At Close Quarters

by Gerald Seymour

In darkness and amongst a sea of pimple landing navigation lights the Antonov put down at El Masr military airbase. They were checked with military thoroughness for contraband goods. They were home, in that home for these refugee strays of the Middle East was to be found in the Syrian Arab Republic. They had been together six months, now they were to disperse.

  Minibuses each for the Struggle Command, and for Sai'iqa, and for the Popular Front, and for the Democratic Front, and for the General Command, and for the Liberation Front. The culprit from Sai'iqa had lost his handcuffs five minutes after take off, the victim from Struggle Command embraced his attacker when they parted. The commander reflected that the Russians could never understand his children.

  All went their separate ways, except that Abu Hamid with his commander travelled from the base in the Mercedes car that had been sent to collect Major Said Hazan. Abu Hamid, unshaven and with the sweat smell on his body from his sprint away from the Oreanda Hotel, rode out of the base cushioned in the back seat between the officer of Syrian Air Force Intelligence and the officer of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

  When the car had gathered speed along the wide highway from, the airport, the commander said softly to Major Said Hazan, "It was magnificent, Said. It was just as you had said it would be."

  The voice was muffled through the scarf. "You played your part, friend."

  Two quiet men talking casually across Abu Hamid, as if he were not there.

  "But you took a great risk."

  "Risk nothing, and it is not possible to achieve victory."

  "When will the claim be made?"

  "Claim?"

  "What has happened has been a triumph for the Popular Front. The Popular Front should be, must be, credited..."

  "There will be no claim. There will only be silence."

  Abu Hamid heard the ice chill in the voice. He felt the major shift his body further into his seat.

  He was in the darkness, on the bed, when he heard the light knock on his door. He thought he might have been to sleep. He felt the wet of his tears on his face when he rubbed his eyes. He heard his name called. He slid off the bed, opened the door, let in the flood of light.

  The security officer said, "Thank God we've reached you, young man."

  Holt blinked at him, turned away from the door.

  "They gave us an executive j e t . . . "

  "Bloody decent of them."

  "I came down with the counsellor. He's at the hospital, I've been at militia HQ."

  "Super, first class."

  "It's all right, Holt, you've had a bloody rough time, eh?"

  Holt gazed into the security officer's face. "Rubbish.

  It's not bloody rough when you're watching a shooti n g . . . "

  "Easy, young man."

  Holt flared. "Easy ... it's to be easy, is it? We come down here, Low bloody Risk bloody posting, we're set up for a shooting gallery. We're chopped down like Boxing Day pheasants..."

  "I understand you were not exactly co-operative."

  "Would you have been? What do they want co-operation for? They've just wiped out my boss and my girl, and they want me to help their bloody inquiry, put a gloss on their bloody lies. 'Course I didn't bloody co-operate."

  A sharpness in the security officer's voice. "I have to tell you that the Soviet authorities could not have been more sympathetic and eager to help me. I have been given a very full briefing on their investigation and its conclusion . . . "

  "So they soaped you up."

  "A full briefing on their investigation and its conclusion."

  Holt's voice dropped. "What conclusion?"

  "They have told me that they identified an army deserter as the criminal responsible. It was his intention to rob the hotel at gun point. He panicked as the ambassador and Miss Canning and yourself were coming out of the hotel, and opened fire. They had good eye-witness descriptions of him, and this evening a vehicle in which he was travelling was waved down on the outskirts of the city. In attempting to evade arrest he was shot dead..."

  "What else did they tell you about this 'deserter'?"

  "That he was a 22-year-old Byelorussian."

  "That's Minsk, he'd be a European."

  "Did you see him, Holt, did you get a look at him?"

  "At 15 feet. I saw his face."

  The security officer lit a cigarette. The smoke spiralled in the quiet dark room.

  "The man you saw, Holt, could he have been from Byelorussia?"

  "They soaped and flannelled you."

