did he have driving for him, what was his purpose, where did he go at night, and what was the danger level? Was it organised crime or national security, or was the boss off the track and understanding nothing? In the past, Andy had found himself applying for work as a delivery driver – the only Brit in a team of Poles and Hungarians and Romanians – and going round Exeter and its satellite villages doing internet shopping deliveries, and enough people had said, after being in contact with him, that Phil Williams was a ‘straight up’ guy. A pub in Swindon, far end of the Thames valley, had thought it a good idea to offer Norm Clarke the chance of work – basic wages and occasional tips because it was not the sort of establishment where money was flashed. He should live, he had been told, one life at a time. It was good advice, and the life now did not include the months when Williams or Clarke were top of the heap. He smiled. The secretary from the outer office was at the door. She’d have heard every word, Andy’s and the boss’s, and would be none the wiser, and she’d gossip with the general manager, and the head of finance, and the story would stay rock solid that young Knight, good-looking boy, was off somewhere with his new squeeze. They were decent people, kind to a stranger, welcoming to an intruder, and he’d walk out of the depot the next day or the day after, and likely not come back. It was what happened… there, then gone. They’d have a master key and would check his locker and would find it emptied, and no clue as to who he was. It was how it had been in Exeter and how it had been in Swindon… and his parents were not inside that loop, and would have been hurt deeply, but it was the way things were done.

Some would always be hurt. Could not be helped. Causing hurt went with the job.

His parents were already hurt… they’d not have recognised the name of Andy Knight, nor of Norm Clarke, and would have denied any connection with Phil Williams. His father was a science teacher, in a comprehensive school, and his mother ran the reception desk in a dental practice close to their home on the outskirts of Newbury in Berkshire. They had done well, lived carefully and had managed to make a home close to a cricket ground, pleasant and decent. He was out of their lives and did not go back, didn’t claim his bedroom at the back, and they’d not have known why, and would have been bruised, bewildered. Two sisters there, or were when he’d left for the last time, and the best chance was that they’d regard him as wet dog mess for the damage he had done to the family. It could not be different… talk had a way of getting into crannies. One way to damage his work would be through his father and mother, and his sisters. The best protection for them was to cut them adrift. The hard thing about it was that he had now become – almost – immune to emotion about family, friends, people who had once seemed important. He had gone, disappeared.

The boss was rewarded with a smile. It would be around the depot within an hour, thanks to the good offices of the secretary and the manager who dealt with the drivers’ pool, that Andy was off for a week with a girlfriend. Talk of it would brighten their lives.

‘Oh, just one thing…’

‘What now? Want me to pay for a box of chocolates, or something?’

‘Bit of a liberty.’

‘One big liberty – what do you want?’

‘Can I just have the guys in maintenance run an eye over my motor?’

A nod, and a mock sigh of exasperation. The boss understood a bit, not much but a little. The chances were high that Andy Knight was history as far as this delivery service for builders’ sites was concerned. They’d run inquests over what he might have been and where he had come from, and where he had gone, and be left none the wiser, which was how it should be.

Where had his life changed, gone off the straight and the narrow? All down to a rabbit. A rabbit had done the dirty on him… a rabbit’s hole.

‘See you back, Andy. Hope the young lady realises the sacrifices we’re making on her behalf.’

‘Yes, boss. See you back.’

‘My trouble – if I have a trouble – is that I’m fond of a deal.’ Crab, with his minder alongside him, walked.

There were times when Crab wanted to talk, not to have a debate and opinions pushed at him that were the opposite of his own instincts, but just to talk and have Gary at his shoulder; the simple pleasure of hearing his own voice. But never at home – they would leave the house and walk the pavements, walk where there would be no microphones – mobile phones, of course, switched off – and they would pass the electric gates of the orthopaedic surgeons and barristers and accountancy partners, and the occasional footballer’s pile, and anyone who had a home that had cost the earth and a fair bit more. Walk and talk. Could only be with Gary now that Rosie was gone.

‘Life without a deal, sort of empty. Have to have a deal on the run.’

Crab, despite his disability, went at a good speed and threw out his right leg with each stride, then launched his weight on to it, looked as if he might stumble, but always kept his balance. The pavement was treacherous in this weather but he had confidence. If he slipped, Gary was at hand. Rain spattered on his face, ran down his cheeks, distorted the lenses of his dark glasses, and dribbled from his sandy moustache. He had poor teeth, a mess, but they flashed as he talked, and the wind clasped his coat close around him. To go outside to talk was a natural precaution against any of the Manchester crime squads that might have seen him, a veteran, a soft target, worth pursuing.

