The Walking Dead

Chapter 19

He waited for his Principal to be dressed, to appear.

Banks paced the living room, could hear the breakfast cooking. He had opened a window and freshened the room.

He strode the length of the carpet, or the width of it, varied his steps, did the settee to the hallway door and the window to the kitchen. Sunlight came in off Inkerman Road, and he wanted to be outside where there was cleanness, not the old smell of his body that still hung in the room. No, he had no objection to walking into the town and stretching himself; it was what he often did from the bedsit, tramped the streets round the green in Ealing to settle himself before taking the Underground into work. It was the habit of long ago, of childhood, to take the collie out and walk the perimeter of a couple of fields, have the dog sniff at fox holes and badgers' setts before collecting his satchel and going up the lane to the stop and the school bus…When it was over, next Monday morning, and his letter, his card and his authorization were dumped on his superior's desk, he would be gone and free to walk till he dropped in mountain valleys and beside great lakes and across desert spaces. He stopped, and could not have said why.

On one side of him the breakfast cooked and he heard her washing up the last night's meal; on the other, behind the door, his Principal whistled to himself and was dressing.

Banks was alone, unseen.

Not for much longer, maybe for the last time, he did the drills.

Jacket on, coins and pebbles and the notebook in the right-side pocket that hung heavily. The target was the door into the hallway.

Swung on his hips, threw back the weight of his pocket, right hand dropping to the Glock. The Glock out of the pancake. Weight on his toes, feet apart, went to Isosceles. Arms outstretched, hands clamped together on the Glock's butt, the right hand's forefinger on the trigger guard. Over the needle sight and V sight was the door — was a bank thief, an assassin, a guy holding a kid in his arms. Did it again and again, and — heard her.

'For Heaven's sake, is it that serious?'

Slapped the Glock back into the pancake, felt the glow of his blush. 'Sorry — did I frighten you? I was just grandstanding. Is there that much danger?'

He felt the tension ooze away, and the blood from his cheeks. 'It's only a precaution. I apologize, you shouldn't have seen that.'

'I'm not a fool, please. I know what things cost. I assume, and you'll not deny it, that you don't come cheap — that the danger's real, and the threat.'

'We try to minimize them.'

'You're telling me that people would want to kill fools.'

Banks said, 'Money was proffered; was taken, and people believed that a promise was given in return. The promise was broken and the payment was reported to the judge. Mr Wright has made lifelong enemies and their aim now will be to track him down, hurt him a great deal, then murder him. The two brothers involved will receive, if they are convicted, exceptionally heavy terms of imprisonment, locked away in maximum-security cells. Mr Wright will be the target of their demand for revenge, and they'll he obsessed by it. They have money and they have contacts. They will ensure that Mr Wright is hunted down. I have to tell you, Miss, that your association with him puts you into the front line. We're around, mob-handed, till the verdict and, hopefully, the sentence. After that, Mr Wright and his family, and you, become increasingly vulnerable — budgets are assessed and are not bottomless pits. That's what it's about.'

'Actually, I'm throwing him out.'

'I told it like it is.'

'It's over, nothing to do with you.'

'That, Miss, is not my business.' Banks shrugged.

'Good sex and going nowhere. I have a transfer, a chance to start something new. Like I said, he's a lying bastard and more fool me for hanging on too long. I'm going to tell him after breakfast. Would you shoot to protect him, knowing what he is?'

He paused, turned away from her, faced the window and the sun dazzled him. 'While I draw my wages, I do what is necessary in my job.'

Ajaq moved, left the bench behind him.

He did not walk on the open esplanade, but went down the steps where the woman and her dog had gone.

His head was level with the top of the retaining wall that separated the walkway from the beach. The dried stones of the shingle, above where the tide pushed the surf, crackled, crunched, under his feet.

