Beyond Recall

Chapter 20

He had no sense of time. He wore a watch but it was on the arm that trailed in the water; his hand was frozen numb and he could no longer move it. Not that the time mattered, other than that it was a fraction lighter on the far horizon. The cloud blanket was still capping the hill line on the east side of the inlet, but he reckoned it softer. Could have slept… The rain had stopped, but not the wind.

Gusts caught at the inflated sides. The dinghy was pushed forward and spun as it went. Gaz’s head lolled and sometimes he was facing out to sea and saw the cloud and the horizon merging, and sometimes he was facing the west’s hills that bordered the inlet, or the east’s, and there were moments when he faced where he had come from and could see distant pricks of light. There were navigation beacons on rocks close to the shore, and buoys flashed intermittently, but he did not know their pattern or their importance.

A cargo ship had passed him and he had smelled the wet coal loaded in the hold, but it had not seen him, had gone past at speed and he had again been shaken by the waves it created. He might have slid overboard but had, again, a sufficient grip on the rope, and that further tired him. The combination of tide and wind moved him but he had no destination, only the fading hope that he might clear the inlet, be carried towards the west, might leave Russian territorial waters, might be picked up if he were seen, if he lived. Spray climbed the sides and washed across him.

With his free hand he made a little cup of his palm and scooped out minuscule quantities of the water that now settled at the bottom of the dinghy. His buttocks were in water, and his boots, and the part of his back from which the bullet had exited. There was no cup, tin mug, bowl or plastic water bottle which would have helped his feeble efforts to bale. And the water, deep enough to lap against his body, further chilled him. Gaz supposed there would be a time when exhaustion married a loss of hope and then the best answer was sleep. A long sleep and a dream of warmth and of the sun, and of a girl and love.

A light caught him.

Bright and firm, locking on him. Then was gone. The dinghy rode a wave, sank into the following pit, shipped more water, then surged up again and the light caught him a second time. Eyes wide open now. He waited for a shout, yelled commands in a language that he did not understand, but the light lost him. He was aware of rocks and they obscured the light. He drifted on. The dinghy collided with the shore. A rock was towering above him and he was against it and there were weed and barnacles, and the waves beat against it. The craft smacked into the rock, rode it, then dropped and wallowed in a swell, and came again. Gaz fought to trigger the little coherence left to him. Realised… the light would have guided fishermen working close to the shore, simple. Men who used little boats would have relied on the light, and he realised he was now wedged.

Big moment. The failure of the back-stop. The light caught him, dropped him. He was between two rocks and the waves beat against him. How would it end? A good chance that he would be pitched off the dinghy and dumped into the water and the first wave would hurl him against the rock face. Would be a quick finish… Tried to look for the girl’s face. He used a leg. Managed to find the strength because he had the image of her, and the wind tore her hair, a small sad laugh, and… he stamped and pushed and the dinghy was freed, went in a tight circle, then bounced him against the far edge of the rock and he lingered there for tantalising seconds, then the dinghy moved and the current held it and the wind caught the sides. He moved on, and looked back, and saw a big shadow on the shore. It moved with a rolling, uneven gait as if it were disabled. The light on the rock swerved again and held it for a moment, then disappeared and found Gaz and left him and shone out across the open water. When the beam completed its circle and again lit that part of the shore above the rock, close to low twisted trees, the bear was gone. Gaz rubbed at his eyes. A delusion? An hallucination? Something that he had seen or imagined, or dreamed of? Where it had moved, and where the light had made bright diamonds of its eyes, was deserted.

Two more ships passed him. One was a fishing boat and the other was a freighter, and they were far out in the inlet channel and he was tossed some more by the waves they threw at him. More spray came in and his efforts to ladle out the water failed to match what splashed in. He thought the cold was worse. He had a question in his mind. Wanted it asked and needed it answered.

‘What I did, had it any value?’

Not a big voice, he hardly heard it. Waited for the reply but in his ears were only the swirl of the waves and the singing of the wind, and carried to him across the white caps were the diminishing sounds of the engines of the trawler and the freighter.

‘What I did, will it make a difference?’

He listened. The grey cloud still blanketed him and a mist had formed. Harder to see ahead and the current was still strong and the wind was prodding him towards the open sea. Listened for Knacker and his smooth talk, and for Alice and Fee who would be encouraging and talk about assessments still being made but the picture, on the whole, being good. Listened for the words from Timofey and Natacha that would lift him, and those of the hunter who had carried him to the back-stop opportunity. Listened for what the officer would tell him, and wondered where he was, what he did, whether the reading of him had been true or was merely wishful thinking. Heard nothing.

‘Was it failure, was it for nothing?’

Too tired now to care.