‘It’s going to be a trial run, Gary. We see what we like, feel happy with it, then we go forward and into the big time. This occasion we bring only one through, and we do the switch there, and hand it to them there, and it’s their job to transport the goodies off French territory and bring it back. It’s a joyride. We set it up, Tooth and me, we watch it happen and take our cut. Removed enough for it not to matter if the kids blow themselves out of the water. If they don’t, and it’s good, then we take the money. Personally, I think it’ll work well… A girl and a boy coming back from the south of France, all romantic and perhaps a couple of violins scraping, nice-looking fresh kids, in love, clean skins, and the merchandise hidden under the seats. It’s good… We start with just one and see how it goes. It works, so the next time it’s five and that gets through and we look again and this time it’ll be ten. Probably about the limit, but by this time some good money is heading our way, and no kickbacks. Have to say, I like it.’

A few years back, he would have walked with Rosie, and they’d have gone up round the golf club. She’d been with him since he had exited Strangeways for the first time, a fiercely loyal confidante. They’d had two sons, both useless and both now banged up, and it was because of the elder that Crab now had the chance of the deal, conversations on the periphery of the exercise yard and then men turning up on Crab’s leafy doorstep. They had been polite, had almost scraped their noses on the gravel in respect, had said what they wanted and suggested a price. They had seemed to Crab to be serious men – a touch above ordinary seriousness when they had requested the use of a disused warehouse in Crab’s property portfolio, and all left clean and no criticism justified. It was an interesting proposition.

‘You’re sniffing, Gary. I sense that. Nostrils working overtime. Not our sort of people, that’s what you’re saying. God, Gary you are an old stick-in-the-mud. I have to go where the opportunity is. How do we make money now? Not payrolls? Not security vans delivering cash? Not going into a jewellers and waving a shotgun around? I have gone into the modern world. Those kids, the keyboards, their little viruses squirming up the tubes, that’s getting ahead of the game, and it pays good money and nobody notices us. You have to be ahead of the game And you have to believe in old Crab, Gary, have to… I tell you another thing, it’ll be good to hook up again with Tooth. Best man there is. Him and me, Tooth and Crab, what a team. Be good to do a deal with Tooth… I need it, Gary, need it to stay alive, not bloody vegetate. Look, it’s a dry run and we’ll watch how it rolls, and from what I see the security is good, or better than good. You worry too much, Gary.’

Four years ago, Rosie had been in her Porsche sports, and might have sunk a couple too many, and the ice had come down fast and she might have been going quicker than was sensible. A beech tree had ended her life: multiple injuries. An occasional girl, when he needed her, was Beth, but she only came at weekends and ironed and cooked and cleaned, and was useful at other duties, but not trusted with the confidences he had previously shared… Gary knew Crab’s business, lived in an annexe off the main house and – Crab’s belief – would die protecting his benefactor. They walked briskly. He was confident of Gary’s loyalty.

‘And you’re still sniffing. Not happy… I read your mind, Gary. You don’t know them and you don’t like them. Not happy that I’m mixing with them. Are they ‘‘safe’’, are they ‘‘decent’’? Trust me, Gary… am I allowed a little laugh? Humour me. Be a funny old day when Crab starts worrying whether the ‘‘associates’’ are ‘‘decent’’. Be a day when I might just laugh too much, even smile big… Are they ‘‘decent’’? They sound right, they take good precautions. They had a kid trying to push in, might have been a tout, and they dealt with it. Dealt quick and dealt clean. I liked it. And, they have this girl who is sharp as a needle, what they say. University. Intelligent, bright, committed. She’s a boyfriend who’s a dick-head and thinks the sun shines out of her fanny… that too vulgar, Gary? Are they enough at arm’s length from us? Yes, in my opinion, yes. Lighten up, Gary.’

He’d decided they’d walked far enough; he’d done his talk, it was time to be heading back, and there was racing on the TV that Crab would enjoy. It might be that Gary shared Beth with him, but he wouldn’t treat that as a matter to fall out over, as long as it wasn’t blatant, was discreet. They passed some kids, pushed them off the pavement, and he heard the giggling because of his uneasy gait, didn’t bother him. Good to have a deal in place. He noted that Gary’s face was still expressionless.

‘Gary, what’s eating? Is it because of who we’re doing business with? Or is it because of the cargo that we’re supplying, they’re buying? Any different to heroin, or coke, or girls? I think we made choices too long ago, Gary, to start acting squeamish now… .’

He laughed out loud, and wiped the rain off his glasses. Crab always laughed at his own cracks. Late to be worrying about ethics. Hadn’t before and wouldn’t start now. And he was off the law’s radar, sure of it.

