The Walking Dead

Chapter 12

As he lay on his bed, the tumult beat round Ibrahim. He could hear but not see. His door stayed closed. Whatever crisis raged in the cottage, he was not part of it. No one came to his room. Breakfast had not been brought to him, nor had he been called to the kitchen. Before retreating to his bed, after the shouting and door slamming had started, he had faced the wall, knelt and prayed with intensity. Then he had lain on the nicked-up sheets. What he could hear told him little.

He remembered moments of confidence, some extreme, but they were now behind him. They played in his mind: walking from the mosque where the imam had spelled out the rewards available to the virtuous, the brave, the dedicated; cleaning his room personally, not leaving it to the servant, tidying his affairs secretively, and polishing the glass in the frames holding the photographs of his brothers, the martyrs; telling the untruths to his father and sisters, and justifying them because of the pride and glory his family would know when his name and face were on the television screen; being called forward by the Leader, the man of war, chosen above the other eleven, walking for him and being praised. Then confidence had surged in him, and it had been with him when he had stepped towards the departure gates at Riyadh's King Khalid airport — the calling of his name had not deflected it — and as he had walked past the checks and the armed police at the train terminus, his leather jacket thrown open to show the swan, and as he had arrived in the car at the cottage, knowing he would be carrying the bomb when he left it…But now the confidence was gone, had ebbed with each hour of the days and nights that he had been left in the room.

Should he have thrown open the door, stalked out and demanded to be told what was the cause of the crisis?

He wished the girl would come…Alone among them, she was the one he wished had come to his room.

It was because she was flawed, her face crossed with the scar, that he valued her.

Until now, beyond his door there had been a babble of shouting. He was forgotten. The voices had been indistinct. He recognized then that Jamal and the girl were in the corridor outside his room. Did they realize that he was on his bed, abandoned but straining to hear?

Jamal said, a hoarse whisper, 'I don't think we can go on now.'

She said, softer, 'Then the work of so many is wasted, was for nothing.'

'I am intelligent, yes? I have a place at the university in London, yes? I am not a fool, yes? I see it, do you not? We are all in danger now.'

'I had thought it would be easier…'

'A big man was sent, a commander and a fighter, but he does not lead us. He has brought down chaos on us. We did not need him…and we did not need the Saudi kid,' Jamal murmured, but the boy heard him. 'I would have done it, if I had been asked.'

'You boast as Ramzi boasted. You do not give him what he is owed — respect.'

Savagely hissed by Jamal: 'The respect I have, now, this moment, is for the scale of the catastrophe falling on us. Do you not understand? You do not need education from a university to comprehend what we face — imprisonment all our lives'

'What does he face? He faces two situations. He may be sent home, back where he came from, his martyrdom attempt a failure, and that failure with him for the rest of his life because he will never be chosen again. Or he faces a worthless martyrdom — not at the place and time of maximum advantage, rushed to a street where the casualties are scaled down, where his death is wasted. Not only, Jamal, do you boast but you display a selfishness that disgraces you. You do not think of him, only yourself.'

The boy heard a bitter, whinnying laugh. 'He might be free, and-'

The boy heard the hiss of her response: 'Or kneeling in a square at home while an executioner raises a sword and prepares to behead him.'

'- and might be walking forward, thinking of virgins awaiting him, and not caring whether he kills ten or one, wounds ten or one. He has virgins in his mind.'

'You are obsessed. You disgust me. His Faith is to be admired, not sniggered at.'

'What obsesses me — with Ramzi gone — is the thought of a prison cell with the key thrown away.' The shouted answer. 'And it should obsess you, too, and—'

There was a yell from deep in the cottage, as if they were called, and the boy heard their feet patter away. He gripped his — raised knees. He had learned the cause of the crisis.. the, reason for the catastrophe, and what was thought of him. To all of them but her, he was as worthless as an animal sent for slaughter. To her he had importance…but she had not come to his room.

More voices. He came off the bed.

Voices beyond the window. He edged back the curtain but kept his body hidden.

The older men searched the garden. 'He has the whole night's start on us.' They started at a bare dug bed under the window along the outer wall from his. 'I should have cut his fucking throat when I could have.' They crouched there and made a close examination of the ground. 'Will he go to the police and talk with them? Will he have gone home to his fucking family? I don't know…If he has gone home, then is arrested, will he be able to endure interrogation?' They stood and gazed across the grass, and the rain fell on them. Neither had a coat or seemed to notice it. 'At least here, in a democracy,' the boy heard rough, braying laughter, 'it will not be as severe interrogation as in Abu Ghraib. It will be decent and polite — but would he break?' Then they tracked away over the grass, like hounds scenting a quarry, and came to the break in the hedge beyond which was the expanse of the ploughed field…and Ibrahim no longer heard them. What he did hear, faintly, was the sound of a vehicle approaching, an engine's grind.

