by Matthew Dunn
Roberts opened the door. Her face was ashen; eyes lids swollen; and her left arm was shaking.
Gently, Knutsen said, “Sign’s cooking some weird Polish dish for dinner. We wondered if you’d like to join us?”
“What… what time?”
“About seven.” Knutsen suspected that Roberts had no concept of time. “In three hours. That’ll give you time for a nap, if you like; or a walk. When you’re ready, just let yourself in.”
“Shouldn’t you be locking your door, in light of… of…”
“Circumstances? The two flats below you are empty. It’s only you, me, and Sign in the block. This afternoon, I’ve got experts arriving to install higher security on the downstairs communal door. It’ll be like Fort Knox. Once all the fittings are done I’ll give you details – new security codes, keys, and anything else. We don’t need to lock internal doors. But I wouldn’t blame you if you bolted your door at night.”
“I… I don’t know if I’m up for company tonight.”
Knutsen expected her to say that. “You need to eat. We don’t need to talk. It’s just a plate of food.”
“I don’t feel hungry.”
“That’ll be due to shock. But, you’ll start getting dizzy if you don’t get grub inside you. I tell you what – why don’t I knock on your door at seven? You can let me know then whether you’re up for a bite.”
That evening, Sign served up plates of pierogi dumplings, bigos stew, and cabbage rolls. Roberts and Knutsen were sitting at his dining table. Roberts had made an effort with her hair and attire, her nose cast was off, but she still looked like someone had knocked her for six.
Her voice was barely audible as she said, “Thank you. The flat is nice. The food looks nice.” She pushed a fork through the stew but didn’t eat.
Knutsen looked at Sign and shook his head.
Sign said, “Mrs. Roberts – it would be vulgar for us to eat before you start eating.”
She put her fork down and bowed her head. “Just eat.”
“No. Tell me about Elliot.”
Knutsen wanted to grab Sign and tell him to shut up.
She raised her head. “Elliot?”
“Your husband.”
“Dead husband.”
“He’s still your husband and always will be. Tell me anything.”
She was silent for a minute. “I met him at university. He… he wasn’t much to look at really. But he was interesting. He used to do magic tricks in front of students in between lectures. Not for money. It was just fun for him. My girlfriends and I tried to work out how he did the tricks. We couldn’t. He made me smile. We dated. Got married. No kids because there was a problem with one of us. He took me to Thailand, India in Spring to see the lakes fill up with rainfall in Rajasthan, so many other places. When he got home from work – he was a lawyer – he liked watching Eastenders. God knows why. He used to pat me on the bottom and tell me I was the greatest woman who’d ever existed. He lost his job but never got depressed about that. He had a smile. He only wanted sex when I wanted sex.”
Knutsen blurted, “Ben you’re intruding on her grief!”
Roberts shook her head. “No he’s not. He’s helping me. Elliot cuddled me.” Tears streamed down her face as she said, “He took me to Mount Snowden once. By then we didn’t have the money to fly off here there and everywhere. I didn’t care. On the summit he picked me up and kissed me. I was on top of the world.” She looked at Sign. “That was my husband.” Her voice shook as she said, “Elliot was everything I needed. Now he’s gone.”
Sign clasped his hands, as if he was praying. “Have you thought about what kind of funeral you want?”
She shook her head. “It never… never occurred to me. Not at this age.”
“Would you consider cremation?”
“We… we were never religious. Not that it matters, I guess. I don’t know if religion dictates what kind of funeral you should have.”
Sign said, “It doesn’t matter what religion you do or don’t follow. What does matter are memories. Perhaps you could scatter your husband’s ashes on Mount Snowden.”
“Yes. Yes, that would be perfect.Why did you cook Polish food tonight?”
“Because my wife was Polish. Today is the anniversary of her death.” Sign smiled. “But her departure was years ago. I still love every second I spent with her. I too am not religious. It’s odd though. I feel she’s with me. I’m fascinated by my ignorance. I believe electricity is the key. It drives our bodies. I also hypothesise that it drives our souls, in life and death. If we can understand electricity, we can understand not only life and death, but also why we can feel people’s presences when they’re not around.”