The feed had come through from the Counter-Terrorist Command, what they had an eyeball on, and Pegs had grimaced, raised an eyebrow, and Gough had nodded. They’d seen a parked car, two in it, and a languid finger had directed them. They slid into a space, restricted parking for residents, but Pegs was good with intimidation if it came to a spat with a warden: could go high and mighty, could threaten torture and job loss. They watched the door of a convenience store. Pegs had her cigarettes out. Gough grunted. She lit up, using a lighter he’d given her two years back, a clandestine gift. He grunted again.

She said, ‘Spit it.’

He cleared his throat, coughed on her fumes, and spat it. ‘It’ll need Risk Assessment. Need Risk Assessment and a Mission Statement. A bloody nightmare.’

‘I can massage it… Worse than that, a fucking nightmare.’

Her language was usually fruity and Gough reckoned it the legacy of an independent schooling. Gough said, ‘And, what’s worse than worse, we need “liaison” down there.’

‘I hate nightmares.’

They did their collective moan, competed well with each other. He had a little French and she had some more but not fluent. Language was always a minefield, and French cops rarely spoke English, and if they did they’d not admit it. After the communication matter was the difficulty of breezing in, snapping out a ‘want’ list, this one would need surveillance and backup, and there would be no clear-cut Assessment and Statement because Gough was in the dark, pitch and black as a January night. She was smoking vigorously and tapping her phone, multi-skilled; a grin from Gough, because he was lucky, desperately so in his opinion, to have her alongside him. He saw her first, nudged Pegs, and ash dropped off her cigarette and landed on her lap, went unnoticed, and she kept texting.

A pretty girl… but Gough was supposed to be beyond the age when the curve of hips and bosom and the swing of a stride, and hair flying behind in the wind, was supposed to matter. She had a plastic shopping bag, came out of the store and turned right. One of the guys from the Counter-Terrorist Unit slid out of the car across the street, and started to follow her. He did not need to see her for operational necessity, it was a gratuitous moment. The people doing the tail on her were capable enough. Pegs was edging their car forward: he did not have to preach caution, fret over being noticed; she was as sharp as he was experienced.

He said, ‘It’s a good plan, I respect it.’

She said, ‘Call them short at your peril – nobody suggests they’re oafs, talk them down and you’ll lose.’

‘They’re in a car, they’re attractive. Where’s the threat?’

‘And she flashes her boobs, and…’

‘They’re waved through – and he’s white, and she’s a clean cookie.’

Pegs stared bleakly into Gough’s eyes; didn’t watch the girl, left that to him. She said, ‘A big new ballpark if there’s a weapon of choice involved. Worse than a suicide guy’s rucksack. A black suit, a busy night in a city centre, pubs and bars full, and the gook walks in with an assault rifle. We are humiliated, we failed. We lose the public’s confidence. A Kalashnikov assault rifle, even in an amateur’s hands, takes us to a new height of mayhem, on a scale we’ve not yet had – thank the good Lord. In the court of public opinion we will be torn limb from limb if it reached here on our watch. A gook, black kit head to toe, and a rifle spraying around. That is an horrendous scenario… Looks a nice girl.’

‘Most of them do, look like nice girls,’ Gough said quietly.

She walked briskly along the pavement and Gough reckoned she had little tradecraft. Some of them doing the jihadi bit had a clear and prescient idea of how to avoid foot and vehicle tails. He did not think she had those skills. Most of the ones who did would have learned tradecraft in the top-grade universities offering the course: Her Majesty’s Prisons, either on remand or post-conviction. He thought she seemed confident, assured, and he did not sense that danger was on her list. Pegs had pulled out into the traffic and had kept her hazard lights on, which cut down the annoyance of the traffic building behind their vehicle.

Pegs murmured, ‘Like butter wouldn’t melt in her bloody chops.’

‘The immortal words of our fond allies, the Bundesgrenzschutz, in their manuals. ‘‘Shoot the women first’’, always a good idea. Can’t read them. Would she know that, Pegs?’

‘That she’ll be in the cross-hairs? I wouldn’t think so, no.’

They were grandstanding, had no useful place there other than to cast an eye on a target. Gough watched her head bob amongst other hurrying pedestrians. He had lost sight of the tail, and the car that followed her. She seemed to walk tall and with a purpose, then turned into a coffee bar. Pegs gave him the quick glance, would have known the answer but it was formal and for him to decide. A nod. She pulled into the fast lane and her hand had gone to the satnav controls and she did the business for London… she had looked so damned innocent, but innocence – Gough’s creed – was poor defence. The girl had looked pretty, but that wouldn’t help her, not in the big boys’, and big girls’, world. Too much to be getting on with, and all of it French, and all of it a potential disaster zone. Happy days… Gough’s hand rested on Pegs’ thigh, and she drove fast and well, and the pace had quickened, what he loved about his work, and her… And the threat loomed big: a gook in a black outfit and the weapon of choice in his hand, and the sound of screaming: what Gough had known all his working life.