Ajaq listened.

The Engineer, close to the hedge, said, 'My decision is made. My work is finished. I will not stay another hour.'

Ajaq thought his friend had been too long and too often near to the source of explosions that the damage to his hearing was irreparable. The noise of the vehicle was growing, and he imagined it heaving between the rutted lines in the track and the potholes. 'You, my dear one, should be with me. Tell me you will be.'

He heard the voice of his friend, urgent, and he thought of the men in mountain caves, or in the compound of a tribal chief in the foothills, who had sent him and who now listened to their radios to learn that the faith placed in him was justified. He heard the engine of the vehicle, racing in low gear, and he thought of the myriad skeins of the web that had been put together. He heard a shrill call for him to come back to the cottage, and he thought of how many had risked so much to place him where he now stood and how they would crumple if the mission failed or was ineffective.

'You cannot delay. You cannot remain here. You were given rubbish to work with. You would not be fairly blamed if you quit. At home, where you belong, where you are a leader of fighting men, you would have finished with this, moved on and found another target.'

He heard the howl of the vehicle's engine. He looked over the neat chopped top of the hedge, across the ploughed field, beyond the wood of dense tree-trunks, and into the distance where a cloud bank settled on a shortened horizon. He saw the wheel of the birds' flight and sensed the innocence of the place. There would have been the same innocence to be seen if he had gazed out from a derelict hut, once used to shelter livestock, at groves of trees that bore dates, or irrigated fields of maize. Innocence reigned in the moments before the Apache gunships materialized above a horizon of gently swaying branches. On his fighting ground in Iraq, if a new cell member had fled in the night, he would have abandoned the place he slept and his current plan, would have started again from point zero on the laborious preparation for a new attack site. Too many now depended on him, and he knew that he would ignore the entreaties of his friend.

'If it is ready, you should go,' Ajaq said.

He walked away from his friend, across the wet grass. Inside the Triangle, on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, innocence was unknown to him. Once, he had been captured. Once, the army of the enemy had had him defenceless and within their power, his freedom gone. Once, for an hour less than half a day, he had sat hunched down in the blister of the sun, with his arms held in the small of his back by plastic restrainers, his eyes taped over. But his papers had held up to examination, and the interrogation in the field had been rough — a few kicks, some belts with a rifle's butt — yet bored and cursory. He had been freed. With the wide, staring eyes of an idiot and the limp of a man disabled by polio — . as listed on his documentation — he had shambled away from the Americans. And that night Muhammad Ajaq, who was the Scorpion, had started an inquest inquiry as to whether he had been betrayed or merely fallen into the enemy's arms by misfortune, but men had died because he might have been betrayed. There, innocence did not exist. Here, his ability to recognize a mistake wavered.

He heard a vehicle's door slam at the front of the cottage.

He left his friend, the Engineer, behind him. The curtain flicked at a window, the boy's room.

He should have killed the bastard…but he had not.

He came round the side of the cottage, where the climbing rose was thickest.

He heard the woman's piping voice. 'I just wanted to see that you were all well, all enjoying your holiday together.'

And heard the girl's stammered reply: 'Very well, very much enjoying being together.'

At a front window, pressed close to each other and up against the glass panes, were the faces of the rest, staring like fools and frightened. With his hand by his thigh he snapped his fingers at them and saw their retreat. The girl, Faria, had come out through the front door and intercepted the intruder by the porch. The woman was middle-aged, jowled at her throat, and had crow's feet at her eyes; she wore an old waxed coat and a tweed skirt. He thought her strong. He thought she would fight, and saw the nails on her fingers and the heavy boots on her feet — would fight hard for her life. She stood square in front of a mud-spattered Land Rover, parked beside their own car.

She had not yet seen him. 'It seemed only polite that I should call round — you know — to be satisfied that everything was working, that you had everything you needed.'

Neither had the girl seen him. 'Everything's good, fine, no problems, wonderful.'

If he needed to, he would kill her. The woman would condemn herself if she gained entry and meandered through the bedrooms, if she saw the boy, if she entered the room where the waistcoat was laid out, if her questions were persistent, prying.

'There has been a problem with the shower unit — I forgot to tell you about it — and sometimes it needs a bit of a tweak. With so many of you here it might need that…I said to my husband that I really should call by and check the shower flow…' She was moving forward, about to skirt the girl.

He saw the girl's hand reach out, as if in panic. 'There's nothing wrong with the shower.'

'Best to be sure.'

'There's a mess inside — I wouldn't want you to see—'

'Too early, am I? Only take a moment — it's awful when a shower hasn't got the flow.'

