Joseph protests.
Sadly his kerfuffling makes the man lift his hand again, and this new unfairness swinging down to meet Joseph is definitely truncheon-shaped.
Joseph snaps to.
He catches the man’s arm and pulls, hauling both of them off balance. Joseph’s full weight drags them down. The man slaps into the flowerbed beside him. For a second they are nose to nose, pretty much. Then Joseph is lurching up, grabbing at the cosh, pushing the man down with his taped hand as he smashes at him with the other.
Thinking, in a life-flashing-before-eyes sort of way: Zac and the coconut.
He won it at a village fête last summer.
Joseph wasn’t there.
Possibly he was in Houston, nailing down the Mobil deal.
Or maybe he was just uninvited.
Anyway, Zac brought the coconut to show him in Cleveland Square when the ordained weekend came round. How do we get into this, then? A hammer. But, of course, Joseph’s toolbox was at the old house – when would he start calling it Naomi’s? Never! – leaving them stumped. Momentarily! He bought a shiny new hammer from the hardware shop round the corner and together, on a bit of central London pavement, they knocked a hole in the coconut.
The hollow thud, the pleasing sensation of something giving way.
Wow.
It’s tempting to bash this chap again with his own stupid stick, but Joseph resists, partly because in their nose-to-nose state he can tell whoever it is isn’t Lancaster himself, meaning he must be an underling, and anyway, that first thwack, ugh, was sickening, which is possibly why the man is so very still at his feet.
Most still indeed.
Is he dead?
Jesus.
No!
Joseph bends low over the slumped figure. Decides he should hold his wrist over the man’s mouth to check he’s breathing. Very sensitive, wrists. Sadly, Joseph’s has a roll of tape hanging from it, and it sort of clonks the man in the face. Makes the man shiver, though, so that’s something. And yes, he’s still breathing. Shallowly: little sips. Come on, man, keep at it, don’t stop.
Joseph peels himself free of the gaffer tape.
He smells of expensive cologne, this chap.
Is his cheek black with mud or blood?
Joseph rubs at it. Doesn’t feel too wet. And he’s groaning now, trying to say something in fact. What is it? A message from Lancaster.
‘You trod on my …’ the man grumbles. He tails off, losing interest.
But he’s coming to, which is good, isn’t it?
Yes!
Better not be here when he picks up his flowerbed and walks, though.
Just as Joseph is about to get up himself, though, a car rumbles down the lane, its headlights pouring lazily through the big hedge. The drive is nowhere near as long as Joseph recalls. He flattens himself across the prone man. There’s something square in his chest pocket, hard edged, a phone. Joseph pulls it free once the car has gone.
‘Give that …’ the man says, flapping.
Joseph hits the power button and a picture of three children comes to life behind the code screen. Two of the faces are smiling at one another; the third is hidden behind one of the blank boxes. Joseph stares at the picture long enough for the screen to go black, then immediately illuminates it again, thinking damn, damn, damn, and not because he can’t crack the code. He doesn’t even try to do that. Just sits there slowly realising that this chap, unlike him now, is connected. Connected, but groggy. What’s he saying now?
‘The car needs an MOT.’
What?
Either way, he’s broadcasting his whereabouts with this here phone. Meaning Joseph should get moving. He slots the mobile back in the pocket he got it from and lurches to his feet.
Then he realises: you don’t need a code to call an ambulance.
Do the right thing!
Joseph does: he pulls out the phone again, dials 999, explains there’s been an accident, gives the location, and rings off quickly when the operator asks his name.
There’ll be a recording, of course.
So what?
He wipes the phone down carefully and drops it, suddenly thirsty again.
So, so thirsty!
But …
Risk it: this chap isn’t operational anyway.
Joseph dashes down the side alley. Strangely, the security light stays off this time. Still, he can see well enough to find the tap and fill his water bottle. Screw the lid on tight. Actually … He unscrews it again and drinks the whole bottle. Good thinking! Water, from a tap: it tastes incredible. Better than Krug. Which Naomi always scoffed at: what’s wrong with sparkling wine? Not the point! He fills the bottle again, shoves it into his satchel, and jogs out towards the road.