  "Give it to me straight, eh?"

  "If he's from Minsk they'd had to have had a heat-wave there through this winter."

  "Soaped and flannelled, as you say. I'm very sorry, very sorry about your girl."

  Holt went to the window, showed his back to the security officer.

  On Sunday morning a Royal Air Force VC-10 was diverted from its Cyprus to Brize Norton flight run to drop down at Simferopol.

  The coffins containing the bodies of Sir Sylvester Armitage and Jane Canning were carried to the cargo doors by a bearer party of Soviet Marines. The coffins were taken past an honour guard of officer cadets from the military academy who stood sternly to attention, heads down and rifles in reverse.

  The sight of the coffins, and the presence among them of young Holt and the counsellor and the security officer, was sufficient to subdue a company of para-troopers returning to the United Kingdom from a month's exercises.

  5

  "It was good of you to come. We appreciate it."

  She was a small woman, brightly dressed, and with heavy make-up that he presumed was to hide the ravage of her bereavement. She stood in the front doorway and the rain lashed down onto the head and shoulders of young Holt. Strange, really, that in all the time he had known Jane he had never been asked to her parents'

  home in South London. He saw the water dribbling down from the black mock-Tudor beams and down the whitewashed stucco. He hadn't a hat and so his head was soaked.

  Gently he said, "Do you think I could come in, Mrs Canning?"

  Her hand jerked to her mouth, and she was all movement, embarrassment.

  "Whatever'll you be thinking of me? Of course come in . . . Father, it's Mr Holt here."

  Jane's father took his coat off to the kitchen, and Jane's mother led him into the front room. A friendly room full of the furniture that dated back to the beginning of a marriage. Worn armrests on the sofa and the chairs, a burn mark in the carpet by the fire, plants that needed cutting back. On the mantelpiece was a photograph of his girl, a posed portrait that was all shoulder and profile. He stood with his back to the fire, with his back to the photograph of Jane, and his damp trouser legs steamed. He wondered what it was like for them to meet the man who loved their daughter and who had slept with their daughter. Around the room he counted four more photographs of her, of his girl. Jane's mother had sat down in her chair, the most used chair, and she had her knitting bag on her lap and was routing for needles and wool. She could see each one of the five photographs from her chair. She asked him to sit, and he said that he had been in the train a long time and that he preferred to stand. He reckoned that her clothes were a brave gesture, a Post-Office-red skirt and a white blouse and a vivid scarf knotted at her throat. He admired a woman who would dress like that for her daughter's funeral. Jane's father came into the room wiping the raincoat's damp off his hands onto a handkerchief. He wore his best suit and a starched white shirt and a tie that was either dark navy or black. Jane's father seemed exhausted, as if the strain of the past ten days had sapped him.

  "Nice of you to come, young man - she never told us your proper name, you were always just called Holt by her," Jane's father said.

  "That's what I am, really, what everyone calls me.

  Please just call me that . . . It means a lot to me that I can be with you today."

  He meant it sincerely. He had been two days in London, telling his story. He had spent a long weekend at his parents' home, walking
alone on the soaked wilderness of Exmoor. He wanted to be with Jane's mother and father on the day of the funeral. Jane's father asked him if he would like coffee and he said no, he was fine, and he asked him if he wanted to sit, and again he declined, and Mrs Canning knitted and Mr Canning searched for flaws on his finger nails.

  "I wanted to be with you today because quite soon, I think Jane and I would have told you that we were going to become engaged to be married..."

  She didn't look up. Her husband still explored the tips of his fingers.

  "I loved her, and I like to think that she loved me."

  "You've got to put it all behind you," Jane's mother said.

  "When I arrived in Moscow and found her waiting for me at the airport I don't think that I've ever felt such happiness."

  "Jane's gone, Mr Holt, and you're a young man and you've a life ahead of you."

  "Right now I don't see it that way."

  "You will, and the sooner the better. Life's for living."