The woman was past the girl, on the step, and the door was wide open. The girl's hand snaked out, caught the arm of the waxed jacket, and the woman stared into her face, surprised by her grip. By his orders and planning, Ajaq had killed many, perhaps high hundreds. With his own hand, by shooting, with a knife or by strangulation, he had killed tens. Man or woman, he had never lost sleep for those he had killed. He saw the woman's thickened throat, below the jowl, and buried in it would be the windpipe, where the pressure of his thumbs would be if she entered the cottage. He did not believe there was malice in her, only curiosity but it would be sufficient to condemn her to death — by strangulation.

He stepped forward briskly. 'Can I help you, madam?' He smiled at her.

'Oh, didn't see you…I just popped over to see that all was well with you all. You understand?'

'Madam, I think you embarrass my niece.'

'So sorry; didn't mean to. I just thought…'

He charmed. 'And will embarrass my nephews. Madam, we are late up this morning, and have not yet tidied the cottage. Some are still using the bathroom. Another time, another day would be more suitable. You know, madam, what young people are. Please, madam.'

He took her arm and turned her gently. It was the courtesy that his grandfather would have shown, an old and near-forgotten skill. As a commander in war, he rarely used courtesy, charm, the richness of his smile and the soft persuasion of words, but now he scratched in his memory for them.

'Are you sure — nothing I can do?'

'Nothing, madam. Everything is perfect. And you have our gratitude for the use of a home, at this time that is so special to us, where the comfort and facilities you have provided will be long remembered. We thank you, madam.'

Would she live or die? He could smell soft scent on her. She hesitated, as if she were not often balked, and he saw disappointment slide on to her face. But she turned and, in doing so, safeguarded her life.

She said, 'Well, we all know what young people are, and the mess they leave around…Anyway, if the shower is working…'

'Thank you, madam, for your concern.'

'Right. I'll be on my way. I do Meals on Wheels for the elderly as a volunteer on Wednesdays…So nice to meet you.'

'The pleasure, madam, is for me.'

He opened the Land Rover's door for her, then closed it quietly. She reversed, did a three-pointer, and he waved as she drove off up the track. He did not tremble, or pant, but the fingers that waved her off were those that would have strangled the breath from her lungs.

The girl understood.

Ajaq said, watching the Land Rover labouring on the track, 'Stupid fucking interfering bitch — one step more and she was dead, but she did not take the step.'

He left the waistcoat on the table, surrounded by the carcasses of dead flies, and checked the room a last time. Satisfied, he closed the door after him, locked it, and carried his bag down the corridor. He did not pause, or glance at the room where the boy was but went past it.

The Engineer walked through the living room and into the hail. Two of the kids, and the girl, were in the living room but he ignored them. They were no longer of importance to him.

His friend was at the front door. The Engineer had a choke in his voice — he told his friend that the button switch was taped over, that the device was live. From his pocket, he took one of the two ferry tickets in the envelope and passed it. They hugged, and he heard the car start up. He said, 'I am an old fool, the worst of them. I have done what I came to do, with ill grace but done it. You should be with me…' His cheeks were kissed.'…trust none of them.'

They broke apart. He looked into the face of his friend.. 'Trust no one. Move. Set it in place, and run. There's no shame in running. Come back to me. Hurt them some more in our place, not here.' He felt his eyes watering. 'Is it that important?'

His shoulder was cuffed. He strode to the car and did not look back.

He was driven away. He did not think of the boy who would wear the waistcoat. He had lost count of the number of young men for whom he had made waistcoats and belts, for whom he had rigged the firing switches in cars and lorries. The building of the waistcoat, with the sticks, the debris and the wiring, was so basic to an artist such as himself that he could have fashioned it in his sleep. The car turned on to the main road and they drove by low hedges that had been cut savagely. Once there was a flash of the cottage. Already he thought of the battlefield that was his home.

He settled back in the seat.

He yearned to be beside his friend, lying in a ditch, hunkered down in a grove of palms, or in the upper window of a house, with a wide straight road in view, and the distant rumble of a lorry convoy or a Humvee patrol approaching. With his friend beside him, he would have in his hand a mobile.phone.whose signal could detonate a device built round a 120mm artillery shell with ten kilos of rocket propellant to give it the kick to break through the strongest armour plate reinforcing the sides of any enemy transport vehicle. He thought of the great flash, the crimson and orange flames rising, then the soaring columns of blackened smoke and falling debris. He did not see other traffic, or the homes beside the dual-carriageway, or the kids who kicked footballs, women who pushed buggies and men with small, straining dogs. His thoughts played on sacks of refuse dumped at the side of another dual-carriageway — and in one, under a mass of garbage, and holed by scavenging rats, ten or fifteen kilos of explosive were buried.