37
Lancaster.
How the hell does that man do it?
Joseph, exhausted, is taking a breather, leaning on a five-bar gate.
It’s just before dawn. No colour in the sky yet, just battleship grey.
Something about having been up all night, plus the post-adrenal slump following a real scuffle, prompts him to remember the day in question, very clearly, as ever, because that was the thing about that day: it simply refused to fade.
Lancaster was sitting with his boots off inspecting a red mark on his sock. Beneath it, a burst blister. He was listening to Kenny Rogers on a tinny radio. A strong smell of Deep Heat muscle spray hung in the air. When Joseph told Lancaster where he and his men had been ordered to go he turned the radio off, put his boot back on, and asked if it was okay for him to come too. It wasn’t a real question. His helmet lay turtlebacked in the dirt. He dusted it off, shouldered his stuff, and beat Joseph to the door.
This was Bosnia, late 1995. They had been led to believe, before they arrived, that as far as the real war went, they were late. Well, sort of. Back at school, when he was a prefect, Joseph wore a pale blue tie. In Bosnia he wore a pale blue peacekeeping helmet instead. Never mind that they were pimping for the hydra-headed UN–NATO force, this was more or less the same job they’d done in Northern Ireland: it mostly involved wandering around as visibly as possible wearing lots of intimidating kit. Lancaster had been at it for three months before Joseph arrived. This made him at once a reassuring presence and ever more annoyingly the expert. Joseph had no real idea why Lancaster wanted to come out on that particular patrol but he wasn’t about to complain. He slammed the door of the Land Rover, slapped the dashboard, and waited for Stretton to drive. Joseph had cut a wisdom tooth the week before and his jaw started to throb when they hit the first rut.
They arrived on the outskirts of the village an hour later. Lancaster suggested they continue on foot, so Joseph told Chambers and Stretton to stay with the vehicle. Chambers loved cards, not for gambling so much as playing with them: he immediately magicked a deck from somewhere and began fanning, cutting and collapsing it with one hand. Lancaster noticed this and looked at Joseph, who climbed down from the cab into the cold without speaking.
‘Put those away and keep an eye out,’ Joseph heard Lancaster say.
They headed out into what was left of market day. The first stall Joseph passed displayed nothing but disposable razors. The second was heaped with slimy fish. A bunch of women talking in the middle of the square tightened together as they passed. Peacekeepers! Plus guns. There were no men around. Up ahead, beyond the tree line, a plume of black smoke leaned lazily to the left. It made the winter-white sky look all the more anaemic.
Concentrate.
Look at Lancaster here, pulling out his map.
Joseph had already told Mehta to check the route, so Lancaster was only confirming what Joseph already knew.
Namely: they were headed towards the smoke.
Eight hundred metres down the road they arrived at what was left of a burning house. The front door had been dragged from its hinges and lay bright-painted red in the garden; everything else about the house looked black. Also deserted. Once this village had been mostly Bos
nians. Then it was Serbs. Now some of the Bosnians had come back. Or was it the other way around?
Joseph really hadn’t been there that long; still, he was buggered if he was going to ask you know who.
The breeze shifted and the smoke above them kinked and fanned out and straightened again. It made Joseph think of starlings. That thing they do in unison.
Mum, he thought: she loved birds.
She had them all over the house. Pictures of them, at least. Free to soar!
Or be sat on, many of them being stitched on cushions and so forth.
They moved on, Joseph trying hard to focus on the here and now. There, for example, was a tractor on its side overgrown with weeds.
And in the distance, people.
Plus a strange noise coming from up ahead.
What was Lancaster doing giving the orders, telling Reid to hang back while they crossed the icy stream, heading now towards the moaning sound. By the side of the road, as if unsure which way to go, stood an old man. He had the top button of his shirt done up but it was too big, the collar a hoop around his scrawny neck. He said something to them as they passed in a language Joseph didn’t understand. When nobody answered, he spread out his hands and arms. What was that supposed to mean? Now he was taking off his woolly hat, holding it to his chest. Look at his head, steaming!