“If anyone were to ask me, was Matchless a failure, all for nothing, I would say to their face that they are ignorant. Of course it made a difference, and one of value. Might just be that you and those now posturing on the fifth floor have not the wit to realise it.”

Knacker faced him, the new broom’s message-boy.

“I understand your irritation. Way above my pay grade. The instruction is from Internal Security.” The young man, Dominic, had a gentle voice and a shuffling step and a wobbling lower lip, and had shaved poorly that morning, but did not back off.

“I have personal items inside that I wish to collect.”

“Am very sorry, but my instructions are clear. We have first call on the rooms and after completion of our work then you may enter, also your assistants, for a supervised period not exceeding ten minutes. Then the area is to be locked, sealed, and finally returned to the landlords. I am very sorry, but it is over, on D-G Acting’s say-so.”

A church clock chimed the half hour. Thirty minutes past seven o’clock, steady rain falling on the pavement and traffic queuing to get north over the bridges for the run into central London. Unlikely to be play that morning at either the Oval cricket ground or at Lords, and even more unlikely that Knacker would get past Dominic, rated as an able and boring recruit who would go far because of his lack of eccentricity. And behind Dominic were a pair of men in the usual rubbish uniform of the security detail: jeans, leather coats, shades – and it was raining and half dark.

“How long will this charade take?”

“Three or four hours. My apologies but matters are out of my hands. Could be longer. Your assistants are upstairs, Alice Holmes and Tracey Dawkins, and have proved most cooperative, so it may be nearer three. Should be out by late morning. We started at five, both of them here then. I really would suggest that you go and find some breakfast and a cup of tea.”

That hurt… but Knacker had lived a life of inciting men and women to turn against their own, did not champion loyalties. They had landed forty-five minutes after midnight at Gatwick. He had gone back to his suburban home, been there barely two hours, showered and changed and dumped soiled clothes and the sodden suit in which he had travelled, had catnapped beside Maude before his alarm had gone. Had caught the train to Waterloo, then walked along the embankment to Kennington Lane, and had seen the knot of men and women on the pavement outside the Yard. They’d been on a fag break, and piled inside the door were plastic bags bulging with files and electronics, even the bloody raincoat that he kept there… Hurt more than he would show that his girls had jumped ship. Problem was for Knacker that he preached betrayal, gloried in it. He supposed that he could go and find a sandwich bar where there would be hot coffee and a builder’s breakfast, and when he returned the door would be double-locked, and there would be a note with a number and an address further along the road where his personal items were temporarily held. Clients at the taxi company counter, next door, watched them with interest, and a wry grin was on the face of the principal at the gentlemen’s tailor on the other side where they performed miracles letting out trousers for older men and… He smiled. Could in fact have knifed the little bastard, Dominic, then could have packed him off to a souk in Aleppo or Mosul and wiped the smugness off his face. But just smiled.

“I wish you a good career – and a good day.”

He walked away from Dominic and the heavies with him, then rang Arthur Jennings. God, the poor wretch sounded low.

Knacker was asked how it had gone, ‘your show’. Had he been able to tie all the loose ends, as he usually did?

“Went well. Good result. The creature we targeted is up with the angels. Lost our man but we think it’s clean and deniable. Will be well received in the camps and where people from the region of that benighted village are gathered. Will get us solid support… except that we may not have a footprint in those parts if this vandal, illiterate and unimaginative, has his way on the fifth floor.”

He was told the rug had been pulled, that Arthur Jennings had wanted to call a meeting of the Round Table the next day at lunchtime. They could not do it, the pub management said, had a booking for a Pilates class. Have to be another day.

He rang off. If there was ‘another day’ he doubted he would attend. He would not enjoy the obsequies for his work, his style. He walked away. A dinosaur, a representative of a species that teetered on the verge of extinction . . and wondered if, in that great building at the end of the road, Ceausescu Towers, he would ever be missed, indeed if his name would ever be spoken again. It had been a good show, no regrets, what a wheat collector might have said, and saw that spinning coin flying high, stalling, then dropping, splashing into a mud pool. Had left his mark there.

He walked tall, no slouch of failure. A good show, and on Knacker’s watch. And all finished neatly, tidily, his hallmark.

He was nearer to sleep. But as the cloud lifted so the wind freshened and blew cold from the east. The dinghy was tossed, and each time Gaz was thrown against the side, and each time he snatched at the rope, then the pain came, was more fierce. He doubted there would be much longer, and wondered if when the moment came he would continue to fight… but had the face, clung to the image.