The boy who drove him had switched on the car radio, and music blared round him, but he did not care or complain. His thoughts had moved on: a narrow, shallow trench was dug in a dirt road used by patrols at night, used by Humvees with their lights off and with night-vision goggles on the drivers' faces — local men in the villages along the dirt road had been ordered not to drive a tractor or a car on it. A soft rubber pipe was laid in the trench, filled with water and sealed at one end. At the other were the fuse wires that connected when the pipe's water, under pressure from the weight of a Humvee, forced them together — they led to the bomb — and the trench was filled in, dust swept over it.

They hit the motorway. The biggest roads had construction work to reinforce the bridges for the enemy's main battle tanks: a factory turned out the concrete blocks that would strengthen them. Already hollowed out, blocks were brought to him from the factory and he packed the cavity spaces with high-grade explosive putty, then wired in the detonators. Labourers loyal to the struggle cemented in the blocks and routed the wires from them, and the remote firing triggers. He was starting his journey back to the world he knew. Would his friend, ever again, be beside him when the fire, the thunder and the smoke erupted?

The mood, melancholy, ached in him.

He was driven south and the rain slashed against the windscreen, cascading from the wipers. He imagined the reunion, him sweating from the heat, and his friend. A soft footfall, the creak of a door, the shadow coming into a room, the growl of the voice…and he thought that when, if, they met again he would weep, not contain his tears as he had done before getting into the car — and he cursed.

He and his friend, they should never have come…and he did not know where a trap was set and how it would be sprung.

The handler and his dog quartered the Rose Hill park.

He didn't do the discipline bit on these early-morning or late-afternoon exercise sessions. He let Midge run. The discipline would come in the day's work. Then he'd be obliged to have her on a short or long leash and under firm control. She was biddable when they were on duty and would not pull. For now, she ran and covered the grassland at pace. The rain mattered not a damn to her, but there was a heavy towel in the van and he would rub her down before he drove into the city.

She'd done business, and he'd used a plastic bag to clear up after her. The handler's mind was far away. He saw her, careering off to his left, but did not bother to call her back to him. She, and he, had another ten minutes of freedom before he turned his back on Rose Hill…He was thinking of how much he would have to spend on a reliable mountain bike for his daughter on her twelfth birthday, and how long it would be before she grew too tall for it to be of further use.

Abstracted, he followed the line his dog took. He saw the boy on the bench…Pink was his daughter's favourite colour…An Asian boy, his head hidden in his hands…Who'd ever heard of a kid having a pink bicycle?…There was an Asian community in the Normanton district's warren of terraced homes, a century and more old, but he seldom saw their kids here…If she couldn't have a pink bicycle, perhaps green or blue would be more suitable…His dog ran to the boy…More suitable and more easily bought, but was colour important? His dog sniffed at the boy's legs, and the handler focused on him. He thought the boy looked half drowned, as if he'd been hours out in the rain, maybe half the night, and the shoulders of his clothing clung to his big torso…Damn right, colour was important to. a girl on her twelfth birthday…and his spaniel had stretched up on her hind legs, had her front paws on the boy's knees, and her nose was at the hands that held the drooped head…Colour was critical to…The tail wagged with increasing energy, and the nostrils were in the hands.

He forgot the bicycle, and watched.

The dog should not have climbed half over a boy sitting and minding his own business on a bench, and probably the boy had pawmarks over the thighs of his jeans now. He tugged at the string round his neck that held the high-pitched whistle, but the dog was now off the boy, sitting in front of him and barking furiously. Extraordinary that a little creature, his spaniel, could make that cacophony of noise.

For a moment, the handler had the whistle at his lips but he did not blow. The dog's barking would have raised the dead in a cemetery. The rain had come on harder, and he would need the few extra minutes left to him to towel down her coat. The handler thought the spaniel was behaving as if she was out on a training exercise.

On exercise, under supervision that required about half a telephone directory of completed forms, live explosives were brought to the site by the army's people and little caches were hidden under stones, or in plastic bags, which were buried under rubble in the corner of a derelict building, or wrapped with tinfoil and pocketed by a stooge suspect. Then the dog, on the long leash or running free, was urged to locate the caches. She always did, and she'd sniff, find, rock back on to her haunches lift her head and bloody bark for his attention…as she had been taught, as she was doing right now in front of the Asian boy on the bench.

But this was not an exercise and his time, and hers, was up. He whistled hard.

The dog, Midge, did not respond.

He cursed, then strode forward.

'Come to heel, Midge. Come. To heel.' He yelled it, full voice.

0n exercise, when she located the ounce or so of TNT, Semtex — whatever had been hidden for her to find — the reward was a biscuit and loving words. The bag of biscuits was in the van…The spaniel came half of the way back to him, but looking behind her every two, three yards. He was about to grab her.