In a stern voice, Knutsen said, “Ben – back off from the intellectual and philosophical shit.”
Sign didn’t reply. He watched Roberts put a mouthful of food into her mouth.
She said, “Elliot is now a force of electricity. He’s here. He transfers electricity to me. I transfer my electricity to him.” She nodded. “He gives me his energy. Yes. Yes! He’s with me.”
“Always.” Sign pushed Roberts’ plate an inch closer to her. “If it doesn’t pain you too much, perhaps you’d care to join Mr. Knutsen and me on a walk around the block after dinner. Christmas lights are in abundance, street lights are illuminated, cars will pass by with their headlights on. My wife is out there. So is your husband. And so is the woman Knutsen wanted to marry for real, outside of his former undercover work.” He touched her hand. “Shall we join them and pay our respects?”
They ate in silence.
When Roberts finished her food, Sign asked her, “Why did you join the police?”
Roberts frowned. “I don’t really know. It was a whim. I liked watching Inspector Morse, Prime Suspect, and other cerebral police TV dramas in the ‘90s. Maybe they rubbed off on me. I was intrigued by detective work.”
“And you became the living embodiment of Morse and DCI Jane Tennison. A detective. But you went one step further – you joined Special Branch.”
Roberts nodded. “The police’s most secret unit. I was intrigued by the unit. They worked behind closed doors. Regular detectives and uniform weren’t allowed in SB’s offices. But, I never set out to be in SB.”
“Perhaps you wanted to hide. More accurately, you wanted anonymity while performing a most noble task.”
Knutsen muttered, “She just wanted a fucking job.”
Sign ignored the comment. “Knutsen needed the same. He was never happier than when he was working alone; no other cop watching over him. His friends around him were armed robbers and killers. And the thrill of it was that one day he would betray them.”
Knutsen looked at Sign. The former MI6 officer was right.
Sign continued. “I was the same. Though it is an organisation, the elegance of British Intelligence is that it gives vent for people like me. Spooks are a bunch of mavericks. Loners. Non–conformists. Rebels. People who spend years in the company of foreign spies who want to put bullets in the back of our skulls when our backs are turned. We’d rather all of that than spending one second in the company of our peers and bureaucracy. The three of us are different breeds of animal compared to normal people. Vive la difference.” Sign’s eyes widened. “And yet we wish to connect with normal folk. But how difficult is that? Angels or devils walking the Earth trying to make sense of the planet’s populous. We try to make friends, but fail because we don’t understand what friendship is. We marry. They leave us or die.”
“Ben!” Knutsen wanted to guide Roberts out of the room and apologise for Sign’s words.
Sign persisted. “But here’s the thing: Knutsen successfully mentors a young man called David. The poor lad is from the wrong side of the tracks. Mr. Knutsen is in the process of solving that. You, Mrs. Roberts, take disabled children to a skating rink in Bedfordshire. You make them feel that anything is possible.”
Quietly, she said, “I make them feel whole. How did you know that?”
>
Sign made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “What I know is irrelevant. What I don’t know is most relevant.”
“And what about you?” she asked.
Sign looked away. It sounded like he was talking to himself when he said, “Most foreign agents I’ve dealt with have been traitors to their country. Some of them have been double agents. It didn’t matter to me. When I looked them in the eyes I saw mirrors to my soul. It sounds melodramatic, but it’s the truth. They were like me. They were lost. I didn’t care what head office said about the people I ran as a case officer. I knew the beating heart of my flock. HQ didn’t. I bought a house for an impoverished Chinese man who earlier tried to garrotte me. He had a wife and four children. MI6 once wanted me to bludgeon a Venezuelan woman, shove her in the boot of a car, and get her to America. She was working for the Russians. British Intelligence and the CIA wanted to interrogate her. But, here’s the thing – I liked her because she taught me how to climb the mountain of Pico Bolivar. And she fed me breads and meat at the summit. She knew that I knew she was a traitor to my cause. She had a fiancée and didn’t want to die in an American or British black site. I told her she was free. And I also told her to take her beloved to Bolivia and start a family there. I lied to MI6 and said she’d never turned up to our last intended meeting.” Sign looked at Roberts. “I could give you a hundred other examples. Nations rage against each other. But it needn’t be that way with people. The trick is to know who can stop people slitting each other’s throats. That’s where we come in, even though it means we lose a little bit of ourselves with every kind deed.”