September 1958

The digging had taken most of the morning, and tempers had worn thin.

The boy had now been in the custody of the Allamvedelmi Hatosag for almost three months. After the uprising and the reoccupation of Buda-Pest by the Soviet military, the local secret police had been given the task of searching out and arresting those who had been principals, and had tried to slide into anonymity. Men had dug several holes in the woodland in their search for the weapon, but he had been a poor guide for them. He barely saw where they dug, with their spades and pickaxes, because the beatings inflicted on him had virtually closed his eyes. They were puffed, the skin around them many-coloured, and cuts and scrapes covered his face, two front teeth were missing, and the gums still bled after a week. He had confessed. In the basement cells after one more session of beatings and kickings, he had admitted shooting the cowering official of state security, then taking away the rifle stolen from the Soviet liberators. Had also admitted using it the next day and the day after in an act of resistance, and then running from the city, going home, taking the Kalashnikov to the woods at his parents’ smallholding, and burying it. He had been dragged from his cell that morning and brought here, handcuffed, and had tried to identify the place, two years later, where he had dug. But the boy, through his puffed eyes could barely see a hand in front of him, let alone recognise an unmarked place in the ground.

He had confessed, and gilded the story, and tried to stump up excuses and mitigation, and hoped that, at the trial next week, he would be shown clemency by the court.

Travelling in a closed van, from the prison at Andrassy ut. 60, it had seemed a miracle to him when he had been pitched out near his parents, wooden house. Vaguely and indistinctly he had seen them standing by the porch, and a dog had run forward at the sight of him, but a boot had been aimed at it and it had backed off. He could not see whether his parents disowned him or tried to offer comfort. He knew nothing of the photographer. Did not know that a middle-aged man with a Leica camera was revered in his home city of New York by fellow photo-journalists, and that the picture of the revolutionary and the terrified secret policeman had made a whole magazine page and been widely admired… and had been sent by the Hungarian embassy in Washington to Budapest. Painstaking work in the headquarters of the AVH had identified him, and several others. The photographer was a necessary and valued tool in the hands of the counter-revolutionaries.

A spade struck metal.

He had not dug deep. A bare half-metre into the ground, and then had covered it, scattered leaves over the scar in the ground, and dumped manure from the family’s pigs, and had beaten that down with the flat of a spade. He supposed his father knew, but it had never been spoken of. The secret policemen had come at dawn, had kicked in the door and found him in his bed… The killing of their colleague had been long ago, and he had dared to hope that time had ebbed away, and secrets would not be solved. He should have gone, as others had, across the border into Austria, and turned his back on his country and on his parents, made a new life, but he had not.

Men were on their hands and knees, staining their trousers and manhandling wet sods of earth, and the rifle was exposed. He stared at it. His focus was on the barrel and the stock; he remembered how it had felt in his hand, its weight, and remembered the kick against his shoulder when he had fired on the thug who writhed on the ground. He had felt a power and a strength that had never been part of him before, that he had never felt since. He had been shown the work of the photographer, but did not recall seeing the man himself. He could see the faces of the men and women who had pressed close around him when he had shot the policeman, and could almost hear the clamour of jeering when the man had wriggled a few more times, hurrying to his death.

One of them took a handful of grass, bundled it together and started to scrub at the metal body of the weapon. The number was called out. Only the last digits… 16751… Another man flicked over pages on a clipboard, found what he searched for, and nodded, called that he had the match. A fast exchange – it was confirmed? Confirmed that this was the serial number of a weapon lost by a Soviet soldier in mechanised infantry. The magazine was still attached. Mud was brushed from the casing of the barrel and the selector lever and around the trigger, but some was still deeply embedded in the groove of the wooden stock. He looked for what he had done and saw where he had gouged out a small hole, his own record of killing the secret policeman. Another notch was dug the next day: he had fired on a tank commander in a turret and had claimed the hit, and argued with another boy as to which of them had taken the life: each had cut a mark on his own weapon. A short line, neatly cut, designated the Kalashnikov’s killing life.

The weapon was fired. The sound of it echoed among the trees and was heightened by the low ceiling of cloud, then it was made safe, and the magazine was detached. One of them said it was remarkable that the Kalashnikov worked – as it was boasted it would – after close to two years buried amongst the oak’s roots where the rain was sucked down. He was led away. His parents held each other but did not move from the porch; the dog had been put inside and he heard it scrabbling with its claws at the other side of the door. Perhaps, for amusement, if the dog had been free and able to bound towards him they’d have shot it. He was not thanked for his help. The rifle went ahead of him, carried with all the due care and attention of an item of near worthless junk.