He called to the boy on the bench. 'Sorry about that. She's a young'un, but not normally daft. Hope she hasn't mucked your clothes…' He bent to take the loose chain collar and had the leash catch in his hands…What struck him, there was no response from the boy: not a wave of acceptance for the apology, not a protest at the mud smeared on his jeans by the dog's paws, and the head stayed down…His dog was as agile, at that age, as a bloody rabbit, and it was gone again. The dog raced over the grass and back to the bench, but did not sniff the hands again. The dog, a yard in front of the Asian boy, barked with ever-increasing intensity.

So, the handler had a problem. Had those long months of training been wasted? The barking rang in his ears.

The handler was a proud man, and his pride rested securely in his belief that he had the best dog in the force. Because of his own efforts, Midge always found the minute caches of explosives on exercises, and he had never known her — at the East Midlands airport, or at Derby's main railway terminus — settle herself in front of a passenger and make that bloody noise. He was also an obstinate man and he did not care to believe that all of that training time was wasted.

He caught his breath.

Then, pride and obstinacy ruled him.

The handler had few doubts, but those he harboured were sufficient for him not to call out an armed-response vehicle. He would do it himself.

Walking with a good step, but with his heart pounding, he went to the bench. The Asian boy never looked up, didn't seem to see his approach, didn't kick the dog away. It fitted no pattern that he had learned on exercises.

Beside him, the spaniel's tail thrashed in excitement.

He said softly, 'I am a police officer. Please, sir, would you stand up? That's right, sir, now turn away from me and put your hands together at your back.'

The handler was obeyed. The boy stood, huge and muscled but without an iota of fight in him, and the handler could not tell whether it was rain that ran down his cheeks or tears. He snapped on the handcuffs, then patted down the body and found nothing. His breathing eased. He told the boy why he had arrested him, quoted from a host of anti-terrorism legislation, and cautioned him.

Then he murmured, 'I hope to God you're bloody right on this one, Midge. We're for the high jump if you're not, and it'll be a bloody high one.'

The dog's eyes were on the cuffed hands, and still she barked.

He called in on his radio. Gave his name and call-sign, his location point on Rose Hill as nearest to Grove Street, requested the cavalry get here and soonest — Special Branch and Forensics — and said, 'He's clean, not wearing any form of improvised explosive device. I'm just going on what my dog tells me, and the dog's telling me his hands are contaminated. Over, out.'

The handler knew that, by lunchtime, he and his dog would either be the laughing stock of the force or front-line celebrities.

'Won't be long, sir, then we'll have you in the warm and dry.'

He left the taxi in the forecourt with the meter running and hurried into the hotel foyer. After trying three times to ring the room number, Dickie Naylor had diverted the taxi into Belgravia. Should have been a short run from his club — actually, not a club in the grand sense of the West End, more of a dingy hostelry for retired military officers — to Riverside Villas, but he'd embarked on this course of action and was now down fifteen pounds. It would be twenty when he was dropped, with Hegner, at the side door beside the Thames. He'd slept in central London, just too damn tired to face a night journey back to the suburbs, and he'd been on the pavement, the rain cascading off his umbrella, searching for a vacant taxi when his pager had gone.

Nothing proven, of course. A lad picked up by an off-duty dog-handler in an East Midlands park, and the initial report was of explosives traces believed to be on the lad's hands. Naylor had reacted. Three working days left to him, and in his mind he had wiped away the hesitations and lack of confirmation as yet. Wanted to believe it; So desperately chasing the Grail, willing it to be truth and linked to this last investigation of his career. So, pompously, he had telephoned Anne, had told her that 'Events are moving, my dear, cannot say more, moving at pace, also may not be back this evening, seems we're at the vortex of the storm…' The curtain was coming down on his career, and that career had been utterly unmemorable; three working days remained to right the wrong. He prayed that a dog-handler — one hundred and twenty miles from the capital — had turned up a diamond, not a cut-glass bauble.

He was at the hotel because the American's theme, the previous day, gave logic where there was as yet no proof. He went to the desk, and the lobby oozed understated comfort where his own club had none. When he had telephoned before he had been told that the room's occupant had ordered the switchboard to put no calls through. Face to face with the receptionist, his steely aggression won the day. The connection was made, he was handed the phone.

'Joe? Dickie here. What you said last evening about mistakes and luck, and an ability to exploit-well, with some confidence I think we might be getting there. I'm downstairs with a taxi. Quick as you can, please.' He was about to ring off, then thought. The man was blind, might take an age to dress, could need help. 'Do you need a hand? Shall I come up?'

He was told, and thought he heard a giggle, that a hand was not required. 'I'll be right down.'

Naylor checked his pager, then his mobile — no messages, no texts. He picked up a complimentary newspaper. He sat deep in an, armchair and started on the crossword, then that bloody numbers puzzle and gasped. He had not achieved more than half a dozen of the clues, or more than two lines of numbers…The breath whistled through his teeth. 'Damn me, the old goat,' he muttered.

