Beyond Recall

Chapter 3

A car braked. He heard a door opening, splashed puddles, a door slamming shut. The car pulled away. His gate, for want of oil, groaned as the wind buffeted it, and slammed it shut. Footsteps on the gravel.

There was an old knocker on the door, rarely used but serviceable. Two loud raps. Gaz knew what defined a stranger: was a front door locked in the night hours? Islanders, those with pedigree stock who might have a grandfather buried in the cemetery down on the shore, who knew the land and its people and the history, would not have bothered to fasten a door, turn a key, push a bolt. That night, Gaz locked the door, a defence against the demons who hunted him. He had been in the darkness when the car had approached, come warily up the track. He did not have anything in the bungalow that was worth stealing and seldom had more cash than what his wallet held. He might as well have left the door unlocked, but had not, and he had believed himself more secure behind the newly fitted mortise… He realised a truth. He had thought the aircraft landing in the night, in the teeth of the storm, was a matter of life and a matter of death. But the rap was on his door. Gaz’s life and Gaz’s death. His vehicle was parked at the bungalow’s side. If it had been the islander who managed several jobs, among them the Westray taxi service, then a clear question would have been met with a certain answer. Was this resident at home? Was definitely at home. Gaz was on the hall floor. The door handle was not tried but he heard impatience expressed through a hacking cough and a spit, then a curse, then stamped feet. Another rap, and another, and a shifting of squelching shoes. A voice from far back, then it had been sparse with words, just enough to nudge along his story as told in the Portakabin where the debrief had taken place. Not a shout but a voice competing with the wind’s howl and the downpour of rainwater from the overload in the gutters.

“Come on, Gaz, open the bloody door. Raining out here if you didn’t know. I’m Knacker, met you that night at the FOB, heard your story, the eyewitness account. Flown in through a bit of a squall, and come to see you. A little proposition… Like I say, it’s raining. I’m already half drowned. Gaz, get a move on.”

He reached towards the key in the lock, groped and felt the jamb until the chain was in his fingers. The door was locked but not chained. Had been chained for the first months he had been on Westray, but six month ago he had abandoned that level of security. He fastened the chain. Then, only then, did he turn the key and ease the door back as far as the chain permitted. A man stood on the step. The security light at the end of the front wall of the bungalow lit a shoulder of a sodden raincoat, but most of the face was in shadow from the brim of a trilby hat, and rain ran off it in rivers.

“We’re not going to mess about are we, Gaz? Tell me that we aren’t. Famous for hospitality aren’t you, up here? Getting out of this shit would be a small mercy.”

Of course, Gaz remembered him, remembered his face and the sound of his voice that was so bloody calm, and the eyes doing a stiletto job on him, and remembered also two women who had hovered in the background, one behind Knacker and one behind Gaz: a pretty woman and a butch woman, neither in uniform, both with leather shoulder-holsters and handguns draped on their chests. A tape had turned and he had told his story, the story that had near destroyed him, and he had hidden from it.

“I cannot see what business I have with you.”

“Easier if I’m inside, hopefully with a fire lit.”

“The past is done, I don’t live there.”

“Just a little matter, something simple and quick. Better if it were explained.”

“You should go away.” A quaver shook Gaz’s voice. “Should leave.”

“A bit of business to run by you, Gaz. Something that’s worthwhile. Did I tell you it’s raining out here, or did I forget to tell you, and blowing a bit.”

“I have moved on. I have a new life.”

“Better if I tell you, face to face, what we’re looking at. Wouldn’t want you to think, Gaz, I haven’t more in my life than pitching up in the night, in a serious storm to look up old chums, or reminisce old wars. Never was good at nostalgia. Am I going to charge the door, break it down? No… but would enjoy helping you with your road back.”

“Would you go away? Please go away.”

“Read your notes, Gaz, and the diagnosis. I could do you more good than you sitting on your backside in the dark, frightened of your own shadow. I reckon I could put some purpose your way, better – short-term, long-term – than a bottle of pills and hiding.”

“I want nothing from you.”

“I saw that girl today. Pleasant kid. Attractive if it weren’t for the scar. Brave as a lioness, of course. Not hunkered down and self-pitying. Do I need to remind you of what she did? What do you think, Gaz? Memory drooping, is it?”

“Just go. Go back where you came from.”

“Forget it ever happened? Be nice. Forget that place? Forget what was done? Forget the perpetrators? Keep on mowing grass and mending leaky roofs, and doing some bog standard plumbing, or electrics? An option, Gaz, turning your back on it. Or, should I tell you what I want of you?”

“Nothing for you to say to me.”

“Certainly comes down here, the rain… The girl, Faizah, has helped us discover the Russian who was liaison, and we’ve done the checks. Got a name and a work location, and that’s where we need you on board, Gaz. Need you doing what you do well.”

“I’m not listening. I’m hearing nothing.”