Caution was inbred in him. He cursed the noise he made, but went quickly, had estimated how long it would take him to walk the beach, go past the shelter ahead, then climb back to skirt, the pier, descend again for the kilometre to the harbour's entrance. He would arrive when the checks took place for foot-passengers' tickets and passports in the last five minutes before the gates closed on the ferry's sailing schedule. Going this way, on the shingle and with the wall alongside him, he minimized the chance of being observed. If men sitting in a car on the far side of the road beyond the esplanade, or in the back of a van, were waiting for him, he did not think he would be seen. He had no reason to believe that surveillance teams were in place, but suspicion was a habit he would not break.

He smelt the tang from the sea. His feet crushed brittle shells. He checked the luminous face of his watch to see how many minutes remained to him to reach the harbour's gates…not to know how many minutes remained before the boy jostled for a position among the queue on the steps he had been shown. His mind was focused, clear of detritus.

In front of him he saw the roof of the shelter, and bright sunlight played on the faces of two elderly men. One had darkened spectacles, and they sat in silence. He dismissed them. Further ahead, beyond the shelter, was the black outline of the pier, and the waves broke against the pillars to which weed was attached. Near to the pier were more steps that he must climb.

Sudden fear caught him. He wanted to run. It was the sight of the pier and the shadowed depths below it, the slurp of the water against the pillars. He could not see under it because none of the sun's low brilliance reached there. Further out, at the end of the pier, the waves broke with force and tossed spume. He had no knowledge of the sea. In childhood, in northern Jordan and at the home of his grandparents, he had never been taken to the resort town of Aqaba far to the south. The sea and its force — its power as it broke against the pier's pillars — were alien to him. He checked himself.

Muhammad Ajaq despised fear in others.

Fear was corrupting.

He was so far from what he knew.

Coming closer to the pier, near to level with the shelter above him, he could no longer see the shape of the ferry, moored and awaiting him. It was his target and he craved to see it. With fear there was chaos. He had shot men who showed fear. Fear turned a man's mind. He had kicked the legs from under men who trembled, had the pallor of fear on their faces, aimed a rifle at the back of their heads and killed them. Fear destroyed a man. Now it captured him.

He knew it, he must not run. If he ran, submitted to the fear, he would reach the harbour checks with sweat on his forehead and hands, and he would not be able to meet the eyes of men who stared back at him from behind a cubicle desk…Fear would betray him. He had not shown fear when he had been in the brief captivity of the Americans and had used the bogus limp and the bogus papers to extricate himself. He gulped air to calm himself.

For a moment he stopped dead. He shook himself, tried to loosen the stress that tied his muscles and loosened his gut. He took a deliberate, steadying step forward.

He saw only what was ahead of him, the shelter where two men sat and the darkness of the pier. His mind was blurred.

Each step forward was harder than the last, but he did not run.

'He's coming.'

'No one's coming.'

'And I'm telling you, he's coming.'

'Don't you listen? No one,' Naylor said, with snapping impatience. 'I hear him.'

'The last time I tell you — I can see four hundred yards away, and it is empty. Is that clear to you? No one is coming. What I reckon is, you've made a major error of judgement.'

Dickie Naylor stared up the length of the esplanade, past streetlights and past benches. He saw gulls and blowing plastic bags. Surprising, really, with the sun out, but not a living soul was there. He scratched round his eyes, blinked, looked again. Of course the American wanted to believe his man was coming: a bloody reputation hinged on it. Two reputations in reality. He glanced down at his watch, did the mathematics.

'I'm as sorry as-you are, Joe. I can't conjure a man up when he's not there. That boat's going to sail without him. I've as much to lose as you, maybe more.'

'You don't hear him, but I do. I'm just going to sit and listen for the both of us.'

As if to humour a child: 'What can you hear, Joe?'

He was jabbed hard in the ribs with the stick's curved handle. 'I can hear feet on loose stones.'

Naylor stiffened and straightened. He heard the gulls' cries, the wind against the lamp-posts and the surf rumbling. He heard the feet slip and dislodge shingle and fracture shells. He stood. He stared down at the beach, at a man's head and the shoulders where the straps of a bag were hitched.

'There, Joe…' A panted whisper. 'On the beach, almost level, coming to us.'

'Description? Quickly.'