Up ahead, the noise, louder, definitely sounded like moaning and, as they got closer, it broke down into many voices.
Lancaster lifted up his hand, bringing Joseph and his men to a halt.
‘Something’s gone down here,’ said Joseph, obviously.
Lancaster looked at him. ‘Still going by the sound of things,’ he said. ‘This place, two years ago, was right in the heart of the clusterfuck.’
‘So we just do our thing, yes. Loop through, let the people see we’re here, go home.’
‘Either that or we backtrack,’ said Lancaster. ‘Whatever we do doesn’t want to involve getting caught in the—’
‘Let’s keep an extra eye out, then,’ Joseph said, nodding at Reid, as if the statement was meant for him. This was Joseph’s patrol, after all. In three weeks nobody had thrown so much as an insult at them, much less a rock or grenade.
Lancaster hadn’t shaved. His stubble was copper. He rubbed a palm over his chin, and Joseph wanted to unsay what he’d said but couldn’t. Lancaster shrugged, making the difficult impossible. ‘If you say so,’ he said.
38
The difficult, the impossible … Joseph pushes that day away … right now it’s more important to sort out: what next?
Well, Southampton hasn’t moved, has it?
No.
So let’s get going.
It’s doable!
He is beneath a flyover rubbing the top of his forehead. Lucky the man hit him there, where the skull is thickest. Still, ouch. Hopefully any bruising is above his hairline. He must be presentable now. To that end he cleans himself up as best as he can, using a shirt tail dipped in a little of his water. First, he wipes his face and hands. Next he brushes down his coat and trousers. And he even has a go at his boots. Nobody is going to pick up a ___, are they?
No, no, no.
A what?
The word won’t come.
He isn’t one anyway. He’s a Big Beast!
Ha.
How the mighty have …
By now it’s what, nearly 5 a.m. He sits down to wait as dawn breaks. Stupid word for it: dawn bleeds in. When he judges it’s a sane enough time to be seeking a lift, he tracks his way up onto the curve of the southbound slipway. Standing in full view is a horrible feeling, but that’s what he has to do. The traffic is already up and running. Early-morning commuters first, then white vans, the occasional heavier truck. He keeps an eye out for police cars. Doesn’t see any. Seven thirty turns to eight o’clock, nine, nine fifteen. Jesus: he started out feeling horrendously exposed and already it’s as if he’s invisible. Another half hour passes before anyone even slows down, but as soon as Joseph takes his first step towards it the car accelerates away, leaving him feeling oddly idiotic.
More time passes.
Clean morning has given way to fumes, despite the breeze.
Just before ten o’clock, a UPS van swerves towards him as it comes up the ramp, but it’s only because the driver is checking his phone.
Joseph thinks: perhaps, give up?
And later: five more minutes.
And after another half an hour has gone by: sixty seconds.
Just as he’s about to turn back down the slip road an old Mercedes Estate, approaching slowly, pulls onto the hard shoulder and drifts to a stately stop. It’s an immaculate car, all chrome, unblemished paintwork, blue-clear glass. The driver is an older woman. She holds the wheel with one leather-gloved hand and searches for the electric window button with the other, finds it finally, and watches the window slide all the way down before asking Joseph if she can help. Her voice has a wartime BBC correctness undiluted by age. A sort of cucumber-sandwiches voice.
‘Yes please, I need a lift.’
‘I can see. But where to?’
‘Southampton. Anywhere in that direction will do.’
She nods kindly. An older – let’s face it, elderly – lady in a valuable – classic, even – car, stopping to pick up a lone, male, mud-stained hitchhiker. A shot of concern passes through Joseph.
She’s still nodding.
Is she all there, up top?
Ha! Is he?