“I’m cold, Gaz, and wet, but this is too important for me to be worrying about myself. He’s in Murmansk, the Russian with a shed load of guilt… All we want from you is that you pop in there, use a few of the skills you’re noted for. Have a look at him, identify him for certain, copper-bottom stuff. Come on out after marking him. He’s a major in FSB and thinks he’s clear, why wouldn’t he? But he’d be wrong, and that’s not your problem, that’s mine. It’s not a big ask, Gaz, and you’d be well rewarded: not cash, wouldn’t insult you, but pride and respect and the knowledge that you didn’t walk away when the chance was offered. Get that chain off the door, be a good fellow.”

“Go back where you came from.”

“I’m doing you a favour. Mean it. Can’t spend the rest of your life cowered in a corner. Chance to get your esteem back. Think on it. Come and get me when you’ve had the think… into Murmansk, yes? Sort of job we do well. Out of Murmansk? We’re putting it all together. Just think on it.”

“Go away.” A choke in Gaz’s throat.

“A cup of coffee would be welcome, while you think.”

The man sat down. Put a hand out to steady himself, his fingers going beneath the puddle, lowered himself, and sat. The rain doused him and he reached up to steady his hat so the wind would not take it.

“You’ve had my answer. Go.”

Gaz closed the door. He left the chain on, but turned the key in the lock. The weather was as bad this night as it had been that day in the village. Would he weaken in his resolve? In a few minutes, the man would be gone, would be bashing at the door of the Pierowall hotel, demanding a room and warmth, and then he would not have weakened, but he remembered the girl, and how it had been.

Knacker sat on the path.

Gravel gouged his flesh. The rainwater lapped round him and his shoes were filled and his trousers and jacket clung close to his body and his raincoat no longer gave him protection and he kept his trilby hat low over his eyes. He was confident.

There were times when James Lionel Wickes, Knacker to all who were important to him excepting Maude, would have broken down the door and grabbed by the throat a man who prevaricated, and squeezed to inflict pain, and times when he would have pushed his fingers into his hip pocket and extracted a wad of notes and paid them without equivocation, whatever was required. He was familiar with winning, was rarely disappointed. He had no doubt that his target would weaken, that drama was avoidable and a bucket of rainwater on his skin and wind on his face would hurry the process along… Always won and a slow smile at his mouth, disturbing the dripping water, as he reminded himself of the shock, the horror, the squeals of other parents when he had tripped his closest rival in the school Under 10 sack race, flattened him, and crossed the tape first. His own parents had run a market garden in the West Midlands, fancy flowers and cacti, now managed by Knacker’s younger brother. Last time he had been there was for his mother’s funeral seven years back… Had joined the army at eighteen and transferred to Intelligence after basic training… with a slight detour. Had enrolled at Sussex University, had done a solitary week in International Relations and seen his fellow students legless and pissed, and had heard out a lecturer talking of the aims and benefits of the course. Had packed his bag at the student hostel, taken a bus into town, past the Dome and right into Queen’s Road and then pushed at the door of the Recruiting Office and signed the form… expected and demanded that others match his commitment… A reputation was quickly forged. A few labelled him ‘eccentric’, most rated him ‘difficult’, all agreed that he ‘delivered’, and the name of Knacker came fast, from the early days in the fag-end of violence in the Province.

He talked to the girls, to Alice and Fee. Almost dozed, could have slept anywhere. Heard what was achieved, nailed down and in place – did not query them or second-guess.

“And you, Knacker, how’s your evening going?”

Told Fee he might later have a cold, and that it rained where he was and a wind blew.

“You’re not going to get your death? Christ’s sake, can’t you find some shelter? And the boy? Eating out of your hand?”

He was just gathering up a few loose ends, which would satisfy her. He was known for his annoyance if ends were not tied.

“Just checking, Knacker, he’s not messing you, is he? You’re not doing this with kid gloves? Doesn’t he remember what happened there?” That was Alice, a dear girl with an accent from a stone-wrapped village near Bath, petite and looking like a chocolate box cover portrait, and ferocious if challenged.

Told her he was fine. Told them both that all was well. Told Alice where he would be in the morning. Told Fee where she should be.

He sat and could not quite control the shivering as the wind bucked him and each time he moved the security light was triggered and he had not heard Gaz padding inside the bungalow nor the flush of a toilet and imagined him still crouched in the hall and tortured. He knew of the man’s illness, its symptoms and had with his legendary discretion briefed a magistrate who would hear the assault case. It was a foul malady and had brought down many outstanding soldiers, as Knacker knew. He sympathised with sincerity. But he sat on the flooded path and waited and thought he turned a screw remorselessly… he was confident of the outcome. Wondered how the target was, the man the girl had described, considered how his evening was going while in the comfort of ignorance of what would await him.

His father was out for the evening, his mother entertained friends.

Lavrenti had stayed in his room, risked annoying her. He watched TV. A ridiculous game show but in the isolation of Syria he had seen canned episodes and in Murmansk had become almost addicted. He was not out, dining and dancing or in the new cocktail bars, because he had no friend to be with. At least in Murmansk, as in Syria, he would have the sidling company of Boris and Mikki, a few paces behind but close enough to mind him. Not that either would drink if he did, would not match glass for glass, but would be there to heave him up and lug him back to the car, and might take off his shoes or boots in the apartment room north of the Arctic Circle or in the prefabricated cabin where he lived on base, alongside the Iranians. They listened to his monologues, grunted, laughed when required. Company of a sort.