The two most recent disappointments, crushing for his morale, were when the circling of the dinghy had meant he looked out towards an unbroken expanse of sea, and he had squinted to focus better. Half the time he had been below the level of the wave caps that tossed him, but when the dinghy came up to mount the swell, he had seen a fishing boat, a big trawler. It would have been heading far out into the Barents, not after the inshore crab stocks but chasing bigger and more challenging fish. The time no longer existed when he could have stood and peeled off some clothing, waved it with ever-increasing urgency. His craft – had it been noticed – would have been taken for a plastic container, or a length of driftwood. The boat had not slowed and not diverted from its course. The second moment of hope, despair, then resignation, had been a tramper making a lonely progress on the horizon. Let alone stand up and wave, shout, Gaz could no longer shift his hips and his legs, and half of his chest sodden and being lapped with water, and he thought the level in the dinghy grew higher. How long? Not long.

Another face gouged into his consciousness.

Kindly features. Natural that Gaz should speak to a new friend. Elegant whiskers sprouted by his friend’s mouth, and its eyes were dark, but the head was well out of the waves and rode with them. His friend would have been curious had no ability nor wish to harm.

Gaz said softly to the seal, tilting his head with difficulty but making eye contact, “Won’t be around long. Apologies for coming on to your territory. Where I come from, used to live, we had plenty like you. They gather off Noup Head and Inga Ness and also they get to be at Castle O’Burrian. It’s where I’m supposed to be going but the chances of it working out are going down the plug. I think there must be a time when I’ll get past caring.”

It was gone. Did not rise up, somersault and dive, just seemed to sink back without disturbance. A wave pitched the dinghy, and then it dropped and he struggled to hold his grip on the rope, and when the craft steadied there was no sign of the seal. Difficult to imagine that it had been a part of the dream, but he was edging closer to sleep.

He said, “I did what I could, did what I thought was right. Won’t be thanked for it. I was sick before I came to your place, your territory. Not now. I think well of myself. Good to have known you, friend.”

His head sagged.

The seal was back with him. Not as close as before, but moving slowly enough to keep pace with him. It was huge, heavy, but had a grace in the water and he wondered about its enemies: orca whales and polar bears. Off Westray, out at Noup Head, he had seen the killer whales – and Aggie was usually with him and they would sit on sheep-cropped grass. He did not know what day it was, what date, and so could not say if it were one of the mornings that she would come across from her island to restock her pottery in the craft shelf of the hotel. He did not think he had anything further that he should say to the seal, and let his head rest on the side of the dinghy and the water splashed around him, and he drifted and did not know where he was – nor knew if, any longer, it mattered. He supposed he had honoured his promise, had done his best.

Delta Alpha Sierra, the twentieth hour

He lay on the bunk bed allocated him.

Arnie and Sam did the honours. Not much to employ them. They packed his gear, his personal kit. Had already taken his issued firearms and the grenade canisters back to the armoury. Used the same Bergen that had been with him through all those days. Next to nothing that went in the bag had any sentimental or emotional importance to him. Some of the guys, and most of the girls, brought pictures and mementoes to the Forward Operating Base, wanted to be reminded of wives and girlfriends, of small children, of dogs at home. Gaz had not. Just essentials. His bag was by the door. Their suggestion, he should get off his arse, put a bad day behind him, come on over to the bar. There were dispensation times when the cupboard under the counter was unlocked, and beers could be served, and the normal intake of fruit juice and Cola and Sprite were ignored. Their officer would have accepted that his experience had been bad, damaging, needed lubricating. Refused… It was not pressed. The guys and girls in the regiment were individuals, did not require herding. He was entitled to decline. The door closed on them.

He had told his story coherently. Had good recall. Had talked little of the girl, had been calm and composed and professional, but then had broken, shed tears. He had noted how they had waited for his composure to return, had not hustled him. Had done the bit about the girl, and her sacrifice and him undiscovered. He lay on the bunk bed, and wondered whether he had emphasised sufficiently her role in his preservation: they had seemed interested but it was not milked. An attitude that seemed to be: ‘War is shit, tell me something new, what I didn’t know, it’s bad shit, and never pretty and never glorious’. He wondered what they, across the table from him – the girls and the debrief officer who they referred to as Knacker – knew of warfare: not games of intelligence officers parking cameras in concrete walls, but shooting war and the consequences of war. Doubted they knew much… Gaz didn’t play chess. Did not know of the game in which little people, ‘pawns’, got to be knocked off the board.

They came back for him. Arnie helped to tidy him, and Sam hoisted up his bag. The Chinook was ready. It would be the regular run into Kurdish territory and the airport there, would do rotation of personnel and load up with supplies for this Forward Operating Base and a couple of other locations. Would be routine for them, but nothing was routine in Gaz’s world. He was reluctant to leave the bunk. Both of them, Arnie and Sam, would have realised that their colleague was damaged. Going to be shipped out and soonest. Would be fast-tracked. The helicopter to Idlib, another supply flight, and into RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus, and the big bird out later in the day to Brize Norton, home. An early assessment that the damage might be terminal to his career… Some would have shaken out of the experience, others would not.