  Holt saw her bite at her lower lip.

  Jane's father's head rose. His mouth was moving as if he were rehearsing a question, unsure of the form of words. The question when it came was little more than a whisper. "Was she hurt?"

  Eight high velocity shots fired at a range of less than ten paces, that's what the post mortem had said. He could feel the lifeless hand, he could see the table-tennis-ball-sized exit wounds.

  "She wasn't hurt, there was no pain. What did they tell you, Foreign and Commonwealth?"

  "Just that it was a grubby little business. This man was a heroin addict and an army deserter - they told us what was in the newspapers - that he had gone to the hotel to rob it. They said it was just a one in a million chance that he should have chosen that particular moment for his robbery, when our Jane and the ambassador and yourself were coming out of the hotel.

  They said the Soviet authorities were very sympathetic.

  They told us that the man was shot dead while trying to escape."

  He saw the sallow face of the man with the windcheater and the rifle and the crow's foot scar on his cheek.

  Holt said, "There's probably not much more that anyone can tell you."

  Jane's mother stared at her knitting, her face puckered in concentration. "We were so proud, both of us, when Jane joined the Service, began to work for her country.

  It isn't easy for a girl to get a good position in it, and I think they thought she was outstanding. I'm not saying she told us much about it, a very discreet little soul, but we knew she was working in Intelligence. She probably told you more."

  He remembered the photography over Charkov. He remembered his remark about the camera. He remembered the last words he had heard her speak."Don't be childish, Holt."

  "She was very much admired by all her colleagues."

  Jane's father pushed himself up from the chair. "Like Mother said, you've your life ahead of you. It was good of you to come today, but we shan't expect to see you again."

  Holt saw the black car outside. He saw Jane's mother putting her knitting and her needles back into the embroidered bag. He saw Jane's father straighten his tie.

  "I loved her, Mr Canning. We were going to be married."

  He saw the trace of impatience.

  "Get on with your career, get on with the living of your life . . . Pity it's raining, Mother."

  Holt followed Jane's mother fast down the short path and through the front gate to the car. Jane's father carefully locked the door behind him. He sat with them in the back as they were driven to the crematorium that was away to the west, close to the river. They didn't talk on the journey, and Holt wondered whether they held their peace because of him or because of the driver.

  As soon as they had arrived at the crematorium, Holt removed himself from their side. There were cameras there, television and press photographers, and he felt that by hanging back he drew away from them the attention of lenses and the clicking shutters. Holt was good raw meat for the cameras. It had been leaked that they were close, that he had seen the killings. He tried to keep his head up, his chin jutting. He walked past the sprays of flowers and the wreaths. He saw the signature of the Foreign Secretary, and of the head of the Soviet Desk at FCO and there were four bundles of flowers which were simply signed with Christian names.

  Inside the porch of the chapel Holt saw a tall, austere man shaking the hands of Jane's mother and father.

  There had been FCO people outside, but Holt understood. The Director General of the Secret Intelligence Service could not stand in front of the cameramen, nor could his people sign their names on the wreaths. He wondered what had become of Jane's camera, what had happened to her photographs from the plane. He felt a surge of anger, as if these nameless men and the Director General of the Service were responsible for her death.

  It was a short service. He sat alone behind her parents.

  He couldn't find his voice when they sang the 23rd psalm. He watched the coffin roll away from him, he watched the curtains close. He was crying in his heart.

  He remembered her voice, her grey eyes, her soft hair, and her lifeless hand. He remembered the man with the rifle. He saw her parents walk back up the chapel aisle and they didn't turn to him. He sat in his seat and stared at the closed curtain.

  "You're young Holt, yes?"

  He turned. The chapel had emptied fast. The man was thickset with a fine head of grey hair and the brush of a military moustache was squashed between nose and mouth.

  "I am."

  "We have to be moving. They'll be queuing up outside for the next one, damn conveyor-belt operation.