'Middle thirties, Arab but pale. Might be half-caste. Has a bag.'

'More.'

'Like he's in a trance, far away, doesn't see me.'

'Focus now, get me close.'

Naylor took Hegner's arm and pulled him up. Dragged him. The stick caught Hegner's legs, but Naylor steadied him. He led him away from the shelter and to the knee-high wall on the esplanade. The man was below them, level with them.

'You're close, Joe.'

It seemed to Naylor an age, but it was not. In his ear, Hegner murmured soft and private, 'I've come a long way to find you. Now I've found you and I'm going to fuck you. You are the Scorpion…'

The head turned. Naylor realized that Hegner had spoken in guttural Arabic. The head twisted as if it was tugged round.

'Reacted,' Naylor muttered at Hegner. 'Bloody poleaxed.'

The man took two paces, but shingle scattered under his feet and he stumbled. Naylor saw the confusion spreading on his face, then the head shaking — as if he was clearing it, his mind going at flywheel speed. Such a damned simple trick, so bloody basic, and Naylor had seen the reaction of hesitation at the Arabic language, in quiet talk, and the jerk of the head at the word that was 'Scorpion'. He would run — yes, of course — towards the pier…but he didn't.

His hands on to the wall.

The heave and the push, the scrape of smoothed stones flying from under him.

The man came up and over the wall. Naylor saw the power of him, saw him coil his body, as if he would break out. What threatened him? Naylor thrust Hegner back behind him, heard the sharp cry, and Hegner fell…What threatened the man, blocked his escape, was Dickie Naylor, who might or might not get to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday the next day, and blind Joe Hegner, who was on the ground behind him. The man came near, crouched, was on the balls of his feet, poised, launched his bloody self.

They might do survival and self-defence with recruits, these days, might not…but they didn't do refreshers for old warriors.

Fists into Naylor's head and upper body, a knee into his groin, savage kicks at his shins and ankles. He had never before faced a beating — not in his youth, in his middle years, not now that he was old. He felt his breath wheeze out of his lips, he could not see and the pain surged. He collapsed. Going down made him an easier target. The fists beat at his upper head as he sank on to the paving, and the knee hit under his chin and the kicks were now in his stomach. He couldn't protect himself. He toppled further, felt the softness of Hegner's body under him, and the broken glass of spectacles slash his cheek, added to the blood that came from his mouth. Naylor thought it was where he would die. Old school, old chap, old warrior and saw duty. 'Made sure he was over Hegner. Cried out once, not again — had no wind left in him. More blows battered him. Scrabbled with his hand — not bloody ready to die. Felt anger.

The stick was in his hand, its glossed white paint in his fist.

Remembered little of what had gone before, but remembered the tapping hard beat of a stick, the story of a blind man's stick being removed from him — at the main door, s security check — because its tip would set off the metal detector alarm. Remembered that.

Naylor had the stick, drove it up. Smelt the breath over him, imagined the moment that the man readied himself for the chop blow to the neck. Not bloody ready to die. He pushed up with the stick in one violent thrust and felt it catch softness. Heard a gasp, then a choke. Somewhere soft, maybe in the throat. He braced himself, but the next kick did not come.

He heard a hacking, coarse cough, then the stamp of feet running away fast.

And he heard, 'You all right, Dickie?'

'Not really' The pain throbbed in him.

He looked up. Saw the back of the man, the pier and the parked car.

He tried to push himself up, failed, tried again, was on his feet and staggered, like a drunk does, and tasted blood. The man ran towards the pier. Without the stick he would have toppled. The man careered away, and Naylor saw that he had a hand raised to his throat, as if he had been badly hurt there. Who had seen it? Nobody. A milk cart went by Two children scurried for the beach, kicking a ball ahead of them. A dog ran into the surf in pursuit of a thrown toy. Nobody had seen him made into a punch sack.

'If you can, get me up…'

Naylor dragged Hegner to his feet, then leaned on him.

'…and give me my goddamn stick. Has Twentyman gone where I said he would?'

'He's getting there.'

'Talk to me. I've waited so damn long, Dickie. Tell me what's going on.'