He stood in the centre of the room. Looked around him, saw blank walls of plywood. There would be another guy there by the time the next dusk came down over the desert.

Gaz said, “I don’t ever forget what happened. Owe it to them there, and owe it to her who saved my life. Don’t forget it, and I promise that I will do what is possible to repay those responsible with a degree of harsh justice. I pledge that.”

Arnie said, “Yes, of course, Gaz, well spoken.”

Sam said, “Quite right, Gaz. Nice thought. Fuck knows how you will, but nice.”

It would have been all around the FOB that a girl had endured a gang-shag in order that Gaz stayed hidden in his covert observation position. That Gaz must have been soft on her, her on him, that she herded goats in the village that had been taken down. Would give them something to talk about.

They went out. Arnie and Sam stayed close to him. Out past the briefing room where the intelligence man and his girls were with their officer and glanced up momentarily at the beat of the boots on the corridor floor. Past the Mess that he would not be returning to, and a chorus of ‘Good luck’, and he was already gone from the ranks, no longer a part of them. Out into the night air and across the apron and towards the arc lights close to where the Chinook was parked, engines rumbling.

He said it like it was a commitment that needed reinforcing. “I promise… what is possible… a degree of harsh justice. It is owed to you.”

And his voice was drowned by the thrash of the rotors.

Timofey said, “It was good to have known him.”

Natacha said, “Was the best time of my life, most fun and most excitement.”

“I don’t have hope for him.”

“He will be alone and frightened.”

Jasha said, “His trade would mark him as a solitary man. Not a frightened man. If he is not overboard he will sleep; if he sleeps he will not wake… Good to know you.”

They hugged awkwardly. In truth, something of them unsettled Jasha. He thought they possessed a freedom that he did not have. Were as liberated as Zhukov, and would have hung around him while there was a value in his friendship, then would have drifted away, returned to a world from which he was excluded. It was a long time since Jasha had held another man in his arms, many years, and even longer since he had clung to a young woman and felt her dampened contours, bumps and angles against him. He had guided them back, first, to where his vehicle was parked up, well out of sight of his cabin, then had driven them to the point where the little Fiat had been left. They said they would go back to the apartment where his father was. Would be cautious, careful, suspicious, would spend time watching the entrance and looking for cars that mounted surveillance. Would be wary of any indication that an FSB investigation searchlight was beamed on them. Would spend most of the day loitering and watching. If it were clear, then they would be inside, check on his father, might feed him, then would draw down stocks for sale from the cache behind the wardrobe, and would be off to the railway station in time to meet the slow train up from the capital. Would they ever be used again as ‘assets’? Jasha doubted it. He had done his farewells with the boy first, then the girl. She kissed him, wet lips, and shivering, and then they were into the little car, and they bumped away and swung on to the slip-road to the highway for the run down to the coast and the bridge over the inlet, and then to Murmansk. He thought it unlikely they would talk of him after they had gone two kilometres, and that he would soon be forgotten, an unpredicted interlude.

A last wave from her, then the bend in the track.

Jasha could have taken them to his cabin. Had not. Might have fed them and lit a fire, and given her a blanket to drape over herself while her clothing dried on a bar in front of the flames. But they had no place in his space, and the only common factor was the stranger inserted briefly into their lives. He would have enjoyed more time with the agent, learning something of where he had been and his philosophy and where he stored the anger that was common to those of the lone wolf breed. Could have spent two days, or three, but then each would have exhausted the other… Jasha imagined that the man was long dead and would now be swirling among the mixed currents of the Barents. Might float for a bit after being toppled from the craft, then would sink. Might snag on deep rocks, or be dropped in weed beds, or be beached on isolated rocks and become food for the gulls. Had not told the kids.

He reached his cabin. He looked around when he was out of the pick-up. Stood still and listened to the sounds of his dog scraping the inside of the door, but listened also for Zhukov. Heard only the dog and the wind in the trees. He did not expect that he would see the bear again… unless the idiot creature suffered more injury, required help. If it stayed fit then their companionship was unnecessary. He would miss it, missed any friend who moved on. He fed his dog, lit the fire, then stripped out of his wet clothing.

But he was troubled. Remembered how long he had watched the dinghy as it spun and twisted, rose and fell, and seen it into the rain mist of the inlet, and looked long and hard for it after it had disappeared. He supposed he was touched by the man… which was weakness for Jasha. But they were all flawed men and made friendships only from necessity, and ditched them when they could, which was their pedigree – missed a friend, regretted the passing, and moved on.

He was in and out of sleep.

