Home Run

10

There was a good term he used when he gave the lectures. It was one that he had heard himself when he had first attended a kidnap briefing: "emotional rape". It was a good enough description for Mattie to be going on with. He was without his watch and the belt for his trousers and the laces for his shoes. He was without contact. The breakfast tray had been brought to his room, left inside the door, taken away an hour later, nothing said, no eye contact.

His father had been a regular soldier. His father had been a hard and austere man with no gift for conversation, living his life to high standards. Mattie had followed him into the army. Mattie had been the young officer in the Brigade of Guards, and brought up to the same standards. Perhaps he had rebelled against those standards, his father's rigid code, perhaps that was why he had left the military and gone to Century, and yet the standards and the code remained his bed-rock. The pure soldiering had appealed to him less and less. He had spent too much time as a young officer as liaison in Iran, wearing his own clothes and mixing with civilians, but the deep base of disciplines had stayed with him. He had been lectured, and he had himself lectured, on personal standards as a weapon against the despair that came after the shame of the "emotional rape".

Had it been possible to speak with his guards, then he would have spoken with courtesy, but hard to be courteous to a pair of sods who never caught his eye, never acknowledged his thanks. He had already done his exercises, and that was important, always important to stay mentally and physically fit. He went to the wash basin beside the lavatory. There was no brush to clean the pan of the lavatory, and that was a small wound to him because he thought he would have benefitted from being able to set a standard of a clean lavatory. He went to the wash basin. There was no cloth to wipe clean the basin, but he could make something of that with his fingers. Only one tap. He was denied hot water. Well, Mattie Furniss could live without hot water. He turned the tap. A few moments of pressure and then the spurt was reduced to a dribble. The water ran ochre brown. God alone knew what filth was in the water, but the rules demanded that he wash. His hands were cupped to take the soiled water, and he closed his eyes tight, and splashed the water on his face. He took off his shirt, cupped his hands again, and washed underneath his arms. He could not shave, of course, and the growth on his cheeks was an irritation. When he had finished washing he began to wipe the basin clean, to peel away the grime.

Tomorrow, if there was a tomorrow, he would wash his shirt. Today he rinsed his socks. He could wear his shoes without socks. Christ, Harriet, how do I dry my bloody socks?

… Harriet… who would have been to see her? He had once been to visit a Century wife in crisis. Just her own crisis, not the Service's crisis, just that the lady's husband had piled in with his car on a road out of Sharjah. He hadn't made much of a job of telling her the news, but he and Harriet still received a Christmas card from her every year. He wondered how they would be with Harriet… Harriet always washed his socks at home, and she knew how to dry them, even when it was too wet for them to go outside, and in the days before they had a proper heating system in the cottage at Bibury. The poor darling who washed his socks, and knew how to dry them, he had never, ever, talked to her about the risk… never. Not when he was Station Officer in Tehran, not when he was running the show down in the Gulf, not when he was packing the clothes as she passed them to him from the wardrobe for this trip. If Harriet had ever said to him that, God's truth, old boy, this life really pisses me off, this life is for kiddies, this life is not for us, old boy, then Mattie would have been shaken to the roots, but he would have packed it in. He hoped they would have sent a good man to see her.

After he had hung his socks on the bedframe, he had cleaned the basin again. Good lord, made in the UK. He could see the manufacturer's emblem, and the symbol of the Queen's award to industry. Must have been a good little export order.

Purveyors of bathroom ceramics to His Magnificence.

"Christ, Harriet… I am so afraid… " His lips mouthed the words. "These charming domestic scenes will surely end, my darling."

"Survive, old boy." That's what she would say and that was the name of the game, survival. Survival was going back to Harriet, one day, going home. And the price of going home, at any rate going home in a skin she would recognize, well, that price was unthinkable. "Don't think it, old boy. You can't afford to think it because you know so much. So many lives depend on your silence."