They followed the man slowly. Hegner had the stick and took Naylor's weight. The sunshine was on his face and he used his tongue to lick the blood from his lips. He said what he saw.

The man ran in full flight, approaching the car. Suddenly its doors opened fast. Boniface and Clydesdale came out of the car. Their view would have been blocked by the shelter and they would not have known that he was down, and Hegner, would have known nothing until they saw the man charge on the esplanade towards them with Naylor and the American in hobbling pursuit: but they'd reacted. The man swerved to avoid the near side door, and lost his footing as it smacked against him. He fell against the little brick wall that held ornamental shrubs. Boniface and Clydesdale were on him; one at the upper body and one at the knees. The cluster of them dropped. He saw the fight. Arms, legs, buttocks heaved up, down, and writhed, as if it was a haphazard playground scrap. Naylor could not tell whose body was uppermost, but he saw punches flail. He pulled Hegner after him, gripping his arm. Far beyond the pier, two young women pushed prams and talked, never looked ahead. And then it was over. He saw the pinions go on to lifted arms and on to the ankles. They knelt on him, and the man's bag lay discarded.

Naylor took Hegner close. He looked down into the face and thought it that of a wild creature. The eyes, burning, stared back, raged. There was discolouration already in the centre of the throat, near the chin. The mouth was open and the breath rasped. The plastic binding was tight on the wrists and ankles, and the two men's weight was squatted down on him…yet Naylor could not believe, not completely, that the man no longer represented a danger to him. It filtered into his mind: it was an old poem from school, and a grievously wounded naval captain — an Elizabethan hero — was on the deck of a Spanish galleon, helpless, but his captors would not go close to him, still feared him. He told Hegner what he saw, what was in his mind. But Hegner broke the grip restraining his sleeve, and reached out. It was Boniface who took Hegner's wrist, seemed to know what he wanted, and guided the hand down. Clydesdale had his fist in the man's hair, ensured his head could not move. Hegner's fingers were taken down, so gently, by Boniface, and came to rest on the man's forehead. The fingers slid on the skin from the forehead to the eye sockets, from the eyes across the cheeks and over the shape of the nose. They skirted the mouth and rambled over the stubble on the chin. Naylor understood. Hegner learned the man, as if his fingers on the features made a photograph for him.

Hegner rocked back, and Naylor pulled him upright.

Not to Naylor, Hegner said, 'I want his bag and his documents, and I want him weighted.'

It was done. Boniface searched pockets, produced a ticket, a passport and a slim wallet, then threw the bag at Naylor's feet. Clydesdale did not loose the hair, but kicked hard and backwards with heavy boots and broke the side of the shrub bed to loosen the bricks.

To Naylor, Hegner said, 'Don't you countermand what I ask of them.'

Naylor said, vomit in his mouth, 'I'll not describe it, damn well won't.'

To Boniface and Clydesdale, Hegner said, 'Weight him well and put him over, where it's deep.'

He saw whole bricks and broken bricks shoved into pockets and down the trouser waist, knew they would be held in place by the ankle pinions. He wondered whether the man would cry out, beg, plead, at the last. He gazed into the face of an enemy, at the features over which Hegner's fingers had moved. Saw contempt and defiance. It struck him then, worse than any kick or knee blow or punch, the power of that enemy. Could it ever be bloody beaten? They had him up. One on each arm, in a shuffling run, they dragged him on to the pier. Naylor turned away.

He watched the approach of the young women. He held a handkerchief over his face and hoped to hide the split lips, the blood and the bruising. They never looked at him, did not break step, or their conversation. He heard the babble of their talk as they passed him. Was it done in their name, to keep them safe, and the babies they pushed? He listened for a splash but heard only the waves, above deep, dark water, pounding the pillars.