And he cursed it.

In the gaol, some mornings before dawn, he would hear the procession of boots and the locking and unlocking of doors, and the little whimpering cries of a condemned man, and the rattle on flagstones when a chair was kicked away. He cursed the weapon, thought it damned. They would take him out of his cell, lead him into a yard, hoist the noose over his head, lift him on to a chair, and let him swing. The rifle was carried in front of him and silently, he swore at it. His eyes misted in tears, he could no longer see the oak trees that grew around his home. He had no answer from the dulled and dirt-cased carcase of the rifle.

He’d been working, done two deliveries, and was late for their rendezvous. She looked sourly at the face of her watch, and he tried to explain that he was late for her because of a problem with the number of cement bags that needed dropping off. Might as well have told the moon. She had been there fifteen minutes.

Andy apologised. She had shrugged. Andy told her about the volume of traffic. A deep breath, and her eyes were hard on him. Had he squared it?

He had. He was starting to tell her that they were not too pleased at him swanning off, and that it meant the driver roster was going into a melt, and… he had done it, was ready to go. She oozed relief. Was that the reaction of a girl when her boy said he could make a journey all the way to the south of France, a sunshine holiday thrown in. The boss had wanted to know what sort of a trip it would be; he said it lightly and with some irony. She flared. None of their business. Nothing that involved them. He sought to calm her.

Andy said, ‘It’s all going to be fine. I have the time off from work. It’s agreed. I told them I was dead lucky, told them I was going away across France with a super girl, a really pretty one – don’t blush, it’s the truth – and we had some family business of yours to settle, and I was going to drive. Hey, Zed, I tell you the truth, all the guys are just dead jealous. It’s going to happen, and I’ve fixed for the vehicle, my motor. The mechanics in the depot will go over it tomorrow, tune it up a bit. It’s a hell of a drive and won’t be the newest lady on the autoroute. They’ll get it going and smooth, do a good job.’

It was a good little speech and it satisfied her. She’d leaned across the width of the table and had kissed him on the lips. Not lingering but better than usual. She was good at rationing affection, like it came with coupons: he was rewarded because he had put in place what was demanded of him.

She would see him tomorrow. Where would he be when the car was fixed? He said where he’d be, at the Hall of Residence. She didn’t want that. Too public, and too much CCTV with lenses that recorded faces and registration plates. There was a park half a mile away from the Hall. He wanted to know when they would be on the road and going south. Why did he want to know, why?

He sensed she was primed, had a crib sheet of questions to ask and answers she was to get. He was smiling, he was the happy boy, and he thought her tight as a damned bowstring which he had not seen before. He needed to know the time they’d cross the Channel, or travel under it, so that the tickets could be booked. She hesitated.

Zed said, ‘Not your problem, Andy. I’ll do that. I’ll fix that… What’s the registration? They’ll want it for the booking. I can do that.’

‘Of course you can. And pay for it? I think I should… you want to pay, your shout – I won’t argue.’

And did not argue, and would have told anyone who’d asked that, in his view, she would be hard put to buy a ticket for a tram in the city, or to use the automatic vendor for the train going over the Pennines and back home. He told her the make and the year and the colour and the registration and she wrote them carefully on the back of a notepad. He let his hand rest on her wrist… so innocent and so vulnerable, and quite pretty, and screwed up, and not knowing how it would be. Join the club, my love, he might have said. He gazed at her, looked earnest, and honest. He’d learn, all in good time, what the family business was, why she needed a simple boy – with a Labrador’s devotion – to drive her the length of France and back. Interesting times.

The winds came off the Sahara and climbed above the mountains and gathered force when they came back down to cross the beaches and the fishing villages and reach the western Mediterranean. The freighter was the Margarethe. She flew a Dutch flag of convenience, was registered in Rotterdam, but at that point her connections were severed. Her master and navigation officer, along with the engineer, were Egyptian; her deck crew and mess stewards Tunisian. The journey she had set out on was some 900 nautical miles and she rolled and rocked in the swell that the wind stored up, and would make poor time on her journey towards the great bite that formed the coastline of southern France.