The ripple of voices was easy to hear, even above the game show track. Four of his mother’s friends had come for the evening, and two had brought daughters. No other men of his age regarded Lavrenti as a friend. He had thought that the kids in the teenage ice hockey team were buddies and they had played well in a league, and he had even believed that his future might be in the professional game, had dreamed of it. He had been dumped. No ceremony, no bullshit, just told that he was inadequate to progress to the necessary levels of fitness, skill and motivation. His mother had wept, his father had growled a refusal to intervene. Had no friends in the college for FSB graduates because there the brigadier general had clout and he was marked down for fast advancement, and others oiled to him but would never be friends… and no girls.

His mother called him from the salon. He ignored her. He detested her scheming for his advancement. He had no friends because he lived outside any loop where he might have found them. Often he had wondered whether his posting to the liaison role with the Iranian troops of the Quds unit was an attempt by superior FSB and army officers to keep him beyond sight, and whether the posting to Murmansk was dictated by a worthwhile job or ‘Send the little shit somewhere, anywhere, where we don’t have to see, hear him’. His mother called again and he recognised the higher pitch in her voice, annoyance. He had changed out of his uniform and wore jeans and a T-shirt and his hair was a mess, uncombed, and his feet were bare. If his father had called him he would have run to be beside him, would not have dared to act otherwise. He was the son of his father, always had been, still was, would be as long as his father’s name was known in FSB circles.

She called again, louder. The four friends, would have been honoured to receive such an invitation. Not talked about, but slyly hinted at by his mother, was the relationship between the brigadier general and the President, a personal friendship… and proof was always in the pudding. A barbecue a few years back, six or seven, and his father heating up the charcoal, and Mikki ordered to the kitchen to help his mother make sandwiches and nibbles, and Boris sent to the hypermarket for more beers and soft drinks. The dacha his father had acquired was on a turning off the Uspenskoye Highway, the fast route to Moscow, and half a dozen kilometres away and off the same road was the Novo Ogaryovo, the rural home of the President. No caterers that night, and no fuss and no entertainment except for a string trio out of Crimea, and he had come. Without a great cavalcade, only a knot of noisy motorcycles and he had been wearing leathers and a helmet with a tinted visor as had his escort who would have been from the Presidential guard. His father had been hugged and his mother’s hand shaken. Lavrenti had been in the background, told where to be, and for a moment his father had pointed to him and he had looked that way and identified him, and Lavrenti had blushed and ducked his head in respect: it was the closest he had been. He had stayed a couple of hours and eaten well and then the leathers had been zipped tight and the helmets were on and the visors dropped and the air had filled with the noise and the fumes and they were gone, and he was merely an anonymous figure in the midst of the bikes, and Lavrenti’s father had never referred to the occasion again, nor had Lavrenti’s mother. He had understood the message… his parents existed within an inner circle, were ‘untouchables’, were to be deferred to, and their status would last as long as the regime of the President survived…

A clutch of great leaders had been abruptly removed from supreme office – Gaddafi of Libya, Mubarak of Egypt, and a leader in South Korea and another in Brazil and another in Malaysia, Zuma in South Africa and Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and the president of Ukraine had suffered the rank indignity of fleeing his palace and having to be lifted to safety by Russian helicopters as the mob closed in on him, and Saddam had swung on the end of a rope. And Assad of Syria would have done if Russia had not preserved his rule. A simple lesson to be learned: the regime should be protected if influence and privilege were to be preserved, and there were many lampposts outside the Kremlin walls and in the Arbat district with ornate frames from which ropes could be slung, and many trees with decent branches off the Uspenskoye Highway… His mother was at the door.

“You should come, please. It is rude if you do not.”

She tutted at him for his appearance and his no-show, but would not criticise him to his face. He pushed up from his chair, and doused the TV sound and followed her into a corridor, and along it, then seemed to remember his position and status and walked tall. He would be charming and would be cold. Would be polite and would give nothing. Lavrenti, at thirty-two, had no regular girlfriend nor an identified mistress, nor did he give any sign of latent homosexuality. He followed his mother into the salon. He was introduced to the four ladies, his mother’s guests. He knew them, of course. He knew all of his mother’s friends. They were the wives of the men who had clung to a vestige of influence during the anarchy of the years before the current presidency, then had nailed support to the new man, and were rewarded. He shook hands and his smiles were sparing, and then he was introduced to the two daughters. Easy for Lavrenti to appreciate this was a throw by his mother that had been difficult while he had served in Murmansk, in the far north. One was tall and blonde and the other was short and blonde, and both wore clothes and cosmetics to impress. His mother had had no wedding to organise and no grandchild to swaddle, and his father no chance to see if he would come out from his home on the Uspenskoye Highway and grace a reception with his presence if only for half an hour. Both the girls were pretty, both stared at him and the taller seemed indifferent and the shorter made little pretence of disguising disappointment, and both were at least twelve years younger than he was. He had not spent a night with a woman since he had flown to Syria, had never slept with a woman with mutual affection, not without paying. The girls, would have understood that he had no interest in them and only met them in deference to his mother; perhaps he seemed old beyond his years, perhaps weighed down by some burden; neither competed for his attention. So, both started on a mutual conversation about music, then films, then shopping, then food, and saw him off. He read them. When they went for whores in Murmansk, Mikki drove and Boris selected who he would go with, and paid: never the same one twice.