"You'll tell the girls, won't you? Get them to come and take care of you until this is all over. Oh yes, it will be over. Sooner or later, most probably later, it will be over. I rather fancy there'll be a debriefing of sorts and then they'll drive me to Bibury and you will be at the door. It will be summer still, oh yes." He wiped the underside of the basin with his hands and saw the beetles. Small black beetles on the floor. They had an entry point where the tiles were poorly fitted against the wall.

He started to count the beetles. They were difficult to count, because the little blighters were meandering all over the floor under the basin.

He had not heard the footfall, nor the bolt being drawn back, nor the key being turned.

He was counting beetles, and there were three men in the room. There was a moment of annoyance when he lost his place among the beetles. The men came fast. He was dragged upright. His arms were twisted behind his back. One of the men buried a fist in Mattie's hair and pulled him across the room. Pain on his scalp, and pain at his shoulders from his bent back arms, and his shoes flapping loose and his trousers dribbling down over his hips.

He was trying to remember the rules. At all times courtesy and good manners. Bloody important. Bad mouth them back and he'd get a kicking. Fight them and he'd get a beating.

That's what he used to tell his students at the Fort. "No future in getting a good hammering if the only witnesses to your pride are a gang of lowlife thugs."

The one who had hold of Mattie's hair kept his head bowed.

He could only see the floor. He could only see the steps down. He was propelled forward.

They were going fast down the stairs and then across the entrance hall of the building, and towards the back of the hall, and into a narrow doorway. Down a flight of breeze block steps, into the cellar.

A room of white, bright light. He saw the zinc bathtub. He saw the hose pipe that was attached to a wall tap. He saw the heavy hooks protruding at different heights from the wall. He saw the plank bed with the leather thongs fastened at each end. He saw the lengths of insulated cable lying casually on the floor.

He saw the table and the two chairs, and the white, bright light was facing one of the chairs. That chair was empty. In the other, his back to the light, was the investigator.

He was put down on to the empty chair. He wriggled on the hard seat to get the waist of his trousers back up from his hips. The men who had brought him down the two flights of steps were all behind him. He could hear their breathing, but he could not see them. He could only see the face of the investigator, and if he looked past the face of the investigator then there was only the ferocity of the white, bright light. He could feel the tremble in his thighs, and in his fingers. He could feel the sinking of his stomach and the looseness.

He heard the creaking turn of a tape-recorder's spools. He thought the machine was on the floor beside the feet of the investigator. He could not see the microphone. The investigator put a small attache case on the table and opened it. He took out the sheets of paper Mattie had written, and a single cardboard file holder. He closed the attache case, put it back on the floor.

The investigator pushed the file halfway across the table.

The light fell on it. The title of the file was " D O L P H I N " .

The investigator took the handwritten sheets of paper and held them in front of Mattie's face and tore them into small pieces.

He saw them flake to the floor.

"I am not stupid, Mr Furniss, and I had not expected that you would be stupid either."

As soon as he was out from under the railway bridge, the rain streamed down over his face.

He turned, but no one stirred or watched him go.

Because Charlie had brought a bottle of sherry he was good news amongst the dossers who used the pavement under the bridge. He hadn't had more than one swig himself. The bottle had passed from hand to hand, and he had even been lent a sheet of cardboard packing to use as a blanket. Good guys.

Didn't bother with questions. Guys who had accepted him because he'd passed round the bottle.

The rain was dribbling off his nose. He might be back, and he might not. He was another of the city's flotsam, footloose for the day and congregating for the night where there was shelter from the rain. He could have gone to a hotel, or to a boarding house, but Charlie had reckoned that was risk. He had felt safer in the dossers' sleeping place. He had been aware of the light of a policeman's torch on his face, past three in the morning. They wouldn't be looking for him amongst the dossers, no way.

At the Underground entrance he ducked out of the rain. He bought a newspaper; scanned it fast. He saw the photograph of I the burned out, blown up car, and he saw a picture of Jamil Shabro, and the caption "dedicated monarchist". Three dead.

Shabro, the traffic warden, DOA, and an old lady who lived right above the blast. Five seriously injured, the old lady's sister among them, blinded in both eyes. No mention of a surveillance operation. He had not dreamed it, and he had no means, even now, of gauging what was the scale of the hunt.