Naylor said, 'Joe, if it is for vengeance, then that is a shaming motive. It does no credit…'

Hegner said, 'Put him in the legal chain and he has a lawyer, and he doesn't speak during human-rights-controlled interrogation, and he becomes an icon of resistance, and kids all over speak his name. My way, he disappears. He's gone from view, from sight — where to? Confusion is created. Men move, men make calls, men hit the email. They have to know where he is. And if they don't? Then it's disruption and chaos. It hurts them, hurts them so bad, because they don't know. I live off mistakes made. Do they change codes, change safe-houses, change the membership of cells? They're in ignorance and they flounder…Think about it. Now, can we go find some coffee, Dickie?'

He saw Boniface and Clydesdale walk back from the pier, short lengths of the plastic ties in their hands. They would have cut them at the moment they stunned him with a blow, then pitched him over…Could be a week, or two weeks, longer, before the nameless body was found, and he thought of the scientists and engineers — the new soldiers of the front line in the new war — scouring air waves for messages sent by an enemy who was confused and disrupted…and thought also of a boy in a white T-shirt with an angry bloody swan on it.

'You forgot that damned Saudi kid.'

'Didn't forget him, but I prioritized. Please, I'd like to go back and look for my glasses, what's left of them, then I want some coffee. Dickie, you let the kid take his chance and you don't know, and I don't, what might happen. All I'm saying is, the glass is half full — believe in the bright side.'

Lee Donkin's targets were those who hoarded a bus fare in their purses, didn't have a car available to them and would walk all the way down the main road into the town and would not fritter what money they had collected for the sale in the shopping centre.

The sun was on his pale face.

His hood was up and, drawstring tied, none of his hair and little of his features, vindictive and cold, were visible. His gloves were on, and those of his right hand were in his pocket and on the handle of the short, double-edged knife. Because it was too many days since he had last injected himself, it was difficult for him to walk and more difficult for him to concentrate on a target. Once, he went forward, increased his speed sharply and came near to a woman with a buggy, but she must have heard the hiss of his breath: she turned abruptly and confronted him. She had an umbrella, folded and concertinaed, in her fist as a weapon, and he backed off.

The aches in his chest and stomach were not from hunger or thirst, but from the craving.

He saw another woman, ahead and on the pavement, and again stretched his stride, but he saw a police car crawling in traffic towards him, and the chance was lost.

He looked ahead and behind and could not see a lone prey, without people close. He swore…He reached a favoured place. Had struck there three times in the last two months, and there were boarded-up toilets beside the pavement that were surrounded by an overgrown evergreen hedge, then a school's playing-fields. He leaned against a lamp-post.

Must wait — and desperation swam in him.

What did he need food for? He did not need food, and she had none to give him.

She had heard his stomach growl as he had prayed.

He had knelt and faced a wall barely visible in the dull, dark room. She did not know what his mind saw but there was content on his face when he had finished. Her own lips moved, spoke the rehearsed speech, but in silence. She weighed it, the decision as to when she would make the speech, and whether it was necessary…There was no need for him to eat, and Faria knew the time had come.

She took the bucket to him, and the damp, sodden T-shirt she had used the night before. She washed him again. In his armpits and round the neck where sweat had gathered in the night and his arms, legs and face. She squirted the scent on him. He looked down at her as she crouched on her haunches in front of him, but she could not read him.

He lifted his feet and allowed her to manoeuvre the pants and trousers over them, and she pushed them up and pulled the zipper high, then buckled his belt. She put on his socks and trainers, tightened the laces and knotted them, and her hands fumbled it. He was impassive; she did not know whether he felt fear, whether the strength she had tried to give sustained him. She stood, then bent to lift the T-shirt from the careful pile she had made. He held out his arms and she threaded it over them. Faria saw the swan, and its open beak, its wide, outstretched wings: did the bird, in its anger, curse her? She gazed into his face, then sucked breath into her lungs.

She took the waistcoat from the plastic sack, felt its weight. She swatted at the flies crawling over the bags of shit tied to it. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this. Nothing at home, nursing her sick, demented mother, nothing in keeping house for her father and brothers before they left for the religious schools of Pakistan, nothing at school, where she had passed with distinction all the examinations she had sat, nothing in the room above the house that had become a cultural centre, where she had watched the videos of smiling women making declarations of Faith and then had seen buses, military convoys and street markets erupt in fire, where she had been recruited…nothing in the long months as a sleeper, and the call nothing in the cottage.