Hegner came out of the lift and did not need his stick swaying in front of him to find obstacles. Mary Reakes had his arm and guided him. Hegner was dressed smartly: he had on a fresh laundered shirt and his tie nestled flush in the collar. Mary Reakes had on the same suit as the day before and the same blouse. He looked like a cat that had found a carton of cream; she looked as if she had been well and satisfactorily shagged. Naylor's jaw dropped. He would not have thought it possible…Those hands, badly blotched from little shrapnel shards and with the veins prominent, had been over the prim, preserved body of Mary Reakes — he knew they had; her eyes blazed defiance at him — always that way the morning after an office untouchable from Riverside Villas had been bedded overnight. Could recognize it a damn mile off. She seemed to challenge Naylor as she led the American close to him…He couldn't help himself, was wondering whether she kept spare smalls in her desk drawer, and spare— She fixed him, dared him. He crumpled. In all the years she had worked in the outer office beyond his cubicle door, he had never had a remotely personal conversation with her. He did not know what to say, so said nothing.

Hegner, without sight but with that increased intuitive understanding of atmosphere, grinned. 'Hope I haven't abused your hospitality, Dickie. I don't think so…Overpaid, over-sexed, and over here. Guess I scored two out of three…Shame the Bureau's salary levels don't match those of the private sector..' The grin settled to a laugh.

They went through the swing doors and out into the rain. Naylor saw the care she employed to get him down the steps, across the forecourt and into the taxi.

'So, what's this about? A mistake and luck?'

Naylor saw the American's hand rest on Mary Reakes's thigh as the taxi crawled away in the early traffic. He thought himself churlishly abrupt, to the point of surliness, as he briefed quietly, a short paraphrase of what he knew.

And Mary bloody Reakes did not remove the gnarled hand with the surgery scars on it and stared straight ahead at the back of the driver's neck.

The American said, 'I think that was worth getting out of my pit to hear…It figures, it's what I told you. Now, I have just two observations to make. First, you do not allow anyone, that is anyone, to shut me out, because I'll tell you, I've forgotten more than you'll ever know on these matters, and you'll learn damn quick that you depend on my instincts. Second, if you allow the law-enforcement process to crawl over this son-of-a-bitch, you will have made an error of seismic proportions, like pissing into the wind ain't too clever. Got me?'

She said, and didn't shift the hand, 'Our aim is to defend the realm, and that is by the maintenance of civilized standards, and civilized standards involve the gathering of evidence to set before a court. We don't go down into a gutter.'

Naylor said, 'I believe the points you've made, Joe, are understood.'

He thought that age seemed then to catch him, not as the waft of a breeze on his face but as the surge of a gale into his midriff, as if it could have felled him…and he seemed to hear the call of those gulls from far away, and the rumble of the Atlantic's waves on rocks and the whine of wind in overhead wires…and she'd moved the hand, had dumped it back in Hegner's lap. On a grey London morning, with the rain spitting on the road, Naylor appreciated his dependence on the American, and where it would take him — and he had three more working days of service. And the words clamoured in his mind: Look where ordinary people go about their daily business, where your citizens think they're safe.

The group trailed after him. The town's self-appointed historian, Steve Vickers, had one inalienable rule: he never cancelled for inclement weather. He was in good voice as he led the Townswomen's Guild party through High Town; a little forest of dripping umbrellas followed him.

'More than anywhere else in Britain, indeed in the empire, Luton was the greatest centre of hat- and bonnet-making. In the 1851 census, eighty-eight per cent of High Town's females were involved in making headwear to be worn by women in Great Britain and exported — even girls as young as six were described in the returns as "sewers". Any woman in London's Mayfair or Edinburgh's Princes Street or in Dublin, Sydney, New Delhi or Toronto, when dressed at her best would most likely be wearing a hat or bonnet made in these humble streets.'

On a better day, he might have held the attention of the ladies from the Townswomen's Guild.

'Obviously, the annual boom in the trade was-from December to May. The customers wanted new models for the summer, and then thousands more women came to High Town from the surrounding villages to boost the numbers of sewers and stitchers, and most popular of all were the straw hats — not that they would have been in great demand on a day such as this.'

He laughed, smiled, and was rewarded with a sullen response. He knew that a coach where they would be warm was parked by the station and would take them on to Woburn Abbey, the next leg of their outing. The ladies were drenched and only ingrained politeness kept them from abandoning him. He had done the prehistory bit, and the Roman bit. It irked him that his tour of what he called 'The Hat Trail' could be so poorly received.

'The manufacturing lasted through the thirties up to the outbreak of the Second World War. Then habits changed. Women no longer regarded it as essential to wear headgear when they were out and—'

A voice piped up, 'Fascinating, Mr Vickers, and we're very grateful to you. But, as the Guild secretary and speaking for all of us, I really think we've had enough. Please would you be so kind as to lead us back to our coach before we drown?'