They'd pick him up, sure as hell, because they'd mounted surveillance on his meeting, they'd have him held at the airport whenever he flew back.

And then the jigsaw pieces started tumbling. They had spotted him at Heathrow on the way in. That was what the performance at the airport was all about. He'd been under surveillance ever since. They could have lifted him and the rucksack at any time. Why had they not? What were they waiting for? Maybe they would think Jamil Shabro was his dealer. If so, that gave him a tiny breathing space. One less hand at his throat.

Inside the ticket hall he dialled the number that Mr Furniss had given him in St James's Park.

He was answered by a secretary. He asked for Mr Stone.

He said he wouldn't give his own name.

"Yes?"

"Who is speaking?"

"I am a friend of Mr Matthew Furniss."

"Of Mattie's?"

"He said I should call you."

"Did he now – in what connection?"

"To discuss business with you."

He heard the hesitation. "Mattie said that?"

"He told me to come to you."

"What's the name? No name, no meeting."

"Charlie."

"Hang on. Shan't be a second."

Flossie Duggan responded to the winking light, lifted her telephone. Neither of her telephones had a bell. Mr Furniss did not like telephones ringing all day around him. She was still red-eyed and her waste paper basket was a quarter filled with screwed up Kleenex.

"He's not here at the moment, Mr Stone… Yes, he knows Charlie. Old friend of Mr Furniss' family. Is there anything else, Mr Stone?… And best wishes to you, too."

He fed more coins into the machine. He wrote down the address and the time of his appointment, then rang off.

Inside the station he paid for a key to a left luggage box, and at the box, and masked by its open door, he lifted a Sainsbury's bag from his rucksack, before squeezing it into the locker. He wound the top of the plastic bag round his wrist. He went back to the telephones.

Another call, another meeting set up.

Charlie carried away from the Underground station one packet containing a full kilo of pure and uncut heroin.

"Good God… What are you doing here?"

Park didn't think, too tired to think, just opened his mouth.

"Bill told me to get home."

She had a super mouth, except when it was twisted, when she was bloody furious.

"Marvellous, you came home because the philanthropic Mr Parrish said it was alright, remind me to grovel to him…

What's that on your head?"

His hand went up. He felt the Elastoplast, and it was curling at the edges. "There was a car bomb… "

"The Iranian?"

She must have just come back from work. She had an apron over her work dress, and the vacuum cleaner was out of the cupboard and plugged in.

He said, "We were on a surveillance, the car went up about 30 yards away. We got chucked about a bit."

"It's today, afternoon. That was yesterday, morning."

He hadn't kissed her yet. He was still in the doorway. And so hellishly tired, and it was an old script.

"We had a panic on."

"All the telephones down, were they?"

He didn't know whether she was picking an argument, or whether she was concerned that he had been close to a car bomb. Her cheeks were flushed. He reckoned she wanted the fight. He could remember holding Token's hand the previous day – never understood why Token didn't have a steady fellow

– he just wanted cocoa hot in his throat, and his head cool on the pillow.

"I said a panic. We picked up a target the other night at the airport. I don't know how much, but he's got a substantial amount of stuff. Yesterday morning he visited Shabro, the Iranian who died. The target got away. We don't know where he's gone. It was my decision to let him run, and we've lost him, plus a hell of a load… That's what I mean by a panic.

That's why I didn't think of ringing you… "

"David, what the hell is happening to us?"

"I'm just pretty tired."

"When are we going to talk about it, when?"

"Right now, I want to go to sleep."

She flounced aside, made a way for him. She snapped the switch on the vacuum cleaner and he had to step over the cable to get to the bedroom. At least the suitcase was back on top of the wardrobe.

He didn't register that the vacuum cleaner had gone off.

She came into the room. She sat on the bed beside him.

"Is it really bad for you?"

"If I foul up? Yes."

"How bad?"

"Kiss goodbye to a Liaison Officer posting… "

"In Bogota?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's the best news I've had all week. It sounds like hell on earth, does Bogota."

"It just seems important to me."