Gaz did not know, nor care, how long he had been in the dinghy. Time no longer had meaning. What had changed were weather conditions and with them the sea’s motion.

The cloud blanket was gone and through his near closed eyes he watched as the sun teetered on the edge of the horizon, did not dip further in this Arctic Circle summer, but would hover and then rise for the start of a fresh day. The wind had dropped and the wave movements were now gentle, soothing, and he lay in the dinghy with the water heavy around his body and rolling.

He had tried to fight sleep. Reckoned he had made a good fist of it for as long as his strength held out, but that had slipped. When he finally slept he would not wake again. Regrets? He would have said, had his thoughts been cogent, that he was a small man in a big system, a tiny cog in a large motor, that he had performed a use and delivered as comprehensively as he had found possible. Could not have demanded more… No more pain in his upper body and it might have been the cold water in the bottom of the dinghy that lapped against him that had achieved the numbness. It would be good to sleep.

Gulls were with him.

Not the seal. Doubted now whether he had actually had a seal riding escort, and was now near certain that he had not actually seen a full-grown brown bear on the rocks as he had moved towards the northern mouth of the inlet before drifting into the Barents Sea. The gulls shrieked and screamed over him, might have suggested that he hurried up with the business of getting himself asleep so that they could begin the feast. One, the boldest but not the biggest, had landed on the side of the dingy, had pirouetted there and perched more comfortably, and Gaz had managed to tilt his head sharply and it had realised that he still lived and that patience was demanded. It would go first for his eyes, then the slack skin of his cheeks, then try to burrow its beak inside his mouth having prised open his jaw. He would have liked to have the seal alongside, if there had actually been one. It could have ridden shotgun. Always on the wagons that the regiment boys drove were some who were never behind the wheel but were crouched over the barrel, and its sights, of the big machine-gun, fifty calibre. They were capable of keeping bad things back, and the seal would have been the nearest thing to match them.

No seal and no bear, and the gulls biding their time and circling him. Only the one face to hold on to. He had seen men die, eking out the last moments of breath and heartbeat, and some held crucifixes and some gripped worry beads and some shouted prayers. He only had the face… but the shape of it, lips and nose and the dance of the eyes and the hair that the wind carried over it was fading in his mind.

No ships to look for and only the ripple of water and the gulls’ cries. And ever more difficult to keep his eyes open.

It was an ability much prized. Both Mikki and Boris had the skill. Each cupped a lit cigarette in the palm of their left hand.

The funeral service would be a brief affair, but both would have time to smoke a filter tip during the priest’s prayers and there would be a short address from the brigadier on the loss of his son, tragically taken.

They stood behind the principal mourners. Other than the family there was a decent attendance of older cronies, men from the former KGB days, and their wives, many of whom showed off loud jewellery. Not anything that either man would have commented on to Lavrenti’s mother and father, but it was striking that very few colleagues from Lubyanka had chosen to come to this cool, shaded, flyblown place of ostentatious headstones. The burial was in the Kuntsevo cemetery, out at the end of Kutuvovsky Prospekt, and both had arrived early. There was good history in the ground there and they looked for the ‘famous’ graves of Kim Philby, a hero and a defector to the Russian cause and a Briton with an Order of the Red Banner, and those of the Krogers, husband and wife, both quality agents, and there were those of Russian military men who had given their lives for the Communist state. The brigadier would have had to pull strings, use influence, to lay his hands on a precious plot here.

The mother looked broken. The father had aged but stayed upright, straight-backed, kept his head still and looked imperiously into the middle distance. Not suicide, of course not. Not a self-inflicted wound. Not a war criminal for whom a mysterious sense of conscience had driven him to seek his own punishment. Not an officer of FSB who had allowed himself to be captured by a lone foreign operative who was aided by a pair of low-life narcotics dealers… It was the funeral of Lavrenti Volkov who had distinguished himself in combat in Syria, who was marked for promotion, who had been out on the north-west border of Russia and engaged in vigilant patrolling of an area notorious for its use by criminals and spies, and who had suffered a fatal wound from the malfunction of his service pistol. A tragedy. A young, honourable man cut down when not yet in his pride.

Had Boris spoken he might have said, ‘I need a smoke, a good drag, after all the shit I’ve had to listen to.’

And Mikki might have said, ‘Typical, took the coward’s way out. I tell you something: if anyone from that village is left alive, and is stuck in some fucking camp over a border, then it will be time to pop the corks, whatever they do, celebrate big time.’

‘And the guy who came for him.’

‘No chance, not at that range, not with the way he went down. Be there somewhere and loss of blood, or sepsis, will have screwed him. The kids will have dumped him.’

‘Heh, that bear might have fucking had him.’

‘Big bastard, the biggest. I’ve never run that fast.’

‘Scared the shit out of me.’