Its weight sagged in her fingers. He held out his arms, and she slipped one through the space, then went behind him and guided the second through. She saw the pressure from the waistcoat settle evenly on his shoulders, and almost drag him down — but he straightened his back, took the weight. He had the button switch — which she had bought in the hardware shop and might have been used on the light beside her bed at home — in the palm of his hand, pulled the guard cover off it, and she saw the routing of the wires to the detonators, the taping that fastened them to the sticks in the waistcoat's pouches.

The hand that held the button switch was inserted into the sleeve of the leather jacket, then emerged and disappeared again into the side pocket. When his hand was there, inside the pocket, the wire was hidden.

She wanted to be gone. She hurried. Stepped back from him. Left him standing statue still. Threw the jilbab over her head, wriggled and let it fall, wrapped the dupatta round her neck, over her hair and across her face. Needed to be gone from the stink of the place, its darkness, the sweet sickly stench of the perfume.

She.went to the door, crouched at it. He was by the bucket. She had seen his nakedness, but now he was turned away from her. She heard the tinkle against its side before he drew up the zip. He would not kiss her, as he had done in the night — lips on lips, tongues into mouths, teeth gentle on the hardness of her nipples — he had turned away from her so that she would not see it, and his dignity would not be lost…It was over. She had done what she had been told to, had made him strong.

Faria said brusquely, without love, 'Time to go. Come on.'

She moved the plank, went first into the gap. He followed, eased himself through and was careful not to jar the waistcoat under the heavy jacket, blinked in the bright sunlight. She led him up the side of the house. At the end of the wall, Faria looked right, then left, was satisfied and walked quickly to the pavement.

They were a young man and a young woman, unexceptional, unremarkable, on an empty road, heading for its end. At the top of a hill they turned right and began the walk towards the town centre.

The crowds had filled the steps to the doors. Ragged queues stretched across the square, and were already level with the library entrance.

Cheerful — eating chocolate, smoking, gossiping — anticipation grew, and the sun had climbed above the town-hall clock tower and warmed them.

'It's Mary, isn't it? There's tea or coffee, whichever you prefer. And as of this morning you have taken over stewardship of a section particularly important to us, am I correct? Do help yourself to biscuits or a croissant. I'm told you have grave personal concerns as to the legality and morality of Service actions in this current time of crisis. Those are the fundamentals? Please, take a seat. You asked specifically to see me this morning when, sadly, the dictate of events gives me little time to lay at your disposal, but you should know — and I emphasize it — I take most seriously any such anxieties from the brightest and best of our staff. You know that? Mary, you have my full attention.'

Light poured into the room, pierced the bombproof glass of the windows…and she knew already she was wasting her time. On the upper floor, in the director general's sanctum where she had never been before one on one, he had waved her to a chair that faced the window. While she had nervously, cluttered herself with a cup of tea and a saucer, he had taken a position where he leaned easily against the window-sill. To look at him, to hold his eye, she must peer into the full force of the sun. She was disadvantaged, and understood that nothing was by chance.

She said that a prisoner with proven explosives traces had been wrongly freed from Paddington Green's cells.

'I followed the matter, personally, very closely. I was told subsequent forensics disproved earlier conclusions…but please continue.'

She said it was her belief that the prisoner had been freed, then abducted by her superior — who acted in concert with an American, a liaison agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…and she remembered the hands on her and the way they had explored not only her body but her face, and she stumbled on what she said — for the purpose of illegal torture and abuse.

'That is a most desperately serious allegation, Mary, but — in your own words — a belief, not substantiated with evidence. For all that, I assure yo I will follow this trail with the utmost rigour. What else, Mary do you have for me?'

She was about to speak when his red telephone, in a bank of three, rang. He grimaced, as if to tell her that he was obliged to answer, a tacit apology for the interruption. He showed no elation or satisfaction that she could see. He repeated the short bullet phrases he heard: 'a facilitator' and 'resisting arrest and broke free' and 'lost in the sea' and 'presumed drowned' and 'a treasure trove of documentation recovered' and 'nothing on the bomber'. He listened closely for a few more moments, then replaced the receiver.