"More important than anything?"

"I'm very tired, Ann… I'm sorry I didn't ring."

She went to the dressing table. She took off it an opened envelope, and picked an invitation card out from the envelope.

"What is it?" His eyes were hardly open.

"Invitation…" She laughed, a brittle ring. "The ID

Mid-Summer Ball… are we going, David?"

"It'll be awful."

"I want to meet all of those wonderful people who are so important to your life. I am going to talk to all those fantastic people who have the power to send us to Bogota… "

"We'll go."

"You stand me up…"

"I said that we'll go."

"… and we're dead."

"I'm just so tired… Ann, I don't want us to be dead."

"Then do something about it."

She had the apron off and her shoes and her dress, was half undressed, when she saw that he was asleep.

At the airport he had worn a blazer with the badge of a travel company sewn on to his breast pocket. The travel company knew nothing of a Charlie Eshraq, had employed no courier in Turkey during the period of Charlie's last trip out of the United Kingdom.

In his flat they found a receipt from a bucket shop – followed up, blood out of a stone and the threat of a V A T inquiry before the blood started to trickle. Three return tickets to Istanbul.

No address book. No cheque stubs. The place was eerily clean. Fingerprints, yes they had all that. But that wasn't going anywhere. Not a single photograph to build on. Nothing to say whether Eshraq was his real name. The coffee shop and the laundromat knew him, had never seen him with anyone, if you know what I mean. The owner of the flat had never met him and an estate agent, who blushed rather prettily Statesman thought, said he paid always in cash, always on the nail. There were three possible leads. Manvers, who may have known nothing about him at all. The man in the Import-Export business in Kensington, who turned out to be the brother, wouldn't you just have guessed it, of the Iranian in the car, so his office was shut very tight and the family scarpered and the Anti-Terrorist people were taking the line that if the ID were going into the film business and if Mr Park thought he was Mr David Puttnam that was all very well, thanks for the tip-off, and do us a favour, son, don't ask us to tell you where Mr Shabro's brother is, because you people are bad news and anyway you're so clever that you can surely find him without assistance from Anti-Terrorist Branch. Mr Corinthian's film? No, it was still being examined. No, the Met would probably want it for a couple of days. Expect it in a week or so.

And there was Furniss of the FCO, as Harlech called him.

The ACIO said that Leroy Winston Manvers was now on remand at Brixton prison and out of reach, and that they'd had their chance with him, and no way were they going back there now that the dealer was in the hands of a Legal Aid solicitor.

So Parrish had said to the ACIO that this Matthew Furniss was the key, and the ACIO had not been able to contradict him.

Three of them went to the Home Office. The ACIO had roped in the head of the National Drugs Intelligence Unit, they'd gone round to New Scotland Yard and picked him up.

They'd leaned on him, so that he couldn't excuse himself.

Into the Home Secretary's office.

The ACIO did the talking. Bill Parrish did the prompting.

The head of the NDIU was the weight behind them.

"What it comes down to, Home Secretary, is that we are being denied access to this Matthew Furniss. Now, we've played this very straight. We have not, I repeat not, chased this man and sought him out. We accept that he may be a sensitively placed government servant, and we have gone through the correct channels, and we've been blown off…

Let's not beat about the bush. We were instructed to carry out an investigation into the supply of the heroin that ultimately killed Lucy Barnes. Quite disproportionate resources have been deployed… and we're being blocked. It's right that we should be frank with each other, Home Secretary.

You wanted a priority made of this case."

"You've lost this man Eshraq, and you've lost his heroin?"

"Correct, Home Secretary. We lost him in freak circumstances, you will agree. If we are to get him back, and get his stuff back, without wasting an immense amount of time then we have to have Matthew Furniss."

"I'll look into it."

"Either that or the investigation has to go into the trash-can, sir."

"I said that I would look into it, Mr Parrish. Thank you, gentlemen. Good day to you."

Parrish, not a vindictive man, thought that the Home Secretary looked like a cornered rabbit. Not his to reason why, but he didn't mind taking a small jolt of consolation from the man's discomfiture.