He was polite. He pleaded workload to his mother’s friends and slipped away. Back in his room, Lavrenti returned to his game show. He took his bag from under his bed, and began to pack the few clothes he would need for his short return to the north. Not the next day but the day after, but he packed anyway. How would any of these women, old and fat, young and skinny, understand if they hadn’t been there, no chance of obliterating the memory…

Love on a wet evening. Timofey panting, and Natacha squealing and pleading for more effort and short of it for months, and the noise from both of them would have barely been obstructed by the thin walls of an apartment, the only one in Murmansk city that understood the significance of Matchless.

Timofey lived with his father in a building that had been put up in the Kruschev era, five storeys high and with brick outer walls, better insulation than the concrete-framed ones of later Soviet days. He knew his father sat outside the door and waited for him to finish, for her to be as satisfied as she ever was. Clothes were scattered and the light burned above them and no curtains were drawn and if neighbours in other blocks feasted on the sight of them then they’d be lucky, what she said. He wore heavy rubber as protection; she might be infected and might not, and neither knew. A final grunt and a last squeal and both sagged.

Matchless was a bell pealing inside the recent history of the family. It was the code word given to his grandfather and to his father and passed down to him, Timofey, with due and secret ceremony inside that same apartment, accompanied by the killing of a full-strength vodka bottle, on his sixteenth birthday. Matchless had stuck with the family. Natacha knew of it because his trust in her was total, and he had no secret from her… and she knew of the bank account and the monies that stacked up there and were added to each quarter. Nothing had been asked of the family since the day the deal was done.

They did not do, never had done, what the books called ‘foreplay’, and did not cuddle and kiss afterwards. She rolled off him, he reached for his cigarettes and for a Zippo lighter, and he lit for both of them, and they would have heard the bell ring at the front door, and then the shuffle of his father’s feet.

The start? The British destroyer, HMS Matchless – crew of around 190 – had sailed as convoy escort to Murmansk. It was 1942, deep midwinter ferocious weather, continuous air and submarine attacks to be fought off, but the cargo of ordnance and equipment had reached the Soviet port and the young sailors were allowed a quick sneak ashore. They had some wounded merchant seamen onboard, plucked from the sea, and local nurses had turned out on the quayside to treat them. An Oerlikon anti-aircraft gunner from Matchless had been told in a mess-room by a chief petty officer that these Russian girls went like ‘fucking rabbits’: aged eighteen, he had been tested in battle and not found wanting and had met one of the girls huddled in the cold, smoking behind a crane stanchion and the price of it had been a bar of soap. Done standing up, and quick because of driving sleet, and done with the minimum of exposed flesh, and he’d thought her a great girl, and she had been his first. She had told him her name, forgotten by the time he struggled back up the well-iced gangway with his trouser buttons still unfastened, and he had egged the description to his mates, and it had seemed unimportant that he had told her his name, Percy Wilkins. A year and a bit later, and while the lad was in the Mediterranean, on resupplies to Malta, a chum had put into Murmansk on a minesweeper. A young woman was on the quay, holding a baby in her arms and asking in fractured English if Percy Wilkins of Matchless was on board. Months later the chum met the Oerlikon gunner and told him of the encounter and they had a good laugh, and the chum had said ‘the little sprog’s as ugly as you, mate, which is saying something’, and it was just a story, good for fifteen minutes of fame. Timofey had heard it all from his grandfather and his father, and they’d have heard from the contact point – vodka swigged – half a century before. The matter moved on to the world of sleepers and clandestine banks – and this, too, the grandfather and father had been told – when the middle-aged one-time gunner, now a factory welder, had boasted of his fast and fumbled shag to a chuckling audience of veterans in a British Legion. Now it was the height of the Cold War, of an arms race, of rabid suspicion, of fertile intelligence gathering and, up a circuitous trail, word of the exploit had reached a Whitehall office, and a bright spark had sensed a possible opportunity for insertion when precious few existed… It had taken some effort to track down the former nurse and her bastard child in the city of Murmansk but a Swedish crane engineer had proved a dogged investigator, and a Finnish naval architect who designed deep-sea trawlers had met Timofey’s grandfather, a dock stevedore and now in his late twenties, had bought him with promises. Had told him the damned obvious: a spy in Soviet Russia would be interrogated, tried in secret, shot or beaten to death. Had shown him a copy of a bank statement from an address on an island in the British Channel, Guernsey, that listed an account and his name, and the first dollop of bribe cash. What did the grandfather of Timofey, the son of Percy Wilkins, have to do? Nothing. Sit tight. As age advanced and already limited faculties failed, the account passed to Timofey’s father. What did he have to do? Nothing, wait. One day – perhaps – the code word would be used, Matchless, then payback time would commence. Timofey’s grandfather had been dead for seven years; his father soon would be as alcohol ravaged him. Every year, a stranger would meet the nominated member of the family and would show a single sheet of paper with a printout of the accrued sum, allow it to be seen, digested, and then a cigarette lighter would be produced and the corner licked by flames and the charred remains dumped.