Had the exchange taken place there would have been a peal of laughter from Boris and a growled chortle from Mikki – inappropriate at that time, that place. An honour guard arrived, did a goose-stepping approach, formed two short ranks, and were cued in by the priest, and a volley of shots was fired over the open pit where the coffin now rested, then marched away… Trowels were used to scatter the first dry soil. The coffin had not been open for any part of the service: it would have been considered unnecessary to show the extent of the head wounds resulting from the ‘accidental discharge’.

They stuck around at the end. The main party would go on for a meal. Both men had wriggled into tight suits, shirt buttons barely fastened, and ties clumsily knotted. They waited until the gravediggers had started to shovel earth noisily on to the box.

Both finished their cigarettes, down to the filters, then tossed the ends – still alive – into the grave, and left.

“I need to know… the guy who came and took him, what do we say?”

“Just a crazy guy – who got himself shot, for fuck-all. Proper crazy guy.”

There would be rumour and gossip. Stories would travel ‘word of mouth’ and on internet chatroom pages. They had a single factor in common… they were second-hand stories. None was verified, but had a tenacity, and some were driven by what people feared and some by what they wanted to hear.

‘What I was told, good source, just on the Russian side of the frontier with Norway, quite close to the main highway going down to Murmansk, there is a cairn of stones. Newly built. Quite big stones and might well have needed machinery to carry them into place. It’s not where there would be a marker for a summit, and not on a site commemorating a World War Two battle, and there is no plaque indicating why it has been built. The suggestion is that under the stones, proof against scavenging wildlife, is a grave. Another guy I spoke to had suggested to me that he’d been told a military detachment had been there when the cairn was erected, might have been an honour party and might have been cheap available labour. But it ticks plenty of boxes. You can’t see it from the fence, nor from the highway, but I’m told it’s there.’

Other people said, ‘There was a grave dug by border guards in the woods that are four, five klicks back from the border fence. There was security in place, and the guys who did the digging were warned, pain of something worse than death, that they would face supreme punishment if they talked of that night’s work. I heard – it was a Baltic states fisheries minister who told me – that in fact the grave was not dug sufficiently deep and was excavated by wildlife. Could have been foxes or bears, and if the flesh was still comparatively edible then a lynx would have had a feed. I mean, up in those parts, nobody turns down free grub. Nothing in the local media, but there are whispers of an agent crossing from NATO territory, not substantiated, but it was said.’

A few said, ‘I talked to a man, a deck-hand on a trawler, and he had been told that another boat, sailing out of Murmansk and up into the Barents – quite near, in fact, to where the Scharnhorst lies, a war grave and a thousand drowned there, Germans… but that’s not the point – anyway, another boat retrieved a small dinghy, the sort that could be used in harbour to get from the shore to an anchored pleasure boat. Far out and drifting, not capsized, but no evidence of a holiday-maker or a survivor in distress. It had no safety kit, was just drifting, and in rough seas. Visibility was good but there was a fierce swell. No one had been reported missing or overboard, so perhaps it was there by chance and had been carried that far by tides and currents. Not a nice thing to hear about, makes one think of a desperate end… but then it might have just broken free from a mooring, never had anyone clinging to it. Only one thing certain, it was not a Russian dinghy, most likely southern Norway or Sweden. FSB were told of it but showed no interest.’

More said, ‘I heard, I was in a bar and fishing crews were talking, of a corpse being washed on to the rocks out on the headland, east side, of the inlet. Had been in the water a long time. Too damaged to be identified. That’s the crabs, do the damage, or the big cod, no eyes and no hands and most of the flesh on the face taken. No one reported missing so he stays in the icebox at the hospital, the one on ulitsa Pavlova, and no one has yet been forward to claim him. Like no one cares… it’s what I heard.’

One man said, and was hesitant, seemed fearful of being overheard, but told what he had learned, third-hand, could not confirm, but shrugged… . ‘A man was picked up at sea or on the shore and brought into harbour, not Kirkenes but further west and nearer the Cape, and the local doctor and the nurse were never called but a military helicopter was at the quayside. He was flown direct to Bodo, to the Nordland hospital, and there’s a wing there for air force use and for NATO people. Went into a secure room and even the hospital authorities were not told his name, armed security for him. What I did hear was that his condition was grim, infected combat wounds and the talk was that he’d need big luck to win through. Did he die, did he live – if he existed? Don’t know, no one ever said.’