It was a well arranged meeting. No chances taken. Charlie liked that. He had been under surveillance, and he was pretty sure that he had busted the surveillance, but he liked the style of the Greek and the meeting. He had been picked up in Chiswick in West London by an anonymous little bastard with a sallow face and bad eyes. That had been arranged on the telephone. He was pretty sure that the rendezvous was checked out, that they were watched by the Greek's payroll. He was told to take the Underground to the end of the District line in Wimbledon. His description must have been telephoned on, because after he had kicked his heels and had a couple of coffees at the station cafeteria, he was met again. They put him in the back of a van and they drove him round for an hour and a half, and when the van stopped, and he hadn't an idea where he was, then the back doors had opened, and the Greek had climbed in beside him.

The Greek was thorough. He had Charlie stripped down in the van to his underpants. No way he was going to be stung, that Charlie was going to get away with a microphone in his clothes. That was the preamble, then there was the business.

A quarter of a kilo of pure heroin on display. The Greek was no baby in the game, and the Greek knew the stamp on the wrapping. Enough of the stuff to have covered a teaspoon was taken out of the packet, and was passed in a small see-through sachet through the slightly opened back of the van. Going for analysis, running a fast check. Good style, Charlie liked it, more thorough than Manvers had ever been. The check came back. The sachet was passed again into the interior of the van, there was an anonymous raised thumb. They'd talked business while the analysis was being done.

"Cash is hard."

"Cash, or no deal."

"You brought it in yourself?"

"From the Qazvin district. I collected it myself."

"And there's going to be more?"

Charlie lied. "Yes, it'll be regular, and top grade."

"And you're looking for…?"

"A quarter of a million, for seven kilos."

"Two hundred."

"Two fifty."

"If it's tomorrow, in cash, two hundred thousand is top whack for seven kilos."

"I'll call tomorrow for a meeting."

They shook hands. There was a clinging oiled sweat on the Greek's hands. Charlie thought it was a good deal. The Greek would get double what he was paying Charlie, but Charlie didn't cough at that.

"What's it for?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

The Greek smiled. A twisted smile. He had a deep scar at the side of his chin from far back, from a school playground fight with Stanley knives. "Just that this isn't your scene – so, what's it for?"

"Something you won't ever hear about."

"What on earth does he want?"

Benjamin Houghton could see the nervousness in Miss Duggan's face. The likes of Flossie Duggan were never called to the nineteenth floor. She was a few years short of retirement, less than Mr Furniss had left to him, but she had had his promise that he would get an extension for her, she would go when he went. It was her whole life, being the Personal Assistant to Mr Furniss. More than anything else she dreaded the day when she must hand in her polaroid cards and try and pick up old age away from Century. She had joined the Service in 1950 after she had read an advertisement in a smart magazine in an optician's waiting room that called for applications from "Girls of good education for position in London with good prospects and possibility of service abroad

– aged 18 to 30". She would be going, when she handed in her polaroid card, to Weston-super-Mare where her sister kept a guest house, open only in the summer season. She would have her debrief, a day or two of counselling, and she would be out on her neck with her memories. To Flossie Duggan, genteel and poor and loyal, Mr Furniss was the finest gentleman that it had been her privilege to work for.

"He just wants a little talk with you."

"He's already stolen Mr Furniss' floppies."

"That's not fair, Flossie… "

"Miss Duggan." The boy would never have been so imperti-nent if Mr Furniss had been there.

"The Director General is entitled to see the computer records of a Desk Head even when those records are stored in the Desk Head's personal safe and not where they belong, in Library. So can we go, please."

He saw the neatness of Mattie's desk, his ashtray had been cleaned ready for his return. His pencils were in a holder, sharpened. His In tray and Out tray were empty. He thought that the photograph on the shelf behind the desk, Mrs Furniss, had been polished. There were some late daffodils in a vase beside the photograph. She was registering her defiance, taking her time to cover up her keyboard with its plastic shroud, and then she was riffling in her handbag for her lipstick. Again, he could see her nervousness, because the effect of the vivid lipstick against her pale and puffed skin was appalling.