Voices beyond his door.

He removed the protection, pulled on his trousers and a shirt and a sweater, and stubbed out his cigarette. He did not kiss Natacha, nor compliment her on her loving, tousled his hair. She would follow him.

No names given. Their visitor could have been Italian. Timofey dealt to foreigners in the summer months if they came to the Kola peninsula for hunting, fishing, hiking; many required smack or skunk or phets as distraction from the mosquitoes and Murmansk’s lousy standards of cuisine. His father was drunk, barely understood. Natacha stood behind him, wearing her trousers but not much else, and the Italian did not blink or gape, or fluff his words, only smiled and continued to say what would be required, and when… and finished with a few words that left a sour taste, and Timofey understood their warning.

“Please believe me. The people who make requirements of you are not a charitable organisation. You might consider going to FSB and confessing the involvement of your family in criminal espionage and hope to win clemency from your courts. You would not get it. The length of your family’s conspiracy would come into the possession of FSB and the monies you have already been paid that lie in a foreign bank. If you survived the beatings you would go to a harsh regime camp for twenty years, twenty-five years, and there would be no move to bargain for your freedom and swap you.”

A figure was written on a notepad sheet and shown to Timofey.

“That is how much is currently held in the account. A good sum. Unwise to jeopardise your ownership of it.”

Timofey said, “What you ask, it is for very soon?”

“Very soon.”

Natacha said, “But fun, exciting. An entertainment.”

“Be careful, I urge you.”

The Italian messenger slipped away, a door closing on the landing and the slight sound of feet on a long staircase. Natacha did a little dance and he stood for a moment, sombre, then joined her and together they danced and Timofey might have said that the adrenaline running in him gave him a greater sensation than what he’d done with her, and the dance became faster, wilder, and his father lay on the sofa moaning for drink.

Timofey cried out, “It’s like we slept, year after year, and they came and kicked our arses and woke us, and we don’t know what will happen.”

Natacha shouted in his ear, “What I said, fun and exciting, and dangerous.”

They danced till they dropped and sprawled on the floor, and his father snored…

The hunter stood statue-still and listened.

He seemed to hear the wind in the trees and its flight across the scrub and over the rock, and the patter of rain falling. Jasha was a man who had been in military combat and whose ears had withstood the blasting of artillery and mortars, and the echoing explosion close-up of the RPG–7, but his hearing had survived intact. He had come out to shoot an Arctic fox. The pelt would pay well, and if the head were detached then it could be mounted for display in a trophy room of a multi-millionaire, for dollars, not the valueless rouble. He had put down a duck’s carcase in the hope of luring one into the arc of his rifle’s aim. He would have made more money if he had trapped it, then drowned it in a rain butt, then skinned and cleaned the undamaged fur, but trapping seemed to him to break the concord he had with the beasts living around him. He would get less money but regarded an accurate single shot as more honourable… he did not know another hunter who bandied such a word. He thought he heard a hiss of breath. It could have been the wind blowing or the rainwater tipping off the scrub’s leaves. Or it could have been the bear. He would not smell it. He would hardly see it in the shadows that on such a night played deceitful tricks, and the low bushes were constantly moving. But he might hear it. He did not like to believe that the bear stalked him.

The success of the original Zhukov and his ruthless views on the necessity of taking casualties, his belief in ultimate victory, had made him too valuable to be purged, as was the fate of most ranking officers. So, Zhukov was unique, a winner whatever the setbacks. Losing a front paw and the claws in the pads and having a stump had not deterred the bear. But it was an animal. The purchase of the incapacitating drug, its use as a sedative, and the risk to Jasha’s life, and the work he had done on the wound and the extraction of the barbed wire, and the dosage of steriliser – all he had given was low down in the beast’s psyche of gratitude. Jasha thought it followed him that evening.

The Arctic fox had not come. The duck lay fifty paces from him, untouched. Perhaps the Arctic fox knew what Jasha did not. He might be the last to know that the bear trailed him.

Was the bear short of company? Was it tagging along with him? Did it resent his intrusion into its territory? Would it come after him and use its full techniques of innate fieldcraft, then – at the right moment – charge him? Accepting the old wound, Jasha was a fair mover over broken ground, had a sniper’s mentality, was lightly built for his height, and Zhukov would weigh a little below 400 kilos and could move on three pad sets with the quiet of that same Arctic fox that had avoided both bait and bullet. He did not think the bear would register an act of kindness; more likely to resent him, an intruder. Yet, was still, in a fashion, Jasha’s friend.