Someone said, ‘There were people in the bar of the hotel on the island of Westray, in the Orkneys, one of the smaller islands. They said that they had heard, not directly, but from friends, that lawyers had been up from Aberdeen on the mainland. There was a croft up towards the Noltland Castle and it was owned by an incomer, nice enough chap but kept to himself. Except that he went away, all of a sudden was gone and his grass-cutting contracts were left unworked. Just vanished and a plane had come to take him south in a storm when no one in their right mind would have moved out of their living-room. The lawyers had travelled up to arrange the sale of his home… and more to it. He had a woman friend on the smaller island, Papa Westray, and they were almost an item, not quite. She packed in a fair little business, craft pottery for the tourists, gone without explanation. She was Aggie and he was Gaz, and both gone and no explanation given. Like they were running and like they were hiding. It’s what was said.’

Another man said, ‘People up here, Orkney people, they can guard your privacy. A stranger comes by boat or by air and walks to the first house he finds and asks for directions to a particular man or woman’s home. He’ll not be told. They protect their own. The one they’re looking for could be in the next house, could be in the kitchen drinking coffee, could be out at the back fixing the sewage pump, but the stranger will not be told. It was explained to me, and I was told that a man came back, was unwell, damaged, came back from away over the water, and a nurse called three times a week to change his dressings, and he’s out somewhere close to Inga Ness and down from Fifty Hill, but no one will say. Who knows? It’s like he’s guarded… Myself, I never saw him, could just be for the fairies.’

He stood in the doorway.

Bright autumn sunshine lit that side of Rostocker Strasse. His body threw a dark shadow into the bar area. He leaned heavily on the surgical stick, let it take his weight. The last few steps from the Hauptbahnhof had been a struggle. Probably should have queued for a taxi at the rail terminus, but there had been too many indignities in his recent life and convalescence. To have paid a cab driver would have seemed feeble. He collected his breath, then was nudged. Not rudely, but unpleasant. It was the lunch hour and men and women had disgorged from the office blocks along the main drag and needed to eat, and wanted to get past him. He stepped awkwardly aside, was not thanked. He would not be hurried. The wind was on his back and at two tables clients turned and scowled and one flicked his fingers as if to get him inside or out, and the door shut and the draught excluded. He was impassive. There was little that any of them inside, eating or waiting for service, could have done that would have fazed him.

He saw the pictures of the big masted ships on the walls and most had full sails, all faded with age and needing cleaning. Saw the memorabilia stacked on shelves, navigation equipment from centuries before, and wood plaques that commemorated ships of the nineteenth century. Crowded with beer bottles, the tables were heavy, of weathered wood, scratched but well scrubbed. The chairs looked hard, uncomfortable. A manager hurried between tables and tried to placate the most impatient customers, and he was pointed out. A complaint: could the street door please be closed?

He was elbowed aside. Latecomers, going to be lucky if a free table were found for them.

The door stayed open. The manager advanced on him.

He would have been determining how considerable his annoyance should be at the cold air, at the open door, at the noise and fumes of Rostocker Strasse entering his premises. But the remark was swallowed. He would have seen what Gaz was confronted with each morning on getting into the bathroom, wherever he had slept, and staring at the mirror, barely recognising himself. The manager would have known he faced a man who had stood his corner, had looked death in the eye, had turned his back on it, had survived, had come a long road. Would have faced a pale complexion, and seen eyes that were deep set and dull and lips that were thin, almost bloodless and chapped, and hair that had lost lustre. There was a presence about the man, as if he had been in a bad place but had turned away from an inevitability and had crawled out. Other customers waited for admission behind Gaz but he waved them back imperiously. Did he understand? Might have done, might have made the link. How could he help and how could he oblige?

Gaz told him, hesitantly and in a soft voice. Spoke her name. Not easy for him to say it. He thought of what the manager might have known… of the customers who had pored over a laptop and had read a local blog from far up in the Circle: that she had been tracked by an intelligence officer, had been ferried up to the small frontier town, had been there for a few hours before being sent back to her job. The manager said, poor and accented English, that she was in the kitchen. Should he get her? Gaz shook his head.

Was as frightened of seeing her as he had been nervous of speaking her name. The door was closed behind him. He stood close to the line of hooks on which bags and coats were hung. In front of him was the entrance to the kitchens, those swing doors that waitresses kicked open. The manager had left him… Being here, in the Rostocker Strasse bar, marked a late stage in his planned, hoped for, journey. The place was at full capacity. She might look through him. Might acknowledge him but seem disinterested. Might scowl, glower…

He had finally been turfed out of hospital. Had been there several weeks, seen out the summer there. His pick-up from the Barents was usually described by the nursing personnel as a miracle: a fishing boat that had been idling in that area, no reason given, had spotted him, needle in a haystack, and him unconscious. The second miracle was that he had survived a poisoned wound. One of the girls had come to take him back to the UK. She’d said on the journey, rather casually, that whatever overstretched umbilical cord had linked them was now being scissored. They, the department she now worked for, did not expect to see or hear from him again. He would not have asked her, would have thought it demeaning. Had said, instead, that he would have enjoyed a beer, a chat, a reminisce, with Knacker, who had not visited him while his wound was being cleansed and his health rebuilt. She had said that he had left the Service, no longer required, spent his time up at Hadrian’s Wall, where his wife was a digger, a site close to Hexham: should not have told him, probably could have bitten off her own tongue.