"I hold him responsible."

"Tell the Director General that, Miss Duggan, and he might just chuck you down the lift shaft." He held the door open for her.

She gripped the hand rail in the lift.

He led her down the corridor, and made way for her so that she could go first into the outer office. He knocked.

"Miss Duggan, sir."

She walked in. She hesitated. She heard the door shut behind her.

She hated the tall and thin-boned man who rose from his chair, a leather backed chair, and beamed at her, and waved her to a sofa. He was certainly responsible.

"Good of you to call by, Miss Duggan… distressing times for all of us. Would you like sherry?"

She shook her head.

"I am sure that even with Mr Furniss away you are extremely busy, Miss Duggan. I'll come straight to the point."

The Director General had come in front of his desk and he perched himself on the edge of it.

"Presumably, Miss Duggan, you are pretty well up in Mr Furniss' activities for the Service?"

She nodded her head emphatically. That was one of Mr Furniss' little jokes. The worst time of the year was when she took her holiday at Weston-super-Mare, just one week, and she wasn't there to run his office.

"First of all, Miss Duggan, we are all, every one of us, doing our best to get Mr Furniss back, that goes without saying… "

She glowered at him. He should never have been sent. Desk Heads were never sent abroad.

"… All of the very considerable resources of the Service are engaged in that. Now… "

She blurted, "It was a folly sending him in the first place."

"This is not a kindergarten, Miss Duggan. The Service is an active arm in the defence of this country. If the risks are too great for individuals then they are at all times entitled to transfer wherever they wish."

She might have slapped his face. There was a haggardness at his eyes. There was a thinness at his lips.

"We have been through the discs from Mr Furniss' personal computer, and we can find no record of an individual with whom we believe Mr Furniss to be associated. To maintain private files is in breach of all standing instructions. It is a sufficient misdemeanour to have you summarily dismissed.

Do you hear me, Miss Duggan?"

She nodded.

"Miss Duggan, who is Charlie Eshraq?"

She told him.

It is the age of light speed communications, but the tit pushers and the button thumpers still rule.

The information was first gathered by the Anti-Terrorist squad. They in their turn fed the information into the central computer of Criminal Records. A lead from Criminal Records, and that same information was passed to the National Drugs Intelligence Unit. For further detail the National Drugs Intelligence Unit punched into the jointly operated CEDRIC computer.

What followed started the sprint down the corridors, the raw excitement.

She was jolted out of her sleep by the ringing of the telephone.

He wasn't going to wake. An earthquake wouldn't have moved him. The curtains were still open, but the darkness had come down outside, and she could see the rain pelting the window panes. The telephone was on his side, but he wasn't going to pick it up. Ann leaned across him. Her breast, out of her slip, was crushed into his face, and he didn't stir. She wriggled, she kissed her man. He looked ten years younger, at peace. She reached for the telephone.

Softly, "Yes?"

"David?"

"This is Ann Park."

"Bill Parrish – could I speak to him?"

She looked down. She saw the calm in his sleep, and she saw the livid bruise on his forehead.

"He came home injured… Why wasn't I told?"

"Because I'm not a nanny, Mrs Park. Please get him to the phone."

"Damn you, he's asleep."

"Tickle his toes, whatever you do. Wake him up."

"Mr Parrish, have you any idea what life is like for me because you can't manage your bloody office for ten minutes without my David?"

"I went to your wedding, and I'm not daft… just wake him up."

"He's exhausted and he's hurt, and he needs the rest."

"Don't accuse me, young lady, of not caring. Have you forgotten Aberystwyth…?"

She would never forget Aberystwyth. They hadn't been married then. A stake-out on the Welsh coast, waiting for a yacht to come in from the Mediterranean and drop a load off on a beach. A ruined cottage had been the base camp for the April team, and David was the new boy, just selected, and the wedding had been postponed until after the knock. Bill Parrish had broken every rule in the C amp; E's book. Parrish had told his Keeper to get his fiancee up to a camp site four miles from the cottage, and he'd made damned sure that David slipped away to the tent where his Ann was every single night. She had cooked their supper over a calor gas burner, cuddled him and the rest in her sleeping bag, and sent him back to the stake-out each dawn. It had been heaven for her, and Bill Parrish had fixed it, and it had never happened again.