Jasha, turned, slowly and carefully, and listened and took a step forward, and another, and broke a twig which was a rare mistake for him, and then hurried, expecting all the time that a huge dark shadow would come behind him. One blow of the stump would fell him, one slash from the claws of the surviving pad would lacerate him. He returned to his hut, fed his old dog, lit a lamp and put a post against the door, and thought he had made himself a prisoner in his own home deep in the wilderness between the frontier fence and the distant winding road to Murmansk: was alone, did not know whether he was followed or was stalked. Bad times. What he had known as a soldier soared in his mind. Always for a sniper, without comrades close and with enemies near to him, there were bad times and none of them forgettable.

Delta Alpha Sierra, the third hour

Gaz had a grandstand view as the cordon closed round the village. Could see the homes and the alleyways linking them, and the small enclosures of dried thorn where the animals were husbanded at night. Looked on to the football pitch and the one pool in the river that was deep enough for the women to wash clothes and bedding. All were surrounded. He watched with big binoculars.

Possible to have a moment of doubt as the convoy had approached the track; there had been hesitation and a late swing of the wheels. But the village was in trouble when the vehicles swept down towards it. He could see and he could hear. All done with the precision of a planned military operation, and Gaz assumed that a detailed briefing had been given. He estimated a minimum of 100 men were deployed. Iranians, and not the ragtag stuff that he had watched from his covert points earlier in the year. Disciplined and organised, in uniform and carrying cleaned weapons, and on two of their trucks were heavy machine-guns. A little cluster took his eye. Customers – military intelligence and the Sixers – always wanted to know most about Russians. The Iranian commander walked with them. An officer strutted, and Gaz recognised the rank insignia of captain sewn on the arms of his camouflage tunic, and thought his cap, drooping in the rain and ruffled by the wind, had the badge of the FSB. Blond hair peeping from below the cap and an assured, tanned face and a pistol slapping against his thigh. A pair of men slouched behind him, carrying assault rifles, and the power of his binoculars showed Gaz that neither was where he wanted to be. The weather blistered on to them.

His training had taken over. He had observed the military stuff, and at a slight cost… The girl had been on her way up the hill, following the charging goats, spooked by the arrival of the vehicles. She came up the slope’s loose stone and weed and mud with a sure step and the dogs kept close to her. She turned often enough and looked back down at the village, a few houses with smoke coming from chimneys made from cooking oil tins. He sensed her indecision: where should she go, what should she do? Her family would now be trapped inside the cordon.

Some boys had run, before the route out of the village was sealed. A few carried rifles, but most were unarmed and half-dressed, some still in their nightclothes and barefoot. Other boys stood, irresolute, did not know what would happen; mothers were hissing for their kids to come to them, small children clinging to their long skirts. A dog sprang forward near to the commanding officer. Gaz had identified him from his markings as a major and reckoned he was from the Quds section, the best they had in the ranks of the Guard Corps. How would a dog, big enough to take down a wolf, with yellowed teeth and a screaming bark, know that a Quds officer was an exception to the cohorts of incompetents Iran put in the field. The dog paused in front of the Major, and the rain had flattened its fur and it might have been preparing to leap at the officer’s throat. A single bullet was fired, but it did not kill the dog. It whimpered, Gaz heard it, and it dragged itself away, its back legs paralysed. A local man, dignified, came forward to speak to the Russian officer. Might have been a part-time imam, might have been a teacher, might just have been the man with the biggest number of goats.… He expected to be treated as an equal, delicately shuffling past the crippled animal, but was barged aside, stumbled and almost fell and clutched for support and found the arm of one of the minders following the Russian captain, and was shaken off as if he were a fly or a mosquito.

The girl was close to Gaz. It was a familiar place for the goats. For them it was of no matter whether it rained, or whether the wind blew hard or wafted over them. It was where they were used to congregating, close to the entrance to his hide. They would mill about her, and the dogs would be close against her ankles. Anywhere else would have been better. He could not protect her. As an individual, Gaz was well armed, but not against 100 men and vehicles with heavy machine-guns, and without the help of Arnie and Sam who were away on the far side of the cordon and could not help him. He thought she came to him for safety. A mistake. How to undo a mistake? Did not take him long to ponder it. Must suck it and hope… Not an option to curse her from his hiding place and threaten her, or cajole her in whatever language they could muster between the two of them. Tell her words to the effect of ‘Get the fuck out’. They had never spoken, had played a children’s game, had made an art form of it. Could do nothing. He texted the Operations Officer at the FOB. Weather was foul, cloud ceiling was bouncing off the ground, wind was heavy and in gusts, and visibility was pitiful. If he bugged out then he would have to lug his gear over open ground and he’d be spotted and it would be like one of those smart Boxing Day Cotswold hunts, but a fox would stand a better chance than him. Would not have been so much of a problem if the girl had not been close with her goats and her dogs. They’d be talking at the Forward Operating Base about REDCON, Readiness Condition, and whether they’d risk a Chinook to get near to him, or send in the Hereford gang on wheels. Difficult… He sensed her fear as she stared down at her village, her family home.