The captain was resting in his cabin. He was spread-eagled on the bunk bed awarded him, with a decent mattress and good storage space underneath for his personal baggage. Behind his rucksack and his grip bag was the package. It had been well wrapped up but, from its length and its general shape, though hard edges were disguised by the bubble-wrap, he had a fair idea of what it was: and only one. The looted antiquities that his boat carried, to be sold on the clandestine market to high-value collectors – in secrecy – were of far greater value than one rifle. He had been told that future cargo would be put his way, all of it paid for in the crisp currency of used American dollar bills, if this mission was performed satisfactorily. He had met a fearsome elderly man, of short stature and with a thick and blunt-trimmed grey beard, who had worn dark glasses even though the light on the quayside at Misrata was pitiful. He had thought it in his interests to perform satisfactorily, or at a higher standard, but wished – a little – that the introduction had not been made. The Margarethe pitched in the swell, rolling him from one side of his bunk to the other, and they made slow progress. It was extraordinary to him that one rifle was an important piece of cargo.

A tension weighed heavy in the air under the Mediterranean sun.

They all recognised it, including Karym. At nineteen years old, with a haircut that represented the fashion of the day – styled on the scalp and shaved close at the sides – wearing cast-off clothing from the big store in the shopping mall across the valley where his sister worked and had concessions, and with a weak, diseased arm, carrying a lit cigarette – permanent, Karym had good antennae for approaching danger. Not for him, for another.

He sat among the huge quarried rocks that blocked the main entrance to the La Castellane project, making it impossible for cars to get inside and spill out their passengers. Who might have wanted to? The police… rivals from other projects. His damaged left arm was the victim of childhood polio. Karym was the younger brother of Hamid, which mattered in the jungle life of the project. His elder brother treated Karym with contempt, insulted and abused him but looked after him. Not to have had such protection, in a place like La Castellane, and to be crippled by a useless arm and unable to fight back would have been fatal. Not to be able to fight, to wield a knife, was weakness, exploitable: Karym had heard stories of the fights between rats, a pair placed in a high-sided galvanised tub, and sticks used to annoy, then goad them into fighting – to the death. Only one rat could survive the combat in front of a raucous crowd of youths in La Castellane, but in its moment of victory it would be clubbed to death, or have a cross-terrier set on it. Karym was protected because his elder brother had power, and exercised it. Karym had no power, no influence, was an impediment and a burden, and his intelligence was seldom asked for.

What hung in the air, like smoke from the oil drums where rubbish was burned when there was no wind, was the knowledge that a dire punishment was about to be visited on a wretch who had allowed arrogance or pills or stupidity to mess with an assault rifle. The rifle was part of the armoury owned by Karym’s elder brother. The weapons were not stored in one place, but were kept in various safe houses, watched over by the nourrices, the ‘nannies’, women with no criminal record. A boy who was a braggart, pumped up with the sensation of carrying a loaded Kalashnikov taken from his mother’s store, had walked through the project, firing off shots. Hamid had retrieved the rifle. The ‘nanny’ had led away her son… there would be retribution and the imposition of discipline. It was what happened, it was normal. The mother would already have tried to open channels to Karym’s brother, perhaps through a schoolmaster, or with an imam, or any figure who had age and status.

With a population of nearly 7000, La Castellane was the work of a celebrated community architect. Once, half a century before, it had been a source of pride, admiration; now, it was known for unemployment, drugs, prostitution, arms trafficking, anything to do with the black economy. Turf wars were fought with the intensity the rats would have used. Newspapers in the Marseille area described it as a ‘supermarket’ for all things criminal. Three networks controlled the various trades: the ‘place de Merou’, the ‘Tour K’, and ‘La Jougardelle’, but below those feral power bases were individuals who had obtained franchises and paid tithes for the privilege of operating… It was the same in all the projects, and one of those, operating out of a stairwell, was under the power of Hamid, brother of Karym. His world was one of gaunt towers peppered with narrow windows and disfigured by satellite dishes, narrow walkways and dense heaps of concrete buildings that strangers would find impossible to navigate. There, his power base, Hamid could turn over some 50,000 euros each day and customers would come from across the region, and some would buy small for their own consumption, and some would buy big and then sell on in German cities, or to the Dutch market, or take the arrangement across the Channel and market it to the British.

Karym, his antennae twitching, watched, waited, as the tension built. Growing in strength, the wind funnelled between the buildings and chivvied rubbish into corners, and the sunlight made stark shadows from the few trees surviving in the open spaces, and the washing flapped on its lines and seemed to cry.

The boy who had taken the Kalashnikov and who had ambled around in the project had not been seen. But his mother had been noticed as she flitted between those whom she believed might influence what would happen to her son. Where was he? Hiding in his room, perhaps smoking as if that were a release from the fear, and unable to flee because there was no world for him outside the project. His family was in La Castellane, every person he knew was there. He could not pitch up in Saint-Barthélemy, or La Paternelle or La Bricarde, and knock on a door and ask for refuge. Could not go to a gendarmerie down the road and towards the airport or up by the big school and request food and lodging and protection and offer to name names and… The boy would have to hope that his mother came up with something, and would be sitting on his bed and looking from a high window and might see the sea, and the blue between the white caps of the waves, and might see the cleanness of the sky, and might think everything was beyond his reach.