'Where were we, Mary?'

She had no more heart for it. She said that she had told him what she knew.

'May I freshen your cup, no? Another biscuit, no? I think, forgive me, it was that you believed you knew, but could not swear to…but don't doubt that I will follow this through as soon as our present difficult time is played out…May I remind you, Mary, that Dickie Naylor has been a most loyal and devoted servant of our organization for thirty-nine years, a stickler for rectitude, and I find it hard to imagine he would have entered the realms of illegality. The presence of the American is something we welcome, a man of great experience in his field, but I would remind you of last year's speech by his government's secretary of state when she championed the rule of law in dealing with prisoners and most categorically denied they were subject to maltreatment. I quote, "use every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists"…Even if well-intentioned, Mary, innuendo cannot be permitted to blacken the names of good men.'

She stood up, put down her empty cup, thought herself a chastised schoolgirl.

He said, 'You will, of course, be pleased to hear that early this morning the facilitator, a senior organizer in that murderous gang of zealots, was intercepted as he tried to flee the United Kingdom, broke free but went into the sea and is presumed drowned — good riddance — but he left his travel papers behind him. That information, Mary, is UK Eyes Only and it would do extreme damage to the war against terror should his people learn of his loss and what we have recovered…But, Mary it goes without saying that you have my complete trust.'

Her head was down. She thanked him for his time. She was at the door.

'Oh, a final thought, Mary. The vernacular for such a person is "whistleblower". It is not, in my opinion, a wise route for anyone to follow. It leads inevitably to resignation, the end of a bright, prospering career, and to denigration from previously valued colleagues. New friends might appear to lionize the blower, but it's short-termism in the extreme. Their usefulness past, the blower is discarded,'left lonely and unemployable. I hope you have found our talk helpful.'

She said brightly, 'I have and I'm grateful. Thank you.'

It had been helpful, she reflected, and disguised her rampant bitterness, because she was not a trade unionist, or a Communist, or a Jew.

She closed the door after her.

They were walking along the pavement towards him, towards the boarded-up toilets and the shadows thrown by the hedge where Lee Donkin waited.

Tremors shook his arms and legs, and he bit down hard on his tongue, his lower lip.

There was heavy traffic going both ways on the road, but still moving. Not another pedestrian within a hundred yards of them, behind them. He checked the sports field: kids booted a ball towards goal-posts that had no net but there were no adults with them. Lee Donkin thought his patience rewarded. His escape run was clear.

The man wore a heavy leather jacket, his body bulging under it, and his hands were in the pockets. The expression on his face was vacant, as if he was distracted, but he had a slight smile on his face. The woman alongside him was dressed in the black robe — what Lee Donkin called 'binbag gear'—had a scarf across her face, and a bag hooked up on her shoulder. They were not talking. They didn't look right or left, just walked. He would have said, Lee Donkin would have, that they saw nothing…would not see him until he hit them. He readied himself, which made the shaking worse, tensed and flexed.

They came level with the hedge.

Lee Donkin was out fast from the shadow, was on them before he was seen. He hit the woman with his shoulder, heard her gasp, saw the shock. She reeled away, nearly fell into the road as a lorry went by. He had his hand on the strap of the bag and tried to drag it clear of her, but she clung on. A kick slashed at the muscle on the back of his shin. His hand went into his pocket, clasped the knife handle — should have had it out at the start. The man grappled him. The woman held on to her bag and used her free hand to pound him. He was vicious but not strong. Was bloody losing…Wouldn't have realized it, but the addiction had sapped him. He had a grip on the leather jacket and tried to pull it closer to him to make the stab thrust shorter. Tugged and ripped at the jacket and was poised to strike with the knife. Lee Donkin felt his arm twisted back — like it would break, and loosed the knife, lost it. Heard the knife fall…He broke free and fled.