As the rain bucketed and wind chopped at them, the Iranians divided the villagers into a group of women and children, a second group of older men, and a third group of the kids – the cocky little guys who had been out in the night to get themselves some fun and now were facing a reckoning. The Russian watched and sometimes called and sometimes gesticulated, seemed to have an opinion on how things should play out.

Beginning to feel the cold, and yearning for a hot drink and warm food, Knacker sat on Gaz’s gravel path, would not weaken.

The rain had not lifted and the wind had not lessened and the first smears of dawn light appeared on the horizon ahead of him, above the white caps of the sea. No one who knew Knacker would have believed he would jack in a gesture for the sake of personal comfort. He did not call out, never tried to draw his target back into conversation. He would let Gaz, first-class boy, and admired and pitied, twist and toss in the pain, self-inflicted. Tough old world, always had been and always would be…

His name had been made in Northern Ireland and he had caught the late days of the ‘armed struggle’. Was a sergeant in the Intelligence Corps. Had run a man in Lurgan and another in Londonderry and each had reached beyond the limit of safety and their ‘legends’ were becoming frayed. Should have been pulled out and left to enjoy the small sums of cash paid them. Neither had been permitted to break the link and his heavy pressure had ensured they stayed in place, continued to report. Had gone a yard too far with them, a month too long, and each had been pathetic and terror-ridden by the time they were picked up by the opposition’s security apparatus, which was a one-way trip to a ditch and then a tout’s grave. On the bright side, and what marked out this young sergeant, were the rewards: a 1000lb bomb of chemical fertiliser mixture intercepted on its way to the new shopping centre in Londonderry, and in Lurgan a safe house identified where a ‘big boy’ shagged his slag and was lifted off the bed and sent down for a twenty-five-year stretch… a local policeman had done the honours with the name. ‘His talent is to pick up an old horse, one that should have been put out to grass, and work it till it drops, then drag it off to the knacker’s yard, and with that talent there is no room for charity – but he gets things feckin’ done. He’s never far from that Yard, is a proper knacker.’ The name had stuck, and the reputation with it… All a long time ago and the young man had been noticed, demobbed, and poached.

The first cars of the day went along the road below the track to the bungalow, and he expected the rain to ease soon, and the storm to have blown itself out by midday. He sat bolt upright with his legs folded and resisted the chance to stretch. If he were watched he would show nothing of discomfort, but he shook his head and water cascaded from the rim of his hat, and he allowed a finger to pass over his small brush moustache and squeeze it. Nothing, of course, with Knacker, was as it seemed. The island hotel was down the road and the car that had picked him up at the airfield – not an approach and landing he would want to repeat quickly – had taken him there. A room had been booked and he had dumped his bag. The room had been available to him all through the night, all through the hours that he had sat on the path, inflicted remorse on the young man, but the point would not have been made with emphasis, such clarity. Am doing you a favour… a chance to get your esteem back… he’s in Murmansk, the Russian with a shed load of guilt… pop in there, identify him for certain. He could see over the roof of one of those small chapels that they seemed fond of and past a pier and on to the surge of the waves that menaced the shore, and had a view of a small boat pluckily making progress and throwing up spray and coming on a course from another island, an outline in the mist.

He was confident of the outcome of his visit, that his journey to this remote corner was not wasted, that a man could be prised out of his refuge, and it was a mark of his style that he could do a piece of theatre. Sitting on his backside through the night hours of the storm, taking a soaking, was just footlights and greasepaint. Gulls screamed and rose and fell along with the motion of the boat, and he saw the post van and heard cattle away to his right, bellowing for attention. To some, a God-awful hour of the morning, but that time of day when Knacker liked to be alert, a good time for getting business done.

A pick-up came to the gate. Gaz watched from a window.

She’d have come on one of the crabbers that worked between Westray and the Papa Westray islands. It would have been a wretched crossing, but she never showed fear of the sea, was careful of it but did not cringe. She was good with the men who had lived their lives out here, and always had something to say to them, and her place amongst them was respected. Aggie fitted… slotted in better than Gaz did. At the gate she looked for him and saw him as he lurked at the window and she waved cheerfully. She wore bright orange heavy-duty outer clothing, and her hair tailed out behind her. He was blessed, knew it. Gaz could not have said why that woman had crossed a turbulent sea channel and come to see him… and she tripped on the man. The light was poor and his coat was grey on the grey gravel and against the grey rendered wall, and with grey skies over a grey roof. The man’s arm came up and took her hand, steadied her. And she was apologising, fussing, and helping him to his feet.

She was startled, seemed to stammer a charge of questions: who was he, why was he there, what was his business, when had he come, why was he sitting in the rain? She was given an explanation, clear above the wind, and he believed he was supposed to hear it.

“I came to see Gaz – he’s really Gary Baldwin, but from way back and to us, his friends, he’s Gaz. It’s about where he was before and what he did. We’ve done our work, my dear. Know you as Aggie, know enough to trust you…”

He still held her hand. Gaz recognised it as a master-class. Words spoken calmly, as if nothing was extraordinary and where they met was commonplace, and sodden clothing only a minor inconvenience.