He had flown back, was allowed a month’s free stay in a one-bedroom apartment in Hereford, close to his old barracks, and she had waved him off. Gaz had taken a train north, then a taxi, had been left at the Roman town of Corbridge, had walked among flattened ruins, then had come to an archaeological site. A score of men and women were scraping and digging and brushing. He had called out, a loud voice, though still with a croak, ‘I am looking for Knacker, can anyone help me?’ One woman had looked up. Pleasant enough face, a resigned smile, had wiped her muddied hands on filthy clothes but had not bothered to shake earth out of her hair. ‘You one of his old chaps? They booted him out, surplus to needs. Got you into trouble, did he? Not here, up by Turret 36B. You have transport?’ He hadn’t. She would have seen that he was on two sticks, thin as a rake, pale as parchment. Nice woman, and he wondered how she survived alongside Knacker. Transport was arranged. He had been driven close to the location, then dropped. Not a farmhouse in sight, open rolling countryside. He had walked to the Wall. Seen a hunched figure, gazing out into the middle distance from close to the small square base of the turret… and nothing much to say. ‘‘How are you… Good to see you… On the mend I hope?’’ He asked about the girl, was told where to find her. Without her, on the ground and above Deir al-Siyarqi and when the goats had stampeded, he would not have lived, and without her picture in his mind his life would have failed in the dinghy. Knacker had said, “Was always proud of you and of the operation. Matchless was good, one of our best results. I like that image of my ‘rough men’. Don’t suppose you know what I’m talking about.’’

Gaz, in his hospital bed, no visitors other than tight-lipped staff, and short times of day for talk with the guards, had made the big decision: no more the island and Aggie – no more the dream of the feisty girl whose anarchy made him laugh. And he had dumped his fear that being with the goat herd girl would be the equivalent of living inside a shrine of gratitude. ‘‘You went visiting, visiting violence, know what I mean. Sleeping safely because rough men stand ready to visit violence on our enemies, wonderful stuff. Me, I’m out of it. Not wanted. Just have memories, fuck-all else. But we bashed them, Gaz, hit them hard and where it hurts. One of my best shows, and…’’ But Gaz was edging away, retreating, and left Knacker hunched and quivering with excitement as he gazed out on a wilderness where a mist was thickening. Thought the man who had played God was now little more than a husk, and sad… He’d hitched a lift into Newcastle, then bought an air ticket for the morning,

He had spoken her name. She might come bouncing out from the kitchen and be wearing a ring on her finger. Might come out and manage a smile. Could recall seeing her outside the hotel. She was supposed to ‘encourage’ him, was a manipulated puppet of Knacker and the team. He had denied he would kill the officer, only ‘help’ to end his life, and she flared anger at what she’d have believed to be backsliding. He had told her that he merely did his job. She might look straight through him, might see him and spit on the floor.

She came through the doors.

An older face than he remembered. A uniform of a navy skirt and a white blouse and flat shoes for comfort. No make-up, no jewellery. She carried a tray with four plates, and beer bottles, and came towards him. A cheer rang out. Four big men, crowded over a laptop, and from the Scandinavian north Gaz reckoned, seafaring men, and a smile flickered on her face, but was transitory and was replaced with sadness. They were clapping her. She saw Gaz.

His surgical stick took his weight. He tried to straighten, find some pride, and smoothed his hair, and wished he had shaved better, and wished he had stopped at the Hauptbahnhof when coming in from the airport and gone to one of the kiosks where flowers were sold. She put the tray down. The shock was stark on her face. He went towards her, skirted clumsily between tables, banged chair legs with his stick. They were together, arms around each other, and tears wet their faces.

She said, “They told me you were lost, had gone on the sea, missing, was thought drowned. I was never told that…”

A big man came delicately past them, took the tray, chuckled, carried it to his table.

Gaz said, “We are going to find somewhere that you can have goats and dogs, where we can live and where we can be free of them. Going where rough men cannot find us, cannot find anyone. Going…”

When she had retrieved her coat and her bag, they went out on to the street and a blustery wind blew leaves and rubbish at their legs. He doubted he would tell her about a bear and a seal, and a friend who was a recluse and more friends who peddled quality skunk, and about an officer in the security apparatus of the Russian Federation who was dead, or about Knacker who was let go and was alone and thought himself worthless, tell her anything about the madness of days gone. They walked together, her hand in the crook of his arm.