  Do you have wheels?"

  He had steeled himself to spend the day with Jane's mother and father. He had made no arrangements to get himself away, and now it had been made plain to him that he was not expected back to the semi-detached home in Motspur Park.

  "I don't."

  "Have you the afternoon to spare?"

  His studio flat in London was rented out. The tenant had signed for a year. Ahead of him was only a train journey back to Devon, plenty of trains, they ran all afternoon and evening. His father would come down to Exeter to collect him. An usher appeared beside the man, trying to hurry them.

  "For what?"

  "My name's Martins, Percy Martins, I'm from the Service. Your initial debrief by the FCO people landed on my desk."

  He looked up at Percy Martins. He saw clear pale blue eyes that never wavered from his glance. "What is there to talk about?"

  "What you saw, what happened."

  Holt felt the control going, voice rising. "I thought everyone knew what bloody happened. I thought they all swallowed the Soviet crap."

  "Not swallowed by everyone - come on."

  Holt followed obediently. He noticed that Martins walked out of the chapel well ahead of him, so that he would not be included when Holt was again the cameramen's target. Holt reached a small estate car.

  Martins was already behind the wheel, engine started, pushing the door open for Holt.

  "My son is at university in York. He's playing a match in London today, that's where we're going. My wife'll kill me if I get home tonight and haven't seen him. We can talk when we're there."

  He drove fast and in total silence, occasionally peering down at the dashboard clock. On the M25 nothing passed them. Holt thought it must be a hell of an important game, a league decider or a cup final. He felt no urge to speak, was relieved to be left to his own company.

  He had had enough talking. Two whole days in London going through the programme that he had confirmed for the ambassador, and working over and over his description of the shooting, and each time he had questioned what appeared to be the general acceptance of the Soviet version of the killings he had just been shushed and assured that all was being put into place.

  They came to the playing fields. During the drive it had stopped raining, but now it had started again. Percy Martins flung himself out of the car and scampered round to the boot to fetch a pair o
f Wellingtons.

  Holt saw that the back of the car was filled with fishing gear. An outsize rod bag, a cavernous landing net, a solid tackle box. He had to run to catch the man.

  It was the farthest soccer pitch.

  "Who's playing?" Holt said, when they reached the muddied touchline.

  "York chemists against a gang of lawyers from University College, London."

  "Is your boy good?"

  "Bloody awful."

  "Which one is he?"

  "The one who can't kick with his left foot and hardly with his right."

  "So what the hell are we doing here?"

  They were the only spectators. There was no protection from the weather. Holt thought it was the worst game of football he had ever watched.

  "As I told you, the report on your debrief landed on my desk."

  Holt turned into the rain. He had to shout over the wind. "Why are you buying all this bullshit about a criminal robbery?"

  "It suits us."

  "Who can it suit?"

  "Everybody - nearly everybody, anyway."

  "Who is everybody?"

  "Good question. Look at it, young Holt. There is a shooting in the Soviet Union, a highly embarrassing shooting, and they haven't a clue who is responsible.

  Best way to calm the matter down is to come up with a plausible story that cannot be disproved, that has the culprit removed and that does not show the Ivans in a particularly poor light. Just a bit of bad luck, wasn't it?

  Wrong place at the wrong time. They might just as easily have been walking along the .pavement and a car had blown a tyre and swerved into them. Professionally speaking one has to see it as a successful exercise in damage limitation..."

  "And everyone's so supine that they accept this con-venient lie."

  "I'm not everybody."

  "Why aren't we saying out loud that this killing was the work of an Arab - that our ambassador and Miss Canning were set up by the Soviets to be murdered?"

  "I think you've jumped too far. I believe you are right in thinking the killer was Arab, but not that the Soviets set it up. Highly embarrassing, as I said. In my opinion, this was an act of terrorism in Soviet territory. They can't admit that, can they? Oh Christ Almighty..."