He did. If he had ignored the plea and continued with the Trail, his audience would have gone. But Steve Vickers was seldom deflated. His next booking was for Saturday morning, again an early start, and the tour of the town centre — the clock that chimed like Parliament's, the story of the Peace Riot, and he'd heard on the radio that the forecast for the weekend was good. He would not show disappointment at the curtailment: to have done so would reduce the volume of tips as they scrambled on to the coach.

'Yes, I think we have to acknowledge defeat, but you have been wonderful and it has been my privilege to share a little of the town's rich heritage with you. Thank you so much for your interest.'

There was a desultory clapping from under the umbrellas. He led them away. He took some comfort from Saturday's forecast, when he would be in St George's Square, under the town hall's clock, across the open space from the shopping centre; he hoped then for a good attendance and a better purse of tips.

He realized he hated the man.

David Banks sat in the public gallery. His Glock was on his hip and gouged awkwardly into it; it was with Wally's agreement that he had been allowed to wear it into court eighteen — too much palaver to check it into the police booth at the main door, then get it back when he followed the jurors to their sealed room and stood outside at an adjournment, and he'd sensed that the chief inspector had a distaste for firearms but he'd promised — and smiled drily — that the safety catch would be firmly on. He wore the loaded pistol at his belt and had given his guarantee that the weapon could not accidentally discharge a bullet. If the holster, and the Glock's handle, had not pushed into him, Banks might have dozed: nothing to hold his attention as the prosecution's barrister droned through the minutiae of the evidence that the court had heard, that would convict the lowlife brothers. Banks did not close his eyes, let his head sag.

The public gallery was divided into two sections by an aisle. The case detectives, men and women from the Crime Directorate, were in the other section, and among them were uniformed constables of the beefed-up security detail. On the row in front of Banks, two women had gold at their throats, real fur on the collars of their coats and highlights in their hair; he thought them cousins of the lowlife or mistresses. Beyond the court door were more uniforms and some of them had Heckler & Kochs slung from black webbing straps, but Banks's was the only firearms officer inside — and the damn thing hurt him.

Nothing of the Victorian history of the building seeped into court eighteen. It was, he thought bitterly, 'customer friendly', designed to put men and women at their ease, to make them lose sight — with the soft pastel paint on the walls, and the beechwood furnishings — of the real world of crude violence, that of the Curtis brothers. The judge, didn't seem a bad sort, was on a shallow raised dais to his right, and the brothers were at the far end to his left; there were only low panels hiding their legs, no armoured glass screen or a cage's bars to keep them in place. Between the judge and the prisoners there were layers of lawyers, then the court staff, and the prosecution's man ploughed his way through his prepared notes. About the only damn action was from the stenographer who rattled away at her keyboard. Opposite Banks was the jury.

His Principal was in the second row. The guy lounged easily in his seat and was one of the few who took no notes of the barrister's address. Didn't have on a clean shirt, as the other men did. Hadn't combed his hair, and the other men's was tidily brushed. Banks knew the first names of the jury, and his Principal was close, too close, to the woman on his right, Vicky. She wore a cheesecloth-type blouse and a loose-fitting cotton skirt of bright print colours, both of which showed off her body's contours, and his Principal was too bloody close to her. The chests, shoulders and heads of the front rank of jurors cut off his view of the hips and knees of the one called Vicky and his Principal, but he fancied they would be touching, which was too damn close.

The hatred gnawed in him. He could have stood up then, pushed himself to his feet, interrupted the calm and quiet of the barrister's words — could have yelled, full volume, from the depths of his throat, a torrent of obscenities.

David Banks loathed Cecil Darke, the man whose notebook was in his jacket pocket with the pebbles and coins, resting on the Glock's holster.

He had no photograph of Cecil Darke, his great-uncle, only imagined images. Probably small, probably slight, probably anonymous in a crowd, probably had a squeaky voice, probably had no distinguishing marks…His ignorance consumed Banks Probably had courage, determination…The man overwhelmed him, had destroyed already the delicate equilibrium of his life. Cecil Darke had pitchforked his way, uninvited, into the life of his great-nephew. Each hour of the day, and most of those at night when he slept and dreamed, Banks now walked alongside the volunteer in the British battalion — and had been with him when the vitality of hope was lost on the sodden, frozen or parched fields of battle. Had learned to love and admire Cecil Darke. Had learned of his own life's destruction by association. Had learned to curse. Had learned to hate, loathe, detest. The words from a canteen lark played in his mind, and a senior man's, and the caution of an armourer: his defence of Cecil Darke had imploded on him. David Banks was, and could recognize it — as a price for that defence — rejected by his team and cast out, alone…He was with a bloody jury, was reckoned unreliable by the Delta crowd, unable to hack the big-time. They wanted, in Delta, 'steady' men, 'team' men, and they thought his defence of his great-uncle left him short of the qualities they demanded. He had no one to confide in — felt naked, vulnerable, a failure.