"He wouldn't do it now," she said. "Why can't you get someone else?"

"We're all in the same boat, and it's the way we work, and if we don't work like that then the job doesn't get done."

"Oh boy, have I heard that before."

"Do me a favour, wake him up."

Her voice was breaking. She was across David and she could hear the constant rhythm of his breathing. "You're destroying us, you're breaking us apart."

"He'll be collected in half an hour. Tell him there's movement on the target."

She put the phone down. She woke him. She saw the flare in his eyes when she told him what Parrish had said. She watched him dress fast. She fed him some scrambled egg and toast in the kitchen, and all the time he was looking out of the window, waiting for a car's headlamps. When she saw the lights she could have cried. She cleared away the plate. She heard the doorbell. He grabbed for his anorak, shrugged into it, opened the door.

Ann still wore her slip. She stood in the kitchen, and she could see through to the front door. There was a girl standing there. A boyish, stocky girl, with her hair cut short, and a windcheater like a sleeping bag. She saw her husband go out.

They walked across to the car. She could see them. When the tail lights had gone, then Ann Park cried.

Token talked, Keeper listened.

"It's the oldest one I know. There was a notepad beside the telephone in Shabro's flat. The Anti-Terrorist people had a look at it, and there was an indent. A name and a number.

They checked, there's quite a bit on the name at Criminal Records, all drugs-related, so they fed it over to CEDRIC.

He's hot. He's been busted for possession and went inside, but that was years back. More important, just a couple of years ago he was in the slammer and went to the Bailey. He should have got a Fifteen for dealing, but the bastard had a nobble. Four of the jurors came out for him. The trial had cost nearly a million, had run for four months. Public Prosecutions didn't go back for another bite. His name was written on the notepad in Shabro's house. It's Shabro's writing. The top note wasn't in Shabro's pockets. If that doesn't add up to Tango One finding himself a dealer in lieu of Manvers, I'll do a streak round the Lane. Cheer up, David, it's going to work out.

We've got taps on him, and we've got surveillance on him.

… Your Missus, David, what was up with her?"

Two guards carried Mattie back up the two flights from the cellar.

He was not unconscious – that had been before, many times. He was conscious and the water dripped from his head.

To himself, he was now detached from the pain in his feet, and he was aware of what went on around him. He could hear no traffic in the street outside. He thought that it must be very late in the night. He had no sense of how many hours he had been in the basement, nor could he remember how many times he had lost consciousness, and how many times he had been dunked in the zinc bathtub.

He thought that he was still in control of himself. He could understand that there was no longer any more point in them beating him because the pain had begun to cancel itself out.

He was carried because he could not stand on his feet. His head was sagging, and he could see his feet. His shoes were gone. His feet were grotesque, bloody and swollen. He could not count how many times in that long day they had thrashed the soles of his feet with the heavy electrical flex, and how many times he had lapsed, thank the Good Lord, into unconsciousness.

They took him into his room, and they let him fall from their arms and on to his bed. He lay on his bed, and the pain came out of the numbness of his feet. The pain came like maggots tunnelling from rotting meat. The pain spread from the soft ripped flesh at the soles of his feet and into his ankles, and into his shins and calves, and into his thighs, and into his guts.

It was just their beginning.

Through the long day, into the long night, the investigator had not asked Mattie a single question. Softening him. Beating him and hurting him. Just the start, unless he would scream for the pain to stop. The questions would follow when they thought it opportune, when they judged it best to peel from his mind the names held there.

The pain throbbed in him, welled in him. He lay on the bed and he writhed to escape from the pain, and with his eyes clenched tight he could see all the time the sweat forehead, the exertion, of the man who swung the electrical flex back over his shoulder and then whipped it back on to the soles of his feet.

They had given him nothing. Not even the dignity of refusing their questions.