“Because we lose a bit of what we want.” Roberts nodded. “Connection with others.” She breathed deeply. “You’re putting my husband into that melting pot.”
“Perhaps I am.”
Tears ran down Roberts’ face. “So, this is my destiny?”
“I’m afraid it is.” Sign held her hand. “My destiny; Knutsen’s destiny; your destiny. But, we hold on to hope and feel more than most. Elliot’s death is the most agonising pain. Elliot’s murder requires the most agonising vengeance. We can do the former; and only people like us can do the latter.” Sign looked at Knutsen.
The former undercover cop nodded at him.
They took a walk around South London. Sign pointed at electric lights. Roberts smiled, cried, went stoic, smiled again, and cried again. When she was in bed in her West Square flat, Sign and Knutsen retired to their lounge. Knutsen lit a fire. Sign poured calvados.
Sign asked, “What do you think?”
Knutsen sat in his armchair. “You’ve made her think about grief differently by explaining to her that she must be cautious about grieving someone very unlike her.”
“Yes.”
“Not your finest hour.”
“No. But necessary.” Sign placed another log on the fire. “My finest hours are usually the worst. The moral compass spins in confusion.”
“You did the right thing. And it was clever.” Knutsen watched Sign and wondered how he’d managed to bear such tremendous ethical complexity throughout his adult life. There was no doubt Sign was an extremely good man who’d devoted his life to saving others. But, unlike soldiers who return from a battlefield, Sign’s brain was constantly on the battlefield. He was permanently in war. “We need light relief while we drink. What’s light relief for you? Chess?”
Sign sat opposite him, cradling his calvados. “No. Chess puts me back on duty.”
“Cards?”
“My father taught me never to play cards. He said it led to drink and debauchery in ports. He was a very clever sailor.”
Knutsen picked up a copy of the Radio Times. “There’s a political debate on TV.”
“Boring!”
“On one of the other channels there’s a film about cowboys.”
Sign narrowed his eyes. “Cowboys or homesteaders?”
“I never know the difference.”
Sign smiled. “I do, but that’s irrelevant. A cowboy movie it is. Did I tell you about the time I was in Oregon and…”
“Now that is fuckin’ irrelevant. Just drink your drink and watch the damn movie.”
Sign smiled. “Sage words. But before we switch the TV on, I need to tell you something. Tomorrow I want your help. But I won’t blame you if you refuse.”
“Refuse?”
Sign looked at the window. “We have to do something that may get both of us killed. What say you?”
Knutsen smiled.
CHAPTER 16
It was early morning as Sign drove his vehicle across Cambridgeshire and into Norfolk. He was alone in the car. The country road he was driving along was deserted. Rain was lashing his vehicle, though it was hard to predict if the inclement weather would persist – interspersed between the black clouds were patches of blue sky sending bolts of sunlight to the flat lands. High winds were moving the clouds at a rate of knots, changing where sunlight fell and darkness prevailed. The strength of the winds was sufficient to smack Sign’s car a few inches sideways as he drove onwards. It wasn’t a problem. Sign had driven through massive sandstorms in the Middle East, minus forty degrees frozen waste lands in Siberia, and on one occasion had managed to maintain grip of his vehicle after it had been rammed by a rhinoceros in Botswana. On all of those occasions he knew death was likely, but not from the elements or wild animals. There were worse things on his heels – men with guns.
Sign stopped his car and got out of the vehicle. Ignoring the weather, he stood on the empty road and opened an umbrella. He was wearing an immaculate suit. Fields were either side of him. There were no houses, no cars, no sign of life. He pulled out his mobile phone and held it to his ear. He didn’t call anyone. No one called him. But he waited, tilting the umbrella slightly back so that his face and phone were visible.