“He’s a very brave man, one I am proud to know. That bravery, Aggie – I hope I may call you that – was demonstrated where he served, what he witnessed. It’s not a conversation piece and he may have withheld that part of his life history from you. He witnessed an atrocity, saw it stage by stage and could not intervene to prevent its outcome. He was deeply damaged by the experience. I am showing my trust and would be seriously embarrassed, Aggie, if that trust were rubbished…”

The worst of the storm was moving away but blustery winds left rain water running off his coat and from the brim of his hat, and Aggie’s clothing dripped. Knacker’s eyes were on hers, holding them as a stoat would have locked on a rabbit’s, and still with her hand in his. Gaz remembered him… unemotional, brisk, and to the point, directing him along and not permitting him to slide away into graphic detail but seeming more interested in rank badges and unit insignia, and disappointed at the absence of photographs, and all done fast: not forgotten and a part of the nightmare of the black dog days.

“There was a particular officer present through that day and Gaz watched as he carried out acts of violence that can only be described as evil. We have a partial identification of the offender, Russian military, but we would require – before we can take more appropriate action – a specific identification. We want to put Gaz into the city of Murmansk – quite close to a friendly frontier – have him take a good sighting of our suspect and then slip away… We’ll have a face and a name, and then we’ll do the necessary. That’s later and does not involve him. Getting him in and getting him out, we do covertly, and I would want to assure you, Aggie, that we have a reputation for competence in such areas, not easily gained but deserved. That’s what we’re talking about and Gaz is quite naturally wary of an old world he hoped was behind him… If there was another way then I would not have come banging on the door, but there is not. I want to see a brutal and sadistic roughneck face the consequences of his actions, and I need Gaz’s help. He’d be away only a week… My own opinion is that carrying out this task would be a help to the convalescence he needs. Not walking away but going forward when he has to. A girl witnessed what he saw. She’s stepped up to the plate, and Gaz wouldn’t want to turn his back on her. Not often a man has a chance to ‘make a difference’, strong ambition but rarely an opportunity. This is it, an opportunity… To tell you the truth, I’d be more than grateful for a cup of tea.”

They turned together, in unison, and came towards the door.

He unfastened the chain, opened the door. Knacker stood back. Gave them space and Gaz hated him for it because that was acceptance of victory. Aggie took him in her arms and hugged him, squirming close. She had come through a storm to be with him and not many from Westray or the adjacent island would have hitched a lift in that pitching swell, had done it to be with him. The loneliness clawed at him. She broke away, went to the kitchen and he heard her begin to rifle in his cupboards for mugs and milk and tea bags.

Beside him, Knacker had started to strip. Water lapped on the linoleum. Raincoat dropped and shoes shed, and suit trousers and suit jacket and shirt and socks and tie, and a vest and underpants that seemed to Gaz to be from a different age, heavier than anything other than what Betty bought for Bobby Riley…

A week after Gaz had done his school-leaving exams, Bobby had slipped in cattle shit in the yard and had fractured his pelvis. A month later, while Gaz and Betty managed the milking, the hobbling Bobby had entertained men in suits who came to consider buying the farm. Gaz had shown one of them around the acreage and talked of the wildlife and pointed to a den and a sett. He was an army officer, on leave and doing the driving for his brother, the moneybags. A decent guy, and interested in the terrain and giving Gaz time to explain. The sale went through fast, and Bobby and Betty had gone to a bungalow in Criccieth on the Lleyn peninsula and the parting shot had been that “You’ll be all right, lad, never in doubt you’ll be fine, and us – never want to see a field or a cow’s arse again as long as we both draw breath.” Now, more than ten years later Gaz didn’t know whether they were alive or dead, didn’t know that old-style underpants like Bobby’s were still worn. The Stoke-on-Trent recruiters had put him into the Logistics Corps and told him to be ‘patient’.

Aggie had scooped up all Knacker’s discarded clothes and put them into the drier, and gave him Gaz’s dressing-gown, and passed him a mug of tea. Neither of them had flinched, looked away, registered a reaction while Knacker had been naked: Gaz had noticed. He was good at noticing, always had been.

She said, “You’ll do that – you will, won’t you?”

Gaz nodded.

Aggie kissed him and he saw the fleeting, half-hearted smile of Knacker, like taking kids’ sweets was nothing to be proud of, and was kissed again. He went into the bedroom to fill a grip, and the drier churned in the kitchen, and he heard his Aggie and his tormentor talking history: she was on Orkney’s old monuments and he was gently explaining his love of the Roman artefacts that the archaeologists dug up near Hadrian’s Wall. He could not have refused, wouldn’t have known how, and remembered the officer – what the officer had done.

Doubt from her, fleeting, “You’ll be all right, won’t you? Just ‘in and out’. Yes?”

And remembered how it had been and how the illness had scourged him and felt Debbie’s chin against his fist, and the pain of the handcuffs on his wrists, and the shaking and shame of standing in the dock of a magistrate’s court, and coming to the island and the hope that the past was buried deep and could not resurface.

“I expect so…”