Lee Donkin ran, slipping, sliding, across the mud of the sports field. Past the kids and their bloody ball. Didn't look back, didn't know what he had done. Ran until he dropped, couldn't breathe, then slumped.

She bent, picked up the knife. Crouching, she dropped it into her bag — couldn't have said why.

'You all right, Miss?'

She looked up, saw the driver high in the lorry's cab. She nodded, and stood. Ibrahim was beside her, and seemed detached from it, far away, still smiling, one hand in a pocket.

The lorry pulled away.

They went on together, walking down the hill towards the town.

It was a busy road, no different on a Saturday morning from any other day and it led to a chosen battlefield of the new war…There were no defiles and crag peaks, as in the mountains outside Jalalabad, no high-walled compounds that could be defended, as in the remote villages of Waziristan, no culvert drains into which improvised explosive devices were packed, as under the route from the Green Zone to Baghdad International Airport.

The new war had found a fresh fighting ground where people gathered in a square, and did not concern themselves that they paid the wages of soldiers and airmen, paid for the bullets, shells and bombs that were used in their name, did not think of the consequences, and considered themselves far removed. The news on the radio that morning, if anybody had listened, reported a new operation by American troops in difficult mountain country, a raid by Pakistani military against an Al Qaeda leadership target, a bomb in Baghdad that had killed three South African security guards but it was all a long, long way away.

He heard the breakfast cooking, heard the whistled anthem through the bedroom door, waited to go with his Principal to buy a newspaper and a packet of cigarettes.

David Banks opened the notebook, turned to the last page.

'You ready, Mr Banks? God, you look like you've seen a ghost.'

Low on the settee, his body hid the movement as he closed the notebook, slid it back into his pocket and let it fall on the loose coins and the two pebbles. He said curtly, 'Yes, I'm ready and have been for half an hour.'

'No need to be scratchy.' His Principal grinned. 'Looks like rather a nice day out there.'

She called from the kitchen that they should get a move on or the sausages would be charcoal. He touched the Glock in the holster on his hip, shrugged into his coat and followed Wright out.

Banks walked a pace behind his Principal, and a stride to his Principal's left, held the outer section of pavement. He wondered if an Italian nurse, sixty-nine years, less a few weeks, before, had written the truth of a man's death. Banks raked his eyes over the road ahead and the cars approaching, the people on the pavement, as his training had taught him. He wondered if a man with a hole in his chest and his lung collapsed still felt courageous. Banks saw the ordinariness around him, and sensed no danger.

He thought of betrayal. It would be a big day for betrayal. His, because he had been dumped by the team he should have been with.

Cecil Darke's, because he had been fooled by the cause he'd followed. Julian Wright's, because of what would be said to him after the burned sausages had been served. He thought betrayal made a bad start to a day — to any day.

'Are you always so damn miserable, Mr Banks?'

Ignored him, walked a pace behind and a stride to the side. Saw the cars, saw the faces, saw the square opening out in front of him. Saw the crowds in the far distance.

'All right, what's the story? What's going to happen to me?'

Banks said quietly, as if it was a conversation piece, 'The trial ends and you go into protective custody. You make a statement, which has not yet been done for fear of prejudicing the case you're hearing. If you're lucky you won't be called as a witness in subsequent proceedings because there's a stack of first-hand evidence of arson. You are then let go. You go, if you have an ounce of sense, about as far as is possible. Change your name, change your identity. You forget everything of your past — including your wife and your daughter because they make for the weak link. Only thing you remember is to look over your shoulder, keep looking. Never stop looking into shadows, into darkness, into the faces of strangers. Never think, for what you did, that you're forgotten. How's that, Mr Wright, for a reason to be cheerful?'

'I don't fathom you. I'll miss you, been good having you alongside, does the ego wonders.. Yes, I'll miss you — but I don't understand you.'

'You shouldn't try to.'

He saw the rise of the packed steps, heard the clock ahead strike the quarter-hour, saw the snaking lines of the queues in the square. He thought of betrayal and death, and what a sniper had done, and of a psalm not spoken.