From a distance of seven hundred yards, Hilt watched him through the scope on his high–powered sniper rifle. Hilt was prone, hidden in gorse on a slight rise that gave him perfect views of the road Sign was on. Hilt had followed him here from West Square. Hilt’s crosshairs were on Sign’s head. It would be so easy. Pull the trigger and put a savage hole in Sign’s head. And if he missed, he’d shoot two of the tyres, move closer, and finish Sign off. If Hilt’s boss gave the order, Sign was a dead man.
Hilt called Smith. “Sign’s in Norfolk. His pal’s not with him. I guess it’s nothing work–related.”
Smith was silent for three seconds. “The chief of my organisation has a country retreat in Norfolk. What is Sign wearing?”
“A suit.”
“Stay on him!” Smith ended the call.
Hilt collapsed his customised rifle, placed it in a rucksack and turned, with the intention of sprinting to his car. As he did so, Knutsen punched him in the face. Hilt collapsed to the ground, rolled, and sprang to his feet. He dropped his rucksack and moved close to Knutsen, slamming a boot into Knutsen’s ankle and slapping his palm into the ex–cop’s face. Knutsen gasped for air as he hit soil and grass. Hilt wanted to thrust his hand against Knutsen’s nose and force cartilage into his brain. But Knutsen grabbed his arm and forced him onto his back. Hilt lashed out with his free arm and legs. But, Knutsen held him in a vice–like grip.
“Who are you?!” asked Knutsen. “Who do you work for?”
Hilt used his knee to whack Knutsen in the balls, stood, and stamped on Knutsen’s head. “You picked the wrong person, matey.” He gripped Knutsen’s hand and placed his arm in an excruciating lock.
Knutsen rolled so that his arm was travelling away from the lock, kicked Hilt in the chest, kicked him again in the eyes and throat, and dragged Hilt to the ground. He got an arm around Hilt’s windpipe and muttered, “I can do this.”
Hilt banged the back of his head against Knutsen’s forehead, wrenched his arm free, stood and kicked Knutsen in the ribcage. Knutsen was momentarily giddy as he got to his feet. Hilt smiled and punched him in the stomach and mouth. Knutsen staggered. This is just the dojo, he told himself. Just the dojo.
Stay up. Think it through. Find his weakness. Execute. He shook his head and wiped saliva from his mouth. Hilt rushed at him. Knutsen spun around, grabbed Hilt, and used the ex–special forces’ momentum to pound him to the ground, a boot on the back of Hilt’s neck. Hilt wasted no time, using his fist to repeatedly hit Knutsen on his shin. Knutsen recoiled, in agony.
Both men stood staring at each other, breathing fast, steam coming out of their mouths, sweat dripping down their furrows.
Hilt picked up his rucksack. “Another time, pal. Wrong day. Wrong place.” He jogged off.
Knutsen was in a bad state as he limped down the escarpment to Sign’s car. Blood was all over his face and arms. He’d been pounded in a way he’d never experienced before. He was gasping as he reached Sign. “The limpet… limpet.”
Concern was all over Sign’s face as he said, “Dear fellow. Let’s get you in the dry.” He guided Knutsen into the rear of the car and used bottled water to clean his wounds. “Anything broken?”
“No. No… I don’t think so.”
“What happened?”
Knutsen explained.
Sign felt immense guilt. “I didn’t realise we were up against someone like this. Almost certainly, he’s done the paramilitary course.”
“Paramilitary?” Knutsen’s entire body was in agony.
“MI6. It’s our blunt instrument. Blunter than special forces. It’s our last resort. Most people fail the course – even our SF.” Sign paced outside the vehicle. “I shouldn’t have put you up against the limpet.”
Knutsen’s eyes were screwed shut as he muttered, “You had to. My… my job was easy. You… you had to be the tethered goat. You could have been killed. He had a rifle.”
“I suspected he was armed.” Sign looked at the escarpment where Hilt had been hiding. When leaving West Square, Sign had told Knutsen to hide in the boot of his car. Sign knew that he was being followed out of London. On a bend in a road in Norfolk, he’d slammed the breaks on and told Knutsen to get out and run. The instructions were specific – Knutsen tries to grab the limpet and make him talk; Sign stands in the road, waiting for death.