He would read, in the lunch adjournment, another, page and another entry of lost hope and growing misery. He could not help himself…The hatred surged in him for what the diary had made him.

His teeth scraped together. Then he bit savagely at his tongue — because that was what loathing did to him…And his bloody Principal — a hero of the hour — sat too damned close to the woman in the blouse and the full skirt.

He was gone again, had returned as a witness to the wire and the foxholes, and he seemed to hear the thunder of exploding shells and to lie on the dusty earth as aircraft circled above him, searching for targets. He could not free himself from it.

They were like those twins, joined at the hip…and unlike those twins featured on TV, joined also at the knee.

If she didn't like it, she was free to have shifted in her seat.

Perhaps she had not wriggled clear of him because she hadn't noticed that his hip and his knee were against hers, perhaps she didn't give a toss whether his hip and knee were pressured against her, perhaps.. God, the prosecution's wind-up speech was crushingly dull. Why bother? Guilty on all counts and chuck away the bloody key.

What mattered now to Jools Wright was the afterwards, and the afterwards was getting damnably complicated. They'd all been given the lecture on Duty of Care…but not given an answer to the question of how long Duty of Care ran for. A week, a month, a year after the finish of the trial? Didn't know. How long would he have a sour-faced policeman travelling with him, sitting with him, not speaking to him? Didn't know. Where were they going to be living, him, Babs and Kathy? Didn't know. When was he going to be able to go back to work once the jury-service cash finished? Didn't know…What was lovely was the soft, giving feel of the pelvic bone against his hip, and her knee against his. Nice lady, Vicky, and to be respected because there weren't many who could make their own shoes — and there was a quite lovely beddable scent to her, as if she hadn't washed well that morning in the stampede to get breakfast down, be on the charabanc and out of that dismal camp — and there weren't many who would have tolerated his hip and knee against hers. Had he ever spoken to her? Anything more than 'Excuse me, could you please pass the salt?'

'Excuse me, the brown sauce, please.'

'Excuse me, do you have it verbatim what that Forensics woman said?' No, he didn't think so. It was almost cheeky of Vicky, but half the buttons on her blouse were undone, and the ones that were fastened bulged fit to bust. A very nice lady was Vicky…No, the afterwards concerned him.

He looked up. God, the man looked miserable. Furrows on the forehead that came together in a knotted mess. He stared across the court and felt the slight motion of Vicky's body as she wrote busily on one of the sheets of paper pulled from her chaotic tapestry bag. He had heard not a word the barrister said. What had that bloody detective on his mind that pulled a face so damn abject? What was his 'afterwards'? Mr Banks, because he only responded if given a title, had allowed — with bloody awful grace — one phone call to Babs, from the breakfast room. He'd said quietly, 'Just thought you'd like to know, my love, where your spirit of Trafalgar Day bravery — and your ethical certainties — have left us. We had a Molotov cocktail through the front window this morning. Not to worry, minimal damage to furniture and fittings, and the Criminal Compensation crowd will meet the cost. Hope you're both well, and my regards to your parents…Oh, I've stolen your glad rags. To the police, I'm an alpha-grade hero for doing my duty, a shining example to a law-abiding society…Lots of love, have to dash, off for a spot more heroism. 'Bye.' None of the others knew it was him who'd coughed the load, under duress. His little secret. Tools could have said, 'I am not what I am'—Othello, good old Shakespeare — but would not: the deception gave him pleasure. He stared across the well of the court. His glance was met coldly…bloody miserable sod. The detective — fools reckoned — looked like the burden of life crushed him…Finally, the prosecution had sat-down, and that smug look played at the lawyer's mouth, must have given a peroration at the end, and he couldn't recall a word of it. Three cheers, caps in the air, and the defence was on his feet. They were getting there, nearer to the afterwards.

His imagination? Was the pressure of Vicky's hip harder against his? Just so damn lovely to dream.

Jools thought he sleep-walked — trouble was, he didn't know the destination.

A convoy had come, with no regard for the legal speed limit, south down the M1.

A motorcycle, lights flashing, had cleared the fast lane in front of the two performance cars that rushed towards the capital.

A prisoner, huddled in the back of the lead car, sat sandwiched between two Branch men and wore white-paper overalls.

A uniformed officer held-the traffic on the Edgware Road and the cars slewed right and into the basement yard of Paddington Green police station.

A blanket was draped over the prisoner's head as he was hustled inside the cell block.

A news blackout lay over the arrest.

A spaniel sniffer dog, far to the north, wolfed biscuits happily and was the celebrity of the hour.