On earphones, Karym listened to music. It was still early in the day. Night was the time that the customers came, parked in the main road, left vehicles with the engines ticking over and hurried through the checks and were directed to the rabbatteurs and be sold the goods and hand over the money. The police were not there often. The chances of infiltration were slim – this was an area skilled in the recognition of the ‘pigs’. There were informers, occasionally, who had taken the police money – never much – and who lived short and dangerous days. Recently, the police had dressed up two of their men in full-length Arab clothing and had sent them into La Castellane to arrest a ravitailleur, a supplier, and their suspect had run, and the crowd had gathered and the police had legged it, scampered for their lives, their robes billowing behind them. The music Karym listened to was from across the sea, from Tunisia where his father lived: never seen, did not write or telephone, never sent money. The music beat in his head. He was one of many who watched the entrance to the project. Later, when darkness came, he would be busy, alert. He had a grievance with the boy who had taken the Kalashnikov rifle stored by his mother. A sharp grievance.

He had never fired one. Had never peered with his right eye down the barrel, locking on the V and the needle, with the setting at Battle Sight Zero. Had never slid his finger inside the guard and wrapped it on the trigger and squeezed until there was the clap of the explosion and the thud of the recoil in his shoulder. Had never done it. Hamid said that his weak arm would not be strong enough to hold and aim and fire… But he was an expert on the weapon. Of the one hundred million that were believed to have been manufactured, Karym could name the principal factories where the Russians had produced them and all the other copies had been made: Russia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, old East Germany, Finland, Serbia… knew them all, those and many others. Knew the calibre of the ammunition and the weight of grain that propelled the bullets. Knew the weapon’s effective range. Knew the art of stripping one, and reassembling it, could do it blindfolded. But had never fired one in practice or in anger… It was a grievance and it festered… He could tell the Chinese one from the Egyptian one, and both from the Iraqi one. Knew everything, except how it felt when the impact careered into the shoulder joint. The kid, an idiot, knew more of the Kalashnikov, the AK-47, than Karym did and had fired it – and would face a terrible retribution for taking it from his mother’s safekeeping. There was little forgiveness in the project, clemency came rarely to La Castellane, and the boy was a walking dead. Karym heard his music and absorbed the atmosphere around him. His brother had gone to Marseille to meet a man: had not shared the details. He had never seen rats fight but imagined it to be dramatic, but had seen a walking dead, had watched, and knew the smell of it.

The wind blew more fiercely, but could not remove the atmosphere of spectacle and anticipation, and a clock ticked.

He was in his bedsit with a grip bag on the bed, and a plastic sack.

Andy cleared drawers.

Most of his clothes went into the sack, and a few – what he’d need for a week – were laid more carefully in the grip. Shoes, trousers and overalls, underwear and socks, sweaters and his second anorak, and his sponge bag, and the little bedside clock with the built-in alarm went in to the plastic bag because he would have no need of them down in the south of France. He was meticulous. Each cupboard and drawer was checked, double-checked, and he’d been down on his hands and knees to look under the bed. When he chose to, he could close the door after him and hear the lock in the catch and go down into the hallway and know that nothing of Andy Knight was left behind for a stranger to find… They’d come looking, too right. Would look, maybe in a fortnight or a month, and curse and swear and damn him, would find nothing. He’d see her tomorrow, after the car had been tuned up, would talk with her and get the schedule: where they were going and when.

Rather basic, how it had started, him and her. Manchester, out to the east of the city centre. He was there.

Three boys. They would have seen a young woman, heading for the Deansgate area where the bright lights were and the big shops and the crowds. Head held high, and no scarf and no robe covering the jeans and the anorak that the guys she’s been meeting had wanted her to wear. They’d have expected her to take a bus, but there must have been trouble on the route that night: a coincidence. No bus, so she had walked, and three boys had spotted her. She would have had a handbag held close to her body as protection against a mugger, and she would have had her rucksack strap across a shoulder and she might have been hurrying and nervous or might have been sauntering and digesting what had come from her meeting… Could have seen the three boys, or not. The road went past a couple of old warehouses, converted in to smart office space but most of the employees would have shut down their screens and gone to the bars in town.

Andy ambling along, a lorry driver, doing deliveries for a company providing materials from a wholesaler to building sites… Did not have to be specified what he was doing in that side street, where he had been, where he was going, not a necessary part of the story. But he was there, and saw it unfold.