‘Well, let me think,’ she says. ‘I’m on my way to Alderbury. If I take the southerly route I’ll be going along the M27, better still than the M3 for Southampton. I don’t want to have to go into the town if that’s okay?’
She’s asking him?
‘Any service station en route would be great.’
‘Yes, yes. Jump in. Rownhams. Between junctions three and four. Here.’ She pulls a hardback road atlas from the door pocket and hands it to Joseph. ‘Have a little look, see what you can see.’
Joseph occupies himself with the atlas. The car smells of oranges. Always reminds him of school. They put them out as a snack. He used to bite a hole in one side and pulp the juice out of it straight into his mouth. It made his lips tingle, aware of themselves, like his left wrist is now, where the tape was stuck to it! He knows where he is, but still, where’s Alderbury? It takes a moment or two to find the spot on the map and realise that this lady is in fact offering to go out of her way. Perhaps he should tell her; he doesn’t want to take advantage. Still, it’s tempting not to.
Apropos of nothing she says, ‘In 1955 I canoed the Danube bend, right into the heart of Budapest.’
Joseph looks up at her.
‘I was seventeen. I went with my sister, Flora.’
‘Wow.’
‘She died fifteen years ago, right after Eddie. That was the worst year of my life.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Joseph says.
She’s concentrating hard on the road, peering over the steering wheel. His mum would have been about this woman’s age now, Tristan’s moped notwithstanding. Her white hair is carefully done. Against the brightness of the driver’s side window it has a haloed look, candyfloss held up against the sun.
Remember that time Lara made herself sick on the stuff?
Some sleepover or other. They had a swimming pool, he knew that much.
Poor kid: he had to hold her hair out of her face as she leaned over the toilet.
‘Eddie was my husband,’ the woman explains. ‘This is – was – his car.’
‘It’s a lovely car.’
‘Isn’t it.’
They sit quietly for a moment and the fact of the car asserts itself. It’s a bit like when the credits for a film show the name of the sound guy, Joseph thinks: you suddenly become super aware of whatever song the title sequence is playing. Well done, sound guy: good job.
‘I’d never driven it before he died. Because I’d never learned to drive! He wanted to teach me but I couldn’t see the point. The trip
to Hungary, with Flora, we hitchhiked the whole way from Putney to Esztergom, which was where we hired the canoes. And once we’d arrived in Budapest we caught lifts all the way home. Three weeks there, two and a half back. And later, even if I could have driven, well, Eddie would have wanted to drive me. He was hopeless around the house, never lifted a finger to help, but gallant as far as driving was concerned.’ She pauses as a lorry pulls past: they really are driving quite slowly. ‘The point is that you seldom see hitchhikers nowadays. A couple of rotten apples and those ridiculous films, they spoiled the whole box. As a matter of fact, you must be the first person I’ve picked up in a year, two maybe. Nobody else has asked! Anyway, as I say, I don’t much like driving in towns, but the least I can do is take the southerly route and drop you off as near as possible to where you want to go.’
Joseph nods, mutters his thanks, and looks down at his muddy boots on the spotless footwell mat.
He shuts his eyes and listens to the tyres on the tarmac, a low hum.
39
It’s started again, up ahead, the wailing, coming from a group of women and children. The patrol found them in front of what was left of the village mosque. A woman dressed in a plaid shirt and long black skirt was the centre of wailing-attention, her hair matted with blood. The group parted as Joseph and his men approached. Lots of crying, full volume. Had some sort of catfight gone on between this lot? Jesus, another step closer and the woman calmly raised her hand, then struck herself hard above the right temple with a rock! The sound of it. That coconut. Now she was raising the rock again, and Joseph was lurching forward to stop her.
‘No,’ said Lancaster.
But it was already too late anyway.
Clunk.
She’d kill herself like that.
‘Leave it,’ said Lancaster. He was looking from eye to eye to eye, his rifle in both hands.
Joseph turned back to the woman, crouched down beside her, took the rock from her hand, saying, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Come on,’ said Lancaster. ‘We’re here to have been here, that’s it.’
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