One in front of her, one alongside and one behind her, hands reaching out for her. She was jostled first, then pushed, and someone would have grabbed the strap of the rucksack and another would have gone for the handle of her bag, and she would have stumbled. Pretty classic mugging technique, and that part of the city had high marks for street crime. A little squeal, then a shout that was strangled down in her throat, as the boy wrestling with the rucksack hit her. Something between a slap and a punch, catching her across the mouth and cutting off the squeal. No one to hear her except for Andy, who happened to be around a hundred yards away up a side street. She went down, but was spirited. A bit less naivete and she would have let go of her rucksack, and with plenty less obduracy, she’d have given up her bag. What was in the bag? Student stuff, some cosmetics, and a purse which would have been near empty because she hadn’t been to the bank for weekend spending money. She was clinging to her rucksack and had the bag in front of her and went down on to the dirt and the weeds of the pavement. A boot went in hard, into her ribs, and most of its force was probably deflected by an arm; one of them had bent down and hit her in the face and might have worn a ring because she was cut below the nose and above her top lip. Not much blood but enough to make a mess. Andy was running.

Andy – way back, before he was Andy Knight and before he was Norm Clarke, before Phil Williams, before the intervention of the rabbit – had been a recruit at the Commando Training Centre, down on the south Devon coast and close to the wide mud-flats of the Exe estuary. He knew, long time ago but lessons not forgotten, about intervention. Move in fast, achieve surprise, use maximum and sudden force. All three were bent over her and she was fighting with true bottle, real guts, to protect her possessions, seemed keener on defending them than herself, and their frustration grew, and their violence increased. He was close when he heard the wheeze as air was sucked from her lungs after a knee had been forced down on her chest and he thought her kicking and writhing were losing strength. He reached her: as if the cavalry had turned up, and not much time to play with. He had chucked himself at them. Three against one. Fists, knees, a choice head-butt, and the guys would not have known what had intervened, who had joined the fight, and the surprise was total. No quarter asked, they’d not the wit, and none given because his response was murderous. One rolled away on his side and was facing a wall, and his hands were across his privates and he’d cried like a pony that had hurt a fetlock, and another was stunned and might be concussed and had given up on the struggle. One had her bag, had wrested it off her. She kicked the stunned one, didn’t connect with the back of his head but not for want of trying. The handbag was gone, and the guy limped off down the pavement. He’d gone after that guy, had jumped on his back and pressured him down, and there might have been a little cry, ‘Easy, mate, easy’ or ‘Steady down, mate, that enough, that’s…’ He didn’t hear it if there was. He had the guy by his hair, then banged his face down, hard enough to split his forehead, maybe loosen some teeth. The guy took off, abandoned the bag.

Andy had carried the bag back. The clasp was still fastened.

She was crying, not self-pitying, but from shock. A couple of cars went by and it was that part of the city where a wise driver would not have stopped to be a Good Samaritan but would instead have checked that his lock button was depressed. She was shivering. Andy held her tight. He knelt beside her and cradled her upper body and head against his chest, might have murmured something comforting.

The one who perhaps had concussion spat clear a tooth, coughed out, ‘Fuck you, mate’ and went on his way. The one who was against the wall still cried, and still held himself but scrabbled with his fingers against the wall and was able to stand, and looked at Andy – pure malevolence – and shambled away and was sick as he walked, half doubled up, and shouted back, ‘See if I don’t fucking get you, see if I don’t.’ He bent to lift her, was prepared to take her weight. She might then have realised that a man, a stranger, had an arm around her waist, and that her head was close to his chin. She’d have felt the warmth of his body. He picked up the tooth, eased a handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it, put it in her hand and said something quiet about a ‘souvenir’. He told her she had done well, that the guys – all three of them – were in worse health than her. She clung to him, went weepy, and might have realised that she was now safe, that he’d not allow anything else to come close, frighten her, or hurt her.

That was how it had been, how they had met.

They had gone for a coffee. He’d been at the counter and she’d been in the toilets, and had come back, looking almost normal. The battering had been washed off with warm water, but there were dirt stains on her jeans and anorak, and there would be a worsening graze across her nose by the morning, and big discoloration above and below her left eye and the cuts would take a while to heal. He had reached out, across the table, and she’d taken his hand and held it. She had told him a little of herself and where she was lodging, had clung to his hand and he had found it difficult to halt her trembling, and he was her saviour. A week later, he had gone to her Hall of Residence and a porter had called up to her room, and he had handed over a cheap but decent bunch of flowers, and it was likely that no one had ever done that for her before… All a few months back.